Video Summaries coming soon.
This chapter has several aims. Firstly, I offer a reading of the Christ Hymn that is sensitive to ancient beliefs about honour and shame, assessing recent interpretative proposals that now appear unlikely. On the other hand, once we recognize that the hymn tells Christ’s story as a procession from one degree of divine glory to another, we see with fresh claritysome ways it likely spoke to Paul and his readers. Its presentation of God the Father and LORD Jesus Christ acting non-competitively and to each other’s benefit, and in the interests of all humans, also invites a fresh consideration of its role in the letter. Secondly, then, I attempt to show that the letter’s engagement with a first-century culture shaped by the competitive quest for honour is thoroughgoing. The hymn’s presentation of a revelation of divine glory shapes the structure of the main body of the argument (from 1:11 to 4:1), informing much of its content, especially after 1:27. There are thematic and theological connections between glory, honour and worship in the hymn and the concern for true glory, honour and praise in the letter. Some of that has been obscured by a misconstrual of some key words and passages. Thirdly, reading the letter as a theological or philosophical essay on the relationship between true glory and the dangers of a vainglorious life outside of Christ offers new possibilities for some of its most intractable interpretative problems, especially the meaning of Paul’s autobiographical boasting in 3:4–6. Fourthly, Paul’s vision for a positive culture of honour and praise—for those living according to Christ’s heavenly constitution (3:20)—helps to explain the distinctive understanding of “love” that he sets out at the start (1:3–11).
I begin with a brief description of the ways in which Greeks and Romans, both as individuals and as communities, pursued glory, honour and praise, noting also the philosophers’ opposition to a psychologically unhealthy love of honour. For the Jewish world we have evidence of both accommodation to aspects of the wider Mediterranean love of honour and, sometimes, vehement opposition to it (that aligned a Jewish piety with the philosophers). There was also a native Jewish belief that the righteous receive—or would receive in the eschatological future—glory from God. That was grounded especially in an interpretation of Psalm 8 which Paul in Phil 3:20–4:1 appears to know and accept.
There is some truth to Joseph Hellerman’s influential work on Paul’s interaction with Roman honorific patterns in the letter and Christ Hymn. However, his proposal that the first half of the Christ Hymn presents a subversive critique of the Roman cursus honorum (the Roman elite upward “career path of public offices”) is problematic, for example, because it proceeds from the (admittedly common but mistaken) view that what Phil 2:6 describes is Christ’s preexistent status (not his wise possession of a dynamic ontology).
I propose an alternative paradigm to explain the Christ Hymn’s interaction with both Greco-Roman and Jewish (scripturally-grounded) beliefs about divine and human glory, in which Christ’s life is presented as a progressive journey from glory to glory. For Paul, issues of humanly constructed status and socially determined honour (and shame) are important, but they are problematised and relegated to a lower order of reality by the divine order and perspective, that Christ’s life reveals. A low to high status axis is addressed in the Christ Hymn. But its primary conceptual grid is laid out according to a binary metaphysical distinction between the divine and the human, between being and becoming, that also entails an epistemological distinction between truth and opinion; between Jesus’ fellow human beings’ murderous false estimation of him and his own unwavering obedience to God (the Father), grounded in a divine self-understanding and identity. The hymn’s Christological vision is determined, also, by the theme of “glory (δόξα)” (implicit at 2:6, explicit at 2:11 and 3:21, cf. 1:11) that figured (though not prominently) in ancient honour and shame discourses, and that also had, for Paul, a distinctive Jewish, biblically determined, meaning. This is a divine glory, that is neither determined by human perceptions and honorific conventions nor achieved by human good works. The hymn (2:6–11 + 3:20–21) tells a story that proceeds from glory to (greater) glory; divine glory revealed (in history and to the cosmos), magnified and shared with mortals, not earnt. In 3:18–21, where Christ’s divine glory stands over against the idolaters’ “glory (δόξα) in their shame” and in juxtaposing Christ’s revelation of divine glory to κενοδοξία (“foolish opinion, vainglory”) (2:3), Paul is probably sensitive to the usual Greek sense of the word δόξα “opinion, judgement, repute,” that he places in metaphysical subordination to eternal divine glory.
