Criswell Theological
Review 2.2 (1988) 269-289.
Copyright © 1988 by The
THE AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 2:6-11: SOME
LITERARY-CRITICAL
OBSERVATIONS
DAVID ALAN
BLACK
Grace Theological Seminary West,
I. Introduction
0n
April 15, 1981, the journalistic world was scandalized when it
was discovered that Janet Cooke, a reporter for the
Washington Post,
had fabricated her Pulitzer Prize-winning story
about an 8-year old
heroin addict she called "Jimmy."1
Editors everywhere began promis-
ing reform and insisting
that no story would be published unless they
or their subordinates knew the identity of every
unnamed source.
However,
such policies are invariably much easier to enunciate than
they are to enforce, and violations have continued
to plague the news
reporting industry.
Virtually everyone who is in touch
with the news media is famil-
iar with the problem. Each
day news stories are published or broad-
cast that either use or are based on unnamed
sources. Observations
are attributed, variously, to "leading critics,"
"a Western diplomat," "a
State
Department official," "a senior Administration spokesperson," or
other "official" sources. The unfortunate
reader or viewer is left with
no clues whatsoever as to the credibility of the
statements that follow,
nor is he alerted to the source's motives for
seeking anonymity. It is a
problem, one supposes, the news-seeking public
will have to face
forever.
1 See “
16,
1981) 1:1. Cooke later told Phil Donahue that she made up the story because she
had spent two month looking for such a person and
felt she had to justify her time (cf.
NY Times (January 29, 1982J
18:1).
270
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
Although the matter of trying to
isolate and identify the sources
of a literary composition is more complicated in
an ancient document
like the NT than it is in a modern news story, the
same questions may
be asked of each: Does the document in fact have a
source behind it,
and if so, what is the identity of that source?
These questions are two
obvious and central concerns of source
criticism, an important method
of biblical interpretation that seeks to determine
a source's presence
and identity.2 In its attempt to move
from literary analysis to histori-
cal appraisal, source criticism is a perfectly
legitimate tool. It is be-
coming increasingly recognized, however, that modern
source critics
are occasionally too prone to rely on sources that
they can neither
isolate nor identify. Claiming to have detected
traditional material in
the NT documents, but not being able or willing to
support their
claims, they leave their readers wondering whether
their "sources" are
any more credible than those of Janet Cooke.
The student of Paul will immediately
see the application of what
has been said to the so-called pre-Pauline NT
hymns. The famous
Christological
song in Phil 2:6-11 is a case in point. In recent times the
balance of opinion has sided decisively against
Pauline authorship of
the hymn on the basis of an absence in it of
Pauline words and ideas.
This
problem is alleged to be overcome by the theory that the apostle
incorporated into his letter an
early hymn written by another author.
Who
this person may have been is never clearly stated, nor is there
any unanimity on the question of the exact
structure of the hymn
before Paul took it over and gave it its final form.
Nevertheless, the
bewildering variety of proposals in these areas has
not lessened belief
in the pre-Pauline origin of the passage. Only a
few still maintain that
Paul
composed the original hymn, and their numbers seem to be
diminishing.3
Despite the modern consensus of
opinion in support of a pre-
Pauline
origin4 of Phil 2:6-11, the arguments against Pauline author-
2 For a concise
description of source criticism, see D. J. Harrington,
Interpreting
the New Testament (Wilmington, Delaware: Glazier, 1979) 56-69.
3 The most thorough-going
advocacy of Pauline authorship is that of J. M. Furness,
"The Authorship of Phil 2, 6-11," ExpT 70 (1959)
240-43.
Scholars who favor apostolic
authorship include L. Cedaux,
Christ in the Theology of St Paul (
Herder,
1959) 283-84; W. D. Davies, Paul and
Rabbinic Judaism (2nd ed.;
SPCK,
1955) 41-42, 355; G. V. Jones, Christology
and Myth in the New Testament
(London:
Allen & Unwin, 1956) 66, n. 2; S. Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel (WUNT
2/4;
The many advocates of a pre-Pauline
origin of the hymn are ably represented by
R.
P. Martin, Carmen Christi: Philippians
2:5-11 in Recent Interpretation and in the
Setting of Early
Christian Worship
(Rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983).
4 The so-called
interpolation theory, which regards the hymn as non-Pauline and
therefore a later insertion, will not be dealt
with in this paper (however, for a repre-
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHIUPPIANS. 271
ship have been simply repeated without anything new
being added to
the evidence. Recent studies have concentrated
their efforts on at-
tempts to isolate these verses and arrange them into
strophes or on
conjectures that reconstruct the setting and
theology of the originally
independent hymn.5 None of the arguments
against the authenticity
of the hymn, however, is considered insurmountable
by advocates of
Pauline authorship. My purpose in this
article is to review the argu-
ments, pro et con, that have led to this stalemate in argumentation,
and then to call attention to some overlooked
literary factors that I
believe point to the Pauline origin of the hymn.6
I wish to make it
clear at the outset that my investigation does not
proceed from a bias
against Source-critical work on the Pauline
epistles per se. In principle
I
have no objection whatever to this method. Nevertheless, if it can be
shown that the Source of the hymn was Paul himself,
then the door
should be closed on a specious argument in which
accumulated refer-
ences to a supposed
pre-Pauline origin of Phil 2:6-11 are used to
increase the probability of hypothetical Sources
for other hymnic
passages, in the Pauline corpus.
II. Arguments Against Pauline Authorship
A major argument against the Paulinity of the hymn is the dif-
ferent tone that distinguishes
it from its context. Martin calls atten-
tion to "the way in
which it breaks into the continuity of the
sentative of this view, see R. W.
Hawkins, The Recovery of the Historical
Paul [New
"written by one who could not accept the reality of a genuine
incarnation" [p. 252]).
Such
a theory, in the words of D. Guthrie, "does not warrant serious attention
since it is
entirely lacking in manuscript support and no
satisfactory solution can be proposed
which facilitated the interpolation of so large a
section subsequent to publication"
(New Testament Introduction [
5 See, e.g., H. W. Bartsch, Die konkrete Wahrheit und die Luge der Spekullztion:
Untersuchung iiber den vorpaulinischen
Christushymnus und seine gnostische
Mythi-
sierung (Frankfurt: Lang,
1974); J. Coppens, "Une
nouvelle structuration de 1'hymne
christologique de 1'epftre aux Philippiens," ETL
43 (1967) 197-202; B. Eckman, "A
Quantitative Metrical Analysis of the
Philippians' Hymn," NTS 26
(1980) 258-66; M.
