Abstract
A critical synthesis of the arguments made by Flexsenhar, Omerzu, Standhartinger and Brélaz, concerning the provenance of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, suggests: (1) ‘the whole of the praetorium’ referenced in 1.13 is a group of people working in an official provincial building, hence (2) in view of Paul’s incarceration awaiting imminent trial, this is probably in a provincial capital, (3) where a group of imperial slaves, who, following attested practice, identify themselves as ‘a household of Caesar’ (4.22), and originally from Philippi, have migrated to join the local congregation. Further critical consideration suggests, moreover, that, although Ephesus is a plausible location for the explanation of this data, Corinth is a still more powerful and economic explanation of this and related data points.
It is important to recognize first the education that we have just received concerning the role of metanarratives within Pauline biography. Certain metanarratives have clearly distorted our appreciation of the Pauline data in Phil. 1.13 and 4.22 – romantic notions about early Christians penetrating the imperial halls of power in Rome, and equally romantic notions about the unity and order of the early church formulated in opposition to F.C. Baur’s insight that it was sharply divided. 1 We must carry a critical posture toward inappropriate metanarrative influences onward into what follows – without, I hasten to add, claiming that we have simply abandoned all such presuppositions. Without metanarratives we are blind and the data inert; we do not know what exactly to focus our attention on, not to mention how and why. 2 What we need then are the right metanarratives, which is why communal processes of deliberation like these can be so important as we help one another to detect our interpretive blind spots and to make the necessary adjustments in our overarching explanatory frames.
In this issue we are trying to make the necessary adjustments specifically in relation to the provenance of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The authorship and destination of the letter are not under debate, but we are probing for an answer to the question of where it was written from, a decision that will also affect our view of the letter’s date. And I am happy to observe that we are generally employing the correct method as we try to do so, privileging the data in Paul’s letters – squeezing them dry for every last drop of insight – before turning to Acts and introducing its data under strict epistolary control. 3
Three particular points in the epistolary data in Philippians have been addressed here in detail, as well as, to my mind, decisively: (1) Paul’s reference to ‘the … praetorium’ (1.13), (2) the nature of his imprisonment and (3) his reference to ‘those belonging to a household of Caesar’ (4.22). These data points, the first and third being unique to Philippians, always loom large in any discussion of the letter’s provenance. But after summarizing our conclusions I am going to suggest that we need to introduce more data before making our final judgment about the letter’s place of composition, because only then will a particular, perhaps unexpected, but ultimately highly plausible candidate for the letter’s place of composition become apparent.
Data Point One: ‘The Whole of the Praetorium’ (1.13)
Our discussion builds on recent research that has established conclusively that the phrase ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ πραιτωρίῳ references a building used for official purposes by provincial administration. It does not refer to the Praetorian Guard in Rome, which was not referred to in these terms. 4 Extant Greek usage in this form does not even usually denote a group of people, Standhartinger (2021) points out, but denotes some structure or building, although Paul is ultimately referencing people in this phrase. 5 But he is doing so metonymically, as we might say ‘the news spread through the White House’ (or ‘through Downing Street’). 6 However, we clearly need more data to narrow down the remaining possibilities for the letter’s place of composition. Which official provincial building of the hundreds dotted across the Roman Empire is Paul in at time of writing?
Data Point Two: Incarceration
Fortunately for us, although not so much for him, the letter reveals that Paul is in jail. So he must be in or very close by an official provincial building where judicial proceedings took place, and so we can immediately infer that he is in a city or town where a governor or imperial official either is based or visits regularly for such processes. A provincial capital therefore seems likely. 7 But this situation is worth dwelling on for just a moment longer.
It is not always appreciated that, within the broader sweep of Paul’s missionary work, an actual imprisonment is an executive measure against him that is both unusual and of elevated severity. Paul seems to have stirred up trouble everywhere he went, but, as Brélaz has shown (2021), this usually led to summary police action, and sometimes to mob violence, which the police action was trying to avoid. 8 The result was generally a quick and often harsh expulsion from a city. Incarceration, however, which Paul is experiencing when he writes Philippians, denotes that charges have been filed by someone, all court cases in the empire being undertaken technically by private persons. Moreover, these have been examined in a preliminary hearing and found sufficiently serious to merit not just expulsion, perhaps with a suitable scourging, but detention pending a final trial before the appropriate high-level authority. 9 Paul will now have to wait, possibly for a very long time, enduring filthy conditions, 10 and the consequences could be fatal. It is during this unusually fraught period that Paul writes to the Philippians 11 – although this is not an atypical phenomenon for activists, who often write only as they are slowed down by incarceration. 12 Standhartinger (2021) adds insightfully that Paul’s writing is consequently under surveillance.
