Philippians: An Introduction and Study Guide Historical Problems, Hierarchical Visions, Hysterical Anxieties 9781350008755, 9781350008786, 9781350008779

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Assume Which Position? Introductory Issues
Chapter 2: The Hymn within (and among the) Philippians
Chapter 3: Friends, Romans, Women: Lend Me your Context?
Chapter 4: Rhetorical Sketch, or a Sketchy Commentary
Chapter 5: Pauline Performativity, Triangulating Turns and Purity’s Queer Perversions
Works Cited
Index of Subjects
Index of Authors

Citation preview

T&T CLARK STUDY GUIDES TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

PHILIPPIANS

Series Editor Tat-siong Benny Liew, College of the Holy Cross, USA

Other titles in the series include: 1&2 Thessalonians: An Introduction and Study Guide 1 Peter: An Introduction and Study Guide 2 Corinthians: An Introduction and Study Guide Colossians: An Introduction and Study Guide Ephesians: An Introduction and Study Guide Galatians: An Introduction and Study Guide James: An Introduction and Study Guide John: An Introduction and Study Guide Luke: An Introduction and Study Guide Mark: An Introduction and Study Guide Matthew: An Introduction and Study Guide Philemon: An Introduction and Study Guide Philippians: An Introduction and Study Guide Romans: An Introduction and Study Guide The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Study Guide The Letters of Jude and Second Peter: An Introduction and Study Guide

T&T Clark Study Guides to the Old Testament: 1 & 2 Samuel: An Introduction and Study Guide 1 & 2 Kings: An Introduction and Study Guide Ecclesiastes: An Introduction and Study Guide Exodus: An Introduction and Study Guide Ezra-Nehemiah: An Introduction and Study Guide Hebrews: An Introduction and Study Guide Leviticus: An Introduction and Study Guide Jeremiah: An Introduction and Study Guide Job: An Introduction and Study Guide Joshua: An Introduction and Study Guide Psalms: An Introduction and Study Guide Song of Songs: An Introduction and Study Guide Numbers: An Introduction and Study Guide

PHILIPPIANS

An Introduction and Study Guide Historical Problems, Hierarchical Visions, Hysterical Anxieties

By Joseph A. Marchal

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014. This edition published 2017 © Joseph A. Marchal, 2017 Joseph A. Marchal has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: PB: 978-1-3500-0875-5 ePDF: 978-1-3500-0877-9 ePub: 978-1-3500-0876-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: T&T Clark Study Guides to the New Testament, volume 11 Cover design: clareturner.co.uk Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain

Contents Acknowledgments

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Chapter 1 Assume Which Position? Introductory Issues 1 Chapter 2 The Hymn within (and among the) Philippians

13

Chapter 3 Friends, Romans, Women: Lend Me your Context?

29

Chapter 4 R hetorical Sketch, or a Sketchy Commentary

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Chapter 5 Pauline Performativity, Triangulating Turns and Purity’s Queer Perversions

69

Works Cited Index of Subjects Index of Authors

93 99 101

Acknowledgments Even ‘little’ books take quite a bit of effort to make. As I indicate in the opening chapter, I have been thinking about and working on understanding Paul’s letter to the Philippians on and off for quite some time now. It would be foolish of me to say this guidebook is the culmination of this work, but it would be hubristic for me not to acknowledge many people on whom I have depended. Many of these I have acknowledged on previous occasions, so on this one I shall leave (nearly) implicit my very real debts and affections for my partner, our friends, and our variously constituted families, as well as my many advisors and peers who have taught me so much. Thanks must be given to Tat-siong Benny Liew for recruiting and then supporting me in preparing this guide. His patient and attentive work, as well as the efforts of David Clines and Ailsa Parkin at Sheffield Phoenix Press, have significantly improved the contents of this guide, even as its focus and faults are solely my responsibility. But, when I think about the span of time on which I have reflected upon the Philippians, I more frequently think of small creatures who have been my very real companions. As a struggling graduate student, this meant my first furry love Phaedrus and then little Lu. More recently, our tiny domesticated corner has grown to include the added perversities and petting of Jarvis and July. Last of all, this book began before and now concludes well after the arrival of little Li. These relations persist mostly outside an economy of utility, even as I have benefited in innumerable ways, mostly in exchange for efforts at managing their waste! None of these smaller companions give a wit about what this little guide meant as a companion to people’s studies of Philippians, but they have loved me and I them in my own small ways. This, then, is my own little, and thus inadequate dedication, particularly to the late and great Phae and the latest, potentially greatest Li.

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Assume Which Position? Introductory Issues Presuppositions and Perspectives The first time I sat down to read Paul’s letter to the Philippians in a critical Greek text when I was a graduate student, I was struck by how intensely infused most of those 104 verses were with dynamics and declarations of power. Sometimes they were subtle, but more frequently they appeared rather obvious to me, as I saw Paul try to construct certain kinds of relationships within and through his arguments about Christ and the community, about himself and others. Of course, this reading was just half of my course assignment at the time, and I quickly moved to the articles and commentaries that were meant to accompany this particular seminar’s weekly schedule. When I turned to this secondary literature, though, I had a second (but hardly less significant) striking experience. It was as if these scholars and I had read a completely different letter! What warmth and joy they saw in Philippians. What a great friend they found, not just in Jesus but also in Paul, particularly this Paul, the one presented in Philippians. As these initial experiences bloomed into a full research project and, eventually, a dissertation, I was forced to confront how persistently these and indeed most interpreters of Paul’s letters identify with Paul (often without examining these identifications). More so, I came to realize how much I would need to take these patterns of identification into account when examining the commentary and literature on these letters. To do so, though, was not to claim that my own work was somehow removed from any perspective or positionality, neutral and objective, seeing the ‘real Paul’ where others were biased and subjective to find the Paul they so wanted to find. In fact, I began my studies with rather different presumptions and was, frankly, rather disinterested in a ‘real Paul’ at all. These letters presented another set of opportunities to inquire about a wider group of people and to reflect upon the way these ancient groups argued and organized (and the way people have inherited and adapted these arguments). I knew that I entered such studies with different investments and interests, different from these dynamics of identification. I neither identified with nor dissociated from Paul; it never occurred to me to begin by staking out such a position on the

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likely author of these epistles when there were more important things to do (from, of course, my own perspective and position). As someone committed to feminist causes and coalitions, it is no surprise that my reading practices attend closely—then and now—to both subtle and strong assertions of authority in Paul’s letters. From such a vantage point arguments that reflect stark dynamics of power and assert significant differences between various groups of people need to be carefully examined and assessed. Given the history of uses for biblical texts like Paul’s letters, it is vital to begin cautiously, even suspiciously. After all, people have variously argued that Paul’s letters tell us what to think about women, slaves, gays and lesbians, Jews, foreigners, ‘pagans’, the poor, children and even the government (among other things). These arguments have often led to some truly horrifying and dehumanizing practices. Yet, often times, these practices tell us more about the presumptions and perspectives of those various users of the text, rather than the text or the communities that first received and preserved them. For such reasons, many contemporary interpreters of these texts advise readers to begin with awareness, caution and suspicion, particularly if they care about other people. Indeed, a letter like Philippians reflects upon plenty of other people—people different from you or me, and people besides Paul. As will become clear as you make your way through this volume, Paul’s arguments are certainly concerned with other people, even as I might be hard pressed to call the dynamic at the heart of the letter a caring one per se. (Or, perhaps, it just reflects a different kind of caring than you or I would want to have or hold.) This dynamic is likely what makes interpreting and understanding a letter like Philippians so complicated: the differences in perspective between all kinds of people, then or now. Despite what many readers and users of this letter still like to claim, this letter is a complex artifact; there is more to it than its brief (and even breezy) four chapters might indicate. Similarly, in its discussion of a range of issues relevant for understanding and reusing Paul’s letter to the Philippians, some things are never as simple as this relatively brief book will often try to make them. As a reader and user of this text, then, you will need to become aware of the function of genre: genre matters for a guidebook on biblical literature as well as the epistle this book is meant to guide you through. I hope you find that most of the time this book presents an important and accessible entry into some of the more relevant issues for using and understanding Philippians. You need not have the same interests and investments as mine to find this book useful, but it certainly helps to begin with an interest in Philippians and its interpretation. Interpretation always involves pre-sets and presumptions: people’s particular perspectives. This guidebook cannot pretend that it and the scholarship it introduces do not proceed from their respective perspectives, nor



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should you as readers and users of this text presume that you can proceed without examining your own starting points and presuppositions. This is perhaps particularly the case with this kind of literature, biblical texts that have been imbued with extraordinary authority as sources of something superhuman. It is no wonder, then, that people approach these texts with such a range of personal and professional, public and private, pious and political perspectives. To some, it might seem obvious only to approach Philippians in prayer and piety, while others read in search of a politic and praxis. Indeed, these often are not as opposed as one might be led to think. It is fitting to critically reflect upon pre-sets, presuppositions, and perspectives, particularly when thinking about Paul and the Philippians, considering how the letter proceeds from pre-sets, presumptions, and perspectives particular to Paul (or the ‘Paul’ that is presented by the letter). The letter to the Philippians reflects these, perhaps especially because it was crafted to address a particular situation, one that we can only partially glimpse through its complicated and rich argumentation. This, in turn, makes Philippians particular among the Pauline letters; so, please, do not presume that knowledge of one of Paul’s letters can be neatly mapped onto this one or another of his letters. Philippians reflects some of the possible perspectives of the likely audience of the letter: the assembly members in first-century Philippi. Indeed, it seems quite likely that Paul was trying to address and alter some of the pre-sets, presuppositions, and perspectives that he thought were particular (even peculiar, to him) within and among the Philippian assembly members. This letter represents an extensive effort to convince the audience of something, indicating that, from Paul’s apparent perspective, they were not already convinced (enough). To understand the rhetorical aspects and historical impacts of Philippians, then, requires a more complicated relationship to this text. This guidebook aims to provide greater context on traditional interpretive issues, pertinent ancient settings, and possible rhetorical analogues, so that one can examine and assess how the arguments in this letter operate and, in the end, can be used to take conversations and communities elsewhere. Users of this book can develop a richer and more dynamic relationship with these materials by reflecting critically upon the effects of your own practices, in your own very human, very particular times and places. Perhaps you too can read the critical Greek text of this letter alongside this guidebook, raising the distinct possibilities of your own striking observations and experiences about Philippians and its interpreters. Whether these entail dissonance and differences, or connection and counter-constructions, the aim of this interaction is to bring more people into a finer and more sophisticated dialogue about what aspects and impacts of biblical images, ideas and arguments people can (still) engage, evaluate and use toward greater savvy, safety and social justice for all.

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Historical Problems: People, Parts, and Places Settlement and Colonizations of Philippi The previous name for the site which would eventually be known as Philippi was Krenides (‘springs’ or ‘fountains’, for the many springs and streams in the immediate area), but what apparently drew some of the earliest settlers from Thracia and then the island of Thasos were the valuable silver mines in the mountains that created a border for the area to the north and northeast. Mentioned as early as 490 bce, Krenides comes to the attention of most historians when Philip II of Macedonia ‘settled’ a fight between the Thasians and Thracians by taking the site for himself in 356 bce. Of course, this was how the city received its more familiar name, when Philip named it (as humbly as most conquerors and kings would) after himself. With control of Philippi came not only control over these mines, but also the strategic protection and control of an important west-to-east trade route, given Philippi’s location between those mountains to the north and swamps to the south. Philip colonized the entire region and fortified Philippi as a city, building its walls and establishing a military stronghold. This Macedonian line of kings would rule Philippi and the region until the Romans defeated them (168 bce) and annexed the region as a province (146 bce). When the Romans built the Via Egnatia highway, Philippi was a strategic location on the route that connected the ports of the Adriatic Sea in the west to Byzantium and Asia Minor in the east. Positioned along a major Roman road, Philippi grew in importance and size, and was more closely linked to the harbor settlement of Neapolis just a few miles to the southeast (allowing it to more easily function as Philippi’s port). In the scholarly treatments of Philippians, however, the most common starting point for the historical and political contextualization of Philippi comes after these settlements and changes. The events surrounding the Romans’ civil wars typically have pride of place in these pictures of Philippi, likely because biblical and classical studies are in many ways close cousins. The western plains just outside of Philippi were key sites in these conflicts, including the decisive battle in 42 bce between the forces of Brutus and Cassius (two of the key liberators or conspirators, who had assassinated Julius) and those of Marc Antony and Octavian. The victorious Antony and Octavian settled veterans there after this battle, and Octavian settled more once he defeated his former ally and consolidated his power in 31 bce. The second victory and settlement would give this Roman colony a title that reflects Octavian’s own changed title to Augustus (sacred or revered one): Colonia Iulia Augusta Philippensis. These changes and honors were certainly more than just in name only. They fundamentally altered the political landscape of Philippi, as Roman imperial rule and veteran settlement brought a host of social, political and



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economic changes. Still, one will need to interpret carefully the effect of these changes on the kinds of people likely to have joined the assembly community that received Paul’s letter at Philippi. Certainly, residents and visitors would have encountered a city reorganized to look as Roman as possible, as reflected by the predominance of Latin inscriptions and an entire style of planning and architecture, shaped by the Romans’ major road (the Via Egnatia) and the forum, theater and temple structures. Yet, these factors do not necessarily imply that the Romans were in the majority in Philippi, nor that the majority of residents somehow favored or benefited from the Roman colonization. They only show who was in charge, underscoring to most that the ability to affect any of the colony’s decisions was limited to a very small group of residents that did not include them. Among the relatively few who had the privileges of Roman citizenship (and were already, by definition, elite, adult and male), one only had power in the rare cases where one managed to have wealth, property, and a significant patronage network as well. Thus, in this period the members of the aristocracy of Philippi were very few, mostly new, and mostly Roman. It goes without saying, then, that most of the inhabitants of this city and region would not have benefited from this system. This pattern of social, political and economic stratification shaped not only the realities of those mostly ‘Greek’ people who formed the majority of Philippi’s residents (Oakes 2001), but also the processes under which various groups of veterans were settled during the Roman civil wars. Indeed, to call this simply ‘veteran settlement’ is really a bit of an obscuring euphemism: the victorious Romans took the land, its resources, and likely some of its inhabitants by force as their booty and the commanders gave these to soldiers they no longer needed as a bribe so that the veterans would neither rebel nor return with them to Rome. Portions were doled out according to the relative rank, loyalty and status of the soldiers, reflecting the hierarchical stratification of the Roman army and the Roman culture in general. Some veterans were likely displeased by their fate, though one would assume that the long-standing residents of Philippi would be even more so! Over time, the Roman imperial system helped the wealthier and more elite among these groups to further consolidate their own power by taking over others’ land allotments. Though Philippi would have achieved a certain kind of fame for its place in the civil wars that sped Rome’s transition into an empire, this empire’s physical and ongoing social violence would have been seen by many more as a matter of infamy. Peoples and Religious Practices As this rather cursory sketch of the history of settlements and colonizations indicates, Philippi’s history and its place as a Roman colony brought together people from a range of ethnic, political, religious and geographical

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origins. Its multiple colonizations account in large part for this. Philippi’s place as an important city on a major trade route, particularly during the Roman imperial era, provided continuing occasions for exchange and migration, particularly from the Greek east. The Roman ruling minority would have governed and lived among these various ‘Greek’ groups that shared Greek as a common language, despite the dominance of Latin in official imperial capacities (an effort of a rather small colonial elite to impress the authorities ‘back home’ at Rome). The privileges of citizenship and ongoing cycles of debt and foreclosure exacerbated the yawning and virtually unbridgeable economic and political gap between the ruling imperial elite and the rather large mix of people from various marginalized groups struggling to survive. Most residents of the colony would have been in a range of subordinate positions as a result of multiple asymmetries of power delineated by citizenship, status, property, gender, age, economy and ethnicity (among others). The more convincing social models argue that subsistence-level poverty likely affected most of the population at Philippi, with a considerable group living in unhealthily sub-subsistence conditions (Friesen 2004). Slaves were also a significant portion of the workforce and of the measurable ‘wealth’ or influence of the elite. Gender affected those relatively elite, propertied, adult, free Roman women, since they were barred from Roman imperial citizenship, but more frequently and significantly it compounded the colonized conditions of poor, enslaved, peasant and/or non-Roman females in Philippi. When imagining the various people inhabiting Philippi, then, it is fitting to describe the Roman colony as a ‘contact zone’ (Marchal 2008). As opposed to concepts of imperial borders and frontiers, contact zones emphasize the ways in which different cultures interact in multiple and prolonged forms, their encounters persistently shaped by violent conflict, ongoing coercion and asymmetrical power relations. This certainly seems like a good description of the conditions for Philippi by the middle of the first century ce (when the assembly community was developing and Paul sent his letter to them). The kinds of meeting and mixing between different peoples, cultures and languages were neither happy nor uncomplicated, but the various subjects in this colony were not simply passive in these contexts either. They would have mixed, adapted and interacted with what and who surrounded them. This, of course, means that various religious affiliations and practices were part of this complex picture for Philippi as well. Though the prominence of some Roman figures reflected what would have been the city’s official political and religious loyalties (in antiquity, there was no divide between these roles), the observances and remains from this time period show that there were plenty of popular movements and practices (for more on the archaeological remains at Philippi, see Bakirtzis and Koester 1998;



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Verhoef 2013). Old Thracian traditions, like the cult of the divine horseman hero, persisted into the first century. Some of them blended in time, as the goddess Bendis became associated with Artemis (Greek) and Diana (Roman). In fact, archaeologists have found an abundance of reliefs carved into the rock on the hill of the city’s acropolis, the vast majority of which depict female figures like the syncretized version of Diana (Abrahamsen 1995). On the way into the city, travelers encountered not only those abundant springs but also sanctuaries to deities like the mother goddess Cybele. Interest in Dionysus was long established, given his affiliation with the mountains in the region, but residents also showed interest in the more recent arrivals of the Roman cult of Silvanus and Egyptian deities like Isis. The growth in the last of these, the Isis cult, was made possible by the sorts of exchanges and interaction with the rest of the eastern Mediterranean that successive Hellenistic and Roman empires facilitated and enforced. The Roman empire, though, leaves the strongest religious footprint on this period in the history of Philippi. Statues of the imperial family would have been up in the forum when people like Paul visited or his audience in the Philippian assembly community entered the city. Coins would publicize the favor Augustus enjoyed in his Victory (herself a Roman goddess) at Philippi, as well as his (divine) claims to have founded the city as a colony. His daughter Julia was revered in Philippi, and the emperor Claudius proclaimed the divinity of Augustus’s wife Livia in 42 ce, about a decade or more before the letter to the Philippians was likely written. Claudius himself and Augustus’s adoptive father Julius were also deified and were obvious figures for devotion in this period. Some broad sort of participation in this Roman imperial cult was expected and promoted, particularly by and among the elite in Philippi, but this participation was not exclusive of other deities or religious affiliations. The presence of a Jewish community in Philippi is a matter of some dispute. There does not seem to be any specific or significant archaeological evidence for Jewish presence or practices there for this time period. Any account from the Acts of the Apostles (16.11-40) is not particularly reliable, yet there is evidence of a synagogue by the end of the third century ce. Jews had settled in the Macedonian region, and it seems hard to imagine that any people in Philippi would have been interested enough in the peculiar kinds of Judaism presented within the assembly community or by people like Paul without some previous exposure to (other) Jewish practices or people. The conditions of successive empires and the Jewish diaspora would have generally made such contact and interaction possible and even probable in a larger city like Philippi. It was in this variegated but conflicted, syncretistic but asymmetrical context that the assembly community received Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The audience likely reflected this context and, if Paul was any good at

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gauging his audience, the rhetoric of the letter would have been adapted and shaped in this light (Wire 1990). One Letter to Rule Them All? Partition or Unity of the Letter In the middle of the last century, several, overlapping arguments for the composite nature of Philippians gained prominence and held sway for a generation or two of scholarship. With the help of source and redaction criticism, those who hold to a three-letter-composite hypothesis tend to separate (1) 4.10-20 as the first, thank-you oriented letter; (2) at least 1.1–2.30 as a second, warm letter from prison; and (3) at least 3.2–4.1 as a third, more stark letter focused on opposition. Scholars who viewed Philippians as a composite letter especially stress an apparently sharp change in tone and subject matter between the second and third chapters of the letter. Those who use redaction-critical approaches try to find internal evidence of redactional activity, such as interpretive additions, explicit insertions, changes to original materials, and other, larger patterns of arrangement. Broadly, then, if redaction critics notice a distinctive detail or a difference in form, they believe they have found a hint about another historical situation. Aside from this change in tone, then, advocates for the partition of the letter focus on 4.10-20, the supposed ‘thank-you note’ toward the end of the letter (but the apparently first letter in terms of historical sequence). Nevertheless, there remains a small, but not insignificant group who argue that 4.10-20 fits enough with the first two chapters that Philippians is a redacted compilation of just two separate letters (e.g. Gnilka 1968). As the twentieth century closed and another century began, the majority of scholars studying the letter (like the majority of their predecessors before the 1950s) no longer hold to one or the other of these multiple-letter hypotheses. Not so coincidentally, the shift back to viewing the letter as a unified whole is accompanied by the growing application of rhetorical critical approaches to Paul’s letters (see Wuellner 1987). If the letter develops a coherence in argumentation and does so across any apparent divisions, it would undermine the need to carve the letter into separate pieces or find different historical life-settings for them. Indeed, as will be demonstrated in my later chapters (Chapters 3 and 4), closer analysis of the rhetorical tendencies of the letter mitigates such apparently rough transitions or explains why tensions, differences or inconsistencies are helpful in an argument. As a result, I will not dwell too long on my own reasons for engaging the letter as a unified whole, since the chapters to follow should suffice in demonstrating why. Generally, the tools of source and redaction criticisms encouraged scholars to identify these tensions or supposed oddities to divide a text and search for a consistent and authentic historical core, while more recent rhetorical and literarily-oriented approaches attempt to engage the text as a



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whole and understand how its parts might function differently—in fact, interactively—in an overarching argumentative or narrative plan (Kittredge 1998: 57-61). As Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has stressed in the development of her rhetorical-critical method for interpretation (1999), it is important to understand the rhetorical whole and evaluate the rhetorical situation inscribed within the letter before attempting to draw historical conclusions. Too often, though, redaction critics have treated Pauline letters as repositories for potential historical data, passively awaiting the trained interpreter to uncover isolated details that reveal the objective historical situation(s). A different kind of attention to the internal workings of the letter presumes not that the letter reflects reality, but that it constructs a particular reality to advocate for a position that might even be peculiar to Paul. Thus, interpreters who see Philippians as a composite letter have downplayed the relative harshness in parts of the first half of the letter (like 1.27-30) and misread some of the letter-writing conventions in Paul’s time (Alexander 1989). The difference of the ostensible ‘thank-you note’ is even undercut by a longstanding scholarly tendency to describe it as a ‘dankloser Dank’ or ‘thankless thanks’ (Dibelius 1925: 74). Indeed, the many resonances, repetitions and patterns that recur and develop across the various sections of this relatively brief letter (described below) weigh against any case for the splitting of Philippians into two or three previous letters. Paul’s Return Address? The Potential Place and Timing of Composition While it is difficult to determine from where Paul sent this letter to the Philippians, internal evidence, like the allusions to his imprisonment (‘my chains’ in 1.7, 13, 14, and 17), offer scholars tantalizing hints. Still, the letter never names the location of Paul’s imprisonment, indicating how it was likely unnecessary to its argumentative purposes. After all, if Epaphroditus had been sent by the Philippian community to Paul’s location (2.25, 30; 4.18), this assumes they already knew at least this part of his circumstances. This interpretive inconvenience for us is also just another simple reminder that these letters are not straightforward repositories of historical nuggets, passive and prone for our retrieval. Paul doesn’t just say, ‘Hello, I’m writing to you today, on this date and time, from that place’; this is most because Paul was not writing for someone in the twentieth or twentyfirst centuries! Thus, in order to get to historical information, one must recognize the epistles’ rhetorical construction and realize that their purposes might be quite distant from one’s own purposes for studying them. Other details in the letter, like references to ‘the whole praetorium’ (1.13) and ‘especially those [out] of Caesar’s household’ (4.22), could also help to situate its composition.

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Of course, if one holds that multiple letters were exchanged (and later combined into the canonical version we have today), this further complicates any potential temporal and geographical scenario. One can often find long and occasionally complicated charts in commentaries on the letter, detailing what, in scholars’ eyes, must have happened (e.g. Reumann 2008: 7, 16-18). From these details and the constructions interpreters have built around them, three potential locations for the letter’s composition have been suggested: Rome, Caesarea Maritima and Ephesus. The choice between these potential locations mostly boils down to the location of imprisonment. Once this can be determined, scholars often proceed to the matter of when this imprisonment and composition occurred, typically by situating these events in timelines they base upon the rest of Paul’s letters and the Acts of the Apostles. It is with this maneuver that I must note my own (considerable) agnosticism about generating such timelines with any confidence. Locating and dating even one letter is a complicated task for the historically oriented scholar; one made somewhat simpler (but likely less historically reliable) if one ignores, brackets or downplays the rhetorical aspects and purposes of Paul’s letters—not to mention the rather different perspectives presented by Acts. Lately, contemporary interpreters are more frequently convinced by Rome or Ephesus as options. Rome has a history of tradition on its side, but Ephesus is based on close connections to Paul’s arguments in other letters. Yet, ultimately, I believe deciding between these options is not nearly as important as other tasks for the interpreter and user of this text. Indeed, I must confess that knowing the location of Paul’s imprisonment would not change my views of the letter’s efforts and impact in terms of history or rhetoric, politic or ethic. One major concern with most of these suggested places of composition is that they fail to treat the letter as a product of particular, rhetorical efforts on the part of Paul. Each of the suggestions relies too much upon this or other letters, or even Acts, as transparent conveyors of historical data. Certainly, the letter does seem to stress the potential mortal danger that Paul faces, but there might be more good reasons to do this than simply a bland recounting of historical circumstances. Indeed, the letter seems anything but bland! Building a historical picture from the intensity or the extent to which the letter argues about imprisonment or opponents or communal dynamics misapprehends what the letter is doing as a set of arguments. A heightened characterization of opponents helps with the effort to build certain pictures of Paul and the Philippian assembly community; its intensity reflects the rhetorical aim of convincing those hearing it to agree more than an exact historical situation. Historical factors are still important for understanding the letter, but to arrive at those elements readers must take greater care recognizing, weighing and negotiating the argumentative purposes of both



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the larger patterns and the smaller details in the letter. After all, describing others in the place of composition as divisive (1.15-17) fits with wider patterns about negative exemplification, while reinforcing Paul’s picture of unity and even his model indifference to difficulties (see also 4.11-13). Likewise, the claim that ‘the whole praetorium’ now knows the message Paul delivers (1.12-14) reinforces these model claims, perhaps countering an impression that progress could not be made in prison. These arguments, then, may not be that helpful as hints about the relative size of an assembly community or imperial institution where Paul is imprisoned. The debate over the place of composition reflects a series of scholarly assumptions and decisions, rhetorical and otherwise. A lot of it hinges upon the degrees of trust one puts into the reliability of the narrative materials about Paul in Acts. Of course, as a sequel to Luke, this book also has a plan and a set of rhetorical tendencies and trajectories. Acts is trying to tell a story of triumph in a particular way, moving the focus from Jerusalem to Rome, from Jews to Gentiles, with as few diversions, digressions or seams as possible. This overarching plan shapes how some Jews are repetitively depicted as ‘opponents’ of Paul in rather uniform ways. As scholars have increasingly appreciated these narrative qualities of Acts, its reliability on historical matters has been increasingly questioned and qualified. This also challenges the persistent belief that Paul could have been a Roman citizen, another assertion whose historicity has been increasingly doubted or denied among contemporary interpreters. Without these assumptions the case for one or other location becomes harder and harder to make, and leads to questions about other scholarly assumptions. For instance, what model of colonization does one need to have in order to think that the residents of Philippi were happy to be subjects in this empire? Do they have to identify with the empire in order to be impressed by some of the imperial references made in the letter? And, while we are at it, what kind of people do we imagine in the audience for this letter? How much can one expect lower-status residents of Philippi to know or care about these other locations? Were any of them former soldiers or formal citizens of the empire? Or were most of them simply struggling to work, eat and live? So many of the timelines and suggestions about Paul’s letters (including whether Philippians itself presents one or more letters) are based on significantly varying answers to these sorts of questions (and many more besides). On many occasions this entails attributing great historical significance to passing details in the letter or increasingly problematic hypotheses (like Paul’s citizenship or the apparent ‘Judaizing’ opponents). In still other contexts scenarios are built precariously out of arguments from silence— what is not included (but we would expect[?!] to be so) in this or that letter. Many of the determining factors for Paul’s location are not nearly as limiting as scholars take them to be, just as many of the claims about significant

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differences within the letter are not so great when considered in the overarching structure of the whole. In the end, where (or even if) Paul was imprisoned may not be as relevant as how Paul constructs arguments in terms of imprisonment and other factors like imitation. Such argumentation, then, may not always be susceptible to answering some of our more modern, historical questions, including about the place and timing of Paul’s composition. This, of course, has not stopped Philippians from making an impact upon all sorts of readers, receivers and users of this text. The part of the letter that has made the biggest impression historically is the hymn found in Philippians 2. As the next chapter should make clear, several perspectives about this passage are important to reconsider as well.

