Philemon was a dear and intimate friend of St. Paul (νν."" 3), and probably one of his converts (y.¥*). Of the circumstances of his conversion to the Christian faith we have no record, but it may well have taken place during St. Paul’s stay at Ephesus (Ac 19%; but ef. also Ac 16°). From the facts that he owned slaves (see ONESIMUS), and that he was noted for his hospitality and charity to his fellow-Christians (vy.**’), it is plain that he was a rich man. St. Paul speaks of ‘the church in his house’ (v.?), and does not scruple to bid him prepare a lodging for him against the time he should arrive in Colosse (ν.33). It only remains to be added that Philemon was so earnest in his work for the gospel, that St. Paul can call him a συνεργός (was this at Ephesus?), and that the tone of the apostle’s appeal on behalf of Onesimus would lead us to conclude that he was a man of high and generous character, who might be ex- a to rise superior to the prejudices of heathen-
om as to the relations between master and slave. APPHIA may have been his wife, and ARCHIPPUS his son. J. H. BERNARD.
* 1379 in Muralt, Chronographie Byzantine, tro: take the preceding dates, 1306 and 1394. sa) tia
PHILEMON, EPISTLE TO.—
i. External tradition.
ii. Transmission of text. iii, Purport and analysis of the Epistle. iv. Its internal evidence and genuineness, y. Its place in St. Paul’s life. vi. Its attitude to slavery.
i. The earliest certain quotations from this Epistle are found in Origen (cf. Hom. xix. in Jer. 2, Comm. Series in Matt. §§ 66, 72), who expressly ascribes it to St. Paul. That Marcion accepted it is explained by Tertullian (adv. Mare. y. 21) as due to its extreme brevity. The Mura- torian Canon names among the Pauline Epp. ‘ad filemonem unam.’ Eusebius counts it among the ὁμολογούμενα (HE iii. 25). It must have been included, if we are to judge from the extant documentary evidence, in the earliest collection of Pauline letters. The psy upon words (εὔχρηστος . . « Gxpnoros) of v.2 is found again in Theophilus (ad Autol. i. 1), and Ignatius ( ‘te ii., Magn. ii.) uses ὀναίμην as it is used in Philem 39, but these last coincidences do not necessarily betray literary connexion, though they suggest it.
ii. The text of the Epistle is attested by the uncials § A C Ὁ Τὶ P ἃ (this last unpublished) and F G (these omit v.7-end); and by the Egyp- tian, Syriac, and Latin VSS (of the OL we have defgm). Of the cursives it is sufficient to mention 17, 47, 67", 137 as specially valuable.
iii. This Epistle differs from all the other Pauline Epp. which have reached us, in that it is a strictl private letter written to an individual friend. It is possible, though not certain, that the words ἐγὼ Παῦλος ἔγραψα τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί (ν.19) apply to the whole letter, which would thus have been an autograph, and not written by an amanuensis, as was St. Paul’s usual habit. The Pastoral Epp., although addressed to individuals, are semi-oflicial in char- acter, and deal with the affairs of the whole Chris- tian society; the nearest parallel in the NT to Philemon is 3 Jn, addressed to ‘Gaius the beloved.’ This characteristic of Philemon provoked prejudice against it in early times, and Jerome, Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia found it necessary to defend the Epistle against the charge of secular triviality, unworthy of St. Paul, and unbefitting, as was argued, a work to be included in the sacred Canon of the NT. But modern critics from Luther to Renan have shown a keener insight, and have found in the contents of the Epistle matter for admiration rather than for depreciation.
The body of the letter is an appeal made by St. Paul to PHILEMON, a citizen of Colosse, on behalf of ONESIMUS, a runaway slave who had come under the apostle’s influence and had em- braced the Christian faith. Onesimus seems (v.}8) to have been a thief, and would in the ordinary course of things have been subjected to very severe ἀπε πέσεν had he come again into the power of
is former master Philemon. The apostle, with rare tact and delicacy, which only bring his strong sense of justice into fuller relief, asks pardon for the offender, not only as a personal favour to himself (vy.%4-14), but on the ground of the brotherhood in Christ of master and slave (v.*). He does not ask directly that Onesimus shall be freed, although he indirectly suggests it (v.™); ‘the word emancipation seems to ie trembling on his lips’ (Lightfoot).
An analysis of the letter may be drawn up as follows: — Salutation (νν.1.3); thanksgivina for Philemon’s love and faith (vv.*7) ; request that he will receive Onesimus, the bearer of the letter, with kindness (γν. 5.17) ; adding the assurance that, so doing, he will gratify the writer, who hopea soon to visit Colosse (vv.'8 2); salutations and final benediction (vv.%-*),
PHILEMON, EPISTLE TO
The whole Epistle has frequently been compared to a beautiful letter written by the younger Plin on 8 similar occasion (Plin. Ἢ ix. 21), of whic a translation is given by Lightfoot (Col. and Philem. p. 316).
iv. Considerable as is the external testimony (see i.) to the Pauline authorship of this Ep., the strongest argument for its genuineness is based on its internal evidence of truth, its witness to itself. ‘Peu de pages,’ says Renan, ‘ont un accent de sincérité aussi prononcé. Paul seul a pu écrire ce petit chef d’euvre.’ The vocabulary of the Ep. has indeed been challenged in refutation of this general impression which it leaves upon the mind, and has been described, ¢.g. by Baur, as un-Pauline. As a matter of fact, the only words which do not occur again in St. Paul are ἀναπέμ- wew, ἀποτίνειν, ἄχρηστος, ἐπιτάσσειν, tevla, ὀνίνασθαι, and προσοφείλειν ; and of these all but the last occur elsewhere in the NT or in the LXX.* No serious argument can be based on such a meagre list; and, on the other hand, many phrases in the letter are unmistakably Pauline. Not to lay overmuch stress on the form of salutation (v.*), and farewell (v.%), and the opening thanksgiving (vv.*%), which are in St. Paul’s undoubted style, for these pee be imitated by a falsarius, the diction all through is that with which we are familiar in the Pauline Epistles. We have the metaphor ὃν ἐγέννησα ἐν τοῖς δεσμοῖς which recalls 1Co 4°; we have words like ἐπίγνωσις, παῤῥησία, παράκλησις ; we have τάχα which only occurs again Ro 57; and we have quite a number of coin- cidences with Eph, Col, Ph; e.g. cf. δέσμιος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ (vv.! and *) with Eph 31, συνεργός and συστρα- τιώτης (vv.-*) with Ph 2”, ἀνῆκον (v.°) with Eph 5* Col 3%, συναιχμάλωτος (v.) with Col 4”, and ἀδελφὸς ἀγαπητός (v.!®) with Eph 6% Col 47. On the whole, not only does the artless style of the letter power- fully support its claim to be genuine, but the