Data Point Three: ‘A Household of Caesar’ (4.22)
We have learned that Philippians is more likely to be fake than that οἱ ἐκ τῆς Καίσαρος οἰκίας in 4.22 is a plausible reference to conversions amongst the emperor’s family, despite the compelling if romantic narrative that the latter reference generates (Standhartinger 2021). But in fact a much more plausible candidate for this phrase’s reference lies just to hand, which entails qualifying Lightfoot’s famous alternative thesis. This phrase is not a reference to mere membership in the vast network of imperial personnel spread through the empire, whether slave or free. Reference to this network per se as the familia Caesaris is a modern scholarly construct. But various inscriptions that Weaver in his classic study states are ‘not uncommon’ suggest that groups of slaves within the imperial leviathan could refer to themselves, rather touchingly, as a ‘household’, denoting some level of association and group identity, although the specific basis of this is difficult to determine. 13 Why would a group of imperial slaves tasked, for example, with maintaining an aqueduct, commemorate themselves as a ‘household’? They worked together for many years, and possibly lived together as well, while, as slaves experiencing natal alienation, they had no other family. More than this is hard to say. Nevertheless, we do know that groups of such slaves sometimes called themselves ‘a family of Caesar’, thereby also denoting that when the inscription was commissioned, they were not yet manumitted. 14 (Given this plausible reference, it is unnecessary for Standhartinger [2021] to posit an entirely coded usage. 15 Having said this, there is an important insight within her alternative suggestion [see below]).
Whatever the exact details, as Flexsenhar points out (2019a: 38), this group is known to the Philippians. 16 The generic greetings from the local congregation at the end of the letter are qualified by an emphatic µάλιστα and the identification of just this group, a household of Caesar’s slaves, to whom Paul gives voice, at which moment a further question arises. How are they so known to the Philippians?
The most likely answer, as both Flexsenhar (2019a: 41-44) and Omerzu (2021) relay, is migration, a common and increasingly discussed feature of Paul’s world (and one that has hardly ceased since). The migration in this instance would have been of the forced, not the voluntary, type. These slaves probably converted in Philippi but were then sent to another city that was fortunate enough to have a Pauline congregation in it, and they now send special greetings back to their former church. 17 And at this moment, two scenarios present themselves.
The slaves’ most probable occupations were administrative and/or commercial because these tasks were common within the imperial network and presuppose transferable skills rooted in numeracy and literacy. Imperial business concerns were widespread through the Mediterranean, often following trade routes, of which there were many, thereby eliciting related migrations. It is much harder to imagine a household of imperial slaves associated with an aqueduct or a gladiatorial school migrating than a group of literate slaves engaged in imperial business making a transfer to a new location. The slaves’ commercial connections could also explain how they came into contact initially with the artisans Paul converted in Philippi. 18
Alternatively, some of Caesar’s slaves would have worked right alongside the jailers in Philippi’s praetorium, raising another possible point of initial connection with the Philippian congregation through the jailer Paul converted. 19 They would still have been involved with imperial business, but located as they managed this in the official building where the jailer also worked. Clearly this connection relies on data from Acts that is much debated. 20 But a transfer of some of Caesar’s personnel from one praetorium to another also seems a plausible scenario, and there is nothing in the epistolary data to gainsay this additional information immediately. Moreover, this could explain why the greetings are anonymous. As already noted from Standhartinger (2021), this generalized speech would have protected their identities, which might have been necessary if they were imperial officials working in an official building where their cult leader was currently imprisoned on a capital charge. 21
A final judgment between these two different scenarios is difficult. 22 But the basic scenario of imperial slaves converting in Philippi and then enduring a forced migration to the city where Paul is currently confined is both plausible and suggestive.
Data Point Four: A Regional Letter
A regional provenance for the letter to the Philippians – somewhere on or around the Aegean coastline as against a much more distant location in a Roman incarceration or in Caesarea Philippi – was taken as obvious by all the scholars in the collaboration. 23 It is worth adding here, however, that this judgment was no mere assertion. A close study of Philippians yields the strong impression that the letter is embedded in overlapping networks of relationships and journeys within a region, here necessarily the Aegean. Extending these complex connections from Philippi to Rome, or to Caesarea Philippi, stretches them into implausibility, 24 while concrete problems in relation to time intervals are created as well. 25 But after the more accurate evaluations of data points one and three (i.e., the local references of ‘the praetorium’ and of ‘a household of Caesar’), there are no good reasons for positing more distant locations on the basis of essentially indeterminate Acts data, and doubly so when that introduction obscures subtle details within the letter itself like its dense regional networks.