2

The Hymn within (and among the) Philippians Chances are, if you have ever heard of Paul’s letter to the Philippians before reading this, you have heard about the Christ hymn in Phil. 2.6-11. This experience or expectation is not an unreasonable one. As commentators are prone to note, more has been written about this passage than any other in Paul’s letters. Along with the prologue to the Gospel of John (1.1-18), it is considered to be a major source and occasional flashpoint of arguments over the development of the earliest ‘Christian’ beliefs and mysteries about the potential pre-existence, divinity and humanity of Jesus as the Christ (what theologians call Christology). It is no surprise, then, that a great many with various theological investments have turned and returned to use, analyze and argue over these six verses. Accept No Imitations? Initial Isolation and Interpretation Not entirely divorced from these theological concerns is the modern scholarly conversation about this hymn (Martin and Dodd 1998), which began in earnest in the first third of the twentieth century when Ernst Lohmeyer isolated 2.6-11 from its surrounding context in the letter on the basis of its poetic form and its distinctive structure and terminology (Lohmeyer 1961). If one turns to these verses, they do not seem like the typical prose one finds in Paul’s letters and, because they stand out from the rest of the letter, a majority of interpreters agree that it was composed, circulated and known in the Philippian community before this letter was written and sent. As a result, a working majority of scholars think that Paul is quoting the hymn here, not that he composed it himself (even as a growing minority, particularly among those scholars trained in British institutions, argue that it is Paul’s own work). This position only further excites the historian and the theologian alike, since it suggests that reading these verses gets one access to an even earlier development of these ideas. One can understand why so much more attention has been dedicated to these verses than probably all of the rest of the letter combined. Much of the earlier scholarship on the hymn used the tools of form criticism in their attempts to plunge its depths and locate its historical uses.

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Lohmeyer, for instance, identified it as a pre-Pauline psalm, and divided the hymn into two halves, with six stanzas of three lines each. The two halves correspond to the two major components of the passage’s thematic arc (as even someone reading these verses for the first time could identify): Christ’s self-abasement and God’s exaltation in response. Historically, scholars have used terms like psalm, hymn or song rather loosely, even interchangeably, even as some have increasingly interrogated this passage’s formal correspondence with other ancient hymns. Yet, the label of ‘hymn’ sticks to this passage in a range of contexts. Thus, while I will continue to use the term ‘hymn’ in what follows, I will also place the label in quotation marks to indicate the concern that one should be using these terms with greater care. Beyond these formal questions, Lohmeyer’s understanding of the ‘hymn’ also set the terms for its interpretation as an ethically oriented passage, presenting a model or example for imitation. The themes of humility and obedience as well as the downward trajectory of the passage’s first half especially seem to encourage this reading that a majority of scholars broadly share. The most prominent departure from this perspective, though, was presented in the middle of the twentieth century by Ernst Käsemann (1950, 1968). Käsemann argued that the primary function of the ‘hymn’ was not ethical, but kerygmatic (presenting a proclamation about Christ). It is not an example of humility that one can imitate, but a drama of salvation and cosmic victory in which one can now live. Once separated from its surrounding context in the letter and appreciated on its own terms, these six verses narrate an event of mythic proportions: a descent into the world of humanity and death and an ascent into heavenly exaltation. The second half, in particular, makes imitation seem impossible, since followers could not realistically hope to repeat the redemptive act and exaltation of Christ. For Käsemann, this cannot be about individual or communal following, nor does it focus on Christological issues per se; rather, its emphasis is soteriological (focused upon salvation) in relating a story of pre-existence, incarnation and exaltation. Käsemann argued not only that this was the better understanding of the ‘hymn’, but that this would have corresponded to what Paul was thinking about its meaning. The key to this argument lies in a persistent debate about how to translate the clause that introduces the passage in 2.5. The wording of this passage requires that one provide a verb to complete its meaning in English, since the Greek roughly reads as something like ‘think this in you [plural] which also in Christ Jesus’. Traditionally, and typically still, translations have followed scholarly arguments about the passage’s exemplary function, and add a simple verb of being to make it ‘think this in you [plural] which was also in Christ Jesus’. This reading emphasizes that the two prepositional clauses beginning with ‘in’ are parallel to each other: what was in (all of) you should be what is in Christ Jesus. Karl



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Barth and Käsemann (and a minority now), however, think that repeating the same Greek verb (phroneite) provides a greater parallel and symmetry in the clause: ‘think this in you [plural] which you also think in Christ Jesus’. Käsemann and others highlight that the phrase ‘in Christ (Jesus)’ is often used as a technical formula in Paul’s letters to describe the life of those belonging to the community. (The term ‘Christian’ was not yet created, so one of Paul’s terms for being a part of this movement was simply being ‘in Christ’.) This clause then reminds the audience of the mindset that they should already have being in Christ, a being that is only made possible because of the saving act of the Christ event dramatically narrated in the ‘hymn’ to follow. Once one knows this dramatic new reality, one should be obedient to that reality. Generally, Käsemann’s interpretation did not convince most interpreters of this passage, as various ethical interpretations of the ‘hymn’ survived and sprout still in scholarship. While it is true that most Christians do not think they can be exalted as highly as Christ will be in the latter half of this passage, the pattern of humbling and then exaltation, or at least vindication, can be followed and applied to others. It is important to remember that attainability is not always the characteristic that makes a ‘good model’; more important is likely the desirability of a particular feature to be imitated. Imitation often involves an aspirational quality. In today’s context, one can imitate a president, a pop star or an athlete, but most do not actually expect to become them or reach such heights of power, popularity or prowess. In imitating and aspiring, though, one hopes to have the feature that makes one’s model so great: to sing just a little bit better (and a little bit more like one’s model). Similarly, one cannot exactly follow the arc of the ‘hymn’, but one can learn to be humble and obedient in at least some ways, and the passage indicates that there will be divine recognition of such efforts. The arguments Paul presents in other parts of the letter also seem to agree that others can conform themselves to this pattern, including the latter half of the ‘hymn’. Broadly speaking, Paul presents himself in a similar, Christ-like pattern of suffer-in-order-to-gain in 3.4-11, even aiming to have a ‘share in his suffering, becoming like him in his death’ (3.10). The letter also imagines that the community can also be transformed at Jesus’ return, from their ‘body of humiliation’ to take a form like ‘the body of his glory’ (3.21). Contrary to some objections to the ethically oriented readings of the letter’s ‘hymn’, its second half is relevant. Sacrifice, humility and even death are not the end, since divine intervention on one’s behalf is possible. Covering Christ’s Pre-existing Condition Once one accepts that this passage could, in fact, be relating key ideas about the Christ figure, a lot of the debate about this passage centers around just a

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few Greek words and phrases, mostly in its very first verse. These descriptions are significant for theological reflections about the ‘two natures’ of Christ (exactly how Christ could be both human and divine) because they seem to reflect upon Christ’s initial state. The ‘hymn’, for example, opens with a line about Christ ‘being in morphē of God’ (2.6a). Typically, this is translated as the ‘form’ of God, but what exactly does this mean? Certainly, this term connotes a visual appearance, so some scholars think it could be connected to a theophany showing the glory of God (as it occurs in the Hebrew Bible). A growing set of scholars think that this verse echoes the creation stories and traditions about ‘Adam’, so that morphē is really just another version of being in the image (eikōn) of God (see Gen. 1.26). A translation like ‘form’ seems more fitting than either glory or image, though, since one cannot substitute these terms in the parallel recurrence of the term in 2.7b, where Christ takes the form of a slave (the glory or image of a slave does not seem to work). The meaning of this first descriptive term could be further clarified by reflecting upon the second and third lines of the opening verse. Indeed, the phrase ‘being isa God’ (2.6c) seems to be expressing something similar, even synonymous with ‘being in morphē of God’. In being ‘equal to’ or ‘like’ God, both expressions stress the way in which this figure is somehow close to, but not quite identical to God. A notable exception to this reading of these two lines is again presented by scholars, like James D.G. Dunn (1980), who see an Adam Christology at work in the passage. Not only does the ‘hymn’ allude to the first humans in the image of God (Gen. 1.27), but it also alludes to their efforts to ‘be like God’ in the garden (Gen. 3.5). The meaning of this second expression of similarity, though, depends upon the line that comes between it and the ‘form of God’ line. Understanding this line, in turn, depends upon the meaning and interpretation of the Greek word harpagmos, a task made more difficult because it is the only occurrence of the term in Paul’s letters (what scholars call a hapax legomenon, or ‘something said only once’). Generally, harpagmos has the meaning of grasping, taking, reaching or even snatching. So, broadly, the last two lines of 2.6 indicate that Christ did not count or consider the fact of his being equal to (or like) God something to be grasped or taken. This, of course, leaves a lot of room for understanding the extent of Christ’s divinity. Did Christ already ‘have’ this status (of similarity) or was Christ somehow reaching for it? Was this figure somehow already divine, but not yet the lord of all (like Ralph Martin suggests [1967])? This seems to indicate that Christ is not exactly equal to God from the start. Perhaps, one could emphasize how harpagmos is something taken to which a person is not entitled (like booty or plunder). Lohmeyer takes a view like this, indicating that Christ did not succumb to temptation and reach for something not already possessed.



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Of course, given his perspective on the ‘hymn’, Käsemann does not see some primordial myth about temptation or Satan or Adam at play in this text. Rather, what is related here is not a decision reflecting Christ’s relationship to (or as) God, but a narration of what Christ did (for salvation). As related in the following verse, the passage presents the ‘fact’ of Christ giving up what he possessed to become lowly. These terms and phrases are just part of this crazy, even paradoxical story of how someone so high humbled himself in a miraculous drama. Christ simply did not use his higher status as something for his own benefit. Indeed, an understanding much like this one is increasingly accepted among interpreters, particularly given the use of the term harpagmos with the verb for holding, considering or counting (the argument of Roy W. Hoover [1971] seems especially influential in this regard). For many interpreters these lines convey how being equal to God (and, thus, already having a divine status as a pre-existent Christ) is not something for Christ to exploit or use for his own advantage. Those who see an Adam Christology as key to this ‘hymn’ adapt this understanding as well, with a few differences. Dunn, for instance, does not see this as referring to a pre-existing divine figure. If this second (or last) Adam is going to reverse what the first Adam did, it must be accomplished as a human Jesus. Adam snatched at something he did not possess, grasping and trying to ‘be like God’ by taking and eating forbidden food (Gen. 3.5-6). Jesus reverses this act by not grasping, but by willingly embracing being a servant (Phil. 2.6-7). These debates about translation and interpretation likely stem from, or at least reflect, a conceptual problem or tension in these depictions of Christ. In this passage, Christ seems to be descending, giving up something or emptying the self of something in order to be humble and obedient. This must mean that the figure in the ‘hymn’ must have some kind of hierarchically higher status (and creates problems for Dunn’s interpretation). Yet, this status cannot be exactly equivalent to God’s because, given the exaltation of the second half, the whole sequence would be cosmically rigged from the start. What is the point of descending in order to go back up and reach the exact same status (so Ralph Martin’s point about there being some kind of difference between Christ at the beginning and at the end)? This might even make Christ’s action irrelevant, perhaps reflecting that (being equal to God) Christ even knows the outcome from the start. It is not surprising, then, that traditional Christian theologians have labored so hard to bat down concerns about this passage’s potential for ‘Gnostic’ or Docetic resonances. If Christ is too much like God, then lines that stress Christ assuming the ‘likeness of humans’ (2.7c) or being in a form or appearance as a human (2.7d) encourage the belief common in Docetism that Christ was not quite fully human. (Docetism gets its name from the Greek verb dokein [‘to seem’]: Christ only appeared to be like

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humans, Christ only seemed to suffer.) Alternatively, if becoming human is such a lower, debasing and humiliating state, then lines that stress Christ taking ‘the form of a slave’ (2.7b) or how one who is in ‘the form of God’ (2.6a) becoming human correspond with those dualistic views of humans in creation that scholars tend to label ‘Gnostic’ (for problems with this category, see King 2003). However, the pattern of this ‘hymn’ cannot have it both ways. If the fate of Christ is so awful, leading to the most shameful death possible (the order especially stresses the ‘death on a cross’ in 2.8c), then the arc of the ‘hymn’ seems to emphasize suffering. Furthermore, if Christ seems to willingly adopt this position and all of the levels of the universe acknowledge Christ’s lordship in the conclusion, then the conception of a universe governed by nefarious, enslaving powers seems to be bypassed or neutralized. I could continue at some length further about this passage and the various ways people have tried to explain and use it, but its meaning is unlikely to become any more explicit, likely because its six verses have generated such outsized interest and engagement (more than any other part of this letter). If one is interested in discerning what it could have meant to those who composed and used it in the first century, one likely needs to pursue other angles on these verses. In fact, its lack of explicit explanations about the issues that have troubled modern scholarship and/or Christian theologians likely indicates that those in the first century did not care about the same set of issues. The passage may not be explicit about historical situations or theological positions, but it is expressive! The ‘hymn’ expresses a theme about Christ and God and the potential virtues of kenosis, emptying the self. When scholars try to retrospectively project later debates about Christ’s role in the community and place in a triune deity, they are misunderstanding the function of this passage. Questions and carefully crafted confessions about pre-existence, natures and essences are more important for arguing at Nicaea and Chalcedon, or for affirming contemporary Christian beliefs, than for the expression of the first-century users of these ideas. Nevertheless, it is fair and even instructive to note that the passage reflects those aforementioned tensions or problems. Christ is not yet co-equal with other aspects of the divine; the redeemer figure is not yet equivalent to a traditional father/creator figure. But, this is why this ‘hymn’ is seen as such a precious resource and, albeit brief, opportunity. The passage holds in tension how Christ is somehow like God, holding a greater status than humans, but not quite as exalted as this God in the beginning as he will be in the end. Indeed, even this exaltation is ambiguous about his divine status. Even as every knee is bowing and every tongue is confessing the lordship of Jesus, it is done to the glory of God the father (2.10-11). Those who composed the ‘hymn’ stressed Christ’s humbling activity in the first half and God’s exalting activity in the second. While the former activity sounds more exemplary,



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the latter is more significant hierarchically. This God is the subject of the second half and the one doing the ‘super-duper-exalting’ (hyperypsōsen, 2.9a) of the obedient one. The way the ‘hymn’ proceeds seems to highlight that there might be some ways in which Christ’s action is exemplary after all. This could be one of the reasons the passage was composed, circulated and used. It relates a theme of kenosis and stresses divine recognition of this kind of self-emptying activity. Of course, even this activity of Christ lowering himself brings us back to the tension, or perhaps even paradox, expressed by the passage. Not only must one be relatively ‘high’ in order to lower oneself, but if this self-emptying or lowering is virtuous, then it also seems that one is giving up some kind of right that one is justified in having. Christ appears, then, to be some kind of intermediary figure, humbled to the level of humans, yet somehow entitled to be in a divinely elevated level. Potential Backgrounds Beyond these reflections and debates about how Christ is depicted in this passage, there remain lingering questions about what might have been the backgrounds and uses for this ‘hymn’. Historically, scholars pursuing the question of this passage’s background adapted ideas from both form criticism and history of religions research, often assuming that they could find a unified or central myth, source or setting as its origin. Since most scholars think the text refers to some kind of pre-existence for the Christ figure in its opening and develops a midrash or simply alludes to Isa. 45.23 in the second half, those might be instructive places to begin. Lohmeyer, for instance, posits a complex ‘Jewish-Christian’ syncretistic background, where Iranian Zorastrian ideas about a primordial myth of temptation influenced Jewish apocalyptic ideas and then mixes with references to the suffering servant songs of Isaiah 53 (thus the self-emptying servant in Phil. 2.7) and the ‘son of man’ from Daniel 7 (‘in the likeness of humans’ in Phil. 2.7). Behind the version in Philippians, then, is a story of temptation where Christ made a free ethical choice and was rewarded (in contrast to the actions and fate of fallen angels). Lohmeyer held that its original purpose was for a eucharistic liturgical setting in the early Jerusalem assembly community. While the complexity of this sort of suggestion taxes the imagination, it does stress the ways in which even this brief passage has a wide set of potential resonances and interactions with different traditions and contexts. Käsemann argued that the background of the ‘hymn’ would have been mostly Hellenistic, especially from a pre-Christian form of ‘Gnosticism’. The movement from descent and ascent shows the influence of a myth of a divine primal human.

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This, of course, leads a number of scholars to respond to the frequent false dichotomizations of Hellenization and Judaisms, particularly by positing a background of a Hellenistic Jewish wisdom myth (Georgi 1964; Schüssler Fiorenza 1975). The pre-existence of Wisdom with God is a developing tradition in both Hellenistic and Roman-era Judaisms. Hokmah (or Sophia) lives closely with God in heaven, is involved in creation, and seeks to dwell among humans on earth. Because Wisdom is rejected, though, she returns to the heavens (e.g. 1 En. 42.1-2) and access to her is mysterious. This developing myth fits the arc of the ‘hymn’ and corresponds with interest in Wisdom more broadly among Roman imperial religions (including in Isis worship). It also accounts for the presence of an intermediate figure for a more transcendent divine. Isis, in particular, was frequently given titles of rule and, in replacing previous gods, her name rose above other divine names (Phil. 2.9-11). It even appears that the Wisdom of Solomon was adapting to and trying to compete with this conception. As I have already indicated, though, other backgrounds from the Hebrew Bible and continuing Jewish traditions could have contributed to the development of this passage. The Suffering Servant passages in Isaiah (42.1-9; 49.1-6; 50.4-11; and 52.13–53.12) have been a favorite tradition to consider for this ‘hymn’, particularly because Christ’s exaltation (Phil. 2.1011) seems to be an adaptation of Second Isaiah’s recognition that one should give to God as lord (Isa. 45.23): the bowing of every knee and the confessing of every tongue. Christ’s self-emptying as a slave and death (2.7-8) could also be echoing how Isaiah’s servant poured himself out to death (Isa. 53.12). While these references might just be too broad to be cohesive, the aforementioned new (or last) Adam has the opposite problem. As a suggestion popular among some (mostly British) scholars, a cluster of references could connect Christ to the first humans, but the connections seem even stronger in other letters by Paul (esp. Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15)! For those who think Christ was in the image of God and, unlike Adam, trying not to be like God, Christ’s obedience as far as death (2.8b) echoes how the humans were subject to death (Gen. 2.17 and 3.22-24). Further, Christ taking the form of a slave fits with the tradition about humanity being subject and enslaved to sin (Rom. 8.18-21 and Gal. 4.3). The importance of sin as a category and force cannot be overstated for this suggested background, as scholars (like Dunn) believe that all of the descriptions for how Christ was (or became) human are synonyms for humans’ lower place given their sinfulness. Beyond some of the objections to their understanding of the opening of this passage, there are further problems with these additional reasons for the first Adam/last Adam background. The most significant of these is simply that such scholars (like Dunn 1980) are reading other parts of other letters into this part of Philippians, a part that was likely not even composed by



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Paul! The context for Phil. 2.6-11 is rather different from Rom. 5.12-21, where Christ’s obedience is contrasted with Adam’s disobedience (5.19) and narrates how sin comes into the world through this human (5.12). Neither of these ideas are in Philippians. Sin, in fact, is a major preoccupation of this section of Romans, whereas it is not even a minor topic in this or any part of Philippians! When death and obedience do occur in the ‘hymn’, death is a measure of how much Christ is obedient (2.8), it is not the power to which Christ submits in order to defeat sin. Whereas Protestant-oriented scholarship has claimed to find ‘justification by faith’ as a major concept in letters like Romans (a claim that can also be contested), Philippians is mostly disinterested in this idea. The result of Christ’s action in this passage is a victorious exaltation and universal veneration, not ‘justification’. This emphasis on veneration and exaltation brings this survey to one last suggestion for the background of this ‘hymn’. Whether discussing mythic figures like Heracles, rulers of the past like Alexander (the Great) or more recent Roman emperors like Caligula or Nero, this passage conforms to praises made in honor of (other) heroic and ruling figures as ‘divine men’. Stories and especially speeches praising such men (what was rhetorically called an encomium) would often entail descriptions of auspicious origins, meritorious accomplishments (including the trials of just being among us regular humans and mortals), noble deaths and their fitting fates and titles. One does not need to suggest this exact setting to explain the background of this passage, especially given how many ancient stories involve various gods descending to earth or the apotheosis of an impressive hero. As this suggestion finds more advocates in recent scholarship (Basevi and Chapa 1993; Reumann 2008: 362-74), one can see how certain kinds of rhetorical analysis grew out of the form-critical approaches of previous generations. It’s More Than Just Reigning Men An interest in the potential backgrounds or uses of this passage cannot be confined to the pursuit of traditional (and often malestream) questions. In fact, as the twentieth century continued and turned to the next century, some of the scholars most interested in grappling with the histories and effects of this ‘hymn’ were feminist and empire-critical interpreters. The approaches taken by such interpreters, of course, differ significantly from more traditional studies, which often fail to reflect upon troubling aspects of these letters or the power dynamics inherent in such expressions. Isis or Eve (Not Adam nor Steve) As one might have already noticed, for example, the path-breaking feminist scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is among those who find a Wisdom background to this passage (1975; see esp. 1994: 131-62). Recognizing how

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this ‘hymn’ belongs and operates within a communal setting where many participate in Wisdom helps readers to grasp its transgressive and transformative potential. Philippians 2.6-11 follows a mythological pattern that was used for describing a variety of divine figures, especially (but not only) female-identified deities like Ishtar, Demeter and Isis. The wider applicability and use of this kind of pattern is even indicated in the version within this letter, since the passage is introduced simply with the relative pronoun ‘who’ (hos, 2.6); Jesus is not identified as the (presumed) subject of the first half until the second half when God lifts up him and his name. Reflecting upon this setting gives the reader and user of this text the opportunity to imagine how many other people, besides Paul, created and used this ‘hymn’. This imaginative reorientation toward history indicates some of the ways early members of this movement adapted surrounding ideas to explain their own ideas, actions and ethics. The people in the Philippian assembly community were not simply passive in their engagement of these ideas; they were trying to construct alternatives to the kyriarchal orders of their time. Kyriarchy and its adjective form kyriarchal are descriptive terms that Schüssler Fiorenza created. Adapting but complicating the term patriarchy, kyriarchy indicates that domination and oppression are better understood and analyzed as a series of interlocking systems and practices. Elite men (who were often kyrioi or ‘lords’ for a variety of reasons) ruled over women and most other males on the basis of more than gender or sex, but also through a set of intertwining pyramidal hierarchies of race, ethnicity, economy, empire, status and sexuality. Schüssler Fiorenza and others suggest that this ‘hymn’ provides a brief opening onto the proclamation practices of a community, where many members more than Paul, female and male, participate in imagining and building a different sociopolitical order. Many scholars are invested in not seeing such possibilities, even actively trying to avoid associating themselves or their pictures of Jesus with female figures. It seems ironic, for instance, that some interpreters continue to maintain an explanation of the ‘hymn’ through an Adam Christology, when the key points of comparison in the Genesis creation stories are those associated with the female human being (identified only retroactively as ‘Eve’ at the end of the second creation story in Gen. 3.20). After all, the dialogue where the phrase ‘be like God’ is uttered is between the female human (not the male) and the serpent (Gen. 3.5); the female human evaluates the relative merits of the tree and reaches to take its fruit (Gen. 3.6). Even the earlier allusion to being made in the ‘image of God’ stresses that humans were made male and female (Gen. 1.27). Granted, the second story is often told to the detriment of this woman (and, for some, every woman), but the picture of Jesus’ divine role would certainly be different if one described this as a first Eve/second Eve (or last Eve) pattern, or suggested the ‘hymn’ evokes an Eve Christology.