Meinertz,
"Zum Verstandnis des Christus-hymnusPhil. 2, 5-11," TTZ 61 (1952) 186-92;
G.
Strecker, "Redaktion
und Tradition im Christushymnus.
Phil. 2, 6-11," ZNW 55
(1964)
63-78; C. H. Talbert, "The Problem of Pre-existence in Phil. 2:6-11,"
JBL 86
(1967) 141-53.
6 Our discussion of
literary structure will focus mainly on Phil 1:12-2:30. Thus,
issues relating to the unity of the letter lie beyond
our immediate concern. Neverthe-
less, many of the same arguments used to support the
integrity of Philippians have a
bearing upon the question at hand; see D. E.
Philippians. Some Neglected Literary
Factors," NovT
27 (1985) 141-73, for these
arguments.
have used his study as a paradigm for my analysis of
2:6-11.
272
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
surrounding verses by interposing an elaborate
Christological digres-
sion, which. . . seems to be
too fulsome and ornate for an illustration
coined on the spur of the moment."7 It
does appear that Paul turns
unexpectedly from a spontaneously
composed Mahnrede
concerning
the Philippians' spiritual health in 1:27-2:4 to a
highly structured
tribute to the Church's Lord in 2:6-11 without
an appropriate transi-
tion. In form, as in substance,
the passage has all the characteristics of
a hymn or poem, and must have been composed
deliberately with
this end in view. We are thus suddenly and
unexpectedly transported
from the plane of ethics to the realm of
Christology, and in particular
to the question of the nature of Christ's
pre-existence.8 This apparent
fissure in the letter has consequently led to
the hypothesis that an in-
dependent Abschnitt has
been inserted at this point. Thus E. Lohmeyer
describes the verses as "a self-contained carmen Christi,"9 while
Hunter
writes of the hymn as resembling "a 'purple patch' stitched
into the fabric of the exhortation."10
E. F. Scott adds that the passage
appears to be all out of proportion to Paul's
subject. His admonition
against the personal quarrels that have
disturbed the harmony of the
Philippian church hardly justifies the remarkable
comparison between
Christ's
self-emptying and the ambition of the little cliques at
Would
not a few gentle words of reproof have sufficed?11
The con-
clusion drawn from this is that
Paul must have here inserted a Chris-
tian song with which his
readers would perhaps be familiar, and
which expressed his own ideas more forcefully than he
could do
himself. Thus Martin concludes: "We are on
firm ground in stating
that Philippians ii. 6-11 represents a hymnic specimen, taken over by
Paul as a paradosis from some early
Christian source."12
A second argument against the
Pauline authorship of the hymn is
based on the presence in it of an impressive number of
key words
that are not found elsewhere in the authentic
Pauline literature or else
are used with a different meaning. Three words (a[pargmo<j,
u[per-
uyou?n,
kataxqo<nioj) do not occur elsewhere
in the NT, and the first
7 Martin, Carmen Christi, 45. Cf. P. Grelot ("Deux notes
critiques sur Philippiens
2,
6-11,” Bib 54 [1973] 169): "Les
vv. 6-11 forment un ensemble dont
la construction
litteraire est
tres soignee. On y reconnait a bon droit un hymne liturgique. . . . Son
caractere rythme
et poetique contraste d'emblee avec le verset qui
precede; il suggere
que Paul utilise un morceau preexistant."
8 Cf. P. Benoit,
"Preexistence et incarnation," RB
77 (1970) 5-29;. Talbert, "The
Problem of Pre-existence," 141-53.
9 E. Lohmeyer,
Kyrios Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zu Phil. 2, 5-11
(
Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1928) 7.
10 A.
M. Hunter, Paul and His Predecessors
(London: SCM, 1961) 42.
11 E. F. Scott, "The
Epistle to the Philippians," IB
11.46-47.
12
Martin, Carmen Christi, xxxiv.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 273
of these is extremely rare in secular Greek. The
noun morfh< is other-
wise attested only once in the NT (Mark 16:12). The
question arises, if
the hymn is Pauline, would Paul have used so many
unusual expres-
sions? As Martin reasons: “The
vocabulary test is impressive. . . since
so many words are non-Pauline, and NT hapax legomena.”13
In like
manner one can cite a number of important Pauline
words that the
author seems to use in a non-Pauline sense. For
instance, Paul uses
ke<nou?n four times elsewhere in
his writings (Rom 4:14; 1 Cor 1:17;
4:15;
2 Cor 9:3), but always sensu malo, in contrast to its meaning here
ip Phil 2:7. Other
examples include sxh?ma (which contains a different
meaning in 1 Cor 7:31)
and u[ph<kooj (which in the sense of
religious
obedience to God is without parallel in canonical
literature).14 All of
these observations seem to point to the conclusion
that the hymn was
originally a separate composition, written on a
different occasion by
someone other than Paul.
The disputants of Pauline authorship
can also appeal to the
absence in the hymn of themes normally
associated with Paul's
Christology and soteriology. For example, nothing is
said about the
resurrection, even where the author
has Christ's exaltation in mind.
The
author also shows no signs of holding the Pauline concept of
Christ's
death bearing a redemptive significance u[pe>r or peri> u[mw?n.15
As
A. M. Hunter notes, “Here humanity is not redeemed, but sub-
iected to the new kyrios."16 Furthermore,
the use of xari<zesqai with
respect to Christ is unparalleled in the Pauline
writings, which tend to
express the conception of Christ's exaltation
with other words.17 Fi-
nally, the hymn depicts--uncharacteristically
for Paul--Jesus as Lord
not of the Church but of the universe. Thus the
theology of the hymn
contains characteristics that point to the
author's use of materials that
were already at hand. It seems clear, moreover, that
the author of the
letter did not incorporate the hymn without alteration.
In particular,
Lohmeyer was convinced that the line qana<tou
de> staurou? was a later
addition to the original version of the hymn,
added by the apostle
himself as an interpretative comment.18
In his rejection of qana<tou de>
13 R.
P. Martin, Philippians (NCB; Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 113.
14 In the NT, obedience
to men is usually in view (e.g., to Moses, Acts 7:39; to
Paul
himself, 2 Cor 2:9).
15 Martin, Carmen Christi, 49; D. M. Stanley,
"The Theme of the Servant of
Yahweh
in Primitive Christian Soteriology and its
Transposition by
(1954) 423.
16
Hunter, Paul, 42 (his emphasis).
17 For a discussion of
Christ's exaltation as pictured in the hymn, see Martin,
Carmen Christi, 229-48.
