MEANING OF MOP[Phi]H IN PHILIPPIANS 2:6-7, THE

One can reasonably surmise, in fact, that the plausibility of the ... = condition hypothesis varies in more or less direct proportion to its affinity with the ... hypothesis. For, as we have seen, the ... = condition and the ... hypotheses become functionally equivalent once one presupposes that a being's condition must correspond to its nature. If one rejects this presupposition and thus sets the ... = condition proposal in opposition to the ... interpretation, however, the ... = condition interpretation takes on a docetistic color. If the being who exists in the ... is not necessarily divine, that is to say, then the being who exists in the ... is not necessarily human.

Now an insubstantial conception of Christ's humanity seems alien to the mind of Paul. For the apostle believes that Christ was "born of woman, born under the law" (Gal 4:4); that "there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5); that "as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor 15:21); and, most importantly in this context, that Christ "humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). Any interpretation according to which Paul, as if hesitant to affirm Christ's full humanity, ascribes to Christ no more than a human condition, therefore, lacks verisimilitude. In spite of the arguments for the ... = condition hypothesis, the first and third of which seem relatively cogent, then, the ... = condition construal, insofar as it is not functionally equivalent to the ... hypothesis, appears at least mildly docetistic and, to that extent, improbable.

VI. MOPΦH = OYΣIA

The ... interpretation, the ... = Erscheinungsform construal, the ... = Kraftsfeld proposal, and the ... = condition hypothesis, consequently, all appear implausible to the extent in which they conflict with the ... interpretation. The procedure we have chosen to determine the actual meaning of ... in Phil 2:6-7, viz. process of elimination, thus indicates that the ... hypothesis is probably at least approximately correct. A number of objections, admittedly, might seem to render the ... construal implausible. In the following, however, we shall attempt to show that the principal criticisms leveled at the ... interpretation do not suffice irreparably to impair its credibility.

1. The consensus of exegetes. Critics of the ... hypothesis argue, first, that twentieth and twenty-first century exegetes almost universally reject this interpretation. Sarah Coakley, for instance, asserts that "one striking point of unanimity in the modern New Testament discussion . . . has been the virtual ruling out of a 'dogmatic' or 'metaphysical' reading of Paul's interests in this passage. It is not . . . a prefigurement of second-century Logos speculation . . . let alone a preview of fourth-century Nicaean orthodoxy."65 In Coakley's estimation, "all commentators (or nearly all) concur that it is an anachronism to see Paul or his source expressing anything like the 'two nature' Christology of later Orthodoxy.' "66 According to Coakley, in other words, the ... = ... interpretation is hopelessly out of date and therefore unworthy of serious consideration.