‘One Thing’: Stoic Discourse and Paul’s Reevaluation of His Jewish Credentials in Phil. 3.1–21

Abstract

Biblical scholars frequently discuss Paul’s relationship to his Jewish ancestral practices and heritage, a debate that is due in no small part to his inconsistency on the topic. Although some recent scholars have highlighted statements expressing Paul’s esteem for such credentials, the correct interpretation of his devaluation of them in Phil. 3.1–21 is a lingering scholarly problem. I argue that this text evidences adaptation of Stoic patterns of discourse that indicate that Paul’s devaluation does not depict his repudiation of such practices and credentials but his refusal to compare them to ‘knowing Christ’. His use of these patterns of discourse is designed to establish the first-order value of ‘knowing Christ’ and to model for the Philippians the epistemological evaluation he believed was crucial to their eschatological salvation.

Introduction

Phil. 3 is one instance of a common paradox in Paul’s texts: concurrent positive and negative discourse on Jewish heritage. Binary readings of this passage have often interpreted Paul’s comments as a repudiation of his Jewish credentials and some recent interpreters have argued that this text’s negative discourse references only gentile Judaising and not Jewish practice (Nanos 2015; Fredriksen 2017: 107–13; Collman 2021: 114). These readings struggle to account for aspects of Paul’s discussion on the topic, though. The first interpretation underappreciates the expressions of high esteem for his ancestral practices and heritage that belie Paul’s absolute repudiation of them (Rom. 2.25; 3.2; 9.3–5; 7.12; 1 Cor. 7.18). The second interpretation correctly emphasises that Paul wrote to predominantly gentile communities but neglects the fact that in Phil. 3 he discusses his own Jewish identity. Because Paul clearly valued his heritage and discusses it here with reference to himself (and not just gentiles), how are we to understand his devaluation of Jewish credentials in this text? I argue that Paul recontextualises Stoic patterns of discourse on the ἀδιάφορα in order to establish the first-order value of ‘knowing Christ’ for salvation and to model reserved estimation of his Jewish credentials as practices potentially retaining a second-order value. His disparagement of his credentials in this text is not a repudiation of them but a devaluation of them in comparison to ‘knowing Christ’, which he contrasts with others’ confidence in them, a confidence he regards as a destructive category error. ¹

The First-Order Value of Virtue in Stoic Ethics

The Categories of Virtue and the ἀδιάφορα

The Stoics were renowned for arguing, uniquely amongst the Hellenistic philosophical schools, that only virtue was ‘good’. A. A. Long and David Sedley (1987: 357) call the Stoics’ designation of virtue as the only genuinely benefitting, properly called ‘good’ the ‘bastion of Stoic ethics’. Other schools categorised virtue as one of the goods or argued for its superiority over the conventional ‘goods’ (health, wealth, etc.), but the Stoics famously restricted the label ‘good’ to virtue alone. In their theory, virtue was the only good, vice the only evil, and all else was simply ‘neither’—ἀδιάφορα, the neutral things indistinguishable as virtue or vice and ‘nothing’ in relation to the τέλος (εὐδαιμονία).

This strict restriction of ‘good’ to virtue was argued on the basis of virtue’s ability to benefit unconditionally and reliably. ² According to the Stoics, nothing was ‘good’ if it could be used well or poorly, if it did not invariably benefit. Diogenes Laertius (Vit. 7.103) offers this analogy: as heat’s property is to heating, so good’s property is to benefitting; as heat could never have the effect of cooling, so a genuine good could never harm. ³ Cicero (Tusc. 5.45) gives the image of a heap labelled, for example, ‘wheat’—so labelled, it should not contain a blend of things ‘unlike’ (dissimilia) wheat. Likewise, in the category labelled ‘good’, nothing should be included that might fail to benefit a rational being. The conventional ‘goods’ such as health and wealth, however, were vulnerable to vicious use and could harm rather than benefit.

In Plato’s Euthydemus 279a–282b, Socrates makes similar arguments that many consider to be the forerunner of later Stoic categories (Annas 1994: 54; 1997: 25; Long 1996: 24–32). In this dialogue, Socrates establishes that health, wealth, and other conventional ‘goods’ will only benefit and lead to happiness if they are used well and that such right use is, in fact, wisdom. Because happiness is dependent upon the wise use of such ‘goods’, he concludes that these are not genuinely good or bad and that only wisdom and ignorance should be considered so. Along the way, Socrates highlights, as the Stoics later did, the vulnerability of the conventional ‘goods’ to vice—they could be used for good or bad. As Long (1996: 31) explains, ‘the import of his discussion . . . was that only virtue or wisdom bears the necessary relation to benefitting that anything good, properly speaking, must have: i.e., always benefitting and never harming’. Because health or wealth could be used to harm, they did not unconditionally benefit and were not genuine ‘goods’. Socrates also mentions that some conventional ‘goods’ had properties that rendered them greater ‘goods’ for virtuous ends. However, this potency was not reliably beneficial but volatile—in the hands of the tyrant, wealth was worse than poverty.