With this fourth judgment in place, my collaborators all take the plunge and opine that the place where Paul is incarcerated, in a provincial center, in contact with a small conventicle of imperial slaves originally from Philippi, is Ephesus. 26 And this suggestion has much to commend it. But it is premature. Two further data points from the letter must be considered before we make our final call.
Data Point Five: Division in the Local Church
At the beginning of the letter body, Paul narrates his current incarceration with enviable positivity (1.12-26). On the one hand, it has encouraged the majority of the local brothers to preach more boldly even though, on the other hand, some brothers, characterized by ‘envy’ and ‘strife’, proclaim Christ ‘insincerely’ ‘to raise trouble for Paul’s imprisonment’. Whatever the motivation, Christ is proclaimed, Paul says, and so he rejoices. The data point is easily missed perhaps because it is so shocking. Some of the Jesus followers where Paul is imprisoned are preaching a version of the gospel that is actually causing difficulty for his pending trial– he associates them twice with conflict – and it is a capital case. It follows that these preachers want him dead, and we need to let this fact sink in. The community of Jesus followers in the city where Paul is incarcerated is bitterly and horrifically divided between his supporters and his enemies. And there is an obvious candidate in Paul’s extant letters for the title of ‘most divided congregation’.
Data Point Six: The Judaizing Crisis
We all know that Paul periodically articulates an antithesis between ‘works of law’ and ‘faith’, framing that opposition with δίκαιο- terms, an antithesis that Luther and some of his followers became very fond of. However, we should resist the assumption that this material is Paul’s undistilled systematic theology, and treat it in the first instance as argumentation that is, in Beker’s programmatic term, contingent. 27 It was addressed to localized problems and figures, like everything else Paul wrote. 28 And treated circumstantially, this material is a biographer’s gift. It is so distinctive that we can quickly map any letters containing it into the basic letter sequence that lies at the heart of all Paul’s biographical reconstruction.
A large collection of money from Paul’s Aegean churches destined for the poor in Jerusalem sequences 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians and Romans together, in that order, through one calendar year:
And it now follows that both Galatians and Philippians occur near Romans, unless decisive evidence to the contrary is presented. Only these three letters contain prominent concentrations of Paul’s distinctive dikaio- antithesis, denoting their composition during the same period, as Paul tried to deal with this particular crisis. 30 So now we can simply ask, within this unfolding drama, how near to Romans is Philippians? And further reflection suggests that, although a location between 1 and 2 Corinthians, hence in Ephesus, is plausible, it does raise problems (as does a location after Romans). But a location between 2 Corinthians and Romans, hence in Corinth, is more plausible still, and generates no problems at all. 31 Put slightly differently: Sequence 2 in the following table is markedly superior as a historical reconstruction to Sequence 1.
Corinth ticks the boxes on the three key data points we opened with: it is a provincial center with many imperial slaves where Paul can be incarcerated in a praetorium awaiting trial. But Corinth enjoys several explanatory advantages over an Ephesian location for Philippians, especially when we consider our additional two data points. (It also enjoys one further, very significant corroboration from Acts that there is insufficient space to discuss here. 32 )
We should note first that the Corinthian congregation had been in existence, epistolary chronographers suggest, since 41
Corinth is also well attested as being the most bitterly divided church that Paul had to deal with, exactly matching data point four. We have no evidence of bitter division in the church in Ephesus at this time. 33
Three other considerations strengthen the plausibility of a Corinthian provenance still more, although in order to appreciate them we will have to tease out some of the broader biographical details further. Philippians projects its own mini-narrative around its composition that must eventually be mapped onto the collection sequence that we have just introduced. With this additional data in view, our hypothesized chronology possesses both greater economy and greater explanatory power if Philippians is located later in the collection sequence, in Corinth, with the Judaizing crisis breaking then, than if we locate the letter earlier, both in the sequence and in time, in Ephesus.
