writer is a prisoner. The reference to Tychicus as the bearer con- nects it with the Epistles to Philemon and the Colossians (cf. vi. 21, Phil. 13, Col. iv. 7), and suggests that these three letters belong very much to the same period, and that they were written when Paul was occupied very much with the same questions. Two imprisonments, however, come into view—the one in Czesarea (Acts xxiii. 35, xxiv. 27), the other in Rome (Acts xxviii.). Each of these has its supporters.
The view that this Epistle belongs to the period of the Caesarean Captivity is advocated with great ability by Reuss and Meyer among others. Reuss contends that the theory that the various Epistles of the Captivity were all written from Rome rests mostly on “ un- authenticated tradition”; that the mood of the Apostle in the Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon suits his circum- stances in Cwsarea better than those in Rome; that there are chronological difficulties of a serious nature in the way of referring these three Epistles together with Philippians and 2 Timothy to Rome; that this makes it necessary to divide the five between Czsarea and Rome; and that the various allusions to individuals, such as Tychicus, Timothy and Demetrius, in these Epistles are best harmonised, and certain particular statements, such as the πρὸς ὥραν in Phil. 15, best understood, on the theory that those to Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon were written in Czesarea,
Meyer admits that some of the arguments thus used by Reuss cannot be pressed, especially those founding on such indications as the πρὸς ὥραν, and on the idea that the friends of Paul mentioned in Colossians (iv. 9-14) and Philemon (10, 23) could not have been with him at Rome. But he attaches great importance to these con- siderations—viz., (1) that it is more probable that Onesimus should have sought safety in Colosse than that he should have risked the long journey by sea to Rome, and the possibilities of capture in Rome; (2) that if Ephesians and Colossians had been sent from Rome, Tychicus and Onesimus would have arrived at Ephesus first and afterwards at Colossz ; in which case it would be reasonable to suppose that Paul would have mentioned Onesimus to the Ephesians, as he does in the Epistle to the Colossians; (3) that the ἵνα εἰδῆτε καὶ ὑμεῖς in Eph, vi, 21 implies that when Tychicus reached Ephesus he ‘“‘ would already have fulfilled the aim here expressed in the case of others,” and these others are the Colossians (Col. iv. 8, 9); and (4) that in Phil. 22 Paul asks a lodging to be prepared for his speedy use—a statement implying that his place of imprisonment was not so distant from Colossz as Rome was,
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