18 Lohmeyer,
Kyrios Jesus, 4-13.
274 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
staurou? Lohmeyer
is not alone; Martin notes that the words are
"generally acceded to be Paul's hand and to break whatever
metrical
symmetry the various patterns yield."19
Originally, then, the reference
was to Christ's obedience and self-giving, i.e.,
merely to his death.
However,
inserting "even the death of the cross," the author of the
letter qualifies Jesus' death as the saving event and
so builds a bridge
from the incarnation-exaltation scheme of the hymn
to the Pauline
cross--resurrection scheme.20
A final argument against the
apostolic authorship of the hymn is
the contention of V. Taylor, following P. Bonnard, that the Servant of
the Lord theology of Phil 2:6-11 is pre-Pauline. Bonnard says:
One can understand the Christologies of Paul and of the Fourth Gospel
as
developments of these verses, but hardly as formulations leading up
to those of
the hymn. After the Pauline Epistles and the Johannine
writings
our verses would have had difficulty in finding their place in the
development
of primitive Christianity.21
ship of the passage,"22 while R. H.
Fuller categorically states that
"Paul
never makes use of the Servant language, except where he
is quoting tradition which he has received from
pre-Pauline Chris-
tianity."23 It is assumed,
therefore, that the apostle himself would
hardly allude to the Servant teaching in Philippians.
If Paul was
quoting a traditional formulation, however, the
allusion to Isaiah 53
would be more understandable.
III. Counter Arguments For
Pauline Authorship
The question of Pauline style will
be taken up below in greater
detail, but it may be said at this point that none of
the arguments that
appeal to Paul's poetic abilities has solved the
riddle of authorship. It
is not for want of trying, however. In particular
it is argued that if
1
Corinthians 13 and Rom 8:35-39 are authentic Pauline compositions,
and few modern scholars doubt that they are, their
close stylistic
connection with the
favor of the latter's authenticity. Pauline
authorship here, as well as
19
Martin, Philippians, 111.
20 Ibid.,
115.
21 P. Bonnard, L'epitre aux Philippiens (CNT 10; Paris: Niestle,
1950) 48.
22 V. Taylor, The Person of Christ in New Testament Teaching
(
millan, 1958) 63.
23 R. H. Fuller, The
1954) 57.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 275
elsewhere, it is urged, should automatically be
assumed on stylistic
grounds until it is disproved.24
However, this kind of argumentation is
purely subjective and has no basis in the text itself.
Appeals to hym-
nodic language in other
passages fail to convince since these other
texts are not true parallels to Phil 2:6-11, a
passage in which Paul is
writing from another viewpoint and purpose.
Perhaps the hymn in
it is debatable whether the original form of Col 1:15-20
was appro-
priated from tradition, or
whether the author of the letter composed
these verses himself--i.e., precisely the same
problem facing us in
Phil
2:6-11.
But the issue of subjectivity cuts
both ways, and many scholars
have noted that those holding to a pre-Pauline
source are just as
unscientific and subjective since
their conclusions are no less hypo-
thetical and unverifiable. G. F.
Hawthorne, for example, while cau-
tiously espousing a pre-Pauline
view, warns of the subjective nature
of some of the theories of those who deny
apostolic authorship:
The necessity of omitting words and
phrases, or altering expressions to
make the
strophes come out right according to some preconceived
notion of
what they should be, makes one suspicious of the whole
procedure
and causes one to ask whether this is not just some sort of
game that
scholars play.25
Others have rightly asked whether
the whole source-critical approach
to the problem of the NT hymns does not suffer
from a radical defect
by its adherence to a one-sided "anti-Pauline"
methodology. No one
has put this better than S. Kim:
The search for pre-Pauline formulae
seems to have gone too far, and, if
it
progresses at the present rate, one wonders whether before long all the
sentences
written in exalted language and style in the Pauline corpus will
not be
declared pre-Pauline, just as some critics in 19th [sic] c. managed
to declare
that all the letters of the Pauline corpus were non-Pauline.26
Kim's
caution, though undoubtedly overstated, should serve as a
moderating influence lest NT scholarship put too
much weight on
source-critical arguments of an obvious
subjective nature. Kim has
24 According to Scott
("Philippians," 47), Paul’s poetic ability, known "from a
number of splendid outbursts in his epistles,"
points to apostolic authorship. Likewise,
Cerfaux (Christ,
376) writes: "Is this in any way less typical of
to charity in 1 Cor.
13?" And Furness ("Authorship," 242) notes: "That Paul had
fine
literary gifts none would deny, and in the
leisurely composition of the Captivity
Epistles
they would find their full and natural expression."
25 G.
F. Hawthorne, Philippians (Waco:
Word, 1983) 77.
26 Kim, Origin, 149.
276
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
shown that the process of assigning traditional
material--whether
confessional, kerygmatic,
liturgical, hymnodic, or catechetical--to
Paul's
Christian predecessors is at best a suggestive procedure and at
worst an arbitrary and destructive undertaking.27
The application of
source criticism to the NT has been fruitful in
demonstrating that the
authors stood in continuity as well as
discontinuity with their pre-
decessors and contemporaries both
within and without the early
church.28 Hence the excessive
zeal that leads critics to declare this or
that passage as pre- or non-Pauline often undermines
an approach
that in principle is a valid method of biblical
criticism.29
As for arguments based on the text
itself, nothing requires the
conclusion that Paul is quoting a pre-Pauline hymn
in Phil 2:6-11.
Turning
first to the matter of hapax legomena,
"there are other passages in the Pauline Epistles of equal
length in
which as many words of the kind can be found."30
Furness points us
to the text of 1 Corinthians 13, which contains
three words (a]la-
la<zein, xrhsteu<esqai, perpereu<esqai)
that do not occur elsewhere in
the NT, and three (xalko<j,
parocu<nein, e@soptron) that occur else-
where in the NT only in non-Pauline texts.31
Therefore, the appeal to
hapax legomena is inconclusive.
Furthermore, unusual vocabulary
may only reflect the particular theme under
discussion; thus one must
27 Kim,
Origin, passim. In my
judgment, Kim offers an important warning about
the subjectivity involved in source criticism, but
his case for the almost total rejection
of source-critical hypotheses goes too far. To
begin with, his argument is apparently
based on an a priori bias against such theorizing, a
bias that few NT scholars would
share. Another major problem with Kim's argumentation
is methodological. Kim rightly
criticizes the over-reliance of scholarship on
subjective types of argumentation, but
fails to offer a satisfactory alternative method of criticism.
