Despite a growing consensus that Paul wrote Philippians from Ephesus, there are still some who argue that he wrote the letter while imprisoned in Rome. These arguments rely on interpretations of Paul’s phrase in Phil. 1.13 (ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ πραιτωρίῳ) as ‘Praetorian Guard’ or ‘Imperial Guard’, that is, as a reference to the Roman emperor’s personal bodyguard in Rome. Flexsenhar explains the methodological problems with the Praetorian Guard interpretation, especially the misuse of canonical Acts. Then drawing from textual and lexicographical evidence along with material evidence, notably from Philippi’s sister colony at Dium, Flexenshar shows that Paul’s key term πραιτώριον (Phil. 1.13) referred to a common provincial building with various functions not limited to official, administrative work. This article thus argues that Philippians was written from the province of Asia, though not necessarily from Ephesus.
Since the 1990s, scholars have increasingly moved away from a Roman provenance and considered Ephesus as the more likely point of origin (See Thielman 1995: 19; Thurston and Ryan 2005: 30, 57; Murphy-O’Connor 2008: 220; Hansen 2009: 21-24).
The views of patristic writers were still mixed on the provenance of Philippians. In general, see Curran 1945. See Origen of Alexandria (185–254 ce), Comm. Rom. praef. Migne, PG vol. 14, col. 834 B-C. The Muratorian Fragment, traditionally dated to as early as 170 ce, puts Paul’s letter to the Philippians ‘third’ in the list of letters to seven churches, that is, prior to Galatians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Romans (‘seventh’). The Fragment does not attach a provenance. But at the very least, the placement of the letter much earlier in the chronology of Paul’s corpus would suggest that it, too, views Philippians as a letter not written while Paul was imprisoned in Rome at the end of his life. If the fragment dates to the fourth century and from the East (Hahneman 1992: 4) it only shows how the tradition was still unsettled much later.
Now the weight of the two pivotal verses (1.13 and 4.22) has flipped. Today hardly anyone thinks that Paul’s expression ‘Caesar’s household’ (4.22) meant the palace of the Roman emperor in Rome or his biological family, as many Late Antique commentators did. Most scholars now say that ‘Caesar’s household’ referred to the emperor’s slaves and freedmen in the imperial bureaucracy, commonly referred to as the familia Caesaris. It has also long been recognized, thanks in large part to the fieldwork of Adolf Deissmann in 1906 and 1908, that imperial slaves as well as freedmen were present throughout the empire, at Ephesus and not just in Rome (Deissmann 1927: 160. Familia Caesaris (Καίσαρος οἰκία) is an ancient phrase that appears in literary and epigraphic attestations as a designation for a discrete group of imperial slaves living and working in a particular area. One example of a familia Caesaris dates to 55 ce and comes from the Greek East, in Paul’s immediate vicinity: CIL 3.7380 = ILS 5682 = IK 19.29. The inscription is from the Hellespont, the peninsula connecting the provinces of Asia and Macedonia. See also NSA 1916, 395; AE 2007, 222; CIL 12.449. See also Frontinus, De aquaeductu 116-17 and the comments of Weaver 1972: 48, 299-300).
The argument for a Roman provenance thus can no longer rest on the claim that the ‘natural’ setting of ‘Caesar’s household’ (4.22) was in Rome (Silva 2005: 210. Reicke 1970: 285-86; Fee 1995: 459; Witherington 2011: 287; Holloway 2017: 23. Though some have tallied, as it were, the number of extant inscriptions from imperial slaves or freedpersons in Rome to make such a case, this is a superficial – and methodologically dubious – way to find Paul in Rome. Imperial slaves and freedmen are known principally from their epigraphy. The imperial capital was the epicenter of the epigraphic habit. It has retained all known inscriptions by a wide margin. See Beltrán Lloris 2015: 137-40). Instead, the importance of the term praetorium (1.13) for deciphering the letter’s provenance has grown
Problems with a Roman Provenance
The hermeneutical-textual problem is that, at its core, the Praetorian Guard interpretation developed by Lightfoot actually conflates Acts 28.16 and Phil. 1.13. More problematic, the text of Acts 28.16 which Lightfoot used to interpret Phil. 1.13 as a reference to the Praetorian Guard states that, when Paul arrived in Rome, he was delivered over in chains to the ‘prefect of the praetorians’ (στρατοπεδάρχη/ω), that is, the head of the Praetorian Guard in Rome. But this text of Acts 28.16, as even Lightfoot himself admits at the end of his note, is a ‘rejected’ textual variant.16 The now-preferred reading of Acts 28.16 makes no mention of ‘praetorian’ at all but refers only to a στρατιώτης – the generic term for soldier. The oldest witness of the now-rejected textual variant (Acts 28.16) used by Lightfoot – the seventh-century Syriac edition by Thomas of Heraclea, the so-called Harklensis – is itself a conflation of Acts 28.16 and Phil. 1.13. Far from serving as an independent witness to Paul’s custody under the Praetorian Guard, this manuscript variant in Acts seems to reflect a later, self-conscious effort to harmonize Acts with Phil. 1.13 and to do so at the level of the biblical manuscripts themselves.17 In other words, the Praetorian/Imperial Guard interpretation of Phil. 1.13 has not only conflated Acts 28.16 and Phil. 1.13 but, from its inception, has conflated the two using an inferior textual witness.