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I suspect that scholars avoid this association for two reasons, both of which reflect how androcentric (male-focused) most biblical scholarship still is. First, even in trying to imagine Jesus reversing a pattern about death and sin (the latter also often associated with that first female human, even though this term is as absent in the Genesis creation stories as it is in Philippians), malestream Pauline interpreters do not want to identify Jesus with females or femininity in general (a point to which I will return in my final chapter). Second, an ‘Adam Christology’ seems a convincing explanation of this ‘hymn’ passage because these scholars are more inclined to follow Paul’s interpretations elsewhere (in Romans or 1 Corinthians) than to explore the efforts of others in preparing, proclaiming and passing along this ‘hymn’. But, as scholars like Cynthia Briggs Kittredge demonstrate, presuming that Paul is the primary author and the principal perspective worth adopting means obscuring the historical and rhetorical contexts in which Paul and many others interacted (Kittredge 2003). Not only does this scholarly habit erase or downplay the contributions of women and others besides Paul in these communities, but it also warps one’s outlook on Paul, who works alongside many other people (named and unnamed in the letters). The letters themselves are signs that Paul is always trying to convince these other people in his audience; it follows, then, that perspectives besides Paul’s matter in understanding these materials historically, rhetorically, politically and ethically. This might be particularly the case with Phil. 2.6-11, since this passage represents one of those rare opportunities to see the assembly communities’ work embedded into a series of arguments made by Paul. Following the passage, rather than Paul, nets some rather different results. If, for instance, the historical suggestion about Wisdom mythological patterns in the passage is correct, then members of these early assembly communities adopted and adapted female language and symbols for female deities to proclaim about Christ and their community. Further, this passage evokes a pattern where status is reversed, and not just where the divine becomes human but where the lordly divine is juxtaposed with the human as slave. Some feminist scholars describe Jesus’ humbling decision to descend into this state as an act of solidarity with the poor, the lowly and the oppressed (Schottroff 1995: 43-46). Indeed, it does seem like this passage plays upon some social hierarchies. Kittredge, however, maintains that the ‘hymn’ does more than this, because the way the incarnation and exaltation occur transforms how power is configured (1998: 79-83). The shift to the rule of Christ comes about through the strange act of Christ becoming a slave. When situated properly among other hymns, this act frees those who proclaim Christ from the cosmic powers of death. Because Paul frames the meaning of the ‘hymn’ by his surrounding arguments about conformity and obedience (2.1-4 and 2.12-13), this effort to

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shape its use could, in fact, be an indicator of how others did not see the ‘hymn’ this way, particularly given the contents that stress freedom from oppression. In an assembly community like the one in Philippi—one that preserves such a work of their own creation and has its own history of leadership outside of Paul (Kittredge 2003: 325)—this particular emphasis on freedom would likely mean much more than obedience to Paul as exclusive leader and sole author. Even Paul’s letter to this assembly community must acknowledge the roles of Euodia, Syntyche, Clement and Epaphroditus by naming them (2.25-30; 4.2-3, 18). The ‘hymn’ comes from this community with female and male leaders and members, named and unnamed. Just because Paul’s letter might be an effort to limit those who can share in the community’s leadership and partnership does not mean that the ‘hymn’ or a historian should follow this effort or reproduce this perspective as accurate, complete or ethically compelling. I’m a Slave…for You? Nevertheless, returning to the dynamics in the passage itself, there is still something rather troubling about the use of slave imagery within it. It is important to ask, as a key article by Sheila Briggs does: ‘Can an enslaved God liberate?’ (Briggs 1989). On the one hand, the paradox of an enslaved deity cannot be easily assimilated into a social status quo; it is confounding, even scandalizing. This sense of the text works with other feminist readings that find an inversion of hierarchical roles in this passage. On the other hand, while the ‘hymn’ attests to (some of) the kyriarchal dynamics of the slave system by repeating them in an altered context, this alteration also manages to obscure and even reinforce these dynamics. There are many ways that Christ taking the form of a slave (2.7b) is quite unlike the institution of slavery, particularly since this passage depicts Christ doing so willingly (‘emptied himself’, 2.7a). In fact, Christ is rewarded for this choice; but it is actually the lack of freedom to choose much of anything about one’s life that defines the place of a slave. In descending to death, this slave figure might be situated in ways like other slaves who were ‘socially dead’, being alienated from most of the family and cultural bonds that typically defined a person in antiquity (Patterson 1982). However, the purpose of this alienation was to incorporate this non-person into a family and household structure as a slave, not as an exalted lord, or kyrios, the Greek word commonly used for the ‘master’ or owner of slaves (and the head of a family and household). While the ‘hymn’ stresses that Christ receives a slave’s kind of execution (crucifixion, 2.8c), it idealizes the virtue any slave-owner would want in his slaves (i.e. obedience), while obscuring its compulsory dynamics. Lastly, in suggesting that becoming human is like becoming a slave, the ‘hymn’ repeats an elite perspective on both slavery and the human condition. For many ancient elites, the worst form



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of slavery is one that can affect any human, a moral slavery in which one does not have proper control of oneself or one’s passions. Not only does this completely bypass what most now would see as the morally horrific slave system of the ancient world, but it also promotes a rather unflattering picture of humans in general. Though the ‘hymn’ might have offered a pattern of reversal as a proclamation of hope for those oppressed in various ways by a kyriarchal culture, its predominant imagery and vocabulary are still embedded within a kyriarchal matrix where a master (2.11) is defined relative to slavery (2.7), a ruler relative to those subjected to him (2.9-11). As a result, even as I share many of the same feminist commitments as those who emphasize the former, I also see the latter and, therefore, tend to be less sanguine about the effects of the proclamation or even argumentation of a passage like this. While this could be an adaptation of symbols from female deities, this version of its adaptation already adopts and repeats kyriarchal representations about dominating the entire universe (Schüssler Fiorenza 1994: 149; Schottroff 1995: 46). The ‘hymn’ exclaims about Jesus as the cosmic ruler and kyrios, the very Greek word at the root of the feminist term meant to interrogate the effects of multiple, interlocking oppressions (kyriarchy)! Its appearance here is a harsh reminder of a much-overdue task: recognizing how traditional and ongoing confessions (or acknowledgments) of Jesus and, more generally, God as a kyrios (‘lord’) is actually hostile, rather than liberating, to those subject to a range of kyriarchal structures. Such a recognition would most certainly mean a much more thoroughgoing process of critique and counter-construction for many religious and cultural practices. However, if these concerns seem too abstract to some, the way this ‘hymn’ promotes a vision of voluntary suffering and even mortal selfsacrifice presents a number of chilling connections to the ways women and others considered socially inferior have been historically and even currently treated. Sacrificial suffering and dutiful obedience have often been idealized and extolled as Christian norms, especially for women and—or, as— slaves. When these norms are divinely endorsed (with an implicit promise of future, otherworldly vindication), it can contribute to calls for victims of violence to ‘offer up’ their suffering or consider their pain as a sacrifice that will save (them or others). Such arguments perpetuate violent practices and operate as their own forms of social control. This hardly seems like a joyful proclamation to deliver to people victimized by violence and oppression. I Pledge Allegiance to the Hymn? A growing emphasis upon Paul’s imperial context reflects upon similar dynamics of power and is quickly becoming one of the more popular ways of approaching his letters. Some have even suggested that a paradigm shift is under way in which Paul’s work is no longer contrasted against the

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Judaism(s) of his time, but against the Roman empire (Horsley 1997). Since such anti-imperial, or just empire-critical, work often builds upon or echoes the insights of feminist scholarship but fails to acknowledge them, the opportunity for a more robust comprehension of the dynamics that inhere in these letters is lost. This shift and its corresponding missed opportunity can be demonstrated by the way empire-critical interpreters have treated one of their favorite passages in Paul’s letters: this Christ ‘hymn’ in Philippians. Often, the accent of these interpretations is on the second half of the ‘hymn’, where Paul teaches an important part of his anti-imperial gospel. The exaltation of Jesus and the reverence shown to him are in opposition to the Roman emperor, a kyrios who will also be divinized. This oppositional reading is typical of recent anti-imperial interpretations, which derive this point of contrast from the suggestions of Dieter Georgi (1991), who examines Paul’s letters particularly in the light of the growing emperor cult in the first century. Thus, more specifically, the ‘hymn’ could be echoing common religious views of the death and ascension of the emperor into the pantheon. If this ascent is understood as a part of an apocalyptic reversal, also stressed by the arc of Phil. 2.6-11, then a critique of a larger sociopolitical order could be afoot. By claiming that Jesus now has a name above all names and a sovereign status for which every knee must bend (2.9-10), however, the ‘hymn’ ends up proclaiming the kind of allegiance the emperor typically receives to someone else. Further than this, though, this reverent allegiance is due to Jesus because he has achieved universal sovereignty, not simply over all the nations (as an empire could claim) but over all three planes of existence (i.e. the entire universe). This sovereignty shows that Jesus is like the emperor, only better. In fact, since the ‘hymn’ depicts Jesus as currently ruling, it might be better read as an enthronement than an apotheosis of an emperor after his death. However, Jesus’ participation in this reign only begins after his death, which is the pivot point in this ‘hymn’. As I already noted above, this death is quite unlike that of an emperor or any free citizen of the empire, since the passage specifically stresses that Jesus was crucified (2.8c). Not only is this the most debased and shameful way to die, but it also clearly marks this figure as one who was executed by the Romans. Celebrating a crucified person as lord and ruler, then, would be a rather bold opposition to the authority that claims the connected rights to both rule and execute in this fashion. Such a claim is precisely the kind of thing that could get a noncitizen subject of this empire executed by crucifixion! The rest of the first half seems to be presenting Jesus as a model figure because he is willing to sacrifice and adopt a ‘serving’ position (2.7b) to offer a different pattern of leadership. One scholar has even gone so far to argue that the indignities that Jesus accepts in the first half of the ‘hymn’ explicitly reverse the



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kinds of honors claimed by elites in the empire and in a colonial setting like Philippi (Hellerman 2005). For some empire-critical interpreters, then, this ‘hymn’ offers a different form of rule: one who was once debased and crucified is now acclaimed and confessed a cosmic kyrios beyond just earthly power. On the other hand, other scholars interested in Paul’s imperial context find more points of similarity than explicit contrasts in this Christ ‘hymn’. For instance, the claim to be adopting a serving disposition can just as easily be seen as a way to legitimize the moral authority of the empire through the person of the emperor, who often argued that he did it all for the good of others. One can even return to some of those disputed terms at the very beginning of this passage, like the language of being equal to or like God (2.6c). Not only is such language used in the ruler cult of both the Greeks and the Romans, but it was also reflected in the competition for civic honors in various cities of the Roman empire. When elites demonstrated and displayed significant enough benefaction, then they could be paid honors similar to those of the gods (Heen 2004). One could see the re-use of this language here as a critique of the emperor and the abuses of the patronage systems in colonized cities. Yet, at the same time, the ‘hymn’ depicts Jesus as deserving of such commendation from the start, and as receiving at the end those great rewards that other legendary heroes or divine emperors were given. The function of this passage looks a lot like those speeches of praise (encomia) that reinforce rather than reverse or even relativize the imperial order. Thus, again, though I share some of the same commitments as those scholars who work to interrogate imperialism (and hopefully not just ancient imperialism, but any form wherever it might [re]appear), I do not share some of the more optimistic interpretations of this passage’s antiimperial impact. It is distinctly possible that these verses were crafted in communities that resisted aspects of the Roman empire; yet, in doing so, they also adapt imperial imagery and use it to praise their own divinized figures. This ‘hymn’ does not seem so much to resist or reverse imperial forms of arguing and arranging; rather, it repeats and continues (even if this is a slightly different context). Scholars who find an ‘anti-imperial Paul’ in this passage likely not prepared by Paul have failed to learn from the variety of feminist perspectives on this passage. One cannot soften the hierarchical subordination and domination inherent in the slave and ruler-master (kyrios) terminology by claiming Jesus ‘serves’ as a different kind of kyriarch. The ‘hymn’ proclaims the subjection of the universe to this exclusive form of power not unlike the kind of domination proclaimed as ‘good news’ by the Roman empire. It is in greater continuity with patterns that support rather than challenge empire, patriarchy and slavery. Indeed, it is not hard to imagine how later imperial authorities, from ancient Rome to more recent

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regimes, adopted such visions as their own without radically reshaping the violent and exploitative dynamics of imperial rule. This ‘hymn’ repeats imperial, or better kyriarchal imagery without critique, bequeathing to future users of this text a deeply ambiguous heritage. From whatever background it comes, whichever image of Christ and humanity it expresses, there is much with which a politically and ethically engaged reader must grapple in this, one of the most celebrated and cited texts in all of the Christian scriptures. Again, the importance of perspective and pre-sets comes to the foreground. If one proceeds as if this ‘hymn’ is only a theological treatise, one misses both its potent hierarchical themes and its sweeping rhetorical function. Users and interpreters of Philippians make different, yet similar, mistakes when they treat the letter only as a delivery device for this important passage, passing over the density and complexity of the whole. Such approaches lack something this book and especially my next chapter try to provide: context.

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Friends, Romans, Women: Lend Me your Context? There is much to appreciate and engage in this relatively brief letter among Paul’s epistles. Yet, scholars have often labeled Philippians a minor contribution in comparison to the so-called Hauptbriefe (German for ‘principal’ or ‘major’ letters), longer and ostensibly weightier letters like Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians. This seeming lack of heft contributes to assumptions about the letter’s ‘harmless’ appearance, while extolling its positive and warm place in the canon and in the hearts of its users. Examine, for instance, the opening lines of commentaries about the letter. Peter O’Brien celebrates that ‘Paul’s Letter to the Philippians has been a favourite of Christians for almost two thousand years’ (O’Brien 1991: xii). Markus Bockmuehl positively glows by beginning: ‘St Paul’s letter to Philippi sparkles with joy—the sort of life-giving, heart-refreshing joy that is tangibly transforming in its effect on the mundane realities of everyday existence’ (Bockmuehl 1998: 1). The personal warmth attributed to the letter and to its author causes interpreters and users to make a more favorable comparative evaluation of Philippians. Ben Witherington calls it ‘one of Paul’s most eloquent and cordial letters’ (1994: 137), while Gordon D. Fee offers that ‘many of us like Philippians because we like the Paul we meet here’ (1999: 11). Even the more circumspect Carolyn Osiek labels the letter ‘a jewel of the Pauline corpus’, since it ‘reveals Paul at his best’ (2000: 32). This recurring impression of the especially personal, warm, friendly, informal or joyful character of Philippians can lead to the assumption that it is transparent, effortless, even artless in plan or structure. The combination of this impression and assumption can lead to a further assumption that the interaction between Paul and the assembly community at Philippi reflects the positive associations contemporary users and interpreters have. As I aim to demonstrate in this and the coming chapters, though, this letter is a compelling piece of argumentation, especially because there is much more to it than what might first meet the eye. Philippians is a rhetorically complex, even dense, letter, reflecting the effort of the person who prepared it and a context not entirely free of conflict.

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You Were Always on my Mind Part of what makes this letter so compelling to (re)consider are the distinctive or even repetitive elements to its overall argument, highlighting what could be its key themes. Even as many of the aforementioned commentaries begin from a different perspective about this letter, they helpfully foreground at least one of these potentially key themes: joy. Certainly, Paul uses the terminologies of joy repeatedly across the chapters and verses of this letter. One need only compare the rather different kinds of emotional appeals made in the arguments of a letter like Galatians (anger, curses and insults, bitterness, distress and possibly sarcasm) to recognize the potential interest of this repetition. One or another of the verbal forms for rejoice (chairō) appear eleven times in Philippians (1.18 [twice]; 2.17 [twice], 18 [twice], 28; 3.1; 4.4 [twice], 10), while the noun (chara) appears in five more instances (1.4, 25; 2.2, 29; 4.1). This theme of joy particularly stands out in the letter because there are several points where it is a point of emphasis. Paul stresses not just that he currently rejoices, but he also immediately confirms that he will rejoice in the future (1.18). The letter’s addressees are to do the same, since Paul presses them to ‘Rejoice in the lord always; again I will say, rejoice’ (4.4). Far from concerned about emphatic repetitions or redundancies, the connection between these two types of expressions is stressed and made explicit in another instance: ‘I rejoice and I rejoice with all of you [plural]. And in the same way you [plural] yourselves should also rejoice and rejoice with me’ (2.17-18). Paul remembers them with joy in the thanksgiving (1.4), calls them ‘my joy’ later (4.1), and rejoices in their support (4.10). In turn, the audience should rejoice that Paul is returning Epaphroditus to them (2.28), and their reception of him should reflect this joy (2.29). The letter persistently frames this joy and rejoicing as a measure of the relationship between Paul and the Philippians. In the midst of one of the longer imperative sentences in the letter, Paul urges, even demands: ‘complete my joy in order that you might think the same thing, having the same love, sharing in spirit, thinking the one thing’ (2.2). These examples of the letter’s interest in joy function as neither a set of throw-away lines nor a facile habit for transitions, as evidenced by their links to some of the distinctive language in the letter, including the themes of partnership and proper mindset. The concept of koinōnia is typically translated as ‘partnership’ or ‘fellowship’, or at least related to having something in common; the concept also recurs in key parts of Philippians. The letter both begins and ends stressing this kind of common relationship, in ways connected to joy as a key theme. When Paul gratefully and joyfully remembers the community members in the opening thanksgiving, he acknowledges their ‘partnership in the gospel from the first day up to now’ (1.5).



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Further, he shows that he thinks (phronein) correctly about them by stressing that ‘all of you are partners with me [sygkoinōnoi, ‘co-partners’ or ‘partners with’] in grace, both in my chains and in my defense and confirmation of the gospel’ (1.7). Joy and thankfulness for their support are also related to their common links in one of the last sections of the letter (4.10-20). This so-called thank-you section expends less effort on thanking than on establishing Paul’s position and relationship with the Philippians. Paul claims that there is something distinctive about their fellowship and commonality, stressing that no other assembly community partnered (koinōneō) with him except the Philippian assembly (4.15). This shared relationship is framed by the letter as more than a matter of financial support (4.15), because the assembly members acted in a ‘co-partnering’ way (sygkoinōnēsantes) by sharing in Paul’s trouble (4.14). The possibility of shared suffering within koinōnia kinds of relationships is indicated as well by Paul’s stated hope to have ‘a share [koinōnia] in his [Christ’s] suffering, becoming like him in his death’ (3.10). This partnership can also express something within the community, particularly something Paul exhorts the audience to show in the convoluted sentence that begins Philippians 2 and runs four verses long. If the audience has ‘any partnership [koinōnia] of spirit’ (2.1), they should follow Paul’s imperative and bring him joy by thinking the same thing (2.2). The vision of partnership presented in this letter, then, is connected not only to the theme of joy, but also to another repeated theme: proper mindset. These sorts of links indicate how discerning and discussing one theme inevitably leads to another, and then another, thus demonstrating how much the various themes are interwoven in the argumentation of the letter. For instance, I have already noted in passing this matter of adopting a certain way of thinking when describing Paul’s affirmative (self-)evaluation of his copartnership with the Philippians: Paul’s way of thinking (phronein) is right (1.7). Again, this theme of proper mindset can be found toward both the beginning and the end of the letter. It is particularly linked with joy toward the end, since Paul is rejoicing that they were ‘thinking [phronein] on my behalf’, and emphatically more, since ‘indeed, you were thinking of me’ (4.10). This terminology of thinking or feeling the right way seems especially important to interpreters of this letter since it recurs at key moments for the letter’s argumentation. Such moments include the introduction to the ‘hymn’ and a targeted argument toward two named figures in the community, Euodia and Syntyche. Whatever the source, background, use or meaning attributed to this ‘hymn’ might be (see the previous chapter), the verses immediately surrounding it indicate how Paul aims to argue with and through a citation of this tradition. Thus, one can see the centrality of this argument about mindset when the letter introduces the ‘hymn’ with

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the imperative: ‘think [phroneite] this in you [plural] which was also in Christ Jesus’ (2.5). Further, the long sentence that precedes this introductory admonition uses this same verb twice to exhort the audience to be unified in following Paul’s argument: ‘think the same thing…thinking the one thing’ (2.2). This sentence, also an imperative, demands that the audience hold all sorts of dispositions and relationships in common (love, affection, compassion, spirit, humility), not just the aforementioned joy and partnership, but a broad unity or sameness. Perhaps more than just a theme in the letter, this issue of proper mindset is repeatedly an instruction, admonition or even command of Paul to the audience: think the same thing, this (one) thing. The letter repeats one of the phrases used leading up to the ‘hymn’ when addressing two female figures in the assembly community at Philippi. Paul exhorts both Euodia and Syntyche to ‘think the same thing’ (4.2). The exact meaning of this brief address is of some dispute among scholars who bother to pay more than passing attention to it (the subject of women in the community has not always been interesting to the mostly male ranks of preachers and professors who have plumbed the depths of Philippians). Yet, as before, a small cluster of sentences concerned with proper mindset precedes this particular argument. One can certainly see what Paul thinks of those who agree with his point of view (and those who do not) in another sentence that uses this verb twice: ‘Therefore, those who are mature, let us think this; and if you think anything other, God will also reveal this to you’ (3.15). The letter characterizes those who agree in their thinking (with Paul) as mature or advanced. But this sentence also reflects a concern that people might think something else, forebodingly indicating a divine revelation would ‘correct’ this defective attitude. This concern with difference in mindset is likely to be more than just an abstract meditation, since one of the ways the letter describes the ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’ is their ‘having their minds [phronountes] on the earthly things’ (3.19). Thus, the following targeted argument directed to (or even against) Euodia and Syntyche could be the culmination of this phronein language and the themes of mindset and sameness it expresses throughout the letter. These connected themes—joy, partnership and mindset—meet and extend the letter’s broader themes of unity and imitation, as well as its concerns about difference within and around the assembly community at Philippi. An interest in unity is reflected in a variety of ways, including some of the language I have already surveyed. Often, these overlap with the repeated use of Greek words that begin with syn (‘with’ or ‘together’) in the letter. As either a prefix or a preposition, syn appears twenty times (1.1, 7, 23 [twice], 27; 2.2, 17, 18, 22, 25 [twice]; 3.10, 17, 21; 4.3 [four times], 14, 21). This includes a number of instances where syn accentuated calls for joy or reinforced the joint aspect of partnership (1.7; 2.17; 4.14).



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Whether addressing particular parties or the entire assembly community, Paul implements this theme of unity with and for the Philippians. Paul argues about Epaphroditus with some common and uncommon terms for those in the common network of this developing movement, but even the uncommon term expresses commonality! Epaphroditus is both Paul’s ‘coworker’ (synergos) and his ‘co-soldier’ (systratiōtēs), a striking term considering the history of armed conflict over and around Philippi (2.25). Later, Paul will argue about Euodia and Syntyche with other terms for joint or common action. He instructs (or demands) a third party, whom he calls only his true yokeperson or comrade to ‘take hold with [syllambanou] these [Euodia and Syntyche], who struggled alongside [synēthlēsan] me in the gospel with Clement and the rest of my co-workers [synergoi]’ (4.3). Paul uses quite a cluster of terms on commonality to argue for how these two female figures should act in ways more like the many other co-workers, named and unnamed by the letter. When combined with the recurrent concern over partnership and proper mindset, these kinds of argumentative tendencies indicate that unity is a major theme in the letter. One key context for these kinds of unity arguments can be found in ancient speeches about Greek-speaking cities (e.g. Isocrates, Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristides). How to live properly within a city (polis) is a common topic in such speeches and is echoed by this letter’s repetition of the political verb (politeuesthe, 1.27) and then noun (politeuma, 3.20) when urging the community to follow Paul’s arguments. While one of the most prominent Greek terms for this unity, homonoia (‘oneness of mind’), does not recur in the letter, I hope I have made clear by now how much similarity or oneness in mindset is a major element in Philippians. Holding things in common (koinōnia), including ways of thinking (phronein), are frequent appeals in both these civic speeches and Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Typically, this unity in thinking is presented in contrast to those who show rivalry or contentiousness, as Paul does with his apparent rivals (1.15, 17; 2.3). An audience in both situations shows resistance to divisions and difference by rejoicing together and working together. Lastly, the speaker/writer points to models or examples of appropriate behavior, figures for the audience to imitate if they are persuaded to reach for concord. Paul Wants to Be a (Super) Model Paul repeatedly situates himself and others as just such model figures for the assembly community to imitate, indicating how much modeling or imitation should be seen as a dominant rhetorical tendency in Philippians (Castelli 1991; Marchal 2006a: 181-90; 2008: 59-90). In fact, one can see how the thematic tendencies of the letter come together in those places where Paul exhorts the assembly community members toward imitation. Through the

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letter he insists (or beseeches) them to ‘become co-imitators [symmimētai] of me’ (3.17). Though this is the only time a term with the mimesis root is used in the letter, the argumentative effort toward imitation is by no means limited to this term, this section or even this letter (see examples in 1 Corinthians and Galatians, among others). The efforts to extol certain kinds of imitation are evident from the beginning of Philippians, where Paul seeks to establish his own model status by showing that he has the appropriate mindset (1.311). This right mindset—and that Paul ‘thinks this’ (touto phronein, 1.7)—is actually best explained as a repetitive element of the letter’s model argumentation. Paul displays his model quality not only by showing that what he has already done is ‘progress’ (1.12) because ‘most of the brothers have become more confident in the lord because of my chains’ (1.14), but also by ‘remaining in the flesh’ for the present and future good of the community (1.24), including their progress, joy and boasting (1.25-26). As a result, Paul argues that the community should share or adapt to his mindset and be engaged in ‘the same fight’ as Paul’s (emphasized by the phrase ‘in me’ twice in 1.30). Thus, even before leaving the first chapter of this brief letter, one has a distinct indication that Paul is seeking to establish himself as a model, in order that his audience at Philippi might imitate him in some way. As the letter proceeds, Paul displays exemplary service (2.17), while expecting the Philippians to obediently conform to the right path (2.12, 14-16). Their actions are due to Paul so that he might be able to boast and not have done his work ‘in vain’ (twice in 2.16). This should also mean that the Philippians share the same sense of joy that Paul has. The audience’s potential ‘co-imitation’ of Paul (3.17) would also be a demonstration of their proper frame of mind (‘those who are mature, let us think this’, 3.15), the same frame of mind that the two named female figures, Euodia and Syntyche, are also called to share with Paul (4.2). Finally, Paul exhorts the Philippians to do ‘the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me’ (4.9). Evident from the start, the calls to imitate Paul become more explicit the further Paul argues. The community should have the same struggle, the same attitude, the same joy and, in the end, do the same things as Paul. This sameness is even stressed in the act of imitation: they should become co-imitators of Paul. Though these arguments are persistently and predominantly deployed to posit the primacy of Paul’s model status, this is not the only way Philippians implements its rhetoric of imitation. These arguments establish the imitation of Paul first, before turning to other, more truncated arguments using supporting models. Thus, Paul’s audience can show they have the same mind (2.2-5) by following the model presented in the ‘hymn’ Paul quotes in 2.6-11. Paul makes clear how the audience is meant to follow the ‘hymn’ by stressing the element of obedience immediately after its citation (2.12). In this instance the best way to imitate Christ is to act out of obedience



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(hypēkousate, 2.12), just as Christ did (esp. 2.8, hypēkoos; Kittredge 1998: 83-86). However, since the obedience is framed in terms of Paul’s absence or presence (2.12), it seems that it is due to Paul. The argument to imitate Christ’s obedience, then, feeds the more frequent calls to imitate Paul and to do and think the same things as he. In addition, Paul’s model status is reinforced by its apparent similarity to the arc of the ‘hymn’. Paul’s own selfdescription as moving from loss to gain (3.7-11) and ‘becoming like him [Christ]’ (3.10) bolsters the rhetorical preeminence of Paul as model in the letter’s argumentation. Thus, even if Paul advocates, or even if the assembly members conceive, a more significant cosmic and communal role for Christ, the references to Christ play a secondary or more supporting role in the overarching argument of the letter. The letter develops this strategy when it turns to two other supporting models, Timothy and Epaphroditus. Both of these figures echo certain qualities the letter highlights as part of Paul’s exemplary status. Not only is Timothy like Paul (‘I have no one of similar mind’, 2.20), but this similar mind also involves being one ‘who will truly care’ about the Philippians (2.20). Epaphroditus has shown a willingness to suffer in order to fulfill a service to the community and to Paul, as the letter twice notes how close he came to dying (2.27, 30). Paul describes him with terms that indicate his relative closeness to Paul: ‘brother and co-worker and co-soldier’ (2.25). As a supporting model, Epaphroditus shows that he is concerned about the community on the occasion of receiving the bad news of his own illness (2.26). Like Paul before them (1.7, 12, 14, 24-26; 2.17), Timothy and Epaphroditus have the proper frame of mind and do the right things with regard for the assembly community at Philippi. Pointing to them at this point in the letter seems to be implicitly building the appeals to imitation. In Paul’s mind, they are both meritorious and he plans to send both of them to the community; this only strengthens the impression that Paul is seeking for the Philippians to imitate him through the imitation of these intermediates. Yet, Paul’s elevated status is never far removed even when laying out other models, as he is re-introduced in both sections. As Timothy’s arrival is just a precursor to Paul’s own imminent return (2.24), so Epaphroditus’ tasks involve serving Paul (2.25, 30), while surviving and returning for the relief of Paul’s anxieties (2.27-28). Therefore, when Paul exhorts the community to ‘hold such people as honored’ (2.29), it seems that he has these supporting figures as well as himself in mind. Likewise, when he argues for the audience to become ‘co-imitators of me’, he also quickly connects the call to look to the ones ‘as you have a type in us’ (3.17). Timothy and Epaphroditus mimic Paul’s model, so a collective ‘us’ is shaped to reinforce the arguments for Pauline imitation. Besides nestling these other models into the middle of a series of arguments for imitating him, Paul further develops this communal ‘us’ rhetoric

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through two other kinds of argument. Throughout the letter those worthy of imitation are contrasted with those who are not. These anti-models work out of envy, rivalry and divisiveness (1.15-17; cf. 2.3) and ‘seek their own things’ (2.21; cf. 2.4). They are labeled a ‘crooked and twisted generation’ (2.15), dogs, evil-workers and the mutilation (3.2), as well as enemies (3.18; cf. 1.28). In addition, the model and anti-model argumentation build upon each other to create a potent claim about community belonging: the Philippians should be characterized by their unity and sameness (a very specific sort of ‘us’ rhetoric). The calls to imitate Paul and a few others are intertwined with ones to ‘think the same thing’ (2.2), unlike those who are divided and divisive. The letter crafts a message that if the community remains united in a proper mindset (‘stand in one spirit’, 1.27; ‘those who are mature, let us think this’, 3.15; ‘stay in line in the same way’, 3.16), they will gain safety and avoid the destruction of those who are not (‘a sign to them of their destruction and your [plural] safety’, 1.28; ‘their end is destruction…having their minds on earthly things’, 3.19; cf. 2.12; 3.1, 15). If the audience follows Paul’s arguments here, their community identity will be defined by whom they imitate as well as if and how they specifically do so in unity and sameness. Framed as a matter of life and death, proper imitation is crucial in order to belong in the ‘us’ constructed by this letter. From Paul’s point of view, the Philippians need to be like ‘me’ (or the version of ‘me’ he presents) to be one of ‘us’. Eventually, you can see how so many of the key themes are folded into an overarching organizational strategy to argue in terms of imitation, models and anti-models. Repeatedly in this section, discussing one theme has inevitably led to another and another and yet another. The dense ways in which these themes cross and weave into each other underscores how much many previous interpreters and users have misunderstood or failed to recognize compelling things about this apparently minor letter. The density of Paul’s argumentation hints that there is more than a fleeting or a fortuitous purpose to the letter. This is no simple expression of thanks; the letter is not just passing along news, or sending a message because someone else is headed to Philippi anyway. This is also why, you will notice, that this section has moved increasingly from focusing upon what the letter says to how it argues. Repetitive language is only the first cue as to what is happening in the letter and the community, or how an argument is operating in either. In shifting from themes to rhetoric, I have highlighted how patterns of expression about imitation and modeling do more than just recur in the letter: they help to shape the whole, integrating and even building upon previous claims. In this way, imitation rhetoric is a better, more specific description of the oft-noted unity arguments within Philippians. To understand and grapple with the impact of this letter, it is crucial to identify and describe its repetitive and often distinctive themes. By considering how themes are elements,