Nevertheless, Kim's objec-
tions to the independent
existence of the hymn demand more than the perfunctory
dismissal given them by Martin in the preface to
the 1983 edition of Carmen Christi
(xxxiv):
"Recent attempts, notably the one by S. Kim, to support a Pauline
authorship
of this passage have not seemed impressive and
have not faced the cumulative argu-
ments referred to in
Philippians, p. 113." Surely the hermeneutical problem addressed
by Kim is an issue of greater consequence for NT
interpretation than Martin allows.
28 Hunter (Paul, 9) himself admits that
"Paul's is a highly original and seminal
mind," and that "on occasion. . . he
definitely protests his spiritual independence of his
apostolic predecessors."
29 See the perceptive
discussion by R. Strimple, "Philippians 2:5-11
in Recent
Studies: Some Exegetical Conclusions," WTJ 41 (1979) 246-68. Strimple
shows why
opting for non-apostolic authorship "is not an
innocuous decision" (p. 250).
30 Taylor, The Person of Christ, 63. Cf. G. B. Caird (The Apostolic
Age [
Duckworth,
1955] 114): "It is true that the passage contains three hapax legomena and
one word. ..used in an
unusual sense. But one of the hapax legomena is a compound
word of the kind that Paul delighted to create. . . .
Moreover, Philippians has a higher
proportion of hapax legomena than any other Pauline
Epistle."
31 Furness,
"Authorship," 241.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF PHILIPPIANS
277
ask whether there were any better or more natural
terms at the
writer's disposal to express what he desired, or
whether there are any
words used here that Paul himself could not have
used. The occur-
rence of kenou?n is perhaps the hardest to reconcile with
Pauline
thought, but the explanation given by
the term in keeping with Paul's theology elsewhere.32
On the other
hand, it should not be overlooked that the hymn
contains several
words that, taken at face value, seem faithfully to
reflect the apostle's
characteristic ideas and spirit (e.g.,
o[moi<wma, which appears in Rom
1:23;
5:14; 6:5; 8:3, and elsewhere only in Rev 9:7; and the passive of
eu[ri<skein, which occurs in Rom
7:10; 1 Cor 4:2; 15:5; 2 Cor
5:3; 11:.12;
Gal
2:17; Phil 3:9). The argument from vocabulary can also be charged
with neglecting the important fact that the language
of hymnody
tends to be cryptic by its very nature; it is the
language of poetry, in
which one would expect to find an unusual word or
phrase used to
heighten the effect.33
More significant for the issue at
hand is the growing distrust of
the statistical analysis of literary vocabulary in
the determining of
authorship. It is notoriously difficult to devise
any certain criteria for
the examination of style, for the area of
comparison is so restricted
that the results are sure to be misleading. Quite
often subjective
impressions based upon Pauline style receive greater
stress than justi-
fied. With reference to the
question of the authenticity of the Pastoral
Epistles,
for example, Metzger has called attention to the basic limita-
tions that are involved in
statistical studies. The questions he raises
can be asked with equal benefit of those who regard
Phil 2:6-11 as
pre-Pauline:34
1.
How long must a treatise be in order to provide an adequate
sample of style?
2.
How different can the analysis of two texts be before they raise
serious doubt that they have a common author?
3.
What allowances should be made for matters of (a) subject matter
and (b) literary
form?
32
e[auto>n
e]ke<nwsen.
33 On the unusualness of
poetic language and the significance of rhetorical criti-
cism, see E. A. Nida, J. P: Louw, A. H. Snyman, J. v. W. Cronje, Style and Discourse,
With Special Reference
to the Text of the Greek New Testament (
Bible
Societies, 1983) 66-68.
34 B. M. Metzger, “A
Reconsideration of Certain Arguments against the Pauline
Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles,” ExpT 70 (1958)
93.
For a more recent discussion,
see P. Trudinger,
"Computers and the Authorship of the Pauline Epistles," Faith and'
Freedom 39 (1986) 24-27.
278
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
4.
Is it correct to assume automatically that two works are necessarily
mote similar if
they are by the same author than if they were not?
Because
the answers to these questions are so tentative and subjective,
Metzger
wisely advocates "a discreet reticence"35 in the use of lin-
guistic arguments. It is, of
course, open to anyone to express the opin-
ion that Paul could not have written the hymn on
stylistic grounds,
but the evidence does not demand this view. It may,
in fact, be
regarded as evidence of Paul's versatility in
writing. Thus, this objec-
tion could carry weight only
if it could be shown that Paul could not
have used the new words in question. In my view,
this cannot be
substantiated.36
Those who argue for the complete
lack of connection between
the hymn and the rest of the letter must also
reckon with the con-
tinuity of themes that point to
their unity. The most interesting links
are found in 3:20-21, a section that contains
numerous lexical and
conceptual parallels to 2:6-11.37
2:6,
7 morf^?, morfh<n 3:21 su<mmorfon
2:6
u[pa<rxwn 3:20 u[pa<rxei
2:7
sxh<mati 3:21 metasxhmati<sei
2:8
e]tapei<nwsen 3:21 tapeinw<sewj
2:10
e]pourani<wn 3:20 e]n
ou]ranoi?j
2:10
i!na . . . pa?n
go<nu ka<my^ 3:21 u[pota<cai au]t&? ta> pa<nta
2:11
ku<riioj ]Ihsou?j Xristo<j 3:20 ku<rion ]Ihsou?n Xristo>n
2:11
do<can 3:21 th?j
do<chj au]tou?
What
is especially significant about these parallels is that so many of
them belong to the “non-Pauline” language of the
nymn.38 Martin
discounts these parallels by arguing that 2:6-11
and 3:20-21 derive
from the same "pre-Pauline, credal,
or liturgical origin;" a fact that
"would unite them and explain their common terminology and
similar
thought forms."39 However, this
argument was forcefully refuted by
R.
Gundry, who notes that not only do the terms appear with a
different application but also that many important
terms in one are
absent in the other.40 This seems to
suggest, not that Phil 3:20-21
35 Metzger, "A Reconsideration," 94.
36 CE.
Furness, "Authorship," 241.
37 On these parallels,
see N. Flanagan, "A Note on Philippians iii. 20-21," CBQ 18
(1956)
8-9;
Tradition,"
74-77.
38 See
39
Martin, Philippians, 150. .