The Stoic ethical categories reflect these arguments, with their restriction of ‘good’ to virtue and their emphasis upon the conditionality and unreliability of the conventional ‘goods’. Within the indistinguishable things, the ἀδιάφορα, Zeno also demarcated subcategories; the ‘preferred’ ἀδιάφορα (προηγμένα) and ‘dispreferred’ ἀδιάφορα (ἀποπροηγμένα), which are perhaps based on Socrates’s assertion of the ‘greaterness’ of the conventional ‘goods’. In Stoic terms, wealth was a ‘preferred’ selection but this status was only relevant in comparison to poverty (not virtue), and both poverty and wealth were still fundamentally neutral in relation to εὐδαιμονία. Although the Stoics explicitly state that some ἀδιάφορα elicit impulse (they are not ‘indifferent’ to ethical agents as the English term suggests) and that some of them had properties that rendered them ‘preferable’ in relation to other ἀδιάφορα, their terminological line-drawing with regards to ‘good’ and ἀδιάφορα was designed to upend conventional perception and prevent category errors they considered destructive. In De Officiis 2.88–89, Cicero relays a conversation where Cato is asked to judge the advantage of various aspects of estate management such as raising cattle and crops. Cato obliges with his opinion on various matters until asked about money lending, to which he replies: ‘How about murder?’ Once virtue or vice enters the picture he jumps categories—profit or usefulness is no longer a proper criterion for assessment, and he withholds assent to this suggestion. To evaluate virtue in the same way one evaluated an ἀδιάφορον, or to compare them, was a fundamental category error that prevented moral progress and εὐδαιμονία.

Stoics also used the metaphor of value to discuss the distinction between the genuine goodness of virtue and the ‘preferred’ quality of some ἀδιάφορα. In Stoic theory, value (ἀξία) was associated with what was ‘natural’ so that, while virtue was recognised as what was most natural for a human, other realities could also be deemed ‘natural’ and, thus, holding a different type of value. As Long (1996: 28) explains, in Zeno’s ethics, ‘“value” is the genus of which “good” (ἀγαθόν) and “preferreds” (προηγμένα) are two distinct species’. Stoic texts offer definitions of different kinds of value and are replete with metaphorical language of value in characterising the assessments and selections of the wise and common. ⁴ The definitions of value describe different kinds of value that correspond to the above categories: the first-order value of virtue as a direct contribution to the τέλος and the second-order value of the preferred ἀδιάφορα. ⁵ Long (1974: 192–93) clarifies these aspects of the Stoic ethical structure:

Both virtue and wealth accord with Nature, but they accord with it in different ways. Virtue accords with Nature in the sense that it is the special function or goal of a rational being to be virtuous. . . . This statement is not relative to circumstances. . . . Wealth is a state which is objectively preferable to poverty, but wealth is not something which is the special function of a rational being to possess. The value of wealth is relative to poverty, but wealth has no value relative to virtue. Morally speaking, wealth and poverty are indifferent. . . .

The conventional ‘goods’ held a certain type of value (aestimatio aliqua digna per Cicero, Fin. 3.53), but they were incapable of directly ‘adding’ to the ‘sum’ of happiness (Cicero Fin. 3.44; see Long 2015: 132). Because humans are rational animals, only virtue directly contributed to happiness and, thus, the value of virtue eclipsed the value of the conventional ‘goods’ not by degree but by kind (Cicero, Fin. 3.33–4, 45–48). The distinct kinds of value were characterised as the difference between a step and a months-long journey and the difference between the light of a lamp and the sun, like comparing a drop of honey to the sea or a coin to a fortune (Cicero, Fin. 3.45–48). These arguments had the effect of making the value of virtue and the value of conventional ‘goods’ incommensurable.

At the same time, Annas (1992: 122) points out, these analogies do not suggest utter discontinuity or dissimilarity in kind—rather, they recognise the vastly different weight virtue has in ethical reasoning. Just as the lamp and the sun give light, both virtue and the preferred ἀδιάφορα could be discussed in terms of naturalness. However, to compare a lamp to the sun or to consider a single step to be significant progress on a long journey amounts to a fundamental misunderstanding of these realities. A lamp is a tool designed to light a task while all life is sustained by the light of the sun; a step requires no preparation but a journey can be a massive undertaking. Although each lesser entity shares a similar property with the greater entity, in practical terms they function so differently as to be incommensurable. Just as one might discuss both a prized possession and family with the language of ‘treasuring’, anyone who named a price for their family would be fundamentally, even tragically, misunderstanding what type of thing a family is. In other words, we should refuse, as Cato did, to consider whether virtue or vice is ‘useful’ or even to assess them by the same criteria because, if we do, we have failed to recognise the unique role of virtue for human life.

