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Php_4:2 f. After this general exhortation, Php_4:1, the apostle, still deeply concerned for the community that is so dear to him, finds it requisite to give a special admonition to and for two meritorious women,[176] through whose disagreement, the details of which are unknown to us, but which probably turned on differences of their working in the church, a scandal had occurred, and the στήκειν ἐν κυρίῳ might more or less be imperilled. Whether they were deaconesses in Philippi (as many conjecture), must remain undecided. Grotius has erroneously considered both names, Hammond and Calmet only the second, to be masculine,[177] and in that case αὐταῖς in Php_4:3 is made to apply to others (viz. ΑἽΤΙΝΕς Κ . Τ . Λ .). For the two feminine names on inscriptions, see Gruter and Muratori. With Tischendorf and Lipsius (Gramm. Unters. p. 31), Συντυχή is to be treated as oxytone. Comp. generally Kühner, I. p. 256. The twice used παρακ .: “quasi coram adhortans seorsum utramvis, idque summa cum aequitate,” Bengel. An earnestly individualizing ἘΠΙΜΟΝΉ (Bremi, ad Aeschin. p. 400).
τὸ αὐτὸ φρον .] see on Php_2:2.
ἘΝ ΚΥΡ .] characterizes the specifically Christian concord, the moral nature and effort of which are grounded on Christ as their determining vital principle. Paul does not desire a union of minds apart from Christ.
Whether the disunion, which must be assumed, had its deeper root in moral pride on account of services in the cause of the gospel (Schinz), is not clear.
[176] According to Baur, indeed, they are alleged to be two parties rather than two women; and Schwegler (nachapostol. Zeitalt. II. p. 135) makes out that Euodia represents the Jewish-Christian, and Syntyche the Gentile-Christian party, and that γνήσιος σύζυγος applies to Peter! On the basis of Constitutt. ap. vii. 46. 1 (according to which Peter appointed an Euodius, and Paul Ignatius, as Bishop of Antioch), this discovery has been amplified with further caprice by Volkmar in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 147 ff. But exegetical fiction in connection with the two feminine names has been pushed to the utmost by Hitzig, z. Krit. Paulin. Br. p. 5 ff., according to whom they are supposed to have their origin in Gen_30:9 ff.; he represents our author as having changed Asher and Gad into women in order to represent figuratively two parties, and both of them Gentile-Christian.
[177] Theodore of Mopsuestia quotes the opinion that the two were husband and wife.