40 See R. Gundry, Soma in Biblical Theology with Emphasis on
Pauline Anthro-
pology (SNTSMS 29; Cambridge:
University Press, 1976) 177-83, esp. 178;
"Composition and Unity'," 158-59.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 279
is a pre-Pauline hymn that the apostle is quoting,
as for example
Guttgemanns has argued,41
but rather that in 3:20-21 Paul is deliber-
ately recalling the
vocabulary of 2:6-11. Kim therefore concludes:
"Precisely
because of the parallels Phil 3:20 f. can be used for the
view that Phil 2:6-11 is Pauline."42
The case for the non-Paulinity of the hymn is weakened further
by the glaring failure of its proponents to reach
a concensus about the
source of the original hymn. Martin has spotlighted a
number of
different life-settings that have been thought to
explain the origin
of the hymn.43 Some scholars favor an
Aramaic or Hebrew original, of
which 2:6-ll was merely a translation. Others trace
the hymn to
Jewish
Gnosticism, to Hellenistic Gnosticism, and even to the Iranian
myth of the Heavenly Redeemer. A mediating view has
been sug-
gested by D. Georgi44
and Martin himself,45 who seek to trace the
hymn to Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom. But the fact is
that none of these
approaches has yet won universal acceptance. This
alone should raise
a question about the credibility of the
hypothesis. Writes
"The
multitude of suggestions about sources of the hymn. . .
only
serve to send one off in pursuit of a question
impossible to answer."46
Moreover,
even if one could clearly demonstrate the existence of a
pre-Pauline paradosis underlying the hymn in Phil 2:6-11, this would
still not rule out Pauline authorship. As J.-F. Collange states it:
No one doubts that Christianity was
the melting-pot which produced
a fusing of
all kinds of influences the traces of which are indirectly
revealed by
our hymn. But it is not just the matter of traces, and the
alloy which
comes from the crucible has a character sui generis; the
hymn is not
primarily a Christianised copy of prior speculations;
it is an
original
and profound reflection on the Church's
confession of faith and
on its
implications for traditional theology
using, of course, intellectual
and
religious material which the author may have had at his disposal.47
41 E. Guttgemanns,
Der leidende Apostel una sein
Herr (FRLANT 90;
Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1966) 241-47.
42 Kim, Origin, 152.
43
Martin, Philippians, 112-13.
44 D. Georgi, Die Gegner des Paulus im 2. Korintherbrief (Neukirchen: Neu-
kircherner Verlag,
1964) 292-93.
45
Martin, Philippians, 113.
46
Hawthorne, Philippians, 79.
Ct. M. D. Hooker ("Philippians 2, 6-11," Jesus una
Paulus [eds. E. E. Ellis and E. Grasser;
152):
"If the passage [Phil 2:6-11] is pre-Pauline, then we have no guidelines
to help us
in understanding its meaning. Commentators may
speculate about the background--
but we know very little about pre-Pauline
Christianity, and nothing at all about the
context in which the passage originated."
47 J.-F.
Collange, The Epistle of
1979)
88 (his emphasis),
280
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
The
fact is that we do not know enough about primitive Christianity
to be confident in our isolation of traditional
materials in the Pauline
literature or to be dogmatic about our hypotheses
concerning possible
sources and influences. Thus as comprehensive explanations for the
background of the NT hymns, source-critical
hypotheses are inade-
quate and far too
insubstantial to draw from them any conclusions
about authorship.
As for the Servant of the Lord
teaching; it can be said that this
theological expression is not necessarily incompatible with the gen-
uine letters of Paul. On the
one hand, Taylor himself admits that "the
thought of the Servant undoubtedly lies in the
background of Romans
iv. 25 . . . and of Ephesians v. 2."48
0. Cullmann has
likewise called
into question the common assumption that the Servant
theology of the
hymn is foreign to Pauline thought, noting that
"in Rom. 5:12ff. Paul
makes use of ideas relative to the ebed Yahweh and his atoning
work."49 On the other hand, there
are several reasons that may explain
the relative neglect of the Servant teaching in
Pauline Christology.50
More
consideration should be given to the fact that the "theological
argument is radical" (as Furness says),51
and that "statistical state-
ments about word-occurrences
may often be superficial or even mis-
leading guides to the occurrence of actual
concepts" (as A. Thiselton
has written).52 Thus in the final
analysis conjectures that the hymn is
incongruous with uncontestable Pauline thought can
neither be proved
nor disproved.
Finally, the problem of an apparent
fissure in the letter at 2:6 is
rooted in some assumptions that also need not be true.
Though it is
usually assumed that the exalted language of
2:6-11 indicates their
traditional character, there is nothing in the text
itself that requires this
assumption. As Collange
notes, it is just as possible that Paul himself
composed the hymn at a time previous to his
writing of Philippians
and that he used it here because of the appropriate
subject matter:
48 V. Taylor, The Atonement in New Testament Teaching (
1958) 65.
49 O. Cullmann,
The Christology of the New Testament (London:
SCM, 1959) 79.
50 See the explanations
offered by
Markan
Passion Sayings," NTS 1 (1954)
159-67.
51 Furness,
"Authorship," 242. Martin himself has written (Carmen Christi, 56): "It
would be unnatural to ask that every truth about Him
and His work should be included
in one short tribute. The author would have to be
selective of his ideas, and this one
fact may go far to explain the omission of those
features which we find in undoubtedly
Pauline
works."
52 A. Thiselton,
"Semantics and New Testament Interpretation," New Testament
Interpretation (ed. I. H.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 281
If . . . regard is paid to the fact
that this passage comes to us only
interwoven
within a Pauline context--and how fully interwoven it is
with the
thread of the argument!--and that the coming of Christ in the
flesh. . . .
the specific reference to the Cross (v. 8) and the
rigorous
theocentrism (vv.9a, 11c) are also authentic Pauline
themes, then it
would be
ungracious to deny to the apostle the authorship of a hymn
which
perhaps reflects preoccupations of his youth to which the theo-
logian of the epistles was less partial.53
IV. Overlooked Literary Factors
It is my judgment that the arguments
against Pauline authorship
are insufficient to prove that the hymn is pre-
Pauline. The vocabulary
and theology are so compatible with genuine Pauline
thought that the
best hypothesis is also the simplest: Paul is the
author. Though this is a
minority view, it seems preferable to one that
postulates on the basis
of disputable conceptual and grammatical
discrepancies the existence
of hypothetical sources stemming from ambiguous
strands of tradi-
tion. Nevertheless, it must
be admitted that we face an impasse in the
debate unless new evidence can be introduced that will
tip the scale
even more clearly in favor of Pauline authorship. It
is my belief that
several overlooked clues to solving the puzzle
of authorship are avail-
able to us through an examination of the literary
structure of the
epistle. Identifying the presence of these
factors not only points to the
Paulinity of
2:6-11 but also sheds light on the. plan of the epistle.