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or at least reflections, of persistent argumentative moves, though, the analysis begins to zero in on the strategies the letter embodies, demonstrating its potential plan or at least its focus (whether ‘conscious’ or not). Explanations for the letter should be able to address not simply why these rhetorical tendencies are present, but also how these tendencies reflect the operation of specific strategies and, in turn, the impacts these strategies might have (and still have). Often, in trying to bridge thematic or rhetorical analysis to historical reconstructions, scholars have offered different rhetorical contexts for the letter based upon particular conventions or concerns from the surrounding culture. The unity and encouragement in the face of suffering offered by the letter could reflect a context where martyrdom, for Paul and for others, is a major organizing concern (Lohmeyer 1961). Certainly, Paul does seem to be reflecting upon his potential death in a couple instances (most explicitly in 1.20-24, but also possibly 2.17; 3.10). A more recent suggestion connects the exhortations to joy with these kinds of concern over suffering more broadly to classify the letter as fitting ancient practices of consolation (Holloway 2001). This offers one way to explain both the letter and the relationship between its recipients and sender, but the material aspects to the letter’s argumentation continue to invite still other speculation and categorization. A notable suggestion contextualizes the letter’s interest in koinōnia and explicates a set of details that indicate a uniquely supportive relationship between Paul and the Philippians, as one would find within the Roman societas system (Sampley 1980). The book-keeping kind of language about exchange, payment, credit and profit (4.15-19) fits this context, as would an interest in having the same mindset within a partnership. However, the latter is less specific to these contractual relationships, making it harder to explain the plan of the letter as a whole. If one recognizes that there was more potential conflict or difference in mindset within the assembly communities, including between Paul and them, the presumption of their distinctively positive relationship, common to many contextualizations, is also problematized. If language about unity, commonality and imitation are generally ‘in the air’ within a number of ancient contexts, then a rhetorical contextualization must elaborate upon more than just some parallel conventions for expression to convince. Understanding some of the distinctive terminology might be a bit more challenging than what many tend to think upon first encountering this letter. For a rhetorical context to prove particularly illuminating for Philippians, it should not only explain what is distinctive or interesting about the letter, but also how the letter is organized in its parts and as a whole. Often, in doing so, the better suggestions for rhetorical context can identify what kind of letter this is, or at least what kind of relationship holds between the Philippians and Paul. In what follows, then, I will highlight at

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greater length some of the better options for the letter’s rhetorical context, found in more recent developments in the scholarship and interpretation of Philippians. Friends, With Only Certain Benefits Scholars who prefer to explain the letters in terms of ancient friendship conventions argue that the key terms of partnership and proper mindset are among the technical vocabulary of friendship (White 1990; Stowers 1991; Fitzgerald 1996; Marchal 2006b). While Philippians never uses the words for either friend (philos) or friendship (philia), ‘thinking the same thing’ (to auto phronein, Phil. 2.2; 4.2) is a typical part of Greco-Roman friendships in the works of Plato, Cicero and Dio Chrysostom. According to Aristotle’s quick definition, ‘friendship is koinōnia’ (Nichomachean Ethics, 9.8.2). By Plato’s time, the idea that ‘the things/matters of friends are [held] in common’ (koina ta philōn, Plato, Lysis, 207C; Republic 449C, 449D, 450C) is even a proverb. This commonality within friendship fits the Philippians’ focus upon sameness and shared joy, as well as the frequent use of syn compounds to express togetherness or joint action. Friends should also demonstrate their oneness, often expressed as sharing ‘one soul’ (mia psychē, 1.27). This concept is implemented with variations in other parts of Philippians, including the description of Timothy as ‘similarly-souled’ to Paul (isopsychos, 2.20) and the synthesis of many of these terms in 2.2 (‘sameness’ [twice], ‘mindset’ [twice], ‘sharing in soul/spirit’ [sympsychoi]). Though Paul hopes to send Timothy to Philippi soon, he also remains focused on his own absence and eventual travel. Indeed, this recurring topic of Paul’s absence and his attempts to communicate his desire to be in the Philippian community’s presence (1.7-8, 19-26, 27; 2.12, 24; 4.1) also reflects a stock motif of ancient friendship. In order to be a more convincing proposal for this letter’s argumentation, though, it must be shown how friendship rhetoric is an organizational feature of the whole. This becomes possible by expanding the topics of investigation to include both friends and enemies, a common topic in ancient friendship and a recurring contrast made throughout Philippians. As I noted earlier in the overview of imitation, models and particularly anti-models, Philippians introduces the topic of enemies early (1.15-18, 29-30) while the remainder of the letter presents a series of antithetical models. The Christ ‘hymn’ (2.6-11) is identified as a case of narrative modeling, showing the kind of friendship advocated for the Philippians: a selfless, sacrificial humbling in the vein of the ideal expressed in Lucian’s novel Toxaris. Similarly, Paul uses himself as an example of this sacrificial form of friendship in a previous section, where he is considering his own mortality (1.21-26). The section following the ‘hymn’ (2.14-18) is meant to connect the audience to



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this sacrificial pattern, as is the description of (1) Timothy as the right kind of friend, selfless and concerned about them (2.19-24, esp. isopsychos in 2.20) and (2) Epaphroditus, willing to serve the community nearly to death, while still longing to be with them again (2.25-30). The whole of Philippians 3 follows upon the pattern set in Philippians 1–2, then, as an opportunity to contrast Paul’s own model with the counter-models of the ‘enemies’ (3.18). For some scholars Philippians 4 is the culmination of friendship language in the letter. The specific exhortations to Euodia and Syntyche in 4.2-3 are expressed with that key phrase of ‘think the same thing’ as well as that aforementioned cluster of commonality, expressed through four syn compounds. Furthering the argument that the letter is attempting to express the appropriate form of friendship for the community, 4.8 lists the virtues that show the truest form of friendship, while 4.9 presents Paul as the model for these virtues. The mindset highlighted in 4.10 (phronein) indicates the concern one has for a friend, a concern that is not false since the relationship continues despite ‘distress’ (thlipsis, 4.14; see Berry 1996: 110-11, 116-17). Even the high concentration of commercial language (4.15-19), which previously led scholars to see 4.10-20 as a thank-you note, receipt for aid, or even a sign of a contractual relationship, was typical amongst friends who expected reciprocity in the exchange of gifts and favors. For those who favor this rhetorical context for Philippians, the letter is an attempt to correct the community members’ views of friendship, while still reflecting the warm and personal relationship between Paul and assembly members at Philippi. Paul is thus presented as a positive model for this friendship, within the letter and within this interpretation of the letter. Thus, this contextualization explains what kind of letter this is and describes the quality of the relationship between the recipients and the sender. Be All That You Can Be…in an Ancient Military? Though not quite as popular among scholars as the proposal for Philippians as a letter of friendship, the military context for this letter is irresistible to others and provocative in general (Geoffrion 1993; Krentz 2003; Marchal 2005), considering Philippi’s significant history as a colony and area of veteran settlement (see Chapter 1). In particular, what is initially more relevant is the common rhetorical practice of using military terminology to provide an ethical example in a range of writing in the GrecoRoman world. In such settings, the faithful soldier cuts an impressive figure as an example for the life of virtue. Beyond pointing out the rather obvious uses of military terms in the letter, such as the praetorium where Paul is imprisoned (1.13) or his coworker Epaphroditus being described as Paul’s ‘co-soldier’ (systratiōtēs, 2.25), a number of scholars also argue that

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military imagery plays a more direct role in the purpose of the letter: to exhort the Philippians to stand firm. If Phil. 1.27-30 establishes the purpose of the letter’s argument, then, it becomes especially significant that a number of the terms in this section are found in speeches of encouragement given by commanders to their troops when they seem discouraged or intimidated. For example, the verb politeuesthe (‘live as citizens’), especially when paired with euangeliou (‘good news’) in 1.27, recalls admonitions detailing the proper way to live out one’s obligations toward the empire as a soldier (or as a citizen or subject trying to be like a soldier). The second reference to ‘good news’ in the verse (‘the trust/pledge of the good news’, tē pistei tou euangeliou) could then be viewed as designating a soldier’s pledge of allegiance to the general and the emperor, particularly since this Greek term frequently referred to the good news of an important military victory or the rise of a new emperor (two related phenomena in the Roman imperial era). The theme of absence and presence is important for military situations, since a commander’s presence in battle is often depicted as a necessary positive example for the troops (1.27, cf. 1.7-8, 19-26; 2.12, 24, 28). The third clause, ‘you [plural] stand in one spirit, contending together with one mind’, summons the image of soldiers standing in line side-by-side in proper formation. This sort of standing firm (stēkete) is an antonym for fleeing (pheugein), thus denoting steadfastness, as well as being an important element in describing how to live worthily as citizens of the empire (politeuesthe), especially in times of war. The unity and togetherness that comes to expression in the clause also indicates the desired mental attitude for the army, since group action is the hallmark of a successful campaign. The rest of this section only seems to reinforce the battlefield imagery, as the audience is exhorted ‘not to be intimidated’ (mē ptyromenoi, 1.28) with a term typically reserved for frightened and disorderly horses in the midst of a battle. The antithetical language of ‘destruction’ (apōleia) and ‘salvation’ (or ‘safety’, sōtēria) in the next clause emphasizes the potential outcomes of any military conflict. One of the soldier’s expectations going into battle would certainly have been the possibility of ‘suffering injury’ (paschein, 1.29) from another combatant. Finally, the use of the term for ‘opponents’ (antikeimenōn, 1.28) among this dense cluster of military terms seems to confirm that agōn (1.30) should be read primarily as a military ‘fight’ rather than an athletic ‘contest’ (of course, the latter is typically preparation for the former). If the encouragement to steadfastness is the main purpose of the letter, then this helps to show that such language plays a major role in the organization of the whole, not just one of its parts. The ‘partnership’ language (koinōnia) could be referencing the importance of alliances in such a context, but shared identity and the persistent appeals to joy are certainly desirable in maintaining steadfast ranks in a conflict. This steadfastness



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is demonstrated by the military discipline of both staying in line (three forms of menō, ‘remaining’, in 1.24-25) and advancing or making progress (prokopē, 1.12, 25). The exhortations to joy reflect the expectation that a good soldier would do his duty joyfully, just as Paul does, even while suffering (1.18; 2.17-18). Moreover, the role of models is vital both in military situations and in the organization of the letter. Since the army requires submission and obedience, the Christ ‘hymn’ could function as a model of such humble submission (2.7-8). Paul also plays the role of both a model and an authority figure (like a military commander), since he calls for the audience to join him in the same—that is, his—conflict (1.30), with obedience (2.12) and without grumbling (2.14) even in his absence (1.27; 2.12). The letter presses its audience with many imperatives, and refers to its audience even as Paul’s ‘crown’ (stephanos, 4.1), the sort worn in victory. Clearly, Timothy and Epaphroditus, the ‘co-soldiers’ (systratiōtēn, 2.25) are also presented as models of steadfast devotion. The presentation of them as positive models only heightens the contrast between the negative models (1.15-17; 2.14-15) and the positive one of Paul. If one finds this polarization between enemies and allies to be reminiscent of the sides lined up in formation in 1.27-30, then the argument seems to point the reader even more forcefully in this particular direction (see also the contrasts in 3.2-3, 18-21; 4.2-3, 8-9). Indeed, later sections like 3.17–4.3 echo 1.27-30, recalling the opposed fates of safety and destruction (3.19-20) and repeating the terms for living properly as ‘citizens’ (politeuma, 3.20), standing firm (4.1) and struggling together (4.3). Most scholars who favor the letter’s connections to this militarized context highlight the history of battles and colonizations at Philippi, believing this way of arguing would be both familiar and favorably received in the assembly community. Some have even suggested that these calls for steadfastness in times of trouble would be followed because Roman veterans or citizens were among the members of this assembly community. Would They Be Friends in This Empire’s Social Network? Recognizing these sorts of arguments and placing Philippians within either a friendship or military context display certain improvements over many other suggestions for understanding this letter. This explains why both of these contextualizations still have some appeal to interpreters of the letter. In situating Philippians historically and rhetorically, both suggestions account for distinctive and repetitive language as well as the overall organization of the letter. This allows them to identify Paul’s purpose for writing to the Philippians (i.e. correcting their concept of friendship or keeping them steadfast) and establishes the kind of relationship between them (i.e. among friends or as commander to his soldiers). This is helpful.

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However, there are some significant drawbacks to both suggestions, especially as they reflect problems with scholarly assumptions and sources. The following (humorous) observation about one particular scholar applies in various ways to the application of either the military or the friendship rhetorical contexts: ‘It is characteristic of much of scholarship that Karl Bornhäuser can look at a letter, two out of three of whose named addressees are Greek women, and take as his exegetical foundation the idea that the recipients are Roman, male, ex-soldiers’ (Oakes 2001: 63-64; referencing Bornhäuser 1938). Peter Oakes’s comment warns about the dangers of taking any one factor and reading it into all situations for the letter, while continuing to obscure issues or figures (e.g. females and/or Greeks) that are presumed to be minor or marginal in comparison to ‘big’ issues or figures. Pauline scholars frequently assume the perspective of Paul, with relatively low interest in all of the other people in the networks created by the various assembly communities of this developing movement. This assumption that women and/ as other ‘everyday people’ are not especially interesting or important affects the use and evaluation of sources for situating the letter as well (Marchal forthcoming). Most traditional biblical and classical scholarship has been inclined to identify first with elite men (often because scholars have been elite men in their own times and places), who produced and preserved most of our sources from the ancient world, including those about friendship and the military. These problems of sources and assumptions have meant that most interpreters of the letter fail to notice how intensely hierarchical and specifically gendered both of these contexts and institutions are. Females were excluded from participation in either, except in their roles as ‘spoils’ grasped for victory or daughters and slaves exchanged to cement ‘friendly’ relationships through marriage alliance arrangements or ‘gift’ giving. Perhaps it is the distance in time and participation in these institutions that softens the contemporary focus upon them. It is a mistake, however, to project more recent assumptions about warm and egalitarian friendships onto ancient friendship relationships, which were really hierarchically arranged patron-client matters, founded upon and preserving inequalities on behalf of elite males. Similarly, in an age of embedded journalists, smart bombs and all ‘volunteer’ armed services, most Americans’ and Europeans’ perspectives on more recent wars are quite removed from and dulled to their violent and deadly impacts. It is a different kind of mistake, then, to assume that the residents of battle zones or even veterans would have similar, uncomplicatedly positive perspectives on the effects of invasion, occupation and settlement in the first or twenty-first centuries. Relatively few benefitted from the operation of either of these institutions, since they functioned primarily to help only certain elite males successfully demonstrate the imperial masculinity necessary to remain toward the top of the sociopolitical pyramid.



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Furthermore, given what scholars can reasonably reconstruct about the kinds of people, named and unnamed, that were drawn to become members of these assembly communities, it seems unlikely that many, or even any of them would have been participants in either of these institutions. Since the Roman ‘civil wars’ that brought soldiers and further colonizing settlers to Philippi occurred nearly a century earlier than the letter was likely received, it is extraordinarily unlikely that anyone was surviving from this period, let alone within this small community. To the extent that any of them knew about the military, it would have been as (1) the descendants of those whose land was confiscated for the veterans and settlers; or (2) the generalized targets for the Roman visual and oral propaganda explaining their presence and governance there. Since ancient friendships were forms of the aristocratic patron-client relationships that helped elite males keep their power and privilege, such relationships would have helped those people run this colony to the exclusion of most people, including females, non-citizens, and/as the vast majority with lower status. To the extent that any in the assembly community might have known about such ‘friendly’ relations, it would have been from the outside or perhaps only on the lowest rungs of a powerful patron’s particularly large, hierarchical set of clients. These critical reflections underscore that both of these were also imperial institutions: insulating and legitimizing the power and privilege of a very select few and expressing the hierarchical ethics of the Roman empire, based upon violence, exclusion and domination. Indeed, over the last decade or so, biblical scholars have been increasingly paying attention to the dynamics of Roman imperialism in explaining the meaning and impact of Paul’s letters (Horsley 1997, 2000, 2004). The idea of reading Paul’s letters against the background of Roman imperialism has been gaining in popularity, perhaps because it improves upon the more common (and more problematic) scholarly contrast of Paul against the stereotyped notion of ‘legalism’ attributed to a monolithic Judaism. Instead, it could be useful to conceive of Paul as an imperial subject, writing to other subjects in the same empire. This leads to what scholars have described as empire-critical and postcolonial approaches to these letters (Elliott 1994; Segovia 2000; Sugirtharajah 2002). The historical conditions for ancient Philippi, set by military and imperial interventions, indicate the immediate relevance of these approaches to an understanding of the letter. Paul and the Philippians were living in the time of Roman imperial dominance. Philippi was colonized by successive groups; with the Romans bringing retired soldiers and other settlers there, a select few of these settlers would end up having or gaining citizenship and running this Roman colonia. Such conditions might be mirrored in both Paul’s letter and the context of its writing. The letter stresses that Paul is writing from prison (1.7, 13, 17) and specifically references imperial

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institutions like the praetorian guard (1.13) and the household of Caesar (4.22). Furthermore, these two major suggestions for the letter’s rhetorical context, friendship and the military, reflect two kinds of institutions that helped reinforce kyriarchal dynamics and took specifically imperial forms in that time and place. Yet, Paul and the Philippians appear to be perversely proclaiming a crucified criminal (2.8), the ultimately debased imperial subject, as lord and savior rather than Caesar! Like Jesus, Paul was a Jew and thus part of a marginalized and stigmatized group, one of many ancient peoples racialized by Romans (and others) as different, inferior, and thus particularly susceptible to and in need of (often militarily created and enforced) colonization. When combined with a message about a different politeuma (a ‘commonwealth’, ‘citizenship’, even ‘government’) in heaven (3.20), Paul seems to be posing an alternative to the current political order, suggesting that the Philippian assembly members have a different kind of citizenship and a different kind of loyalty (Agosto 2002). If they belong and owe allegiance to a different order, then this is contesting the current Roman imperial order. Such an impression is solidified when the letter uses the titles of sōtēr (‘savior’) and kyrios (‘lord/master’) for Christ, since these titles are more commonly used for the Roman emperor. Still, as I discussed in the previous analysis of the ‘hymn’ (Chapter 2), these images explicitly and implicitly repeat and reinscribe kyriarchal dynamics that might trouble any straightforward claims about the letter’s anti-imperial resonance or impact. The pointedly political passages of 1.2730 and 3.18-21 do exhort the audience to a certain kind of loyalty, but they do so by emphasizing the opposed fates of destruction and safety/salvation (1.28; 3.19-20). The letter appears to be enforcing a certain kind of political sameness through threats of violence for any who are different (enough), like those lined up in opposition (1.28) as enemies (3.18). Throughout the letter, the message seems to stress loyalty and obedience to this vision of the community: with ‘fear and trembling’ (2.12) but ‘without grumbling or questioning’ (2.14). This is no communal collaborative operation, as any attempts at dialogue or questioning can be characterized as divisiveness (1.15, 17; 2.3) or perversion (2.15). Considering the vicious and violent ways in which Paul condemns anti-model figures in the letter (esp. 1.28; 3.2, 18-19), one would not want to be closely affiliated with such parties. As a result, the power of subjection presented in the letter is more like than dislike the power of those towards the top of ancient kyriarchies, dominating most women, slaves, imperial subjects and/as others with lower status (Marchal 2008). These limitations with the suggestions for friendship and military rhetoric indicate the ongoing relevance and utility of rethinking imperially gendered dynamics for understanding Philippians and the community that was



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meant to receive it (see also Dube 2000; Kwok 2005). Reflections on the conditions for women and/as imperial subjects in Philippi help to qualify how one can understand the argumentation in this letter and in its interpretation. Through their arguments about friendship and military rhetoric, interpreters have introduced, even unintentionally, the issues of hierarchy and difference, as both stress the persistent role of models and imitation in the overarching argumentation. I can neither entirely dismiss nor definitively confirm, whether by authorial intention or cultural accident, that the rhetoric of Philippians adapted either ancient military or friendship rhetoric, or both. I do feel more confident in surmising, though, that if the recipients of this letter ‘heard’ such influences or adaptations, it would have had a resonance different from the elite male perspectives that dominate our sources for this era and empire. In the end, it is helpful to notice in how many ways these kinds of arguments about unity and difference, models and hierarchies were ‘in the air’. This scholarly work allows those who grapple with this text and tradition now to begin recognizing the various ways in which Paul and the Philippians were participants in, products of, or otherwise pressed and prone to dominant historical, political and cultural factors. These reflections suggest the importance of reconsidering the argumentation of Philippians in light of the gender and imperial dynamics within Philippi, the letter, and the (relatively small) community there that was meant to receive it. By keeping women and other subjects of the empire in mind, it will be easier to remember that relatively few ‘benefited’ from a situation shaped by the imperial and patriarchal (or better, kyriarchal) conditions. Most of the residents of Philippi would have been excluded from and subjected by and through the dominant institutions, as reflected in both the military and friendship of the ancient world. Very few of them would have had even minimal access to the privileges of imperial citizenship, while the assembly community itself was more likely made up of those with much lower status and stability, including slaves and freed slaves. In the light of such conditions, the presence and even prominence of specifically gendered and imperial aspects for understanding the letter and the community are quite striking. Solid in the Rock, Harder to Dismiss Given the androcentric, or even kyriocentric, orientation of the sources for the ancient world, it is especially exciting when one has access to a range of images and artifacts for women’s activities. Indeed, such excitement is justified in the case of Philippi because of the remarkable archaeological record. Archaeologists have found an abundance of reliefs carved into the rock above the city’s acropolis, most of which depict female rather than

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male figures. About 138 out of the 157 images on the acropolis are identified as female. Most of these (probably 90) appear to be the syncretized goddess Diana/Artemis/Bendis (derived from Roman, Greek and Thracian backgrounds), but other deities from Roman-Greek contexts (like Minerva/ Athena and Jupiter/Zeus), Thracian traditions (the divine horseman) and even Asia Minor (Cybele) are present. After the syncretized Diana reliefs, the next most significant number of carvings (at least 40) represent human females. The use of temple symbols within these rock reliefs signal not only women’s participation, but also their likely leadership in religious organizations (Abrahamsen 1995). The predominance of so many female figures in this area indicates the significant labor and focus of females in such religious activities. These images, among other artifacts and indications, provide a compelling glimpse on ancient Philippi and make it rather difficult to ignore women in this context. The relative proximity of the two most frequent sets of images (Diana and human females) reflects women’s prominent participation in the Diana cult at Philippi. Even as most of these rock reliefs seem to have originated in the century after the letter to the Philippians, both the Greek Artemis and Thracian Bendis had devotees for centuries earlier in Philippi. Such a large display of religious activity in the Roman imperial era can more likely be traced to the gradual process of adaptation and combination of these female deities with Diana, a process that was likely accelerated in the century before the letter, as the Romans settled more and more people in their colony. Women played prominent roles in these cults, perhaps especially because Diana/Artemis/Bendis was thought to have her own special role in any number of trials and tasks for females (including puberty and childbirth, healing and mourning). Because of these roles and the large number of rock reliefs depicting female humans, it is highly likely that women were the primary (and possibly even the only) members of the syncretized Diana cult community at Philippi in this era. With these numbers and the common associations and practices of Diana worship, this abundance of female images on the acropolis also reflects that women were filling leadership and other administrative roles. Females at Philippi would have been interested and involved in other religious activities besides the worship of Diana/Artemis/Bendis. The Thracian horseman hero appears not only among these rock reliefs, but also on gravestones (or stele) for females and males throughout the region. Though this divine hero persisted into the first century ce, he was also combined and assimilated into other practices associated with Dionysus (as his Thracian counterpart Bendis was with Artemis). Dionysian cultic activities were long established at Philippi, especially given his affiliation with the nearby Mount Pangaion, an area frequently associated with ecstatic practices of women. More concretely, 7 of the 17 inscriptions linked to Dionysus



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mention women, indicating that some women had a degree of economic independence and a desire to play leadership roles in the Dionysian cult (Hendrix 1992). Isis worship would have been present at Philippi by the time of the Roman colonization and it became increasingly popular in the second and third centuries ce. Both females and males were participants and officials in this cult. Finally, with the divinization of many in the Augustan line, the Roman imperial cult reflects the involvement of and interest in females at Philippi. The cult of Livia, the wife of Augustus, mother of Tiberius and grandmother of Claudius (the emperor who deified her), lasted for over a century in the colony. A monument to Livia depicts five priestesses, including one woman who is noted as both priestess and the donor of the monument. In just a brief survey of various cultic practices and organizations at Philippi, one can see females playing active and even leadership roles in both majority female (Diana/Artemis) and mixed gender (Isis, Dionysus/ horseman, imperial cult) settings. Even in the smaller and potentially less formal household settings, the senior wife and mother would typically be a de facto priestess of the more everyday domestic religious practices (including prayers and sacrifices). Since all of these religious activities and artifacts spanned the periods before, during and after Philippians was written and likely received, it is likely that both the community and the letter would need to contend with the expectation of (at least some) women’s prominent involvement in such activities. Indeed, the letter’s rhetorical focus upon imitation and models might just be one way in which Paul is trying to negotiate such expectations. With females playing this variety of roles, they would have been looked upon as models for other participants (a possibility the letter may just be addressing and seeking to alter). Images of women are meant to model appropriate responses to the divine figures or difficult circumstances (or both). People were meant to look upon monuments, carvings, and even the small figurines of deceased female ancestors and learn from them. Those figurines were mostly given to children, which can remind one that both female and male children would have been educated in religious practices by the females in the family: mothers, older sisters, grandmothers or (for the wealthiest) nurses. In the ancient world, most learning and socialization came through imitation: proper performance is gained through repetition of models. In both religious and everyday settings, among both females and many young males, the Philippians would have been accustomed to a range of female models, from family and fellow devotees to priestesses and goddesses. This sort of contextualization should change how one perceives the arguments of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. This again demonstrates the importance of one’s assumptions when learning to read and interpret biblical texts. If you think that women are most likely absent or insignificant in the

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Bible, or just otherwise uninteresting, then it raises the odds that you will simply skip over female figures when they are present. As feminist biblical scholars have shown in the last few decades, the assumption of women’s insignificance (historically, religiously and otherwise) perpetuates their marginality or even absence in interpretation. The lessons learned from feminist approaches, to this and other letters, qualifies and redirects the way one approaches both historical and rhetorical constructions—of the letter, the community and even the wider context of the city. To begin differently, then, one should start with the assumption that females were a part of these assembly communities, including the one in Philippi, and that some played important roles within this movement. Remembering that there were plenty of other people in this developing movement is useful in general, if one is interested in more than just Paul’s perspective. But, in the case of Philippi, the abundant archaeological and cultic materials about women’s activities gives added reason for assuming, seeking and reflecting upon female figures in Paul’s letter to this assembly community. This disposition toward interpretation would be justified for any number of reasons, but it is reinforced by the way two female figures, Euodia and Syntyche, are specifically addressed in the letter (esp. 4.2-3). These are those two named Greek women highlighted in Oakes’s observation about strange scholarly assumptions and foci. Euodia and Syntyche are interesting for many scholars, since the letter notes that they are among Paul’s ‘coworkers’ and ‘those who struggled alongside [Paul] in the gospel’ (4.3). Such descriptions echo not only earlier characterizations of Epaphroditus as ‘coworker’ and ‘co-soldier’ (2.25), but also arguments with the same or similar terms from other letters’ descriptions of pairs like Prisca and Aquila (‘coworkers’, Rom. 16.2) or Tryphaena and Tryphosa (‘who have labored in the lord’, Rom. 16.12). These are the kinds of terms used for those engaged in leadership activities in these assembly communities (D’Angelo 1990). If one takes into account a context where women’s participation and prominence in religious activities and communities was expected, this should not be particularly surprising. Furthermore, as I have already noted at several points, the argumentation of Philippians seems to be building up to this section’s direct exhortation, instruction or even (attempted) command for Euodia and Syntyche to ‘think the same thing’ (4.2). Certainly, this is itself a key expression in the letter’s rhetoric, repeating how Paul also attempts to introduce and frame the meaning of the ‘hymn’ he quotes earlier in the letter (2.2). This expression combines Philippians’ dominant concerns with both sameness and proper mindset, which are repeated throughout the letter but especially immediately before the verses targeting Euodia and Syntyche. Mature people join Paul in thinking the ‘right’ way (1.7; 3.15), while those who have the ‘wrong’ mindset are enemies deserving a foreboding divine revelation and



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destruction (3.15, 19). The argument directed toward these two female figures uses a cluster of commonality, stressing similarity and togetherness (esp. 4.3), much as the letter calls upon its audience to share in their ‘coimitation’ of Paul (3.17). This, of course, fits within the letter’s broad tendency to argue for imitating Paul as model: those who listen to Paul should have the same struggle, the same attitude, the same joy and, in the end, do the same things as Paul. A careful rhetorical analysis, then, shows, that Euodia and Syntyche are the kind of people Paul wants to become ‘coimitators’ of him. This is almost certainly one of the things ‘think the same thing’ means. Since the arguments about models, mindset and sameness are woven together throughout the letter, these two female figures might just have been Paul’s concern all along, and this particular argument the point to which he had been building (Marchal 2006a: 147-52, 189-90; 2008: 101-109). Though there are plenty of reasons to be circumspect about what any account from Acts can show about the first-century conditions of Paul and other people’s work, it is striking that the episode in Philippi (16.11-40) features two female figures and Paul. Acts depicts Lydia as the first person to join a community established by Paul, and presents Paul exorcising an unnamed slave girl who prophesies through the power of a Pythian spirit. Ultimately, Acts reflects greater concerns about depicting Paul as palatable, because the communities are respectable. This account, then, might be substituting the story of Lydia for an account that would involve more active women (possibly of lower-status) and some kind of internal conflict or disagreement (Matthews 2001). Nevertheless, this picture of the assembly community at Philippi is intriguing because it continues to link leading women (like Euodia and Syntyche) with the community, even as it attempts to shape and soften the impression this might make upon those troubled by such activities. Such efforts at countering the activity of female figures resonates not only with the way Philippians argues about Euodia and Syntyche, but also with the concerns of later writers. Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians, for instance, singles out female ascetics in attempting to instruct women how to obey and conform to his authority (4.2; 5.1-3). The embodied practices of women were ‘live issues’ for centuries to come, as reflected in the apocryphal Acts of Paul, where females frequently convert to an ascetic message given voice by Paul (including an episode at Philippi). Even the archaeological record continues to reflect women’s ongoing activities at Philippi, as inscriptions preserve evidence of female deacons and other consecrated orders into the early part of the Byzantine era (alongside equally persistent Diana and Isis religious practices). This persistence indicates that the active participation and even leadership of females in various religious groups would not have been viewed as anomalous at Philippi. Instead, there is a

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distinct possibility that it would have been expected in Philippi in a time like the middle of the first century ce. Thus, the role of women is something rather important to consider when tracing and assessing the rhetoric of Paul’s letter to the Philippians (cf. Wire 1990). Such troubling, or at least ambiguous dynamics within Paul’s letters are increasingly recognized among those contextualizing the arguments within a range of rhetorical dynamics and issues. The more scholars grapple with the way arguments build and interact with each other (much like the mutually reinforcing dynamics of kyriarchies), the more complex their assessment and evaluation of letters like Philippians becomes. This demonstrates the continuing utility of applying intersectional approaches like the ones developed by feminist scholars and those who interact with them. This also suggests the importance of carefully tracing the interaction and function of Philippians’ arguments, as the following chapter attempts.

