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Php_2:1. Οὖν ] infers from Php_1:30 what is, under these circumstances, the most urgent duty of the readers. If they are engaged in the same conflict as Paul, it is all the more imperatively required of them by the relation of cordial affection, which must bind them to the apostle in this fellowship that they should fulfil his joy, etc. Consequently, although, connecting what he is about to say with what goes immediately before (in opposition to Hofmann), he certainly, after the digression contained from ἥτις in Php_2:28 onwards, leads them back to the exhortation to unanimity already given in Php_2:27, to which is then subjoined in Php_2:3 f. the summons to mutual humility.
εἴ τις κ . τ . λ .] four stimulative elements, the existence of which, assumed by εἰ (comp on Col_3:1), could not but forcibly bring home to the readers the fulfilment of the apostle’s joy, Php_2:2.[85] With each ἐστί simply is to be supplied (comp. Php_4:8): If there be any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort of love, etc. It must be noticed that these elements fall into two parallel sections, in each of which the first element refers to the objective principle of the Christian life ( ἐν Χριστῷ and πνεύματος ), and the second to the subjective principle, to the specific disposition of the Christian ( ἀγάπης and σπλάγχνα καὶ οἰκτιρμοί ). Thus the inducements to action, involved in these four elements, are, in equal measure, at once objectively binding and inwardly affecting ( πῶς σφοδρῶς , πῶς μετὰ συμπαθείας πολλῆς ! Chrysostom).
παρακλ . ἐν Χ .] ἐν Χ . defines the παρακλ . as specifically Christian, having its essence and activity in Christ; so that it issues from living fellowship with Him, being rooted in it, and sustained and determined by it. Thus it is in Christ, that brother exhorteth brother. παράκλησις means exhortation (1Co_14:3; Rom_12:8; Act_4:36; Act_9:31; Act_13:15; Act_15:31), i.e. persuasive and edifying address; the more special interpretation consolatio, admissible in itself, anticipates the correct rendering of the παραμύθιον which follows (in opposition to Vulgate, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Estius, Grotius, Heinrichs, and many others; and recently Hoelemann and Ewald).
εἴ τι παραμ . ἀγάπ .] παραμύθιον (see generally Schaefer ad Bos. p. 492; Lobeck ad Phryn. p. 517; Jacobs ad Ach. Tat. p. 708) corresponds to the fourth clause ( σπλάγχνα κ . οἰκτ .), and for this reason, as well as because it must be different from the preceding element,[86] cannot be taken generally with Calovius, Flatt, Matthies, de Wette, Hoelemann, van Hengel, Ewald, Weiss, J. B. Lightfoot, and Hofmann as address, exhortation (Plat. Legg. vi. p. 773 E, xi. p. 880 A), but definitely as comfort (Thuc. v. 103; Theocr. xxiii. 7; Anth. Pal. vii. 195, 1; Wis_3:18; Est_8:15; comp. παραμυθία , Plat. Axioch. p. 375 A; Luc. Nigr. 7; Psa_65:12; Wis_19:12; 1Co_14:3). Ἀγάπης is the genitive of the subject: a consolation, which love gives, which flows from the brotherly love of Christians. In order to make out an allusion to the Trinity in the three first points, dogmatic expositors like Calovius, and also Wolf, have understood ἀγάπης of the love of God (to us).
εἴ τις κοινων . πν .] if any fellowship of the Spirit (i.e. participation in the Spirit) exists; comp. on 2Co_13:13. This is to be explained of the Holy Spirit, not of the animorum conjunctio (Michaelis, Rosenmüller, am Ende, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Hoelemann, Wiesinger, Hofmann, and others; Usteri and Rilliet mix up the two), which is inconsistent with the relation of this third clause to the first ( ἐν Χριστῷ ), and also with the sequel, in which (Php_2:2) Paul encourages them to fellowship of mind, and cannot therefore place it in Php_2:1 as a motive.
εἴ τινα σπλ . κ . οἰκτ .] if there be any heart and compassion. The former used, as in Php_1:8, as the seat of cordial loving affections generally; the latter, specially as misericordia (see on Rom_9:15), which has its seat and life in the heart. See also on Col_3:12; comp. Luk_1:28; Tittmann, Synon. p. 68 f.