The Use of Inclusio
The relationship between the
literary structure of a given book to
that book's theme is increasingly being recognized
as an important
aspect of NT research. What E. Grasser has written
about Heb 1:1-4
could be applied to almost every NT epistle:
For exegesis it is, I think, of the
greatest importance that one understand
that the
stylistic care and meticulously composed structure are a factor in
53 Collange,
Philippians, 92-93. In an earlier
study (“Paul and Christian Unity: A
Formal
Analysis of Philippians 2:1-4," JETS
28 [1985] 299-308) I proposed the thesis
that Phil 2:1-4 is a highly structured composition,
similar to the Christ hymn in several
ways. More specifically, I suggested that the
sections comprising 2:1-4 and 2:5-11 have
been tied together in form and message with at least
five literary connectors that are
discernible in the present form of the text. J. A.
Sanders, who likewise emphasizes the
unity of the Christ hymn with its present context, is
surely correct in stating: "Our debt
to Lohmeyer is great,
but we do not compliment or complement his work by ignoring
the integrity of vss. 1-11
as Paul penned them" ("Dissenting Deities and Philippians 2,
1-11," JBL
88 [1969] 290).
282
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
the
author's intention. We are therefore interested in the analysis of the
literary
structure not simply as something alongside of exegesis, but
precisely
as exegesis.54
While Grasser is referring only to
the opening verses of Hebrews, his
remarks apply equally well to the framework in
which the Philippian
hymn is found. Commentators have tried repeatedly to
explain the
exact connection between the structure of Philippians
and the Christ
hymn in 2:6-11. Much of the previous work contains
valid insights,55
but in my opinion several important links--both
structural and
literary--have been overlooked. One reason for
this neglect is the
tendency to divorce the hymn from its context.
Since these verses
deal with an important conception of Christology it
is perhaps in-
evitable that they will be at the center of any
discussion of Philip-
pians. As a consequence they
tend to receive undue attention from
scholars who are concerned with the exposition of
the epistle. For
example, a glance at the writings devoted to
Phil 2:1-11 is enough to
show that the studies pertaining to 2:5-11 are much
more weighty
than those devoted to 2:1-4.56 This is
not discreditable in itself, but
the lack of balance all too easily leads to a
regarding of the hymn and
its context as though they were two entirely
separate things. The way
to a comprehensive and more generally accurate
interpretation of the
hymn must lie in a proper combination or unification
of both hymn
and epistle, i.e., in seeking an explanation of the
hymn that is con-
sistent with, and adequately
related to, the context. Any interpretation
of the hymn that fails to do justice to the
context is misleading and
automatically, by definition, excluded.57
One such neglected factor in the
composition of Philippians is the
author's use of the rhetorical device known as inclusio to
indicate the
literary structure of his writing. By
"literary structure" I mean those
stylistic, verbal and thematic features that are
reflected in Paul's
composition and that serve as components from which
the discourse
54 E.
Grasser, "Hebraer I, 1-4. Ein exegetischer Versuch," Text
und Situation
(Gutersloh: Mohn, 1973) 183. I have attempted to make the same point in
"Hebrews
1:1-4:
A Study in Discourse Analysis," WTJ
49 (1987) 175-94; "The Problem of the
Literary Structure of Hebrews: An Evaluation and
a Proposal," GTJ 7 (1986) 177.
55 See esp. R. Russell,
"Pauline Letter Structure in Philippians," JETS 25 (1982)
292-306.
56 For instance,
includes but nine different entries (Philippians,
63). His bibliography on 2:5-11 takes up
205
lines of text (approximately four pages!) and includes 159 entries (pp. 71-75).
I am
indebted to one of my graduate students, Mr. Neil
Cole, for bringing these facts to my
attention.
57 Cf.
Black, "Paul and Christian Unity," 307-8.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 283
has been constructed. By "inclusio"
I mean the repetition of key
words to mark off literary units by restating at the
end what was said
at the beginning. Recent study has shown that the
section comprising
1:12-2:30
is among the most carefully structured in the entire epistle.58
The
clear use of inclusio
can be seen in the following chart:
Sub-section Inclusio
1:12-26
1:12 prokoph<n
1:25 prokoph<n
1:27-30
1:27 i]dw<n,
a]kou<w
1:30 ei@dete, a]kou<ete
2:1-18
2:2 xa<ran
2:17-18 xai<rw, sugxai<rw;
xairete, sugxairete
2:19-24
2:19 e]n
kuri<&, taxe<wj
2:24 e]n kuri<&, taxe<wj
2:25-30
2:25 leitourgo<n
2:30 leitourgi<aj
The
structure of 1:12-2:30 can also be said to represent a chiasmus:
A News about Paul's Imprisonment
(1:12-26)
B Instructions for the
Church (1:27-2:18)
Concerning
the Enemy Without (1:27-30)
Concerning the Enemy Within
(2:1-18)
A' News about Paul's Companions
(2:19-30)
Commendation of Timothy (2:19-24)
Commendation of Epaphroditus
(2:25-30)
What should we make of all this? The
repetition of key words in
the opening and concluding verses of each of these
subsections ex-
plodes the myth that
Philippians is an artless composition with little
attentiveness to structure.59
It discloses that Paul intended 1:12-30 to
be a carefully structured unit. Thus what appears
at first to be merely
"a kind of aimless chitchat"60 is instead a
coherent and purposeful
argument. After an opening introduction (1:3-11)
Paul gives news of
his own circumstances (1:12-26), the basic
significance of which is to
show that the events that he has experienced serve
for the ad-
vancement (prokoph<[n], 1:12, 25) of the
gospel. Paul lives for one
concern--to proclaim Christ. But this gospel has
its enemies and
58 See
59 Cf.
Russell, “Pauline Letter Structure;” 306.
60 Collange, Philippians, 5.
284
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
detractors, both outside of the church (1:27-30)
and within it (2:1-4).
So
Paul "trains his sights" (i]dw<n, 1:27) on the problem
of the church's
spiritual enemies with an exhortation to
steadfastness (1:27) and unity
(2:2).
In voluntary humility (2:3-4) the Christians at
away selfish ambition, just as Christ wanted nothing
for himself and
yet received everything from God (2:5-11). Then,
and only then, will
their joy--and Paul's--be made perfect (xa<ran, 2:2; xairw, sungai<rw,
xai<rete,
sugxai<rete, 2:17-18).
