St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations (part 4 of 4)

St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations (part 4 of 4)

The last sentence et facite etc. is entirely omitted in M. In RX it is expanded into et facite legi colosensibus hanc epistolam et colosensium (colosensibus R) vos legite. deus autem et pater domini nostri ihesu christi custodiat vos immaculatos in christo ihesu cui est honor et gloria in secula seculorum. amen.

Subscriptions. Explicit P_2P_3H_1; Exp. ad laodicenses F; Explicit epistola ad laodicenses (laudicenses R) DP_1GCH_2SRVX. There is no subscription in AL_1L_2, and none is given for TM.

[Sidenote: Notes on the epistle.]

The following notes are added for the sake of elucidating one or two points of difficulty in the text or interpretation of the epistle.

4 Neque] This is the passage quoted in the Speculum § 50 published by Mai Nov. Patr. Bibl. I. 2. p. 62 sq., ‘Item ad Laodicenses: Neque destituat vos quorundam vaneloquentia (sic) insinuantium, ut vos avertant a veritate evangelii quod a me praedicatur’. We ought possibly to adopt the reading ‘destituat ... vaniloquentia’ of this and other old mss in preference to the ‘destituant ... vaniloquia’ of F. ‘Vaniloquium’ however is the rendering of ματαιολογία 1 Tim. i. 6, and is supported by such analogies as inaniloquium, maliloquium, multiloquium, stultiloquium, etc.; see Hagen Sprachl. Erörter. zur Vulgata p. 74, Roensch Das Neue Testament Tertullians p. 710.

destituant] Properly ‘leave in the lurch’ and so ‘cheat’, ‘beguile’, e.g. Cic. pro Rosc. Am. 40 ‘induxit, decepit, destituit, adversariis tradidit, omni fraude et perfidia fefellit.’ In Heb. ix. 26 εἰς ἀθέτησιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας is translated ‘ad destitutionem peccati’. The original here may have been ἐξαπατήσωσιν or ἀθετήσωσιν. insinuantium] In late Latin this word means little more than ‘to communicate’, ‘to inculcate’, ‘to teach’: see the references in Roensch Itala u. Vulgata p. 387, Heumann Handlexicon des römischen Rechts s.v., Ducange Glossarium s.v. So too ‘insinuator’ Tertull. ad Nat. ii. 1, ‘insinuatrix’ August. Ep. 110 (II. p. 317). In Acts xvii. 3 it is the rendering of παρατιθέμενος.

5 ut qui sunt etc.] The passage, as it stands, is obviously corrupt; and a comparison with Phil. i. 12 τὰ κατ’ ἐμὲ μᾶλλον εἰς προκοπὴν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἐλήλυθεν seems to reveal the nature of the corruption. (1) For ‘qui’ we should probably read ‘quæ’, which indeed is found in some late MSS of no authority. (2) There is a lacuna somewhere in the sentence, probably after ‘evangelii’. The original therefore would run in this form ‘ut quæ sunt ex me ad profectum veritatis [eveniant] ... deservientes etc.,’ the participles belonging to a separate sentence of which the beginning is lost. The supplements ‘perveniant’, ‘proficiant’, found in some MSS give the right sense, though perhaps they are conjectural. The Vulgate of Phil. i. 12 is ‘quæ circa me sunt magis ad profectum venerunt evangelii’. In the latter part of the verse it is impossible in many cases to say whether a MS intends ‘operum quæ’ or ‘operumque’; but the former is probably correct, as representing ἐργων τῶν τῆς σωτηρίας: unless indeed this sentence also is corrupt or mutilated.

7 administrante etc.] Considering the diversity of readings here, we may perhaps venture on the emendation ‘administratione spiritus sancti’, as this more closely resembles the passage on which our text is founded, Phil. i. 19 διὰ τῆς ὑμῶν δεήσεως καὶ ἐπιχορηγίας τοῦ πνεύματος κ.τ.λ.

12 retractu] ‘wavering’, ‘hesitation’. For this sense of ‘retractare’, ‘to rehandle, discuss’, and so ‘to question, hesitate’, and even ‘to shirk, decline’, see Oehler Tertullian, index p. cxciii, Roensch N. T. Tertullian’s p. 669, Ducange Glossarium s.v.: comp. e.g. Iren. v. 11. 1 ‘ne relinqueretur quæstio his qui infideliter retractant de eo’. So ‘retractator’ is equivalent to ‘detractator’ in Tert. de Jejun. 15 ‘retractatores hujus officii’ (see Oehler’s note); and in 1 Sam. xiv. 39 ‘absque retractatione morietur’ is the rendering of ‘dying he shall die’, θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖται. Here the expression probably represents χωρὶς ... διαλογισμῶν of Phil. ii. 14, which in the Old Latin is ‘sine ... detractionibus’. All three forms occur, retractus (Tert. Scorp. 1), retractatus (Tert. Apol. 4, adv. Marc. i. 1, v. 3, adv. Prax. 2, and frequently), retractatio (Cic. Tusc. v. 29, ‘sine retractatione’ and so frequently; 1 Sam. l. c). Here ‘retractus’ must be preferred, both as being the least common form and as having the highest MS authority. In Tert. Scorp. 1 however it is not used in this same sense.

13 quod est reliquum] I have already spoken of this passage, p. 352, and shall have to speak of it again, p. 357. The oldest and most trustworthy MSS have simply ‘quod est’. The word ‘reliquum’ must be supplied, as Anger truly discerned (p. 163); for the passage is taken from Phil. iii. 1 τὸ λοιπόν, ἀδελφοί μου, χαίρετε ἐν Κυρίῳ. See the Vulgate translation of τὸ λοιπόν in 1 Cor. vii. 29. Later and less trustworthy authorities supply ‘optimum’ or ‘bonum’.

14 in sensu Christi] ‘in the mind of Christ’: for in 1 Cor. ii. 16 νοῦν Χριστοῦ is rendered ‘sensum Christi’.

20 facite legi etc.] Though the words ‘Colosensibus et’ are wanting in very many of the authorities which are elsewhere most trustworthy, yet I have felt justified in retaining them with other respectable copies, because (1) The homœoteleuton would account for their omission even in very ancient MSS; (2) The parallelism with Col. iv. 16 requires their insertion; (3) The insertion is not like the device of a Latin scribe, who would hardly have manipulated the sentence into a form which savours so strongly of a Greek original.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Theory of a Greek original discussed.]

It is the general, though not universal, opinion that this epistle was altogether a forgery of the Western Church[628]; and consequently that the Latin is not a translation from a lost Greek original, but preserves the earliest form of the epistle. Though the forgery doubtless attained its widest circulation in the West, there are, I venture to think, strong reasons for dissenting from this opinion.

Footnote 628:

e.g. Anger Laodicenerbrief p. 142 sq., Westcott Canon p. 454 sq. (ed. 4). Erasmus asks boldly, ‘Qui factum est ut hæc epistola apud Latinos extet, cum nullus sit apud Græcos, ne veterum quidem, qui testetur eam a se lectam?’ The accuracy of this statement will be tested presently.

[Sidenote: Frequent Grecisms in the epistle.]

If we read the epistle in its most authentic form, divested of the additions contributed by the later MSS, we are struck with its cramped style. Altogether it has not the run of a Latin original. And, when we come to examine it in detail, we find that this constraint is due very largely to the fetters imposed by close adherence to Greek idiom. Thus for instance we have ver. 5 ‘qui [or quæ] sunt ex me’, οἱ [or τὰ] ἐξ ἐμοῦ; operum quæ salutis, ἐργων τῶν τῆς σωτηρίας; ver. 6 palam vincula mea quæ patior, φανεροὶ οἱ δεσμοί μου ὃυς ὑπομένω; ver. 13 sordidos in lucro, αἰσχροκερδεῖς; ver. 20 et facite legi Colosensibus et Colosensium vobis, καὶ ποιήσατε ἵνα τοῖς Κολασσαεῦσιν ἀναγνωσθῇ καὶ ἡ Κολασσαέων ἵνα [καὶ] ὑμῖν. It is quite possible indeed that parallels for some of these anomalies may be found in Latin writers. Thus Tert. c. Marc. i. 23 ‘redundantia justitiæ super scribarum et Pharisæorum’ is quoted to illustrate the genitive ‘Colossensium’ ver. 20.[629] The Greek cast however is not confined to one or two expressions but extends to the whole letter.

Footnote 629:

Anger, p. 165.

[Sidenote: It differs widely from the Old Latin and Vulgate Versions.]

But a yet stronger argument in favour of a Greek original remains. This epistle, as we saw, is a cento of passages from St Paul. If it had been written originally in Latin, we should expect to find that the passages were taken directly from the Latin versions. This however is not the case. Thus compare ver. 6 ‘palam sunt vincula mea’ with Phil. i. 13 ‘ut vincula mea manifesta fierent’: ver. 7 ‘orationibus vestris et administrante spiritu sancto’ [administratione spiritus sancti’?] with Phil. i. 19 ‘per vestram obsecrationem (V. orationem) et _subministrationem _ spiritus sancti’; ver. 9 ‘ut eandem dilectionem habeatis et sitis unianimes’ with Phil. ii. 2 ‘eandem caritatem habentes, unanimes’; ver. 10 ‘ergo, dilectissimi, ut audistis præsentia mei ... facite in timore’ with Phil. ii. 12 ‘Propter quod (V. Itaque) dilectissimi mihi (V. charissimi mei) sicut semper obaudistis (V. obedistis) ... præsentia (V. in præsentia) mei ... cum timore (V. metu) ... operamini’; ver. 11, 12 ‘Est enim Deus qui operatur in vos (v. 1. vobis). Et facite sine retractu quæcumque facitis’ with Phil. ii. 13, 14 Deus enim est qui operatur in vobis ... Omnia autem facite sine ... detractionibus (V. hæsitationibus)’; ver. 13 quod est [reliquum], dilectissimi, gaudete in Christo et præcavete’ with Phil. iii. 1, 2 ‘de cætero, fratres mei, gaudete in Domino ... Videte’; ib. ‘sordidos in lucro’ with the Latin renderings of αἰσχροκερδεῖς 1 Tim. iii. 8 ‘turpilucros’ (V. ‘turpe lucrum sectantes’), αἰσχροκερδῆ Tit. i. 7 turpilucrum (V. ‘turpis lucri cupidum’); ver. 14 ‘sint petitiones vestræ palam apud Deum’ with Phil. iv. 6 ‘postulationes (V. petitiones) vestræ innotescant apud Deum’; ver. 20 ‘facite legi Colosensibus et Colosensium vobis’ with Col. iv. 16 ‘facite ut et in Laodicensium ecclesia legatur et eam quæ Laodicensium (MSS Laodiciam) est ut (om. V.) vos legatis’. These examples tell their own tale. [Sidenote: Thus internal evidence favours a Greek original.]The occasional resemblances to the Latin Version are easily explained on the ground that reminiscences of this version would naturally occur to the translator of the epistle. The habitual divergences from it are only accounted for on the hypothesis that the original compiler was better acquainted with the New Testament in Greek than in Latin, and therefore presumably that he wrote in Greek.

[Sidenote: External testimony to the same effect.]

And, if we are led to this conclusion by an examination of the epistle itself, we shall find it confirmed by an appeal to external testimony. There is ample evidence that a spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans was known to Greek writers, as well as Latin, at a sufficiently early date. [Sidenote: [Muratorian Fragment].]A mention of such an epistle occurs as early as the Muratorian Fragment on the Canon (about A.D. 170), where the writer speaks of two letters, one to the Laodiceans and another to the Alexandrians, as circulated under the name of Paul[630]. The bearing of the words however is uncertain. He may be referring to the Marcionite recension of the canonical Epistle to the Ephesians, which was entitled by that heretic an Epistle to the Laodiceans[631]. Or, if this explanation of his words be not correct (as perhaps it is not), still we should not feel justified in assuming that he is referring to the extant apocryphal epistle. Indeed we should hardly expect that an epistle of this character would be written and circulated at so early a date. The reference in Col. iv. 16 offered a strong temptation to the forger, and probably more than one unscrupulous person was induced by it to try his hand at falsification[632]. But, however this may be, it seems clear that before the close of the fourth century our epistle was largely circulated in the East and West alike. [Sidenote: Jerome.]‘Certain persons’, writes Jerome in his account of St Paul, ‘read also an Epistle to the Laodiceans, but it is rejected by all[633]’. No doubt is entertained, that this father refers to our epistle. [Sidenote: Theodore.]If then we find that about the same time Theodore of Mopsuestia also mentions an Epistle to the Laodiceans, which he condemns as spurious[634], it is a reasonable inference that the same writing is meant. [Sidenote: Theodoret.]In this he is followed by Theodoret[635]; and indeed the interpretations of Col. iv. 16 given by the Greek Fathers of this age were largely influenced as we have seen, by the presence of a spurious epistle which they were anxious to discredit[636]. [Sidenote: 2nd Council of Nicæa.]Even two or three centuries later the epistle seems to have been read in the East. At the Second Council of Nicæa (A.D. 787) it was found necessary to warn people against ‘a forged Epistle to the Laodiceans’ which was ‘circulated, having a place in some copies of the Apostle[637].’

Footnote 630:

Canon Murat. p. 47 (ed. Tregelles). The passage stands in the MS, ‘Fertur etiam ad Laudecenses alia ad Alexandrinos Pauli nomine fincte ad heresem Marcionis et alia plura quæ in catholicam eclesiam recepi non potest.’ There is obviously some corruption in the text. One very simple emendation is the repetition of ‘alia’, so that the words would run ‘ad Laudicenses alia, alia ad Alexandrinos’. In this case fincte (= finctæ) might refer to the two epistles first mentioned, and the Latin would construe intelligibly. The writing described as ‘ad Laodicenses alia’ might then be the Epistle to the Ephesians under its Marcionite title, the writer probably not having any personal knowledge of it, but supposing from its name that it was a different and a forged writing. But what can then be the meaning of ‘alia ad Alexandrinos’? Is it, as some have thought, the Epistle to the Hebrews? But this could not under any circumstances be described as ‘fincta ad hæresem Marcionis’, even though we should strain the meaning of the preposition and interpret the words ‘against the heresy of Marcion’. And again our knowledge of Marcion’s Canon is far too full to admit the hypothesis that it included a spurious Epistle to the Alexandrians, of which no notice is elsewhere preserved. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that there is a hiatus here, as in other places of this fragment, probably after ‘Pauli nomine’; and ‘finctæ’ will then refer not to the two epistles named before, but to the mutilated epistles of Marcion’s Canon which he had ‘tampered with to adapt them to his heresy’. In this case the letter ‘ad Laudicenses’ may refer to our apocryphal epistle or to some earlier forgery.

Footnote 631:

See the introduction to the Epistle to the Ephesians.

