This chapter begins with three questions or puzzles. Firstly, partial parallels to praise of emperors in Horace Odes 1.2 and Calpurnius Siculus’ Fourth Eclogue press upon us the question: is this story of Christ’s divine self-transformation merely poetic fancy? What propositional claim to truth does it make? Secondly, in v. 6c τὸ εἶναι is an absolute “Being,” not a predicative (“X being Y”). As such, τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ (“The/a being that is in a manner equal with God”) is without parallel in the biblical, Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds. Why this odd construction? Thirdly, the presence of a mythological-sounding Primary Narrative about a divine self-transformation is strange in a letter with so much that is philosophically oriented. This is strange because the philosophers disapproved of stories of gods self-transforming, judging them ethically unsavoury and metaphysically implausible.
The rest of the chapter addresses these three oddities or puzzles, through the proposal that the absolute τὸ εἶναι is a philosophical “(the) being, existence,” employed in a conscious effort to deal with anticipated philosophical objections to the divine self-transformation that follows. Verses 6–8 employ Platonic language to say that, although shocking and without exact philosophical precedent, Christ’s incarnation is intelligible in terms of established philosophical distinctions and ways of understanding the relationship between God and the world.
I survey the evidence that the philosophers, beginning with Xenophanes and Socrates according to Plato (esp. in his Republic 2.380d–382a), and the well-educated of the Hellenistic age disapproved of or rejected the poets’ and mythographers’ tales of the gods’ self-transformations and sordid human-like behaviour. Testimony to the power of those objections is evident in a variety of strategies that were employed, especially by those attempting some rapprochement between Homer and philosophy, to explain or to explain away the traditional and still hugely popular stories. Four such strategies—rationalization, allegorization, demonic rather than divine activity and a dispensationalist relegation of such behaviour to an earlier time, when the relationship between gods and humans was not marred by sin—are noted. The way Philippians 2:6–11 addresses the concerns of a philosophically-educated readership can be compared with these four interpretative strategies.
The words τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ anticipate the objections and questions that the educated would have posed to the Primary Narrative about Christ’s divine self-transformation. They are part of a strategy by which the author takes the philosophical high ground, since the hymn says that what is at stake in Christ’s incarnation is the character of divine “being”. Christ reveals that the manner or mode of true divine “being” is one capable of self-transformation, in the loving service of humanity. Τὸ εἶναι sometimes appears in philosophical discussions of “being,” for which the more common words were (τὸ) ὄν and οὐσία, especially in Middle Platonic authors (as passages in the works of Philo and Plutarch show). And by setting τὸ εἶναι “being” in relation to, or over against, γενόμενος “becoming” (vv. 7–8) the hymn takes up well-known language of the strongest critics of stories of the gods’ self-transformations (namely, the Platonists), in an apologetic construction of a metaphysic that justifies the credibility of Christ’s incarnation: Paul’s hymn boldly proclaims that Christ understood the dynamic nature of divine “being” and so, accordingly, he “became (γενόμενος)” human (v. 7c).
The hymn simultaneously endorses and subverts a Platonic distinction between “being” and “becoming,” responding directly to an anticipated philosophical objection to its Primary Narrative. In both the initial “becoming” human and in the “becoming” obedient unto death Christ demonstrates that the Platonic denial that (divine) “being” can “become” is mistaken. Furthermore, against the Platonic understanding of the character of “being” in relation to “becoming,” the pre-incarnate Christ takes sides with the popular religious view that that which is divine (God or the gods) can “become”.
Several minor linguistic points support these conclusions. Firstly, the hymn’s adoption of a Platonic distinction between “being” and “becoming” is understandable given language in Israel’s Greek scriptures which was susceptible to adaptation to a Platonic metaphysic (esp. Ὁ ὢν at Exod 3:14 and ἐγένετο at Gen 1:3, 5, 6, etc), as the use made of those texts by Philo shows. Secondly, the adverbial qualification of τὸ εἶναι as ἴσα θεῷ recalls the way in which Parmenides, Plato and their successors used adjectives, adverbs, and adverbial phrases to define the mode of a particular kind of “being” (e.g., “eternal [ἀεί] being,” “being what entirely is [τὸ … παντελῶς ὄν]” and “the really existent [ὄντος ὄντως]”). Thirdly, the use of the verb ὑπάρχω in Phil 2:6a, alongside the τὸ εἶναι of v. 6c, has parallels in first-century philosophical discussion of being (using both that verb and its nominal ὕπαρξιν—“existence, reality”). Fourthly, following Susan Eastman, the word ὁμοίωμα “likeness” (v. 2:7), that has no obvious scriptural inspiration, can be explained as a creative subversion of the Platonic aspiration for “assimilation to God (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ)” (Plato, Theaetetus 176b)”: in Christ, God assimilates to humanity. Fourthly, the closest parallel to a “form of God” phrase with the preposition ἐν is the statement in Plato’s Republic that a god “abides forever simply in his own form (ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ μορφῇ)” (Republic 2.380d, 381c).
