With Friends Like These...: A Feminist Rhetorical Reconsideration of Scholarship and the Letter to the Philippians

Abstract

Interpreters of Philippians have often seen this letter as one of Paul’s friendliest, turning to friendship terminology from the wider Greco-Roman world to develop their arguments. This move, however, requires a reevaluation of the rhetorics in both scholarship and the letter. This reconsideration is achieved, in part, by surveying what was involved in ancient friendship, especially as it was developed by and for elite aristocratic males. In the political realm, ‘friendship’ is intertwined with patronage and the justification for specific interstate relations of domination. Comprehending and analyzing this hierarchical aspect should lead, then, to a similar approach to Paul’s use of friendly terminology in Philippians, a task as yet not taken up by most interpreters.