Philippians 1:13

So that, &c. Render, So that my bonds are become manifest (as being) in Christ. In other words, his imprisonment has come to be seen in its true significance, as no mere political or ecclesiastical matter, but due to his union of life and action with a promised and manifested Messiah.

in all the palace Greek, "in the whole Prœtorium (praitôrion)." The word occurs elsewhere in N. T., Matthew 27:27; Mark 15:16; John 18:28; John 18:33; John 19:9; Acts 23:35; in the sense of the residence, or a part of it, of an official grandee, regarded as a prœtor, a military commander. (Not that the word, in Latin usage, always keeps a military reference; it is sometimes the near equivalent of the word villa, the country residence of a Roman gentleman.) The A.V. rendering here is obviously an inference from these cases, and it assumes that St Paul was imprisoned within the precincts of the residence of the supreme Prætor, the Emperor; within the Palatium, the mansion of the Cæsars on the Mons Palatinus, the Hill of the goddess Pales. In Nero's time this mansion (whose name is the original of all "palaces") had come to occupy the whole hill, and was called the Golden House. The rendering of the A.V. is accepted by high authorities, as Dean Merivale (Hist. Rom. vi. ch. 54), and Mr Lewin (Life and Epistles of St Paul, ii. p. 282). On the other hand Bp Lightfoot (on this verse, Philippians, p. 99) prefers to render "in all the Prætorian Guard," the Roman life-guard of the Cæsar; and gives full evidence for this use of the word Prœtorium. And there is no evidence for the application of the word by Romansto the imperial Palace. To this last reason, however, it is fair to reply, with Mr Lewin, that St Paul, as a Provincial, might very possibly apply to the Palace a word meaning a residency in the provinces, especially after his long imprisonment in the royal Prœtoriumat Cæsarea (Acts 23:35; Acts 24:27). But again it is extremely likely, as Bp Lightfoot remarks, that the word Prœtorium, in the sense of the Guard, would be often on the lips of the "soldiers that kept" St Paul (Acts 28:16); and thus this would be now the more familiar reference. On the whole, we incline to the rendering of Lightfoot, (and of the R.V.) throughout the (whole) Prætorian Guard. Warder after warder came on duty to the Apostle's chamber (whose locality, on this theory, is nowhere certainly defined in N. T.), and carried from it, when relieved, information and often, doubtless, deep impressions, which gave his comrades knowledge of the Prisoner's message and of the claims of the Saviour.

Other explanations of the word Prœtoriumare (a) the Barrack within the Palatium where a detachment of Prætorians was stationed, and within which St Paul may have been lodged; (b) the great Camp of the Guard, just outside the eastern walls of Rome. But the barrack was a space too limited to account for the strong phrase, "in allthe Prætorium"; and there is no evidence that the great Camp was ever called Prætorium.

Wyclif renders, curiously, "in eche moot (council) halle"; Tyndale, Cranmer, and Geneva, "throughout all the judgment hall."

in all otherplaces] Better, to all other (men); to the Roman "public," as distinguished from this special class. The phrase points to a large development of St Paul's personal influence.