Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Argument
Paul, called by God into Macedonia by a marvelous vision assigned to him, which is described in Acts 16:9, where it is said: "A certain man of Macedonia stood, beseeching him and saying: Pass over into Macedonia, and help us;" immediately went there, and approached its principal city, namely Philippi (which was first called Dathos, then restored by Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, was called Philippi, and a little later was made a colony of the Romans), and converted many of the Philippians, and there cured the Pythoness, and on that account was beaten with rods and imprisoned.
The Philippians therefore, having been converted to Christ by Paul, and being most devoted to Paul, as soon as they heard that Paul was being held bound at Rome, sent to Rome for his consolation, with gifts, Epaphroditus, their apostle (as he says in chapter 2, verse 25), and their bishop, as Theodoret, Baronius, and others say. This Epaphroditus at Rome fell into sickness and was sick unto death; and when he had at last recovered, Paul sent him back to his Philippians with these letters, in which he exhorts them to remain steadfast in the faith of Christ and to press on, neither to be disturbed by his bonds nor to fall in spirit; and especially that they should not yield to or believe the Judaizers who taught that the legal observances of Moses were to be kept along with the Gospel; nor to Cerinthus, Simon Magus, and their followers, who denied that Christ was truly crucified. Then by turns he exhorts them to virtues worthy of a Christian, and especially that they should foster and emulate the humility, charity, peace, and mutual concord of Christ.
It was written at Rome in the year of Christ 60, which was the second year of Paul's bonds, in which year he likewise wrote to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, and to Philemon, to all of which he prefixes both his own name and that of Timothy, who having been summoned in the previous year by Paul's letters (2 Timothy 4:21) had come to Rome before winter. All these epistles therefore were written from the first bonds, which occurred in the 4th year of Nero, not from the second, which occurred in the 12th year of Nero; for here, in chapter 1:25, he says that he will remain in the flesh for the common joy and profit of Christians: where he sufficiently intimates that he was to be freed from his bonds. He understands therefore the first bonds, not the second: for from the second he was not freed, but died as a martyr.