The Brother at the Door and the Debt Paul Will Not Mention

Philemon’s name comes from phileo, to love, and in the tale Ovid tells in Metamorphoses 8, an old Philemon and his wife Baucis, in Phrygia, take in disguised gods when every other house turns them away. Colossae was a Phrygian town. “Fellowlabourer” is synergos, the co-worker title Paul gives to Timothy and Titus as well.

Apphia is a Phrygian name, found on inscriptions from the region round Colossae. Some manuscripts call her “our sister” rather than “our beloved”. Colossians 4:17 sends a message to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry”, which places this household at Colossae. “Thy house” is singular: Philemon is the host.

The greeting is Paul’s standard one, as in Romans 1:7 and 1 Corinthians 1:3, and the “you” is plural. It is the last plural address until verse 22; from verse 4 onward every “thee” and “thou” is Philemon alone, so the church overhears a conversation addressed to one man.

“Making mention” is a stock phrase of Greek letters, which Paul uses in Romans 1:9 and 1 Thessalonians 1:2. “My God” is personal, the possessive Paul uses when thanksgiving is warmest (Philippians 1:3). The prayer is constant, “always”, not prompted by the request to come.

The Greek order is crossed: love and faith, then the Lord and the saints, so love reaches the saints and faith the Lord, a pattern called chiasm. Paul has “heard” rather than seen; he had never visited Colossae (Colossians 2:1), and the reports probably came through Epaphras, named in verse 23.

Commentators regularly call this the hardest sentence in the letter, since almost every phrase can attach in more than one way. “Effectual” is energes, active, at work. Many manuscripts read “in us” rather than “in you”, which would widen the good thing to Paul and his companions as well.

“Brother” is held back to the last word of the Greek sentence, the first time Paul uses the address, and it returns in verse 20. “Refreshed” is anapauo, to give rest, the verb of Matthew 11:28, “I will give you rest”, and it is a perfect tense: rest given and still felt.

“Much bold” is parresia, the right to speak freely; Paul claims it and in the same breath declines to use it. “Enjoin” is epitasso, to give an order, the verb of an officer or a master. The right to command is named precisely so that it can be set aside.

“The aged” is presbytes. J. B. Lightfoot and others proposed reading presbeutes, “ambassador”, a difference of one letter, since Paul calls himself “an ambassador in bonds” in Ephesians 6:20. Greek medical writers placed a presbytes at about fifty to fifty-six, so either reading suits a man in his fifties.

In Greek the name comes last: “I beseech thee for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus.” Philemon hears “my child” before he hears who is meant. Paul used the same image of fatherhood for the Corinthians: “in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15).

Beneath the pun on the name lies a possible second one. Achrestos and euchrestos, unprofitable and profitable, are built on chrestos, which in the Greek of the day sounded almost like Christos; Suetonius confused the two when he wrote of “Chrestus”. Some hear “once without Christ, now well in Christ”; that is a suggestion, not a certainty.

“Sent again” is anapempo, which can also mean to refer a case to a higher authority, the verb Festus uses in Acts 25:21, “till I might send him to Caesar”. The oldest manuscripts lack “receive him” here; the Greek sentence breaks off, and the request is completed only in verse 17.

“I would have retained” is an imperfect, “I was wanting to keep him”, a wish entertained and given up. “In thy stead” is hyper sou, on your behalf: Paul counts Onesimus’s service as if it were Philemon’s own help to him. The chains are called “the bonds of the gospel”, not of Rome.

“Mind” is gnome, a considered judgment or formal consent. The contrast of necessity and willingness is the language of voluntary offerings, as in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” “Benefit” is literally “your good”, the good deed that must be Philemon’s own.

“Departed” is a passive, “was separated”, which avoids saying that Onesimus ran off and leaves room for God’s hand. “For ever” is aionion, eternal. Some hear an echo of Exodus 21:6, where a slave who chooses to stay “shall serve him for ever”; here the permanence belongs to brotherhood, not to service.

Colossians, carried by the same party, calls Onesimus “a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you” (Colossians 4:9), so Paul used the same words publicly in the letter to the whole church. “In the flesh” means in the ordinary human relationship between the two men, as household members.

“Partner” is koinonos, a sharer, from the root of the “communication”, koinonia, of verse 6: the fellowship Paul thanked God for is now the ground of the request. “Receive” is proslambano, the verb of Romans 15:7, “receive ye one another, as Christ also received us.”

“Put that on mine account” is ellogao, a commercial term for entering a sum on someone’s bill, found elsewhere only in Romans 5:13, “sin is not imputed when there is no law.” The word that Paul uses in Romans for how God reckons sin is here a line in a ledger.

The sentence has the form of a promissory note, the kind of signed IOU found by the hundred among Greek papyri: name, statement written in one’s own hand, promise to pay. “Repay” is apotino, to pay compensation, a legal word found only here. Then comes the counter-entry on Philemon’s side of the ledger.

“Let me have joy of thee” is onaimen, from oninemi, to have benefit, the very root of the name Onesimus: “let me have some onesimus-profit from you”. It is Paul’s last play on the name. “Brother” returns from verse 7, and “refresh” is the verb of that verse too.

Around AD 110, Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the church at Ephesus and praised its bishop, named Onesimus. John Knox proposed in 1935 that he was this same man and had gathered Paul’s letters; the name was common, and the identification is a guess. The letter itself says only that Paul expects more than he asks.

“Lodging” is xenia, a guest room. “Be given” is charizomai, to grant as a favour, the verb of Acts 27:24, “God hath given thee all them that sail with thee”: release is pictured as a gift answering prayer. If Paul wrote from Rome, Colossae was over a thousand miles away; some think a planned visit fits an imprisonment at Ephesus better.

Epaphras brought the gospel to Colossae (Colossians 1:7) and was “one of you” (4:12). “Fellowprisoner” is synaichmalotos, literally a fellow prisoner of war; Colossians 4:10 gives the title to Aristarchus instead, which suggests companions took turns sharing Paul’s confinement, or that the word is a figure.

The same four names send greetings in Colossians 4:10-14, where Jesus called Justus is added. Aristarchus was a Thessalonian who sailed with Paul toward Rome (Acts 27:2). Demas would later leave Paul (2 Timothy 4:10). Mark and Luke, by tradition the authors of two Gospels, stand side by side in one line.

“With your spirit” also closes Galatians and Philippians. Some manuscripts lack the final “Amen”. The King James subscription, “Written from Rome to Philemon, by Onesimus a servant”, is a later addition, though it agrees with Colossians 4:9 in making Onesimus the one who carried the letter.