The Justification Clause of Philippians 3.12: Past and Current Appraisals of a Striking Variant Reading

Introduction

The standard critical text of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians at the time of writing is the one produced in the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (NA²⁸). The Greek text of Phil. 3.12 in this edition reads as follows: Οὐχ ὃτι ἤδη ἔλαβον ἢ ἤδη τετελείωμαι, διώκω δὲ εἰ καὶ καταλάβω, ἐφ᾽ᾧ καὶ κατελήμφθην ὑπὸ Χριστοῦ [Ἰησοῦ]. This text is reflected in the NRSV translation, ‘Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own’.

However, the editors of NA²⁸ supply a critical sign between the fourth word, the verb ἔλαβον, and the fifth word, the particle ἢ. This sign marks the location where, according to the NA²⁸ critical apparatus, the words ἢ ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι (or minor subvariants and translational equivalents of these words) are inserted by ‘P⁴⁶ D^*.c (F G) ar (b; Ir^lat) Ambst’. These witnesses thus contain a text of 3.12 in which Paul declares not only that he has not ‘already obtained this’ or ‘already reached the goal’, but also that he has not ‘already been justified’ (or made/found righteous). Reumann refers to the additional phrase as ‘the justification clause’ (2008: 534). He translates it into his rendering of the verse: ‘I do not say that I have already had success, or that I have already been justified or am already perfected; but I run in pursuit if I also may successfully take hold, the way I was successfully taken hold of by Christ Jesus’ (2008: 533).

This additional phrase has been described by scholars as ‘intriguing’ (Bockmuehl 1998: 220), ‘very interesting’ (Witherington 2011: 208), ‘striking’ (Hellerman 2015: 199), and ‘astounding’ (Comfort 2008: 612). Its apparent meaning—that Paul considered himself not yet justified before God—seems entirely inconsistent with statements on justification found elsewhere in the Pauline Letters. In various places Paul indicates that he and all other believers already stand justified before God by faith (e.g., Rom. 5.1, 9; 8.30; 1 Cor. 6.11; Phil. 3.9). In this alternative version of Phil. 3.12, however, Paul reads as though he believes he has not yet been justified.

Because it sounds so unlike something Paul would have claimed, and in light of its absence from a strong majority of textual witnesses, all but a handful of scholars have denied the justification clause a place in the initial text of Philippians. However, part of the intrigue associated with the reading is the difficulty in arriving at a persuasive explanation for its later insertion. What would motivate a scribe to make Paul declare he had not already been justified? It is much easier to comprehend why a later editor would wish to omit such a statement rather than insert it. This difficulty, along with (1) the attestation of the reading in P⁴⁶, (2) the high potential for an unconscious parablepsis omission, and (3) the coherence of the reading with references in the Pauline Letters to final justification at the last judgment, has resulted in challenges to the consensus view in recent years.

My aim in this article is to provide an overview of past and current scholarly appraisals of the justification clause of Phil. 3.12. In spite of the lofty descriptors assigned to it, scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to this fascinating textual issue. Beyond the documentary data cited in printed editions of the Greek NT, those who have bothered to comment on the clause have done so primarily through brief footnotes in biblical commentaries and scholarly monographs. In these notes, exegetes typically offer little more than the same few basic points about the lack of documentary support and the unlikelihood that Paul would have considered himself not yet justified. Recent research suggests, however, that the issue warrants closer attention.

In order to facilitate greater appreciation of the current state of investigation regarding the justification clause I have decided to devote a rather substantial portion of this article to past appraisals of the issue. I begin with a sketch of assessments of the reading from before and during the eighteenth century when the first post-Gutenberg acknowledgments of the reading were published. Next, I present overviews of scholarship on the reading from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These summaries of past appraisals will help frame the overview of current scholarship that follows, beginning with the early twenty-first century and running up to the very latest published comments on the justification clause at the time of writing. The article concludes with a brief discussion of directions for future research on this striking reading.

The Justification Clause of Philippians 3.12 in an Age of Collecting, Collating, and Classifying: Appraisals Before and During the Eighteenth Century

Not one printed edition of the Greek NT from before the eighteenth century evidences any knowledge of the existence of the justification clause of Phil. 3.12. In the editions of the Greek NT published prior to the eighteenth century—all of which were forerunners to and representative of the Greek text that would come to be designated as the Textus Receptus—the justification clause does not appear in the text, nor is there any paratextual acknowledgment of it. This is contrary to the observation of Metzger (1994: 547), who, in the second edition of his influential A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, erred in citing the Textus Receptus as a witness to the reading. Varner (2017: 100) rightly recognizes that Metzger is mistaken on this point.