Within the hymn, there are distinct movements and moments that contribute to a particular vision of the nature of true honour and shame. After a glimpse behind the heavenly veil to his glorious divine form (v. 6), in verse 7 Christ identifies himself with a shameful human servitude, in a life that comes, therefore, to a fitting climax in a state of humiliation at the cross (v. 8). In that identification, he also honours humanity, since the coming of those of high status to those of low status conferred honour. In the divine Christ’s decision to be with and to live as a human, a great honour was paid—to humanity (even though his peers did not recognise that honour during his human lifetime). That honour is reflected also in Christ’s coming as a lover and in his rejection of a violence (ὕβρις) that would force a union and thereby degrade humanity’s dignity. And his honouring humanity in his initial self-becoming anticipates his final return when he pays humanity the highest possible honour—by conforming (some of) them to his own divine glory.
In 2:9–11 God (the Father) honours Christ with the gift of the supreme name and by exalting him to a position of cosmic supremacy. God the Father thereby glorifies LORD Jesus Christ and it is a mistake to think, as many in the modern era have, that there is a theocentric subordination of Christ to God the Father that means glory is given to the latter, but not the former. It is not surprising that the glory goes also to God the Father, through LORD Jesus Christ. This is not human glory. But rather the divine kind, that is no zero-sum game. So, it is not surprising that, when LORD Jesus Christ returns to the earthly part of the cosmic stage—in 3:20—he comes, explicitly, in glorious form (3:21). No subordination of Christ to God there; none in 2:11 either. Given the ambiguities of syntax and meaning in 2:10–11, reflective readers will have even concluded that, from one perspective, God the Father’s glorification has been made possible by—and is dependent upon—Christ.
The one who is exalted and glorified in 2:9–11 is LORD Jesus Christ. In his being honoured the human Jesus of Nazareth is honoured, as a representative human, ahead of the honour and glory that will be given to other humans at his return (3:20–4:1). The hymn articulates a theology of glory, that includes a theology of incarnation and cross, as the means to glory: the way up is attained via, by and through, the way down. In all this Christ’s glorious journey reveals the true character of “the being that is in a manner equal with God”. And the hymn reveals that true glory, in the divine economy, belongs to those who serve each other’s interests: Christ serves both God the Father’s interests and those of humanity, God the Father serves the interests of Christ (and therefore of humans). It presents a vision of persons in relation, honouring and glorifying one another free from rivalry or competition. Though in a sense, it also presents a life that is successfully self-interested, in that Christ’s decisions and actions issue in the magnification of his own glory, honour and praise.
Panning out from the hymn to the rest of the letter, I argue that the whole argument, from opening prayer and thanksgiving (that climaxes with a forward glance to God’s “glory”—1:11) to the description of Christ’s return at 3:20–21 is tied conceptually and linguistically to the theme of glory (and honour and praise) within the Christ Hymn. The rest of the letter also shows that Paul read the Hymn, as I have argued it is intended: as a life lived from glory to glory. That is, as a metaphysical vision that grounds and anchors everything else Paul thinks and says about issues of status, honour and shame.
This is evident in the letter’s first verse, where Paul and Timothy, like Christ, are “slaves” and his words are addressed to “overseers and servants (ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις),” without Paul’s usual claim to be their “apostle”. He goes low, as he puts others high. That they would be raised high is the burden of his prayer in 1:9–11, where the final words εἰς δόξαν καὶ ἔπαινον θεοῦ should now be taken to refer to his readers’ final, eschatological, receipt of God’s praise of them, and the transformative gift of God’s own glory. Reviewing the arguments of Wolfgang Schenk, John Reumann and Joseph Hellerman for this subjective genitive interpretation of the end of the prayer, and adding several new ones, I conclude that in 1:11 Paul is looking ahead (through the climactic glorification of Christ by God the Father at 2:11) to the return of Christ to glorify his followers in 3:20–21. At Christ’s return, they will receive God’s own glory and praise (and a crown—4:1). This Paul sees as a Christ-shaped version of the common ancient quest for glory. But it is one in which praise and glory are freely given by God and need not be anxiously sought after from one’s fellows (cf. Rom 2:29). The Philippians are right to pursue glory and praise, but they should set their minds on those that come from above, not on the glory and praise on display in Philippi’s forum, theatre, temples, and collonaded streets and funerary inscriptions.
In Philippians 1:12–26 Paul’s autobiographical “digression” addresses his readers’ fears for a loss of honour in Paul’s sufferings and shame at the outcome of his trial. Paul rejects that interpretation of a possible death but, in any case, looks forward to his release which will be a cause of boasting for his readers (1:26). That outcome to his imprisonment will mean, then, praise and honour to the Philippians, which they should interpret as an anticipation of the final praise and glory they will receive at Christ’s return (3:21–4:1).