After dealing with his own
circumstances (1:12-26) and those of
his readers (1:27-2:18), Paul returns to his own
plans (2:19-30). If God
be pleased (e]n kuri<&, 2:19, 24) he will send Timothy to them shortly
(taxe<wj, 2:19) to precede
Paul's own speedy arrival (taxe<wj,
2:24). In
the meantime the Philippians' own representative (leitourgo<n, 2:25)
Epaphroditus, who had completed
their service (leitourgi<aj,
2:30) to
Paul, is to be returned (2:25-30). Yet this section
(2:19-30) is much
more than a mere travelogue. Paul ties it closely to
his exhortation to
humility and unity in 2:1-4: In contrast to those
who are consumed
with self-concern (ta>
e[autw?n zhtou<sin, 2:21; cf. 2:4, mh> ta>
e[autw?n
e!kastoj
skopou?ntej), these men are flesh and blood examples of the
same selfless attitude that characterized Christ
(2:6-11) and that Paul
now wants the church to emulate (2:5).
Thus the structure of 1:12-2:30 in
its entirety and in the inter-
relation of the individual subsections indicates
a literary unit marked
by cohesion and balance. It should be clear that
1:12-2:30 is a piece of
great technical skill, and that we are dealing with a
unit, and a unit
that has not been composed haphazardly. Rather than
having its
source in an already formed tradition, Phil 2:6-11
reflects the thought,
language and purpose of the section as a whole.
Thus, while it is
possible that 2:6-11 was an independent unit at
one time, it is difficult
to believe that the larger framework in which it
is found was made to
conform to it, rather than vice versa.
Perhaps someone will condemn this
kind of analysis as arguing in
a circle: The hymn cannot be understood before
one understands the
overall structure of the passage, and the
overall structure cannot be
understood as such except by an examination of the
hymn. My only
rebuttal is that all arguing, exegetical and
otherwise, is arguing in a
circle, within a system. The only question becomes, Who has drawn
the circle? Who has closed the system? My appeal is
simply for more
closed minds, more arguing in terms of Paul’s circle.61
To approach
the investigation of the hymn by isolating it from
the larger context of
61 See my "Paul and
Christian Unity," 307.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 285
the discourse is to obscure Paul's method of
developing and pre-
senting his argument and to
neglect the way in which that method
binds the discussion together by the use of verbal
and thematic
associations. Rather, Paul's use of
the hymn and the literary structure
of 1:12-2:30 are inseparable, and together both
structure and hymn
present a strong presumption that the latter was
originally composed
by Paul.
The Use of the Societas Concept
But 1:12-2:30 maintains a
cohesiveness in more ways than just
this. Another aspect of literary structure within
this unit of discourse is
related to the koinwni<a-theme that is so
prominent in the epistle. In an
important study, J. P. Sampley
has shown that koinwni<a in the Pauline
writings is closely connected with the Roman
legal concept of socie-
tas.62 Though his study has as
its primary aim the analysis of Paul's use
of the societas partnership as a model of Christian community, it
also
sheds light on the authorship and purpose of Phil
2:6-11. A societas
was a partnership between equal partners based on
their mutual
assent to a common purpose. In a societas, "each of the
partners
contributed something to the association with a view
toward a shared
goal."63 Thus each partner was
expected to make a contribution to
that purpose, and each partner could expect a share
of the resulting
profit.
Philippians shows that such a societas existed between Paul and
the Christians at Philippi.64 Together
they had formed a consensual
partnership in Christ for preaching the gospel
(4:15: "no church en-
tered into partnership [e]koinw<nhsen] with me . . . except
you only").
This
partnership involved, among other things, the matter of "giving
and receiving" (4:15). Thus Paul, contrary to
his otherwise prevalent
claims of financial independence, takes support from
one of the
churches that he has established. One of the reasons
Paul wrote to the
Philippians
is to acknowledge the gift they had sent with Epaphrodi-
tus. The last major section
in Philippians (4:10-20) is in fact a formal
receipt tendered by Paul to the Philippian Christians for their con-
tribution. So Paul thanks God for
their partnership (t^? koinwni<%
u[mw?n)
in the gospel from the beginning of his European
ministry to the
present time (1:3-5).
62 J. P. Sampley, Pauline
Partnership in Christ: Christian Community and Com-
mitment in Light of Roman Law (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980).
63 Ibid.,
11.
64 Ibid.,
51-77.
286 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
At the same time, however, Paul is
aware that the unity of a
societas can be threatened by
the failure of a partner to act according
to the established purpose of the association.
"As long as all the
partners are disposed in the same way, the contract
continues. Socie-
tas terminates with the
loss of unanimity, single-mindedness, among
the partners."65 As a consequence,
Paul uses the language of societas
in appealing to his readers for unity and mutual
love. In 2:1-4 he
condemns selfishness and conceit as being
fundamentally alien to the
societas. Instead, humility and
self-giving make possible their "being
of the same mind" (2:2). Paul then goes on to
ground these positive
virtues in the One who alone gave the societas birth
and who can
sustain it, namely, the Lord known for his
humble acts of service to
others. Thus the sketch of Christ's life and death in
2:6-11 is not given
simply out of a need to set forth Christ as an example
of humility and
love (as in the usual interpretation). Paul uses the
hymn to express the
way the Philippians were to live with one another
and with Paul in a
full partnership societas in Christ. Says Paul: If
all the Philippians will
abandon their pride and self-seeking and turn in
service to one an-
other, as Christ acted, then they will truly be of
one mind.
From the societas language of the letter
as described above we are
better able to understand the structure of 2:1-11 and
particularly the
purpose of 2:6-11. For Paul, to be of the same
mind (2:2) is to maintain
the commitment to the goal about which the societas was
established.
Thus
the occurrence of the societas
terminology in 2:1-4 expresses
Paul's
understanding of what is appropriate to the societas and what is
inappropriate to it. However, only
"in Christ" is societas
possible. In
Sampley's words, "The societas is indeed societas Christi."66 Thus it is
not surprising to find societas language in the section
just prior to the
hymn as well as in the hymn itself.
That the language of 2:1-11 reflects
the societas
motif suggests
that Paul is not merely quoting a traditional hymn
about Christ. On
the contrary, life together is described in 2:1-11
in such a way as to
suggest strongly the Pauline origin of both
subsections of which it is
comprised. We can now see why Paul omits any
reference to himself
as an apostle, as being "over" the
Philippians rather than one with
them (1:1). We can also see why Paul's exhortation
to Euodia and
Syntyche (4:2) is so emphatically worded, for he
understands these
women to be indispensable partners in the societas and in
the spread-
ing of the gospel for which
the societas
exists. In Paul's commenda-
65 Ibid.,
62.