Philippians subtly references a previous visit to Macedonia when warnings about the threat of certain ‘enemies of the cross’ were delivered repeatedly in person (3.17-18). And it envisages a later visit to Macedonia, in 2.24, after Paul’s anticipated release. (As was noted earlier, Timothy will journey quickly to Philippi and back before this visit by Paul, suggesting both that the final act in the trial is imminent and that the two locations are quite close by.) The letter also references the imminent possible arrival in Philippi of a group of people Paul characterizes as mutilating dogs who do evil works, deploying a concentrated burst of dikaio- material in relation to their concerns (esp. 3.6, 9). This data set up a mini-sequence of events around the letter to the Philippians that we can now integrate with the letter sequence that has already been established. But the two attempts at integration, presupposing locations in Ephesus and Corinth respectively, are not equally smooth.
As we study these two possible sequences of events it becomes apparent that the earlier location in the sequence for the composition of Philippians in Ephesus generates certain problems, whereas the later, Corinthian provenance seems to face no serious difficulties at all:
The first of two visits to Macedonia, which had to take place either before Paul reached Ephesus or in the early part of his activity there, and which is necessitated by this location for Philippians which references this visit, is unattested and unexplained. But a Corinthian location has no such difficulties; the previous visit referenced by Philippians if it was written in Corinth is the visit to Macedonia well attested by 1 and 2 Corinthians as Paul journeyed to Corinth from Asia, leaving this last region partly in view of the crisis he experienced there. Paul announces this plan in 1 Cor. 16.5-7 and writes from its midst in 2 Corinthians. (This visit would be the second visit to Macedonia which is anticipated ‘soon’ by Philippians if it was written in the midst of the Asian crisis, in Ephesus.) 34
The silence of Philippians concerning the collection if it was composed during Paul’s Ephesian period is puzzling. This vital and difficult task is in full swing. But the letter’s silence on the matter if it was written later on, from Corinth, is completely understandable because the Macedonians have long completed their contributions by then.
The complete silence of 2 Corinthians concerning the Judaizing threat seems a little odd if that crisis had already broken locally while Paul was in Ephesus. We might expect a hint of the caustic warnings Paul reproduces in Phil. 3.2–4.3 in 2 Corinthians as well, given the gravity of the threat. But there is nothing of the sort. 35 The silence is perfectly explained, however, if it has not yet taken place.
These considerations all accumulate to a fairly decisive explanatory advantage for a slightly later location in the developing letter sequence, after the writing of 2 Corinthians in Macedonia, and after Paul has arrived in Corinth. Paul is indeed then writing from a city containing a bitterly divided church. But during his imprisonment there he decides to visit Macedonia again (such is the threat from ‘the enemies’), and Acts even confirms that he did so (20.3-6).
36
And consequently I now suggest, in conclusion overall, that all our epistolary data point to the hypothesis that Paul wrote Philippians in Corinth,
37
where he was incarcerated through the winter of 51–52
Footnotes
2.
Ultimately the work of Polanyi is instructive here (1958, 
).
3.
The insight originally of John Knox (1987); see also .
4.
See esp. Flexsenhar 2021; .
5.
This is apparent because the text continues, καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς πάσιν.
6.
So Flexsenhar 2019b: 36-37; 2021. Moreover, the syntax connects this group with Paul’s chains or bonds, where it has become apparent that he is imprisoned for Christ, hence it references his actual periods of incarceration. This strengthens the suspicion that he is incarcerated in a praetorium (cf. Standhartinger 2021; ).
7.
High-level provincial court cases could take place in other cities besides the capital in assize centers. However, as Brélaz notes (), these were intermittent. The immediacy of the trial combined with the travel plans unfolding around it marginally suggest a location where the governor would be found most frequently, that is, his official residence. (In 2.21-24 we read that Timothy will visit the Philippians ‘soon’/ταχέως; but he will not visit until it is apparent how Paul’s trial will turn out, at which moment he will leave ‘immediately’/ἐξαυτῆς. And Paul himself intends to visit ‘soon’. These markers suggest an imminent trial.)
9.
2 Cor. 11.23-27 enumerates eight disciplinary scourgings to date, five administered by the Jewish community, and one Jewish mob action.
11.
Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Timothy and Philemon are also letters in the Pauline corpus written from an imprisonment, yielding an astonishing total of 5/13 or almost 40 percent. For further insights into Paul’s imprisonments, see Schellenberg 2018, and the primary evidence and detailed scholarly treatments listed by .
12.
It is important to avoid anachronism. Nevertheless, it might be worth noting that figures who work very hard in new religious and social movements, or on behalf of institutions, in the modern period, arguably evidence the same pattern here – leaders like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Angela Davis. All these figures produced important pieces of reflective writing while incarcerated. Somewhat sadly, this ‘genre’ is large and growing. See now especially , documenting the extraordinary prison correspondence of Lin Zhao, a Christian imprisoned in China during Mao’s regime.
