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‘Let Us Teach Ourselves First to Follow the Commandment of the Lord’ (Pol. Phil. 4.1): An Additional Note on ‘the Commandment’ as Almsgiving*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2016

David J. Downs  and
Wil Rogan
David J. Downs
Affiliation:
Fuller Theological Seminary, 135 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91182, USA. Email: [email protected]
Wil Rogan
Affiliation:
Fuller Theological Seminary, 135 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91182, USA. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In his letter to the Philippians, Polycarp of Smyrna offers a reading of 1 Timothy 6 in which he uses the term ‘the commandment’ as an apparent reference to the practice of almsgiving. Polycarp's Philippians, therefore, offers important and heretofore neglected evidence that supports recent contentions that ‘the commandment’ in 1 Tim 6.14 is almsgiving.

Keywords

almsgivingthe commandmentPolycarpPhilippians1 Timothy
Type
Short Study
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 628 - 636
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

We would like to thank Nathan Eubank for his comments on an earlier version of this essay.

References

1 On the relationship between Paul and Polycarp, see Berding, K., Polycarp and Paul: An Analysis of their Literary and Theological Relationship in Light of Polycarp's Use of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Literature (VCSup 62; Leiden: Brill, 2002)Google Scholar; Theobald, M., ‘Paulus und Polykarp an die Philipper: Schlaglichter auf die frühe Rezeption des Basissatzes von der Rechtfertigung’, Lutherische und Neue Paulusperspektive: Beiträge zu einem Schlüsselproblem der gegenwärtigen exegetischen Diskussion (WUNT 182/2; ed. Bachmann, M. and Woyke, J.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 349–88Google Scholar; Holmes, M., ‘Paul and Polycarp’, Paul and the Second Century (ed. Bird, M. F. and Dodson, J. R.; New York: T&T Clark, 2011) 57–69 Google Scholar; Hartog, P., ed., Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp: Introduction, Text and Commentary (OAF; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 65–8Google Scholar.

2 It almost goes without saying that the modern critical position that 1 Timothy is pseudonymous cannot be ascribed to Polycarp, since questions about the authenticity of 1 Timothy were not raised until the nineteenth century; see Schleiermacher, F., Über den sogenannten ersten Brief des Paulos an den Timotheos. Ein kritisches Sendschreibung an J. C. Gass (Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1807)Google Scholar. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are our own.

3 Eubank, N., ‘Almsgiving is “the Commandment”: A Note on 1 Timothy 6.6–19’, NTS 58 (2012) 144–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Eubank, ‘Almsgiving,’ 145. Eubank points specifically to Sir 29.8–13; T. Ash. 2.5–8; and Lev. Rab. 3.1 as texts that demonstrate early usage of the idiom, although he notes the ‘tenuousness of any proposed date for Testaments’ (‘Almsgiving’, 148; cf. Tob 4.5–11; 12.8–10; Matt 19.16–22).

5 Eubank, ‘Almsgiving’, 148–9 (emphasis original).

6 The observation that ‘the commandment’ is to be fulfilled in the same manner as merciful practice towards widows (i.e. without reproach, ἀνεπίληπτος, 5.7; 6.14) further strengthens Eubank's argument; see Downs, D., ‘The God Who Gives Life That Is Truly Life: Meritorious Almsgiving and the Divine Economy in 1 Timothy 6’, The Unrelenting God: Essays on God's Action in Scripture in Honor of Beverly Roberts Gaventa (ed. Downs, D. and Skinner, M.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013) 247–8Google Scholar.

7 Giambrone, A., ‘“According to the Commandment” (Did. 1.5): Lexical Reflections on Almsgiving as “The Commandment”’, NTS 60 (2014) 452–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 For the sake of clarity and given its use in the studies of Eubank and Giambrone, we retain the term ‘almsgiving’, even if ‘merciful care for the needy’ might better render the holistic approach to almsgiving assumed in many early Christian texts; see Downs, D., Alms: Charity, Reward, and Atonement in Early Christianity (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

9 Giambrone, ‘“According to the Commandment”’, 453 (emphasis original).

10 Holmes calls the literary relationship between Polycarp and 1 Timothy a ‘high probability’, Berding calls it ‘almost certain’, and Hartog calls it ‘certain’ (see the table in Holmes, ‘Paul and Polycarp’, 60).

11 See the summary in Holmes, M., ‘Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament’, The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (ed. Gregory, A. and Tuckett, C.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 215–16Google Scholar, who finds Polycarp's dependence on 1 Tim 6 most plausible.

12 Holmes, ‘Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians’, 188–9.

13 Holmes, ‘Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians’, 216; for a discussion of parallel texts from Greek and Hellenistic Jewish literature, see Marshall, I. Howard, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999) 645–53Google Scholar.

14 Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 349.

15 To be clear, we are not arguing that ἡ ἐντολή is a terminus technicus for almsgiving, since the noun does not refer to practices of merciful care for the poor in 2.2; on ἡ ἐντολή in 5.1, see below.

16 The customary division of these statements into two different chapters fails to account for the unity of the discourse.

17 It is worth considering the reason for the qualifier τοῦ κυρίου, especially since elsewhere in Polycarp’s Philippians κύριος introduces sayings from the Jesus tradition (2.3; 7.2; cf. 7.1). Eubank has argued that Jesus’ encounter with the rich man in Matt 19.16–22, in which Jesus instructs the man to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor, frames ‘almsgiving – albeit in its most extreme form – … as the culmination or perfection of the commandments’ (‘Almsgiving’, 147).

18 Giambrone, ‘According to the Commandment’, 456–65; see also Anderson, G., Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) 15–34 Google Scholar.

19 So Osiek, C., ‘The Widow as Altar: The Rise and Fall of a Symbol’, SecCent 3 (1983) 159–69Google Scholar; pace Hartog, Polycarp's Epistle, 118.

20 Oakes, P., ‘Leadership and Suffering in the Letters of Polycarp and Paul to the Philippians’, Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (ed. Tuckett, C. and Gregory, A.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 363–4Google Scholar.

21 Oakes, ‘Leadership and Suffering’, 368–9. H. Maier argues that wealthy community leaders such as Valens might have used their wealth to maintain their ‘socio-economic links within pagan society’, thereby threatening community boundaries, but his focus on Valens is narrow and his judgements are sometimes speculative (‘Purity and Danger in Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians: The Sin of Valens in Social Perspective’, JECS 1 (1993) 238 Google Scholar).

22 The sin of Valens is clearly in mind, then, in 10.3 (so Hartog, Polycarp's Epistle, 140–1).

23 So Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 105; Hartog, Polycarp's Epistle, 140.

24 See Garrison, R., ‘The Love of Money in Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians’, The Graeco-Roman Context of Early Christian Literature (JSNTSup 137; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997) 74–9Google Scholar.

25 Ignatius, interestingly, defines love (ἀγάπη) primarily in terms of practices of care for the needy in his critical remarks about false teachers among the Christ-believing community in Polycarp's city of Smyrna: ‘Observe well those who hold divisive views about the gracious gift of Jesus Christ that has come to us, and see how they are opposed to the purpose of God. They do not have any care for love (περὶ ἀγάπης οὐ μέλει αὐτοῖς), none for the widow, none for the orphan, none for the oppressed, none for the one who is in chains or the one released, none for the one who is hungry or the one who is thirsty’ (Ign. Smyrn. 6.2).

26 Oakes, ‘Leadership and Suffering’, 368.

27 The participle ἐνειλημένους probably refers the provision of material assistance for prisoners during transport (so Hartog, Polycarp's Epistle, 99).