verse, as Wieseler inadvertently supposes. Theodoret
(/ 'inoiii.ii/ Epist.ad Phil.) states the ancient opinion in saying thai Philemon was a citizen of c.il.>ssa\ and that. his house was pointed out there a- late as the 5th cen- tury. The legendary history supplies nothing on which we can rely. It is related that Philemon became bishop ..1 < lolossse (( 'onstit. Apost. \ ii. 16), and died as a mart] r under Nero. From the title of" fellow- workman" (avv- epyoi 1 given him in the firs! verse, some (Michaelis, Einleit. ii. 1274) make him a deacon, but without proof. But, according to Pseudo-Dorotheus, he had been bishop in Gaza (see Witsius, Miseel. Leidens. p. 193 Bq.). The \pphia mentioned in the epistle was nearly connected
with Philemon, but whether or Hot she was hi- wife there are no means of determining icoiup. esp. Itof- 111:11111. Jntrod. in Epist. ml Colos. \>. 52 sq.; Bertholdt, Einleit. vi. 3631 sq.). It is appaienl from the letter to him that Philemon was a man of property ami influence, since he is represented as the head of a numerous
household, and as exercising an expensive liberality to- wards his friends and the poor in general. He was in- debted to the apostle Paid as the medium of Ins per- sonal participation in the Gospel. All interpreter- agn C in assigning thai significance to atavrt'v inn r. \nr in Philem. I'd. It is not certain under what <ir- cumstanci s 1 hex became known to each other. It Paul visited Colossse when he passed through Phrygiaon his second missionary journey (Acts svi, 6), ii wa- un- doubtedly there, and al that time, thai Philemon heard the ( iospel and attached himself to the Cbrislian parly. ] On the contrary, if Paul never visited that city in per
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son, as many critics infer from Col. ii, 1, then the best view is that he was converted during Paul's protracted stay at Ephesus (Acts xix, 10), A.D. 51-54. That city was the religious and commercial capital of Western Asia Minor. The apostle labored there with such suc- cess that " all they who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus." Phrygia was a neighboring prov- ince, and among the strangers who repaired to Ephesus, and had an opportunity to hear the preaching of Paul, may have been the Colossian Philemon. It is evident that on becoming a disciple, he gave no common proof of the sincerity and power of his faith. His character, as shadowed forth in the epistle to him, is one of the noblest which the sacred record makes known to us. lie was full of faith and good works, was docile, confid- ing, grateful, was forgiving, sympathizing, charitable, and a man who on a question of simple justice needed only a hint of his duty to prompt him to go even be- yond it (v7rkp o Asyw Troujatic). An}' one who studies the epistle will perceive that it ascribes to him these varied qualities; it bestows on him a measure of com- mendation which forms a striking contrast with the or- dinary reserve of the sacred writers. It was through such believers that the primitive Christianity evinced its divine origin, and spread so rapidly among the na- tions.—Smith ; Wilier. See Paul.
PHILEMON, Epistle to. This is the shortest and (with the exception of Hebrews) the last of Paul's let- ters as arranged in most editions of the N. T. (In the following treatment of it we rely chiefly upon the state- ments in Kitto's and Smith's Dictionaries.)
I. Authorship. — That this epistle was written by the apostle Paul is the constant tradition of the ancient Church. It is expressly cited as such by Origen (Homil. 19 in Jerem. i, 185, ed. Huet.) ; it is referred to as such by Tertullian (Nov. Marc, v, 21); and both Eusebius {Hist Eccles. iii, 25) and Jerome (Promm. in Ep. ad Philem. iv, 442) attest its universal reception as such in the Christian world. The latter, indeed, in- forms us that some in his day deemed it unworthy of a place in the canon, in consequence of its being occu- pied with subjects which, in their estimation, it did not become an apostle to write about, save as a mere private individual ; but this he, at the same time, shows to be a mistake, and repudiates the legitimacy of such a stand- ard for estimating the genuineness or authority of any book. That this epistle should not have been quoted by several of the fathers who have quoted largely from the other Pauline epistles (e. g. Irenreus, Clement of Al- exandria, and Cyprian), may be accounted for partly by the brevity of the epistle, and partly by their not hav- ing occasion to refer to the subjects of which it treats. We need not urge the expressions in Ignatius, cited as evidence of that apostolic father's knowledge and use of the epistle ; though it is difficult to regard the simi- larity between them and the language in v, 20 as alto- gether accidental (see Kirchhofer, Qiiellensammlunq, p. 205). The Canon of Muratori, which comes to us from the 2d century (Credner, Geschichte des Kanons, p. G6), enumerates this as one of Paul's epistles. Tertullian says that Marcion admitted it into his collection. Sinope, in Pontus, the birthplace of Marcion, was not far from Co- lossae where Philemon lived, and the letter would find its way to the neighboring churches at an early period. It is so well attested historically, that, as Dc Wette says (Einli it ting ins Neue Testament^, its genuineness on that ground is beyond doubt.