Philippians 1:15

Some indeed Here he refers to members of that Judaistic party, or school, within the Church, which followed him with persistent opposition, especially since the crisis (Acts 15) when a decisive victory over their main principle was obtained by St Paul in the Church-council at Jerusalem. Their distinctive idea was that while the Gospel was the goal of the Mosaic institutions, those institutions were to be permanently, and for each individual convert, the fence or hedge of the Gospel. Only through personal entrance into the covenant of circumcision could the man attain the blessings of the covenant of baptism. Such a tenet would not necessarilypreclude, in its teacher, a true belief in and proclamation of the Person and the central Work of the true Christ, however much it might (as it did, in the course of history) tendto a lowered and distorted view even of His Person (see further, Appendix D.). St Paul was thus able to rejoice in the work of these preachers, so far as it was a true conveyance to Pagan hearers at Rome of the primary Fact of the Gospel Jesus Christ. The same Apostle who warns the Galatian and Philippian (Philippians 3:2) Christiansagainst the distinctiveteaching of this school, as a teaching pregnant with spiritual disaster, can here without inconsistency rejoice in the thought of their undistinctiveteaching among non-Christiansat Rome.

For allusions to the same class of opponents see Acts 15:1-31; Acts 20:30 (perhaps), Acts 21:20-25; and particularly the Ep. to the Galatians at large. The passages in which St Paul asserts his authority with special emphasis, as against an implied opposition, or again asserts his truthfulness as against implied personal charges, very probably point in the same direction.

Not that the Judaizer of the Pharisaic type was his only adversary within the Church. He had also, very probably, to face an opposition of a "libertine" type, a distortion of his own doctrine of free grace (Romans 6:1, &c., and below, Philippians 3:18-19); and again an opposition of the mystic, or gnostic, type, in which Jewish elements of observance were blent with an alien theosophy and angelology (see the Ep. to the Colossians). But ch. Philippians 3:1-9 fixes the reference here to Christians of the type of Acts 15:1.

even of envy A mournful paradox, but abundantly verifiable. Render (or paraphrase) here, some actually for envy and strife, while others as truly for goodwill.

good will The Greek word, eudokia, in N.T. usually means "good pleasure," in the sense of choice of what is "good" in the chooser's eyes. See Matthew 11:26; Luke 10:21; Ephesians 1:5; Ephesians 1:9; below, Philippians 2:13. But in the few remaining passages the idea of benevolence appears; Luke 2:14; Romans 10:1; and perhaps 2 Thessalonians 1:11. Both meanings appear in the use of the word in the LXX, and in Ecclesiasticus. There it often denotes the favour of God; Heb. râtsôn. The idea here is strictly cognate; what in a lord is the goodwill of favour is in a servant the goodwill of loyalty.

D. EBIONITE CHRISTOLOGY. (Ch. Philippians 1:15)

The allusion in our note to "lowered and distorted views" of the Person of our Lord on the part of later Judaizers more or less Christian, has regard mainly to Ebionism, a heresy first named by Irenæus (cent. 2) but which seems to have been the direct descendant of the school which specially opposed St Paul. It lingered on till cent. 5.

It appears to have had two phases; the Pharisaic and the Essene. As regards the doctrine of Christ's Person, the Pharisaic Ebionites held that Jesus was born in the ordinary course of nature, but that at His Baptism He was "anointed by election, and became Christ" (Justin Martyr, Dial., c. xlix.); receiving power to fulfil His mission as Messiah, but still remaining man. He had neither pre-existence nor Divinity. The Essene Ebionites, who were in fact Gnostics, held (at least in many instances) that Christ was a super-angelic created Spirit, incarnate at many successive periods in various men (for instance, in Adam), and finally in Jesus. At what point in the existence of Jesus the Christ entered into union with Him was not defined.

See Smith's Dict. of Christian Biography, &c., art. Ebionism.