The Categories’ Application in Ethical Reasoning

Failure to grasp the unique value of virtue was no small matter because, in Stoic thought, no one would attain εὐδαιμονία without this knowledge. As Martha Nussbaum (1987: 141–60) explains, Stoics portrayed the passions and errors common to nearly everyone everyday as miscalculations of value, incessant overestimations of the ἀδιάφορα as ‘goods’, judgments that impeded virtue and, thus, εὐδαιμονία. They argued that when virtue and the conventional ‘goods’ were compared, virtue was destroyed. ⁶ If any of the fickle conventional ‘goods’ were granted the value of good or evil, then the wise man would be subject to fear and cowardice. If pleasure, for example, was regarded as good and pain regarded as evil, then no one could ever find happiness because all are under constant threat of pain and death. More specifically, Stoics argued (Fin. 3.29; Off. 1.66) that the virtues themselves operated by devaluing the conventional goods—for courage to be courage, it required one to despise pain (rather than fear it as an evil). Knowledge, the expertise of the wise, included the skill of assessing impressions, knowing when and in what way to assent to their propositions and when to withhold assent. Stoics were accused of pettifoggery in their use of terms and categories, but they countered that the one who regards these things as goods or evils will inevitably succumb to passions (see Cicero, Tusc. 5.16–17, 83; Fin. 3.29, 42). In other words, their terminological line-drawing and strict distinctions were engineered to support moral progress towards εὐδαιμονία and prevent destructive category errors.

The comment on ‘despising pain’ illustrates a common pattern of discourse in Stoic texts, a pattern of disparaging the ἀδιάφορα. If his pupils realised their kinship with God, says Epictetus (Diatr. 1.3.10–12), they would beg to throw off all the burdensome and vexing externals. Stop admiring the ἀδιάφορα, he urges, and despise (καταφρονέω) them! (Diatr. 1.18.11–22; see also 1.29.3; 2.23.32). Despite their panentheistic physics, which rejected metaphysical dualism, the Stoics’ endorsement of the Socratic elevation of reason resulted in a functional dualism in their ethics that could readily posit a hierarchy of reason over other capacities and realities. In this pattern of discourse, the ἀδιάφορα were denigrated in comparison to virtue in order to reinforce their status as indistinguishable things, neutral in relation to the τέλος. The Stoic on the rack who cries out that his pain is ‘nothing’ strikes both notes: disparaging it in relation to virtue and declaring it neutral in relation to his happiness. ⁷ Although the Stoics could speak in such disparaging terms of the ἀδιάφορα, they used this rhetorical pattern of discourse even while maintaining a second-order value for some of them (the preferred ἀδιάφορα). In one of the starkest examples, Epictetus suggests training oneself in detachment by meditating upon the mortality of family members while kissing them (Diatr. 3.24.84–88). However, despising the conventional ‘goods’ of family, wealth, health, etc. in comparison to virtue did not prevent a Stoic from caring for a household, managing finances, and maintaining their physical well-being. The denigration of these activities and selections in comparison to virtue was not designed to deprive the preferred ἀδιάφορα of all value but to establish and reinforce the first-order value of virtue.

Proper assessment and assent was the virtuous moral orientation of the sage; the ‘right use of impressions’, as Epictetus put it, was his or her ‘moral intelligence at work’ (Long and Sedley 1987: 241). ⁸ The wise would assess the ἀδιάφορα and select the preferred ἀδιάφορα but with reserve—given the inability of all ἀδιάφορα to contribute directly to the τέλος and their vulnerability to misuse, ‘unreservedly positive attitudes are appropriate only in relation to the good’ (Long and Sedley 1987: 358; see also Inwood 1985: 210–12). On the other hand, because virtue constituted the τέλος and (unlike the ἀδιάφορα) was reliably and unconditionally beneficial, there was no disgrace in seeking it by any means available or from anyone, even, Socrates says, enslaving oneself in eagerness to find wisdom (Euthyd. 282a–b). As Epictetus quipped, ‘materials are indifferent but our use of them is not’ (Diatr. 2.5.1).

In Stoic ethical theory, only virtue was genuinely good; the conventional ‘goods’ were indistinguishable as good or evil and regarded as neutral on the basis of their inability to contribute unconditionally and reliably to the τέλος. Stoics discussed these categories with the metaphor of value, attributing second-order value to some ‘preferred’ ἀδιάφορα and arguing that the value of virtue was distinct in kind, not degree. The wise man would unreservedly choose the good, while evaluating and selecting amongst the ἀδιάφορα with reserve towards the same end. Because much moral failure could be understood as the overestimation of the value of preferred ἀδιάφορα (aka the conventional ‘goods’), they stressed the possibility of their misuse, maintained strict categorisation and terminology, and rhetorically disparaged the preferred ἀδιάφορα in comparison to virtue. These Stoic patterns of discourse were not designed to deprive the preferred ἀδιάφορα of value entirely but to maintain category distinctions that supported the epistemological shift in evaluation crucial to moral progress and to prevent destructive category errors. This proper evaluation was necessary to develop the expertise through which one would reach the τέλος of a flourishing life.