Footnote 632:

Timotheus, who became Patriarch of Constantinople in 511, while still a presbyter, includes in a list of apocryphal works forged by the Manicheans ἡ πεντεκαιδεκάτη [i.e. τοῦ Παύλου] πρὸς Λαοδικεῖς ἐπιστολή, Meurse p. 117 (quoted by Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. N. T. I.. p. 139). Anger (p. 27) suggests that there is a confusion of the Marcionites and Manicheans here. I am disposed to think that Timotheus recklessly credits the Manicheans with several forgeries of which they were innocent, among others with our apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans. Still it is possible that there was another Laodicean Epistle forged by these heretics to support their peculiar tenets.

Footnote 633:

Vir. Ill. 5 (II. p. 840) ‘Legunt quidam et ad Laodicenses, sed ab omnibus exploditur’.

Footnote 634:

The passage is quoted above, p. 341, note 593.

Footnote 635:

τινὲς ὑπέλαβον καὶ πρὸς Λαοδικέας αὐτὸν γεγραφέναι· αὐτίκα τοίνυν καὶ προσφέρουσι πεπλασμένην ἐπιστολήν.

Footnote 636:

Anger (p. 143) argues against a Greek original on the ground that the Eastern Church, unlike the Latin, did not generally interpret Col. iv. 16 as meaning an epistle written to the Laodiceans. The fact is true, but the inference is wrong, as the language of the Greek commentators themselves shows.

Footnote 637:

Act. vi. Tom. v (Labbe viii. p. 1125 ed. Colet.) καὶ γὰρ τοῦ θείου ἀποστόλου πρὸς Λαοδικεῖς φέρεται πλαστὴ ἐπιστολὴ ἕν τισι βίβλοις τοῦ ἀποστόλου ἐγκειμένη, ἣν οἱ πάτερες ἡμῶν ἀπεδοκίμασαν ὡς αὐτοῦ ἀλλοτρίαν.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Greek restored.]

The Epistle to the Laodiceans then in the original Greek would run somewhat as follows[638]:

==ΠΡΟΣ ΛΑΟΔΙΚΕΑΣ.==

[Sidenote: ^a Gal. i. 1.]

^a==ΠΑΥΛΟΣ ἀπόστολοϲ οὐκ ἀπ’ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι’ ἀνθρώπου αλλὰ διὰ ἰηϲοῦ χριϲτοῦ, τοῖϲ ἀδελφοῖϲ τοῖϲ οὖϲιν εν λαοδικείᾳ.== [Sidenote: ^b Gal. i. 3.; Phil. i. 2.]^2^b==χάριϲ ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸϲ καὶ κυρίου ἰηϲοῦ χριϲτοῦ.==

[Sidenote: ^c Phil. i. 3.]

^3^c==Εὐχαριϲτῶ τῷ Χριϲτῷ ἐν πάϲῃ δεήϲει μου, ὅτι ἐϲτὲ εν αὐτῷ μένοντεϲ καὶ προϲκαρτεροῦντεϲ τοῖϲ ἐργοιϲ αὐτοῦ,== [Sidenote: ^d Gal. v. 5.]^d==ἀπεκδέχομενοι τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν== [Sidenote: ^e 2 Pet. ii. 9; iii. 7; cf. Phil. ii. 16.]^e==εἰϲ ἡμέραν κρίϲεωϲ.==

^4==Μηδὲ ὑμᾶϲ ἐξαπατήϲωϲιν== [Sidenote: ^f 1 Tim. i. 6.]^f==ματαιολογίαι τινῶν διδαϲκόντων ἵνα== [Sidenote: ^g 2 Tim. iv. 4.]^g==ἀποϲτρέπϲωϲιν υμᾶϲ ἀπὸ== [Sidenote: ^h Col. i. 5; Gal. ii. 5, 14.]^h==τῆϲ αληθείαϲ== [Sidenote: ^i Gal. i. 11 (cf. i. 8).]^i==τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τοῦ εὐαγγελιϲθέντοϲ ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ.== ^5==καὶ νῦν ποιήϲει ὁ Θεὸϲ ἵνα== [Sidenote: ^k Phil. i. 12.]^k==τα ἐξ ἐμοῦ εἰϲ προκοπὴν τῆϲ ἀληθείαϲ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου * * * λατρεύοντεϲ καὶ ποιοῦντεϲ χρηϲτότητα ἐργων τῶν τῆϲ ϲωτηρίαϲ [καὶ] τῆϲ αἰωνίου ζωῆϲ.== ^6==καὶ νῦν== [Sidenote: ^l Phil. i. 13.]^l==φανεροὶ οἱ δεϲμοί μου, οὓϲ ὑπομένω ἐν Χριϲτῷ, ἐν οἷϲ== [Sidenote: ^m Matt. v. 12; cf. Phil. i. 18]^m==χρω καὶ ἀγαλλιῶμαι.== ^7==καὶ== [Sidenote: ^n Phil. i. 19.]^n==τοῦτό ἐϲτίν μοι εἰϲ ϲωτηρίαν ἀΐδιον, ὃ καὶ ἀπέβη διὰ τῆϲ ὑμῶν δέηϲεωϲ καὶ ἐπιχορηγίαϲ πνεύματοϲ ἁγίου,== [Sidenote: ^o Phil. i. 20.]^o==εἴτε διὰ ζωῆϲ )έιτε διὰ θανάτου.== [Sidenote: ^p Phil. i. 21.]^8^p==ἑμοὶ γὰρ τὸ ζῆν ἐν Χριϲτῷ καὶ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν χαρά.== ^9==καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ποίηϲει [καὶ] ἐν ὑμῖν διὰ τοῦ ἐλέουϲ αὐτοῦ, ἵνα== [Sidenote: ^q Phil. ii. 2.]^q==τὴν αὐτὴν ἀγάπην ἔχητε, ϲύμπϲυχοι ὄντεϲ.== [Sidenote: ^r Phil. ii. 12.]^{10}^r==ὥϲτε, ἀγαπητοί, καθὼϲ ὑπηκούϲατε ἐν τῇ παρουϲίᾳ μου, οὕτωϲ== [Sidenote: ^s 2 Thess. ii. 5 (see vulg.).]^s==μνημονεύοντεϲ μετὰ φόβου Κυρίου ἐργάζεϲθε, καὶ ἔϲται ὑμῖν ζωὴ εἰϲ τὸν αἰῶνα·== [Sidenote: ^t Phil. ii. 13.]^{11}^t==Θεὸϲ γάρ ἐϲτιν ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἐν ὑμῖν.== [Sidenote: ^u Phil. ii. 14.]^{12}==καὶ== ^u==ποιεῖτε χωρὶϲ διαλογιϲμῶν== [Sidenote: ^x Col. iii. 17, 23.]^x==ὅ τι ἐὰν ποιῆτε.==

[Sidenote: ^y Phil. iii. 1.]^{13}==Καὶ== ^y==τὸ λοιπόν, ἀγαπητοί, χαίρετε ἐν Χριϲτῷ. Βλέπετε δὲ τοὺϲ== [Sidenote: ^z 1 Tim. iii. 8; Tit. i. 7.]^z==αἰϲχροκερδεῖϲ.== [Sidenote: ^a Phil. iv. 6.]^{14}^a==πάντα τὰ αἰτήματα ὑμῶν γνωριζέϲθω πρὸϲ τὸν Θεόν. καὶ== [Sidenote: ^b 1 Cor. xv. 58.]^b==ἑδραῖοι γίνεϲθε ἐν== [Sidenote: ^c 1 Cor. ii. 16.]^c==τῷ νοΐ τοῦ Χριϲτοῦ.== [Sidenote: ^d Phil. iv. 8, 9.]^{15}^d==ὅϲα τε ὁλόκληρα καὶ ἀληθῆ καὶ ϲεμνὰ καὶ δίκαια καὶ προϲφιλῆ, ταῦτα πράϲϲετε.== ^{16}==ἃ καὶ ἠκούϲατε καὶ παρελάβετε, ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ κρατεῖτε, καὶ ἡ εἰρήνη ἔϲται μεθ’ ὑμῶν.==

[Sidenote: ^e Phil. iv. 22.]

^{18}^e==Ἀϲπάζονται ὑμᾶϲ οἱ ἅγιοι.==

[Sidenote: ^f Phil. iv. 23.]

^{19}^f==Ἡ χάριϲ τοῦ Κυρίου Ἰηϲοῦ Χριϲτοῦ μετὰ τοῦ πνεύματοϲ ὑμῶν.==

[Sidenote: ^g Col. iv. 16.]

^{20}^g==καὶ ποιήϲατε ἵνα τοῖϲ Κολαϲϲαεῦϲιν αναγνωϲθῇ, καὶ η τῶν Κολαϲϲαέων ἵνα καὶ ὑμῖν.==

Footnote 638:

A Greek version is given in Elias Hutter’s Polyglott New Testament (Noreb. 1599); see Anger p. 147 note g. But I have retranslated the epistle anew, introducing the Pauline passages, of which it is almost entirely made up, as they stand in the Greek Testament. The references are given in the margin.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Scanty circulation in the East,]

But, though written originally in Greek, it was not among Greek Christians that this epistle attained its widest circulation. In the latter part of the 8th century indeed, when the Second Council of Nicæa met, it had found its way into some copies of St Paul’s Epistles[639]. But the denunciation of this Council seems to have been effective in securing its ultimate exclusion. We discover no traces of it in any extant Greek MS, with the very doubtful exception which has already been considered[640]. [Sidenote: but wide diffusion in the West.]But in the Latin Church the case was different. St Jerome, as we saw, had pronounced very decidedly against it. Yet even his authority was not sufficient to stamp it out. At least as early as the sixth century it found a place in some copies of the Latin Bibles: and before the close of that century its genuineness was affirmed by perhaps the most influential theologian whom the Latin Church produced during the eleven centuries which elapsed between the age of Jerome and Augustine and the era of the Reformation. [Sidenote: Gregory the Great.]Gregory the Great did not indeed affirm its canonicity. He pronounced that the Church had restricted the canonical Epistles of St Paul to fourteen, and he found a mystical explanation of this limitation in the number itself, which was attained by adding the number of the Commandments to the number of the Gospels and thus fitly represented the teaching of the Apostle which combines the two[641]. But at the same time he states that the Apostle wrote fifteen; and, though he does not mention the Epistle to the Laodiceans by name, there can be little doubt that he intended to include this as his fifteenth epistle, and that his words were rightly understood by subsequent writers as affirming its Pauline authorship. The influence of this great name is perceptible in the statements of later writers. [Sidenote: Haymo of Halberstadt.]Haymo of Halberstadt, who died A.D. 853, commenting on Col. iv. 16, says, The Apostle ‘enjoins the Laodicean Epistle to be read to the Colossians, because though it is very short and is not reckoned in the Canon, yet still it has some use[642]’.[Sidenote: Hervey of Dole.] And between two or three centuries later Hervey of Dole (c. A.D. 1130), if it be not Anselm of Laon[643], commenting on this same passage, says: ‘Although the Apostle wrote this epistle also as his fifteenth or sixteenth[644], and it is established by Apostolic authority like the rest, yet holy Church does not reckon more than fourteen,’ and he proceeds to justify this limitation of the Canon with the arguments and in the language of Gregory[645]. Others however did not confine themselves to the qualified recognition given to the epistle by the great Bishop of Rome. Gregory had carefully distinguished between genuineness and canonicity; but this important distinction was not seldom disregarded by later writers. [Sidenote: English Church. Aelfric.]In the English Church more especially it was forgotten. Thus Aelfric abbot of Cerne, who wrote during the closing years of the tenth century, speaks as follows of St Paul: ‘Fifteen epistles wrote this one Apostle to the nations by him converted unto the faith: which are large books in the Bible and make much for our amendment, if we follow his doctrine that was teacher of the Gentiles’. He then gives a list of the Apostle’s writings, which closes with ‘one to Philemon and one to the Laodiceans; fifteen in all as loud as thunder to faithful people[646]’. [Sidenote: John of Salisbury.]Again, nearly two centuries later John of Salisbury, likewise writing on the Canon, reckons ‘Fifteen epistles of Paul included in one volume, though it be the wide-spread and common opinion of nearly all that there are only fourteen; ten to churches and four to individuals: supposing that the one addressed to the Hebrews is to be reckoned among the Epistles of Paul, as Jerome the doctor of doctors seems to lay down in his preface, where he refuteth the cavils of those who contended that it was not Paul’s. But the fifteenth is that which is addressed to the Church of the Laodiceans; and though, as Jerome saith, it be rejected by all, nevertheless was it written by the Apostle. Nor is this opinion assumed on the conjecture of others, but it is confirmed by the testimony of the Apostle himself: for he maketh mention of it in the Epistle to the Colossians in these words, When this epistle shall have been read among you, etc. (Col. iv. 16)[647]’. Aelfric and John are the typical theologians of the Church in this country in their respective ages. The Conquest effected a revolution in ecclesiastical and theological matters. The Old English Church was separated from the Anglo-Norman Church in not a few points both of doctrine and of discipline. Yet here we find the representative men of learning in both agreed on this one point—the authorship and canonicity of the Epistle to the Laodiceans. From the language of John of Salisbury however it appears that such was not the common verdict at least in his age, and that on this point the instinct of the many was more sound than the learning of the few. Nor indeed was it the undisputed opinion even of the learned in this country during this interval. [Sidenote: The epistle repudiated by Lanfranc.]The first Norman Archbishop, Lanfranc, an Italian by birth and education, explains the passage in the Colossian Epistle as referring to a letter written by the Laodiceans to the Apostle, and adds that otherwise ‘there would be more than thirteen Epistles of Paul[648]’. Thus he tacitly ignores the Epistle to the Laodiceans, with which he can hardly have been unacquainted.

Footnote 639:

Quoted above, p. 359, note 637.

Footnote 640:

See above, p. 315 sq.

Footnote 641:

Greg. Magn. Mor. in Iob. xxxv. § 25 (III. p. 433, ed. Gallicc.) ‘Recte vita ecclesiæ multiplicata per decem et quattuor computatur; quia utrumque testamentum custodiens, et tam secundum Legis decalogum quam secundum quattuor Evangelii libros vivens, usque ad perfectionis culmen extenditur. Unde et Paulus apostolus quamvis epistolas quindecim scripserit, sancta tamen ecclesia non amplius quam quatuordecim tenet, ut ex ipso epistolarum numero ostenderet quod doctor egregius Legis et Evangelii secreta rimasset’.

Footnote 642:

Patrol. Lat. CXVII. p. 765 (ed. Migne) ‘Et eam quæ erat Laodicensium ideo præcipit Colossensibus legi, quia, licet perparva sit et in Canone non habeatur, aliquid tamen utilitatis habet’. He uses the expression ‘eam quæ erat Laodicensium’, because τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας was translated in the Latin Bible ‘eam quæ Laodicensium est’.