Readers familiar with the history of NT textual criticism in the eighteenth century—an age in which scholars were largely concerned with the collection, collation, and classification of manuscripts and variant readings—will not be surprised to learn that the first mention of the justification clause in a post-Gutenberg printed resource appears to belong to Mill. Dubbed ‘an epoch-making edition of the Greek text’ (Metzger and Ehrman 2005: 154), the first edition of Mill’s Novum Testament Graecum contains the following entry in its critical apparatus: ‘l H ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι added in Clar. gr. lat. Ger. gr. lat. Iren. 1.4. c. 22. Ambros. Textu & Com. Tract. de Singularitate Claricorum. Old interpretation τ[ῆ], τετελείωμαι, it seems; and from a marginal edge transported by some scribe into the context’ (Mill 1707: 585). Mill’s entry indicates that the phrase ἢ ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι was added to the Greek and Latin texts of Codex Claromontanus (‘Clar. gr. lat.’ [GA 06; VL 75]), the Greek and Latin texts of Codex Sangermanensis (‘Ger. gr. lat.’ [GA 0319; VL 76]), and in the citations of Phil. 3.12 found in three patristic sources: Book 4 of Irenaeus’s Adversus haereses (‘Iren. 1. 4. c. 22’ [CPG 1306]), the text and commentary of Ambrosiaster (‘Ambros. Textu & Com.’ [CPL 184]), and the anonymous treatise De singularitate clericorum (‘Tract. de Singularitate Claricorum’ [CPL 62]). In the second edition, with collations of twelve more manuscripts, the Greek and Latin texts of Codex Boernerianus (GA 012; VL 77) were added to these as additional witnesses to the reading (Mill 1710: 460). Suggesting that the clause seemed to capture the ‘old interpretation’ of τελειόω, Mill proposed that it ended up in these witnesses because it (or a meaning represented by it) was at one point noted in the margin of an early witness and subsequently transported from the margin into the text by a scribe in the process of copying.

In 1726, Calmet noted the same witnesses as Mill (Calmet 1726: 473), although Calmet provided no explanation for how the clause came to be incorporated into the manuscript tradition. Eight years later Bengel offered a brief explanation for the reading, accounting for it as an accidental addition resulting from ‘confusion from τετελείωμαι, διώκω, and δικαιοσύνη, letters’ (1734: 698). In his view a careless scribe confused the letters of the words τετελείωμαι, διώκω, and δικαιοσύνη found in 3.12 and its surrounding literary context. Out of the confusion the justification clause was created.

The witnesses cited by Mill were also cited in the first printed edition of the Old Latin version of the Bible produced by Sabatier (1751: 822-23). Houghton (2016: 114) notes that in Sabatier’s version ‘the text of the Pauline Epistles comes from VL 75 (Codex Claromontanus, with the old shelfmark 2245) and VL 76 (at that point still in Paris, known as Sangermanensis 31)’. Following these witnesses and citing them as evidence, Sabatier printed the Latin version of the justification clause in the ‘Versio Antiqua’ (‘Old Version’) section of his text.

In 1752, Wettstein noted the presence of the reading ἢ ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι in Claromontanus, Sangermanensis, and Irenaeus, but he also acknowledged the presence of the alternative reading ἢ ἤδη δικαίωμαι in ‘FG’ (Codex Augiensis [GA 010; VL 78] and Codex Boernerianus) and listed the Latin church father Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 310–367) as another witness to the reading (1752: 276). Wettstein was wrong about Hilary, who is not included in the VLB volume on Philippians among the witnesses attesting to the clause and is cited in several sources among the witnesses which do not include the reading (Frede 1966–71: 197). Perhaps confusion arose about Hilary as a witness because Ambrosiaster’s Commentarius in xiii epistulas Paulinas was wrongly attributed to Hilary by Augustine of Hippo. In several manuscripts of Ambrosiaster’s commentary the work is ascribed to Hilary, and Ambrosiaster’s commentary was known and used in Ireland under the name ‘Hilary’ (Turner 1902: 134-35; Houghton 2016: 25).

The first installment of Griesbach’s principal editions of the NT were published between 1775 and 1777. Although the justification clause was not printed in Griesbach’s text, Hoelemann (1839: 281) cites Griesbach for the suggestion that the clause was inserted sometime after Paul by a scribe who may have been influenced by similar language in 1 Cor. 4.4 (ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐν τούτῳ δεδικαίωμαι). Numerous scholars and textual resources since Griesbach invite a comparison between the justification clause and 1 Cor. 4.4 either by mentioning it in their comments or by means of the technical abbreviation ‘cf.’ or a question mark (e.g., Kennedy 1903: 457; Ewald 1908: 173 n. 3; Michaelis 1935: 59; Gnilka 1976: 198 n. 75; Collange 1979: 132; Hawthorne and Martin 2004: 203; Keown 2017: 190; NA¹⁶; NA¹⁷; NA¹⁸; NA²¹; NA²⁴; NA²⁵; UBS¹; UBS³).