It must further be remarked, with regard to all four points, that the context, by virtue of the exhortation based upon them πληρώσατέ μον τὴν χαράν in Php_2:2, certainly presupposes their existence in the Philippians, but that the general expression (if there is) forms a more moving appeal, and is not to be limited by the addition of in you (Luther, Calvin, and others). Hence the idea is: “If there is exhortation in Christ, wherewith one brother animates and incites another to a right tone and attitude; if there is comfort of love, whereby one refresheth the other; if there is fellowship in the Spirit, which inspires right feelings, and confers the consecration of power; if there is a heart and compassion, issuing in sympathy with, and compassion for, the afflicted,—manifest all these towards me, in that ye make full my joy ( μου τὴν χαράν ).” Then, namely, I experience practically from you that Christian-brotherly exhortation,[87] and share in your comfort of love, and so ye put to proof, in my case, the fellowship in the Spirit and the cordial sympathy, which makes me not distressed, but glad in my painful position.
There is much that is mistaken in the views of those who defend the reading τις before σπλ . (see van Hengel and Reiche), which cannot be got rid of by the assumption of a constructio ad synesin (in opposition to Buttmann, Neut. Gr. p. 71. [E. T. 81]). Hofmann is driven by this reading, which he maintains, to the strange misinterpretation of the whole verse as if it contained only protases and apodoses, to be thus divided: εἴ τις οὖν παράκλησις , ἐν Χριστῷ · εἴ τι παραμύθιον , ἀγάπης · εἴ τις κοινωνία πνεύματος , εἴ τις , σπλάγχνα κ . οἰκτιρμοί ; this last εἴ τις being a repetition of the previous one with an emphasizing of the εἰ . Accordingly the verse is supposed to mean: “If exhortation, let it be exhortation in Christ; if consolation, let it be a consolation of love; if fellowship of the Spirit, if any, let it be cordiality and compassion.” A new sentence would then begin with πληρώσατε .[88] Artifices such as this can only serve to recommend the reading ΕἼ ΤΙΝΑ .
[85] Hitzig, z. Krit. Paul. Briefe, p. 18, very erroneously opines that there is here a made excitement, an emphasis in which not so much is felt as is put into the words; and the four times repeated if is to cover the defect,—in connection with which an utterly alien parallel is adduced from Tacit. Agric. 46.
[86] Hofmann erroneously makes the quite arbitrary distinction that παρακλ . refers to the will, and παραμ . to the feelings. The will, feelings, and intellect are called into exercise by both. Comp., especially on παραμύθ ., Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 476 E; Phaed. p. 70 B; Euthyd. p. 272 B; Thuc. viii. 86, 1.
[87] In the application of the general εἴ τις παράκλησις ἐν Χ ., the subjects of this παράκλησις must, following the rule of the other elements, be the Philippians; Paul (Wiesinger, comp. Ewald) cannot he conceived as the παρακαλῶν .
[88] From this interpretation of the whole passage he should have been deterred by the forlorn position which is assigned to the εἴ τις before σπλάγχνα as the stone of stumbling, as well as by the purposelessness and even inappropriateness of an oddly emphasized problematical sense of this εἴ τις .—If it be thought that the reading εἴ τις σπλ . must be admitted. I would simply suggest the following by way of necessary explanation of the passage:—1st, Let the verse be regarded as consisting of a series of four protases, on which the apodosis then follows in ver. 2; 2d, Let ἐν Χριστῷ , ἀγάπης , πνεύματος and σπλάγχνα κ . οἰκτιρμοί be taken uniformly as predicative specifications; 3d, Let κοινωνία be again understood with the last εἴ τις . Paul would accordingly say: “If any exhortation is exhortation in Christ, if any comfort is comfort of love, if any fellowship is fellowship of the Spirit, if any (fellowship) is cordiality and compassion (that is, full of cordiality and compassion) fulfil ye,” etc. The apostle would thus give to the element of the κοινωνία , besides the objective definition of its nature ( πνεύματος , referring to the Holy Spirit), also a subjective one ( σπλ . κ . σἰκτιρμ .), and mark the latter specially by the repetition of εἴ τις , sc κοινωνία ., as well as designate it the more forcibly by the nominative expression ( σπλάγχνα κ . οἰκτ ., not another genitive), inasmuch as the latter would set forth the ethical nature of such a κοινωνία (comp. such passages as Rom_7:7; Rom_8:10; Rom_14:17) in the form of a direct predicate. The εἰ , moreover, would remain uniformly the syllogistic εἰ in all the four clauses, and not, as in Hofmann’s view, suddenly change into the problematic sense in the fourth clause.