Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:06:46.315Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans and the Partitioning of Philippians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Paul A. Holloway
Paul A. Holloway
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Notes and Observations
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 91 , Issue 3 , July 1998 , pp. 321 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sellew, Philip, “Laodiceans and the Philippians Fragments Hypothesis,” HTR 87 (1994) 17–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 A critical text appears in Anger, Rudolf, Über den Laodicenerbrief. Eine biblisch-kritische Untersuchung (Leipzig: Gebhardt & Reisland, 1843) 155–65Google Scholar ; Lightfoot, J. B., St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon (London: Macmillan, 1892) 281–91Google Scholar ; English translation in Schneemelcher, Wilhelm, “The Epistle to the Laodiceans,” in NTApoc (1992) 2. 42–46.Google Scholar It is debated whether Laodiceans, which survives in Latin and several western vernaculars, was originally composed in Greek or Latin. I agree with , Sellew (“Laodiceans,” 22)Google Scholar , who follows , Lightfoot (Colossians, 289–91)Google Scholar , that Laodiceans was originally composed in Greek.

3 As documented by , Anger, Laodicenerbrief, 155–65Google Scholar ; , Lightfoot, Colossians, 293–94Google Scholar ; , Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium von fremden Gott (1921; reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960) Appendix 3, 140Google Scholar ; cf. , Sellew, “Laodiceans,” 28Google Scholar.

4 Strictly speaking, there is to date no external evidence for the partitioning of Philippians. However, scholars have adduced three pieces of external evidence in support of the more general and no doubt correct thesis that Paul wrote more than one letter to the Philippians: (1) the listing of Philippians twice in the Catalogus Siniaticus (for which see Lewis, Agnes S., ed., Catalogue of the Syriac MSS. in the Convent of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai [Studia Sinaitica 1; London: Clay, 1894] 4–16)Google Scholar ; (2) the mention of a “first epistle to the Philippians” in the Chronographia of the ninth century Byzantine historian Georgios Syncellos (for which see Dindorf, Wilhelm, ed., Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae [Bonn: Weber, 1828] 12. 651)Google Scholar ; and (3) the reference by , Polycarp at Phil 3.2Google Scholar to Paul's “letters” (EmoToAdc) to the Philippians. Only the third of these, Polycarp's much discussed plural, is of any value. The double listing of Philippians in the Catalogus, which in its first mention i s assigned the same number of stichoi (318) as Ephesians immediately preceding it, is an obvious case of parablepsis resulting in dittography (cf. Metzger, Bruce, The Canon of the New Testament [Oxford: Clarendon, 1987] 221Google Scholar n. 27). Syncellos is unreliable and late (cf. Mackay, Brian S. “Further Thoughts on Philippians,” NTS [1960/1961] 162)Google Scholar , and, taken at face value, counts against current partition theory, since the material assigned to the “first epistle to the Philippians” is from Phil 4:3, which is generally assigned to Letter C. Polycarp's plural, however, cannot be so easily set aside; Bauer, Walter (Die apostolischen Väter II: Die Briefe des Ignatius vonAntiochien undder Polykarpbrief[HNT 18; Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1920] 287)Google Scholar has plausibly suggested that Polycarp simply inferred the presence of additional letters on the basis of Phil 3:1 and Paul's long-standing relationship with the Philippians.

5 , Anger, Laodicenerbrief, 162Google Scholar ; , Lightfoot, Colossians, 291Google Scholar ; Pink, Karl, “Die pseudo-paulinischen Briefe II,” Bib 6 (1925) 190.Google Scholar This kind of synthesis, pulling together various words or phrases from two or three consecutive verses, is typical of the redactional techniques of the compiler of Laodiceans. So, for example, Laodiceans 9 combines Phil 2:1 and 2:

Compare also Laodiceans 6, which brings together Phil 1:13 and 18, and Laodiceans 7, which combines Phil 1:19-20.

6 Mss: et quod est. , Anger, Laodicenerbrief, 163Google Scholar , supplies reliquum, as do , Lightfoot, Colossians, 286Google Scholar ; and , Harnack, Marcion, Appendix 3, 137–38Google Scholar.

7 Note that Laodiceans 13 (gaudete … praecavete) preserves the troubling χαίρετε…βλέπετε of Phil 3:1-2. Lightfoot reconstructs the Greek: καί τò λοιπόν άγαπητοί χαίρετε ένχριστώ βλέπετε δέ τούς αίσχροχερδείς (Colossians, 294; cf. 291). I do not understand Harnack's reconstruction: παραιτείαθε τούς αίσχροκερδέις (Marcion, Appendix 3, 139). Praecavete is a perfectly good translation of βλέπετε, but it does not accurately translate παραιτείαθε (“decline” or “avoid”), which is variously rendered devito, recuso, or abnuo.

8 , Pink, “Die pseudo-paulinischen Briefe II,” 190.Google Scholar, Anger (Laodicenerbrief, 162)Google Scholar suggests a possible reference to Phil 3:7-8 where all “gain” (κέρδη) other than Christ is said to be filth (ακύβαλου).