Footnote 643:

See Galatians p. 232 on the authorship of this commentary.

Footnote 644:

A third Epistle to the Corinthians being perhaps reckoned as the 15th; see Fabric. Cod. Apocr. Nov. Test. II p. 866.

Footnote 645:

Patrol. Lat. CLXXXI. p. 1355 sq. (ed. Migne) ‘et ea similiter epistola, quæ Laodicensium est, i.e. quam ego Laodicensibus misi, legatur vobis. Quamvis et hanc epistolam quintamdecimam vel sextamdecimam apostolus scripserit, et auctoritas eam apostolica sicut cætera firmavit, sancta tamen ecclesia non amplius quam quatuordecim tenet, ut ex ipso epistolarum numero ostenderet etc.’ At the end of the notes to the Colossians he adds ‘Hucusque protenditur epistola quæ missa est ad Colossenses. Congruum autem videtur ut propter notitiam legentium subjiciamus eam quæ est ad Laodicenses directa; quam, ut diximus, in usu non habet ecclesia. Est ergo talis.’ Then follows the text of the Laodicean Epistle, but it is not annotated.

Footnote 646:

A Saxon Treatise concerning the Old and New Testament by Ælfricus Abbas, p. 28 (ed. W. L’Isle, London 1623).

Footnote 647:

Ioann. Sarisb. Epist. 143 (I. p. 210 ed. Giles) ‘Epistolæ Pauli quindecim uno volumine comprehensæ, licet sit vulgata et fere omnium communis opinio non esse nisi quatuordecim, decem ad ecclesias, quatuor ad personas; si tamen illa quæ ad Hebræos est connumeranda est epistolis Pauli, quod in præfatione ejus astruere videtur doctorum doctor Hieronymus, illorum dissolvens argutias qui eam Pauli non esse contendebant. Cæterum quintadecima est illa quæ ecclesiæ Laodicensium scribitur; et licet, ut ait Hieronymus, ab omnibus explodatur, tamen ab apostolo scripta est: neque sententia hæc de aliorum præsumitur opinione sed ipsius apostoli testimonio roboratur. Meminit enim ipsius in epistola ad Colossenses his verbis, Quum lecta fuerit apud vos hæc epistola, etc.’

Footnote 648:

Patrol. Lat. CL. p. 331 (ed. Migne) on Col. iv. 16 ‘Hæc si esset apostoli, ad Laodicenses diceret, non Laodicensium; et plusquam tredecim essent epistolæ Pauli’. We should perhaps read xiiii for xiii, ‘quatuordecim’ for ‘tredecim’, as Lanfranc is not likely to have questioned the Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

[Sidenote: Occurrence in MSS of all ages and countries.]

Indeed the safest criterion of the extent to which this opinion prevailed, is to be found in the manuscripts. At all ages from the sixth to the fifteenth century we have examples of its occurrence among the Pauline Epistles and most frequently without any marks which imply doubt respecting its canonicity. These instances are more common in proportion to the number of extant MSS in the earlier epoch than in the later[649]. In one of the three or four extant authorities for the Old Latin Version of the Pauline Epistles it has a place[650]. In one of the two most ancient copies of Jerome’s revised Vulgate it is found[651]. Among the first class MSS of this latter Version its insertion is almost as common as its omission. This phenomenon moreover is not confined to any one country. Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, England, Germany, Switzerland—all the great nations of Latin Christendom—contribute examples of early manuscripts in which this epistle has a place[652].

Footnote 649:

The proportion however is very different in different collections. In the Cambridge University Library I found the epistle in four only out of some thirty MSS Which I inspected; whereas in the Lambeth Library the proportion was far greater.

Footnote 650:

The Speculum of Mai, see above, p. 348.

Footnote 651:

The Codex Fuldensis, which was written within a few years of the Codex Amiatinus.

Footnote 652:

The list of MSS given above p. 348 sq. will substantiate this statement.

[Sidenote: Versions.]

And, when the Scriptures came to be translated into the vernacular languages of modern Europe, this epistle was not uncommonly included. [Sidenote: Albigensian.]Thus we meet with an Albigensian version, which is said to belong to the thirteenth century[653]. [Sidenote: Bohemian.]Thus too it is found in the Bohemian language, both in manuscript and in the early printed Bibles, in various recensions[654]. [Sidenote: German.]And again an old German translation is extant, which, judging from linguistic peculiarities, cannot be assigned to a later date than about the fourteenth century, and was printed in not less than fourteen editions of the German Bible at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, before Luther’s version appeared[655]. [Sidenote: English.]In the early English Bibles too it has a place. Though it was excluded by both Wycliffe and Purvey, yet it did not long remain untranslated and appears in two different and quite independent versions, in MSS written before the middle of the fifteenth century[656]. The prologue prefixed to the commoner of the two forms runs as follows:

[Sidenote: English prologue.]

‘Laodicensis ben also Colocenses, as tweye townes and oo peple in maners. These ben of Asie, and among hem hadden be false apostlis, and disceyuede manye. Therfore the postle bringith hem to mynde of his conuersacion and trewe preching of the gospel, and excitith hem to be stidfast in the trewe witt and loue of Crist, and to be of oo wil. But this pistil is not in comyn Latyn bookis, and therfor it was but late translatid into Englisch tunge[657].’

Footnote 653:

An account of this MS, which is at Lyons, is given by Reuss in the Revue de Théologie v. p. 334 (Strassb. 1852). He ascribes the translation of the New Testament to the 13th century, and dates the MS a little later.

Footnote 654:

This version is printed by Anger, p. 170 sq.

Footnote 655:

See Anger, p. 149 sq., p. 166 sq.

Footnote 656:

These two versions are printed in Lewis’s New Testament translated by J. Wiclif (1731) p. 99 sq., and in Forshall and Madden’s Wycliffite Versions of the Holy Bible (1850) IV. p. 438 sq. They are also given by Anger p. 168 sq. (1843), who takes the rarer form from Lewis and the other from a Dresden MS. Dr Westcott also has printed the commoner version in his Canon, p. 457 (ed. 4), from Forshall and Madden.

Of one of these two versions Forshall and Madden give a collation of several MSS; the other is taken from a single MS (I. p. xxxii). Lewis does not state whence he derived the rarer of these two versions, but there can be little doubt that it came from the same MS Pepys. 2073 (belonging to Magd. Coll. Cambridge) from which it was taken by Forshall and Madden (I. p. lvii); since he elsewhere mentions using this MS (p. 104). The version is not known to exist in any other. Forshall and Madden give the date of the MS as about 1440.

Footnote 657:

From Forshall and Madden, IV. p. 438. The earliest MSS which contain the common version of the Laodicean Epistle (to which this prologue is prefixed) date about A.D. 1430.

[Sidenote: Two Versions of the epistle.]

The two forms of the epistle in its English dress are as follows[658]. The version on the left hand is extant only in a single MS; the other, which occupies the right column, is comparatively common.

‘Poul, apostle, not of men, ne bi man, but bi Jhesu Crist, to the britheren that ben of Laodice, grace to ȝou, and pees of God the fadir, and of the Lord Jhesu Crist. Gracis I do to Crist bi al myn orisoun, that ȝe be dwellinge in him and lastinge, bi the biheest abidinge in the dai of doom. Ne he vnordeynede vs of sum veyn speche feynynge, that vs ouerturne fro the sothfastnesse of the gospel that of me is prechid. Also now schal God do hem leuynge, and doynge of blessdnesse of werkis, which heelthe of lyf is. And now openli ben my boondis, whiche I suffre in Crist Jhesu, in whiche I glad and ioie. And that is to me heelthe euerlastynge, that that I dide with oure preieris, and mynystringe the Holy Spirit, bi lijf or bi deeth. It is forsothe to me lijf into Crist, and to die ioie withouten eende. In vs he schal do his merci, that ȝe haue the same louynge, and that ȝe be of o wil. Therfore, derlyngis, as ȝe han herd in presence of me, hold ȝe, and do ȝe in drede of God; and it schal be to ȝou lijf withouten eend. It is forsothe God that worchith in vs. And do ȝe withouten ony withdrawinge, what soeuere ȝe doon. And that it is, derlyngis, ioie ȝe in Crist, and flee ȝe maad foul in clay. Alle ȝoure axingis ben open anentis God, and be ȝe fastned in the witt of Crist. And whiche been hool, and sooth, and chast, and rightwijs, and louable, do ȝe; and whiche herden and take in herte, hold ȝe; and it schal be to ȝou pees. Holi men greeten ȝou weel, in the grace of oure Lord Jhesu Crist, with the Holi Goost. And do ȝe that pistil of Colosensis to be red to ȝou. Amen.

‘Poul, apostle, not of men, ne by man, but bi Jhesu Crist, to the britheren that ben at Laodice, grace to ȝou, and pees of God the fadir, and of the Lord Jhesu Crist. I do thankyngis to my God bi al my preier, that ȝe be dwelling and lastyng in him, abiding the biheest in the day of doom. For neithir the veyn spekyng of summe vnwise men hath lettide ȝou, the whiche wolden turne ȝou fro the treuthe of the gospel, that is prechid of me. And now hem that ben of me, to the profiȝt of truthe of the gospel, God schal make disseruyng, and doyng benygnyte of werkis, and helthe of euerlasting lijf. And now my boondis ben open, which Y suffre in Crist Jhesu, in whiche Y glade and ioie. And that is to me to euerlastyng helthe, that this same thing be doon by ȝoure preiers, and mynystryng of the Holi Goost, either bi lijf, either bi deeth. Forsothe to me it is lijf to lyue in Crist, and to die ioie. And his mercy schal do in ȝou the same thing, that ȝe moun haue the same loue, and that ȝe be of oo will. Therfore, ȝe weel biloued britheren, holde ȝe, and do ȝe in the dreede of God, as ȝe han herde the presence of me; and lijf schal be to ȝou withouten eende. Sotheli it is God that worchith in ȝou. And, my weel biloued britheren, do ȝe without eny withdrawyng what euer thingis ȝe don. Joie ȝe in Crist, and eschewe ȝe men defoulid in lucre, either foul wynnyng. Be alle ȝoure askyngis open anentis God, and be ȝe stidefast in the witt of Crist. And do ȝe tho thingis that ben hool, and trewe, and chaast, and iust, and able to be loued; and kepe ȝe in herte tho thingis that ȝe haue herd and take; and pees schal be to ȝou. Alle holi men greten ȝou weel. The grace of oure Lord Jhesu Crist be with ȝoure spirit. And do ȝe that pistil of Colocensis to be red to ȝou.

Footnote 658:

Printed from Forshall and Madden l.c. I am assured by those who are thoroughly conversant with old English, that they can discern no difference of date in these two versions, and that they both belong probably to the early years of the 15th century. The rarer version is taken from a better Latin text than the other.

[Sidenote: Revival of learning and condemnation of the epistle.]

Thus for more than nine centuries this forged epistle hovered about the doors of the sacred Canon, without either finding admission or being peremptorily excluded. At length the revival of learning dealt its death-blow to this as to so many other spurious pretensions. As a rule, Roman Catholics and Reformers were equally strong in their condemnation of its worthlessness. The language of Erasmus more especially is worth quoting for its own sake, and must not be diluted by translation:

[Sidenote: Strictures of Erasmus.]

‘Nihil habet Pauli præter voculas aliquot ex cæteris ejus epistolis mendicatas.... Non est cujusvis hominis Paulinum pectus effingere. Tonat, fulgurat, meras flammas loquitur Paulus. At hæc, præterquam quod brevissima est, quam friget, quam jacet!... Quanquam quid attinet argumentari? Legat, qui volet, epistolam.... Nullum argumentum efficacius persuaserit eam non esse Pauli quam ipsa epistola. Et si quid mihi naris est, ejusdem est opificis qui næniis suis omnium veterum theologorum omnia scripta contaminavit, conspurcavit, perdidit, ac præcipue ejus qui præ cæteris indignus erat ea contumelia, nempe D. Hieronymi[659]’.

Footnote 659:

On Col. iv. 16. Erasmus is too hard upon the writer of this letter, when he charges him with such a mass of forgeries. He does not explain how this hypothesis is consistent with the condemnation of the Epistle to the Laodiceans in Hieron. Vir. Ill. 5 (quoted above p. 359).

[Sidenote: Exceptions.]

But some eccentric spirits on both sides were still found to maintain its genuineness. [Sidenote: Prætorius.]Thus on the one hand the Lutheran Steph. Prætorius prefaces his edition of this epistle (A.D. 1595) with the statement that he ‘restores it to the Christian Church’; he gives his opinion that it was written ‘either by the Apostle himself or by some other Apostolic man’: he declares that to himself it is ‘redolent of the spirit and grace of the most divine Paul’; and he recommends younger teachers of the Gospel to ‘try their strength in explaining it’, that thus ‘accustoming themselves gradually to the Apostolic doctrine they may extract thence a flavour sweeter than ambrosia and nectar[660].’ [Sidenote: Stapleton.]On the other hand the Jesuit Stapleton was not less eager in his advocacy of this miserable cento. To him its genuineness had a controversial value. Along with several other apocryphal writings which he accepted in like manner, it was important in his eyes as showing that the Church had authority to exclude even Apostolic writings from the Canon, if she judged fit[661]. But such phenomena were quite abnormal. The dawn of the Reformation epoch had effectually scared away this ghost of a Pauline epistle, which (we may confidently hope) has been laid for ever and will not again be suffered to haunt the mind of the Church.

Footnote 660:

Pauli Apostoli ad Laodicenses Epistola, Latine et Germanice, Hamburg, 1595, of which the preface is given in Fabricius Cod. Apocr. Nov. Test. II. p. 867. It is curious that the only two arguments against its genuineness which he thinks worthy of notice are (1) Its brevity; which he answers by appealing to the Epistle to Philemon; and (2) Its recommendation of works (‘quod scripsit opera esse facienda quæ sunt salutis æternæ’); which he explains to refer to works that proceed of faith.

Footnote 661:

See Bp. Davenant on Col. iv. 16: ‘Detestanda Stapletonis opinio, qui ipsius Pauli epistolam esse statuit, quam omnes patres ut adulterinam et insulsam repudiarunt: nec sanior conclusio, quam inde deducere voluit, posse nimirum ecclesiam germanam et veram apostoli Pauli epistolam pro sua authoritate e Canone excludere’. So also Whitaker Disputation on Scripture passim (see the references given above, p. 341, note 595).

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EPISTLE TO PHILEMON.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE.

[Sidenote: Unique character of the epistle.]