Philippians 1:27 employs political language that is unusual for Paul (ἀξίως … τοῦ πολιτεύεσθε), in a way that exemplifies his accommodation, in this letter, to his Greco-Roman readership and his concern for issues of civic status and honour. It is a structurally significant verse, that looks backwards to the climactic phrase of 1:11 (εἰς δόξαν καὶ ἔπαινον θεοῦ) and forward to the final verses of the main body of the letter’s argument (3:20–4:1), where Paul says his readers have a τὸ πολίτευμα in the heavens. Whilst interpreters have been divided between a citizenship (“live worthily … as citizens of Philippi) and an ecclesial (“live worthily … within your own ecclesial polity”) interpretation, I propose a third possibility: because πολιτεύομαι can mean “to govern a city or state, administer the affairs of a state, act as a statesman,” his readers are “to live as ideal citizens and civic leaders, in a manner worthy of the gospel,” embodying the highest ideals of Greek political philosophy, shining as exemplary lights to others (cf. 2:15). They live according to their heavenly “governing constitution (πολίτευμα)” (cf. P. Oakes), under Christ’s Lordship (2:9–11) and as those being conformed to his character, and to the highest and best educational ideals of ancient philosophy. What Paul says in the verses that follow (esp. 1:27b–2:4 and the Christ Hymn) supports this interpretation (see below).
I also propose that one purpose of 1:27a, until now missed by interpreters, is to introduce teaching on behaviour that will issue in civic praise of the Christ-followers in Philippi. The words ἀξίως … τοῦ πολιτεύεσθε suggest conduct that, because it is “worthy”—language common in honorific decrees—, will receive appropriate honours in the civic sphere. In this case, 1:27a looks back to the talk of readers receiving “praise” in 1:11. And 1:27a introduces exhortations (1:27c–2:5) that anticipate “the being in a manner equal to God” of 2:6. We can now say that, in the light of 1:27–2:5, the Christ Hymn includes, so to speak, a description of Christ πολιτευόμενος ἀξίως τοῦ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ “conducting himself as a statesman or leader in a manner worthy of the God-equal manner of being.”
This reading also helps make sense of the opening μόνον in 1:27. It also fits the several ways that what Paul advises in 1:27–2:5, if followed by his readers, will warrant their honour and praise. Much of 1:27–2:5 is simply Paul’s endorsement of the highest ideals of political philosophy, for which the educated elite in Greek and Roman cities could expect to receive praise and public honours.
In Philippians 2:3, when Paul warns readers to avoid ἐριθεία he does not teach against “selfish ambition” (so most modern translations). Rather, a fresh examination of the limited ancient evidence for the meaning of that (and cognate) words—especially some recent epigraphic data, shows that Paul warns against a distinct kind of “corrupt allegiance to a party, faction, or ethnic subgroup”. Civic officials were sometimes praised in honorific decrees because they were ἀνερίθευτος “free from party corruption”. With the warning of 2:3a, Paul wants his readers to recognise the social and business implications of their allegiance to the one God and his Messiah who is Lord of all and who came to serve all, not just one people, faction, or party. Implicit in his exhortation is the expectation that, if the Philippians follow this advice, they will receive praise from other Philippians and from further afield. As in 1:11 and 1:27, Paul’s advice entails an appeal to this readers’ own (self-)interests.
Paul also warns against κενοδοξία in 2:3. This is not “conceit” or “empty, vain conceit”. The basic sense of the word and its cognates is empty, vacuous, or untruthful opinion. It entails a mistaken overestimation of value within a social context: a person has vainglory if they are foolish in a blind acceptance of, or craving for, other peoples’ positive regard, especially when that regard is based on ephemeral outward goods (a crown, a statue, verbal praises, and the like). Vainglory is partly to be rejected because of its negative social and psychological consequences and the problem was especially called out by the philosophers, for whom it was “a commonplace … that the quest for honour was vain” (Lendon, Empire of Honour, 90). They typically thought one of their tasks was to set people free from “vainglory” and to equip them with true value (that some of them located in “being”). In places, Philo typifies that burden, which he thought was warranted also by the Mosaic critique of pagan idolatry. In view of all this, Paul’s admonition against κενοδοξία in Phil 2:3 contributes in several ways to Paul’s overarching purposes. The warning against κενοδοξία prepares for a revelation of true glory in Phil 2:6–11 (where Christ ἐκένωσεν ἑαυτὸν “emptied himself) and 3:20–21. Believers who are “in Christ” participate in that glory, and so have no need for the kind of “vain, futile” pursuit of glory which typified the prevalent culture of honour. Believers who are free of all vainglorious thinking and conduct are worthy of true civic praise and of the future glory and praise of God (1:11, 27).