To these several linguistic considerations can be added a thematic correlation between Phil 2:6–8 and the Platonic distinction between “being” and “becoming”. The Christ Hymn echoes the Platonic correlation of epistemology to ontology: “As being is to becoming, so truth is to belief (ὅ τι περ πρὸς γένεσιν οὐσία, τοῦτο πρὸς πίστιν ἀλήθεια)” (Plato, Timaeus 29c). That which is “becoming” is only an object of belief or “opinion (δόξα)” and cannot with certainty be properly apprehended—a Platonic dogma that was taken up in Middle Platonism. This epistemological distinction is evident in the hymn, where Christ is only “found” in the realm of “becoming” to be a human, not the one God in human form, and he is tragically rejected and crucified. On the other hand, the hymn says, after its beginning in v. 6, that the one “found” to be merely human is truly intelligiblefrom the heavenly (noetic?) perspective wherein he exists in his proper divine form.
The relationship between the Primary Narrativeabout a divine self-transformation and a Platonic-sounding metaphysic requires some reflection. These two are not simply fused together, without regard for their particularities. The philosophical distinction between divine “being” and “becoming”—that echoes the biblical one between Creator and creation—sets the cosmological framework for the Christ story. But, endorsing popular beliefs about the gods, the hymn says that that which is divine can become (even to the point of suffering death). It combines poetry and philosophy, in a way that Plato did not allow, creating a new metaphysic, in which incarnation is possible and divine being has now become. And one effect of the way metaphysical categories undergird the poetic narrative in Phil 2:6–11 is to imply that this is no mere flight of poetic fancy, but a real event (however much that event was misunderstood when it happened).
Given the usual modern view that philosophical categories were only taken up in Christological dogma much later than Paul’s letters, the argument of this chapter may seem surprising. But the adoption of Platonic categories is not especially sophisticated. Certainly, much less so than by comparison to what we find in Philo, Paul’s older contemporary. It accords with the incarnational message of the hymn, that warrants creative accommodation of the language and thought-forms to a target culture. And it has a close parallel in the, now widely acknowledged, fact that several early pieces of Christological confession engaged in a form of “prepositional metaphysics” (1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:15–20, John 1:3 10 and Hebrews 1:2, cf. Romans 11:36—discussed in a seminal article by Gregory Sterling), in reliance on well-established philosophical ways of analyzing divine causation.
There are also good reasons to reject any objection to this chapter’s argument that, because the hymn is highly political, it cannot also be philosophical in the way I claim. Philosophy and politics were intertwined discourses and realms. In the first century, more so than in earlier times, political leaders both depended on and were challenged by philosophers, in Rome and in the provinces (as the activities of the likes of Arius Didymus, Thrasyllus, Musonius Rufus, Seneca, Philo, Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, and Epictetus testify). Among the works of these thinkers and their forbears, and others about whom we know too little, a recurring theme in political philosophy was the nature and legitimacy of monarchy and its religious or philosophical implications, including the issue of the divine status and possible god-equal honours for the ruler. So, it is anachronistic to think that a Platonic theme in Phil 2:6–11 could not dovetail with and serve the passages’ political concerns. Indeed, Philippians 2:6–11, I propose, combines these two because it reflects the long tradition of philosophical interest in, and critical dialogue with, the notion that there is an ideal, true, ruler or king who is, in some sense, “divine”.
The passage makes a distinctive contribution to that tradition in the way that it subordinates politics to theology, political philosophy to metaphysics. It sets the Incarnation in the framework of the distinction between “being” and “becoming” in order, inter alia, to put forward Christ as the true divine ruler who acts from being, not for a divine being or status. Philippians 2:6–11 offers an alternative to the usual ancient models that were used to explain and justify divine ruler cults, that either worshipped living rulers or those deified after death (and “apotheosis”). The few texts that depict rulers as divine beings coming from heaven to earth, to rule among ordinary mortals, are exceptional and appear primarily in poetry. Philippians 2:6–11 is the first, as far as we know, that applies the philosophical language of (divine) “being” to the ruler’s identity in pre-existence. And it does so to challenge the accepted notion that a ruler has a divine status because (in their conforming to the model of the likes of Heracles, Dionysus, Castor and Pollux and their Roman counterparts such as Romulus), their superhuman benefactions and virtuous character earnt for them that status.
Over against this prevalent view that a ruler’s divine status and their deification is something received in response to an exceptional earthly life, Phil 2:6–11 presents a divine identity that is already possessed, not one that is earned by great public benefactions; a nature that is expressed in a self-transformation from divinity to humanity, and (a particular and shocking kind of) service of others culminating in death. Though Christ’s divine status in vv. 9–11 follows his human behaviour (so the διό “wherefore” of v. 9), the syntax predicates both his human conduct and posthumous status on his original, eternal, “being in the form of God”. Christ acts from divine being, not for it. He acts from a hidden divine being, for a (recognised) cosmic status.