The Epistle to Philemon holds a unique place among the Apostle’s writings. It is the only strictly private letter which has been preserved. The Pastoral Epistles indeed are addressed to individuals, but they discuss important matters of Church discipline and government. Evidently they were intended to be read by others besides those to whom they are immediately addressed. On the other hand the letter before us does not once touch upon any question of public interest. It is addressed apparently to a layman. It is wholly occupied with an incident of domestic life. The occasion which called it forth was altogether common-place. It is only one sample of numberless letters which must have been written to his many friends and disciples by one of St Paul’s eager temperament and warm affections, in the course of a long and chequered life. [Sidenote: Its value.]Yet to ourselves this fragment, which has been rescued, we know not how, from the wreck of a large and varied correspondence, is infinitely precious. Nowhere is the social influence of the Gospel more strikingly exerted; nowhere does the nobility of the Apostle’s character receive a more vivid illustration than in this accidental pleading on behalf of a runaway slave.

[Sidenote: The persons addressed.]

The letter introduces us to an ordinary household in a small town of Phrygia. Four members of it are mentioned by name, the father, the mother, the son, and the slave.

[Sidenote: 1. Philemon.]

1. The head of the family bears a name which, for good or for evil, was not unknown in connexion with Phrygian story. [Sidenote: Occurrence of the name in Phrygia.]The legend of Philemon and Baucis, the aged peasants who entertained not angels but gods unawares, and were rewarded by their divine guests for their homely hospitality and their conjugal love[662], is one of the most attractive in Greek mythology, and contrasts favourably with many a revolting tale in which the powers of Olympus are represented as visiting this lower earth. It has a special interest too for the Apostolic history, because it suggests an explanation of the scene at Lystra, when the barbarians would have sacrificed to the Apostles, imagining that the same two gods, Zeus and Hermes, had once again deigned to visit, in the likeness of men, those regions which they had graced of old by their presence[663]. Again, in historical times we read of one Philemon who obtained an unenviable notoriety at Athens by assuming the rights of Athenian citizenship, though a Phrygian and apparently a slave[664]. Otherwise the name is not distinctively Phrygian. It does not occur with any special frequency in the inscriptions belonging to this country; and though several persons bearing this name rose to eminence in literary history, not one, so far as we know, was a Phrygian.

Footnote 662:

Ovid. Met. vii. 626 sq. ‘Jupiter huc, specie mortali, cumque parente Venit Atlantiades positis caducifer alis’ etc.

Footnote 663:

Acts xiv. 11 οἵ θεοὶ ὁμοιωθέντες ἀνθρώποις κατέβησαν πρὸς ἡμᾶς κ.τ.λ. There are two points worth observing in the Phrygian legend, as illustrating the Apostolic history. (1) It is a miracle, which opens the eyes of the peasant couple to the divinity of their guests thus disguised; (2) The immediate effect of this miracle is their attempt to sacrifice to their divine visitors, ‘dis hospitibus mactare parabant’. The familiarity with this beautiful story may have suggested to the barbarians of Lystra, whose ‘Lycaonian speech’ was not improbably a dialect of Phrygian, that the same two gods, Zeus and Hermes, had again visited this region on an errand at once of beneficence and of vengeance, while at the same time it would prompt them to conciliate the deities by a similar mode of propitiation, ἤθελον θύειν.

Footnote 664:

Aristoph. Av. 762 εἰ δὲ τυγχάνει τις ὢν Φρὺξ ... φρυγίλος ὄρνις ἐνθάδ’ ἔσται, τοῦ Φιλήμονος γένους.

[Sidenote: This Philemon a Colossian]

The Philemon with whom we are concerned was a native, or at least an inhabitant, of Colossæ. This appears from the fact that his slave is mentioned as belonging to that place. It may be added also, in confirmation of this view, that in one of two epistles written and despatched at the same time St Paul announces the restoration of Onesimus to his master, while in the other he speaks of this same person as revisiting Colossæ[665]. On the other hand it would not be safe to lay any stress on the statement of Theodoret, that Philemon’s house was still standing at Colossæ when he wrote[666], for traditions of this kind have seldom any historical worth.

Footnote 665:

Compare Col. iv. 9 with Philem. 11 sq.

Footnote 666:

Theodoret in his preface to the epistle says πόλιν δε εἶχε [[ὁ Φιλήμων] τὰς Κολάσσας· καὶ ἡ οἰκία δὲ αὐτοῦ μέχρι τοῦ παρόντος μεμένηκε. This is generally taken to mean that Philemon’s house was still standing, when Theodoret wrote. This may be the correct interpretation, but the language is not quite explicit.

[Sidenote: converted by St Paul.]

Philemon had been converted by St Paul himself[667]. At what time or under what circumstances he received his first lessons in the Gospel, we do not know: but the Apostle’s long residence at Ephesus naturally suggests itself as the period when he was most likely to have become acquainted with a citizen of Colossæ[668].

Footnote 667:

ver. 19.

Footnote 668:

See above, p. 30 sq.

[Sidenote: His evangelical zeal,]

Philemon proved not unworthy of his spiritual parentage. Though to Epaphras belongs the chief glory of preaching the Gospel at Colossæ[669], his labours were well seconded by Philemon. The title of ‘fellow-labourer,’ conferred upon him by the Apostle[670], is a noble testimony to his evangelical zeal. Like Nymphas in the neighbouring Church of Laodicea[671], Philemon had placed his house at the disposal of the Christians at Colossæ for their religious and social gatherings[672]. Like Gaius[673], to whom the only other private letter in the Apostolic Canon is addressed[674], he was generous in his hospitalities. [Sidenote: and wide hospitality.]All those with whom he came in contact spoke with gratitude of his kindly attentions[675]. Of his subsequent career we have no certain knowledge. [Sidenote: Legendary martyrdom.]Legendary story indeed promotes him to the bishopric of Colossæ[676], and records how he was martyred in his native city under Nero[677]. But this tradition or fiction is not entitled to any credit. All that we really know of Philemon is contained within this epistle itself.

Footnote 669:

See above, p. 31 sq.

Footnote 670:

ver. 1 συνεργῷ ἡμῶν.

Footnote 671:

Col. iv. 15.

Footnote 672:

ver. 2 τῇ κατ’ οἶκόν σου ἐκκλησίᾳ. The Greek commentators, Chrysostom and Theodoret, suppose that St Paul designates Philemon’s own family (including his slaves) by this honourable title of ἐκκλησία, in order to interest them in his petition. This is plainly wrong. See the note on Col. iv. 15.

Footnote 673:

3 Joh. 5 sq.

Footnote 674:

I take the view that the κυρία addressed in the Second Epistle of St John is some church personified, as indeed the whole tenour of the epistle seems to imply: see esp. vv. 4, 7 sq. The salutation to the ‘elect lady’ (ver. 1) from her ‘elect sister’ (ver. 15) will then be a greeting sent to one church from another; just as in 1 Peter, the letter is addressed at the outset ἐκλεκτοῖς Πόντου κ.τ.λ. (i. 1) and contains at the close a salutation from ἡ ἐν Βαβυλῶνι συνεκλεκτή (v. 13).

Footnote 675:

vv. 5, 7.

Footnote 676:

Apost. Const. vii. 46 τῆς δὲ ἐν Φρυγίᾳ Λαοδικείας [ἐπίσκοπος] Ἄρχιππος, Κολασσάεων δὲ Φιλήμων, Βεροίας δὲ τῆς κατὰ Μακεδονίαν Ὀνήσιμος ὁ Φιλήμονος. The Greek Menæa however make Philemon bishop of Gaza; see Tillemont I. p. 574 note lxvi.

Footnote 677:

See Tillemont I. pp. 290, 574, for the references.

[Sidenote: 2. Apphia his wife.]

2. It is a safe inference from the connexion of the names that Apphia was the wife of Philemon[678]. The commentators assume without misgiving that we have here the familiar Roman name Appia, though they do not explain the intrusion of the aspirate[679]. This seems to be a mistake. [Sidenote: A strictly Phrygian name.]The word occurs very frequently on Phrygian inscriptions as a proper name, and is doubtless of native origin. At Aphrodisias and Philadelphia, at Eumenia and Apamea Cibotus, at Stratonicea, at Philomelium, at Æzani and Cotiæum and Dorylæum, at almost all the towns far and near, which were either Phrygian or subject to Phrygian influences, and in which any fair number of inscriptions has been preserved, the name is found. If no example has been discovered at Colossæ itself, we must remember that not a single proper name has been preserved on any monumental inscription at this place. It is generally written either Apphia or Aphphia[680]; more rarely Aphia, which is perhaps due merely to the carelessness of the stonecutters[681]. [Sidenote: Its affinities]But, so far as I have observed, it always preserves the aspirate. Its diminutive is Apphion or Aphphion or Aphion[682]. The allied form Aphphias or Aphias, also a woman’s name, is found, though less commonly[683]; and we likewise frequently meet with the shorter form Apphe or Aphphe[684]. The man’s name corresponding to Apphia is Apphianos, but this is rare[685]. The root would appear to be some Phrygian term of endearment or relationship[686]. [Sidenote: and analogies.]It occurs commonly in connexion with other Phrygian names of a like stamp, more especially Ammia, which undergoes the same modifications of form, Amia, Ammias, Ammion or Amion, Ammiane or Ammiana, with the corresponding masculine Ammianos[687]. With these we may also compare Tatia, Tatias, Tation, Tatiane or Tatiana, Tatianos. Similar too is the name Papias or Pappias, with the lengthened form Papianos, to which corresponds the feminine Papiane[688]. So again we have Nannas or Nanas, Nanna or Nana, with their derivatives, in these Phrygian inscriptions[689]. [Sidenote: Not to be confused with the Latin Appia.]There is a tendency in some of the allied forms of Apphia or Aphphia to drop the aspirate so that they are written with a pp, more especially in Appe[690], but not in the word itself; nor have I observed conversely any disposition to write the Roman name Appia with an aspirate, Apphia or Aphphia[691]. Even if such a disposition could be proved, the main point for which I am contending can hardly be questioned. With the overwhelming evidence of the inscriptions before us, it is impossible to doubt that Apphia is a native Phrygian name[692].

Footnote 678:

Boeckh Corp. Inscr. 3814 Νέικανδρος καὶ Ἀφφία γυνὴ αὐτοῦ. In the following inscriptions also a wife bearing the name Apphia (Aphphia, Aphia) or Apphion (Aphphion, Aphion) is mentioned in connexion with her husband; 2720, 2782, 2836, 3446, 2775 b, c, d, 2837 b, 3849, 3902 m, 3962, 4141, 4277, 4321 f, 3846 z^{17}, etc.

M. Renan (Saint Paul p. 360) says, ‘Appia, diaconesse de cette ville’. Like other direct statements of this same writer, as for instance that the Colossians sent a deputation to St Paul (L’Antechrist p. 90), this assertion rests on no authority.

Footnote 679:

They speak of Ἀπφία as a softened form of the Latin Appia, and quote Acts xxviii. 15, where however the form is Ἀππίου. Even Ewald writes the word Appia.

Footnote 680:

Ἀπφία, no. 2782, 2835, 2950, 3432, 3446, 2775 b, c, d, 2837 b, 3902 m, 3962, 4124, 4145: Ἀφφία, no. 3814, 4141, 4277, 4321 f, 3827 l, 3846 z, 3846 z^{17}. So far as I could trace any law, the form Ἀφφία is preferred in the northern and more distant towns like Æzani and Cotiæum, while Ἀπφία prevails in the southern towns in the more immediate neighbourhood of Colossæ, such as Aphrodisias. This accords with the evidence of our MSS, in which Ἀπφία is the best supported form, though Ἀφφία is found in some. In Theod. Mops. (Cramer’s Cat. p. 105) it becomes Ἀμφία by a common corruption; and Old Latin copies write the dative Apphiadi from the allied form Apphias.

The most interesting of these inscriptions mentioning the name is no. 2782 at Aphrodisias, where there is a notice of Φλ. Ἀπφίας ἀρχιερείας Ἀσίας, μητρὸς καὶ ἀδελφῆς καὶ μάμμης συγκλητικῶν, φιλοπάτριδος κ.τ.λ.

Footnote 681:

no. 2720, 3827.

Footnote 682:

Ἄπφιον or Ἄφφιον 2733, 2836, 3295, 3849, 3902 m, 4207; Ἄφιον 3846 z^{34} and Ἄφειον 3846 z^{31}; and even Ἄφφειν, 3167, 3278. In 3902 m the mother’s name is Ἀπφία and the daughter’s Ἄπφιον.

Footnote 683:

Ἀφφίας, 3697, 3983; Ἀφίας 3879.

Footnote 684:

Ἄφφη 3816, 3390, 4143; Ἄπφη 3796, 4122.

Footnote 685:

It is met with at the neighbouring town of Hierapolis, in the form Ἀπφίανος no. 3911. It also occurs on coins of not very distant parts of Asia Minor, being written either Ἀπφίανος or Ἀφφίανος; Mionnet III. p. 179, 184, IV. p. 65, 67, Suppl. VI. p. 293, VII. p. 365.

Footnote 686:

Suidas Ἄπφα: ἀδελφῆς καὶ ἀδελφοῦ ὑποκόρισμα, and so Bekk. Anecd. p. 441. Eustath. Il. p. 565 says ἄπφαν τὴν ἀδελφὴν Ἀττικῶς μόνη ἡ ἀδελφὴ εἴποι ἂν, καὶ πάππαν τὸν πατέρα μόνος ὁ παῖς κ.τ.λ., and he adds ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ ὡς ἐρρέθη ἄπφα γίνεται καὶ τὸ ἄπφιον, ὑποκόρισμα ὂν ἐρωμένης· τινὲς δὲ καὶ τὸ ἄπφα ὑποκόρισμα φασὶν Ἀττικόν. These words were found in writers of Attic comedy (Pollux iii. 74 ἡ παρὰ τοῖς νέοις κωμῳδοῖς ἀπφία καὶ ἀπφίον καὶ ἀπφάριον; comp. Xenarchus τοὺς μὲν γέροντας ὄντας ἐπικαλούμεναι πατρίδια, τοὺς δ’ ἀπφάρια, τοὺς νεωτέρους, Meineke Fragm. Com. III. p. 617): and doubtless they were heard commonly in Attic homes. But were they not learnt in the nursery from Phrygian slaves? Ἀπφάριον appears in two inscriptions almost as a proper name, 2637 Κλαυδία ἀπφάριον, 3277 ἀπφάριον Λολλιανή. In no. 4207 (at Telmissus) we have Ἑλένη ἡ καὶ Ἄφφιον, so that it seems sometimes to have been employed side by side with a Greek name; comp. no. 3912 a Παπίας ... ὁ καλούμενος Διογένης, quoted above p. 48. This will account for the frequency of the names, Apphia, Apphion, etc. In Theocr. XV. 13 we have ἀπφῦς, and in Callim. Hym. Dian. 6 ἄππα, as a term of endearment applied to a father.

Footnote 687:

This appears from the fact that Ammias and Ammianos appear sometimes as the names of mother and son respectively in the same inscriptions; e.g. 3846 z^{82}, 3847 k, 3882 i.

Footnote 688:

On the name Papias or Pappias see above p. 48.