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Rhetorical Sketch, or a Sketchy Commentary In previous chapters, I have attempted to complicate the reception and evaluation of the arguments in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. This is important because the letter itself is more complicated than many might think at first. Given some of the topics and rhetorical contexts for this letter, I hope it is now easier to understand that Philippians is a rhetorically complex, even dense set of arguments. In this chapter, my aim is to begin explaining how these arguments operate in all their complexity, building and interacting with each other. Someone took great care to prepare these arguments, so tracing them section-by-section (instead of how I have done thus far, as the topic dictates) should be helpful for beginning to understand the context that generated these claims, the audience they were trying to convince and the dynamics at work in this interaction. In focusing upon how these arguments work, I aim not only to summarize the rhetoric, but also to make the assessment and evaluation of this rhetoric itself more complex. In doing this, I will have the occasion to sprinkle in various classical and contemporary rhetorical terms for what scholars think the letter is or does as an argument. I will do my best not to get too bogged down in such technical labels, except where they might tell you and me about how the letter is functioning. It is not an uncommon complaint that much of the rhetorical criticism of biblical texts is too focused upon such terms, making the approach rather formal, rigid or even dry. This might be especially the case when scholars have debated about which Greek or Latin rhetorical terms apply to various parts of the letters or gospels. While I will grant that it is interesting simply to show that such terms can be applied to the Bible, I maintain that it is much more compelling when these kinds of analysis help one to grapple with how a biblical image, text or idea functions. This is why the kinds of rhetorical analysis I do hew closer to more contemporary paradigms, like the ‘New Rhetoric’ developed by Lucie OlbrechtsTyteca and Chaïm Perelman (1969). Such an approach is better suited to the aims I have stressed, because Olbrechts-Tyteca and Perelman evaluate rhetorical functionality through more common and intuitive language like sacrifice, authority, comparison, waste, tradition and, of course, models and anti-models (cf. Wire 1990).

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So, while I will try to identify and label the arguments variously arranged in Philippians, I will try to avoid the problems that plague other applications of rhetorical criticism to biblical texts. As one of my colleagues has highlighted, failing to do so would make it ‘a criticism which often avoids judgment or critique concerning the text’s rhetorical power or performance. In other words, biblical rhetorical interpretation becomes a criticism that is often arrested before it fulfills its critical task’ (Hester Amador 1999: 31). Such questions about power also counter some of the stereotypes that people have about rhetoric and its analysis as ‘just about style’—rhetoric understood as fancy, even flowery speech or, worse, as the empty bromides and promises of politicians. Neither of these are the meaning of rhetoric used in this book. This chapter evaluates the power dynamics of the letter’s rhetoric by explaining what these arguments do and by considering, in turn, what effects these might have. This is why getting bogged down by labels can be counter-productive, because they turn the discussion away from the effects of argumentation. More contemporary rhetorical scholars tend to stress that arguments work through the flexibility and interaction of these techniques. The aim is always to achieve certain effects upon an audience (not to present some ‘pure’ version of a certain kind of argument). One can scarcely afford to be too rigid, bland or even formal, unless the (likely rare) occasion suits such modes. Thus, even if the ancient rhetorical exercises emphasize that one should establish one’s ethos (personal credibility or character) toward the beginning, deploy logos (rational argument or proof) in the middle, and attempt to elicit pathos (emotional response) by the end, these are often mixed or moved in practice outside of the classroom. A good rhetor must gauge and select what s/he prefers and what is needed for the desired effect(s) on the group(s) at this time. Since arguments are shaped to have effect(s) on audience(s), the impact is inevitably dependent upon the power of an argument or set of arguments. A concern with power has already led me to reflect upon Philippians in ways shaped by feminist and postcolonial commitments and approaches. This continues in the following rhetorical sketch, where I describe the rhetoric of the letter in terms of two different sets of (potential) effects: unity and sameness (US) and hierarchy and modeling (HiM). These are more than just labels for Paul’s arguments, they are attempts to organize and analyze the power dynamics that inhere within his arguments. Through the HiM rhetoric Paul focuses upon himself as a model and establishes a hierarchy through which authority (including his own) is routed. Through the US rhetoric Paul is also constructing how he would like for the audience to think and act as an assembled community: as a unified us/US, not entirely unlike, but not quite as advanced as him/HiM.



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Since the following stresses how the overarching argumentation builds, or at least what is being built by it, this sketch of the rhetoric is particularly focused upon examining the sequence of arguments made, the order in which they come. In doing so, I will also allude to those distinctive aspects of the letter not already covered by previous chapters and build upon some of the more useful and interesting rhetorical analyses of Philippians (esp. Watson 1988; Bloomquist 1993; Kittredge 1998; and Marchal 2006a). 1.1-11 Starting with the letter’s very first sentence, even this opening prescript or salutation reflects both the US rhetoric and the HiM rhetoric, as well as elements both distinctive and formulaic among Paul’s undisputed letters. In describing himself and his co-sender Timothy as ‘slaves’ of Christ (1.1), Paul foreshadows at least one of the strange aspects that later makes Christ a model in the oft-debated and cited ‘hymn’ (2.6-11; esp. 2.7). While this reflects that the senders of the letter might be models (more) like the Christ proclaimed in this community, the intentional allusion to the episkopoi and diakonoi (‘overseers and servers’, but more commonly translated as ‘bishops and deacons’, 1.1) stresses that there is some division of roles and possibly authority already in the assembly community at Philippi. Since none of the other Pauline letters begin with such titles, this opening has invited questions and speculation from many a commentator. Given the way the letter appears to build to the appeal to the two named female figures, Euodia and Syntyche, Kittredge has argued that the specific naming of this subgroup in the greetings is likely preparation for that rhetorical crescendo and an indirect reference to their leadership among these episkopoi and diakonoi (1998: 108). Even as different groups are mentioned, this prescript underscores that all of the holy ones at Philippi are the letter’s recipients, potentially indicating a concern with the entire community. Thus, one can see how Paul adapts the formulaic greeting (esp. 1.2) to his purposes by already raising the dynamics of hierarchy and modeling and, more subtly, of unity and sameness. Rhetorical analyses of the letter frequently describe 1.3-26 (or perhaps just 1.3-11) as the letter’s exordium, the introductory part of a speech where the key topics of the whole are first raised and goodwill is established. As I noted above, the ethos of the speaker is important to such introductions, else why would anyone listen to what follows? One need not rely upon such classical Greco-Roman terminologies, though, to understand what might be going on and why. Many people now know that if you want something from somebody, it might be a good idea to ‘butter them up’ first before you make an argument or request. It is often useful to make an audience feel good about themselves, reflecting along the way that emotions (the pathos

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aspect of classic formulations) play a larger role in Paul’s letters than some might like to admit. Paul begins thankfully, then, highlighting in a couple of instances this relationship of partnering (koinōnia, 1.5, 7) between Paul and his audience. Paul’s introduction also subtly repeats certain emphases; for instance, when Paul maintains that he is thankful ‘in every remembrance of you [plural], always in every entreaty of mine on all of your [plural] behalf’ (1.3-4), this emphasis on ‘every’ and ‘all’ continues in repeated sentiments about ‘all of you’ (1.7 [twice], 8) and reflects the rhetorical rule of justice. Arguments following this rule aim to show that the same principle or treatment is applied to all parties in a similar situation. Thus, it appears that Paul is trying to establish that he treats all the assembly community members the same (US rhetoric). This section of the argumentation also introduces the element of time within the partnership. They have apparently had this relationship ‘from the first day up to/until now’ (1.5) and the letter raises concerns about their preparation for the apocalyptic ‘day of Christ’ (1.6, 10). If the letter casts the audience as in danger of not keeping the previous dynamic going into the present and the climactic near future, then it seems to be introducing an argument of waste. Failing to stay on this prescribed course would negate previous efforts, only now on a grand scale. This might just be one of the reasons Paul presents his own constancy (‘always’, ‘all’ and ‘every’) in this section (HiM rhetoric), warning through an implicit comparison of what might happen if the audience’s response does not match and maintain Paul’s concept of the community (a kind of US rhetoric, unified with or the same as the previous ‘all of you’, but in danger now of ‘slipping’ out or ‘departing’ from this US). While the day of Christ looms, Paul invokes divine authority in another fashion, since God is his witness about the positive emotions Paul has for all of them (1.8). For a community that accepts such a deity, there can be no higher guarantor or proof of a person’s qualities. This, of course, indicates that the whole of 1.3-11 functions as an argument for Paul as a model. One is shown to be a model by one’s actions, but also by the company kept, and Paul claims excellence in both (HiM rhetoric). After all, he is the guy who prays for them, treats everyone the same, thinks appropriately about them even in prison, and acts as a mediator of the qualities that will deliver them before the day of Christ. 1.12-26 The following sentences attempt to alter or clarify how Paul wants the Philippians to look at his own circumstances in prison. In fact, some rhetorical analyses suggest that this section is Paul’s effort to address the rhetorical problem particular to the letter: the audience’s impressions about suffering and Paul’s imprisonment. The letter argues about this problem by way of



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what Olbrechts-Tyteca and Perelman call a ‘dissociation’. Despite expectation Paul’s ‘chains’ did not halt or present obstacles to his efforts, instead these things ‘have happened, rather, for the progress of the gospel’ (1.12). The common dissociation of appearance from reality is used here to show that while imprisonment might appear to be a negative outcome, the reality is that ‘my chains are for Christ’ (1.13) and others have even progressed ‘because of my chains’ (1.14). Such positive results to Paul’s efforts, even in a dire situation, further reflect how the letter argues from and for Paul as a model figure (HiM rhetoric). Such modeling argumentation is extended by way of a corresponding set of contrasts with the actions of anti-models. These ‘others’ work out of envy and rivalry (1.15) and divisiveness (1.17) instead of the kind of goodwill (1.15) and love (1.16) that Paul also modeled and sought for the audience in the previous section. Through such points of comparison, these anti-models help to build the case for Paul’s own model, while also stressing the value placed on certain versions of unity that are opposed to divisive dispositions (US rhetoric). As classically-oriented rhetorical analyses highlight, this is one way to secure the goodwill of the audience in the early portions of an argument: calling up the specter of problematic figures while correcting (potential) impressions about the speaker being problematic. This is perhaps the earliest place in the letter where the issue of differences within the assembly community rises to the surface, what Paul’s arguments cast (and Pauline interpreters frequently follow in characterizing) as ‘opponents’. An argument of waste implicitly worries about the impact of such differences, viewed as changes or even declines. In spite of these chains and differences, Paul argues that ‘as always and now Christ will be made great in my body, either by life or by death’ (1.20). Mortality lurks within the letter’s rhetoric, as does the concern with keeping responses in a timely consistency. However, the letter continues to proceed dissociatively, redefining what only seems to be valuable. Paul asserts: ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain’ (1.21); he even states a preference for dying, since it means being with Christ (1.23). Such remarkable reflections upon whether death is better than life has caused some scholars to suggest that Paul might have been considering suicide, much like the ancient Stoics would if imprisoned (Droge 1988; Jaquette 1994). Such considerations demonstrate just how deplorable and dispiriting prison conditions were in the ancient world. Many prisoners would have expected to die in the squalid conditions of these glorified ‘holding tanks’ and to endure only a nasty and brutish life until then (Wansink 1996). Such arguments would certainly arouse emotions, possibly of the empathetic sort, in the audience. But this becomes yet another occasion for Paul to present himself as a model for the Philippians to imitate. Though it would apparently be far better ‘to depart and to be with Christ’ (1.23), it is more

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important to remain with ‘all of you [plural]’ (1.24-25). Paul presents his effort as his own sacrifice, with the positive results of progress and joy for the assembly community at Philippi (1.25). Such a sacrificial argument demonstrates the relative worth of both the outcome and the person sacrificing, providing added reasons to similarly evaluate the person and the outcome he makes possible. Paul’s concern for the community reflects the letter’s US rhetoric, while his model is maintained by the continued close connections between Christ and himself (HiM rhetoric). Not only will Christ be magnified by Paul regardless of outcome (1.20), but the impact of Paul’s model sacrifice on the audience will mean ‘your [plural] boast in me might abound in Christ Jesus’ when Paul returns to Philippi (1.26). Therefore, this section aims to elicit certain positive and negative responses (pathos) and build up the character of the sacrificing model (ethos), even as it proceeds from some counter-intuitive reasoning about dying (logos). 1.27–2.18 The first two sentences in the arguments that follow, spanning eight dense verses, are frequent sites for scholarly discussions about Paul’s unity rhetoric, including in terms of friendship and the military (see Chapter 3). This focus upon unity is significant, especially because many scholars follow Duane Watson (1988) in labeling the first sentence (1.27-30) as the letter’s narratio, the portion of a rhetorical act that gives the main concerns. The rest of the letter, then, should be an exposition of what is proposed here, with 2.1 beginning a series of proofs through examples (I prefer the term ‘models’, since this emphasizes how the letter’s arguments call for imitation of these figures). Yet, both 1.27-30 and 2.1-4 seem to function similarly as more direct exhortations to the audience. Though modeling rhetorics are operating in both, the imperative verbs in the main clauses of each of these two long sentences direct the assembly community members to ‘live as citizens worthy of the gospel’ (1.27) and ‘complete my [Paul’s] joy’ (2.2). Both of these are accomplished by acting with the kind of unity and sameness Paul advocates, so rhetorically the two sentences have similar purposes (rather than the second being predominantly about examples or models). Regardless, these sentences mark a slight transition in the letter, as the arguments shift (though only briefly) away from describing Paul’s situation and model actions to directly address the audience through those imperatives. The language about both unity and difference (represented as ‘opponents’) intensifies here, as indicated by the political as well as the violent images selected. If they follow the argument Paul is making, the audience’s oneness of mind and spirit will keep them from being like ‘those who stand against you’ (1.28). This allusion to an opposition reflects another anti-model argument, especially because the community’s unity is a sign of



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‘their destruction and of your [plural] safety’ (1.28). Thus, the letter warns (perhaps even threatens) the audience through this contrast in fates, likely continuing the letter’s argument of waste, but elevating its mortal stakes through the added layer of their potentially violent end. By noting that such dual fates are ‘from God’ (1.28), the letter further bolsters this contrast through the added authority of the divine. If the Philippians do not do as Paul argues, their safety (traditionally translated ‘salvation’) would be lost and they would be condemned to a divinely endorsed destruction. Nevertheless, keeping to the path of (this kind of) unity does mean that the Philippians will have to sacrifice, suffering for Christ (1.29). Since Paul has already been a model of such sacrifice, this course is still conditioned by the ongoing modeling rhetoric. This is indicated by not only the claim that they should join in the ‘same fight’ (US rhetoric) as Paul’s (the phrase ‘in me’ is used twice in 1.30), but also the first result of their ‘living as citizens’ properly: Paul might hear about it, whether he is present or not (1.27). Thus, even as the arguments for unity and sameness predominate, the hierarchical priority of Paul’s own model is subtly reinforced. Similarly, while the following exhortation opens with a series of conditional phrases describing four positive characteristics (2.1), the audience is enjoined to act in a kind of unity and sameness that would complete Paul’s joy (2.2). As noted in previous chapters, the importance of having the same mindset (phronein, 2.2 [twice], 5) is particularly emphasized in this section and the introduction to the ‘hymn’. This is likely the way the assembly community members show that they are sharing in the ‘same fight’ as Paul’s, by thinking the same (as Paul). While the earlier, only-somewhat-veiled threat of violence would evoke negative emotions, this section’s images of love (twice), partnership, affection, compassion and humility aim to capture the Philippians’ pathos through more positive associations. A very brief contrast echoes previous anti-model arguments, when the community members are enjoined to act ‘not according to divisiveness’ (the same fault found in those who cause Paul’s suffering in 1.15, 17). As these arguments start to build upon each other, the audience should be reminded of how the first model figure (Paul) responded to these sorts of conditions and demonstrated the way to act. This is important to recall as the letter’s arguments move to a series of supporting models for the actions Paul seeks from the Philippians. The first of these is Christ (2.6-11), presented as an argument based upon a tradition (see Chapter 2). As noted earlier, most scholars believe Paul to be quoting a resource that the assembly community members would have already known, which can potentially lend greater authority to the ways Paul uses it as a support for his claims in the letter. Despite later, mostly theologically driven concerns about what it might mean to imitate Christ, this ‘hymn’ is clearly functioning in terms of the letter’s ongoing modeling rhetoric, as indicated by the sentences that immediately introduce and follow the

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quoting of this tradition. Paul directs the audience’s attention to this tradition by repeating the previous sentence’s emphasis and calling them to think the same way as Christ (‘think this in you [plural] which was also in Christ Jesus’, 2.5). Whether this was among its previous purposes or uses, the letter, at least, presents the ‘hymn’ as a description of a Christ-like mindset. Since Paul has already modeled this proper mindset, this (now third) imperative could also be understood as Paul imploring them to ‘think the same thing as me, which is also the same thing as Christ’. By following these models (HiM rhetoric), they show their similarity in mindset (US rhetoric). Furthermore, the sentences following the ‘hymn’ clearly direct the audience on how they should take Christ as a model and apply it to themselves. When the argument turns from this quote, the link is immediately made: ‘therefore’ (2.12) they should be obedient, echoing the obedience of Christ in 2.8 (Kittredge 1998). Since the letter again raises the matter of Paul’s presence or absence in this instruction, it is fairly clear that Paul is the figure whom the Philippians should obey. Indeed, as before, this obedience is also presented as something Paul wants them to continue: ‘just as you [plural] have always obeyed…but also now much more in my absence’ (2.12). Thus, certain rhetorical patterns persist in this letter, including even in the letter’s use of this important figure and tradition for the assembly community at Philippi. The special place Christ likely played in the assembly community strengthens these kinds of argument. Through such a supporting model, it is as if Paul is saying: ‘You see, even Christ thinks this (same) way and acts obediently, so why don’t you?’ Though the arguments immediately surrounding this ‘hymn’ show most clearly how Paul implements it to support his claims and instructions, it is still interesting to examine how the contents of this ‘hymn’ themselves operate rhetorically, particularly as they might repeat or reinforce aspects from other parts of the overall argumentation. The overall arc of the passage with its descend-to-ascend pattern reveals an argument by sacrifice. Such an argument is intensified by not only the heights to which Christ is hierarchically glorified by and as a divine authority, but also the depths of a (semi-) divine figure becoming human and dying. Such humility and sacrifice is explicitly tied (again, ‘therefore’ as the first word, only now in 2.9) to the reasons why Christ is so highly exalted. The status reached by Christ combines both of the ongoing rhetorical patterns, since Christ is exalted as lord with the highest name (HiM rhetoric), a name above all names, to which everyone must respond in the same way, with bent knees and confessing tongues (US rhetoric). Of course, in the letter Paul has already presented himself as someone willing to sacrifice in the face of death (like Christ in this passage), and as someone making Christ great (like God does here as well). The contents of this tradition are deployed to support the arguments Paul makes elsewhere (both before and after the citation of this ‘hymn’).



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Beyond the obedience extolled immediately after this passage, Paul presses the audience to proceed with concerns about safety and service. The dualistic pattern established through the use of anti-models and violently opposed fates persists, particularly since the argument again raises the issue of the audience’s safety, only this time they should act ‘with fear and trembling’ (2.12). If they understand the place Paul attempts to carve out for them, their actions will be the same in all contexts now, since they should ‘do everything without grumbling or questioning’ (2.14). Doing so will make them ‘children of God’ rather than ‘the crooked and twisted generation’ (2.15), another fleeting but striking anti-model kind of argument. To operate from a different mindset or to question Paul’s arguments would mean joining the ranks of such people, and ruin their own (2.12) and Paul’s (2.16-17) previous efforts. Again, with the day of Christ looming (2.16), it is important to act upon the recognition of Paul’s own Christ-like ‘sacrifice and service’ (2.16) and join in the all of the joint rejoicing (2.17-18) at such an arrangement. Though rhetorical analyses usually separate the arguments running from 1.27-30 through and into 2.14-18, the instructions toward a range of unified actions spanning these sections make it difficult to divide out these exhortations from the supporting model embedded within them: the model demonstrates why the audience should obey and think the same way as Paul. 2.19-30 Though interpreters often view the following section about Timothy and Epaphroditus as a bit of a digression, an understanding of the letter’s rhetorical strategies suggests how much they fit into its wider patterns. In light of the first supporting model, it becomes easier to see how Timothy and Epaphroditus function as brief, supporting models themselves. Indeed, as the letter presents more and more models with similar features, it makes a stronger and stronger argument for these figures and their actions to be imitated. This is thus not simply a moment for Paul to convey his travel plans for himself and others, but another opportunity to advance the claims being made about unity and sameness, hierarchy and modeling. Timothy is commended as a model, particularly because he is so much like Paul. He has a ‘similar mind’ or ‘soul’ (2.20) and his relationship with Paul is like one between a child and father (2.22). The latter indicates that, even as Timothy displays some model qualities, he is subordinate to Paul, the father whom he is ‘serving’ (2.22). This description calls to mind the initial mention of Timothy, with Paul, as slaves at the start of the letter (1.1), as well as Christ taking the form of a slave (2.7), drawing Timothy further into association with the model figures previously extolled in the letter’s argumentation. Timothy’s worth is also shown (and apparently already known in

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Philippi) because he cares about the community (2.20), unlike the aforementioned anti-models who ‘seek their own things’ (2.21; cf. 1.15-17; 2.3-4). Epaphroditus is also closely tied to Paul, as his ‘brother and co-worker and co-soldier’, but also the ‘messenger and servant to my need’ (2.25); there is some similarity, but also hierarchy between them. Like Timothy and Paul, Epaphroditus too shows concerns for the Philippian assembly community: in this instance because they have heard about his serious illness (2.26). Paul describes Epaphroditus’ condition as so serious that he came ‘up to/as far as death’ (2.30), the same phrase used to convey the extent of Christ’s obedience (2.8). This mortal risk is akin to the model of not only Christ but also Paul (1.20-26; 2.16-17). Both Timothy and Epaphroditus are woven into a network of model figures, deriving an elevated status due to these links with and similarities to the models already presented in the letter. Yet, one way you and I can tell the focus of this section differs from the previous arguments starts with the infrequency of the imperatives and the relative rise in references Paul makes to himself (the section is filled with ‘I’s and ‘me’s). Paul cannot resist inserting himself into the argumentation, even when he tries to present shorter arguments to support the modeling rhetoric he has developed thus far. Paul remains the prototype and these are substitutes who can be sent from one place to another by his authority (2.23-24, 25, 28-30). Paul enjoins them to ‘hold such people’—people like Epaphroditus, who is like Paul—‘as honored’ (2.29). In this section, then, one finds models for what has already been praised: not to grumble or question, but to follow Paul’s model and instructions. These arguments reinforce certain dispositions as worthy and virtuous, while helping to establish an entire set of supporting models arrayed in a hierarchical order relative to Paul. 3.1-11 After developing such supporting models, the model status of Paul returns more fully into the rhetorical focus of the letter, juxtaposed briefly alongside a threefold warning against anti-models. The topic is clearly no departure from what came earlier in the letter, as Paul stresses that he is continuing to argue about ‘the same things’, cast as a matter of their safety (3.1). With its harsh language and triple ‘look out…look out…look out’, the following sentence has drawn the attention of interpreters, particularly those attempting to suss out exactly who are Paul’s ‘opponents’ at Philippi. After calling these anti-models ‘dogs’, ‘evil workers’ and ‘the mutilation’ (3.2), Paul’s next sentence explicitly contrasts these descriptions by taking up the last insulting characterization and insisting that ‘we are the circumcision’ (3.3). Because scholars have long operated with the assumption that Paul is frequently opposed by ‘Judaizers’, they often suggest that Paul is reversing



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the rhetoric of these ‘opponents’ in this section. The traditional view, held predominantly I might add by Christian-identified scholars, is that Paul is hoisting these ‘Judaizers’ on their own petard by staking claim to the ‘true’ circumcision and insulting them with a slur that Jews apparently used against Gentiles (many translations insert the adjective ‘true’ where there is none in the Greek text). More recently, Mark Nanos (2009) and others have questioned how sound the evidence is for ‘dogs’ as a Jewish slur against Gentiles. In fact, such a derogatory term was used much more frequently by early Christians as they began separating themselves from their Jewish peers and ancestors in the centuries after this letter! This, then, may be an object lesson in the dangers of unexamined attitudes about religious, ethnic and racial difference. In this instance, Christians (often from dominant groups racially and otherwise) project a rationale for calling (ancient) Jews dogs, not only because Paul ostensibly did so but also because the Jews themselves were originally the hateful bigots! Such claims are only possible if one creates an unsubstantiated backdrop of someone else’s slur and ignores that Paul himself was (still) Jewish when he wrote this letter (Nanos 2009; Eisenbaum 2009). Thus, it might be more productive to consider Paul’s arguments in light of his own Jewishness rather than beginning with the presumption of other Jews as his ‘opponents’. This also suggests a different way at looking at differences in the assembly communities: instead of a problem ‘forcing’ Paul to (re)act in certain conflict-oriented ways, these different mindsets and practices are, more simply, indications that plenty of people besides Paul were working out their own ways of thinking about Christ and community. (Though Paul claims to be a model, his response to difference might not be worthy of imitation, then or now.) Of course, after all this ink (and no small amount of blood) has been spilled, this issue of Jewish or ‘Judaizing’ opponents looms larger in the rhetoric of interpretation than in the rhetoric of the letter itself. The antimodels are summoned up really just in one verse or about ten words in the Greek (3.2) before the letter moves on to emphasize, yet again, how Paul and his version of ‘us’ know and do what is right. This reference in 3.2-3 is certainly shorter than the contrast provided by the anti-models in 1.15-17, and about as brief as the allusions elsewhere (1.28; 2.15, 21). Even if one tries to lump it in with those ‘enemies of the cross’ later in 3.18-19, the argument is equally (or even more) concerned with Paul’s disposition: ‘of whom I have told you [plural] many times, but now I say crying’ (3.18). This characterization features recurrent issues for the letter, including those of time (many times before and now), Paul’s own model character (ethos) and his intense emotions on their behalf (pathos). This suggests the utility of a continued focus on the rhetorical dynamics in order to discern what is afoot in the letter and, possibly, the community.