The First-Order Value of Knowing Christ in Phil. 3

Stoic discourse is significant for understanding Phil. 3, a text that eminently features the metaphor of value (κέρδος, ζημία). I argue that the value-motif dominates Paul’s argument here because he harbours Stoic-like assumptions regarding different ethical categories of value and the practices useful in upholding such distinctions. Paul uses a financial metaphor, just as the Stoics did, to signal a category error, a ‘mistaken placement of value’ (Sampley 1991: 82). This reading explains the prominence of the metaphor and the shift in tone, features that have often perplexed interpreters of this passage. ⁹ In this text, Paul argues that his orientation to Christ has first-order value because it directly contributes to salvation, his τέλος. ¹⁰ Because ‘knowing Christ’ directly contributes to resurrection, he regards it as the only correct basis for confidence with regards to salvation. The recognition of this first-order value has shifted the value of other things, including his own Jewish practices, into a category like the neutral ἀδιάφορα in his ethical reasoning. He finds others’ confidence in these practices problematic as he does not consider such practices to contribute reliably or independently to salvation as ‘knowing Christ’ does. Although the text suggests that he retains some of the contested practices, his concern here is addressing what he sees as inappropriate reliance, an epistemological posture he believes is only appropriate towards ‘knowing Christ’.

Paul’s comments in chapter 3 are quite personal, but its content builds on themes woven throughout the epistle, especially Paul’s concern to calibrate the community’s values around Christ. In 1.10, Paul prayed that the Philippians would be able to δοκιμάζειν ὑμᾶς τὰ διαφέροντα, a statement that Paul Holloway finds significant for the entire epistle. ¹¹ For him (2017: 5), ‘Paul’s prayer in Phil. 1:10 that the Philippians learn to identify “the things that really matter” evokes [the] theory’ of consolation like that found in Seneca’s letters. ¹² As James Jaquette (1995: 213) explains, ‘an important part of discovering what counts is distinguishing things that do not matter’. Paul can accept his own imprisonment and death (1.12–26) and physical privation (4.10–3), because these things do not ‘count’ in the way that his orientation to Christ does. Jaquette (1995: xiv) describes Paul’s use of the ἀδιάφορα categories as a ‘hedge against mistaken placement of values’. By claiming joy and strength in his own difficult circumstances, Paul attests to the neutrality of such circumstances and asserts the value of his orientation to Christ.

In the same vein, Paul addresses other neutral ἀδιάφορα in chapter 3 that the Philippians must correctly evaluate if their values are to be properly calibrated by their orientation to Christ. Paul’s imperative to ‘rejoice in the Lord’ (3:1), according to Holloway (2017: 14), is meant to ‘confront the Philippians with a philosophical ideal and to urge them to behave in a manner “worthy of the gospel” (1:27)’. The injunctions to ‘rejoice in the Lord’ and ‘stand firm in the Lord’ can be understood as variant expressions of the same concern that governs the section of 3.1–4.1: that the Philippians remain secure in their orientation to Christ and properly rejoice in him by resisting the false values against which Paul warns (Holloway 2017: 147). This implies, inversely, that accepting the mindset of Paul’s analogues would be a failure to rejoice in Christ and potentially destructive—as he warned the Galatians, accepting circumcision on his opponents’ terms could divest them of any benefit from Christ (Gal. 5.2). Paul explains that he writes ‘the same things’ because it will be for them ἀσφαλής, the steadfastness characterising the wise’s knowledge. ¹³ In order to persuade the Philippians to avoid this category error and to estimate the value of ‘knowing Christ’ differently than anything else, Paul employs Stoic criteria and analogies. He argues for the ability of ‘knowing Christ’ to contribute directly to salvation and the inability of his Jewish credentials to do the same, and he uses a metaphorical motif of value alongside athletic imagery to illustrate the appropriate weight the two categories should have in the Philippians’ reasoning.

