Video summary coming soon.
In Philippians 2:26 Paul says Epaphroditus is “sorely troubled because the Philippians heard that he was sick”. This statement puzzled Karl Barth, but it can now be explained as a case of empathy and, as such, is an example of a recurring phenomenon in this letter and one that flows from the shape of Paul’s theology and the Christology at its heart.
“Empathy,” a term now common in popular discourse, has been much studied by psychologists and philosophers (following the early work of David Hume—1711–1776 and Adam Smith—1723–1790), and is a key feature of academically-grounded professional practice, under the influence of the therapeutic disciplines (following the central role for empathy given, especially, by Karl Rogers—1902-1987 and Heinz Kohut—1913-1981). Since Paul positions himself in Philippians as one, like the ancient philosophers, who is concerned for the care and progress of the individual’s soul, it is fitting that we consider a phenomenon brought to the fore by modern therapists in our attempt to make sense of this letter.
To begin with, in a summary overview I survey current debates about the nature of empathy, which I take to be a process or activity, where to empathize with another person or group of people is to vicariously experience their internal mental state. Although much is not yet agreed by the specialists, we may delineate its several generally agreed upon defining features.
Empathy has both a cognitive and affective part. There is a basic “self-oriented” empathy and a higher form, in which I imagine what it would be like to be you if I were indeed you in your situation. This second form was first described by Adam Smith in the 18th century:
By the imagination we place ourselves in [our brother’s] situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them.[1]
Empathy is a feeling in, into or within (ἐν, ἐμ “in, into” + πάθος “emotion, passion”) another person’s mental and emotional state, so should be distinguished from sympathy (and pity and compassion) which is a soft-hearted standing alongside, or with, someone in their feelings (συν, συμ “with”). Empathy usually entails a dual perspective taking, in which the one empathising remains conscious of their own identity and situatedness. It is not restricted to an entry into another person’s negative feelings (of suffering), since it means “our fellow feeling with any passion whatsoever”.[2] All empathy is vicarious, usually inclusively so: I see and feel what you do. Sometimes, it can be exclusively vicarious, when the empathiser sees and feels what the empathasand does not yet perceive, or desire. Whilst empathy has many prosocial benefits, its positive role in all spheres and as a basis for moral judgement has long been contested. Ethicists in the rationalist tradition complain about its narrow focus on those who are physically, socially, economically, culturally, and linguistically close to us, at the expense of those at a distance.
In Paul’s historical context, empathy was not a topic of intellectual enquiry. Indeed, there was a common, and especially philosophical, aversion to any dangerous taking on of another’s emotional and epistemic state. However, scattered about the sources, especially a few Jewish and early Christian ones (e.g., Testament of Zebulun 7:3), there is evidence that it was a recognised phenomenon, of which Paul and his readers would have been aware. In a few texts, τὰ σπλάγχνα are the seat of recognisably empathic emotions (cf. Phil 1:8; 2:1). Indeed, it is possible that Paul himself, like Epaphroditus (Phil 2:26), practises empathy in this letter because he reckons it a fitting expression of what it means, in the light of the incarnation, to be “in Christ”. I propose our letter contains two empathic movements. The first I discuss in this chapter, the second I leave for the last.
Paul’s self-consciously empathic posture in Philippians can be seen in the way in which, in this letter more so than others, Paul accommodates himself. He forswears his usual strategies of scriptural argumentation and imaginatively adopts the language—political, religious, cultural concerns and figures of speech—of his readers. He becomes “a Philippian to the Philippians” (cf. 1 Cor 9:20–23). As he writes from a distance (presumably surrounded by others who, like him, were at home in Israel’s scriptures), Paul has decentred, self-consciously adapting himself to the perspective of his readers. The letter is an exercise in cross-cultural empathy. In so doing Paul, I hypothesize, is consciously influenced by the story at the letter’s heart, where the divine Christ accommodates himself to humanity. The divine Christ is a shapeshifter. On a smaller literary scale, so too is Paul.