Paul recommends ταπεινοφροσύνη (in 2:3b), a word that appears here for the first time in Greek literature. What does this mean? In keeping with the approach that I take to the relationship between ontology and status (metaphysics and sociology) in the Christ Hymn and in Paul’s argument from 1:9 through to 3:21, I propose a recovery of the older nineteenth-century view that this is primarily a posture of creaturely dependence on God, with the social implications—that have recently been emphasised by many commentators—not ignored but predicated on a “theological humility”. Paul urges the Philippians to a personal (spiritual and psychological) orientation to God, grounded in an honest estimation of their condition, both as human beings and as those who have not yet completed the journey of conformity to Christ (but still confined to “bodies of humiliation [ταπείνωσις]”—3:21). By a similar logic, Christ’s own “humbling himself” should be taken, not just in social terms, but also to refer to the divine Christ’s full identification with the human condition in which we live in “bodies of humiliation,” dependent on God, to whom Jesus also looked for vindication the other side of an unjust death. In 2:3, the word ταπεινοφροσύνη is best translated “mindfulness of a humble, human, condition” or “mindfulness of our creaturely dependence on God”. In Paul’s philosophy, it takes the place that σωφροσύνη “soundness of mind, self-control, prudence” had among the educated, as one of the cardinal virtues (following Plato).
In Philippians 2:4 Paul is usually taken to be recommending denial of one’s own interests, in focusing altruistically on everyone else’s. This is a problematic interpretation given all the ways in which, in the rest of the letter, Paul seems to assume it is acceptable for himself and for others to act in their own interests. It is an interpretation that has no basis in the Christ Hymn, where Christ and God the Father pursue other parties’ interests and their own. The translation of ἀλλὰ καί as “but also” does not solve the problem and is in any case unwarranted. I propose a better translation of the verse, following a suggestion by Virginia Wiles, that fits well with the explanation I have put forward for μηδὲν κατ᾿ ἐριθείαν in verse 3. Philippians 2:4 is best translated:
Let each of you (ἕκαστος—sing.) look not to the interests of his or her own people (τὰ ἑαυτῶν) but rather everyone one of you (ἕκαστοι—plu.) to the interests of everyone else (τὰ ἑτέρων)
Picking up his warning against ἐριθεία in v. 3a, Paul wants his readers to keep themselves free of a mindset in which individuals conceive of themselves, their duties, and their goals within subgroups (τὰ ἑαυτῶν ἕκαστος σκοποῦντες) and instead to nurture a state of heart, mind, and action in which everyone is concerned for everyone (τὰ ἑτέρων ἕκαστοι [σκοποῦντες]). The verse does not propose a form of altruism and has nothing to do with whether or not an individual is focused on themselves or other people.
Philippians 2:12–18 resumes the eulogistic tone of 1:3–11 (as a few have noted), in a way that is consistent with the optimistic pole of Paul’s complex anthropology and his view that believers are both able to host the divine presence in themselves and to work out their own salvation thereby (2:12–13). Because the Philippians illustrate these truths in their exemplary faithfulness, Paul will be permitted to make an honour claim for himself, in the eschatological future (2:16b: “so that there might be a boast [εἰς καύχημα] for me on the Day of Christ”). As he says in 4:1, they will be his glorious crown. The passage weaves together Greco-Roman honorific terms (λειτουργία) and echoes of scripture’s description of Israel in the wilderness (Exod 30:22–33; Deut 32:5), to say that the Philippians now live as light-giving priests and esteemed public servants of the ideal cultically-constituted state. Simultaneously, Paul is continuing to explain and cash out the meaning of his ἀξίως τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τοῦ Χριστοῦ πολιτεύεσθε in 1:27, and to anticipate his climactic promise of complete conformity to divine glory in 3:21.
This reading of Philippians that is attentive to the ways Paul interacts with the first-century culture of honour, in the light of the revelation of glory in the story of Christ, helps explain what has sometimes puzzled commentators in Paul’s praise of Timothy and Epaphroditus (2:18–30). In the latter case, especially, Paul’s generous account of the Philippians’ envoy (2:25–30) is replete with connections (many of them rarely noticed) to the advice Paul has already given. There is no reason to think Paul’s unusually overflowing praise of Epaphroditus is an apologetic response to unexpressed anxieties or negative judgements about the man. Rather, I propose, Paul has deeply held theological convictions that motivate his genuine, pastorally thoughtful, exaltation of Epaphroditus. Paul’s praise of Timothy and Epaphroditus is a self-conscious modelling of a healthy and theologically legitimate praise of the praiseworthy (whose life contrasts sharply with the foolish pursuit of “vainglory” in 2:3 and Paul’s shameful and foolish boasting in 3:4–6—on which see below).