Warnings Against Category Errors (3.1–6)

Philippians is known as a congenial letter, but after 3.1’s appeal to rejoicing, the tone suddenly shifts with an unexpected warning (3.2). The Philippians must watch out for a group for which Paul gives three descriptors: ‘dogs’, ‘evil workers’, and ‘the mutilation’. Scholars debate the identity and immediacy of this group (see Dunn 1998: 464; Holloway 2017: 148–49) but the reference to κατατομή, a wordplay on circumcision, suggests that Paul has in mind a group advocating this practice. ¹⁴ Paul then eagerly claims ‘circumcision’ for his own community: ‘beware the incision; for we are the circumcision’ (3.3). ¹⁵ Following περιτομή, Paul labels himself and his community with three further descriptors: they are those serving in the spirit of God, boasting in Christ Jesus, and not relying on the flesh. He thus qualifies a well-known Jewish practice in terms that apply to Jesus-believers. ¹⁶ Paul then associates the final, negative descriptor of his community (those not relying upon the flesh) with these figures’ Jewish practices and credentials. Paul emphasizes this notion of reliance upon the flesh, repeating it in three different ways in 3.3–4, indicating that this reliance or confidence is his primary concern. He describes himself as one who simultaneously eschews confidence in the flesh (as part of the ἡμεῖς of 3.3a) but also has capacity for such misplaced confidence (as the singular ἐγώ of 3.4a, c). ¹⁷

Paul proves his capacity for such misplaced confidence with seven credentials in 3.5–6, six of which are unmistakably Jewish. ¹⁸ One of these credentials (ζῆλος), though, has proven contrary to his identity as one who ‘boasts in Christ’ (see also Gal. 1.13–14). Thus, Paul deliberately lists the specifically Jewish practices upon which he and his analogues were inclined to rely. Regardless of whom Paul has in mind with his warning, he considers his own credentials as a Jewish man to be similarly in need of correct evaluation; he deliberately and specifically lists the Jewish practices that had such potential for misplaced confidence in his own life as a Jew. In other words, Paul claims to have ἐν σαρκί credentials like those of this group and the same capacity for confidence in them, but (whatever their identity) the point of distinction Paul wants to make between himself and them is the reliance (πείθω) upon such credentials. ¹⁹ Paul’s opening warning specifies that the threat he perceives to the Philippians’ ability to ‘rejoice in the Lord’ in a way ‘worthy of the gospel’ is a confidence in Jewish credentials, and he warns that those who ‘boast in Christ Jesus’ must not rely upon them. To illustrate the perspective that he enjoins the Philippians to adopt, he explains his shift away from reliance on such credentials with a metaphorical motif.

Paul’s Shift to New Categories of Value (3.7–11)

In another somewhat abrupt move, Paul then explains the manner of rejoicing that he wants his readers to emulate with economic terms. Having identified himself as one laying claim to the credentials at the heart of his dispute, he then adopts a metaphorical motif of value to explain his cognitive shift to one identified amongst οἱ … οὐκ ἐν σαρκὶ πεποιθότες (the ones not relying on the flesh). Paul is unwilling to rely upon such practices because he now considers their value to have shifted relative to knowing Christ. In some contexts, such things were ‘gain’ (κέρδος), but they are now ‘loss’ (ζημία) in relation to the surpassing (ὑπερέχω) value of ‘knowing Christ’.

He states three times some variation of the following statement: these credentials that were a ‘gain’ he now holds to be a ‘loss’ on account of Christ (3.7, 8a, 8b–c). ²⁰ After the initial statement in 3.7 (ἀλλὰ ἅτινα ἦν μοι κέρδη, ταῦτα ἥγημαι διὰ τὸν Χριστὸν ζημίαν), Paul launches into a long, complex sentence. Verse 8a amplifies the statement of 3.7 with emphatic language and an increase in the scope of what is regarded as loss (ἀλλὰ μενοῦνγε καὶ ἡγοῦμαι πάντα ζημίαν) and specifies the purpose of this shift (εἶναι διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου μου). ²¹ Verse 8c reiterates the expanded scope of πᾶς and specifies the type of loss he now regards these credentials to be (σκύβαλον).

Paul then expands upon what he now considers ‘gain’. Having previously specified his new gain of exceeding value as ‘knowing Christ’ in 3.8a, Paul circuitously repeats in 3.10a that ‘to know him’ (τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν) is the result of the gaining and being found that he has elaborated upon in 3.8c–9d (καὶ εὑρεθῶ ἐν αὐτῷ, μὴ ἔχων ἐμὴν δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ νόμου ἀλλὰ τὴν διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ). ²² The delineation is not precise, but the repetition of γνῶσις/γινώσκω seems to indicate that knowledge of Christ is the primary commodity for which Paul is willing to lose all else, with gaining Christ and being found in him as either synonymous with or precursors to that knowledge.

‘Gaining’ and ‘being found’ are followed by a participial phrase indicating that these states are concomitant with having a righteousness that is through faith and pointedly not from the Jewish law. ²³ Presumably, the ‘righteousness from the law’ is the credential that Paul lists for potential, but faulty, confidence in 3.6b (κατὰ δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐν νόμῳ γενόμενος ἄμεμπτος) and that he formerly considered a gain but now considers a loss. This, however, is not the requisite kind of righteousness: such Jewish practice is now regarded by Paul like a loss in comparison to ‘knowing Christ’, which is corollary with a faith-righteousness. Verse 10 supplies the essential components of Paul’s knowledge: Christ, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings (further described as being συμμορφιζόμενος to his death). ²⁴ Verse 11 concludes the sentence that began in 3.8 with a note of hopeful yearning for the very last step in knowing Christ: resurrection.