A comment from one more eighteenth-century German scholar deserves mention. Matthaei issued his edition of the Greek NT along with the Latin Vulgate between 1782 and 1788. In the volume on Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians, Matthaei acknowledged the presence of the clause in the witnesses noted by Mill and Wettstein and asserted that Mill was right to reject it. His reason for siding with Mill was because scribes preferred the Latin reading in Greek codices in which the Latin appeared ‘sidem mendaciis’ (‘side lying’) with it (1784: 143). In other words, in Matthaei’s view, in the act of copying a Greek-Latin bilingual manuscript such as one of the four in which the justification clause appears (the codices Claromontanus, Augiensis, Boernerianus, and Sangermanensis), the Greek text was harmonized with the Latin text adjacent to it. Such a view assumes that the clause first appeared in Latin and not Greek. In Matthaei’s second edition he reinforced his position that the clause was secondary, asserting that the reading is ‘against … all codices which are credible’ (1807: 348).

By the end of the eighteenth century, biblical scholarship had acknowledged that the justification clause was present in the Greek and Latin texts of the major Greek-Latin bilingual codices of the Pauline Letters and in patristic citations found in Irenaeus, Ambrosiaster, De singularitate clericorum, and (erroneously) Hilary. Already at this early stage of critical scholarship four different explanations were advanced for how the clause must have appeared in the manuscript tradition as a secondary insertion. Either the reading was transported into the text from a marginal note (Mill), was accidentally created due to confusion of similar letters and words in the surrounding context (Bengel), was inserted by a scribe who was influenced by 1 Cor. 4.4 (Griesbach), or it was created first in Latin and later translated into a Greek text (Matthaei). Each of these scholars believed the reading did not originate with Paul. Yet it is noteworthy that even at the dawn of scholarly attention to the reading the reasons scholars thought it must be secondary were diverse and nearly equaled the number of scholars who noted it in their works.

The Justification Clause of Philippians 3.12 in an Age of Textual Optimism: Appraisals from the Nineteenth Century

If NT textual scholarship in the eighteenth century was motivated by a singular desire to collect, collate, and classify textual data, in the nineteenth century it was marked by an optimistic sense that that ‘original’ text—a text surely not represented by the Textus Receptus at numerous points—could be recovered by means of tracking down manuscripts and recording their readings. In this century, one of the first scholars to comment on the justification clause was Hoelemann (1839: 281), who acknowledged the textual data provided by those before him and also noted that some witnesses with a version of the reading add or omit the following clause ἢ ἤδη τετελείωμαι, the scribes perhaps interpreting both clauses as redundant. Hoelemann also pointed back to Griesbach for the suggestion that the clause may have been inserted into the tradition by a scribe influenced by similar language from 1 Cor. 4.4.

In 1850 the second volume of Lachmann’s second edition of the Greek NT was published. In the first edition of 1831, Lachmann produced what he considered to be the Greek text of the NT current in Eastern Christendom around the year 380. Lachmann’s text was reconstructed apart from any printed editions of the Textus Receptus and based entirely on documentary evidence, albeit limited evidence. Lachmann is thus rightly identified by Metzger and Ehrman as ‘the first scholar to break totally with the Textus Receptus’ (2005: 170). It is not surprising that the justification clause is not referenced in this first edition of Lachmann’s work given his aim to produce only a fourth-century Eastern text. However, in the second edition the reading is noted in the textual apparatus as present in Claromontanus, Boernerianus, and Irenaeus (Lachmann 1850: 493).

During the 1850s a number of Philippians commentators adopted more or less the same view among themselves that although the justification clause is a secondary insertion, it is nevertheless a correct and appropriate addition. In their view τετελείωμαι and δεδικαίωμαι carry the same basic meaning in this context, both referring to moral righteousness. For example, Wiesinger argued that the implied object of ἔλαβον was not τὸ βραβεῖον in 3.14, but the sense of moral perfection he understood to be captured in the word γνῶναι of 3.10 and subsequently explained in the phrase ἢ ἤδη τετελείωμαι in 3.12. Wiesinger concluded, ‘Hence the gloss: ἢ ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι in this sense is completely correct’ (1850: 160). Commentators espousing a similar view included Bisping (1855: 199), Ellicott (1861: 76-77), Eadie (1988: 194), and Meyer (1859: 107).