Footnote 689:

See Boeckh Corp. Inscr. III. p. 1085 for the names Νάνας, etc.

Footnote 690:

We have not only the form Ἄππη several times (e.g. 3827 x, 3846 p, 3846 x, 3846 z^{46}, etc.); but also Ἄππης 3827 g, 3846 n, 3846 z^{77}, still as a woman’s name. These all occur in the same neighbourhood, at Cotiæum and Æzani. I have not noticed any instance of this phenomenon in the names Apphia, Apphion; though probably, where Roman influences were especially strong, there would be a tendency to transform a Phrygian name into a Roman, e.g. Apphia into Appia, and Apphianus into Appianus.

Footnote 691:

In the Greek historians of Rome for instance the personal name is always Ἄππιος and the road Ἀππία; so too in Acts xxviii. 15 it is Ἀππίου Φόρον.

Footnote 692:

The point to be observed is that examples of these names are thickest in the heart of Phrygia, that they diminish in frequency as Phrygian influence becomes weaker, and that they almost, though not entirely, disappear in other parts of the Greek and Roman world.

[Sidenote: Her share in the letter.]

Of this Phrygian matron we know nothing more than can be learnt from this epistle. The tradition or fiction which represents her as martyred together with her husband may be safely disregarded. St Paul addresses her as a Christian[693]. Equally with her husband she had been aggrieved by the misconduct of their slave Onesimus, and equally with him she might interest herself in the penitent’s future well-being.

Footnote 693:

ver. 2 τῇ ἀδελφῇ. See the note.

[Sidenote: 3. Archippus, the son.]

3. With less confidence, but still with a reasonable degree of probability, we may infer that Archippus, who is likewise mentioned in the opening salutation, was a son[694] of Philemon and Apphia. The inscriptions do not exhibit the name in any such frequency either in Phrygia or in the surrounding districts, as to suggest that it was characteristic of these parts[695]. [Sidenote: His office]Our Archippus held some important office in the Church[696]; but what this was, we are not told. St Paul speaks of it as a ‘ministry’ (διακονία). Some have interpreted the term technically as signifying the diaconate; but St Paul’s emphatic message seems to imply a more important position than this. Others again suppose that he succeeded Epaphras as bishop of Colossæ, when Epaphras left his native city to join the Apostle at Rome[697]; but the assumption of a regular and continuous episcopate in such a place as Colossæ at this date seems to involve an anachronism. More probable than either is the hypothesis which makes him a presbyter. Or perhaps he held a missionary charge, and belonged to the order of ‘evangelists[698].’ Another question too arises respecting Archippus. Where was he exercising this ministry, whatever it may have been? At Colossæ, or at Laodicea? [Sidenote: and abode,]His connexion with Philemon would suggest the former place. But in the Epistle to the Colossians his name is mentioned immediately after the salutations to the Laodiceans and the directions affecting that Church; and this fact seems to connect him with Laodicea. [Sidenote: Laodicea, rather than Colossæ.]On the whole this appears to be the more probable solution[699]. Laodicea was within walking distance of Colossæ[700]. Archippus must have been in constant communication with his parents, who lived there; and it was therefore quite natural that, writing to the father and mother, St Paul should mention the son’s name also in the opening address, though he was not on the spot. An early tradition, if it be not a critical inference from the allusion in the Colossian letter, makes him bishop not of Colossæ, but of Laodicea[701].

Footnote 694:

So Theodore of Mopsuestia. But Chrysostom ἕτερόν τινα ἴσως φιλόν, and Theodoret ὁ δὲ Ἄρχιππος τὴν διδασκαλίαν αὐτῶν ἐπεπίστευτο.

Footnote 695:

It occurs in two Smyrnæan inscriptions, no. 3143, 3224.

Footnote 696:

Col. iv. 17 βλέπε τὴν διακονίαν ἣν παρέλαβες ἐν Κυρίῳ, ἵνα αὐτὴν πληροῖς.

Footnote 697:

So the Ambrosian Hilary on Col. iv. 17.

Footnote 698:

Ephes. iv. 11 bears testimony to the existence of the office of evangelist at this date.

Footnote 699:

It is adopted by Theodore of Mopsuestia. On the other hand Theodoret argues against this view on critical grounds; τινὲς ἔφασαν τοῦτον Λαοδικείας γεγενῆσθαι διδάσκαλον, ἀλλ’ ἡ πρὸς Φιλήμονα ἐπιστολὴ διδάσκει ὡς ἐν Κολασσαῖς οὗτος ᾤκει· τῷ γὰρ Φιλήμονι καὶ τοῦτον συντάττει: but he does not allege any traditional support for his own opinion.

Footnote 700:

See above pp. 2, 15.

Footnote 701:

Apost. Const. vii, 46 quoted above p. 372, note 676.

[Sidenote: His career.]

Of the apprehensions which the Apostle seems to have entertained respecting Archippus, I have already spoken[702]. It is not improbable that they were suggested by his youth and inexperience. St Paul here addresses him as his ‘fellow-soldier[703],’ but we are not informed on what spiritual campaigns they had served in company. Of his subsequent career we have no trustworthy evidence. Tradition represents him as having suffered martyrdom at Colossæ with his father and mother.

Footnote 702:

See p. 42.

Footnote 703:

ver. 2 τῷ συνστρατίωτῃ ἡμῶν. See the note.

[Sidenote: 4. Onesimus.]

4. But far more important to the history of Christianity than the parents or the son of the family, is the servant. The name Onesimus was very commonly borne by slaves. Like other words signifying utility, worth, and so forth, it naturally lent itself to this purpose[704]. Accordingly the inscriptions offer a very large number of examples in which it appears as the name of some slave or freedman[705]; [Sidenote: A servile name.]and even where this is not the case, the accompaniments frequently show that the person was of servile descent, though he might never himself have been a slave[706]. Indeed it occurs more than once as a fictitious name for a slave[707], a fact which points significantly to the social condition naturally suggested by it. In the inscriptions of proconsular Asia it is found[708]; but no stress can be laid on this coincidence, for its occurrence as a proper name was doubtless coextensive with the use of the Greek language. More important is the fact that in the early history of Christianity it attains some eminence in this region. [Sidenote: Its prominence among the Christians of proconsular Asia.]One Onesimus is bishop of Ephesus in the first years of the second century, when Ignatius passes through Asia Minor on his way to martyrdom, and is mentioned by the saint in terms of warm affection and respect[709]. Another, apparently an influential layman, about half a century later urges Melito bishop of Sardis to compile a volume of extracts from the scriptures; and to him this father dedicates the work when completed[710]. Thus it would appear that the memory of the Colossian slave had invested the name with a special popularity among Christians in this district.

Footnote 704:

e.g. Chresimus, Chrestus, Onesiphorus, Symphorus, Carpus, etc. So too the corresponding female names Onesime, Chreste, Sympherusa, etc.: but more commonly the women’s names are of a different cast of meaning, Arescusa, Prepusa, Terpusa, Thallusa, Tryphosa, etc.

Footnote 705:

e.g. in the Corp. Inscr. Lat. III. p. 323, no. 2146, p. 359, no. 2723, p. 986, no. 6107 (where it is spelled Honesimus); and in Muratori, CC. 6, DXXIX. 5, CMLXVIII. 4, MIII. 2, MDXVIII. 2, MDXXIII. 4, MDLI. 9, MDLXXI. 5, MDLXXV. 1, MDXCII. 8, MDXCVI. 7, MDCVI. 2, MDCX. 19, MDCXIV. 17, 39; and the corresponding female name Onesime in MCCXXXIX. 12, MDXLVI. 6, MDCXII. 9. A more diligent search than I have made would probably increase the number of examples very largely.

Footnote 706:

e.g. Corp. Inscr. Lat. III. p. 238, no. 1467, D. M. M. AVR · ONESIMO · CARPION · AVG · LIB · TABVL · FILIO. In the next generation any direct notice of servile origin would disappear; but the names very often indicate it. It need not however necessarily denote low extraction: see e.g. Liv. xliv. 16.

Footnote 707:

Menander Inc. 312 (Meineke Fragm. Com. IV. p. 300), where the Ὀνήσιμος addressed is a slave, as appears from the mention of his τρόφιμος, i.e. master; Galen de Opt. Doctr. I (I. p. 41 ed. Kühn), where there is a reference to a work of Phavorinus in which was introduced one Onesimus ὁ Πλουτάρχου δοῦλος Ἐπικτήτῳ διαλεγόμενος; Anthol. Græc. II. p. 161, where the context shows that the person addressed as Onesimus is a slave; ib. II. p. 482, where the master, leaving legacies to his servants, says Ὀνήσιμος εἵκοσι πέντε | μνᾶς ἐχέτω Δάος δ’ εἰκοσι μνᾶς ἐχέτω· | πεντήκοντα Σύρος· Συνέτη δέκα, κ.τ.λ. See also the use of the name in the Latin play quoted Suet. Galb. 13 (according to one reading).

Footnote 708:

It occurs as near to Colossæ as Aphrodisias; Boeckh C. I. no. 2743.

Footnote 709:

Ign. Ephes. I. ἐν Ὀνησίμῳ τῷ ἐν ἀγάπῃ ἀδιηγήτῳ ὑμῶν δὲ ἐν σαρκὶ ἐπισκόπῳ ... εὐλόγητος ὁ χαρισάμενος ὑμῖν ἀξίοις οὖσιν τοιοῦτον ἐπίσκοπον κεκτῆσθαι; see also §§ 2, 5, 6.

Footnote 710:

Melito in Euseb. H.E. iv. 26 Μελίτων Ὀνησίμῳ τῷ ἀδελφῷ χαίρειν. Ἐπειδὴ πολλάκις ἠξίωσας κ.τ.λ.

[Sidenote: Position and conduct of Onesimus.]

Onesimus represented the least respectable type of the least respectable class in the social scale. He was regarded by philosophers as a ‘live chattel’, a ‘live implement[711]’; and he had taken philosophy at her word. He had done what a chattel or an implement might be expected to do, if endued with life and intelligence. He was treated by the law as having no rights[712]; and he had carried the principles of the law to their logical consequences. He had declined to entertain any responsibilities. There was absolutely nothing to recommend him. He was a slave, and what was worse, a Phrygian slave; and he had confirmed the popular estimate of his class[713] and nation[714] by his own conduct. He was a thief and a runaway. His offence did not differ in any way, so far as we know, from the vulgar type of slavish offences. He seems to have done just what the representative slave in the Roman comedy threatens to do, when he gets into trouble. He had ‘packed up some goods and taken to his heels[715].’ Rome was the natural cesspool for these offscourings of humanity[716]. In the thronging crowds of the metropolis was his best hope of secresy. In the dregs of the city rabble he would find the society of congenial spirits.

Footnote 711:

Aristot. Pol. i. 4 (p. 1253) ὁ δοῦλος κτῆμά τι ἔμψυχον, Eth. Nic. viii. 13 (p. 1161) ὁ γὰρ δοῦλος ἔμψυχον ὄργανον, τὸ δ’ ὄργανον ἄψυχος δοῦλος. See also the classification of ‘implements’ in Varro, de Re rust. I. 17. 1 ‘Instrumenti genus vocale et semivocale et mutum: vocale, in quo sunt servi; semivocale, in quo boves; mutum, in quo plaustra’.

Footnote 712:

Dig. iv. 5 ‘Servile caput nullum jus habet’ (Paulus); ib. l. 17 ‘In personam servilem nulla cadit obligatio’ (Ulpianus).

Footnote 713:

Plaut. Pseud. I. 2, 6 ‘Ubi data occasiost, rape, clepe, tene, harpaga, bibe, es, fuge; hoc eorum opust’; Ovid. Amor. i. 15. 17 ‘Dum fallax servus’.

Footnote 714:

Cicero speaks thus of Phrygia and the neighbouring districts; pro Flacc. 27 ‘Utrum igitur nostrum est an vestrum hoc proverbium Phrygem plagis fieri solere meliorem? Quid de tota Caria? Nonne hoc vestra voce vulgatum est; si quid cum periculo experiri velis, in Care id potissimum esse faciendum? Quid porro in Græco sermone tam tritum est, quam si quis despicatui ducitur, ut Mysorum ultimus esse dicatur? Nam quid ego dicam de Lydia? Quis unquam Græcus comœdiam scripsit in qua servus primarum partium non Lydus esset’: comp. Alciphr. Epist. iii. 38 Φρύγα οἰκέτην ἔχω πονηρόν κ.τ.λ.; Apollod. Com. (Meineke, IV. p. 451) οὐ πανταχοῦ Φρύξ εἰμι κ.τ.λ. This last passage refers to the cowardice with which, besides all their other bad qualities, the Phrygians were credited: comp. Anon. Com. (ib. IV. p. 652) δειλότερον λαγῶ Φρυγός, Tertull. de Anim. 20 ‘Comici Phrygas timidos illudunt’: see Ribbeck Com. Lat. p. 106.

Footnote 715:

Ter. Phorm. i. 4. 13 ‘aliquid convasassem, atque hinc me protinam conjicerem in pedes’.

Footnote 716:

Sall. Cat. xxxvii. 5 ‘Romam sicuti in sentinam confluxerant’: comp. Tac. Ann. xv. 44.

[Sidenote: His encounter with St Paul in Rome]

But at Rome the Apostle spread his net for him, and he was caught in its meshes. How he first came in contact with the imprisoned missionary, we can only conjecture. Was it an accidental encounter with his fellow-townsman Epaphras in the streets of Rome which led to the interview? Was it the pressure of want which induced him to seek alms from one whose large-hearted charity must have been a household word in his master’s family? Or did the memory of solemn words, which he had chanced to overhear at those weekly gatherings in the upper chamber at Colossæ, haunt him in his loneliness, till, yielding to the fascination, he was constrained to unburden himself to the one man who could soothe his terrors and satisfy his yearnings? Whatever motive may have drawn him to the Apostle’s side—whether the pangs of hunger or the gnawings of conscience—when he was once within the range of attraction, he could not escape. [Sidenote: and conversion.]He listened, was impressed, was convinced, was baptized. The slave of Philemon became the freedman of Christ[717]. St Paul found not only a sincere convert, but a devoted friend, in his latest son in the faith. Aristotle had said that there ought not to be, and could not be, any friendship with a slave qua slave, though there might be qua man[718]; and others had held still stronger language to the same effect. The Apostle did not recognize the philosopher’s subtle distinction. For him the conventional barrier between slave and free had altogether vanished before the dissolving presence of an eternal verity[719]. [Sidenote: St Paul’s affection for him.]He found in Onesimus something more than a slave, a beloved brother both as a slave and as a man, ‘both in the flesh and in the Lord[720].’ The great capacity for good which appears in the typical slave of Greek and Roman fiction, notwithstanding all the fraud and profligacy overlying it, was evoked and developed here by the inspiration of a new faith and the incentive of a new hope. The genial, affectionate, winning disposition, purified and elevated by a higher knowledge, had found its proper scope. Altogether this new friendship was a solace and a strength to the Apostle in his weary captivity, which he could ill afford to forego. To take away Onesimus was to tear out Paul’s heart[721].