With this, the description of the value shift is complete, as the previously considered gains are replaced by the newly considered gain: knowing Christ. Several features of this text are pertinent to the argument here. Paul’s adoption of a metaphorical motif of value to discuss his credentials and potential reliance upon them is unexpected and often unexplored (Dunn 1998: 463; the notable exception is Engberg-Pedersen 2015). Why is this the way Paul wants to talk about these credentials and reliance upon them—of the value they have? I argue that the value-motif is prominent in his argument because he shares Stoic-like assumptions regarding the criteria for assessing selections and activities, and he recontextualises these arguments and metaphors for his own purposes. Paul uses a financial metaphor, just as the Stoics did, to describe the category error evident in others’ reliance upon circumcision. He then defends his shift in values by demonstrating that his first-order value—‘knowing Christ’—contributes directly to salvation (alluded to by δικαιοσύνη and ἀνάστασις). In doing so, he notes the inability of his Jewish credentials to do the same, explaining his comparative disvaluing of them—such credentials are unable to contribute directly to salvation as ‘knowing Christ’ does. He isolates the disposition that contributes directly to his τέλος of salvation while noting the inability of his credentials to do the same—this is why relying upon them is problematic. The stark application of the metaphorical motif of value warns against a false value system and establishes the incommensurable (i.e., ὑπερέχω) value of ‘knowing Christ’, which must be weighted differently in the believers’ reasoning. ²⁵ In comparison to this ‘good’, other things—actually, everything—are not just less valuable, but the opposite: loss. The exceeding value of knowing Christ has caused a rearrangement in Paul’s value system so dramatic that nothing else is allowed to be considered valuable in the same way—other types of considerations can be made regarding these things but not the type of consideration that the value of knowing Christ demands. Paul constructs a wide divide between the value of knowing Christ and everything else, with the severe antithesis of his language.

It could be argued that since Paul’s antithesis is so stark—labelling his previously considered gains as σκύβαλα—he is not distinguishing between the first-order value of good and the second-order value of preferred ἀδιάφορα, but between good and evil. However, the capacity of Stoic ethics for a functional dualism should be remembered and some allowance can be made for rhetorical recklessness on the part of Paul and a mild translation of σκύβαλον. Recall that Epictetus spoke of the sage’s need to despise (καταφρονέω) the ἀδιάφορα (Diatr. 1.18.22; 2.23.32). ²⁶ He also illustrates the functional dualism of Stoic rhetoric: only a few paragraphs after commenting on the importance of recognising the secondary value some practices (Diatr. 2.23.30–35), he can call them ‘nothing of value’ (2.23.45; see also 1.2.14; 3.10.18). Although he is more careful than Paul to delineate their neutrality, Epictetus can similarly belittle the ἀδιάφορα: they are like donkeys’ burdens, fetters, cares fit for a worm, and pottery shards that children toss about. ²⁷ Another way he depicts proper evaluation is the sage’s willingness to relinquish all ἀδιάφορα: Diogenes᾽s property and homeland were like things tied onto him, easily loosed (Diatr. 4.1.153). ²⁸ Paul’s depiction of ‘forgetting things behind’ in 3.13 may indicate that this is the kind of posture he has in view, even with the language of σκύβαλον. His credentials are not to be repudiated as evil, but something which may have to be discarded or at least should be held loosely. Certainly, such rhetoric could be misunderstood. Epictetus realises this after he describes a second-order practice as ‘nothing of worth’: ‘When I speak thus to some people they think that I am disparaging (καταβάλλω) . . . [it]. Yet I am not disparaging this, but only the habit of dwelling unceasingly on these matters and setting one’s hopes in them . . . when I see that one thing is highest and supreme (τὸ κράτιστον καὶ τὸ κυριώτατον), I cannot say the same of something else’. ²⁹ In other words, his rhetoric disparaging some ἀδιάφορα (even preferred ones) should not be misread as their renunciation—it was meant to cultivate and reinforce the reserve necessary for correct evaluation. Paul has noted in passing the unreliable nature of two of his Jewish credentials that either brought him into direct conflict with Christ (the zeal of 3.6) or failed to contribute directly to salvation (the righteousness of the law in 3.9). He now counsels reserve towards such credentials and warns, with forceful rhetoric, against any comparison between them and ‘knowing Christ᾽.