During this same decade Weiss viewed the justification clause as a secondary insertion for a different reason. He remarked that ‘the critically untenable ἢ ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι, a gloss probably cast on 1 Cor. 4.4, is factually intolerable if δικαιοῦσθαι is taken in the moral sense and not in the forensic sense’ (1859: 262 n. 1). Weiss perpetuated Griesbach’s suggestion that the reading was probably added by a scribe who was influenced by the appearance of δεδικαίωμαι in 1 Cor. 4.4, but he further asserted that the clause is factually intolerable when ‘justified’ is understood in moral/ethical terms as opposed to forensic terms. That is to say, if Wiesinger and others were right to view the clause as possessing an ethical meaning—and therefore basically correct as a gloss for τετελείωμαι—this would rule it out as belonging to Paul since (in Weiss’s view) justification for Paul carries precisely a forensic and not a moral/ethical meaning. Paul, the argument runs, did not understand justification in a moral/ethical sense but in a forensic sense. The clause therefore must have been inserted by someone other than Paul. With this argument, Weiss appears to be the first scholar to reject the justification clause as un-Pauline on the basis of a conception of Paul’s theology of justification as limited to a one-time past forensic/judicial act by which an individual is declared ‘justified’ before God in a moment of personal faith.

In the critical apparatus of his edition of the Greek NT published in six parts between the years 1857 and 1872, Tregelles included the following note about the justification clause: ‘add. ἢ ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι D*(FG.) Goth. (om. ἢ ἤδη τετ.). Iren. 238 (δικαι. FG –ομαι G*. praem. τετελείωμαι G*.)’ (1872: 843). New information in this note includes the identification of the Gothic version of the Pauline Letters as a witness to the reading (which omits Gothic representation of the ἢ ἤδη τετελείωμαι clause) and the existence of slight variation among the readings in Augiensis and Boernerianus. Rather than δεδικαίωμαι, Tregelles’s note indicates that Augiensis reads δικαίωμαι, while the original scribe of Boernerianus wrote δικαιομαι and also inscribed this word prior to writing τετελείωμαι.

Two more prominent critical editions of the Greek NT appearing in the nineteenth century noted the justification clause. Alford’s fourth edition of the Greek NT acknowledged the reading in a textual note (1865: 181-82) that almost precisely echoes the one found in the second edition of Griesbach some fifty years prior. The Gothic version of the NT is listed in brackets (‘[goth]’) as an additional witness to the clause in the fifth edition of Alford’s work published six years later (1871: 181). Soon after that, the eighth and most important edition of Tischendorf’s Novum Testamentum Graece was published, with the following information for the justification clause: ‘D*EFG d e f g Ir^int238 Ambst auct ^{sing cleric} add η ηδη δεδικαιωμαι (FG² δικαιωμαι, G* δικαιομαι. However, in G g iam τετελειωμαι has already been written, which signals improbable substitution for δικ.) … some for τετελειωμ. substituted δεδικ.’ (1872: 719). Although basically rehearsing the same documentary evidence as his predecessors, Tischendorf’s apparatus specifies that in the Greek and Latin texts of Boernerianus, τετελείωμαι and its Latin counterpart were already inscribed prior to δικαιομαι, thus signaling an improbable substitution of δικαιομαι for τετελείωμαι in this manuscript.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century four more biblical interpreters made note of the justification clause, although only one of them provided a substantive comment. Moule noted only that ‘some documents here add “or have already been justified”; but the evidence is decisive against this insertion’ (1889: 97). Lipsius (1891: 221) and Vincent (1897: 108) both indicated that the clause appears in Claromontanus, Augiensis, and Boernerianus, but neither provided any further comment. In contrast to these, Haupt offered a rather extended note on the textual issue (1897: 148 n. 1) in which he argued that, in a context in which Paul otherwise used ‘justification’ with reference to something he already has, it is unlikely that he would have used it to refer to the ‘sittliche Vollkommenheit’ (‘moral perfection’) he would have in the future. In alignment with Wiesinger, Bisping, Ellicott and Meyer, Haupt understood the clause as a reference to future moral perfection and thus likely secondary. He believed the insertion could be easily explained by a reading of τετελείωμαι by a translator, whereupon a second scribe who found both readings incorporated them both into the text. In other words, τετελείωμαι may have been translated as ‘justified’ in one of the early versions (Latin?) and a later scribe, knowing both readings, conflated both into the text.

In short, scholarship on the justification clause in the nineteenth century did not contribute much more to that already established in the eighteenth century. The only additional documentary evidence added was the Gothic version. As for new transcriptional explanations, Haupt’s suggestion that the clause might have entered into the tradition by way of a versional translation of τετελείωμαι stands out. The most noteworthy contributions of nineteenth-century scholarship on the issue were those of Weiss and Haupt, who both dismissed the clause as secondary since in their view Paul understood justification as a forensic act that had already taken place in his life.

The Justification Clause of Philippians 3.12 in an Age of New Discoveries: Appraisals from the Twentieth Century

While the consensus on the inauthenticity of the justification clause from the previous centuries continued to hold sway, the seeds of a challenge to this dominant view were planted in the twentieth century. This was due in no small measure to the publication of the important Papyrus 46 (Chester Beatty II + P. Michigan Inv. 6238 [GA P⁴⁶]) by Kenyon (1934, 1936, 1937). P⁴⁶, typically dated to around 200 CE, contained the justification clause in its text of Phil. 3.12.

