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and “grandiose.”36 Brian Dodd and others have rejected Fortna’s interpretation,37 and while Dodd does associate Paul’s use of himself as an example with the paraentic purposes of the letter, he does not think that Paul presents himself as a reflection of Christ’s example as set forth in the hymn.38 According to Dodd, Paul’s ethical example is grounded in the soteriological implications of the hymn. “Paul is not simply lining up ‘like behaviors’: Christ models the Christian life, Paul mirrors Christ’s example, and the Philippians are to follow suit.”39 Rather, Dodd suggests that Paul presents himself as a person whose life has been transformed as a result of what Christ has done, and Paul, by his teaching and by his behavior, models for the Philippians what is possible for those who are also in Christ. Dodd prefers to describe the relationship of Paul’s example to Christ’s as an “analogy” or “correspondence.” Christ is the “archetype” for both Paul and the Philippians, while Paul is their “type” because they are all “in Christ.”40 Whether Paul was aware of the analogy or not, the letter reveals a correlation between the story of Christ as set forth in the hymn and Paul’s understanding of his own vocation as disclosed in the self-references found throughout the letter. At the very outset of the letter, Paul refers to himself as a servant (or slave) of Christ (1:1). As previously noted herein, Paul omits any reference to himself as an apostle and makes no claim to authority except as a servant of Christ. Paul speaks of the possibility of his own death and his willingness to be “poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith” (2:17). In the brief autobiographical sketch of 3:4-10, Paul describes the advantages of his earlier life: “confidence in the flesh . . .a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews . . . as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (3:4-6). Yet, Paul’s life has undergone a radical change because of Christ, and he now regards as “loss” the very things that he had previously thought to be “gains.” All of his past privileges and anything else in which he may have put his confidence in the past he now considers to be “rubbish” because of the “surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus.” Paul has voluntarily “suffered the loss of all things” so that he may “gain Christ and be found in him” (3:7-9). Paul’s goal is “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection,” and to share in his sufferings “by becoming like him in his death” (3:10). 36 Robert T. Fortna, “Philippians: Paul’s Most Egocentric Letter,” in The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul & John In Honor of J. Louis Martyn, ed. Robert T. Fortna and Beverly R. Gaventa (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 220-230. 37 Dodd, Paul’s Paradigmatic ‘I’, 176. Cf. O’Brien, “The Gospel and Godly Models,” 278-280. 38 Dodd, Paul’s Paradigmatic ‘I’, 193ff. See also, Brian J. Dodd, “The Story of Christ and the Imitation of Paul in Philippians 2-3,” in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2, ed. Ralph P. Martin, Brian J. Dodd (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 154ff. 39 Dodd, “The Story of Christ and the Imitation of Paul,” 160. 40 Dodd, Paul’s Paradigmatic ‘I’, 194.