Footnote 717:

1 Cor. vii. 22.

Footnote 718:

Eth. Nic. viii. 13 (p. 1161) φιλία δ’ οὐκ ἔστι πρὸς τὰ ἄψυχα οὐδὲ δίκαιον· ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ πρὸς ἵππον ἢ βοῦν, οὐδὲ πρὸς δοῦλον ᾗ δοῦλος· οὐδὲν γὰρ κοινόν ἐστιν· ὁ γὰρ δοῦλος ἔμψυχον ὄργανον, τὸ δ’ ὄργανον ἄψυχος δοῦλος· ᾗ μὲν οὖν δοῦλος, οὐκ ἔστι φιλία πρὸς αὐτόν, ᾗ δ’ ἄνθρωπος κ.τ.λ. On the views of Aristotle respecting slavery see Becker’s Charikles III. p. 2 sq. (ed. 2, 1854) with the editor K. F. Hermann’s references to the literature of the subject, p. 5.

Footnote 719:

1 Cor. vii. 21 sq., Gal. iii. 28, Col. iii. 11. With this contrast the expression attributed to a speaker in Macrob. Sat. i. 11 ‘quasi vero curent divina de servis’.

Footnote 720:

Philem. 16.

Footnote 721:

ver. 12.

[Sidenote: Necessity for his return]

But there was an imperious demand for the sacrifice. Onesimus had repented, but he had not made restitution. He could only do this by submitting again to the servitude from which he had escaped. Philemon must be made to feel that, when Onesimus was gained for Christ, he was regained for his old master also. But if the claim of duty demanded a great sacrifice from Paul, it demanded a greater still from Onesimus. [Sidenote: notwithstanding the risk.]By returning he would place himself entirely at the mercy of the master whom he had wronged. Roman law, more cruel than Athenian, practically imposed no limits to the power of the master over his slave[722]. The alternative of life or death rested solely with Philemon, and slaves were constantly crucified for far lighter offences than his[723]. A thief and a runaway, he laid no claim to forgiveness.

Footnote 722:

Dig. i. 6 ‘In potestate sunt servi dominorum; quae quidem potestas juris gentium est: nam apud omnes peraeque gentes animadvertere possumus dominis in servos vitae necisque potestatem fuisse’. Comp. Senec. de Clem. i. 18 ‘Cum in servum omnia liceant’.

Footnote 723:

So the mistress in Juv. Sat. vi. 219 sq. ‘Pone crucem servo. Meruit quo crimine servus supplicium? quis testis adest? quis detulit?... O demens, ita servus homo est? nil fecerit, esto. Hoc volo, sic jubeo, etc.’ Compare the words of the slave in Plautus Mil. Glor. ii. 4. 19 ‘Noli minitari: scio crucem futuram mihi sepulcrum: Ibi mei sunt majores siti, pater, avos, proavos, abavos’.

[Sidenote: Mediation of Tychicus]

[Sidenote: supplemented by the Apostle’s letter.]

A favourable opportunity occurred for restoring Onesimus to his master. Tychicus, as the bearer of letters from the Apostle to Laodicea and Colossæ, had occasion to visit those parts. He might undertake the office of mediator, and plead the cause of the penitent slave with the offended master. Under his shelter Onesimus would be safer than if he encountered Philemon alone. But St Paul is not satisfied with this precaution. He will with his own hand write a few words of eager affectionate entreaty, identifying himself with the cause of Onesimus. So he takes up his pen.

[Sidenote: Analysis of the letter.]

After the opening salutation to Philemon and the members of his family, he expresses his thankfulness for the report which has reached his ears of his friend’s charitable deeds. It is a great joy and encouragement to the Apostle that so many brethren have had cause to bless his name. This wide-spread reputation for kindliness emboldens him to reveal his object in writing. Though he has a right to command, he prefers rather to entreat. He has a petition to prefer on behalf of a child of his own. This is none other than Onesimus, whom Philemon will remember only as a worthless creature, altogether untrue to his name, but who now is a reformed man. He would have wished to detain Onesimus, for he can ill afford to dispense with his loving services. Indeed Philemon would doubtless have been glad thus to minister vicariously to the Apostle’s wants. But a benefit which wears the appearance of being forced, whether truly so or not, loses all its value, and therefore he sends him back. Nay, there may have been in this desertion a Divine providence which it would ill become him Paul to thwart. Onesimus may have been withheld from Philemon for a time, that he might be restored to him for ever. He may have left as a slave, that he might return more than a slave. To others—to the Apostle himself especially—he is now a dearly beloved brother. Must he not be this and more than this to Philemon, whether in earthly things or in heavenly things? He therefore begs Philemon to receive Onesimus as he would receive himself. As for any injury that he may have done, as for any money that he may owe, the Apostle makes himself responsible for this. The present letter may be accepted as a bond, a security for repayment. Yet at the same time he cannot refrain from reminding Philemon that he might fairly claim the remission of so small an amount. Does not his friend owe to him his own soul besides? Yes, he has a right to look for some filial gratitude and duty from one to whom he stands in the relation of a spiritual father. Philemon will surely not refuse him this comfort in his many trials. He writes in the full confidence that he will be obeyed; he is quite sure that his friend will do more than is asked of him. At the same time he trusts to see him before very long, and to talk over this and other matters. Philemon may provide him a lodging: for he hopes through their prayers that he may be liberated, and given back to them. Then follow the salutations, and the letter ends with the Apostle’s benediction.

[Sidenote: Result of the appeal.]

Of the result of this appeal we have no certain knowledge. It is reasonable to suppose however that Philemon would not belie the Apostle’s hopes; that he would receive the slave as a brother; that he would even go beyond the expressed terms of the Apostle’s petition, and emancipate the penitent. But all this is a mere conjecture. One tradition makes Onesimus bishop of Ephesus[724]. But this obviously arises from a confusion with his namesake, who lived about half a century later[725]. [Sidenote: Legendary history.]Another story points to Berœa in Macedonia as his see[726]. This is at least free from the suspicion of having been suggested by any notice in the Apostolic writings: but the authority on which it rests does not entitle it to much credit. The legend of his missionary labours in Spain and of his martyrdom at Rome may have been built on the hypothesis of his continuing in the Apostle’s company, following in the Apostle’s footsteps, and sharing the Apostle’s fate. Another story, which gives a circumstantial account of his martyrdom at Puteoli, seems to confuse him with a namesake who suffered, or was related to have suffered, in the Decian persecution[727].

Footnote 724:

See Acta Sanct. Boll. xvi Febr. (II. p. 857 sq. ed. nov.) for the authorities, if they deserve the name.

Footnote 725:

If we take the earlier date of the Epistles of St Ignatius, A.D. 107, we get an interval of 44 years between the Onesimus of St Paul and the Onesimus of Ignatius. It is not altogether impossible therefore that the same person may be intended. But on the other hand the language of Ignatius (Ephes. 1 sq.) leaves the impression that he is speaking of a person comparatively young and untried in office.

Footnote 726:

Apost. Const. vii. 46, quoted above, p. 372, note 676.

Footnote 727:

For these ecclesiastical legends see Act. Sanct. l.c. p. 858 sq.

[Sidenote: Depreciation of the epistle in early times.]

The estimate formed of this epistle at various epochs has differed widely. In the fourth century there was a strong bias against it. The ‘spirit of the age’ had no sympathy with either the subject or the handling. Like the spirit of more than one later age, it was enamoured of its own narrowness, which it mistook for largeness of view, and it could not condescend to such trivialities as were here offered to it. Its maxim seemed to be De minimis non curat evangelium. Of what account was the fate of a single insignificant slave, long since dead and gone, to those before whose eyes the battle of the creeds was still raging? This letter taught them nothing about questions of theological interest, nothing about matters of ecclesiastical discipline; and therefore they would have none of it. They denied that it had been written by St Paul. It mattered nothing to them that the Church from the earliest ages had accepted it as genuine, that even the remorseless ‘higher criticism’ of a Marcion had not ventured to lay hands on it[728]. It was wholly unworthy of the Apostle. If written by him, they contended, it must have been written when he was not under the influence of the Spirit: its contents were altogether so unedifying. [Sidenote: Reply of the fathers.]We may infer from the replies of Jerome[729], of Chrysostom[730], and of Theodore of Mopsuestia[731], that they felt themselves to be stemming a fierce current of prejudice which had set in this direction. But they were strong in the excellence of their cause, and they nobly vindicated this epistle against its assailants.

Footnote 728:

Hieron. Comm. in Philem. Præf. VII. p. 743 ‘Pauli esse epistolam ad Philemonem saltem Marcione auctore doceantur: qui, quum cæteras epistolas ejusdem vel non susceperit vel quædam in his mutaverit atque corroserit, in hanc solam manus non est ausus mittere, quia sua illam brevitas defendebat’. St Jerome has in his mind the passage of Tertullian adv. Marc. v. 21 ‘Soli huic epistolæ brevitas sua profuit, ut falsarias manus Marcionis evaderet’.

Footnote 729:

ib. p. 742 sq. ‘Qui nolunt inter epistolas Pauli eam recipere quæ ad Philemonem scribitur, aiunt non semper apostolum nec omnia Christo in se loquente dixisse, quia nec humana imbecillitas unum tenorem Sancti Spiritus ferre potuisset etc.... His et cæteris istius modi volunt aut epistolam non esse Pauli quæ ad Philemonem scribitur aut, etiamsi Pauli sit, nihil habere quod ædificare nos possit etc.... sed mihi videntur, dum epistolam simplicitatis arguunt, suam imperitiam prodere, non intelligentes quid in singulis sermonibus virtutis et sapientiæ lateat’.

Footnote 730:

Argum. in Philem. ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ τινές φασι περιττὸν εἶναι τὸ καὶ τάυτην προσκεῖσθαι τὴν ἐπιστολήν, εἴγε ὑπὲρ πράγματος μικροῦ ἠξίωσεν, ὑπὲρ ἑνὸς ἀνδρός, μαθέτωσαν ὅσοι ταῦτα ἐγκαλοῦσιν ὅτι μυρίων εἰσὶν ἐγκλημάτων ἄξιοι κ.τ.λ., and he goes on to discuss the value of the epistle at some length.

Footnote 731:

Spicil. Solesm. I. W. 149 ‘Quid vero ex ea lucri possit acquiri, convenit manifestius explicare, quia nec omnibus id existimo posse esse cognitum; quod maxime heri jam ipse a nobis disseri postulasti’; ib. p. 152 ‘De his et nunc superius dixi, quod non omnes similiter arbitror potius se (potuisse?) prospicere’.

[Sidenote: High estimate of modern writers.]

In modern times there has been no disposition to under-rate its value. Even Luther and Calvin, whose bias tended to the depreciation of the ethical as compared with the doctrinal portions of the scriptures, show a true appreciation of its beauty and significance. [Sidenote: Luther.]‘This epistle’, writes Luther, ‘showeth a right noble lovely example of Christian love. Here we see how St Paul layeth himself out for poor Onesimus, and with all his means pleadeth his cause with his master: and so setteth himself as if he were Onesimus, and had himself done wrong to Philemon. Even as Christ did for us with God the Father, thus also doth St Paul for Onesimus with Philemon.... We are all his Onesimi, to my thinking’. [Sidenote: Calvin.]‘Though he handleth a subject’, says Calvin, ‘which otherwise were low and mean, yet after his manner he is borne up aloft unto God. With such modest entreaty doth he humble himself on behalf of the lowest of men, that scarce anywhere else is the gentleness of his spirit portrayed more truly to the life.’ And the chorus of admiration has been swelled by later voices from the most opposite quarters. [Sidenote: Later writers.]‘The single Epistle to Philemon,’ says one quoted by Bengel, ‘very far surpasses all the wisdom of the world’[732]. ‘Nowhere’, writes Ewald, ‘can the sensibility and warmth of a tender friendship blend more beautifully with the loftier feeling of a commanding spirit, a teacher and an Apostle, than in this letter, at once so brief, and yet so surpassingly full and significant[733].’ ‘A true little chef d’œuvre of the art of letter-writing,’ exclaims M. Renan characteristically[734]. ‘We have here’, writes Sabatier, ‘only a few familiar lines, but so full of grace, of salt, of serious and trustful affection, that this short epistle gleams like a pearl of the most exquisite purity in the rich treasure of the New Testament[735]’. Even Baur, while laying violent hands upon it, is constrained to speak of this ‘little letter’ as ‘making such an agreeable impression by its attractive form’ and as penetrated ‘with the noblest Christian spirit’[736].

Footnote 732:

Franke Præf. N. T. Græc. p. 26, 27, quoted by Bengel on Philem. 1.

Footnote 733:

Die Sendschreiben etc. p. 458.

Footnote 734:

L’Antechrist p. 96.

Footnote 735:

L’Apôtre Paul p. 194. He goes on to say; ‘Never has the precept which Paul himself gave at the end of his letter to the Colossians been better realised, ὁ λόγος ὑμῶν πάντοτε ἐν χάριτι, ἅλατι ἠρτυμένος κ.τ.λ. (Col. iv. 6).’

Footnote 736:

Paulus p. 476.

[Sidenote: The epistle compared with a letter of Pliny,]

The Epistle to Philemon has more than once been compared with the following letter addressed to a friend by the younger Pliny on a somewhat similar occasion[737]:

Your freedman, with whom you had told me you were vexed, came to me, and throwing himself down before me clung to my feet, as if they had been yours. He was profuse in his tears and his entreaties; he was profuse also in his silence. In short, he convinced me of his penitence. I believe that he is indeed a reformed character, because he feels that he has done wrong. You are angry, I know; and you have reason to be angry, this also I know: but mercy wins the highest praise just when there is the most righteous cause for anger. You loved the man, and, I hope, will continue to love him: meanwhile it is enough, that you should allow yourself to yield to his prayers. You may be angry again, if he deserves it; and in this you will be the more readily pardoned if you yield now. Concede something to his youth, something to his tears, something to your own indulgent disposition. Do not torture him, lest you torture yourself at the same time. For it is torture to you, when one of your gentle temper is angry. I am afraid lest I should appear not to ask but to compel, if I should add my prayers to his. Yet I will add them the more fully and unreservedly, because I scolded the man himself with sharpness and severity; for I threatened him straitly that I would never ask you again. This I said to him, for it was necessary to alarm him; but I do not use the same language to you. For perchance I shall ask again, and shall be successful again; only let my request be such, as it becomes me to prefer and you to grant. Farewell.

Footnote 737:

Plin. Ep. ix. 21.

[Sidenote: as an expression of character.]