The blending of Phil. 1.13 with the rejected textual variant of Acts 28.16 has continued to influence interpretations of Paul’s use of the term πραιτώριον (Phil. 1.13). Some current works still read Phil. 1.13 and Acts 28.16 together as a single reference to the Praetorian Guard. The conflation of the two verses has fueled the historical problems.
One of the most recent manifestations comes from a book by the classicist Sandra Bingham entitled The Praetorian Guard: A History of Rome’s Elite Special Forces (2013). In this book, Bingham emphasizes that the principal purpose of the Praetorian Guard was to secure the emperor’s personal safety. It is in cases that required a high degree of security or involved members of the nobility that the Praetorian Guard appears most frequently. When involved with legal trials, Bingham says, the praetorians guarded persons who posed political threats to the emperor himself (e.g., Mithridates III) or could muster coups d’états (e.g., Valerius Asiaticus). Tiberius Julius Mithridates was a client king of the Bosporan Kingdom. He was dethroned by Claudius and subsequently rebelled (Tacitus, Ann. 12.15-21). Valerius Asiaticus was a wealthy consul charged with corruption of the military, adultery with Poppaea Sabina – the future wife of Nero – and sexual effeminacy (Tacitus, Ann. 11.1; see Bingham 2013: 89). The Praetorian Guard also had to staff the prison called the Castra Praetoria – a high security prison for political menaces. Most of those kept there were, again, high-profile prisoners such as Herod Agrippa (Bingham 2013: 93-94). According to Josephus, while riding on the back of a chariot through Rome with his friend and confidant Gaius Caligula – the future emperor – Agrippa shared his ‘prayer’ with Gaius that the emperor Tiberius ‘would soon die’ (Ant. 18.186-204).
Apparently, he spoke too loudly. The chariot driver overheard, and Tiberius was soon informed. Agrippa was then accused of seditious speech and, in 31 ce, he was taken by the Praetorian Guard on the orders of Tiberius. It was only because of Agrippa’s status as a prince, his close relationship with a potential heir to the throne in Caligula, his place as a guest in the imperial house in Rome, and his frequent access to Tiberius himself that made him a sufficient threat to warrant the Praetorian Guard. In sum, based on the historical comparanda that Bingham presents, all of the tasks in which praetorians were active ‘involved members of the upper classes of Roman society and almost all of the examples are political in nature’ (2013: 89).
And yet, despite these comparanda, Bingham writes in an endnote that another example of the Praetorian Guard guarding individuals is ‘Paul the apostle (under Nero; see Acts 28.16 and Philippians 1.12 [sic])’.19 This instance of conflation is particularly noteworthy because, in a vicious cycle, New Testament scholars who seek to illuminate the historical context of Philippians authoritatively cross-cite Bingham’s work on Roman history as evidence that the apostle Paul was imprisoned under and guarded by the Praetorian/Imperial Guard in Rome. Paul Holloway’s recent commentary on Philippians does just that.20 Bingham’s interpretation of Paul’s situation is not isolated, however. In Policing the Roman Empire (2012), Christopher Fuhrmann likewise describes the role of the Praetorian Guard in the imperial policing of Italy. The praetorian prefects of the early empire, says Fuhrmann, arrested and interrogated suspected enemies of the state, and early emperors also used their praetorian prefects to process arrested individuals from the provinces. Supposedly one such individual was Apollonius of Tyana. The emperor Trajan also later asked the proconsul Pliny to send an unnamed man to his praetorian prefects in chains (vinctus) because he was found in Bithynia despite a previous sentence of banishment from the province. These examples lead Fuhrmann to state: ‘The apostle Paul may have also been handed over to the prefect after his arrival in Rome, where he was guarded by a soldier’. Such a statement already assumes a Roman context. As evidence for the proposal, Fuhrmann cites ‘Phil. 1:13 and Acts 28:16’ along with ‘1 Clement §5 (late first century)’ (2012: 137 and n. 60). Here Fuhrmann not only conflates Phil. 1.13 and Acts 28.16 to make a historical argument about Paul’s possible fate in Rome, but connects this argument to martyrdom traditions about Paul in the late first century (1 Clement).