In 2:19–24 and 2:25–30 Paul attempts, following 2:6–11 and 12–18, to map out, through exemplary praise of co-workers, a new sacred space—to instantiate a new culture of honour, that he sees as a necessary feature of the distinctive worship and praise that is centred on and shaped by Christ—by his life and character. The praise is conceptually tightly connected to the worship of Christ in 2:6–11 and is governed by the rubric Paul established in 1:27. Timothy and Epaphroditus are praised as exemplary benefactors, with echoes of the ways in which, and reasons for which, such people were typically praised. Epaphroditus, the Philippians’ envoy (or “apostle”) is especially praiseworthy since his experience as a representative servant has exemplified the common hardships (κακαπαθία) that envoy’s experienced—on the road, at sea and in the midst of fraught socio-political circumstances. He has faithfully fulfilled the injunction to “exercise community leadership (πολιτεύεσθε) in a manner worthy of the gospel” (Phil 1:27).
The Philippians are right to hold in honour (ἔντιμος) people like him (v. 29). In doing so, the Christ believers demonstrate that they are a honour-loving (φιλότιμος) community, as any respectable civic association or subgroup should be. They also, thereby, demonstrate in what ways they have a distinctive culture of honour: they honour without many of the usual trappings (statues, wreaths, crowns and so forth) and they celebrate others for their conformity to Christ, especially in their costly service of others’ interests, in their Christ-like love, in their humble-minded weakness and their dependence on God for his mercy. They boast in “weakness”: as Paul does in the case of Epaphroditus (vv. 26–27 ἠσθένησεν twice). This is the kind of boasting in Christ Jesus, not in outward fleshly strength or beauty, that Paul mentions in 1:26; 2:16 and 3:3. It is a boasting in the lives of those conformed to Christ that matches on a smaller scale the full worship of Christ, to which it also directs attention (cf. 3:3: “worship in the spirit of God” and “boasting in Christ Jesus”). Paul is mapping out a new web of honours, praise and glory, centred on and shaped by Christ, his life and character. Though he has flagged up the problem of “vainglory,” he spends his time, not reiterating or developing a philosophical critique of the culture of honour, but in setting forth a right and healthy kind of “boasting,” one that will show that he “has not run or laboured in vain” (2:17).[1] His treatment of Timothy and Epaphroditus is part of his attempt to address the issue τίνι διαφέρει δόξα ψευδὴς ἀληθοῦς “in what differs false from true glory” (Dio Chrysostom Orations 38.29) and so, in respect of the common practices of the prevalent culture of honour, δοκιμάζειν ὑμᾶς τὰ διαφέροντα “to determine the differences, between the bad, the good and the best” (1:10).
The logic of Paul’s culture of praise and honour for those now being conformed to Christ is decisively shaped by his understanding of Christ’s incarnation, in five ways. Firstly, it is consistent with Christ’s own honouring of humanity in becoming one of us. Secondly, it is right and proper to boast in these humans because they are (being) conformed to the divine human. The praise of the incorporative LORD Jesus Messiah (2:9–11) even includes, or anticipates, the praise of those represented by him. Thirdly, the incarnational character of the Christ event initiates a particular mode of (an educative and transformative) presence, that makes it natural to recognize and honour the presence and activity of God in the lives of individual believers.
Fourthly, the choreography of Paul’s culture of honour, glory and praise is determined by an eschatology that is itself determined by the shape of Christ’s humble-then-exalted life. There is an unrecognised, low status, now; praises and exaltation in the future. There is (limited, intra-ecclesial) honour now; (public or cosmic) divine glory in the future. Fifthly, Paul’s culture of honour is shaped by Christ’s orientation to the other and the eschatological framework within which that other-regard is set.
The last part of this chapter offers a new path through the vexed problems of 3:1–11, emphasising its conceptual connections to all that proceeds (not just some possible similarities to the Christ Hymn in 2:6–11) and to what follows (up to 4:1). Much of 3:2–6, in particular, appears now in a new light after the exegesis of 1:11–2:30 offered in already the Chapter.