13.
Weaver 1972: esp. 299-300, quoting from 300. See also .
14.
For these judgments, see now esp. Flexsenhar 2019a: 29-36; 2021; .
15.
Standhartinger’s rejection of Flexsenhar’s proposal seems to rest on an overreaction combined with a non sequitur. She concludes: ‘In short, familia Caesaris is no generic term for imperial slaves or freedpersons. And οἱ ἐκ τῆς Καίσαρος οἰκίας remains an enigmatic, unique expression without ancient parallels’ (2021). The first claim here is correct, and Lightfoot’s widely influential thesis must be judged wrong. (Here Flexsenhar and Standhartinger agree.) There is no evidence that the figures in Phil. 4.22 called ‘from the household of Caesar’ were being designated thereby simply as belonging to the vast imperial network per se. But it does not follow from this observation that the expression οἱ ἐκ τῆς Καίσαρος οἰκίας is ‘enigmatic and unique’. There is ample evidence that small groups of imperial slaves could refer to themselves as ‘a household of Caesar’ (familia Caesaris; here see esp. : 299-300). And it seems entirely plausible that Christian members from such a group could be rendered in Greek by the phrase οἱ ἐκ τῆς Καίσαρος οἰκίας, which is a direct translation of the Latin (domus probably eliciting the Greek οἶκος). That early Christian readers rendered Phil. 4.22 as romantically as Lightfoot did – although in slightly different terms – does not strengthen Standhartinger’s case in the face of Flexsenhar’s critical reconstruction that draws on inscriptional evidence backed by general legal and familial practice. As Weaver points out, in Roman law slaves were under the potestas of their owner and hence a part of his household, and this broad situation is widely reflected in their designations. Hence, I judge Flexsenhar’s suggestion to stand firm against Standhartinger’s critique (although not without some soul searching!).
16.
17.
This seems a marginally better explanation than the hypothesis that they were known personally to the Philippians as ‘pagans’, and then were assigned to another city, which happened to have a Pauline congregation in it, and in which they then converted, thereby re-establishing their original relationship with the Philippians. This explanation posits two coincidences. The scenario I am endorsing here, which simply sends the converted slaves to another provincial center that has a Pauline congregation in it – as all the provincial centers around the Aegean littoral, and not a few other regional cities, did – posits just one.
18.
See Paul’s pregnant use of συνεργῶν µου in 2.25 and 4.3, coupled with the evidence from Thessalonica of contact with, and in all probability through, this network with Philippi; see 1 Thess. 2.9; 3.2; 2 Thess. 3.8. Acts describes Lydia as an artisan, specifically, a πορϕυρόπωλις or member of the purpurarii (16.14).
19.
‘Caesar’s slaves’ in Phil. 4.22 do not seem to have been jailers or guards themselves, because presumably they would then have sent greetings from Paul’s actual jail. Paul carefully distinguishes between greetings from the congregation, which includes this household of imperial slaves, and those who are with him in jail who send their greetings (οἱ σὺν ἐμοὶ ἀδελϕοί, 4.21).
20.
See Acts 16.16-34.
21.
This seems quite deliberate on Paul’s part. When he includes greetings from specific figures or groups in his other letters, they are named: see Rom. 16.22-23; 1 Cor. 16.17-18; Phlm. 23; and, arguably, Col. 4.7-9, 12-13.
22.
The collaboration did not press deeply into this particular question. Resolving it decisively would require a much broader consideration of the veracity of the depiction of Paul’s legal travails by Acts, which is a much-discussed area. Further references can be found in Standhartinger 2021, and her own earlier study (Standhartinger 2017) should be consulted; see also and the studies he references. Those more skeptical of Acts data will prefer scenario one; those more persuaded by its accuracy will see no good reasons for overlooking scenario two. (The distinctive aspect of Paul’s greeting just noted tilts me at present toward scenario two. And I tend to assume that the data in Acts is innocent until proved guilty.)
25.