The younger Pliny is the noblest type of a true Roman gentleman, and this touching letter needs no words of praise. Yet, if purity of diction be excepted, there will hardly be any difference of opinion in awarding the palm to the Christian Apostle. As an expression of simple dignity, of refined courtesy, of large sympathy, and of warm personal affection, the Epistle to Philemon stands unrivalled. And its pre-eminence is the more remarkable because in style it is exceptionally loose. It owes nothing to the graces of rhetoric; its effect is due solely to the spirit of the writer.

[Sidenote: Its higher interest.]

But the interest which attaches to this short epistle as an expression of individual character is far less important than its significance as exhibiting the attitude of Christianity to a widely spread and characteristic social institution of the ancient world.

[Sidenote: Slavery among the Hebrews.]

Slavery was practised by the Hebrews under the sanction of the Mosaic law, not less than by the Greeks and Romans. But though the same in name, it was in its actual working something wholly different. The Hebrew was not suffered either by law-giver or by prophet to forget that he himself had been a bondman in the land of Egypt; and all his relations to his dependents were moulded by the sympathy of this recollection. His slaves were members of his family; they were members also of the Holy Congregation. They had their religious, as well as their social, rights. If Hebrews, their liberty was secured to them after six years’ service at the outside. If foreigners, they were protected by the laws from the tyranny and violence of their masters. Considering the conditions of ancient society, and more especially of ancient warfare, slavery as practised among the Hebrews was probably an escape from alternatives which would have involved a far greater amount of human misery. Still even in this form it was only a temporary concession, till the fulness of time came, and the world was taught that ‘in Christ is neither bond nor free[738]’.

Footnote 738:

On slavery among the Hebrews see the admirable work of Prof. Goldwin Smith Does the Bible sanction American slavery? p. 1 sq.

Among the Jews the slaves formed only a small fraction of the whole population[739]. They occupy a very insignificant place in the pictures of Hebrew life and history which have been handed down to us. [Sidenote: Large number of slaves in Greece and Rome.]But in Greece and Rome the case was far different. In our enthusiastic eulogies of free, enlightened, democratic Athens, we are apt to forget that the interests of the many were ruthlessly sacrificed to the selfishness of the few. The slaves of Attica on the most probable computation were about four times as numerous as the citizens, and about three times as numerous as the whole free population of the state, including the resident aliens[740]. They were consigned for the most part to labour in gangs in the fields or the mines or the factories, without any hope of bettering their condition. In the light of these facts we see what was really meant by popular government and equal rights at Athens. The proportions of the slave population elsewhere were even greater. In the small island of Ægina, scarcely exceeding forty English square miles in extent, there were 470,000 slaves; in the contracted territory of Corinth there were not less than 460,000[741]. The statistics of slave-holding in Italy are quite as startling. We are told that wealthy Roman landowners sometimes possessed as many as ten or twenty thousand slaves, or even more[742]. We may indeed not unreasonably view these vague and general statements with suspicion: but it is a fact that, a few years before the Christian era, one Claudius Isidorus left by will more than four thousand slaves, though he had incurred serious losses by the civil war[743].

Footnote 739:

In Ezra ii. 65 the number of slaves compared with the number of free is a little more than one to six.

Footnote 740:

Boeckh Public Economy of Athens p. 35 sq. According to a census taken by Demetrius Phalereus there were in the year 309 B. C. 21,000 citizens, 10,000 residents, and 400,000 slaves (Ctesicles in Athen. vi. p. 272 B). This would make the proportion of slaves to citizens nearly twenty to one. It is supposed however that the number of citizens here includes only adult males, whereas the number of slaves may comprise both sexes and all ages. Hence Boeckh’s estimate which is adopted in the text. For other calculations see Wallon Histoire de l’Esclavage I. p. 221 sq.

Footnote 741:

Athen. l.c. p. 272 B, D. The statement respecting Ægina is given on the authority of Aristotle; that respecting Corinth on the authority of Epitimæus.

Footnote 742:

Athen. l.c. Ῥωμαίων ἕκαστος ... πλείστους ὅσους κεκτημένος οἰκέτας· καὶ γὰρ μυρίους καὶ δισμυρίους καὶ ἔτι πλείους δὲ πάμπολλοι κέκτηνται. See Becker Gallus II. p. 113 (ed. 3).

Footnote 743:

Plin. N.H. xxxiii. 47.

[Sidenote: Cruelty of Roman law towards slaves.]

And these vast masses of human beings had no protection from Roman law[744]. The slave had no relationships, no conjugal rights. Cohabitation was allowed to him at his owner’s pleasure, but not marriage. His companion was sometimes assigned to him by lot[745]. The slave was absolutely at his master’s disposal; for the smallest offence he might be scourged, mutilated, crucified, thrown to the wild beasts[746]. Only two or three years before the letter to Philemon was written, and probably during St Paul’s residence in Rome, a terrible tragedy had been enacted under the sanction of the law[747]. [Sidenote: Murder of Pedanius Secundus.]Pedanius Secundus, a senator, had been slain by one of his slaves in a fit of anger or jealousy. The law demanded that in such cases all the slaves under the same roof at the time should be put to death. On the present occasion four hundred persons were condemned to suffer by this inhuman enactment. The populace however interposed to rescue them, and a tumult ensued. The Senate accordingly took the matter into deliberation. Among the speakers C. Cassius strongly advocated the enforcement of the law. ‘The disposition of slaves,’ he argued, ‘were regarded with suspicion by our ancestors, even when they were born on the same estates or in the same houses and learnt to feel an affection for their masters from the first. Now however, when we have several nations among our slaves, with various rites, with foreign religions or none at all, it is not possible to keep down such a rabble except by fear.’ These sentiments prevailed, and the law was put in force. But the roads were lined by a military guard, as the prisoners were led to execution, to prevent a popular outbreak. This incident illustrates not only the heartless cruelty of the law, but also the social dangers arising out of slavery. Indeed the universal distrust had already found expression in a common proverb,‘As many enemies as slaves[748].’ But this was not the only way in which slavery avenged itself on the Romans. The spread of luxury and idleness was a direct consequence of the state of things. Work came to be regarded as a low and degrading, because a servile occupation. Meanwhile sensuality in its vilest forms was fostered by the tremendous power which placed the slave at the mercy of the master’s worst passions[749].

Footnote 744:

On the condition of Greek and Roman slaves the able and exhaustive work of Wallon Histoire de l’Esclavage dans l’Antiquité (Paris 1847) is the chief authority. See also Becker and Marquardt Röm. Alterth. v. 1. p. 139 sq.; Becker Charikles II. p. 1 sq., Gallus II. p. 99 sq. The practical working of slavery among the Romans is placed in its most favourable light in Gaston Bossier, La Religion Romaine II. p. 343 sq. (Paris 1874).

Footnote 745:

Röm. Alterth. l.c. p. 184 sq.; Gallus II. p. 144 sq. In this, as in other respects, the cruelty of the legislature was mitigated by the humanity of individual masters; and the inscriptions show that male and female slaves in many cases were allowed to live together through life as man and wife, though the law did not recognise or secure their union. It was reserved for Constantine to take the initiative in protecting the conjugal and family rights of slaves by legislature; Cod. Theod. ii. 25. 1.

Footnote 746:

Wallon II. p. 177 sq.; Röm. Alterth. l.c.; Gallus II. p. 145 sq.; Rein Privatrecht der Römer p. 552 sq. Hadrian first took away from masters the power of life and death over their slaves; Spart. Vit. Hadr. 18 ‘Servos a dominis occidi vetuit eosque jussit damnari per judices, si digni essent’. For earlier legislative enactments which had afforded a very feeble protection to slaves, see below p. 393.

Footnote 747:

Tac. Ann. xiv. 42. This incident took place A. D. 61. The law in question was the Senatusconsultum Silonianum, passed under Augustus A. D. 10.

Footnote 748:

Senec. Ep. Mor. 47 ‘Deinde ejusdem arrogantiæ proverbium jactatur totidem hostes esse quot servos’; comp. Macrob. i. II. 13. See also Festus p. 261 (Ed. Mueller) ‘Quot servi tot hostes in proverbio est.’]

Footnote 749:

See the saying of Haterius in the elder Seneca Controv. iv. Præf., ‘Impudicitia in ingenuo crimen est, in servo necessitas, in liberto officium’, with its context. Wallon (I. p. 332) sums up the condition of the slave thus: ‘L’esclave appartenait au maître: par lui même, il n’était rien, il n’avait rien. Voilà le principe; et tout ce qu’on en peut tirer par voie de conséquence formait aussi, en fait, l’état commun des esclaves dans la plupart des pays. A toutes les époques, dans toutes les situations de la vie, cette autorité souveraine plane sur eux et modifie leur destinée par ses rigueurs comme par son indifference. Dans l’âge de la force et dans la plénitude de leurs facultés, elle les vouait, à son choix, soit au travail, soit au vice; au travail les natures grossières; au vice, les natures plus délicates, nourries pour le plaisir du maître, et qui lorsqu’il en était las, étaient reléguées dans la prostitution a son profit. Avant et après l’âge du travail, abandonnés a leur faiblesse ou a leurs infirmités; enfants, ils grandissaient dans le désordre; viellards, ils mouraient souvent dans la misère; morts, ils étaient quelquefois délaissés sur la voie publique....’

[Sidenote: Christianity not revolutionary.]

With this wide-spread institution Christianity found itself in conflict. How was the evil to be met? Slavery was inwoven into the texture of society; and to prohibit slavery was to tear society into shreds. Nothing less than a servile war with its certain horrors and its doubtful issues must have been the consequence. Such a mode of operation was altogether alien to the spirit of the Gospel. ‘The New Testament’, it has been truly said, ‘is not concerned with any political or social institutions; for political and social institutions belong to particular nations and particular phases of society’. ‘Nothing marks the divine character of the Gospel more than its perfect freedom from any appeal to the spirit of political revolution[750]’. It belongs to all time: and therefore, instead of attacking special abuses, it lays down universal principles which shall undermine the evil.

Footnote 750:

G. Smith Does the Bible etc.? pp. 95, 96.

[Sidenote: St Paul’s treatment of the case of Onesimus.]

Hence the Gospel never directly attacks slavery as an institution: the Apostles never command the liberation of slaves as an absolute duty. It is a remarkable fact that St Paul in this epistle stops short of any positive injunction. The word ‘emancipation’ seems to be trembling on his lips, and yet he does not once utter it. He charges Philemon to take the runaway slave Onesimus into his confidence again; to receive him with all affection; to regard him no more as a slave but as a brother; to treat him with the same consideration, the same love, which he entertains for the Apostle himself to whom he owes everything. In fact he tells him to do very much more than emancipate his slave, but this one thing he does not directly enjoin. St Paul’s treatment of this individual case is an apt illustration of the attitude of Christianity towards slavery in general.

[Sidenote: His language respecting slavery elsewhere.]

Similar also is his language elsewhere. Writing to the Corinthians, he declares the absolute equality of the freeman and the slave in the sight of God[751]. It follows therefore that the slave may cheerfully acquiesce in his lot, knowing that all earthly distinctions vanish in the light of this eternal truth. If his freedom should be offered to him, he will do well to accept it, for it puts him in a more advantageous position[752]: but meanwhile he need not give himself any concern about his lot in life. So again, when he addresses the Ephesians and Colossians on the mutual obligations of masters and slaves, he is content to insist on the broad fact that both alike are slaves of a heavenly Master, and to enforce the duties which flow from its recognition[753]. He has no word of reproach for the masters on the injustice of their position; he breathes no hint to the slaves of a social grievance needing redress.

Footnote 751:

1 Cor. vii. 21 sq.

Footnote 752:

The clause, ἀλλ’ εἰ καὶ δύνασαι ἐλεύθερος γενέσθαι, μᾶλλον χρῆσαι, has been differently interpreted from early times, either as recommending the slave to avail himself of any opportunity of emancipation, or as advising him to refuse the offer of freedom and to remain in servitude. The earliest commentator whose opinion I have observed, Origen (in Cram. Cat. p. 140), interprets it as favourable to liberty, but he confuses the meaning by giving a metaphorical sense to slavery, δοῦλον ὠνόμασεν ἀναγκαίως τὸν γεγαμηκότα. Again, Severianus (ib. p. 141) distinctly explains it as recommending a state of liberty. On the other hand Chrysostom, while mentioning that ‘certain persons’ interpret it εἰ δύνασαι ἐλευθερωθῆναι, ἐλευθερώθητι, himself supposes St Paul to advise the slave’s remaining in slavery. And so Theodoret and others. The balance of argument seems to be decidedly in favour of the former view.

(1) The actual language must be considered first. And here (i) the particles εἰ καὶ will suit either interpretation. If they are translated ‘even though’, the clause recommends the continuance in slavery. But καὶ may be equally well taken with δύνασαι, and the words will then mean ‘if it should be in your power to obtain your freedom’. So above ver. 11 ἐὰν δὲ καὶ χωρισθῇ: comp. Luke xi. 18 εἰ δὲ καὶ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἐφ’ ἑαυτὸν διεμερίσθη, 1 Pet. iii. 14 ἀλλ’ εἰ καὶ πάσχοιτε διὰ δικαιοσύνην. (ii) The expression μᾶλλον χρῆσαι seems to direct the slave to avail himself of some new opportunity offered, and therefore to recommend liberty; comp. ix. 12, 15.

(2) The immediate context will admit either interpretation. If slavery be preferred, the sentence is continuous. If liberty, the clause ἀλλ’ εἰ καὶ ... μᾶλλον χρῆσαι is parenthetical. In this latter case its motive is to correct misapprehension, as if the Apostle would say, ‘When I declare the absolute indifference of the two states in the sight of God, I do not mean to say that you should not avail yourselves of freedom, if it comes in your way; it puts you in a more advantageous position, and you will do well to prefer it’. Such a corrective parenthesis is altogether after St Paul’s manner, and indeed instances occur in this very context: e.g. ver. 11 ἐὰν δὲ καὶ χωρισθῇ κ.τ.λ., ver. 15 εἰ δὲ ὁ ἄπιστος χωρίζεται κ.τ.λ. This last passage is an exact parallel, for the γὰρ of ver. 16 is connected immediately with ver. 14, the parenthesis being disregarded as here.

(3) The argument which seems decisive is the extreme improbability that St Paul should have recommended slavery in preference to freedom. For (i) Such a recommendation would be alien to the spirit of a man whose sense of political right was so strong, and who asserted his citizenship so stanchly on more than one occasion (Acts xvi. 37, xxii. 28). (ii) The independent position of the freeman would give him an obvious advantage in doing the work of Christ, which it is difficult to imagine St Paul enjoining him deliberately to forego. (iii) Throughout the passage the Apostle, while maintaining the indifference of these earthly relations in the sight of God, yet always gives the preference to a position of independence, whenever it comes to a Christian naturally and without any undue impatience on his part. The spirit which animates St Paul’s injunctions here may be seen from vv. 8, 11, 15, 26, 27 etc.