After two chapters of exemplary praise, worship, admonition, and exhortation, in 3:1–21 Paul sets out a more personal and conceptually challenging argument. With appeal to his own decision making ((ἥγημαι … ἡγοῦμαι … ἡγοῦμαι … ἵνα κερδήσω καὶ εὑρεθῶ … τοῦ γνῶναι, vv. 8–9), Paul sets out a calculus, between a futile boasting in the flesh (i.e., κενοδοξία), on the one hand, and, on the earth, “gaining Christ,” complete conformity to his person, and the hope of glory (vv. 8, 21).
Within a set of binary distinctions (flesh vs. spirit, heavenly vs. earthly, the truly human (viz Ps 8 in 3:21 and “the gods” and “mutilators,” the argument begins with an appeal to the scripturally grounded distinction (prominent especially in the LXX) between wise “confidence (πεποίθησις, πεποιθέναι)” in the one God (and in his covenantal apparatus) and a foolish confidence the flesh, that is, at base, a manifestation of idolatry (vv. 3–4, cf. 1:6, 14, 25). This is a distinction between two psychological and spiritual orientations, and Paul, I propose, has in mind various connotations or ramifications of his scriptures’ “confidence” language. (Cf. e.g., the idolatrous fool has “confidence” “in their own righteousness [πέποιθεν ἐπὶ τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ αὐτοῦ—Ezek 33:13], are “those who trust [οἱ πεποιθότες] in their power and boast [καυχώμενοι] in the multitude of their riches”—Ps 48:7 [49:6], trusting “in their own glory— πεποιθὼς ἦν ἐπὶ τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ”—Jer 31:11 [48:11], whilst the righteous person trusts in the LORD, knowing that the true God “is their glory and their praise” (πεποιθὼς ἔσομαι ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ καὶ σωθήσομαι ἐν αὐτῷ … διότι ἡ δόξα μου καὶ ἡ αἴνεσίς μου κύριος—Isa 12:2). The common biblical link between “confidence” and “peace” and security may also help to explain the introductory “to write the same things is safety, security, for you” (3:1—see below).
When Paul says, “we are those οὐκ ἐν σαρκὶ πεποιθότες,” he rejects one way of being and prepares readers for an exposition of another. His words “not in flesh having confidence” introduce an outburst of feigned idolatrous boasting in 3:4–6, set over against a statement of that in which, or in whom, true believers do have confidence, namely God in Christ (vv. 7–11). Inter alia, after examples of positive, praiseworthy conduct in chapter 2 (vv. 2–6, 20–22 and 25–30), verses 4–6 illustrate, by way of contrast, what exactly Paul means by (idolatrous) “confidence in the flesh”. The prevailing culture of boasting and the competitive, anxious, pursuit of honour and other people’s praise does not call itself a “cult”. But for Paul in Phil 3:3–6, what is wrong with the “confidence in the flesh” that defines the usual culture of honour is what is wrong, at its base, with pagan culture generally—namely, idolatry.
In Phil 3:4–6, Paul is playing a part, in extempore words of parodic boasting, that should not be taken entirely at face value. This is a rhetorical artifice, in which Paul feigns the polytheist’s hedging of their grounds for confidence and boasting (both in God or Christ and in the flesh).
After 1:27 and 2:6–11, the way Paul speaks in Phil 3:4–6 is a betrayal of the logic of the incarnation and of the specific injunctions that Paul derives from it in 1:27–2:5, 12–18 (love for all and a humble dependence on God, rather than vainglory and corruption due to partisan interests). Philippians 3:4–6 also undermines the message of 2:25–30, where it is right and proper to boast in Christ Jesus in so far as his mercy and strength are manifest in human weakness. Nothing in 3:5–6 suggests a public lifestyle worthy of the gospel (1:27) or the love, wisdom, character, and fruitfulness for which Paul prayers at the start (1:9–11). Nothing in 3:5–6 suggests a public lifestyle worthy of the gospel (1:27) or the love, wisdom, character, and fruitfulness for which Paul prayers at the start (1:9–11). Rather, Paul pretends to boast in his own inherited honours and achievements, that he had outside of Christ. If there is any allusion to the Christ Hymn, it is in v. 6a (κατὰ ζῆλος διώκων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν). Only, here Paul aligns himself not with Christ, but with those who crucified him. In verse 6a Paul feigns pride in conduct like that of those who crucified Jesus according to 2:7–8.