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Paul’s argument continues by posing a lengthy recitation of Paul’s own reasons for why he should have more confidence than anyone else (3.46). This comparison also functions as a kind of appearance-reality dissociation: it might seem like others have strong reasons, but Paul claims in reality to have more, including most notably that he is a Pharisee and a ‘Hebrew born of Hebrews’ (3.5). Then, in a compelling turn, what (once) appeared to be valuable to him, he gave up and counts as filth, dung or, in today’s parlance, shit (3.8). This has become an argument of sacrifice, then, meant to show what others should do when imitating Paul’s model. As a sacrifice it demonstrates not only the worth of what is gained (Christ), but also the relative worth of what he has given up (some of his status, shaped by his [continuing] Jewishness; Eisenbaum 2009). It is important to note that such arguments by sacrifice do not mean the actor is renouncing or abandoning something through his/her sacrifice. Consider the first instance where Paul makes such an argument (1.2126): Paul does not give up a relationship with Christ, but he (temporarily) gives up the chance to be with Christ (in death) for the benefit of the community. Similarly, here, Paul does not abandon his Jewishness (something that would have been impossible for most ancient peoples to imagine), but he (temporarily) gives up some of the status he enjoyed through his training for the benefits of becoming like Christ (who was also, not so incidentally, an ancient Jew). His desire to be with Christ is qualified and conditioned by his claims to act for the community; similarly, the way he is Jewish is qualified and conditioned by his claims about his life-inChrist. This suggests that the in-Christ way of being Jewish is worth the effort and suffering sacrifice. In terms of advancing the overall arc of the letter’s argument, this section’s evaluative claims about suffering clearly reinforce the ongoing elevation of Paul as a model. The ‘loss’ narrated here still nets Paul a powerful rhetorical gain, since his self-description is shaped into a descend-to-ascend pattern that parallels the depiction of Christ in the ‘hymn’. Paul’s status as a model is strengthened because both Christ and Paul gave up status willingly, so Paul anticipates that his death will lead to a similar rise (3.10-11). Paul will know the power of Christ’s rising, because he is Christ’s partner (koinōnia) in suffering (‘becoming like him in his death’, 3.10); we have here both sameness and imitation. This also echoes other arguments for Paul’s model, since he has previously dealt with mortal consequences for his position among the assembly communities (1.20-26; 2.16-17). By virtue of his close association with this figure, who is both proclaimed as an ultimate cosmic power and yet capable of being imitated (in at least some ways), Paul’s authority is enhanced within the network of model figures presented to this audience (HiM rhetoric).



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3.12–4.3 After arguing for how close he is to Christ in death and resurrection, Paul quickly reminds the assembly community members that he is not dead yet! The persistent concern with the temporal horizon is renewed here: though still closely connected to Christ (they both grasp toward each other), Paul is not yet perfected or completely matured (3.12). This temporal ‘not-yet’ matches a spatial ‘not-there-yet’, since Paul looks forward and upward to pursue ‘for the prize of the upward call’ (3.13-14). Over time, keeping to the efforts modeled by Paul will mean ascending in a spatial hierarchy. When combined with the previous arguments, Paul’s letter claims that if one wants to follow Paul’s model and move forward and upward, one must be prepared to move downward in status, suffering in some way similar to Paul. The following sentence links this pattern to the proper mindset (phronein) already stressed in key moments: ‘Therefore those who are mature, let us think this; and if you think anything other, God will also reveal this to you’ (3.15). The letter constructs this ‘us’ through a particular mindset and attributes the same maturity/perfection (a moment ago not-quite-yet grasped) to those who have it. In a slight echo of the anti-models deployed throughout, there might be those who do not think this way but in an ‘other’ way; they shall receive a divine revelation (apokalypsei). Since Paul calls to mind the day of Christ and the opposed fates of safety and destruction with some regularity, this apocalyptic warning can also function as a faintly foreboding threat. As Osiek notes about this passage: ‘Those who think differently from the path Paul laid out are promised/threatened that God will set them straight… The moderately coercive tone that comes through is no doubt intended’ (2000: 99). The letter labors to differentiate figures and responses hierarchically along the lines that divide spaces, times and minds (HiM rhetoric). According to Paul such differentiations require a unified response (US rhetoric), as he exhorts the audience: ‘for where we have reached, stay in line in the same way’ (3.16). The proper response to this argument—adopting the right mindset—will help the community members avoid the threat of divine action and preserve whatever position they already have. But exactly what is the ‘this’ that they should think? How should the Philippians ‘stay in line’ in Paul’s estimation? Paul has already repeatedly claimed to be a model worth their imitation, but the very next sentence is easily the most explicit instruction in that regard: ‘become co-imitators of me’ (3.17). The Philippians can demonstrate the proper mindset of unity and sameness by imitating the model of Paul together (a seamless blending of the letter’s US rhetoric and HiM rhetoric). They can also look to those who fit the type among them (3.17), the kinds of supporting models presented in the letter or, really, anyone in the assembly community who conforms himself/herself (enough) to the image of the model presented by Paul.

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As he has done several times earlier, Paul drives this point home through the presentation of anti-models and a contrast with what the ‘us’ in the letter seek. The ‘ones thinking’ (again, phronein) of the wrong, ‘earthly things’ (3.19) are the enemies of the cross (3.18) and doomed to destruction. Paul’s ‘us’ is focused upon and organized through a different spatio-temporal order: ‘our commonwealth [or ‘citizenship’, politeuma] is in heaven, out of which we also wait for a savior’ (3.20). The picture shaped by the letter directs the gaze to a ‘not-here’ and a ‘not-yet’, a coming space-time where and when those who think the right way will have safety/salvation from a redeeming (imperial) lord. Eventually, this will mean being transformed to become like Christ’s body (3.21), just as Paul previously modeled (3.10, using the same term, symmorphon); this drives home yet again that to be on the right and safe side associated with unity and divinity is to be on the same side as Paul. Such a transformation expresses hierarchical differences in at least a couple of ways. After all, ‘our body’ is presented as debased and lowly, while Christ’s is glorious (3.21). Furthermore, in echoing the conclusion of the ‘hymn’, this transformation is accomplished by Christ’s power to ‘subjects all things to himself’ (3.21; cf. 2.9-11). Though both passages proceed by an order of subjection to a kyrios, the space-time order in the ‘hymn’ has already been rearranged. The earlier passage celebrates Christ’s victorious exaltation as accomplished and complete, but here Paul puts the brakes on such acclamations to reorient the audience’s mindset to anticipate a future space, time and change. Some rhetorical analyses see a shift in function as we enter Philippians 4. Typically, when an ancient speech concludes (peroratio), it sums up whatever points it has been trying to argue and makes final efforts to appeal to the audience to accept them. While I am less convinced that the letter is moving to conclude at this point, I think one can see how the arguments have been building to what follows and aiming to get a particular response as a result (esp. 4.2-3). The letter explicitly connects the previous arguments to the imperative to ‘stand thus in the lord’ with the word, ‘therefore’ (4.1). This highlights that the way to fulfill the imperatives since 1.27 (including that the audience will stand in a particular kind of unity) is to adopt the mindset modeled throughout the letter, especially as it is argued through the immediately preceding sequence of statements about imitating, thinking and anticipating. If the audience accepts these claims, standing this way should keep their mindsets lined up in the right way (Paul’s way), unless they want to be destroyed and miss their chance at a future, heavenly transformation. All of these arguments have been shaped for the moment when Paul delivers a doubled exhortation to Euodia and Syntyche to ‘think the same thing’ (4.2). The rhetorical patterns about mindsets, sameness and imitations demonstrate that, here and elsewhere, Paul wants these two female



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figures and any other Philippian assembly member to think the same way he does, to follow in obedient conformity his authoritative model (combining and conforming the US to the HiM rhetoric). Indeed, this exhortation reads a lot like a specific directive of both the general calls to imitation and the explicit imperative, just four sentences earlier, to ‘become co-imitators of me’ (3.17). In the immediately preceding arguments Paul has also underscored the matter of thinking the right way, using the same verb three times around this most explicit charge to imitation before repeating it again for Euodia and Syntyche (phronein, 3.15 [twice], 19; 4.2). That this exhortation involves following the authority of Paul and imitating him is indicated by how else Paul argues about the situation with Euodia, Syntyche and others in the assembly community at Philippi. When he does argue positively about these two female figures, they are presented as doing the same things as Paul. In the past, Euodia and Syntyche acted in a way united with Paul: they ‘co-struggled [synēthlēsan] alongside me in the gospel with Clement and the rest of my co-workers [synergoi]’ (4.3). Previous positive actions and roles are attributed to these two female figures when they matched the letter’s US rhetoric in joint action with Paul and his group. Yet, it seems an open question as to whether Euodia and Syntyche will respond in the way Paul seeks, which is why Paul calls for a ‘true yokeperson’ to ‘take hold’ (sylllambanou) of them (4.3). The preponderance of syn- or ‘co-’ compounds (‘with’ or ‘together’) reflects Paul’s manifest efforts to shape this as a matter of unity and sameness. However, there are clearly some differences between this ‘yokeperson’ and the two female ‘co-workers’. Paul turns to this third party to help him with Euodia and Syntyche, choosing terms of intense similarity and closeness to characterize him or her as a genuine comrade. Paul’s argument reflects that he views this one as better yoked to his authority and better keeping to his point of view, implying that Euodia and Syntyche ‘are no longer truly yoked with him’ (Kittredge 1998: 107). From the way this appeal is shaped, Paul expects the community will know who this unnamed ‘true yokeperson’ is. If someone was so recognizably tied to Paul, it only raises the likelihood that there were members of the assembly community who were just as recognizable as being less like or tied to him. The consequences for any distance from Paul’s model are likely reflected in the apocalyptic note about the names in the book of life (4.3). Since the letter repeatedly depicts contrasts in time, often in light of the coming day of Christ, this reference to the names that will be included evoke the temporally oriented arguments of waste. Since disagreement with Paul could mean exclusion from this book, the argument proceeds to imply that those addressed by the letter should not waste any previous efforts of collaboration and conformity with Paul by not continuing in their co-imitation. This would be how they could respond in (Paul’s version of) unity and sameness

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and avoid the kind of unpleasant apocalyptic exclusion the letter’s various anti-models are threatened (1.28; 3.15, 19). If the arguments have been building up to this moment, it looks like Paul has been shaping the arguments not only to get a certain accepting and obedient response from these two female figures, but also to convince the entire assembly community to act in particular ways if Euodia and Syntyche do not respond in the way he seeks. Given their previous work alongside Paul and their likely prominent place in the Philippian assembly community, any assent on their part to the order constructed by the letter would further bolster Paul’s model and authority, add to a growing list of supporting model figures and reinforce Paul’s network. However, if the women (continue to) disagree with this construction but enough of the others in the assembly community do accept Paul’s perspective, Euodia and Syntyche could just as easily be viewed as those who think the wrong things in divisive, selfish and earth-bound ways; this still strengthens Paul’s vision that accounts for such negative types, those outside of their network. Much depends, then, on the conviction Paul could create through these arguments and, ultimately, how various members of the assembly community at Philippi would receive such arguments. 4.4-23 As the letter moves further into its fourth chapter, the overall argument starts winding down to its close. With these targeted arguments, Paul has given his major proofs and revealed his major purposes. However, the closing arguments are far from perfunctory, as it is vital to reinforce the picture developed in the minds of the audience who might have thus far assented to the claims being made. The final sentences, then, should rehearse some of the more common rhetorical strategies of the letter, while seeking ways to affirm their appeal and the affinity between Paul and the Philippians. As one would expect, an appeal to emotions (pathos) like rejoicing (4.4 [twice]) appears as reinforcement. Such responses are especially urgent since ‘the lord is near’ (4.5). Time is short, one must not be distracted in efforts or mindsets and, of course, the best course to follow is the one laid out in the letter. The temporal horizon remains a central aspect of the argument, as proper responses insure that ‘the peace of God…will guard’ them (4.7) and ‘the God of peace will be with you [plural]’ (4.9). As with the earlier notes about time, it is possible that Paul is underscoring this future ‘not-justyet’ aspect to these promises to counter an idea that God’s peace is already with the assembly community. The emphasis on divine presence and action boosts Paul’s claims through the authority attributed to God. Paul’s arguments will continue using Christ and God as guarantors of the claims he makes and the orders he constructs.



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The arguments for Paul’s model also continue into these closing sentences of the letter. Upon repeating a traditional list of virtues (4.8), perhaps to underscore how imitating Paul has as many (even more) positive outcomes as other paths, Paul asserts rather comprehensively: ‘the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do these things’ (4.9). In fact, if the result of this imitation is what follows in this verse (i.e. the presence of God), then an argument from divine authority strengthens this call to imitate Paul. This affiliation with the divine persists in several ways in the verses sometimes considered as Paul’s ‘thank you note’ (4.1020). Paul presents himself as a model of self-sufficiency in these verses (esp. 4.11-12, 17), except when he (im)modestly asserts: ‘I can do all things in the one who strengthens me’ (4.13). On the one hand, this ability comes from another, implicitly divine, source; on the other hand, this ability sounds rather all encompassing. The ‘I’ in the statement, much in the way that Paul is fond of arguing to and for all of the ‘you’ who are receiving the letter, is empowered to rule and dominate. The letter’s last few sentences do more than try to build up Paul’s ethos. Highlighting the relationship between the Philippians and himself is not only a good way to remind the audience of their close ties (much like the opening few sentences did), but it is also an excellent opportunity to link these ties to Paul’s previous calls for unity (US rhetoric). Paul expresses his joy again, but this time for the fact that the assembly community had been ‘thinking’ about him (phronein, 4.10 [twice]). Indeed, Paul thanks them for sharing his troubles by entering into a partnership with him (koinōnia, 4.1415 [twice]). This bond was apparently distinctive, as the Philippians supported Paul more than once (4.15-16). By recounting this past and possibly continuing relationship, Paul may just be invoking one last argument of waste. Since they have so much invested in each other and the Philippians sent aid through Epaphroditus, this investment should be affirmed by keeping the relationship (the way Paul casts it) rather than undermined. Such warm ties should not obscure how carefully Paul proceeds in discussing the financial dynamics of this relationship, continuously inserting himself as a model and authority. By beginning with his indifference to such support, he minimizes the obligation that would be implied if this were a typical patron-client relationship. Further, by depicting their gift as a sacrifice oriented more toward God (4.18), Paul craftily avoids the idea that he accepted something for which he would be indebted, while closely connecting any support for him as something pleasurable for God. As a sacrifice, the gift involves both a credit to those offering it (the Philippians) and an inherently worthy purpose (for Paul and God). Yet, Paul never really ‘needed’ such support, given the letter’s claims about the return effort by ‘my God’ to fulfill every need (4.19). This exchange is not reciprocal but disproportionate and unequal, indicating once more how much higher Paul

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is in this hierarchy of authority that is endorsed and maintained by divine action (HiM rhetoric). The equanimity of this elevated model and authority is underscored in the closing greetings in much the same way as the opening: by salutations to and from ‘every’ and ‘all’ of the holy ones with Paul and in the Philippian assembly community (4.21, 22). Conclusion In sketching the rhetoric of the letter, one should have a clearer idea of how the various argumentative techniques interact along the way, helping to build the picture that Paul seeks for the audience. Though scholars have long noted the stress upon unity in Philippians, they have less frequently noticed how these calls would also move a community that accepted them toward a constrained form of sameness. This sort of US rhetoric is separate from, but also intertwined with the persistent modeling argumentation (both positive and negative) in the letter. This modeling ends up constructing (or at least reinforcing) a hierarchical difference between those who do and do not conform (enough) to the model presented: Paul as the ‘him’ that best exemplifies the HiM rhetoric. As readers and receivers faced with such problematic argumentation, then, is there any way to do something else with them? Is it only natural, then or now, to think about the community or Christ in the way crafted by this letter? Queer approaches present the readers and users of texts like these with some rather different options for engaging troubling texts and traditions.

5

Pauline Performativity, Triangulating Turns and Purity’s Queer Perversions In previous chapters I have attempted to highlight the major topics in the interpretation of Philippians and the major trends in the letter’s argumentation. My last chapter stressed how Paul builds his argument through repeated calls for imitation, calls that are supported by citations of traditional materials and claims about divine authority. These arguments aim to direct and shape networks of supporting figures, which he situates in webs of filiation and affection and contrasts with problematic figures. In key moments his arguments through models and anti-models demonstrate distinct ways of thinking about the community’s behavior, as well as their bodily comportment. I have also indicated in my previous chapters the importance and utility of feminist and postcolonial approaches, especially how they qualify and challenge more mainstream (or malestream) historical and rhetorical approaches. Yet, the arguments presented in Philippians—about imitation and networks, behavior and bodies—are oriented precisely toward the kinds of topics treated productively and provocatively in queer approaches (in and outside of biblical studies). In this chapter, then, I will introduce a set of strategies from queer theories to deal with such arguments. Indeed, engaging in such queer readings of Philippians is a compelling departure, considering the nature of this guidebook. As a ‘guide’, this book is meant to reflect common scholarly perspectives and describe some of the typical approaches to or uses of Philippians. Yet, as one can gather even by the description of this approach—queer—the following is hardly typical, common or normal within biblical studies. This difference, its potential strangeness or abnormality, is why a queer approach could be especially valuable; it presents a compelling ethical and political horizon for interrogating and negotiating what one finds in biblical argumentation. What follows, then, is hardly ‘business as usual’. For those who have more than a passing acquaintance with how biblical ideas are used in political, cultural and religious debates about sexuality, a discussion of queerness and Philippians might seem odd or even misplaced. After all, the ‘commonsense’ impression is that one should consult other Pauline letters, like

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Romans or 1 Corinthians, for a ‘biblical stance on homosexuality’. While so-called biblical declarations on ‘homosexuality’ are hardly as straightforward (!) as some might think, interpreters and users are also turning to biblical texts besides the typical ‘bashing passages’ (like Romans 1 or 1 Corinthians 6) in order to address wider patterns and presuppositions. This practice breaks queer approaches out of an endlessly defensive cycle and demonstrates their larger utility and greater stimulation, including their relevance to understanding passages that are not ostensibly ‘about sexuality’. When oriented this way, queer approaches derive their impulse and direct their impact in the light of how the term ‘queer’ has been used as a slur or insult to mean abnormal, odd or perverse. The aim of a queer approach is, then, less a defensive posture than a creative mode of critique about such categorizations and constructions. Instead of trying to represent the perspective of a certain group of people (like LGBTIQ folk), a queer approach addresses those larger dynamics that have produced the conditions and institutions that have often targeted those and many other people. The term ‘queer’ is apt here, since arguments about what is ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ have been an effective part of such patterns of discipline and vilification. Thus, a queer approach to biblical argumentation might best be viewed as a set of efforts to identify, interrogate, contest and negotiate normalization as a process and in all of its configurations, including with and through various uses of the Bible (Stone 2001: 20-33). Queer approaches can be focused on more than those aforementioned ‘bashing passages’ and be concerned with more than ostensibly ‘atypical’ sexual practices and identifications. Indeed, in being defined over and against the ‘normal’, a queer approach is not necessarily concerned with what might be the proper or appropriate way to address Pauline epistles or interpretations. To the degree that biblical arguments and interpretations (by scholars and others) have played roles in generating and maintaining normalization, a queer practice of interpretation should aim to be unlike, and thus inappropriate to such traditions and practices. As Stephen Moore helpfully describes it, ‘“queer” is a supple cipher both for what stands over against the normal and the natural to oppose, and thereby define, them, and what inheres within the normal and the natural to subvert, and indeed pervert, them’ (2001: 18). This means that queer reading strategies can do unexpected and improper things, even with and within biblical texts and traditions. The Normal and the Natural So far, I have only explained rather broadly how this sort of approach could apply to a letter like Philippians, rather than why it does. Though Paul never crafted any argument explicitly about the normal (he may not have even



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known of such a concept), his overall argumentation in this letter certainly echoes the normalizing function that is a queer theoretical concern. The dynamics of normalization have been outlined by Michel Foucault as exercises of power that operate in five interlocking ways: they do so by (1) comparing activities, (2) differentiating between them, (3) arranging them into a hierarchy of value, (4) imposing a homogenized category to which one should conform (within this hierarchy), and (5) excluding those who differ and are, thus, abnormal (1979: 182-84). Surveying briefly the arguments I have highlighted in Philippians, one should see how much the letter’s arguments function as a kind of normalization. Paul compares and differentiates between several different parties and their practices (including himself, divine figures, supporting models and various anti-models). These arguments position Paul and others in a hierarchy where the negative value attributed to ‘the divisive’ or ‘the enemies’ is as clear as the elevated role he claims for himself alongside the divine. From within this hierarchical dynamic the audience is exhorted to show that they think the same thing (as Paul) by obediently following his arguments and imitating him (and others like him). Those who fail to do this would then find their fates corresponding to the claims made about the anti-models. Not only would they no longer belong in the assembly community (as Paul has defined it), but they would also be doomed to destruction at the hands of the divine. The letter’s arguments compare, hierarchically differentiate, homogenize and exclude (even violently so); in a word, they normalize. Categories like ‘normal’ do a lot of the same work as what counts as ‘natural’ do, in both ancient and contemporary settings. Today, when someone begins a sentence with ‘It’s only natural that…’, they are making a claim about what (they think) is normal. While ancient peoples like the Greeks, Jews and Romans appeared not to have the concept of ‘normal’, ideas and arguments about ‘nature’ and the ‘natural’ functioned in much the same way. Thus, one can also talk about a process of naturalization in these kinds of arguments, where claims about political structures or cultural practices derive their persuasive force and taken-for-granted status from their correspondence to what is believed to be natural. The arguments in Philippians work to naturalize specific ways of thinking and certain dynamics of power, particularly through allusions to time, the cosmos and the divine, as well as bodies and embodied roles. For instance, the arguments of waste (described in the previous chapter) get their force from claims about the proper maintenance of what has always been (1.4, 20; 2.12; 4.4; but see also 3.16) or what should continue now, considering various beginnings (1.5; 4.15-16). It would be ‘only natural’ to preserve an order or a relationship that has preceded and persisted into this moment. In the worldviews of most ancient peoples, these orders are derived from or dictated by the gods and the larger cosmic order.

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The letter’s frequent references to coming apocalyptic events like the day of Christ (1.6, 10; 2.16; 3.15, 20-21; 4.5), if accepted, similarly reinforce the strength of these arguments. Anytime when Paul claims that the divine acts to witness, endorse or condemn certain people or practices, or that Paul himself acts to the benefit of the divine, such claims gather persuasive power from the (supposed) natural order of things. This even shapes the spatially oriented appeals about how the community will be a distinctive polity, a heavenly citizenship (1.27; 3.20), the sort of arrangement to which Paul looks forward in the future (3.13-14). The divine role and the spatiotemporal order of the universe are also clearly reflected in Paul’s hopes for resurrection (3.10-11). This is also true of the ‘hymn’, as it details all three planes of existence—‘in heaven and upon the earth and below the earth’ (2.10)—acknowledging Jesus. Functioning to naturalize an order, Paul’s arguments about time, space and the divine also interact and intertwine with claims about flesh, bodies and embodied roles. Bodies not only seem natural to ‘us’ today, but they were also seen by Paul’s peers as expressions and extensions within the wider cosmic order. Concepts of time and the divine are routed through Paul’s body, for instance, when he claims that ‘as always and now Christ will be made great in my body’ (1.20). The same temporal emphasis is directed to the community but connected to Paul, when he asserts that they should obey ‘now much more in my absence’ in continuity with the ways ‘just as you [plural] have always obeyed’ (2.12). Paul’s own bodily presence on this plane (earth) and with the assembly community is a theme that continually lurks behind and loops back into the letter’s argumentation, and his own embodied reactions and dispositions (tears and afflictions, love and joy) build pathos, bolster his ethos and reinforce the logos (see the opening of the previous chapter for descriptions of these terms). Embodied terms aid in the construction of both positive and negative arguments in the letter. Life in the ‘flesh’ is something less preferable to Paul (1.22, 24) and ‘we’ do not have ‘confidence in the flesh’ (3.3). Yet, Paul has reasons for such flesh-oriented confidence (3.3), claims to stay in the flesh for the benefit of others (1.24-26) and will not be ashamed no matter what (1.19-20). The anti-models have the wrong bodily disposition, because they are ‘the mutilation’ (3.2), but the contrastive ‘we’ are distinctly and positively embodied as the circumcision (3.3). Later, the fate of those enemies is reflected in not only their bodies, but also their orientation to space and the divine: ‘their god is the belly and glory in their shame, having their minds on earthly things’ (3.19). The point of immediate contrast also combines the same range of naturalizing claims, since ‘our commonwealth is in heaven, out of which we also wait for a savior’ (3.20), who will change the lower body of the community to become more like ‘the body of his glory’ (3.21). By thus arranging bodies in cosmic place



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and divine timelines, these arguments work to naturalize hierarchical differences between both these ‘enemies’ and the audience, and then the audience and (Paul’s version of) the divine. The responses expected of the audience are also embodied: their unity should be expressed by ‘standing’ (1.27; 4.1) and by suffering in the same conflict as Paul’s (1.29-30). Within the ‘hymn’ knees bend and tongues confess its triumphantly dominant reversal (2.9, 11), while the letter’s exhortations connect this tradition to the sort of obedience that comes with ‘fear and trembling’ (2.12). The Philippians should feel these arguments in their bodies, weak in the knees and legs giving out. In its most targeted moment, one can almost imagine Paul’s ‘true yokeperson’ (note the close bodily connection here) trying to shake Euodia or Syntyche by the shoulders, if this comrade follows Paul’s exhortation to ‘take hold’ of them (syllambanou, 4.3). Proper bodily comportment would bring the assembly community members back in line with an order expressed in terms of all kinds of naturalizing arguments in the letter. Of course, any argument for imitation seeks to make certain responses natural and normal among those audience members whose conformity it seeks. Doing the same things as each other, the same things one was told to do by an authority that one accepts, makes these things seem to be natural/ normal. Such doubled repetitions or similarities are expressed, for example, by the imperative to ‘become co-imitators of me’ (3.17). The language of mimesis (symmimētai) belongs to a world of embodied practices and is concerned with visual and physical representation, like the repetition in behavior and speech one expected in a speech or a performance in the ancient world. Paul’s letter naturalizes its arguments about imitation and obedience through its repeated references to time, space, the divine and the body. Within all of these naturalizing arguments, certain embodied figures are seen as hierarchically lower, for instance, because they are less affiliated with those divine forces Paul claims are on his side to witness and guarantee his position and promises. Of course, this fits with the ancient imperial context in which this letter was prepared and received, where some people were just ‘naturally’ superior to the rest. This social and political order of steep and significant stratification hierarchically arranged, differentiated and valued various kinds of bodies according to their ‘natural’ place, including most especially slaves and other female figures in the empire (slaves were effeminized and could not count as ‘real men’ simply because they were slaves). The ‘hymn’ (Phil. 2.6-11) reflects the hierarchical nature of these sorts of things, when it presents an image of ‘descending’ into becoming a human as being in a slave-like role (2.7). Paul capitalizes upon this naturalization by immediately connecting it to the most important quality for a slave to have (from a slaveowning perspective): obedience (see Chapter 2). What is true of slaves, then, should be true of all of the other humans

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in the assembly community: their ideal qualities should match the distinctly debased place in a hierarchy established through many claims about the natural order. Indeed, in and out of the ‘hymn’, the disposition of the created order (earth and heaven) reflects the comprehensive cosmic lordship of Christ (2.9-11; 3.20-21) and the very different places for everyone else. Clearly, then, a concept like ‘nature’ is highly gendered in such ancient contexts (but not only then or there). It is not surprising that this combination of status and gender is also expressed in standards and claims about erotic activity, or what you and I might now call ‘sexuality’. An erotic act is natural if it reflects the series of hierarchical differences that most ancient peoples attributed to people’s very own bodies. Scholars of ancient eroticism have shown that ‘proper’ (i.e. ‘natural’) actions were dictated not by the more modern concept of sexual orientation, but by an overall logic around penetration (see Halperin 1990; Walters 1997). An elite person’s (masculine and therefore dominant) character is demonstrated by inserting part of (almost always) his body into the body of someone lower in status (like women, slaves and/or foreigners). One’s lower status and corresponding femaleness or effeminacy is marked by the degree to which one is vulnerable to this and any other kind of penetration or use of their bodies (including what we tend now to call ‘sex’ but also forced labor, beatings or whippings). An act that did not reflect this hierarchy or, considering the interlocking dynamics of these differentiations, this kyriarchy would be seen as ‘unnatural’. To be ‘on top’ imperially, erotically, economically and often ethnically would mean to adopt and maintain one’s ‘natural’ and masculine role by ruling and controlling one’s own and other bodies in every way possible. Deploying any part of this kyriarchal order is striking in a context where three of the named figures from Philippi—Epaphroditus, Euodia and Syntyche—bear names commonly given to slaves (Marchal forthcoming). Though not typically seen as one of Paul’s letters ‘about’ gender or sexuality, Paul’s letter to the Philippians naturalizes its rhetorical claims (time, space, divine and bodies) in ways that connect to such topics. This is particularly so when one reflects upon the bodies of heavenly lords, debased subjects, obedient slaves and similar social inferiors. The Unpredictable Possibilities of Philippian Performativity Both feminist and queer approaches have quite a bit to contribute to the study of Philippians once one begins to think more carefully about bodies and the apparent common sense about what counts as ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ about them. One of the most influential thinkers on such topics is Judith Butler, whose concept of performativity not only reframes many ideas about sex, gender and embodiment, but also is uniquely insightful about the role of imitation and repetition in such ‘natural’ roles (1990; 2004a).



