If the minimalist assessment of the significance of Christ’s rejection of erotic, conjugal, abductions is persuasive, how should we judge the maximalist approach to the erotic theme in hymn and letter that has been put forward by David Fredrickson? Does the divine Christ reject erotic abductions because they are violent and typically involve deception and also because in his life, death, resurrection and return, he wishes to demonstrate another kind of divine pursuit of humans? Is it true that Christ’s “refusal to abduct humans emphasizes by means of contrast what the story implied was his real interest, his longing for humanity” (Fredrickson, Eros, 90)?
In view of those OT passages—in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea—where the covenant relationship between Yahweh and Israel is imagined as one between a (faithful) husband and (a sometimes unfaithful) wife (esp. Isa 62:4–5; Ezek 16:6–14; Hos 2:14 “I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her,” cf. 2:19–23), it is possible that Israel’s scriptures inspired a Christology that has Christ reject violent erotic behaviour in order to demonstrate how it is that Christ, as a manifestation of the one God, has a true (healthy and life-giving) love for human beings that is characterized by a desire for them and a desire for a kind of conjugal union with them. Also, between Paul and his native scriptures, there may have been traditions that inserted Jesus into the marital construal of the salvation-historical drama, with Paul’s Saviour playing the role of the divine bridegroom (Mark 2:19–20 and parrs.; Matt 22:1–14; 25:1–13; John 2:1–12; 3:29; 4:1–42).
The argument of this chapter is more cautious than the last one. There is much to support a version of the case that Fredrickson has made for a Christology of divine desire in Philippians. Though for key parts of Fredrickson’s argument (especially the meaning of “he emptied himself” in 2:7), there is not enough data to be confident. And, for the most part, the arguments that I make in the rest of this volume do not depend on what I propose, in this Chapter.
In 1:8 Paul desires the Philippians, with the unparalleled expression ἐν σπλάγχνοις Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ. This is not the language of friendship. What does it mean? In partial agreement with Fredrickson, I argue that Paul gestures towards the amorous in order to position himself as a Christ-shaped lover of the Philippian believers.
There are ways in which, to first-century readers, 1:8 would immediately suggest an erotic discourse. The uncompounded verb ποθέω and the noun πόθος are standard, common, words for erotic desire; both that of the gods and of mortals. The word σπλάγχνα is sometimes used to describe the location of the physiological effects of romantic love or sexual desire. The closest parallels for the combination of ἐπιποθέω and σπλάγχνα occur in erotic texts (Theocritus Idylls 7.96–99 and Herodas Mimes 1.155–60). Other features of the letter’s opening thanksgiving and prayer (1:3–11) confirm the impression that Paul deliberately presents himself as the Philippians’ pining lover. For example, the expression ἐν σπλάγχνοις Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ suggests the words ἔνθεος “full of the gods, inspired, possessed” and ἐνθουσιασμός “inspiration, divine madness” that were sometimes used for an erotic loss of self-control.
On the other hand, there are reasons to doubt that Paul wants to be heard as a lover, at least not the kind celebrated in Greek and Roman amatory literature. He does not describe the Philippians as beautiful. The compound ἐπιποθέω (“desire, yearn or hanker after, long for”) only rarely has an erotic sense. And Paul longs for a whole community, not an individual. Verse 1:8 perhaps echoes Deut 32:10–11, where Yhwh yearns for (ἐπεπόθησεν) Israel, protects them as his brood or as a young girl on whom he has an eye (ὡς κόραν ὀφθαλμοῦ). In which case, Paul would have in mind a three-way correspondence: Yahweh to Israel (Deut 32:12), Christ to humanity (Phil 2:6–11), Paul (and Epaphroditus) to the Philippians (Phil 1:8; 2:26). But that Deuteronomy passage ascribes to Yhwh an non-erotic longing for his people and reflections on the precise form of the words ἐν σπλάγχνοις Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ suggest not a (pagan) possession by the divine Christ, but a conformity to Christ’s character or to an aspect of his identity.
Another non-erotic feature of the love in 1:3–11 is its rational grounding (vv. 9–10, cf. 2:1–2). The way Paul combines passionate, visceral, longing in 1:8 with a prayer for love that abounds in a (philosophical sounding) discernment and knowledge (1:9–10) is probably an attempt to position a distinctive vision of love in relation to philosophical debates. Paul’s vision is most like that of the Platonists, who envisaged an “emotion intertwined with reason (τὸ πάθος λόγῳ συμπεπλεγμένον)” (Maximus of Tyre Orations 20.4). Paul’s philosophically-sounding presentation of an agape-love that is both strongly emotional and reasonable anticipates Phil 2:6–11, where the Christ Hymn mediates between philosophy and poetry; between Platonism and the erotic violence of the powerful.
The love of Phil 1:8–11 is both similar and dissimilar to the usual descriptions of erotic desire and to the options considered in philosophical debates about true love. As such, Paul’s distinctive understanding of the love he calls agapē is probably shaped by the posture and behaviour of Christ in Phil 2:6, where there is a rejection of erotic violence, that exemplifies a wise discernment arising from the divine Christ’s grounding in God-equal “being,” not “becoming”. Any attempt to categorise, or to reduce, what Paul says here to some existing or historically comparable kind of love (e.g., Sapphic longing) is impeded by the peculiarities of Paul’s Christology and his own Christ-shaped psychology.