Generically, to the educated, vv. 5–6 is encomiastic praise of oneself or περιαυτολογία “talking about oneself, bragging”. To most in Paul’s audience, his words and posture would have evoked the “braggart (ἀλαζών),” a popular theatrical (and literary) character type, exemplified especially by the foolish “Braggart Soldier (Miles Gloriosus)” of Greek New Comedy and common in Plautus’ Latin plays. And in form (short, verbless, staccato phrases) what Paul says would have recalled the boastful language of eulogia beneath statues, on funerary stele and short honorific decrees (as Peter Pilhofer, Joseph Hellerman and James Harrison, have argued). Paul has taken on a persona: Paulus Gloriosus. His boasting is not real, but is a boasting in the flesh, a vainglory, that serves as a contrast to true boasting in conformity to Christ (cf. 2:25–30). Paul boasts that he has lived in a manner worthy of his ancestors (contrast 1:27), that shines a spotlight on those in Philippi who constructed their identities according to similar criteria. It is πεποίθησις ἐν σαρκί because it includes an epistemological tragedy, of the kind that put Christ on the cross according to 2:8. The line κατὰ ζῆλος διώκων τὴν ἐκκλησία “according to zeal persecuting the assembly,” is not an autobiographical report (cf. Gal 1:13; 1 Cor 15:9), but a highly ambiguous statement that inevitably sounds like tragic folly: “with envy (a manifestation of life in the flesh, according to 1 Cor 3:3) I persecuted (my nation’s) public assembly”! If Paul were an educated man, as his boasting claims he is, he ought to have known that the virtuous pursue δόξαν δίωκε “pursue glory” (Instructions of the Seven Wise Men §22) and they ὁμόνοιαν δίωκε “pursue harmony” (Delphic Maxims 107). There was no precedent for a praiseworthy διώκων (τὴν) ἐκκλησίαν “pursuing of a/the assembly”. By Greek and Roman standards, Paul’s pursuit of glory later in the chapter (at 3:12–14) would be praiseworthy, but “pursuing the ekklesia (i.e., the public assembly)” is bizarre.
Paul’s apparently clean conscience in his “persecuting the assembly (of Christ followers in Judaea)” puts him in the tragic position of those who crucified Jesus according 2:8. They knew not what they did. They misperceived the divine Messiah whom they strung up on that cross. The “Paul” of 3:5–6 also acted in tragic ignorance and bizarrely boasts of blind and foolish actions. (Pace Krister Stendahl 3:5–6 is hardly autobiographical evidence of Paul’s “robust conscience”). It is the conduct typical of those who “think” or merely “suppose (δοκεῖ)” (v. 4) that they have grounds for confidence in the flesh. The boasting of Paul and his imagined combatant is not the quiet, humble, confidence of those who truly “know” (v. 10— γινώσκω), since they only suppose (δοκέω), in the realm of “becoming” and opinion—in the epistemologically flawed realm of the flesh.
After lines that are agonisingly tragic, excruciating in their folly, Paul’s turning to Christ in vv. 7–11 is welcome and intelligent (cf. 1:9–10). With verse 7, Paul comes to count what might seem to offer grounds for confidence as of no value at all. He now reckons true value to be found in Christ, whose life and death has shone a spotlight on the failures of a human epistemology outside of Christ. Verses 7–11 recount a rejection (in Paul’s head and heart) of one way of conceiving of status—as something to be asserted—and of desirable praise—as something to be sought from other humans or that one legitimately gives to one’s own self for one’s own ascribed and achieved honours. Those are rejected for the adoption of a new way of receiving status, honour, and glory, as gifts available in Christ. Instead of a confidence “in his own righteousness” declared by a purblind Torah (3:6, 9, cf. Ezek 33:13), Paul now receives the status and moral character of those who belong to God’s people, not through obedience to the law, but through faith (v. 10), that entails conformity to Christ’s sufferings, death and resurrection—a “righteousness that produces fruit,” in readiness to receive “God’s own praise and glory” (1:11).
In 3:12–4:1 Paul balances his negative portrayal of a life lived in pursuit of vainglories, with a humble statement of his pursuit of true glory, in the upward call of God in Christ (vv. 14, 21). Unlike Epaphroditus, who seems already to have attained to a conformity to the death and resurrection of Christ, Paul has some way to go. He is focused on the glorious prize. It will not be a perishable one or a set of honorific privileges granted by Senate or city assembly, but the imperishable glory of God and a body transformed. The crown is real, substantial, but not of olive leaves like those worn by Olympic victors: Paul’s crown is the Philippians themselves. People, not things, are the locus of enduring, imperishable, glory—true glory, not the vain and futile kind (cf. Phil 2:3 and 1 Cor 9:25). They will be his boast then (2:16), just as Timothy and Epaphroditus are his boast now.