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Butler, for instance, famously asserts: ‘Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeals over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being’ (1990: 33). Such an assertion about embodied actions can challenge you and me to look differently in a number of ways, both in terms of conformity and resistance, at Paul’s calls to imitation in Philippians. This quote highlights how gender or indeed many other qualities about bodies are performative, since they are only recognizable through both the practice of certain actions and the wider reception of what these actions mean. In Butler’s conceptualization, it is only when one ‘does’ gender ‘properly’ that others identify one as belonging to and ‘being’ a gender. By stressing this doing aspect of embodiment, Butler reverses some of the common sense of what bodies are and mean. It is not an innate sense of being that causes us to do gendered things; rather, it is the repeated doing that creates a sense of stably being a particular kind of gender, body or sexuality. The stability of what counts as a ‘natural’ kind of body is dependent upon behavior, and what counts as ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ behavior relies upon the interpretive frame one uses for bodies or behavior. The normalizing and naturalizing function of Paul’s arguments come into focus, in a rather different way through performativity. A queer approach can help reconsider the way the letter describes embodied actions and sets a frame for understanding the Philippians’ bodies and the behaviors to which they should conform. According to the trajectory prescribed by Paul through this letter, if things are done ‘properly’ (through imitation and obedience), an(y) audience will belong. If one accepts the frame provided by the letter’s arguments and does what they are exhorted to do, then one will be recognizable as (Paul’s kind of) an assembly member, as part of an ‘us’. The performative basis for the creation and maintenance of such belonging shows that it is neither obvious nor natural to this assembly community that this is what it is or what it means to belong. They are an assembly community based upon what they do. One can see that the matter of setting a course or even a series of norms for how to act is closely tied to the identity as a community. Only by ‘doing’ does this vision of being and belonging become stabilized and come to appear as ‘natural’ and ‘normal’. The arguments of Philippians aim to establish a frame that would regulate what (and therefore who) would count as ‘naturally’ belonging (i.e. having the right frame of mind rather than being like those ‘divisive enemies’). In the contemporary scene that Butler is evaluating, what counts as a ‘proper’ gender is conditioned by the regulatory frame of heteronormativity, the system that presumes heterosexual desire and behaviors are the only normal and natural options. While Paul’s Philippians aims to express or even generate its own regulatory frame, the aforementioned logic of penetration is likely layered within this frame; the terms of ‘proper’ behavior for one’s gendered,

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economic, imperial, erotic and even ethnic ‘natural’ place are conditioned by the shared settings of Paul and the Philippians. Butler’s ideas about performativity help one conceive how certain ways of being and thinking gain their stability and apparent naturalness. Performativity also helps one see how such orders of stylization and substantiation can be resisted and subverted. By denaturalizing the qualities that people attribute to bodies (like gender), performativity works to undermine the basis of these regulatory frames. Gender (or any other ostensibly existential quality) only appears natural, only seems to be based on the substance of the body, and only becomes ‘normal’ when read within its regulatory frame. This reading is dependent upon repetition. What appears as ‘natural/normal’—one’s gender, body, sexuality—is not a straightforward and innate part of one’s identity; rather, this sense of identity is only an effect of the incessant doing that must be done to become readable in a regulatory frame. Once the endless repetition needed to have these effects is highlighted, one might begin to recognize that regulatory orders claiming to be ‘natural/normal’ (like heterosexuality or the kyriarchal logic of penetration) are no longer ‘natural’ or ‘original’. Rather, these orders are revealed as inherently unstable, even panicked, and in need of constant explanation and reiteration to produce itself as ‘natural’. It requires copies of copies of copies of what it is producing as the ‘natural’. Such an operation leads Butler to observe that ‘gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original, in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself’ (1991: 21). Performativity shows that any gender, any sexuality, any embodied instantiation of an idea or identity is an imitation, an attempt to copy the cultural process by which it is regulated. For something to appear ‘normal/natural’, it needs to be repeated. An image, idea or argument can only have such a naturalizing or normalizing effect if it is imitated within the regulatory frame that produces such an effect. Such a conceptualization significantly alters the way one assesses and negotiates a letter so focused on developing its repeated rhetoric of imitation. Paul’s arguments in Philippians for his own model and a set of supporting model figures look like a concerted effort to naturalize and normalize a particular perspective on Christ and community. Paul repeatedly calls for the Philippians to imitate him, shaping this appeal through claims about ‘proper’ mindset and communal unity and reinforcing it through associations with divine authority. Such unity is shown by acting in obedience to Paul and thinking like him as an authority, in contrast to those ‘divisive’ ones, who, with minds on the wrong, earthly and fleshy things, are doomed to a destructive end at the hands of the divine.



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A queer perspective on these arguments insists that Paul needs the assembly community members at Philippi to imitate the version of himself that he presents in the letter. For his vision of Christ and community to be realized, the assembly community must accept and repeat his arguments. After all, Paul would not actually be a model without any copies or followers. Rather than assuming an unthinking response of acceptance and copying in the community, the phenomenon of performativity highlights the inherent instability of such repeated calls for imitation (and all of the rhetorical machinery it requires in support). Certainly, if (and only so long as) an audience accepts a regulatory frame and acts, repeats, cites and performs within it—in and through their bodies—then the argument works and appears substantive, natural, true and authoritative. However, there is always the possibility that a group will not accept, act, repeat, copy or otherwise perform in the way Paul seeks through his arguments. His claim—that he is intimately tied to the origins of good outcomes for them, and that his authority derives from timeless patterns and a transcendent deity—underscore how hard he likely thought he had to work to convince the Philippians to accept and enact this version of Christ and community as an original and exclusively ‘proper’ perspective. In the light of such instability, the arguments in the letter do not depict an ‘open-and-shut’ case, but a sweaty effort and a panicked reaction to the audience’s potential activities; they betray the omnipresent possibility that Paul’s audience might not follow his model. The repeatability of such norms or ‘natural’ ways of being reveals their instability. Because their appearance as natural, stable, substantive, clear and therefore authoritative are dependent upon their continuous imitation and repetition, the cultural processes that produce our ideas of genders, sexes, sexualities or bodies can never be finished. While we can never get entirely ‘outside’ these regulative processes in culture, Butler thinks that their necessary repeatability and accompanying instability can make them compelling places to make trouble for norms and their regulatory apparatus. While within performativity one must repeat or ‘cite’ the norms of embodiment, one might find ways to develop subversive repetitions: namely, to ‘fail to repeat loyally’ (Butler 1993: 124). The issue is not whether one repeats gendered scripts or cites erotic norms, but how one does so. Normalization and naturalization are open to rearticulation precisely because they only work if they are constantly being reinstalled, repeated and cited as the ‘normal/natural’. Within such repetitions there is room to improvise in resistance and subversion. Arguments that (attempt to) establish the ‘normal/natural’ can have effects beyond and besides naturalization or normalization. Such arguments are sites for trouble, and can be cited to transform norms and resignify bodies. This means that Paul’s arguments for imitation and obedience, conformity and authority, and a certain kind of unity and enemy need not always

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function towards such ends. Their instability and the need for them to be endlessly cited and repeated in action demonstrate that the meaning and effect of these practices are never entirely foreclosed. Kyriarchal arguments need not always reflect kyriarchal operations or effects. In such light, Paul’s letter is not only an unstable set of propositions, but it was also a panicked response to a context in which people were doing something differently (or more differently than he would like). The attempt to naturalize certain power dynamics can be used or re-used in ways that do not reinscribe these dynamics. The substantiation of Paul’s vision of Christ and community is never a foregone conclusion. Butler’s conceptualization provides opportunities to re-imagine both the historical scenarios of the ancient world and the contemporary contexts for biblical citation and use. Neither is bound by what is presented in the letter to the Philippians or its interpretation. In fact, the letter reflects that the assembly community was already doing all sorts of things, even before Paul prepared and sent these arguments. They were already acting, and already had their own networks of leaders and workers, overseers and servants (1.1). The assembly community members at Philippi were already supporting to some extent their own leading figures, as well as Paul. While Paul tried to stress that he was the one in control— including his or other people’s movements—Paul was actually in prison (so very much not in control) and the Philippians had already sent aid and their own ‘messenger’ in Epaphroditus (2.25). Finally, this assembly community was already preserving, using and possibly even creating their own traditions about Christ, as reflected in the ‘hymn’ that Paul cited. The citational quality of this dynamic underscores that the audience at Philippi might just be using some of the same materials as Paul does in the letter, but putting them to different uses. Paul works quickly and intensely to connect such traditions to a hierarchical pattern of obedience and imitation. This effort indicates that the Philippians could have been citing these ideas differently in their practices. Indeed, one would presume that Paul was seeing some sort of difference that concerned him, otherwise why would Paul go to any efforts in this letter, let alone such rhetorical lengths, to develop this particular picture of ‘proper’ imitation and obedience? The assembly community members might just be interested in imitation and unity or ‘proper’ mindset and partnerships, but they could have been drawing upon a different model for these qualities or practices. Or they could be performing a similar model according to another script than the one Paul prescribes. Indeed, this might just be why Paul points to particular people or cites a tradition about Christ that they all knew, since the Philippians already cited, repeated, pointed out and perform in light of them for purposes different from Paul’s. It seems quite likely that the Philippians themselves used some of the same qualities and certainly some of the same figures (Christ and God,



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among others), but were proceeding differently than Paul. They were doing their own kinds of imitation. The community might just be constituted and sustained through claims to unity not based upon a hierarchical chain of authority, the condemnation of difference, the specter of divine threats or the violent denigration and exclusion of some. Perhaps they were using the ‘hymn’ in a way that did not directly lead to obedience to, imitation of and authority for Paul. Such uses might have reflected different concepts of bodies and belonging, time and space, or interaction between human and divine. So often, interpreters and users of Paul’s texts assume and reinforce that Paul was already in an authoritative position, but all of his letters bear clear signs that his model was hardly the only or the original. Paul’s letter points to some of the people at Philippi, but the community members likely looked at them differently. The explicit naming of figures like Euodia, Syntyche and Epaphroditus hints that these people were extensions of another way of organizing. They could represent an alternative that Paul seeks to reorganize by placing the Philippians and their ‘overseers and servers’ under Paul’s divinely-endorsed authority and himself as the figure most deserving of imitation and obedience. Because contemporary Christians (and the cultures they influence) cite traditions about Christ, as Paul and the Philippians almost certainly did, the performative and citational quality of such arguments on what is ‘natural/normal’ becomes also relevant. It is possible for contemporary users of Philippians to take things elsewhere, because the performative aspect of arguments for imitation means that the arguments are themselves already unstable and open to different kinds of repetitions. Since norms are always in the process of being realized but never fully or completely so, Paul’s attempt to argue for an obedient conformity and imitation can never be complete. The Philippians might just have generated rather different concepts and practices of Christ and community, of bodies and belonging. Once one recognizes the potentially destructive effects of the arguments in this letter, though, the obligation to do something differently shifts to people arguing and acting now. Regardless of what the Philippians did historically, reflecting upon their practices in and through the argumentation of this letter indicates how such counter-visions inhere in and are internal to Paul’s efforts to convince his audience not to proceed and persist with other views besides his. To the extent that it operates as a continuing argument, the letter continues to bear other repetitions of itself as queer potentialities. The Not-So-Hidden Desires for a Homosocial Hierarchy From within Philippians’ network of members and potential leaders, many of Paul’s arguments about the community can be resituated in compelling and generative ways. Here, the insights of another feminist and queer

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theorist, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, can be of use. Sedgwick’s focus upon the concepts of homosocial desire and erotic triangulation brings unexpected dynamics to our attention in illuminating ways (1985). Even the term ‘homosocial desire’ might seem contradictory, given how the term homosocial was initially coined to emphasize the absence of desirous attitudes or actions in certain kinds of relations, to mark them as different from homosexual ones. Sedgwick highlights how the line between homosocial and homosexual is unstable and wavering; homosocial bonds, especially those between males that are ostensibly divorced from those kinds of men and those kinds of acts, are themselves freighted with erotic tensions and possibilities. Sedgwick demonstrates this kind of homosocial desire through her adaptation of the concept of erotic triangulation. In the context of an erotic triangle, in which typically two males pursue a female beloved, the rivalry between the competitors produces as much heat as the ‘love’ each rival has for the beloved. The attention paid by the rivals to each other can be even more intense, signifying a powerful connection between them that might exceed the connection sought with the one they are (apparently) pursuing. The behaviors of these rivals are determined and conditioned by the other as much as by the object of their affection. Once one begins to grasp this concept, one recognizes the charge of this sort of desire in all sorts of places, perhaps even more so in cases that seem to insist the most on the normalcy (often: heterosexuality) of desires. I notice it, for instance, in the bonds and competitions depicted in movies like Top Gun or Pearl Harbor. More recently, such triangulation seems to play a structuring role in the (rather different) vampire stories of Twilight and True Blood. As these relationships develop and plotlines thicken, the identifications multiply and the triangles proliferate and rotate in dizzily delightful ways. Unlike other commentators and critics, Sedgwick stresses that such dynamics are also asymmetrically shaped. These triangles fit within larger patterns where females are exchanged mostly between males (or malecoded groups); the rivals are fighting over (and, hence, above) the beloved. These rivalries are demonstrations of power, marked not only by gender differences but also by interconnected differentiations based on factors like status, class, race and language. The competitors may be drawn to each other and bonded by this triangulation, but the aim is to compete and to rise above the other and indicate your superiority. The dynamics of power are not accidental to homosocial bonds and erotic triangles; rather, they are expressed and exercised through them. An analysis attentive to erotic triangulation can deploy it as ‘a sensitive register precisely for delineating relationships of power and meaning, and for making graphically intelligible the play of desire and identification by which individuals negotiate with their societies for empowerment’ (Sedgwick 1985: 27). In short, attending



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to erotic triangles could become useful in interpreting literature in another, more ancient context, when and where readers and users are willing to consider the connections between claims to social power and displays of affection. Such a conceptualization exemplifies how the queer appears in unexpected places and times, how powerful (male) homosocial bonds can be found in seemingly normative claims about bodies and desires. While people often think of other letters when asking about queer issues in the Bible, one can certainly show how Paul aims for a certain kind of homosocial outcome in the letter to the Philippians. The repeated rhetoric of unity and sameness in the letter demonstrates how Paul wants the community to think like he does, to adopt this similarity or likeness (homoios). As an ‘us’, the Philippians would be defined as a social entity by this sort of unity and sameness. Paul’s favorite supporting models for this vision of the community are also identified as male. He expresses his connections to figures like Timothy and Epaphroditus by introducing them with affectionate descriptions; he lavishes three terms of affiliation upon Epaphroditus (2.25), but he has no one else quite like Timothy (2.20). Moreover, they demonstrate their worth by showing certain affective concerns about the audience: Timothy ‘truly cares’ about them (2.20) and Ephaphroditus especially ‘was longing for all of you’ (2.26). These male models are supporting figures to the letter’s overall argumentation, because Paul persistently presents himself as a model of these qualities and much more. Paul stresses his own affection for the community from the beginning (1.7-8) and at several points throughout the letter. Paul claims that he has a special partnership with the assembly community (1.3-5; 4.14-16), even sacrificing his apparently stronger desire to be with Christ to be with them once more (1.23-26). The repeated theme of joy should bond them more tightly and the assembly community should respond in love and affection (1.9, 16; 2.1-2). Paul even addresses them as his ‘beloved’ at two key moments in the argument: when obedience is extolled as the meaning of the ‘hymn’ (2.12) and when the arguments for imitation are about to be applied to the case of Euodia and Syntyche (4.1). Strikingly, in the latter instance, Paul twice addresses the audience as ‘beloved’ (much like his dual exhortation to Euodia and Syntyche to follow), calling them ‘my beloved and longed-for brothers’ (4.1). As I and other scholars have maintained, the situation with Euodia and Syntyche might just have been the reason Paul shaped these arguments about unity and authority, mindset and modeling. Read in this light, the focus on these two females fits with the use of females to cement bonds between males or male-coded groups, like these desired brothers in the assembly community at Philippi. Using erotic triangulation as a ‘sensitive register’ of the power and meaning at stake, one could also suggest that the desire to get Euodia and Syntyche to think and do the same thing is also angled in another direction. The fight

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for their hearts and minds is ‘really’ a fight with and for others in the assembly community. The longing or desire (the Greek term used in 4.1 has both connotations) for the community is routed through this extensive effort to get Euodia and Syntyche to think, do and be the way Paul wants them. The affection for the community, for select male supporting figures, and even this unnamed true yokeperson (4.3) are indicators of the homosocial desire hiding in plain sight: Paul wants and needs the assembly community (those who ostensibly already ‘have’ these two named females). Given the way this letter is structured, Paul is also competing with an alternative vision of community. Whether this is a real option or an anxious phantom, the rhetorical effort in Philippians is manifest. The exertion is typified by the way Paul argues about ‘opponents’. Indeed, affective expressions are often tied to the characterization of these anti-models. He maintains that some of them preach out of rivalry, in contrast to those who act out of love (1.15-16). He lashes out against them with strong condemnations, but tells the community with tears about them (3.18). As Sedgwick reminds us, the practices determined by rivalry and by love are not as different as one might think. The arc of these arguments tries to establish that to not follow Paul’s claims is to effectively join these ‘opponents’, to move from belonging to mutilation, from safety to destruction, from one desirable affiliation to another (un)desirable affiliation. Yet Paul’s arguments suggest that there is something rather desirable about other ways of preaching (1.15-17), lining up (1.27-28), questioning (2.14-16), working (3.2), imitating (3.17) and thinking (3.18-19). The development of targets or ‘opponents’ like Euodia and Syntyche becomes one way to secure the community’s homosocial identification with and desire for Paul and his vision for them. He wants them to want him, to replace whatever appeal someone else might have for them with his own appeal. This desire for their identification with him is homosocial because Paul’s argumentation aims at a unity cast as sameness, ‘us’ being alike (homoios). Furthermore, this sameness is shaped and set by the repeated and preeminent model of Paul presented by the letter’s rhetoric. This highlights what Sedgwick emphasizes about erotic triangles and homosocial desires: their repeated asymmetry. Paul argues not only over Euodia and Syntyche, but also as a way to get on top of the community. The asymmetry of power Paul tries to establish is over these two named female figures, as well as those perversely characterized others: envious and back-talking, twisted and mutilated, and reveling in shame. These arguments demonstrate and exercise Paul’s own claims to an authoritative position, an elevated place in a hierarchy that gathers this and other assembly communities into networks under Paul. The letter’s rhetoric of hierarchy and modeling proposes and reinforces a hierarchy of authority in which Paul is repeatedly the main model, defining in turn what counts as ‘proper’ unity and sameness.



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Paul’s rhetorical strategies work together, but they also move at crosspurposes; their paradoxical co-existence is not unlike that of homosocial desire. The tension at the root of such arguments makes it difficult, even impossible, for Paul to get what he apparently wants in this letter. Paul argues carefully and extensively for Euodia and Syntyche, and indeed the whole assembly community, to ‘think the same thing’ as he does. Yet, if he is worth imitating, if he has some unique access to the divine, if he deserves a particularly elevated position of authority, then Paul must also argue for his own difference from them. He especially valorizes those he says are more like him, but is sure to show his own authority over them. He wants the assembly community to rejoice with him and to be (more) truly yoked to him, but aims to create these bonds through the distance and difference he builds between them. Paul wants sameness, but he cannot have it if he also claims and defends his own preeminent position. Through such asymmetrical arrangements Paul seems to be triangulating for his own ascendance and dominance, but it is only a dominance that can be demonstrated by the audience responding in obedience to his calls for sameness. Yet, such calls can never be completely fulfilled: he wants them to want (to be like) him, but he must remain distinctive in order for him (and his way of thinking) to be desirable. Paul’s efforts seem to prevent anyone else from stepping into a place he believes to be his own. His arguments indicate a tensive desire for the Philippians’ adherence and obedience, and with it, a certain kind of intimacy. His means of establishing this intimacy, though, register a difference in power rather than a closeness in common. The recurrent language of opposition and condemnation shows that Paul is arguing in ways shaped by competition as much as desire. According to Paul, these fates are opposed, and other visions of Christ and community are condemned. This tension between similarity and difference, sameness and hierarchy in Philippians highlights that the meaning and power of such identifications are at stake, but also that they could be arranged in differently desirable ways (an option that Paul both guards against and still potentially wants). The play of desire and identification also cycles around the various ways Christ is deployed in the letter and likely in the community. Perhaps it would be possible to cast Christ in the role of the beloved, over whom Paul and the community are competing. The letter is Paul’s concerted effort to demonstrate the depths of his pursuit of Christ (in contrast to others seeking to be bonded to Christ). The letter is an extended defense of how much Christ is already with him (and not them, unless they also want to be with Paul). After all, when Paul’s letter expresses desire, it is for Christ (1.23). The letter repeatedly casts the situation as one of rivalries among the followers/pursuers of Christ (esp. 1.15-17). Though all are waiting for the day of Christ (1.6, 10; 2.16), the chance to be in his company, Paul claims to be

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the preferred lover because he already could be with Christ (1.23). That he chooses to stay and continue this struggle only underscores that the homosocial desire is as much for the rival(s) as it is for Christ. Still, Paul is already grasped by Christ (3.12) and already has his affection (1.8). Paul lavishes praise upon Christ and his glorious body (3.20-21), but must recite and admit that his rivals wrote a pretty nice ‘hymn’ to Christ. Yet, Paul claims to suffer for his beloved (1.18, 20, 26; 3.7-11), while others don’t really attend to Christ’s needs (2.21). The Philippians may be holy ones in Christ, but Paul is a slave for his love (1.1). Recognizing these potential dynamics at work between the letter’s constructions of Paul and the community competing over Christ raises more problems around the position of Christ. What place is Christ occupying in the argument of the letter—for Paul and the Philippians and between Paul and the Philippians? Occupying the passive and prone corner of the beloved in such an erotic triangle presents contemporary readers of this letter with uncomfortable questions about Christ. This asymmetrical imagining in which Christ lays in the feminine or effeminized role in the Philippiansversus-Paul rivalry might also have disturbed Paul. It appears to be an image that the letter flees. Even as its arguments (at least some of them) reflect and project, others will recover and recuperate a Christ still somewhat on top of the Philippians and Paul. Paul’s triangulating rhetoric may not ultimately convince, but it certainly acts as a ‘sensitive register’ of the dynamics of power at work, dynamics not so distanced from both homosocial desires and hierarchical differences as might be expected. Paul’s Hysterectomy and Other Strange Shit One way the identifications, the triangles and the desires turn in this rhetorical interaction is around and toward Christ. The arguments in this letter bear clear signs that various assembly members, including but not limited to Paul, were competing over different visions and uses of Christ. From Paul’s perspective Christ changes several things for himself and for others, particularly because the day of Christ apocalyptically looms, just around the corner (1.6, 10; 2.16; 3.15, 20-21; 4.5). This affects how the community should organize and orient themselves: they should become ‘pure and blameless’ (1.10), ‘blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish’ (2.15). Efforts must be taken to purify and prepare themselves for Christ, in ways that eerily evoke the preparations of a young female for her own exchange and consummation. Such preparations would (apparently) reflect upon Paul, since he hopes to boast at their state (2.16). This suggests that the triangular dynamics have rotated once more so that Paul might offer (in exchange?) the assembly community as a way to be bonded to Christ.



