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Php_1:30. So that ye have the same conflict, etc., serves to characterize the ὑμῖν ἐχαρ . τὸ ὑπὲρ Χ . πάσχειν just asserted; and Paul’s intention in thus speaking, is to bring home to them the high dignity and distinction of suffering for Christ, which is involved in the consciousness of fellowship in conflict with the apostle. It is impossible, in accordance with the true explanation of what goes before (see on Php_1:29), to find in τὸν αὐτόν , that they have themselves sought their conflict of suffering as little as the apostle had sought his, but, on the contrary, have received it as a gift of grace from God (Hofmann). The participle might have been put by Paul in the nominative (instead of the dative), because ὑμεῖς was floating before his mind as the logical subject of the preceding clause. Comp. on Eph_3:18; Eph_4:2; 2Co_1:7; Col_2:2; Col_3:16; Php_3:19; Kühner, II. 2, p. 661 f. There is therefore neither a logical nor a grammatical reason, with Bengel, Michaelis, Lachmann, Ewald (comp. also Buttmann, Neut. Gr. p. 256 [E. T. 299]), to treat ἥτις … πάσχειν as a parenthesis,—a construction which would be only an injurious interruption to the flow of the discourse.
τὸν αὐτόν ] namely, in respect of the object; it is the conflict for Christ (Php_1:29) and His gospel (Php_1:7).
οἷον εἴδετε κ . τ . λ .] as ye have seen it in my person (viz. whilst I was still with you in Philippi; see scenes of this conflict in Act_16:16 ff.; comp. 1Th_2:2), and now (from my epistle which is read out to you) ye hear in my person. Paul, in his epistle, speaks to the Philippians as if they were listening to him in person; thus they hear in him his conflict, which is made known to them in the statements of the apostle. This explanation is all the less unfitting, as Hofmann terms it (comparing the ἐν ἡμῖν in 1Co_4:6), since Paul must necessarily have assumed that the statements in the epistle regarding his sufferings would not fail to receive more detailed description in Philippi on the part of Epaphroditus. The rendering de me for the second ἐν ἐμοί , adopted by Peschito, Vulgate, Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, and others, including Flatt, is erroneous.