Further evidence of Paul’s self-conscious empathy for his readers and conformation for the hypothesis that the apostle’s incarnational Christology has inspired that posture is evident in the opening prayer and thanksgiving (1:3–11), which is tightly connected to the rest of the first chapter (vv. 12–30). Here, Paul has an empathy for his readers’ sufferings (vv. 5, 7, cf. vv. 27–30) and for their highest possible aspirations (vv. 9–11), that demonstrates a posture oriented away from his present circumstances (in prison, in some other city at a distance from them) to theirs, now and in the future. He has them “on his heart” (1:7), in a way that implies an empathic engagement with them: their circumstances, feelings and perspectives. His long personal report and self-reflections on his imprisonment (in vv. 12–26) are evidence of what that (unparalleled) “having them on his heart” means in practice, since the digression of vv. 12–26 (with vv. 27–30) demonstrates an empathic sensitivity to his readers’ anxieties that he perceives have arisen from their reaction to the imprisonment of their apostle and advocate (cf. Epaphroditus’ anxiety in 2:26). The whole of 1:12–30 is empathically motivated and guided “consolation” (2:1). Also, what Paul says, or implies, about: philosophy (1:9–10), civic responsibility and public position (1:27), the common human desire for intimate, romantic, attachments (1:8–9), and the pursuit of glory and praise—in this life and sometimes beyond it, can all now be appreciated as evidence of his empathic engagement with his reader; with their current struggles and deeply held desires.
There are reasons to think Paul’s motivational logic for his thinking and communication strategy in chapter 1 is modelled on the motivational logic and communication strategy of Christ, as that is set out in the hymn quoted in chapters 2 and 3.
Christ self-transformed, taking on the form of a slave and human likeness to bring about humanity’s transformation to the glory of God (3:21).
Paul writes to the Philippians, as a “slave of Christ” (1:1), taking on Greco-Roman language and forms of argumentation, in the service of his readers’ transformation to the glory of God (1:11).
In his flexible adaptation of his epistolary strategy and style, and his careful, empathically directed crafting of his message, Paul enacts a conformity to the divine Christ—specifically to the Christ who, being at a distance (“in the form of God …”), traversed that distance by becoming human, in the service of humanity’s best interests and highest desires (3:21). Since, at the centre of the letter’s opening passage there is this vision of a particular kind of love (1:7–9: the Philippians on Paul’s heart, his longing ἐν σπλάγχνοις Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ and his love that abounds in discernment, towards the beloved’s glorious telos), which, inter alia, manifests in empathic behaviour, it seems likely that Paul has reflected on the character of Christ’s (loving) self-transformation and found there the inspiration for his own (loving, empathic) self-transformation.
This is not to say that Paul simply thinks of the Incarnation as a great, or definitive, act of empathy. There are significant ways in which what the divine Christ does in Phil 2:6–11 + 3:20–21 is uncharacteristic of empathically motivated conduct. We may say that the divine Christ’s becoming human in Phil 2 is a metaphysical event for which there are some analogies in the psychological phenomenon we call empathy. But the Incarnation can by no means be reduced to that (human) psychological category.
This “empathy reading” of the letter offers help in understanding the puzzling connection between love and knowledge that he sets out in 1:9–10. The kind of love Paul has in mind in v. 9 includes empathic regard, which the specialists have long observed has an epistemic function. Empathy produces an understanding of the other, which can then direct effective behaviour towards them. In Philippians too, I suggest, Paul thinks that it is his (empathic) love for his readers that enables him τὸ δοκιμάζειν ὑμᾶς τὰ διαφέροντα, that is, “to accurately discern the good and the bad, and the best” (1:10) in his dealings with them, as all that he says in what follows demonstrates.
Appreciating Paul’s vision for an empathic love that is shaped by the logic of the incarnation helps explain his pastoral advice in Phil 2:1–4. And it confirms the empathic explanation of what is said about Epaphroditus in 2:26. The Philippian envoy’s empathy for his compatriots can now be seen as an example of the loving splacgna of Christ which Paul models and calls forth in 1:8 and 2:1.
Finally, this reading is confirmed by, and further helps illuminate, what Paul says in the letter’s closing “thankless thanks” (4:10–20). There Paul speaks to the issue of their financial contributions to his ministry, only after he has in several and various ways, set out his vision for the nature of relationships among God’s people, in terms, especially, of mutual reciprocity, and a non-hierarchical culture of honour, characterised by empathy and a shared dependence on God.Having set out that vision for a Christ-shaped koinonia, Paul can be confident that what he says about their financial giving is not misinterpreted through contemporary attitudes and assumptions about the transactional nature of benefactions, friendship, and patron-client relations. He can commend them for their “having shared with (συγκοινωνήσαντές)” him in tribulation (4:14), knowing that they will understand that to include an empathic posture that is inspired by the Incarnation. This is what he means by “the fruit that increases to your credit” (4:17), for which he prayed at the letter’s beginning (1:11).
[1] Smith, Moral Sentiments, I.i.i.2 (A. Smith and K. Haakonssen, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 12).
[2] Smith, Moral Sentiments, I.i.i.5 (Smith & Haakonssen, Moral Sentiments, 13).