In particular: (1) Paul has previously visited Macedonia, when he warned the Philippians about certain false teachers (3.18-19). If the letter was written in Rome, it is separated from this visit by many years, making the later reference to keep a watch out for the same false teachers implausible (3.1-4). It could be replied that these are different teachers and generic warnings. But they are in the same sub-section hence contiguous, and are quite specific. We would expect strident warnings about certain figures in vv. 1-4 to be followed by strident warnings about the same group in v. 18, unless signaled to the contrary. Even more decisively, (2) Paul intends to return to Macedonia after his release, which he is anticipating ‘soon’ (ταχέως). Yet between the writing of the letter and his own release, he expects Timothy to visit the Philippians ‘soon’ as well, and to return to give him a report. This suggests that the distance between Paul’s imprisonment and Philippi is short. Even more indicatively, Timothy will only set out for Philippi after the result of Paul’s hearing is known, shortening this time interval still further (2.19-24; see also n. 7 above). I address the provenance of Philippians more comprehensively in : 122-54, although my discussion of Phil. 1.13 and 4.22 here is more accurate, benefiting from the results of this collaboration.
26.
Omerzu is more tentative here than Flexsenhar, Standhartinger and Brélaz. The hypothesis is usually first attributed to Deissmann 1923, being popularized initially by Duncan 1929. (See : 145, n. 23.) Ironically, this hypothesis is still too heavily informed by Acts. Acts places Paul in Ephesus for an extended period of time and speaks of a massive civic disruption that could plausibly have resulted in an imprisonment and trial (Acts 19; see also 2 Cor. 1.8-9). But although there is no need to marginalize this evidence, it should still be introduced after a careful evaluation of all the epistolary evidence. Moreover, Acts never mentions an arrest or trial. These must be inferred, and, to a certain extent, in defiance of the narrative’s actual implications. After a disruption of this magnitude Paul would almost certainly have secretly fled the city; compare 2 Cor. 11.32-33.
27.
: xiii, 11-19, 23-36. This is not to deny the presence of more systematic theology in Paul – far from it. It is simply to claim that any such deep, discursive structure within Paul’s thought must be carefully extracted from its circumstantial shaping and expression. Paul’s theology is always rhetorically freighted – ‘a word on target’ in Beker’s famous phrase (12) – and so it can only be retrieved as it is filtered carefully through his biography.
29.
In this case, Paul’s third as an apostle. See Rom. 15.22-33.
30.
31.
At least, I know of none as yet.
32.
An epistolary chronography predicts that Paul will face an acute challenge from the rival teachers in Corinth from mid-51 through spring 52 ), a trial before a governor was unusual, and the accused often had to wait a long time before a hearing, if he or she ever received one. Hence the details in the Acts story match the scenario in Philippians exactly.
33.
34.
And it is worth noting that the second visit to Macedonia envisaged by the letter assuming its composition in Corinth is Paul’s visit en route to Jerusalem with the collection. Why Paul would take this roundabout route to Jerusalem as attested by Acts has frequently puzzled scholars, but Philippians, given a Corinthian provenance, tells us exactly why: he travels there as promised to settle them in the face of the acute challenge that they face from the ‘enemies’ of 3.2–4.3.
35.
This argument assumes that the figures causing Paul trouble in Galatia, and potentially also in Philippi (if not also in Jerusalem and in Rome), are not to be identified with the ‘super-apostles’ who are vilified in 2 Corinthians. My Framing argues for this reconstruction (2014: 133-46).
36.
Paul’s intention at this time was basically to journey to Jerusalem with the collection, if he had to (1 Cor. 16.1-4). But a return journey by way of Macedonia is actually quite odd, especially since he has just been there. This return is explained neatly, however, once we realize that the Jewish plot mentioned in Acts 20.3 is probably a distant allusion to the activity of his enemies.
37.
Are Tertius and Quartus, then, named in Rom. 16.23 (a letter written in Corinth in the spring after Paul’s release), not merely analogous to members in the household of Caesar’s slaves, as Flexsenhar suggests (: 37), but the very slaves in question – literate slaves who assisted in the writing of Romans and who send their greetings once again, this time by name? I suspect rather that they were the slaves of Gaius Titius Iustus, in whose house Paul is writing. And this would explain why they are not identified in Romans as a familia Caesaris. It is also worth asking if Secundus belongs to this group as well. His name is certainly compatible with this identity (he is ‘Second’ as against the scribe ‘Third’ and the other greeter, ‘Fourth’), although Acts 20.4 identifies him as a Thessalonian. Ἔραστος is also named in Rom. 16.23 and defined as ὁ οἰκονόµος τῆς πόλεως. This was most often a servile position, so Erastus probably works in municipal administration at Corinth, and would have rubbed shoulders with plenty of literate imperial slaves and so may well have had some contact with the figures Paul references in Phil. 4.22.