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In a more familiar rhetorical direction, such a purified state would make the community more like Paul, since he has already himself been blameless (3.6), having more reasons for confidence, even in the flesh, than others (3.4). Despite his imprisonment he believes that ‘he will be ashamed in nothing’, because ‘as always and now Christ will be made great in my body’ (1.20). Though Paul’s own body magnifies Christ, he is not quite yet perfected or entirely like Christ (3.10-11, 12-14). Further, the things he previously valued, he now considers as loss, counting them as ‘filth’ or more directly ‘shit’ (skybala, 3.8). There is still something to be anticipated, then, since Paul still has ‘a desire to depart and to be with Christ’ (1.23), even as he chooses ‘remaining in the flesh’ for the sake of the assembly community (1.24-26). Nevertheless, this (slight) delay doesn’t shake Paul’s (maniacal?) confidence in Christ’s presence in and preference for him, since he claims to be ‘powerful in all things in the one who strengthens me’ (4.13). This borderline boast of Paul’s own (divinely dependent) omnipotence is a striking turn to make, a recuperation of his strengths and sufficiencies, particularly just after admitting that he has lived with hunger and want (hystereō, 4.12). This appears to be something Paul cannot dwell upon: though he is willing to linger in the flesh for the sake of the Philippians, they need to rejoice at his sending Epaphroditus back, so that Paul might be free from pain (alypoteros, 2.28). If the audience is going to become more like Paul, then they too should ‘be anxious about nothing’ (4.6), but rejoice at the nearness of the lord (4.4-6). This is because their desire and identification should be turned toward the heavenly lord and savior who subjects all things and can transform their dishonorable body to become like his own glorious one (3.20-21). Such a triumphant arc of transformation is realized in the face of others who ‘glory in their shame’ (3.19), just as those blameless ones will be prepared for the day of Christ ‘in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation’ (2.15). (There is a certain training of desires and identifications occurring in places like 3.20-21 or 2.14-16.) Paul’s efforts to forward such a vision of the community in light of this particular version of Christ reveals that this is not the only way to imagine Christ, the assembly community and their relationship to each other. Performativity stresses how the efforts to make Christ’s body so glorious or Paul’s powers so strong are unstable and vulnerable; they are always in need of their repetition and, hence, in danger of being resituated and replicated in unexpected ways. Queer approaches also enable one to notice how, even if the letter is aiming to naturalize and normalize certain arrangements, these efforts often contain images and ideas within them that present a difference, a disruption, a counter to the triumphalist arc in which they are embedded. Paul, for instance, wants the assembly community members to be ‘pure and blameless’, ‘blameless and innocent in time for the day of Christ’; he is trying to purify them to operate as extensions and reflections of himself

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and his own work. To argue for this, Paul cites those people and things from which they should be dissociating themselves, though he presents them in terms of perversity and shamefulness, strangeness and shit. Further, his own continuing threats—that they might just end up like that perverse generation, those shameful enemies—highlights how vulnerable they are to these activities, how permeable the line is between bodies bound for glory and those debased toward destruction. In short, he is the one who keeps bringing this shit up! Their (apparent) susceptibility short-circuits Paul’s claims about his own abilities or the transformative power of Christ; it indicates the desirability of identifications and practices besides those promoted by these arguments. Paul’s own continued attention to those things he does not want them (and him) to do or be signals a lingering insecurity embedded in the hierarchical vision of the letter. Paul’s rhetorical tendencies to focus upon shame and blame reflect such instabilities and insecurities. These tendencies are likely a product of his own conflicted views of various bodies. Paul clearly has a lower estimation of flesh in general, yet he still claims to do important things by remaining in the flesh (particularly for others in 1.23-26). While Paul does not dwell on our fleshiness and what it might still mean and provoke, arguments about bodies play a key role in his own negotiations and identifications. Paul is still concerned about, but confident that he will not be subject to, shame in his own body. Bodies can also be the means to get some distance from the ‘shit’ in the past or the strangeness of (other) people. After all, Paul makes the remarkable claim that it is through his own body that he will make Christ ‘great’ (mega, 1.20). In attempting to overcome the condition of his fleshly living, it looks as though Paul overcompensates by claiming such powerful effects through his own body. Paul anticipates that his body can make Christ great, the same Christ whose body of glory has the power to elevate the body of the community so desperately in need of transformation given their lowly and abject state (tapeinōsis, 3.21). These kinds of bodies need the change that Christ and apparently Paul can bring. But what kind of body is Christ’s? At this point in the letter, Paul stresses its glory and its power. But would this image of Christ’s body and what it means to belong to it, perhaps even to be conformed to it (if and when transformed by it), be cited and repeated, identified and desired by the assembly community, the members of the body at Philippi? The ‘hymn’, like the letter in which it has been embedded, provides images and ideas that offer a difference, even just a momentary disruption or a pause, to potentially counter such conforming transformations. After all, this passage presents what seems to be a signal contribution to an ethic or theology of kenosis, an emptying that many Christians over the centuries have claimed teaches about the value of sacrifice. Yet, this passage is as much a challenge as a resource for such purposes, particularly given the way in which it (too) quickly moves to



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a triumphant and kyriarchal Christ (2.9-11). In some ways, Paul’s own arguments in the rest of the letter echo this quick scampering from acknowledging abasement to extolling Christ’s (and his own) great powers. But what if readers and users of this tradition pause and dwell upon this kenosis for longer than this tradition or text often allows? Resisting the naturalizing and normalizing impulse or the recuperation of Christ’s lordship, one kind of queer reading signals the value of reconsidering the action of being and becoming human. (Butler suggests that ‘being’ any kind of human is a constant process of always still ‘becoming’ by doing, doing, doing in a way that makes one recognizable as belonging [see Butler 1990; 2004a].) Strikingly, the verb for this action, when Christ ‘emptied himself’ (kenoō, 2.7) is the same Greek verb used for the evacuation of one’s bowels (Hippocrates, Aphorisms, 2.51; Galen, On the Natural Faculties, 1.13.42; 1.16.63; 2.9.139). While this is often seen as one of the basest things we humans do, it is one that we must do with some regularity: to survive as embodied entities, we must manage and expel waste. If all humans must do such base and shameful things, then, in becoming human Christ too would have had to do similarly. In short, and as the children’s book states, everyone poops! To imagine Christ as human and as expelling waste must sound sacrilegious, or at least offensive to those with more delicate sensibilities. However, allow me to highlight that to deny this capability and practice to an embodied Christ is to contradict whole bodies of traditions central to a range of Christian communities and practices. Being ‘fully human’ must mean that sometimes, oftentimes in the span of one’s life, one must empty oneself. Perhaps the children’s book would be better titled ‘everybody poops’. To ignore or deny this embodied practice (this doing of doo-doo, if you will) to Christ is to travel down the path of other early Christians now considered ‘heretical’. For instance, a tradition attributed to Valentinus, found in the Gospel of Truth, insists that ‘Jesus digested divinity: he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence that the nourishment within him was not corrupted, for he did not experience corruption’ (Layton 1987: 239). If we evacuate the humanity of Christ, or indeed of ourselves, we end up with a ‘cruelly constipated Christ’ (Moore 2001: 96) or a cruelly constipated community, unable to manage our embodiment in all of its functions. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the next Bible translation committee to be convened should substitute that Jesus ‘shat himself’ in this ‘hymn’, nor that future communities’ crucifixes should feature excrement intermingled alongside the blood running down the expiring body. The latter might just lend greater physical verisimilitude to the depiction of a dying body, but so would a more fully naked body, with exposed genitalia, hips and buttocks, a very clear taboo considering the aesthetically indispensible (but historically

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indefensible) loincloth. Yet, we could use this occasion to ponder why such possibilities for representation seem only ever so slight, given their objectionability. Even Paul, in other letters, reflects differently upon the body. For instance, in 1 Corinthians, he argues that ‘the members of the body that seem to be weaker are actually necessary’ (12.22), particularly because ‘God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part’ (12.24). Presenting for the audience’s consideration a part of the body which is also unpresentable (12.23), Paul’s own tensive attention is indicated by the use of the Greek euphemism for the penis as ‘the necessary’ (anagkaia) member (D. Martin 1995: 94-95). Yet, if (greater) shame is still attributed to the exit point for human excrement, then why shouldn’t the anus as the (more?) inferior part receive greater honor and attention? That such attention has remained relatively unthinkable and certainly preposterous to so many of those dwelling upon an embodied Christ reflects a compelling and ongoing paradox not only of how to conceive of Christ, but also of the human body and a human, even humane, community that some might want to call the body of Christ. This is likely the result of too firmly tying ideas about body and impurity, or corruption with the shame of being human. There is, however, nothing inherently shameful in humans doing what they need to do. Though we negotiate with shame in our lives, this is less a sign of our ontological corruption than our repetitive and socialized patterns of stigmatization. The shame and stigma attached to practices like defecation does remind us of the permeability of our bodies. Since the boundaries of our bodies are not nearly as hard and firm as dominant discourses so often declare, any activity that moves across these boundaries has the potential to highlight what also defines us as humans: our vulnerability and fragility. In short, our mortality. This is part of what makes those practices and parts so base and unmentionable. This can account for why Paul’s reflections upon both Christ and community cannot linger over Christ as human and as humiliated, but must move quickly to greatness, glory, and power, divinity and Paul’s own authority. But his arguments also cannot help to bring up the abased and the abject in pressing for such authoritative positions and arrangements. This is why the letter presents both opportunities and challenges. Similarly, the ‘hymn’ raises Christ to the virtually unsurpassable heights of exaltation, adoration and lordship. Yet, this comes to pass because of what is depicted prior to this reversal: his humanity, his emptying, his death, his crucifixion. Though I repeated the personal possessive pronoun ‘his’, the role played and the fate suffered by Christ would better attach in the ancient imagination to one feminized as a ‘she’. Christ adopts a slave(-like) role and receives a slave’s form of execution (i.e. crucifixion). Given the ancient erotic logic I have previously described, Christ would have appeared to the rulers and subjects of Rome as one penetrated by the state—a reflection and reinforcement of their status relative to each other. Yet, neither the ‘hymn’



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nor the letter that contains it can remain with such images of effeminacy and penetration or, further, of vulnerability and permeability. This rhetorical evasion will be echoed in traditions to come, as Kent Brintnall highlights: Certain theological discourses glibly pass over the pain and degradation memorialized by the crucifixion; others fail to make productive use of its specific detail… The crucifixion reveals a male body that is wounded, suffering, bleeding, dying, and defeated. Theological critiques that focus exclusively on the interpretive history of the cross without returning to the crucifixion itself miss an opportunity to deploy this image as a repudiation of hegemonic masculinity (2011: 132).

Though Brintnall’s project specifically stresses the masculinity rather than the feminization of the crucified Christ, his point about returning to the degradation of the cross resonates with my reflections here on Christ’s (albeit momentary) filthiness and holey-ness, this tortured and penetrated body, the all too human frailty. These sites could just have the power to startle by juxtaposing vulnerability and virtus, holes and a holy whole, debasement and Christ’s (new?) kyriarchal base. Yet, both sites of potential identification and desire, citation and imitation—the ‘hymn’ and the letter—seem to make paralleled overcorrections given the vulnerable human conditions they narrate or reflect. Though Paul is in prison, he insists that he, through his own body, will make Christ mega or great. Though Christ is crucified, God has hyper exalted ‘him’ (now) as the highly (or ‘super-duper’) exalted. In keeping with the letter’s wider rhetoric of hierarchy and modeling, the ‘hymn’ about him takes this exaltation of a kyriarch to cosmic proportions. It might have appeared that Christ was debased and effeminized but, as it turns out, he does have control after all, not only over himself but over every entity subsisting on every level of the universe! In his extraordinary claim to make such a dominant figure great, Paul places himself in a role analogous to God in the ‘hymn’ (making Christ great just as God highly exalts Christ). Both of these rhetorical movements race upward and away from the human body, while I have been arguing that lingering over embodiment and the permeability that comes with it would be particularly generative. In antiquity the enslaved human was reduced to a body, a somatic tool. And there was no more slavish death and no more penetrating kind of execution than crucifixion. This irreducible tension of a slave’s inhuman debasement embedded within an (exaggerated) exaltation cannot be so simply erased (Briggs 1989, esp. 149). Dwelling upon Christ’s kenotic evacuation underscores how forces cross and act upon bodies, as well as how the body exceeds itself and its ostensible boundaries. Embodied entities need not be classed as only dominant or dependent. Rather, the relative precariousness of humans as embodied entities should highlight our mutual vulnerabilities and our interdependence (Butler 2004b).

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Unfortunately, humans, perhaps especially those who lay claim to these biblical traditions as their own, persist in trying to bolster our boundaries and plug our permeabilities. How else to explain the persistence of the tortured body, an alternate shadow of the evacuating Christ, in the reappearance of the cross at Abu Ghraib and the standing torture technique (not so) ironically dubbed the ‘crucifixion’? The racialized effeminacy the Romans attributed to an eminently executable Jew echoes into contemporary constructions of eminently inhuman monsters deserving such ‘extraordinary measures’ (Puar 2007). Such dehumanizing practices stem from yet another effort to insist the impossibility of the permeability of ‘us’—under another set of ‘us’ rhetorics (of unity and sameness) as the US(A). These bodies must be crucified but cannot be considered for long in an overcompensating insistence that we cannot be attacked, we do not die, not here and not in this way. This ‘us/US’ are the twenty-first century inheritors of the Roman empire’s impenetrable penetrators. Even when Paul promotes the apparently dishonorable part in his letter to the Philippians, the part still turns out to be the penetrating member foregrounded in the kyriarchal erotic imagination of the dominant culture in the ancient world: the ‘necessary’ penis. Paul’s inability to deal with an effeminized and enslaved Christ who empties himself extends even to the crafting of his own ethos. While, in one instant, he can claim that he knows how to be abased and how to deal with want or lack (4.12), in the next, these abilities are simply examples that underscore his ability to do anything because of the divine power within him (4.13). Here Paul flees the abjection that could potentially feminize him, particularly because the Greek for ‘lack’ (hystereō) is also the word for womb or uterus (contra Lamoreaux 2013, who sees a reference to the womb earlier in 3.19), the ‘hole’ that defines the anatomical deficiency of females, at least in the ancient erotic imagination about the embodied (see also the reflections on Paul as a laboring maternal figure in Marchal 2012). Rather than acknowledge the possibility of his own vulnerability or insufficiency (however problematically framed they were in the first century through femininity), Paul finds a greater ‘lack’ (hysterēma) in what the assembly community owes to him (2.30). Since Paul goes to some lengths to cut off any association with such feminine deficiency, this argument functions as Paul’s own hysterectomy. Such summary surgery by Paul is unfortunate, particularly given the popularity of the slogan ‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me’ (4.13) and its incorporation in similarly triumphalist directions in much of contemporary Christian discourse. This version of the verse, or one that provides ‘Christ’ where ‘he’ might otherwise be, appears in everything from t-shirts to tank-tops, on tattoos and Tim Tebow, shoes, smart phone cases or bumper stickers, posters and pendants, dog-tags and luggage tags, onesies and trucker hats. In such contexts the verse becomes a slogan for



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inflating fundraisers and self-aggrandizations. How different would such demonstrations look, however, if Paul then or people now did not rush to such (likely overinflated) claims about comprehensive strengths and sufficiencies? Instead of a set of practices that demarcate differences, could we bear in mind our mutual condition, what makes us human together? Too often this appears to be something people cannot bear to dwell upon, but as an image it could derive precisely from those scriptures so supposedly valorized by such consumerist trends. In the letter Paul flees from associations with feminine lack and treats parts of his own past as ‘shit’ (skybala), even as the rhetorical and historical situation would likely have been an excellent occasion for reflecting further on what he so devalues. Instead, Paul’s argument develops such distance in order to create and promote a kind of hierarchical difference and distance for an authoritative version of himself. Some of my students have noted that there is something distinctly Napoleonic about Paul’s efforts in arguments like these. (Paul most certainly does not want to feel like a woman, natural or otherwise.) But, if even Christ empties Christ’s self, if even Christ shat, there is an alternative to this way of organizing and emphasizing difference and distance. Rhetorically, historically and even theologically, it seems important to attend to the moments before a narration of victory or strength, to tarry over the process of humanization rather than deification. This would help us recognize what efforts it takes to construct a kyriarch Christ, and encourage further reflection upon Christ and community as vulnerable rather than victorious. This, indeed, is what connects community and Christ: a shared permeability and, yes, possibility as humans, even a shared mortality so starkly stressed in the ‘hymn’. If we stop stressing the ‘him’ (Paul’s masculine construction of himself as a model) and abide a bit more in the beginning of the ‘hymn’, that moment of tension becomes a resource for a different kind of repetition. This would also reorient how one receives and conceives of abjection and femininity. Instead of denying and distancing ourselves from living in and through such associations, one can foreground abjection without any accompanying shame and stigma, as well as counter a kyriarchal gender ideology where femininity means lack, deficiency and inferiority. Such possibilities stemming from our mutual permeability are exposed by the prominent participation of females in Philippi, who only seem to be lacking in Paul’s argumentation. Conclusion This chapter has taken us from the hierarchical heights of a cosmic Christ to the depths of excrement being emptied from the same body, from the arguments of waste to arguing about human waste and feminine lack. Such

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reflections indicate the performative and citational quality of all arguments, but most especially ones that people try to enact in their lives and do with and through their own, and others’, bodies. The performative aspect of such arguments indicates their own instability and incompletion. The efforts involved in performativity often involve trying to cover over a gap or a lack in what is claimed to be natural and normal, substantive and stable. Into this space comes opportunities to imitate otherwise, to embody differently, to imagine alternatives from within the very arguments that might seem to constrain. This chapter has attempted to present such possibilities, not just historically for our imagination of the first century but also rhetorically and ethically for our imagination of the present twenty-first century. Certainly, the letter bears signs of the assembly community members at Philippi citing materials and imitating differently than what Paul presents in his letter. Again, why else would Paul go to such intense lengths to argue for this hierarchy and his own authority, for the perversity of opponents and the priority of his model, and for a constrained kind of community and Christ? The letter is likely a panicked response to the in(st)ability of his arguments, demonstrating his concern that people are doing something differently (or more differently) than he would like. Paul proposes and promotes a particular vision through this letter, but he also tries to deny and create distance from other possibilities, possibilities that can never be entirely foreclosed, then or now. Rather than disavow one’s past or present as one of disgust or perversion, Paul’s letter can signal another disposition and, in turn, the occasion for better dealing with the day-to-day shit that human communities encounter. Receivers and users of Philippians can use some of the same figures (like Christ, God or even Paul) and reflect upon practices and concepts found in the letter, but perform and participate according to scripts besides the one Paul prescribes. Queer interrogations of argumentation can trace the counter-visions and alternative images that cannot be reduced or eliminated, but persist and subsist even in those moments and places where normalizing and naturalizing efforts seem most powerfully enacted. Though clearly abnormal for or improper to many trends in biblical citation and use, such a queer process itself becomes a resource for resisting the destructive and dehumanizing effects of all kinds of arguments (including biblical ones) and for reconfiguring practices (including biblical ones) to move toward other, more ethically and politically generative ends. It is my genuine hope that this guide provides some resources for making such moves.

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Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York: Routledge). 2004a Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge). 2004b Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso). Castelli, E.A. Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power (Literary Currents in Biblical Inter1991 pretation; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press). D’Angelo, M.R. 1990 ‘Women Partners in the New Testament’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 6: 65-86. Dibelius, M. An die Thessalonischer I–II; An die Philipper (Handbuch zum Neuen Tes1925 tament, 11; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck). Droge, A.J. 1988 ‘Mori lucrum: Paul and Ancient Theories of Suicide’, Novum Testamentum 30: 263-86. Dube, M.W. Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (St Louis: Chalice Press). 2000 Dunn, J.D.G. 1980 Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM Press). Eisenbaum, P. 2009 Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle (New York: Harper One). Elliott, N. Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (Mary­ 1994 knoll, NY: Orbis Books). Fee, G.D. Philippians (Intervarsity Press New Testament Commentary Series, 11; 1999 Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press). Fitzgerald, J.T. (ed.) 1996 Friendship, Flattery and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World (Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 82; Leiden: Brill). Foucault, M. 1979 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (trans. A. Sheridan; New York: Vintage). Friesen, S.J. 2004 ‘Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-Called New Consensus’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 26: 323-61. Geoffrion, T.C. 1993 The Rhetorical Purpose and the Political and Military Character of Philippians: A Call to Stand Firm (Lewiston, NY: Mellen). Georgi, D. 1964 ‘Der vorpaulinische Hymnus Phil 2:6-11’, in Zeit und Geschichte, Dankesgabe an Rudolf Bultmann zum 80. Geburtstag (Tübingen: Mohr): 26393. 1991 Theocracy in Paul’s Praxis and Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). 1993

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Philippians in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed. S. Matthews, C.B. Kittredge and M. Johnson-Debaufre; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International): 318-33. ‘Paul, Games, and the Military’, in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook (ed. J.P. Sampley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International): 344-83.

Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press). Lamoreaux, J.T. Ritual, Women, and Philippi: Reimagining the Early Philippian Commu2013 nity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock). Layton, B. 1987 The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (New York: Doubleday). Lohmeyer, E. 1961 Kyrios Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zu Phil 2,5-11 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter). Marchal, J.A. 2005 ‘Military Images in Philippians 1–2: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Scholarship, Philippians, and Current Contexts’, in Her Master’s Tools? Feminist and Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-Critical Discourse (ed. C. Vander Stichele and T. Penner; Global Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship Series; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature): 265-86. 2006a Hierarchy, Unity, and Imitation: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Power Dynamics in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (Academia Biblica, 24; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature). 2006b ‘“With Friends Like These…”: A Feminist Rhetorical Reconsideration of Scholarship and the Letter to the Philippians’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 29: 77-106. The Politics of Heaven: Women, Gender, and Empire in the Study of Paul 2008 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Marchal, J.A. (ed.) 2012 Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspectives and Methods (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Forthcoming People beside Paul: The Philippian Assembly and History from Below (Early Christianity and its Literature; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature). Martin, D.B. 1995 The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press). Martin, R.P. 1967 Carmen Christi: Philippians ii. 5-11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Martin, R.P., and B.J. Dodd (eds.) 1998 Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press). Matthews, S. 2001 First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in Early



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Moore, S.D. 2001 God’s Beauty Parlor: And Other Queer Spaces in and around the Bible (Contraversions; Stanford: Stanford University Press). Nanos, M.D. 2009 ‘Paul’s Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles “Dog” (Philippians 3:2): 1600 Years of an Ideological Tale Wagging an Exegetical Dog?’, Biblical Interpretation 17: 448-82. Oakes, P. 2001 Philippians: From People to Letter (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, 110; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). O’Brien, P.T. 1991 The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Eeerdmans). Olbrechts-Tyteca, L., and C.L. Perelman 1969 The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (trans. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press). Osiek, C. 2000 Philippians, Philemon (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries; Nashville: Abingdon Press). Patterson, O. 1982 Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Puar, J.K. 2007 Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). Reumann, J. 2008 Philippians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Yale Bible Commentary; New Haven: Yale University Press). Sampley, J.P. 1980 Pauline Partnership in Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress). Schottroff, L. 1995 Lydia’s Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History of Early Christianity (trans. B. Rumscheidt and M. Rumscheidt; Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press). Schüssler Fiorenza, E. 1975 ‘Wisdom Mythology and the Christological Hymns of the New Testament’, in Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. R.L. Wilken; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press): 17-41. 1994 Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology (New York: Continuum). 1999 Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Sedgwick, E.K. 1985 Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (Gender and Culture; New York: Columbia University Press). Segovia, F.F. 2000 Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books).

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‘Queer Theory and Biblical Interpretation: An Introduction’, in Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible (ed. K. Stone; Cleveland: Pilgrim Press), pp. 11-34. Stowers, S.K. 1991 ‘Friends and Enemies in the Politics of Heaven: Reading Theology in Philippians’, in Pauline Theology. I. Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (ed. J.M. Bassler; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press): 105-121. Sugirtharajah, R.S. Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford Uni2002 versity Press). Verhoef, E. 2013 Philippi: How Christianity Began in Europe: The Epistle to the Philippians and the Excavations at Philippi (London: Bloomsbury). Walters, J. 1997 ‘Invading the Roman Body: Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought’, in Roman Sexualities (ed. J.P. Hallett and M.B. Skinner; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press): 29-43. Wansink, C.S. 1996 Chained in Christ: The Experience and Rhetoric of Paul’s Imprisonment (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series, 130; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Watson, D.F. 1988 ‘A Rhetorical Analysis of Philippians and its Implications for the Unity Question’, Novum Testamentum 30: 57-88. White, L.M. ‘Morality Between Two Worlds: A Paradigm of Friendship in Philippi1990 ans’, in Greeks, Romans and Christians: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe (ed. D.L. Balch, E. Ferguson and W.A. Meeks; Minneapolis: Fortress Press): 201-15. Wire, A.C. The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rheto1990 ric (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Witherington, B. III. 1994 Friendship and Finances: The Letter of Paul to the Philippians (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International). Wuellner, W. 1987 ‘Where is Rhetorical Criticism Taking Us?’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49: 448-63.

Index of Subjects Acts of Apostles  7, 10, 11, 49 anti-models  10-11, 33, 36, 38-39, 40, 41, 44, 48-49, 51, 71, 72, 75, 77, 82, 83, 92 (see also rhetoric of hierarchy and modeling) apocalyptic  19, 26, 54, 63, 65, 66, 72, 84, 85 assembly community at Philippi  3, 5, 6, 7-8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 22-24, 29, 31, 32, 33-35, 37, 38, 39, 42-43, 44, 45, 47-48, 49-50, 51, 52, 53-68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 90, 91, 92 Christ  1, 13-28, 32, 34-35, 38, 41, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57-58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68, 72, 74, 76, 77, 78, 81, 83-84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 Clement  24, 33, 65 Corinthians, the first letter to the  20, 23, 29, 34, 70, 88 Epaphroditus  9, 24, 30, 33, 35, 39, 41, 48, 59-60, 74, 78, 79, 81, 85 erotic triangulation  80-84 ethos  52, 53, 56, 61, 67, 72, 90 Euodia  24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 39, 48-49, 53, 64-66, 73, 74, 79, 81-82 empire-critical approaches  21, 25-28, 4344, 52, 69 feminist approaches  2, 21-25, 26, 27, 48, 50, 52, 69, 79 financial terminology  30, 31, 37, 39, 42, 67 flesh  34, 72, 76, 85, 86 form criticism  13-14, 19 friendship  29, 38-39, 41-44, 45 Galatians, the letter to the  29, 30, 34 Genesis  22, 23

‘hymn’ to Christ  13-28, 31-32, 34-35, 3839, 41, 44, 48, 53, 57-58, 62, 64, 72, 73, 74, 78, 79, 81, 84, 86-87, 88, 89, 91 identification  1-2, 11, 22, 23, 29, 42, 61, 70, 75, 76, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90 imitation  12, 14-15, 19, 26, 32, 33-37, 38-39, 40-41, 45, 47, 49, 73, 74-79, 82, 92 (see also rhetoric of hierarchy and modeling) imprisonment  9-10, 11, 12, 39, 43, 54-55, 78, 85, 89 joy  1, 25, 29, 30-32, 34, 38, 40-41, 49, 56, 57, 72, 81, 83, 85 Judaism(s)  7, 11, 19-20, 25-26, 43, 44, 60-62, 71 kenosis  18, 19, 86-87, 89, 91 koinonia  30-31, 32, 33, 37, 38, 40, 54, 57, 62, 67, 78 kyriarchy  22, 24-25, 28, 44, 45, 50, 64, 74, 76, 78, 87, 89, 90, 91 logos  52, 56, 72 military events and images  4-5, 33, 3944, 45 modeling  11, 14-15, 19, 26, 33-37, 38-39, 40-41, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 71, 76, 81, 91 (see also rhetoric of hierarchy and modeling) mortality  10, 15, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 36, 37, 38, 39, 55-56, 58, 60, 62, 63, 87, 88-89, 91 natural  70-79, 85, 87, 91, 92 normal  70-74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 85, 87, 92 obedience  14, 15, 19, 20-21, 23-24, 25, 34-35, 44, 58-59, 60, 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83

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pathos  52, 53, 56, 57, 61, 66, 72 patronage  27, 42, 43 penetration  74, 75, 76, 88-89, 90 performativity  74-79, 85, 92 Philippians as a composite letter  8-9 queer approaches  68, 69-92 redaction criticism  8-9 rhetoric  3, 8-9, 10, 21, 23, 29, 30, 35-37, 38-45, 46, 47, 48-49, 50, 51-68, 78, 82, 89, 91, 92 rhetoric of hierarchy and modeling  52-68, 82, 89 (see also anti-models, imitation, and modeling) rhetoric of unity and sameness  52-68, 81, 82, 90 (see also unity) Roman empire  4-10, 11, 20, 25-28, 40, 43-44, 73, 90 Romans, the letter to the  20, 21, 23, 29, 70 sacrifice  15, 25, 26, 47, 51, 56, 57, 58-59, 62, 86

shame  18, 26, 72, 82, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91 slaves  6, 16, 18, 20, 23, 24-25, 27, 42, 44, 45, 53, 59, 73, 74, 84, 88, 89, 90 source criticism  8-9 Syntyche  24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 39, 48-49, 53, 64-66, 73, 74, 79, 81-82 temporal terms and arguments  54, 55, 59, 61, 62, 63-64, 65, 66, 71-73, 74, 77, 79, 85 Timothy  35, 38, 39, 41, 53, 59-60, 81 unity  11, 32, 33, 36-37, 52, 76, 77, 78, 79 (see also rhetoric of unity and sameness) veterans  4-5, 39, 41, 42-43 waste, arguments of/from  51, 54, 55, 57, 71, 91 waste, human  62, 85, 86, 87-88, 90, 91, 92 women  6, 7, 22-24, 25, 32, 42, 43, 44, 4550, 64-66, 73, 74, 80, 82, 84, 91

Index of Authors Abrahamsen, Valerie  7, 46 Agosto, Efrain  44 Alexander, Loveday  9 Bakirtzis, Charalambos  6-7 Basevi, Claudio  21 Barth, Karl  14-15 Berry, Ken L.  39 Bloomquist, L. Gregory  53 Bockmuehl, Markus  29 Bornhäuser, D. Karl  42 Brintnall, Kent L.  89 Briggs, Sheila  24, 89 Butler, Judith  74-78, 87, 89 Castelli, Elizabeth A.  33 Chapa, Juan  21 D’Angelo, Mary Rose  48 Dibelius, Martin  9 Dodd, Brian J.  13 Droge, A.J.  55 Dube, Musa W.  45 Dunn, James D.G.  16, 17, 20 Eisenbaum, Pamela  61, 62 Elliott, Neil  43

Hester Amador, J. David  52 Holloway, Paul A.  37 Hoover, Roy W.  17 Horsley, Richard A.  43 Jaquette, James L.  55 Käsemann, Ernst  14-15, 17, 19 King, Karen L.  18 Kittredge, Cynthia Briggs  9, 23, 24, 35, 53, 58, 65 Koester, Helmut  6-7 Krentz, Edgar  39 Kwok, Pui-lan  45 Lamoreaux, Jason T.  90 Layton, Bentley  87 Lohmeyer, Ernst  13-14, 15, 19, 37 Marchal, Joseph A.  6, 33, 38, 39, 44, 49, 53, 74, 90 Martin, Dale B.  88 Martin, Ralph P.  13, 15 Matthews, Shelly  49 Moore, Stephen D.  70, 87 Nanos, Mark D.  61

Fee, Gordon D.  29 Fitzgerald, John T.  38 Foucault, Michel  71 Friesen, Steven J.  6

Oakes, Peter S.  5 O’Brien, Peter T.  29, 42 Olbrecths-Tyteca, Lucie  51, 55 Osiek, Carolyn  29, 63

Geoffrion, Timothy C.  39 Georgi, Dieter  20, 26 Gnilka, Joachim  8

Patterson, Orlando  24 Perelman, Chaïm L.  51, 55 Puar, Jasbir K.  90

Halperin, David M.  74 Heen, Erik M.  27 Hellerman, Joseph H.  27 Hendrix, Holland L.  47

Reumann, John  10, 21 Sampley, J. Paul  37 Schottroff, Luise  25

102

Philippians

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth  9, 20, 2122, 25 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofksy  80 Segovia, Fernando F.  43 Stone, Ken  70 Stowers, Stanley K.  38 Sugirtharajah, R.S.  38 Verhoef, Eduard  6-7

Walters, Jonathan  74 Wansink, Craig S.  55 Watson, Duane F.  53, 56 White, L. Michael  38 Wire, Antoinette Clark  8, 50, 51 Witherington, Ben, III  29 Wuellner, Wilhelm  8