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Php_1:8. A solemn confirmation of the preceding assurance, that he had his readers in his heart, etc. Comp., on the connection, Rom_1:9. Theophylact, moreover, strikingly observes: οὐχ ὡς ἀπιστούμενος μάρτυρα καλεῖ τὸν Θεόν , ἀλλὰ τὴν πολλὴν διάθεσιν οὐκ ἔχων παραστῆσαι διὰ λόγου .
ὡς ἐπιποθῶ κ . τ . λ .] how much I long after you all, etc., which would not be the case if I did not bear you in my heart ( γάρ ), as announced more precisely in Php_1:7. On ἐπιποθῶ , comp. Rom_1:11; Php_2:26; 1Th_3:6; 2Ti_1:4. The compound denotes the direction (Plat. Legg. ix. p. 855 F; Herod. v. 93; Diod. Sic. xvii. 101; Sir_25:20), not the strength of the ποθεῖν (comp. on 2Co_5:2), which is conveyed by ὡς ; comp. Rom_1:9; 1Th_2:10.
ἐν σπλάγχνοις Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ ] is not, with Hofmann,[53] to be connected with what follows (see on Php_1:9); it is an expression of the heartiness and truth of his longing, uttered in the strongest possible terms. ἐν , on account of the sensuous expression which follows ( ΣΠΛΆΓΧΝΑ , like øÇçÂîÀéí , as seat of the affections, especially of heartfelt love, Php_2:1; Col_3:12; Phm_1:7; Phm_1:12; Phm_1:20; also in classical authors), is to be taken locally: in the heart of Jesus Christ; that is, so that this longing of mine is not my own individual emotion, but a longing which I feel in virtue of the dwelling and working of Christ in me. Paul speaks thus from the consciousness that his inmost life is not that of his human personality, of himself, but that Christ, through the medium of the Holy Spirit, is the personal principle and agent of his thoughts, desires, and feelings. Comp. on Gal_2:20. Filled with the feeling of this holy fellowship of life, which threw his own individuality into the background, he could, seeing that his whole spiritual ζωή was thus the life of Christ in him, represent the circumstances of his ἐπιποθεῖν , as if the viscera Christi were moved in him, as if Christ’s heart throbbed in him for his Philippians. Bengel aptly says: “In Paulo non Paulus vivit sed Jesus Christus; quare Paulus non in Pauli, sed Jesu Christi movetur visceribus.” Comp. Theodoret: οὐκ ἀνθρώπινον τὸ φίλτρον , πνευματικόν . Not doing justice to the Pauline consciousness of the unio mystica which gives rise to this expression, some have rendered ἘΝ in an instrumental sense, as in Luk_1:78 (Hofmann); others have taken it of the norma: “according to the pattern of Christ’s love to His people” (Rosenmüller, Rilliet); and some have found the sense of the norma in the genitival relation: “in animo penitus affecto ut animus fuit Christi” (van Hengel). So also Wetstein, Heinrichs, and earlier expositors; whilst Storr refers ἘΝ ΣΠΛ . Ἰ . Χ . even to the readers (sc. ὄντας ). For many other interpretations, see Hoelemann and Weiss. The merely approximate statement of the sense, given by Grotius and others: “amore non illo communi, sed vere Christiano,” is in substance correct, but fails to give its full development to the consciousness of the ΧΡΙΣΤῸς ἘΝ ἩΜῖΝ (Gal_2:20; Gal_4:19; Rom_8:10; 2Co_13:5; Eph_3:17); notwithstanding which Hofmann regards the identification of Paul’s own heart with the heart of Christ as simply impossible; thus, however, applying to the mysticism of deep pious feeling, and the living immediate plastic form in which it finds expression, a criterion alien to its character, and drawing around it a literal boundary which it cannot bear.
[53] According to Hofmann, namely, ἐν σπλ . Χ . Ἰ . asserts with reference to the following καὶ τοῦτο προσεύχ . that Christ’s heart towards those who are His produces such prayer in the apostle, and manifests itself therein.