These preliminary observations on Phil 1:8–10 encourage a sympathetic hearing of Fredrickson’s case that in 2:6–8 there is a kind of erotic Christology. Following the οὐχ ἁρπαγμόν there are at least four details of the hymn that suggest a concern for the implied opposite of violent erotic abductions, namely a longing for humanity that motivates his wooing of humans through submissive persuasion and a conjugal proposition in laying down his life at death.
In Christ taking the form of a slave (δοῦλος) there may be an appeal to the analogy between the lover and the slave, that was a common image in Greek Erotic traditions and Latin Love Elegy. In some texts there is even the idea that the gods themselves suffer slavery to eros (e.g., Zeus, Hades and Poseidon in Greek Anthology 5.100 lines 1–2 and a story in which Apollo is enslaved by love for the young prince Admetus). In other texts the servitude of love (servitium amoris in Latin poetry) subordinates the lover to their (mortal) beloved. The combination of Christ’s having a slave’s form and his “humbling himself” (v. 8a) is especially reminiscent of Tibullus’ version of Apollo’s humble, unrecognized, service of his beloved Admetus (Tibullus Elegies 2.3.23–34). Though in other ways, of course, Christ’s sojourn among mortals is quite different from the kind of erotic slavery endured by Apollo. The difference may be signalled in the words “taking the form of a slave”. Powerful men and gods could be said to “take” a woman (for a wife by regular means, or by an abduction). Christ “took” no one. He “took” upon himself the posture, the “outward form of a slave”.
There is something to be said for Fredrickson’s thesis that ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν (v. 7a) signals an erōs-like longing for humanity, with language that suggests the widely attested theme of erotic melting and a loss of vital force. But there are problems with F.’s thesis, not least the lack of linguistic evidence for it. There are other reasons to think that whatever “he emptied himself” means, it is intended as much as a way of distancing Christ’s incarnation from pagan ways of thinking about divine-human relations as it is a way of framing that event in language intelligible to the audience. Though ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν may not be a bland endorsement of stereotypical erotic actions or states, it may nevertheless be compared with texts that speak of passionate love as a pouring out—even, as, a libation (e.g., Dioscorides 5 [Greek Anthology 5.55]). Paul may interpret 2:7a as a kind of libation when he says εἰ καὶ σπένδομα “if I pour myself out on (the sacrifice)” (2:17). But Christ’s self-emptying is not erotic in the usual sense. Instead of a life characterised by overwhelming emotions like those described by the amatory poets, Christ’s was a fully embodied act of self-giving to others. It was a total amatory self-emptying, not a partial out-pouring. The ethical opposite of an erotic abduction. But also, a Christology of divine desire that reveals a particular kind of divine heartset.
This interpretation of Phil 2:6–8 is supported by Paul’s language for longing in 1:8. Paul is conformed to Christ insofar as he shares or participates “in the visceral affections of Christ Jesus”. Instead of a desire to consume, Christ self-empties. Instead of sexual domination, Christ serves. Instead of self-serving violence, his way to union is self-giving service. And his conduct is exemplary for all who “are in Christ Jesus” (2:1, 5), as Paul and Epaphroditus show (in 1:8 and 2:26). There are a series of linguistic and thematic connections between 1:8–10 and 2:1–4, 12 (that brackets the Christ Hymn) and 4:1, that corroborate the case for thinking that the visceral longing in the former shows that Paul thought the latter a tale of Christ’s own visceral longing.
The final goal of the hymn’s Primary Narrative supports the notion that Christ’s incarnation is motivated by a visceral longing, like a lover’s, for humanity. Bearing in mind the common idea that those who receive the gods’ sexual advances become divine (Ariadne is deified by Dionysus, Europa by her abductor Zeus), Christ’s quasi-erotic longing for humanity in Phil 2:6–8 is fitting for a story in which Christ’s own divine self-transformation culminates in his deification of believers.
Paul’s “desire is to be with Christ” (Phil 1:23) and his expectation of a crown (4:1) further support the theory that the letter has a Christology of divine desire. In 1:23 ἐπιθυμία and σὺν … εἶναι likely have erotic or conjugal connotations. The divine Christ came to be with his people—with human beings, but not for a casual one-night stand. His longing is for a non-sexual, permanent communion, consummated in a heavenly, or eschatological, reality. On that day, Paul, like a lover or groom at a Greek wedding, will wear a crown. There may also be hints of the scriptural image of Yahweh as Israel’s lover in the “knowing Christ” of 3:8, 10 (cf. Hosea 2:19–20). Lastly, the way Paul mixes his metaphors in 3:12–14 suggests another instance of a conscious allusion to an erotic script. Alongside athletic imagery (cf. 1 Cor 9:24–27), in these verses Paul uses hunting or military language. That language, especially the pair of verbs διώκω and καταλαμβάνω appearalso in accounts of gods and mortal lovers pursuing the one for whom they long. Philippians 3:12 ἐφ᾿ ᾧ καὶ κατελήμφθην ὑπὸ Χριστοῦ may mean that Paul himself has been pursued by Christ (and captured), as one of those who are Christ’s beloved.