Address and Salutation
Excerpt
Paul opens his letter to the Philippian church in his usual fashion, by adapting the standard Hellenistic letter format in a distinctively Christian way. Where modern letters would address the recipient at the beginning (‘Dear Jane’) and name the sender only at the end (‘Yours, John’), ancient letters normally began by naming first the sender and then the recipient, and then adding a greeting. A good example of this is Acts 23:26: ‘Claudius Lysias to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings [Gk. chairein].’ We have many other examples of this in the Bible (Ezra 7:12; Dan. 4:1) and elsewhere (note 2 Macc. 1:10; 2 Bar. 78.2 and see J.L. White 1986 and Stowers 1986). (Letters then might often end, as does Acts 23:30 in variants, with ‘Good health/farewell’ (errôsthai)).
Paul and other apostolic writers altered this form in a variety of ways, thereby considerably lengthening the letter prescript. Paul typically modifies both the sender and the addressee and offers a distinctively effusive greeting…
Bockmuehl, Markus. The Epistle to the Philippians. London: Continuum, 1997. Print. Black’s New Testament Commentary.
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