While many twentieth-century scholars both before and after this significant new discovery simply perpetuated the explanations of previous scholarship (e.g., Ewald 1908: 173 n. 3; Michaelis 1935: 59; Lohmeyer 1953: 142 n. 1; Müller 1955: 120 n. 2; Gnilka 1976: 198 n. 75; Martin 1976: 136; Collange 1979: 132), some new contributions to the discussion did emerge. The first came from Kennedy, who commented that ‘the interesting variant δεδικαίωμαι (cf. 1 Cor. iv. 4) is plainly very ancient, the gloss, probably, of some pious copyist who imagined that the Divine side of sanctification was left too much out of sight’ (1903: 457). With this comment, Kennedy stands as the first scholar to suggest that the reading represents a deliberate theological corruption.

Dibelius (1937: 91) offered two new contributions in his brief comment on the reading: ‘Verse 3.12 is evenly laid out in four parts (and for this reason alone another element ἢ ἤδη δεδικαίωμαι after ἔλαβον P⁴⁶ D* G it Abst is to be omitted as an insertion)’. Dibelius appears to be the first commentator to acknowledge the presence of the clause in P⁴⁶. He also made the new proposal that the reading violated a clear four-part structure in 3.12 and thus should be considered a secondary intrusion.

Additional Latin witnesses to the reading were brought to light with the publication of the volume covering Philippians edited by Frede in the VLB series (1966–71: 197). In addition to those already noted, Frede identified the following witnesses to the clause: The Book of Armagh (Dublin, Trinity College 52 [VL 61]), the anonymous patristic work Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum (‘AN Mt h’ [CPL 707]), the Balliol College Manuscript 157 of the Expositiones XIII Epistolarum Pauli by Pelagius (‘PEL (B)’ [CPL 728]), and part of the textual tradition of the sermon De utilitate ieiunii by Augustine of Hippo (‘AU je 1’ [CPL 311]).

Pfitzner (1967: 143) argued that the justification clause is an insertion which was added based on a desire to make explicit the interpretation of 3.12 and the following verses as Paul’s resolve to press on toward a δικαιοσύνη he had not already obtained. Pfitzner proposed that the insertion was probably inspired by the use of δικαιοσύνη twice in Phil. 3.9. He added that the resulting meaning is problematic in light of Paul’s emphasis in Romans, Galatians, and Phil. 3.9 on ‘the attributed righteousness of God as a present reality’.

The explanations of Kennedy and Dibelius were both adopted in Metzger’s highly influential work A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (1971: 614-15). Downplaying the possibility of accidental omission, Metzger represented the editorial committee of the third edition of The Greek New Testament produced by the United Bible Societies (UBS³) as regarding Kennedy’s explanation to be a more likely reason for the origin of the justification clause. Metzger also followed Dibelius in pointing out that ‘the addition of the clause destroys the balance of the four-part structure of the sentence’ (1971: 614-15). Combined with the strong documentary support for the absence of the reading, these arguments resulted in Metzger and his fellow committee members viewing the reading as most likely secondary.

In the 1970s two scholars finally entertained the real possibility that the reading might be authentic after all. The first to do so appears to be Baumert (1973: 400), who suggested that the clause offers support for the interpretation that in 3.12 Paul summarizes what he meant by δικαιοσύνη in 3.9. Baumert viewed the accumulation of qualifiers in 3.12 as indicating that Paul feared his meaning in 3.9 being misunderstood. Baumert suggested that later, as Paul was interpreted in this context as referring only to final resurrection, the justification clause was omitted as an ‘annoying secondary thought’.

The first journal article devoted to the justification clause appeared in 1975 in the form of a three-page note published in Estudios bíblicos. In that note, López (1975: 121-23) proposed that the reading found in the version of 3.12 attested in P⁴⁶ could offer ‘a better grammatical interpretation of the passage, more in line with the syntax and more in agreement with the context’ (p. 121). In his view, in 3.12 and the surrounding verses Paul is not writing about something he already possesses but about something he hopes for in the future: the ‘full and definitive’ possession of δικαιοσύνη and τελείωσις (p. 122). López argued that the perfect active infinitive κατειληφέναι in 3.13 stands in clear parallel relationship with the perfect passive indicatives δεδικαίωμαι and τετελείωμαι in 3.12, which is consonant with the idea of Paul’s expectation of future consummation. López called into question the influence of 1 Cor. 4.4 and argued that homoioteleuton or homoioarcton provides a better transcriptional explanation: ‘In reality, it would have been easier to have been omitted by homoioteleuton (homoioarcton), due to the repetition of the particles ἢ ἤδη, which would not have been interpolated by memory of 1 Cor 4:4’ (p. 122; original emphases). Furthermore, López contended that the previous context in Philippians fully justifies the use of δεδικαίωμαι in Phil. 3.12: ‘Saint Paul, as compensation for all the things which he now despises, hopes to attain one day to the justice of God, which rests on faith in Christ… Although he received “justice”, he is not yet fully justified (cf. Rom 8.10ff)’ (p. 122). Finally, López noted that the verb δεδικαίωμαι in 3.12 creates a paranomasia with the verb διώκω in the same verse. In his view this was intended by Paul: ‘the verb δεδικαίωμαι, in v. 12, seems to respond to a play on words (paronomasia), intended by the Apostle: δεδικαίωμαι … διώκω δὲ …, just as in the previous verse he plays with the terms καταντήσω and ἐξανάστασιν (v. 11)’ (pp. 122-23).