In the image of the glorious crown, many threads run together. This is a crown composed of those who have fought and won in the great martial contest for the faith (cf. 1:27, 30; 2:25). It is the crown constructed out of victorious athletes who never gave up the race for glory (cf. 1:27, 30; 2:16; 3:12–14). It is a crown of those who have worthily served their community, as officials in the new state governed by a heavenly politeuma (1:27–3:3; 3:20). And, I venture, it is the lover’s crown, of the bride who finally dwells with the groom. What all these resonances of the crown image share is a vision of a glorious humanity. Instead of golden or perishable crowns, true value is the human being itself. This is the way all Christ believers in Philippi should think (3:15, 17). There is a contest. There is honour, glory and praise. But the honorific system has been reorganized, in the light of the revelation of true divine glory, in the face of Christ Jesus.
This reading of the letter’s themes of glory, honour and praise helps clarify its literary and conceptual structure. We can now see that Paul sets out the stall of his main argument already in 1:9–11 and that everything thereafter, as far as 4:1, is addressed by the four parts of 1:9–11: the call to abound in love (affections), to grow in knowledge and discernment (intellect), for the sake of character, in readiness to receive God’s glory and praise. There is also a conceptual hierarchy in which the theme of civic virtue and praise introduced in 1:27 sits beneath the theological orientation to divine glory that is introduced in 1:11. Philippians 1:9–11 can be labelled a level 1 thesis statement, beneath which the call to an honourable manner of life (ἀξίως … πολιτεύεσθε) in 1:27 can be labelled a subordinate, level 2, thesis statement.
In 1:11, the words εἰς δόξαν καὶ ἔπαινον θεοῦ direct readers to what I shall call a Christological metaphysics, that determines the logic of all that follows up to 4:1. The “glory and praise of God” and the return of LORD Jesus Christ in and for the glory that believers hope to receive (3:20–4:1), governs everything that Paul thinks and says about issues of status, honour and praise in the intervening verses. Principally, that means, it is the one, eternal, God, revealed in LORD Jesus Christ, who is the source and measure of true glory, honour and praise. If 1:9–11 and 3:20–4:1 are the beginning and end of the argument, 2:6–11 is the centre. Together, these three are posts supporting a conceptual tent or pavilion: the first and last are side poles, the Christ Hymn in the middle is the “king flag,” rising to a height above the rest. The whole is a sacred canopy, beneath which everything Paul says about life “in Christ” is sensible and possible. The overarching sacred canopy provides a conceptual structure in which the social (or the political, in the sense of ethics for the polis—ἀξίως πολιτεύεσθαι), the cultural, and the economic are subordinate to the theological. Christ’s “God-equal manner of being” (recounted and praised in 2:6–11 and 3:20–21) is the basis for a “praiseworthy manner of life in the polis” (1:27–4:1). Metaphysics and ontology warrant ethics.
With all that we have discovered in our investigation of the letter’s engagement with the quest for glory and honour, it is possible now to further refine our understanding of Paul’s distinctive understanding of love in the letter’s opening portions (1:3–11), and how that understanding would be heard in relation to philosophical debates. According to Phil 1:3–8, Paul presents a vision of love that is wedded to a right honouring of the beloved by the lover. Paul demonstrates honour’s role in love in the many ways he honours the Philippians in 1:3–11. And he honours them by focusing, in his prayer and everything that he writes thereafter, on their ultimate glorification and receipt of divine praise (v. 11). Indeed, in setting himself in prayer for the Philippians’ preparation for glory, Paul follows the purpose of Christ in his coming to earth according to Phil 2:6–11 and 3:21. In his prayers for the Philippians, Paul acts from a burden for his readers’ eventual glorification, as did Christ.[2] In designing this letter’s topics and arguments Paul writes himself into Christ’s own character and purpose: all for the glory of God and the glorification of Christ’s people.
[1] The μηδὲ κατὰ κενοδοξίαν of 2:4 is balanced by the εἰς καύχημα ἐμοί … ὅτι οὐκ εἰς κενὸν ἔδραμον οὐδὲ εἰς κενὸν ἐκοπίασα of 2:16.
[2] Cf. Lewis, Weight of Glory, 14–15: “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, … It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship”.