1.  This rendering (GNB) is probably original, although it is not found in the Greek manuscripts; it is preserved in some manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate and in medieval Provençal and German versions based on the Latin; see E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 474.

2.  For the full name see the Latin inscription from Philippi reproduced by M. N. Tod in Annual of the British School at Athens 23 (1918–19), p. 95, no. 21.

3.  Cicero, On the Agrarian Law 2.93.

4.  Herodotus, History 5.17f.

5.  Ibid., 7.173; 9.45.

6.  Ibid., 5.22; 8.137.

7.  Polybius, History 7.9.

8.  Ibid., 18.22–28.

9.  Ibid., 31.29.

10.  Livy, History 45.29.5ff.; cf. J. A. O. Larsen, Greek Federal States.

11.  Diodorus, History 32.9b, 15; Florus, Epitome 1.30.

12.  Florus, Epitome 1.32.3; cf. M. G. Morgan, “Metellus Macedonicus and the Province Macedonia,” Historia 18 (1969), pp. 422–46.

13.  Strabo, Geography 7.7.4. See, for a good popular account, F. O’Sullivan, The Egnatian Way.

14.  From A.D. 15 to 44 Macedonia was combined with Achaia to the south and Moesia farther north to form one imperial province (Tacitus, Annals 1.76.4; 1.80.1). An imperial province, unlike a senatorial province, required the presence of military units and was governed by a legate directly appointed by the emperor. See also F. Papazoglu, “Quelques aspects de l’histoire de la province Macédoine,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase, 2.7.1 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1979), pp. 302–69.

15.  Cf. F. F. Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians.

16.  The technical term for this quorum of ten men is minyān.

17.  Homer, Iliad 4.141f.

18.  Cf. W. W. Tarn and G. T. Griffith, Hellenistic Civilisation, pp. 98f.; W. D. Thomas, “The Place of Women in the Church at Philippi,” ExpT 83 (1971–72), pp. 117–20. See comment on 4:3 below.

19.  Cf. T. B. L. Webster, An Introduction to Menander (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1974), p. 191.

20.  Behind the Greek phrase translated “without a trial” (Acts 16:37) W. M. Ramsay discerned the Roman legal term re incognita, “without investigating the case” (St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, pp. 224f.).

21.  Testament of Joseph 8:4f. See W. K. L. Clarke, “St. Luke and the Pseudepigrapha,” JTS 15 (1914), p. 599; “The Use of the Septuagint in Acts,” BC 1.2 (London: Macmillan, 1922), pp. 77f.

22.  Epictetus, Dissertations 2.6.26.

23.  Euripides, Bacchae 447f., cf. 586ff.; see Origen, Against Celsus 2.34. On a recurring pattern followed in accounts of escapes from prison (cf. also Acts 5:19–23; 12:6–11) see R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Wundererzählungen (Leipzig: Teubner, 1906), pp. 120–122.

24.  Ignatius, To Polycarp 8:1.

25.  Polycarp, To the Philippians 13:2.

26.  Ibid., 1:1, 2.

27.  F. C. Baur, Paul: His Life and Works, vol. 2, pp. 45–79.

28.  W. M. L. de Wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die kanonischen Bücher des Neuen Testaments, p. 268.

29.  Baur, vol. 2, pp. 46–53.

30.  Ibid., p. 53.

31.  Ibid., p. 53.

32.  Ibid., p. 55.

33.  Ibid., pp. 56–58. See comment on 4:16.

34.  Ibid., pp. 58–64. The historical Flavius Clemens is mentioned by Dio Cassius, Hist. 67.14; Suetonius, Domitian 15.1. The full flowering of the Clement legend, which involves a confusion of Flavius Clemens with the apostolic father Clement of Rome, appears in the fourth-century Clementine Recognitions and Clementine Homilies.

35.  Cf. A. Q. Morton, “The Authorship of Greek Prose,” JRStatSoc series A 127 (1965), pp. 169–233; “The Authorship of the Pauline Corpus,” in The New Testament in Historical and Contemporary Perspective: Essays in Memory of G. H. C. Macgregor, ed. W. Barclay and H. Anderson, pp. 209–35; The Integrity of the Pauline Epistles (Manchester: Manchester Statistical Society, 1965); M. Levison, A. Q. Morton, and W. C. Wake, “On Certain Statistical Features of the Pauline Epistles,” Philosophical Journal 3 (1966), pp. 129–48.

36.  This was contested by T. W. Manson, who suggested that the imprisonment mentioned in Phil. 1:7, 13f., 17, was Paul’s imprisonment in Philippi (Acts 16:23–39) or a brief period in custody in Corinth pending his appearance before Gallio (Acts 18:12–17); he dated Philippians during Paul’s Ephesian ministry and judged that the imprisonment was a recent one, not one actually being endured at the time of writing (Studies in the Gospels and Epistles, pp. 149–67).

37.  Cf. the “Marcionite” prologue: “The Philippians are Macedonians. These, having received the word of truth, remained steadfast in the faith. The apostle commends them, writing to them from prison in Rome.”*

38.  Cf. A. Deissmann, “Zur ephesinischen Gefangenschaft des Apostels Paulus,” in Anatolian Studies Presented to Sir W. M. Ramsay, ed. W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder, pp. 121–27; P. Feine, Die Abfassung des Philipperbriefes in Ephesus; W. Michaelis, Die Gefangenschaft des Paulus in Ephesus; Der Brief des Paulus an die Philipper, J. H. Michael, The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians; G. S. Duncan, St. Paul’s Ephesian Ministry; “A New Setting for Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians,” ExpT 43 (1931–32), pp. 7–11; “Were Paul’s Imprisonment Epistles Written from Ephesus?” ExpT 67 (1955–56), pp. 163–66; “Paul’s Ministry in Asia—The Last Phase,” NTS 3 (1956–57), pp. 211–18.