The transcriptional and intrinsic arguments advanced by López have gained little traction in subsequent scholarship. The vast majority of scholars have continued to view the clause as secondary without providing substantive responses to many of the points López raised. Among the many who would make no mention of López’s note was Bruce (1989: 122), who explicated the theological assumption already nascent in the works of Weiss and Haupt: ‘This would be an un-Pauline use of the verb “justify”: Paul knew that together with all believers in Christ he had been “justified through faith”’. Bruce proposed that δικαιόω here ‘resembles rather the Ignatian use: Ignatius, speaking of the hardships endured by him on his way to Rome, says, “I am not hereby justified” (dedikaiōmai), implying that he will at last be justified when he has undergone a martyr’s death (To the Romans 5.1)’ (1989: 122).

In 1988, Silva called into question the usual explanations of many of his predecessors: ‘It is very difficult to account for this reading as an insertion, and the usual explanations are not weighty’ (1988: 204). Concerning the theological difficulty Silva pondered, ‘Given the Pauline emphasis on justification as something already experienced by the believer (Rom 5:1 etc.), why would it occur to any scribe to introduce this apparently un-Pauline idea?’ (1988: 204). He suggested that ‘it is relatively easy to explain the omission of the clause if it is original; it was either omitted deliberately because of its apparent theological difficulty, or it was omitted accidentally because of the repetition of ἢ ἤδη (homoioarcton)’ (1988: 203-204). Silva also affirmed López’s paranomasia argument by pointing out that ‘in favor of its originality, one should also notice the resulting paranomasia with διώκω’ (1988: 204). Additionally, Silva countered the suggestion that the addition of the clause destroys a four-part structure to the sentence: ‘omitting the clause destroys a five-part structure, if I might be facetious’ (1988: 204). Yet in the end, Silva concluded that ‘the external evidence is so strongly in favor of the omission that the originality of the clause remains doubtful at best’ (1988: 204).

The justification clause was addressed in three significant commentaries on Philippians published in the 1990s. First, Witherington (1994: 86) declared that the reading ‘represents a non-Pauline insertion, for Paul certainly does think he has already been justified in Christ’. Second, Fee (1995: 337 n. 1) argued that the view of the clause’s omission due to its theological difficulty ‘has enormous difficulties to overcome in terms of finding any scribal analogies (especially so early) for such “theologically astute” omissions, especially when it fits so nicely with vv. 8–11’. Fee added that ‘such additions are the well-known proclivities of the Western text, who by adding such a clause quite missed the fact that they gave a meaning to this verb not otherwise known to Paul’ (1995: 337 n. 1). Third, Bockmuehl (1998: 220) joined these scholars in concluding that the clause must have been inserted into the text sometime after Paul: ‘A scribe’s explanatory insertion of this phrase is easily conceivable if he thought that the object of “taking possession” was in fact the righteousness of verse 10. For this reason it is best to give full weight to the strong manuscript support for the text as NA²⁷ has it’.

The most noteworthy editions of the Greek NT published in the twentieth century were those edited by Von Soden (1902–1910), the numerous NA editions, and the UBS editions. None of these editions added any new textual data for the reading, but some of the NA editions included the note ‘(1 K 4,4)’ following the insertion symbol for the reading in the critical apparatus (e.g., NA¹⁵, NA¹⁶, NA¹⁷, NA¹⁸, NA²¹, NA²⁴). Notes directing the reader to ‘see 1 Cor 4:4’ are also included in UBS¹ and UBS³. Although removed from later editions of these works, these notes no doubt affected views that the justification clause must have been inserted into the textual tradition due to the influence of similar language in 1 Cor. 4.4.

While the dominant view still reigned, noteworthy dissent appeared for the first time in the twentieth century. Baumert and López stand out as two critics who went against the tide of scholarly consensus and considered the reading authentic. Others, like Silva, who still aligned with the consensus view highlighted key issues that were previously unspoken. The seeds of a challenge to the consensus view planted in this century would begin to sprout in the next one.