It should be noted that the shift is an epistemological one—Paul does not refuse to have the credentials but to regard them in the same way. As Gordon Fee (1995: 316) points out, Paul could have said simply that what was gain is now loss, but the precise nature of the shift (ἡγέομαι) should not be ignored; 3.4–11 is an account of a cognitive transformation. Engberg-Pedersen (2000: 92–94, 35) has argued that this is a normative model similar to the reidentification, in Stoicism, of the self with reason. This Stoic reidentification was a ‘wholly cognitive matter of coming to see oneself (normatively) as a rational being and to understand the specific relation to the world that follows from this’ (Engberg-Pedersen 2000: 95). He views Phil. 3 as Paul’s personal account of his reidentification and a simultaneous normative ‘logic of the call’ that applies to other believers as well. Despite the dramatic shift these credentials have made in comparison to Christ, the epistemological nature of the shift also means that it is entirely possible that Paul retains use of these customs while weighting them differently in his reasoning, as a Stoic would evaluate a ‘preferred’ ἀδιάφορον. This possibility is indicated by Paul’s high regard for such credentials elsewhere, but also suggested by several features of this text. As stated previously, the identification of his communities as ‘the circumcision’ recontexualizes that label for ethical use, but such paradoxical recontextualizations in ancient philosophical ethics did not necessarily favour the dissolution of the practices upon which they parasitically relied. The text also does not seem to describe Paul’s actual loss of the mentioned credentials; it is their ‘being gain’ that is in the past (3.7), and Paul portrays a cognitive shift (ἡγέομαι) towards them, rather than a change of activity or affiliation. ³⁰ That said, Paul certainly did renounce some of the listed credentials—namely, persecuting the church, but he does not discuss the differentiation between items on this mixed list. The status of some ἀδιάφορα as ‘preferred’ and the estimation of their second-order value only applies in comparison to other ἀδιάφορα, never in comparison to first-order value; wealth is ‘preferred’ to poverty but never to virtue. Paul’s concern here is to contrast such—actually, all—credentials with ‘knowing Christ’ and to display the vast dissimilarity between these two categories. He counts them as ‘loss’ on the basis of their (lack of) comparison with ‘knowing Christ’, and he does not undertake comparison amongst the credentials here. The possibility of differentiated value amongst the credentials is left open here, even if there are subtle indications in this text and clearer ones in others that he does, in fact, consider some of these credentials to have second-order value as his own ‘preferred’ ἀδιάφορα.

With different concerns, but a similar constellation of language and metaphor, Epictetus reprimands his students for grief over the loss of preferred ἀδιάφορα. Virtue is the only loss worth considering, he urges—not the loss of money or an injury to your body! You regard (ἡγέομαι) the wrong things as loss; when you lose modesty or dignity, you regard these matters as nothing. ³¹ Avoiding overestimation of the value of ἀδιάφορα is necessary to follow the orders of your commander, Zeus, a preeminent (ὑπεροχή) commander who demands unquestioning obedience (Diatr. 3.24.35–60). One who calls himself a Stoic assesses things for what they are truly worth and pursues the greatest prize, which is virtue itself (Diatr. 3.24.47–53). You must devalue (ἀτιμάζω) external things in your own judgments and avoid regarding (ἡγέομαι) them as your own (Diatr. 3.24.54–6).

Epictetus ascribes value to the preferred ἀδιάφορα while simultaneously refusing them another kind of value and is convinced that evaluation without such category distinctions in mind is an ethical failure. With some similar assumptions, Paul expresses his willingness to lose ἀδιάφορα and no longer rely upon them—the only thing worthy of such confidence is knowledge of Christ. He urges his readers to emulate (3.17) this same value shift in order to ‘rejoice in Christ’; they also must consider ‘knowing Christ’ to have such weight in their considerations that they resist comparing it with anything else, even things that retain another kind of value. Paul warns against reliance upon these credentials, of misplaced confidence in them. In his dramatic use of a value motif that echoes Stoic criteria, analogies, and rhetoric, only ‘knowing Christ’ contributes directly to the end of salvation and thus should be categorised and weighted as first-order value. Paul now articulates the appropriate posture towards ‘knowing Christ’ as the ‘gain’ of first-order value.

The Pursuit Dictated by the New Value System (3.12–16)

Beginning with the climax of 3.11 and through 3.14, Paul focuses on the τέλος, which has necessitated this radical shift in values. The commodity ‘knowing Christ’ is shaped by Christ’s death and reaches its culmination in the resurrection. All of the process Paul has described thus far constitutes ‘knowing Christ’, but he has yet to reach the pinnacle of that process. ³² Verse 12 indicates that the resurrection, when reached, would be the completion or perfection of knowing Christ. ³³ The attaining of the resurrection itself is rephrased as τετελείωμαι, referring to a completion of or arrival at the τέλος. As he has not yet arrived, Paul pursues after grasping its completion (in which, actually, Christ grasps him). ³⁴ In three ways, Paul expresses his pursuit of this goal (the resurrection as the completion of ‘knowing Christ’): he pursues to grasp (what Christ has grasped him for) in 3.12b–c, he stretches forward for what he has not yet grasped (forgetting what is past) in 3.13, and finally reiterates that he pursues after the target towards the prize of the high calling of God in Christ (3.14). ³⁵ The grammar of 3.14 is complex, but some scholars take the genitive phrase τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως as a subjective genitive (i.e., the calling gives or promises the prize). ³⁶ The prize Paul pursues is eschatological salvation (specifically, resurrection), and he argues that the orientation to Christ found in God’s calling constitutes this end. In his clearest statement thus far to this effect, Paul asserts that the orientation to Christ (expressed as ‘knowing Christ’ and, in 3.14, as the ‘calling of God in Christ’) has singular ability to contribute directly towards his τέλος of salvation. If Paul operates with this criterion for first-order value, it suggests an explanation not only for his linguistic choices but also for the close connection between 3.7–11 and the eschatology of 3.12–16, which some find difficult. Paul’s description of God’s calling as ἄνω might also be read to allude to the first-order value of this orientation, giving the modifier a significance that eludes some interpreters. ³⁷