39.  CIL III. 6085, 7135, 7136.

40.  E. Lohmeyer, Der Brief an die Philipper, pp. 3f., 38–49; also L. Johnson, “The Pauline Letters from Caesarea,” ExpT 68 (1956–57), pp. 24–26; J. J. Gunther, Paul: Messenger and Exile, pp. 98–107; J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, pp. 60f., 77–79.

41.  Pilate’s occasional headquarters in Jerusalem are referred to as the praetorium in Mark 15:16; John 18:28, 33; 19:8.

42.  B. Reicke (“Caesarea, Rome and the Captivity Epistles,” in W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin, eds., Apostolic History and the Gospel, pp. 277–86), who argues for the Caesarean provenance of the other captivity epistles but for the Roman provenance of Philippians, thinks that “it was impossible for the readers to misunderstand the reference to Rome and Nero’s clients” in this greeting; he compares the mention in six Roman inscriptions (CIJ 284, 301, 338, 368, 416, 496) of the synagogue of the Augustenses, “the imperial freedmen” (p. 285). Compare comment and additional note ad loc.

43.  See Duncan, St. Paul’s Ephesian Ministry, pp. 80, 81.

44.  See W. M. Ramsay, “Roads and travel (in NT),” in HDB 5, pp. 375–402 (especially p. 385).

45.  See the itinerary in Acts 20:6–16.

46.  C. H. Dodd, “The Mind of Paul: II,” in New Testament Studies, p. 97.

47.  Manson, Gospels and Epistles, p. 157.

48.  Compare Dodd, New Testament Studies, pp. 97, 98.

49.  They were raised sporadically at an earlier date: one of the first scholars to point to the problems posed by the accepted unity of the letter was S. Le Moyne, Varia Sacra (Leiden: Daniel à Gaesbeeck, 1685), vol. 2, pp. 332–43.

50.  G. Bornkamm, “Der Philipperbrief als paulinische Briefsammlung” in W. C. van Unnik, ed., Neotestamentica et Patristica, pp. 192–202. See also F. W. Beare, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, pp. 4, 149–57; B. D. Rahtjen, “The Three Letters of Paul to the Philippians,” NTS 6 (1959–60), pp. 167–73; W. Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, pp. 67–81.

51.  See Beare, Philippians, p. 150. Rahtjen, “The Three Letters,” p. 170, argues that Epaphroditus had already been sent back to Philippi when Paul wrote 2:25–30—that Paul says not “I am all the more eager to send him” (2:28) but “I sent him therefore the more eagerly” (the tense of epempsa [send] indicating an event in past time.)

52.  Dodd, New Testament Studies, pp. 80–82.

53.  Manson, Gospels and Epistles, pp. 163, 164.

54.  With this mild but scholarly expression of reproach F. G. Kenyon was accustomed to put down some literary-critical hypotheses (as in The Bible and Modern Scholarship [London: John Murray, 1948], p. 37). But that such a breach did occasionally happen is shown by the (practically certain) insertion of the later “Constitution of Draco” into the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens, of which Kenyon produced the first printed edition in 1891.

55.  So Beare, Philippians, pp. 24, 25.

56.  So Bornkamm, “Der Philipperbrief als paulinische Briefsammlung,” p. 195; also (earlier) J. E. Symes, “Five Epistles to the Philippians,” The Interpreter 10 (1913–14), pp. 167–70.

57.  So Rahtjen, “The Three Letters,” pp. 171, 172. He, however, regards 3:2–4:9 as a later letter, which “follows the classical pattern of the Testament of a dying father to his children.”

58.  W. G. Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 237. The unity of the letter is defended also by B. S. Mackay, “Further Thoughts on Philippians,” NTS 7 (1960–61), pp. 161–70; V. P. Furnish, “The Plan and Purpose of Philippians iii,” NTS 10 (1963–64), pp. 80–88; T. E. Pollard, “The Integrity of Philippians,” NTS 13 (1966–67), pp. 57–66; R. Jewett, “The Epistolary Thanksgiving and the Integrity of Philippians,” NovT 12 (1970), pp. 40–53.

*  Chiasmus is a figure of speech by which parallel terms in adjacent clauses or sentences are placed in reverse order (e.g., “he created them male and female/male and female created he them”).

*  In a conditional sentence the “if” clause is called the protasis and the principal clause is called the apodosis. For example, “If he goes (protasis), he will come back (apodosis).” resurrection, as he emphasizes (cf. 3:21); but he does insufficient justice to Paul’s bridging of the hiatus between death and resurrection in 2 Cor. 5:1–10. See A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, pp. 90–100, 109–13; L. S. Thornton, Christ and the Church, pp. 137–40; F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit, pp. 309–13.

*  In a conditional sentence the “if” clause is called the protasis and the principal clause is called the apodosis. For example, “If he goes (protasis), he will come back (apodosis).” resurrection, as he emphasizes (cf. 3:21); but he does insufficient justice to Paul’s bridging of the hiatus between death and resurrection in 2 Cor. 5:1–10. See A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, pp. 90–100, 109–13; L. S. Thornton, Christ and the Church, pp. 137–40; F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit, pp. 309–13.

*  A hendiadys is a figure of speech in which a single idea is expressed by means of two terms joined by “and.” For example, “with might and main.”