Current Appraisals of the Justification Clause of Philippians 3.12

As the previous sections of this article demonstrate, past appraisals of the justification clause are marked mostly by their exclusions of it from the initial text of Philippians. The long-held consensus that the reading is secondary generally persists among the works of more recent scholarship. As in the past, many in the current century have simply followed earlier explanations for the genesis of the reading, such as the desire to explicate a direct object for ἔλαβον (e.g., Williams 2002: 196 n. 181; Hawthorne and Martin 2004: 203; Bianchini 2006: 105 n. 164; Garland and Longman 2006: 245; Holloway 2017: 171), the eagerness to emphasize the ‘Divine side’ of sanctification (e.g., Cousar 2009: 76; Keown 2017: 190), the possible influence of 1 Cor. 4.4 (e.g., Hawthorne and Martin 2004: 203; Keown 2017: 190), the ‘tendency’ of ‘Western’ scribes to insert additional words into biblical texts (e.g., Sumney 2007: 84), and the suggestion that the reading originated as an explanatory gloss (e.g., Houghton 2016: 174). Early in the twenty-first century, Edart (2002: 233 n. 5) followed Pfitzner by suggesting that ‘the addition is probably due to the desire to harmonize the text with verse 9 which speaks of justification by faith’. Many who continue to proffer these earlier explanations also continue to emphasize the strong external evidence for the absence of the reading (e.g., Sumney 2007: 84; Cousar 2009: 76; Hansen 2009: 250-51 n. 63; Varner 2017: 100).

In 2008, for the first time since López’s short note thirty-three years prior, two scholars joined him in favor of including the reading in the initial text. The first was Comfort (2008: 612-13), who, confessing dissatisfaction with the usual explanations for the textual issue, highlighted the early and somewhat diverse documentary evidence for the reading, the ease of a possible unconscious omission, and the status of the reading as the more difficult one and thus the one most likely to be amended. Comfort argued that exegetical sense could be made of the reading as a Pauline reference to not having yet been justified in a final, eschatological sense. In Comfort’s view, this final, yet-to-come justification, is part of what Paul aspires to, along with everything else mentioned in Phil. 3.8-11. In a more recent work Comfort reiterated his preference for viewing the reading as ‘likely original’ and subsequently ‘deleted because it would have struck scribes as being a non-Pauline statement (inasmuch as Paul proclaimed justification by faith as an accomplished fact throughout his epistles)’ (2015: 349).

During the same year, Reumann (2008: 533-35) gave a name to the reading and translated it into his rendering of the verse. In support of the reading Reumann asserted that ‘in papyri like P⁴⁶ scribes tended to omit rather than add material’ (p. 534), implying that since the clause is present in P⁴⁶ it likely does not reflect a post-Paul insertion into the text. Reumann further noted (1) the argument of López concerning paranomasia; (2) that ‘objections must be considered…against automatic preference in NT text criticism for the shorter reading’ (citing evidence from HB, Pseudepigrapha, and NT texts); and (3) that ‘preference for a shorter text cannot be applied “when the short text can be explained by homoioteleuton fault or other…errors”’ (p. 535, quoting an email from Tjitze Baarda). As for the lack of objects for the verbs of 3.12, Reumann entertained the possibility that the object(s) Paul had in mind constituted everything ‘of which Paul had a foretaste but did not fully possess or have at his disposal’ (p. 553), including ‘Righteousness/justification: the sinner is reckoned righteous, lives righteously, and even is “filled with the fruit of righteousness” (1:11), but has not yet attained the final verdict at the Day of the Lord (confirmation of an earlier declaration)’ (p. 553 n. 13).

Above I noted Witherington’s view in 1994, that the justification clause was inserted after Paul since Paul understood himself to have already been justified. In another commentary on Philippians in 2011 Witherington reemphasized this position. However, in this later commentary he gave the issue further attention:

Is this original to Paul’s discussion or not? On the one hand, Fee points out that omissions based on perceived theological inconsistency are rare. Yet scribes do indeed regularly try to smooth out incongruities in the text, and this might have been seen as one, especially in the post-Constantinian era. Paul has been talking about a future obtaining of resurrection, and it is possible that he would refer to a future or final justification at final judgment (cf. Rom. 2.13; 5.19), something to be distinguished from initial justification or being set right with God by grace through faith. The textual evidence is fairly evenly divided, and P⁴⁶ is a good witness, to say the least; indeed it is our earliest collection of Pauline letters. Both Irenaeus and Ambrosiaster know this reading as well. Perhaps on balance the phrase is a later addition [here Witherington footnotes: ‘But the arguments are evenly balanced’ (2011: 209 n. 108)], but if so, it is one that is consistent with some of the things Paul says about accountability and a final verdict at the judgment after Christ returns. (2011: 209)

Witherington’s comments in this paragraph seem to mirror the slight shift taking place in recent scholarship on the reading. Unlike in his earlier treatment, here he acknowledges such things as the strength of P⁴⁶, the possibility of a theologically-motivated intentional omission, and the possibility that the clause refers to final, future eschatological justification as opposed to initial, past justification. In 1994 Witherington recognized the clause as ‘non-Pauline’; in 2011 he recognized that ‘the arguments are evenly balanced’.

