"to die is Gain" (Philippians 1:19-26): Does Paul Contemplate Suicide‪?‬

Although much of the world's great religious literature has probably been composed in quiet monasteries and well-appointed studies, prison cells have been the unlikely site of noteworthy writing too. Over three hundred years ago, John Bunyan wrote the classic Pilgrim's Progress from a jail cell in Bedford, England. In the twentieth century one can point to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all of whom wrote letters from prison cells. Although circumstances of confinement, deprivation, and mortal jeopardy do not by themselves make a saint out of a rogue nor a literary artist out of a rube, they can help those already possessing religious and literary sensitivities to perceive what is essential, and they certainly provide ample time for its contemplation. Bunyan wrote from Bedford; Bonhoeffer from Berlin; King from Birmingham; and Paul wrote his Epistle to the Philippians from Rome ... or Ephesus ... or perhaps Caesarea. The provenance of Paul's letter to the Philippians is a matter of some debate. (1) Its date is likewise uncertain, with suggestions ranging from 50 C.E. to the early 60s depending on the place of composition. But wherever and whenever this epistle was written, it bears the marks of correspondence from prison. This is most evident in Paul's explicit mention of his "chains" four times in the first chapter (1:7, 13, 14, 17), but imprisonment is also consistent with Paul's wrestling with his own mortality, the prospect of his death, and the continuance, or perhaps the termination, of his life's work. In a brief passage, Phil 1:19-26, Paul reflects on these "big questions" that are at the same time universal and yet intensely personal. In doing so, he verges on solilo- quy, penning thoughts that sound more appropriate in a diary than in a letter to a congregation. (2)