This can be seen also by a comparison between formulaic Greek statements that have a similar syntax, but a meaning that is asymmetric to the one in Phil 2:6–7. Paul’s messiah is not a man who puts on divine airs; he is a divine figure who puts on human airs. For example, “Salmoneus too was punished by the gods for this, because, although he was a human being (ἄνθρωπος ὤν), he tried to be Zeus (ἐπεχείρει Ζεὺς εἶναι)” (Hesiod Catalogue of Women frag. 26). The legendary king Salmoneus was punished by the gods because, although (ὤν) a man, he put on divine airs. Christ, being (ὑπάρχων) in the divine form, put on human airs. In his case, ontology precedes ethics.
Three texts suggest the notion that, in the case of ideal rulers, ontology (nature) ought to precede and guarantee conduct (ethics) was in circulation, perhaps for the first time, in Roman philosophical circles in the mid-first century. Philo of Alexandria in his Embassy to Gaius says that the third emperor’s sartorial pretensions to divinity were regarded, by some among the Roman elite, as preposterous because “neither his nature nor his being (μήτε φύσεως μήτε οὐσίας)” (114) were those of the gods to whom he likened himself. Other sources suggest that the problem in Rome was not the theoretical impossibility of an emperor having a divine nature, but that Caligula’s unethical behaviour showed that he did not. The equestrian intellectual Musonius Rufus (c. 30–100 C.E.) says that a king who is “most god-like and worthy of reverence” will “be of a superior nature (φύσει … διαφερούσῃ),” that will warrant the belief that he is “faultless and perfect” and “a living law” (Lectures 8.5). A little later, Seneca told the young Nero, at the beginning of his reign, that he was capable of “acting as the god’s representative on earth … without guilt because his goodness was innate (naturalis)” (On Clemency 1.1.2). None of these is evidence that a pre-existent divine nature was ascribed to the ideal ruler. But they show that the presentation of Christ in Philippians, as one who has a pre-incarnate divine being or nature, from which he thinks and acts, would have been intelligible (even if incredible) to political theorists in Paul’s day.
We can now see how the unparalleled combination of τὸ εἶναι and ἴσα θεῷ makes for a contextually satisfying, and provocative and memorable, summary of a new kind of metaphysic; the phrase denotes a dynamic divine being.The phrase is also a syntactic and semantic hinge. Syntactically, v. 6c is related to both what precedes, namely the circumstantial participle clause at v. 6a, and to what follows; in the description of Christ’s emptying himself, taking the form of a slave and becoming human (along with the rest of vv. 7–8). The relationship to what follows is governed by the point-counterpoint οὐ … ἀλλά “not that … but this” construction. If we follow the (often neglected argument) of Jean Carmignac that the word order in vv. 6b–7a requires a translation “(Christ Jesus, who …) regarded τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ as not (ἁρπαγμός), but rather …” then Christ judged τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ (“being in a manner equal with God”) to be fittingly expressed in, or defined by, a whole-life incarnational self-transformation. Even if we follow the usual translation “(Christ Jesus, who …) did not regard τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ as ἁρπαγμός),” an adversative relation between “the being in a manner equal with God” and Christ’s incarnational manner of life may be intended. In either case, the author’s choice of an active, adverbial, expression of divine equality (τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ), as a way of speaking about a particular, active and durative, divine mode of being (rather than a status or timeless, substantive, divine nature), should be seen a fitting anticipation of Christ’s mode of being and action in his self-transformation. Whilst “the being (that is) in a manner equal with God” is not harpagmos, such a kind of being is constituted by, to be identified with, or manifest in, all that happens in vv. 7–8. That means that divine equality characterizes Christ’s human life as much as his earthly, pre-existent one.
The hymn can now be paraphrased:
Because Christ was in the form of God, he also, therefore, reckoned rightly the being that is in a manner equal with God (is) not ἁρπαγμός, but rather that it is characterized by, or actualized by, and manifest in, an historic act of self-emptying, the taking of the form of a slave, becoming utterly human, dying, and receiving God the Father’s vindication and the worshipful recognition of all creation.
Finally, there is confirmation that Phil 2:6–11 draws on Platonic language and categories at Phil 3:21. There, the words κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ δύνασθαι αὐτόν have no basis in scripture, gospel tradition, or stories of divine and human transformation. However, they can be explained as a Christological adaption of the Platonic strapline that philosophy offers a way to flee from the earth, to the realm of the gods, to become “like God, so far as this is possible (ὁμοίωσις Θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν)” (Plato, Theaetetus 176b). The adaptation recognises that with their “bodies of humiliation” mortals are unable, in their own strength, to assimilate to the divine. But Christ, who comes from heaven, makes this possible. Plato’s κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν “as far as this is possible” becomes κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ δύνασθαι αὐτόν “according to the power that enables him (i.e., Christ) to be able …”. Also, in a way that is uncharacteristic of the Platonic tradition, likeness to God means, for Phil 3:21, conformity to a new glorious body. A portion of Clement of Alexandria’s Exhortation to the Greeks (9.86–97) isprobably evidence that readers in the first Christian centuries recognised the allusion to Plato, Theaetetus 176b in Phil 3:21.