The Philippians did not require, and therefore did not receive, the same elaborate warnings as the Asiatic churches.
He had previously written his commentaries on the epistles to the Galatians (1865), Philippians (1868) and Colossians (1875), the notes to which were distinguished by sound judgment and enriched from his large store of patristic and classical learning.
The first consists of seven letters addressed by Ignatius to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrnaeans and to Polycarp. The second collection consists of the preceding extensively interpolated, and six others of Mary to Ignatius, of Ignatius to Mary, to the Tarsians, Antiochians, Philippians and Hero, a deacon of Antioch.
Rome would be a more natural rendezvous for fugitivarii (runaway slaves) than Caesarea (Hilgenfeld and others), and it is probable that Paul wrote this note, with Philippians and Colossians, from the metropolis.
Furthermore, the relations between the Philippians and himself presuppose, on any fair estimate, an interval of time which cannot be crushed into a few months.