In 2015, Hellerman provided a useful summary of the textual issue in list form (2015: 199-200). Acknowledging the justification clause as ‘a striking variant’, Hellerman listed six reasons why Reumann thinks the clause is ‘original’, followed by four reasons why others dismiss it as ‘a scribal gloss’. Hellerman explicates no commitment to either position, and nothing he presents is new, but his lists make for a good starting place for those interested in a panoramic view of the issue.

The most current and extensive research on the justification clause of Phil. 3.12 has been undertaken by the present writer. In my doctoral dissertation (Giffin 2019) I provided extended analyses of the reading from textual, transcriptional, and exegetical perspectives. Based on these analyses I sided with Baumert, López, Comfort, and Reumann in concluding that the reading deserves a place in the initial text. I argued that an early unconscious alteration due to parablepsis offers the best explanation for its absence from most of the surviving witnesses. Two journal articles based on key portions of the dissertation were published very recently. The first one deals with the reading as it appears in P⁴⁶ (Giffin 2020b). The second one addresses the attestation of the reading in the major Greek-Latin bilingual codices of the Pauline Letters (Giffin 2020a).

The Justification Clause of Philippians 3.12 in an Age of Expanding Goals: Directions for Future Research

A new era has dawned in the field of NT textual scholarship. Whereas past generations of textual researchers were preoccupied almost exclusively with the goal of reconstructing the initial text, scholars working in this discipline today recognize additional lines of inquiry worth pursuing. Presently, the field is trending strongly toward the study of individual manuscripts as artifacts, with researchers showing interest in what these material remains reveal about such things as ancient book production, scribal culture and copying habits, church history, and the social worlds of early and medieval Christianity. This emphasis on manuscripts and their texts as windows into these areas has resulted in an expansion of the focus of the discipline beyond Housman’s classic definition of textual criticism as ‘the science of discovering error in texts and the art of removing it’ (1961: 131). While establishing the initial text remains a key concern of text-critical study, a broadening of this singular goal has now occurred.

This new historical-documentary focus holds possibilities for advancing our understanding of individual readings like the justification clause. I conclude this article by highlighting two such possibilities. First, especially with this reading, one important need is for additional knowledge about the witnesses that attest to it. Increased insight into the manuscripts in which the reading is present, especially including their histories, scribal habits, and whatever genealogical connection these witnesses might share with one another, would result in a clearer picture of why the clause is present among these few witnesses but absent among the majority of the tradition. Ebojo (2014) has produced a thorough study of P⁴⁶, but similar large-scale studies of other key witnesses to this reading are needed.

Another important need with respect to primary sources that a historical-documentary approach can help to address is for more current and reliable editions of the patristic witnesses attesting to the reading. The only published critical edition of De singularitate clericorum is the one produced by Hartel in the CSEL series (1871) and it has not been well received, having been described by Turner as ‘really deplorable’ (1928: 248). For the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum scholars must continue to rely on the edition printed in the PG series (Migne 1857–86: 56.611-946), which according to van Banning (1988: xiv) is only a reprint of an edition produced in 1724. Schlatter highlights the problem with this: ‘Any attempt to analyze the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum must at present be based on an edition whose inadequacies are legion’ (1985: 384). Producing critical editions of patristic works is no small undertaking, but updated editions of these and other witnesses to the justification clause would facilitate more sophisticated analyses of the citations of Phil. 3.12 attested in them.

These two possibilities for future research are merely representative of the additional attention this striking variant reading deserves. Thus far, every analysis of the reading I am aware of (including my own) has assumed a reasoned-eclectic methodological approach to the issue. The historical-documentary approach highlighted above, along with other text-critical methodologies such as thoroughgoing eclecticism and the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), may shed additional light on the justification clause.

Looking back on the state of NT textual criticism in the early 1990s, Ehrman observed in 2011 that ‘most of the interesting textual variants in the tradition had been discussed, rediscussed, considered again, reconsidered yet again, over and over’ (2011: 333). Generally speaking, that is probably true. However, here is a textual variant in which Paul, the champion of ‘justification by faith’, declares he has not yet been justified. That should certainly prove interesting to anyone interested in Pauline theology, but until very recently only one scholarly article (López 1975)—a mere three pages in length and published over 40 years ago—had been devoted to this issue. This suggests there is more work to be done. Those who undertake such work would certainly be justified in doing so.