9 , Sellew, “Laodiceans,” 23 n. 17.Google Scholar

10 , Lightfoot, Colossians, 291.Google Scholar This, by the way, is one of Lightfoot's principal arguments that Laodiceans was originally composed in Greek, which Sellew elsewhere accepts (“Laodiceans,” 22 n. 15).

11 By 393 Jerome can report (De vir. ill. 5 [PL 23.650A]): legunt quidam et ad Laodicenses, sed ab omnibus exploditur; cf. Theodore Mopsuestia apud Rabanus Maurus, In epist. ad Col. (PL 112.540B = Swete, 1.301): unde quidamfalsam epistolam ad Laodicenses ex nomine beati Pauli confingendam esse existimaverunt; nee enim erat vera epistola. , Pink (“Die pseudo-paulinischen Briefe II,” 192)Google Scholar and , Metzger (Canon, 183)Google Scholar place the terminus a quo in the middle of the third century. Sellew holds a similar view: “[Laodiceans] was apparently translated [from Greek into Latin], along with the rest of the Corpus Paulinum, as part of a process not yet completely understood, namely, the production of the pre-Vulgate, Old Latin version or versions” (“Laodiceans” 22).

12 Frede, Hermann Josef, “Epistulae ad Philippenses et ad Colossenses,” in Fischer, Bonifatius, ed., Vetus Latina: die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel (Freiburg: Herder, 1949-1971) 179Google Scholar ; cf. Wordsworth, I. and White, H. I., Novum Testamentum Latine (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1913-1941) 2. 477Google Scholar ; , VictorinusIn epist. Pauli ad Phil. (PL 8) 1217C;Google ScholarLocher, Albrecht, Marii Victorini Afri Commentarii in Epistulas Pauli ad Galatas ad Philippenses ad Ephesios (Leipzig: Teubner, 1972) 30–31Google Scholar.

13 Exameron 5.6 (PL 14.222A = CSEL 32.1.144.10): cavete canes, cavete malos operarios.

14 Ep. 79 (PL 33.273.8; CSEL 34.2.346.12): cavete canes; In psalm. 6132.4 (PL 36.833.18 = CChr 39.892): cavete canes; cf. Bruyne, Donatien de, Préfaces de la Bible Latine (Namur: Godenne, 1920) 240:Google Scholaradmonetetiam utcaveantapseudoapostolis. Pseudo-Ambrose, (Advirg. 1 [PL 17.600B] renders: vitate canes, vitate malos operarios. βλέπετε was also rendered adtendite and intuemini (so Victorinus). There was clearly no fixed translation of Phil 3:2 at this early period.

15 We may set aside the question of whether there ever was a Pauline epistle to the Laodiceans, which is bound up with the question of the authenticity of Colossians. The compiler of Laodiceans simply took Col 4:16 at face value. For the ancient debate over the meaning of Col 4:16 (τήν [έπιστολήν] έν Ααοδικίας) see , Lightfoot, Colossians, 274–81Google Scholar ; , Pink, “Die pseudo-paulinischen Briefe II,” 179–82Google Scholar ; cf. Anderson, Charles P., “Who Wrote ‘The Epistle from Laodicea’?” JBL 85(1966)436–40.Google Scholar

16 Phil 1:2, 3, 12, 13, 18-21; 2:1-2, 12-14; 3:1-2; 4:6, 8-9, 22-23. Three of these verses are taken up with greetings and farewells (1:2; 4:22-23).

17 Both Günther Bornkamm (“Der Philipperbrief als paulinische Briefsammlung,” Neotesamentica et Patristica: Eine Freundesga.be Herrn Professor Dr. Oscar Cullmann [NovTSup 6; Leiden: Brill, 1962] 197)Google Scholar and Gnilka, Joachim (Der Philipperbrief [HThKNT 10.3; Freiburg: Herder, 1968] 9 and 13)Google Scholar use the absence of any reference to Paul's imprisonment in Phil 3 as evidence that this alleged letter fragment was composed at a time (perhaps after his release) when Paul was not in prison. This may be so, but the requirement that Paul repeatedly refer to his imprisonment throughout a letter as long as Philippians seems to me excessive.

18 , Lightfoot, Colossians, 289Google Scholar ; , Schneemelcher, NTApoc (1992), 2. 44Google Scholar ; cf. Bauckham, Richard, “Pseudo-Apostolic Letters,” JBL 107 (1986) 485Google Scholar ; contra , Harnack, Marcion, Appendix 3, 140–149Google Scholar ; Quispel, Gilles, “De Brief aan de Laodicensen-een Marcionistische vervalsing,” Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 5 (1950) 43–46.Google Scholar

19 , Sellew (“Laodiceans,” 26)Google Scholar acknowledges this redactional criterion: “The discussion of Epaphroditus's illness at the end of Philippians 2 presumably had no relevance for the fictional audience in Laodicea.” He does not, however, see the implications of it for his analysis.