Paul characterises this culminating phase of ‘knowing Christ’ with unmistakably athletic imagery: pursuing, straining to reach, and the prize and target all evoke the athletic contest. With this, he also echoes the Stoics, whose descriptions of the wise’s skill of virtue and ‘use of impressions’ were replete with athletic language. In 3.13, Paul states that he does ‘one thing’: pursue (διώκω) after the target (σκοπός) of the prize (βραβεῖον), which the calling of God in Christ Jesus gives. ³⁸ For Paul, ‘knowing Christ’ constitutes salvation and knowing him entails a pursuit of that salvation so that when he declares he does ἓν (one thing) he cannot help but express this one thing with two conflated things: a target/prize (the actual experience of the resurrection at which he aims) and the singular good of the pursuit itself (the calling of God in Christ/knowledge of Christ that culminates in that target). Perhaps realising that he has departed from the imagery of the race, he returns with βραβεῖον (‘prize’) to conclude the metaphor. Having warned against relying on anything incapable of directly contributing to salvation, and having laid out his own shift in values, he demonstrates the appropriate posture towards his first-order value: unreserved pursuit.

In 3.17–21, Paul closes the chapter by urging his followers to adopt the same pursuit and then cautioning them about those whose τέλος is destruction (not salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ). Rather than the earthly mindset of this group, those following Paul (3.15) have a citizenship in heaven. Like the Stoics imagining a community of the virtuous across political lines, ‘dual citizens’ of both their native cities and of the cosmos, Paul references a higher, coinciding citizenship in order to reinforce his call against erroneous evaluation of political and ancestral conventions. ³⁹ Their orientation to Christ will culminate in transformation of death to resurrection: to Paul’s mind, the stakes of faltering allegiance are high. Finally, his concern that the Philippians ‘rejoice in the Lord’ and remain secure in their orientation to Christ by resisting these false values is once again expressed: this is the way to stand firm in the Lord.

Conclusion

Paul argues that the Philippians must ‘rejoice in Christ’ by, like him, refusing to consider anything else to have comparable valuable or they risk their very salvation. A recontextualization of Stoic ethical categories, arguments, and rhetoric explains key features of this text: the sharp rhetoric, the simultaneous devaluing and retention of his Jewish credentials, the unexpected value motif, the close connection between the value motif and an eschatological τέλος, and the presence of epistemological language and athletic imagery. ‘Evaluating the things that count’ (1.10) towards salvation entailed refusal to esteem Jewish credentials, indeed ‘all’ things’, in the same way. Paul does not repudiate these credentials, but he ceases to regard them as he used to; they have now shifted dramatically in his estimation due to his recognition of the incommensurable value of ‘knowing Christ’. He defends this shift and establishes the first-order value of ‘knowing Christ’ by demonstrating that it alone contributes directly to salvation. In Paul’s view, reliance upon the credentials indicated was a significant category error, and the Philippians’ adoption of this value system would have disastrous consequences for them. At the same time, this interpretation clarifies that Paul’s devaluation of his own Jewish credentials does not necessarily entail their repudiation but instead models the reserved evaluation and use that he believed was appropriate to everything except ‘knowing Christ’. Elsewhere, Paul clarifies the second-order value these credentials retain for him, but his rhetoric here is driven by concern for the Philippians’ progress in the gospel. Paul does not warn the Philippians against Jewish ‘legalists’, and he does not here address only gentile Judaising; he models a refusal to rely upon anything—even his own Jewish credentials—for salvation except ‘knowing Christ’. As a Stoic could call his family ‘nothing’ compared to virtue but advocate duties to the same as ‘valuable’, Paul could call his own credentials and practices ‘rubbish’ while esteeming them. Like the Stoics, with their single entry in the category ‘good’, Paul warned the Philippians that relying upon Jewish credentials for salvation was a perilous miscalculation since these did not directly contribute to salvation; he insisted that only ‘knowing Christ’ saved and they must, like him, do this ‘one thing’ (ἕν).