St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 Excerpt: ...from Origen, this view was transmitted through Eusebius to later writers4. Nor does the supposition do any violence to character. The epistle of the Roman Clement was written to heal a feud in a distant but friendly Church: and in like manner St Paul's fellow-labourer is here invoiced to aid in a work of reconciliation. Nevertheless the notices of place and time are opposed to the identification of the two. For (i) the author of the letter to Corinth was a leading member of the Roman Church, while St Paul's fellow-labourer seems clearly to be represented as resident at Philippi. And again (2) the date interposes a serious though not insuperable difficulty. Historical evidence5 and internal probability6 alike point to the later years of Domitian (about A.d. 96), as the time when the Epistle of Clement was written. If Eusebius is correct, the author died soon after, in the third year of Trajan, A.d. Ioo7. But in the list of the early bishops of Rome, where even the order is uncertain, the dates may fairly be considered conjectural or capricious; and there is some ground for supposing that he may have lived even longer than this. If the received chronology be only approximately true, the Shepherd of Hennas can hardly have been written much earlier than A.d. 1408. Yet the author there represents 1 See the introduction, p. 61 sq. 2 Iran. iii. 3. 3. 3 In Joann. i. 29 (iv. p. 153, Delarue). 4 Euseb. H.E. iii. 4, 15, Epiphan. Hasr. xxvii. 6 (where however by a slip of memory the Epistle to the Romans is mentioned), Hieron. Viv. III. 15, adv. Jovin. i. 11; conip. Apost. Const, vi. 8. 6 Hegesippus in Euseb. //. E. iii. 16; comp. iv. 11. 6 See St Clement of Rome p. 4, with the references. 7 Euseb. H.E.iii. 34. Thedateinthe Clironicon of the same writer is A. D. 95. 8 ...