66 Ibid.,
68.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 287
tion of Timothy (2:19-24) we
see yet another feature of societas. In
keeping with Roman law concerning a
representative in lieu of an
absent partner,67 Timothy is to go to
sending Timothy to the Philippians, Paul very
nearly sends his double,
like a son in place of a father."68
Finally, we have already noted that
the last part of Philippians (4:10-20) is
specifically prompted by their
offering and is Paul's receipt. In short, only
with the
was the societas so
firmly established that Paul could use the language
of partnership to conceptualize their mutual
relationship. While none
of these factors proves that the hymn in 2:6-11
was originally com-
posed by Paul, together they present a strong case
that it was. The
hymn fits the present context and theme so well that
it is very difficult
to see how it could be detachable.69
The Use of stauro<j
By now it is undoubtedly clear that
we have not sought to deal
with all of the issues raised by Phil 2:6-11 but
have instead attempted
to chart an exegetical thread through the epistle
in order to illuminate
Paul's use of the hymn. However, I would urge,
finally, that more
consideration be given to the view
that the words qana<tou de> staurou?
("even death on a cross") are a genuine part of the
already existing
hymn. This notion is not, of course, new. Collange has shown that
"the reference to the Cross is central and can perfectly well
be
retained in a number of viable schemes."70
While some would dispute
this latter point, there seems to be no compelling
reason to reject the
words merely because some scholars insist it is a
Pauline addition to
the hymn. As Hooker has written:
One of the difficulties is that the
passage [2:6-11] as we have it never
really fits
the pattern into which the commentators try to push it; they
therefore
excise certain lines as Pauline glosses. But there is a dangerous
circularity
in this kind of method; I suspect that often those who analyse
the lines
have decided which words are Pauline glosses before they start
their
poetic analysis.71
Moreover, it is hardly probably that
a primitive Christian hymn would
have consisted of
perfectly balanced lines and strophes. Rather, as
67 Ibid.,
89-91.
68 Ibid.,
90.
69 So also N. T. Wright, “a[rpagmo<j and the Meaning of
Philippians 2:5-11," JTS 37
(1986) 351-52.
70 Collange, Philippians,
84.
71
Hooker, "Philippians 2, 6-11," 157.
288
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
E.
Haenchen has suggested, the individual strophes of NT
hymns
probably differed a great deal in structure and
were composed in the
free rhythm of hymnic
prose.72
It would therefore follow that with
the words "even death on a
cross" the climax of Christ's abasement is
reached. Writes M. Dibelius:
The way in which the closing clause
emphasizes the cross indicates both
rythmically and objectively the last step in the
humiliation. So great was
Christ's humble renunciation of
divine horror that he [Paul] placed it last
on the
pillory.73
If,
then, the phrase qana<tou de> staurou? is an integral part of
the
hymn, then the argument that the hymn does not
contain the char-
acteristic Pauline soteriology completely falls down, for the idea of
substitutionary atonement is at least
implicit in the phrase (as those
critics who take the phrase as a Pauline gloss believe).74
V.
Conclusion
In this study I have attempted to
show that the arguments for the
Pauline
authorship of Phil 2:6-11 are more defensible than those for
the existence of documents or sources that ex hypothesi
are unprov-
able and whose presence are known only by inference.
It is insuffi-
cient merely to suppose that
Paul must have gotten the material from
someone else. If we want to argue this position,
we must first show
that this material belonged together in a document
or at least in a
source whose literary characteristics can be known
through some
means other than purely subjective impressions.
Since, however, noth-
ing compels the conclusion
that Paul himself could not have formu-
lated the hymn previously and
then included it in the work under
examination because of its relevance to the issue
being discussed, such
a procedure is unnecessary.
No doubt the problem of the
authorship of Phil 2:6-11 will
continue to be discussed and scholars will be
convinced one way or
the other partly by background, temperament and
predisposition.
Unfortunately,
the fundamental insistence upon the pre-Pauline origin
of the hymn has in our day become a consensus opinio.
This impres-
sive consensus must be given
its due weight. But we must also bear in
mind that a good deal of modern opinion appears to
be due more to
72 E. Haenchen, "Probleme des johanneischen 'Prologs'," ZTK 60 (1963) 309.
73 M. Dibelius,
An die Philipper
(HNT 11; Tiibingen: Mohr, 1925) 81.
74 See further, E. Lupien, "La morte di croce.
Contributi
per un'analisi di Fil. 2,
6-11,"
RivB 27
(1979) 271-311.
Black: AUTHORSHIP OF
PHILIPPIANS 289
the prevailing climate of thinking than to any new
evidence. It is
interesting to note that Furness, who held to
Pauline authorship, was
well aware of the reasons that Lohmeyer
gave for rejecting it. But he
held that other considerations outweighed them, and
that the best
solution to the problem on the basis of all the evidence is to see Paul
the apostle as the author. Furness has not so much
been confuted as
bypassed. Even scholars who reveal an
acquaintance with Furness's
essay (and there are few of these) seem to deal
inadequately with his
massive
arguments.75
To summarize: the theory of an
underlying source directs atten-
tion to some' difficult
phenomena in the hymn, but it fails to offer a
convincing explanation of them. It fails, moreover,
to answer the most
important objection: the absence of any solid
evidence that the ode to
Christ
ever existed in a pre-Pauline form.
We need, therefore, to consider more
carefully the alternative
that the author of the epistle has composed the hymn
rather than
taken it over. This conclusion does not, of course,
imply that the
hymn throws no light at all on early Christian
worship and its content.
Quite
the contrary: the hymn provides a valuable insight into the
development of Christology and of Christian
devotional thought dur-
ing the mid-1st century.
But the more closely the facts are examined,
the less tenable becomes the case for a purely cultic
origin for the
hymn-despite the likelihood that it
reflects early worship. Existing
creedal or hymnic
themes most likely provided only certain thoughts
out of which the author fashioned a new
Christological tribute. Thus
most of the elements in the passage may be explained
as the result of
the writer's own private meditation on his theme,
with perhaps (and
only perhaps) some other elements coming in which
bear the stamp
of Christological speculation from some other
tradition.
75 See,
e.g., the criticism of Martin's Carmen
Christi in 1. H. Marshall, "The Christ-
Hymn
in Philippians 2:5-11. A Review Article," TynB 19 (1968)
120.
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