THE
PULPIT COMMENTARY EDITED BY THE
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D. DEAN OF GLOUCESTER
AND BY THE
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.
PHILEMON
<ftposition anb ~omilrtics BY REV. S. J. EALES, :M.A., D.C.L. SOMETIME PRINCIPAL OF ST. BONIFACE lll!SSIO!-i COLLEGE
~omilics hi! @atiou~ ~ntbors REV. PROF. T. CROSKERY, D.D. REV. W. M. ST A. THAM
NEW EDITION
FUNK & WAG NALLS COl\TPANY LONDON :\:\'D NEW YORK 1013 THE EPISTLE OF
PAUL TO PHILEMON.
INTRODUCTION.
THIS brief letter is the only 11pecimen preserved to us of St. Paul's private correspondence. It is, perhaps, surprising that 110 more of St. Paul's priva.te letters have come down to historic times; for it hardly a.dmits of doubt that he must have written very many. His vigour and activity of mind were so great, his affections were so warm and tender, and his acquaintances (not to say friends) throughout Asia Minor, Greece, and Syria were so numerous, that he could hardly fail to have correspondents in many lands; and we may ce permitted to wonder that only a single letter should have remained out of so many. Philemon ( i.e. "a friend; " but the word occurs only as a proper name), to whom this Epistle we.s addressed, was a Greek Christian, who owed his conversion, it is inferred from ver. 19, to St. Paul himself. He was pro bably a native of Colossai, in Phrygia, or at all events we.s settled there at the time when St. Paul wrote this letter to him. This appears (1) from comparing ver. 1 with Col. iv. 17, whence it appears that Philemon we.s of the same place as Archippu~, antl that the "ministry" of Archippus was iu Colosslll; (2) because Onesimus, who was (ver. 16) a slave of Philemon, is referred to as "one of you" in the same Epistle to the Colossians (iv. 9). It is an inconclusive argument that is used by Wieseler (' Chronologie '), that Col. iv. 17, where Archippus is mentioned, should be connected with Col. iv. 15, 16, and that therefore Archippus belonged to Laodicea; for these verses are evidently a digression or parenthesis. Yet it would seem that St_P~µLhimself had never been to Colossie, and that his meeting with Philemon, and the conversion of th~ latter, must have taken plaos else- where (Col. ii. 1). In any case, the question is one of small import, since Laodicea and Colosslll were neie;hbouring places, perhaps uot more than ten miles apart. PHILEMOIIT, B ii INTRODUCTION TO
Philemon was evidently a man of wealth and importance, whose house- hold was large, and who was accustomed to exercise hospitality on e. libeml soale. This is the only occasion upon which ho is mentioned in the Epistles, but tradition asserts that he became Bishop of Colosi<IB (' Apost. Constit.,' vii. 46). Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in the middle of the fifth century 4.D., states that the house of Philemon remained entire at Colossm in his day (' Proem. in Epist. Phil.'). It is probable that Philemon was a layman. The apostle, indeed, addresses him in ver. 1 as " fellow-labourer;" but (TVV£PY"~ is not in any sense an ojficial designation. It is used in this very Epistle ( ver. 24) of several persons," Me.rous, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas," respecting whom it is uncer- tain whether they or all of them held ecclesiastical offices of 11ny kind; while in other passages it unquestionably denotes laymen (but see Exposi- tion on ver. 2). It was rather a favourite word with St. Paul, and he uses it and its cognates sixteen times in his Epistles. Onesimus, the slave of Philemon, on whose account the Epistle was written to him, was, as it would seem from the expression in Col. iv. 9, in which he is spoken of as "one of you," a native of that city. And this is probable on other grounds, since Colos~ie was a city of Greater Phrygia, and the name of "Phrygian" was long a i-ynonym for "sle.ve." Its popu- lation had the reputation of being sullen and intractable, only to be governed by blows; and there was a proverb, Phryx plagis melior fieri solet, to which Cicero refers: "Utrum igitur nostrum est aut vestru111, hoe pro- verbium, Phrygem pl,agi, fieri, solere meliorem" (' Pro Flaooo,' cap. 27), Oneisimus meanis "useful," or "profitable" (Revised Version renders "help- ful "). It is rather an epithet than e. name, and i", at all events, such an appellative as would be easily bestowed upon a slave. The notices in eccle~iaistical writers referring to the subsequent life of Onesimus are few and brief. The 'Apostolic Canons' (lxxiii.) state that he was made free by Philemon, according to the request of St. Paul; and the • Apostolic Constitutions' (vii. 46) add to this the further statement that he was consecrated Bishop of Beriea by St. Paul, and that he was finally martyred. A11 Onei,;imus. referred to in the first epistle of St. lgnatiu to the Ephesians as their bishop ( oh. i. Fr. Xav. Funk., 'Patr. Apostol Opera.' p. 174), is in all probability another person.
f 1. DATL We learn from Col. iv. 7-9 that that Epistle wae brought to Colossie by Tychicns and Onesimus; and our Epistle ~ug~ests in almost every line, though there is no distinct, statement on the sul,Ject, that the same pt:rsone, or possibly Onesimus alone, were the bearers of it also. The date of this Epistle will therefore be determined by that to the Culossiana (Introduction to which, see); and it will be sufficient to notice bere that it must in all probability be &11Signed to the very end of 8t. Paul's first imprisonment at THE EPrnTLE TO PHILEMON. lli