On the other hand, apart from the rejected textual variant of Acts 28.16, the deeper problem with many historical reconstructions of Paul’s situation is the tendency to read Philippians alongside canonical Acts as if they form one harmonious historical account.23 Synthesizing these two New Testament texts has become so ingrained that it is almost second nature. In the opening comments on the provenance of Philippians, for instance, Holloway states without qualification that ‘Paul is in prison awaiting trial on potentially capital charges’ and then that ‘Philippians requires’ a lengthy imprisonment ‘in anticipation of a capital trial’ (2017: 19, 21). This is not the case. It is only Acts that mentions Paul’s Roman citizenship. It is only Acts that mentions an appeal to Caesar. And it is Acts that mentions a ‘trial’ and a lengthy detainment, not Philippians. Paul himself never mentions Roman citizenship, and he never mentions an appeal (ἐπικαλεῖν) to Caesar. And following the undisputed Pauline letters, Paul never mentions a legal trial (κρίσις). Moreover, the ‘fact’ that Paul was a prisoner of the Imperial Guard, Holloway says, supports Acts’ claim that Paul was sent to Rome on political charges (2017: 87 n. 21). But this is circular reasoning. The whole idea of Paul as a prisoner of the Praetorian/Imperial Guard in Rome is based on a synthetic reading of Acts and Phil. 1.13, while it is only Acts that gives information about political charges against Paul that would bring him to Rome in the first place.24 Indeed, the entire notion that Paul was in custody in Rome, or that Paul had even set foot in Rome, relies exclusively on later, non-Pauline sources like Acts (23.11; 28.14, 16), 2 Timothy (1.17; 4.16) and the late-second-century text the Martyrdom of Paul.
The historical disconnect between canonical Acts and Philippians is also apparent in other aspects, though these are often overlooked. Acts never states that when Paul was in Rome he was imprisoned, chained or in a praetorium. Acts never says that Paul was under the watch of the Praetorian Guard – at least not in the superior readings of the manuscripts. Instead, Acts uses the same word as Paul does (πραιτώριον), only not for guards in Rome, but for a provincial, administrative building, namely Herod’s praetorium (Acts 23.35).25 And contrary to what Paul himself says in Philippians about his plight in ‘chains’ (δεσμοί; 1.7), Acts does not even use the word ‘chains’ to describe Paul’s situation in Rome! In fact, Acts envisions that Paul was not in prison at all but in ‘a rented lodging’ (ξενία; 28.23) where he could receive or entertain guests.
That a Roman provenance for Philippians requires the use of other sources like canonical Acts, even though Acts still does not agree with Philippians, in my view only strengthens the case for an Ephesian provenance. It has often been stated that the particular problem with an Ephesian provenance for Philippians is that neither canonical Acts nor the Pauline letters explicitly mentions an imprisonment in Ephesus.26 But the Paul of the undisputed Pauline letters never states precisely where any of his imprisonments occurred, though, based on 2 Cor. 11.23, it is clear that they occurred in the Roman East. In the absence, therefore, of Paul’s own explicit statements about his exact location, it seems dubious to argue for a Roman imprisonment and provenance for Philippians by adding details from Acts.27 The case for an Ephesian or, more correctly, Asian provenance of Philippians is simpler. It requires only the Pauline sources.28
The final problem with a Roman provenance for Philippians concerns ancient terminology. Even if a praetorian Guard or a praetorian prefect arrested and interrogated enemies of the state, perhaps like Paul was, even if they processed arrested individuals from the provinces, perhaps like Paul was, and even if this is the scenario that Acts evokes, we still arrive at a dead end. Neither Paul nor Acts uses the recognized terms for Praetorian Guard or praetorian prefect. As is well known, Paul uses the neuter singular form of the word πραιτώριον (ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ πραιτωρίῳ), a Greek loanword from the Latin praetorium. On its own, as Holloway rightly notes, πραιτώριον would most naturally refer to a building, since words ending in the neuter singular -(ε)ιον regularly refer to buildings.29 By contrast, had Paul wanted to signify guards in Rome or even in Ephesus, a form of the word πραιτώρια would be most appropriate,30 though a form of πραιτωριανός/οί could also work.31 Several examples from Philippi demonstrate this. An honorary inscription dating to about 96 ce calls Lucius Tatinius Cnosus a ‘soldier of the fourth praetorian cohort’ (militi cohortis IIII pr(aetoriae)).32 Sometime after 138 ce, another inscription went up in Philippi for a veteran of the second Jewish War, named Decimus Furius Octavius, who is recorded as a soldier of the tenth urban cohort, transferred into the sixth praetorian cohort (miles coh(ortis) X urbane, translat(us) in coh(ortem) VI pr(aetoriam)).33 More exemplary, the small copper coins struck at Philippi during the first century ce show on the reverse three military standards bearing the legend COHOR PRAE PHIL or PHILIP, which expands to Cohors Praetoria Philippensium – a Praetorian Cohort at Philippi, i.e. a commander’s bodyguard.34 Note that these terms – all variants of the Latin praetoria (Gk. πραιτώρια) – are different from Paul’s term πραιτώριον.