What Does Philippians 1:13 Mean?

(13) **My bonds in Christ are manifest.**—Properly, *My bonds are made manifest as in Christ*—*i.e., *my captivity is understood as being a part of my Christian life and work, and so becomes a starting-point for the preaching of the gospel. So St. Paul made it to the Jews (Acts 28:20), “For the hope of Israel am I bound in this chain.” (Comp. Ephesians 6:20, “I am an ambassador in bonds.”) **In all the palace, and in all other places.**—The word “palace” is *prætorium.* It is elsewhere used in the New Testament: first, of the palace of Pilate; in Matthew 27:27, Mark 15:16, apparently, of the soldiers’ guardroom, or barrack; in John 18:28; John 18:33; John 19:9, of “the hall of judgment;” and next in Acts 23:35, of the “judgment hall of Herod,” evidently forming a part of the palace of Felix. (It may be noted that coincidence with this last passage is the chief, and almost the sole, argument for the untenable idea that this Epistle belongs to the Cæsarean and not the Roman captivity.) Its sense here has been disputed. It has been variously interpreted as the emperor’s palace, or the praetorian barrack attached to it, or the prætorian camp outside the walls. Its original meaning of “the head-quarters of a general” would lend itself well enough to any of these, as a derivative sense. The first or the second sense (which is virtually the same) is the interpretation of all ancient commentators, and suits best with the mention of “Caesar’s household” in Philippians 4:22, but not very well with the historical statement in Acts 28:16-30, that St. Paul dwelt “in his own hired house,” “with a soldier that kept him.” The other sense suits better with this last statement, and also with the delivery of the prisoner “to the captain of the guard,” *i.e., *literally, *the commander of the camp, *or *prætorian prefect, *and perhaps with abstract probability in the case of an obscure Jewish prisoner. But the difficulty is that, although the word might be applied to any of these places, yet, as a matter of fact, it is not found to be so applied. Moreover, we notice here that the words “in all other places” are an inaccurate rendering of a phrase really meaning “to all the rest” (see marginal reading). The connection therefore seems even in itself to suggest that the “prætorium” may more properly refer to a body of men than to a place. Accordingly (following Dr. Lightfoot), since the word “prætorium” is undoubtedly used for the “prætorian guard,” it seems best to take that sense here. “My bonds” (says the Apostle) “are known in all the prætorian regiments”—for the soldiers, no doubt, guarded him by turns—“and to all the rest of the world, whether of soldiers or of citizens.” This would leave it an open question where St. Paul was imprisoned, only telling us that it was under praetorian surveillance;