Footnote 753:

Ephes. vi. 5–9, Col. iii. 22-iv. 1.

[Sidenote: The Christian idea fatal to slavery.]

But meanwhile a principle is boldly enunciated, which must in the end prove fatal to slavery. When the Gospel taught that God had made all men and women upon earth of one family; that all alike were His sons and His daughters; that, whatever conventional distinctions human society might set up, the supreme King of Heaven refused to acknowledge any; that the slave notwithstanding his slavery was Christ’s freedman, and the free notwithstanding his liberty was Christ’s slave; when the Church carried out this principle by admitting the slave to her highest privileges, inviting him to kneel side by side with his master at the same holy table; when in short the Apostolic precept that ‘in Christ Jesus is neither bond nor free’ was not only recognised but acted upon, then slavery was doomed. Henceforward it was only a question of time. Here was the idea which must act as a solvent, must disintegrate this venerable institution, however deeply rooted and however widely spread. [Sidenote: Its general tendency.]‘The brotherhood of man, in short, is the idea which Christianity in its social phase has been always striving to realise, and the progress of which constitutes the social history of Christendom. With what difficulties this idea has struggled; how it has been marred by revolutionary violence, as well as impeded by reactionary selfishness; to what chimerical hopes, to what wild schemes, to what calamitous disappointments, to what desperate conflicts, it has given birth; how often being misunderstood and misapplied, it has brought not peace on earth but a sword—it is needless here to rehearse. Still, as we look back over the range of past history, we can see beyond doubt that it is towards this goal that Christianity as a social principle has been always tending and still tends[754].’

Footnote 754:

G. Smith Does the Bible etc.? p. 121.

[Sidenote: Its effects on slavery.]

And this beneficent tendency of the Gospel was felt at once in its effects on slavery. The Church indeed, even in the ardour of her earliest love, did not prohibit her sons from retaining slaves in their households. It is quite plain from extant notices, that in the earlier centuries, as in the later, Christians owned slaves[755] like their heathen neighbours, without forfeiting consideration among their fellow-believers. But nevertheless the Christian idea was not a dead-letter. [Sidenote: Protection and manumission of slaves.]The chivalry of the Gospel which regarded the weak and helpless from whatever cause, as its special charge, which extended its protection to the widow, the orphan, the sick, the aged, and the prisoner, was not likely to neglect the slave. Accordingly we find that one of the earliest forms which Christian benevolence took was the contribution of funds for the liberation of slaves[756]. [Sidenote: Honours paid to slave martyrs.]But even more important than overt acts like these was the moral and social importance with which the slave was now invested. Among the heroes and heroines of the Church were found not a few members of this class. When slave girls like Blandina in Gaul or Felicitas in Africa, having won for themselves the crown of martyrdom, were celebrated in the festivals of the Church with honours denied to the most powerful and noblest born of mankind, social prejudice had received a wound which could never be healed.

Footnote 755:

Athenag. Suppl. 35 δοῦλοί εἰσιν ἡμῖν, τοῖς μὲν καὶ πλείους τοῖς δ’ ἐλάττους. It would even appear that the domestic servant who betrayed Polycarp (Mart. Polyc. 6) was a slave, for he was put to the torture. Comp. Justin. Apol. ii. 12.

Footnote 756:

Ignat. Polyc. 4 μὴ ἐράτωσαν ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ ἐλευθεροῦσθαι, Apost. Const. iv. 9 τὰ ἐξ αὐτῶν, ὡς προειρήκαμεν, ἀθροιζόμενα χρήματα διατάσσετε διακονοῦντες εἰς ἀγορασμοὺς τῶν ἁγίων, ῥυόμενοι δούλους καὶ αἰχμαλώτους, δεσμίους, κ.τ.λ.

[Sidenote: Christianity predominant.]

While the Church was still kept in subjection, moral influence and private enterprise were her only weapons. But Christianity was no sooner seated on the throne of the Cæsars than its influence began to be felt in the imperial policy[757]. [Sidenote: Legislation of Constantine.]The legislation of Constantine, despite its startling inequalities, forms a unique chapter in the statute book of Rome. In its mixed character indeed it reflects the transitional position of its author. But after all allowance made for its very patent defects, its general advance in the direction of humanity and purity is far greater than can be traced in the legislation even of the most humane and virtuous of his heathen predecessors. More especially in the extension of legal protection to slaves, and in the encouragement given to emancipation, we have an earnest of the future work which Christianity was destined to do for this oppressed class of mankind, though the relief which it gave was after all very partial and tentative[758].

Footnote 757:

It must not however be forgotten that, even before Christianity became the predominant religion, a more humane spirit had entered into Roman legislation. The important enactment of Hadrian has been already mentioned, p. 387, note 746. Even earlier the lex Petronia (of which the date is uncertain) had prohibited masters from making their slaves fight with wild beasts in mere caprice and without an order from a judge (Dig. xlviii. 8. 11); and Claudius (A.D. 47), finding that the practice of turning out sick slaves into the streets to die was on the increase, ordered that those who survived this treatment should have their freedom (Dion Cass. lx. 29, Suet. Claud. 25). For these and similar enactments of the heathen emperors see Wallon III. p. 60 sq., Röm. Alterth. V. I. 197, Rein Privatrecht d. Römer p. 560 sq. The character of this exceptional legislation is the strongest impeachment of the general cruelty of the law; while at the same time subsequent notices show how very far from effective it was even within its own narrow limits. See for instance the passage in Galen, v. p. 17 (ed. Kühn) λακτίζουσι καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐξορύττουσι καὶ γραφέιῳ κεντοῦσιν κ.τ.λ. (comp. ib. p. 584), or Seneca de Ira iii. 3. 6 ‘eculei et fidiculæ et ergastula et cruces et circundati defossis corporibus ignes et cadavera quoque trahens uncus, varia vinculorum genera, varia pœnarum, lacerationes membrorum, inscriptiones frontis et bestiarum immanium caveæ.’

On the causes of these ameliorations in the law see Röm. Alterth. V. 1. p. 199.

Footnote 758:

On the legislation of Constantine affecting slavery see De Broglie L’Eglise et l’Empire Romain, I. p. 304 sq. (ed. 5), Chawner Influence of Christianity upon the Legislation of Constantine the Great, p. 73 sq., Wallon III. p. 414 sq. The legislation of Justinian is still more honourably distinguished for its alleviation of the evils of slavery.

[Sidenote: Subsequent activity of the Church.]

And on the whole this part has been faithfully and courageously performed by the Church. There have been shameful exceptions now and then: there has been occasional timidity and excess of caution. The commentaries of the fathers on this epistle are an illustration of this latter fault[759]. Much may be pardoned to men who shrink from seeming to countenance a violent social revolution. But notwithstanding, it is a broad and patent fact that throughout the early and middle ages the influence of the Church was exerted strongly on the side of humanity in this matter[760]. The emancipation of slaves was regarded as a principal aim of the higher Christian life[761]; the amelioration of serfdom was a matter of constant solicitude with the rulers of the Church.

[Sidenote: The conquests and hopes of the present time.]

And at length we seem to see the beginning of the end. The rapid strides towards emancipation during the present generation are without a parallel in the history of the world. The abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire at an enormous material sacrifice is one of the greatest moral conquests which England has ever achieved. The liberation of twenty millions of serfs throughout the Russian dominions has thrown a halo of glory round the name of Alexander II., which no time can dim. The emancipation of the negro in the vast republic of the New World was a victory not less important than either to the well-being of the human race. Thus within the short period of little more than a quarter of a century this reproach of civilisation and humanity has been wiped out in the three greatest empires of the world. It is a fit sequel to these achievements, that at length a well directed attack should have been made on the central fortress of slavery and the slave-trade, the interior of Africa. May we not venture to predict that in future ages, when distance of view shall have adjusted the true relations of events, when the brilliancy of empires and the fame of wars shall have sunk to their proper level of significance, this epoch will stand out in the history of mankind as the era of liberation? If so, the Epistle to Philemon, as the earliest prelude to these magnificent social victories, must be invested with more than common interest for our generation.

Footnote 759:

E.g. Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia (Spic. Solesm. I. p. 152). Yet St Chrysostom himself pleads the cause of slaves earnestly elsewhere. In Hom. xl. ad 1 Cor. x. p. 385 he says of slavery, ‘It is the penalty of sin and the punishment of disobedience. But when Christ came, he annulled even this, For in Christ Jesus there is no slave nor free. Therefore it is not necessary to have a slave; but, if it should be necessary, then one only or at most a second’. And he then tells his audience that if they really care for the welfare of slaves, they must ‘buy them, and having taught them some art that they may maintain themselves, set them free.’ ‘I know,’ he adds, ‘that I am annoying my hearers; but what can I do? For this purpose I am appointed, and I will not cease speaking so.’ On the attitude of this father towards slavery see Möhler p. 89 sq.

Footnote 760:

On the influence of Christianity in this respect see Wallon III. p. 314 sq., Schmidt Essai historique sur la Société Civile dans le Monde Romain etc. p. 228 sq. (1853), Möhler Gesammelte Schriften II. p. 54 sq., G. Smith Does the Bible etc.? p. 95 sq., E. S. Talbot Slavery as affected by Christianity (1869), Lecky Rationalism in Europe II. p. 255 sq., European Morals II. p. 65 sq.

Footnote 761:

Möhler p. 99 sq., Schmidt p. 246 sq., Lecky E. M. II. p. 73 sq.

ΠΡΟΣ ΦΙΛΗΜΟΝΑ.

WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE IS LIBERTY.

WHO IS WEAK, AND I AM NOT WEAK? WHO IS OFFENDED, AND I BURN NOT?

* * * * *

Such ever was love’s way: to rise, it stoops.

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ΠΡΟΣ ΦΙΛΗΜΟΝΑ.

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1–3]

^1ΠΑΥΛΟΣ, δέσμιος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ καὶ Τιμόθεος ὁ ἀδελφὸς, Φιλήμονι τῷ ἀγαπητῷ καὶ συνεργῷ ἡμῶν ^2καὶ Ἀπφίᾳ τῇ ἀδελφῇ καὶ Ἀρχίππῳ τῷ συνστρατίωτῃ ἡμῶν καὶ τῇ κατ’ οἶκόν σου ἐκκλησίᾳ· ^3χάρις ὑμῖν

1–3. ‘PAUL, now a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and TIMOTHY a brother in the faith, unto PHILEMON our dearly-beloved and fellow-labourer in the Gospel, and unto APPHIA our sister, and unto ARCHIPPUS our fellow-soldier in Christ, and to the Church which assembles in thy house. Grace and peace to you all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’

1. δέσμιος] The authoritative title of ‘Apostle’ is dropped, because throughout this letter St Paul desires to entreat rather than to command (ver. 8, 9); see the note on Phil. i. 1. In its place is substituted a designation which would touch his friend’s heart. How could Philemon resist an appeal which was penned within prison walls and by a manacled hand? For this characteristic reference to his ‘bonds’ see the note on ver. 13.

Τιμόθεος] Timothy seems to have been with St Paul during a great part of his three years’ sojourn in Ephesus (Acts xix. 22), and could hardly have failed to make the acquaintance of Philemon. For the designation ὁ ἀδελφός applied to Timothy see the note on Col. i. 1.

Φιλήμονι κ.τ.λ.] On the persons here addressed, and the language in which they are described, see the introduction p. 369 sq.

συνεργῷ] It would probably be during St Paul’s long sojourn at Ephesus that Philemon had laboured with him: see above p. 31 sq.

ἡμῶν] should probably be attached to ἀγαπητῷ as well as to συνεργῷ; comp. Rom. xvi. 5, 8, 9, 1 Cor. x. 14, Phil. ii. 12.

2. τῇ ἀδελφῇ] For this the received text has τῇ ἀγαπητῇ. Internal probabilities can be urged in favour of both readings. On the one hand ἀγαπητῇ might have been introduced for the sake of conformity to the preceding ἀγαπητῷ; on the other ἀδελφῇ might have been substituted for ἀγαπητῇ on grounds of false delicacy. Theodore of Mopsuestia (Spicil. Solesm. I. p. 154), who had the reading ἀγαπητῇ, feels an apology necessary: ‘Istius temporis (i.e. of the present time) homines propemodum omnes in crimine vocandos esse existimant, modo si audierint nomen charitatis. Apostolus vero non sic sentiebat; sed contrario etc.’ I have preferred τῇ ἀδελφῇ, because the preponderance of ancient authority is very decidedly in its favour.

συνστρατιώτῃ] These spiritual campaigns, in which Archippus was his comrade, probably took place while St Paul was at Ephesus (A.D. 54–57). For the word συνστρατιώτης see Phil. ii. 25. The metaphor of στρατεία, στρατεύεσθαι, is common in St Paul.

τῇ κατ’ οἶκον κ.τ.λ.] probably at Colossæ; see above p. 370 sq. For the meaning of the expression see the note on Col. iv. 15.

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καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

^4Εὐχαριστῶ τᾷ Θεῷ μου πάντοτε, μνείαν σου ποιούμενος ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν μου, ^5ἀκούων σου τὴν ἀγάπην

4–7. ‘I never cease to give thanks to my God for thy well-doing, and thou art ever mentioned in my prayers. For they tell me of thy love and faith—thy faith which thou hast in the Lord Jesus, and thy love which thou showest towards all the saints; and it is my prayer that this active sympathy and charity, thus springing from thy faith, may abound more and more, as thou attainest to the perfect knowledge of every good thing bestowed upon us by God, looking unto and striving after Christ. For indeed it gave me great joy and comfort to hear of thy loving-kindness, and to learn how the hearts of God’s people had been cheered and refreshed by thy help, my dear brother’.

The Apostle’s thanksgiving and intercessory prayer (ver. 4)—the cause of his thanksgiving (ver. 5)—the purport of his prayer (ver. 6)—the joy and comfort which he has in Philemon’s good deeds (ver. 7)—this is the very simple order of topics in these verses. But meanwhile all established principles of arrangement are defied in the anxiety to give expression to the thought which is uppermost for the moment. The clause ἀκούων κ.τ.λ. is separated from εὐχαριστῶ κ.τ.λ., on which it depends, by the intervening clause μνείαν σου κ.τ.λ. which introduces another thought. It itself interposes between two clauses μνείαν σου κ.τ.λ. and ὅπως ἡ κοινωνία κ.τ.λ., which stand in the closest logical and grammatical connexion with each other. Its own component elements are dislocated and inverted in the struggle of the several ideas for immediate utterance. And lastly, in χαρὰν γὰρ κ.τ.λ. there is again a recurrence to a topic which has occurred in an earlier part of the sentence (τὴν ἀγάπην ... εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους) but which has been dropped, before it was exhausted, owing to the pressure of another more importunate thought.

4. Εὐχαριστῶ] See the note on 1 Thess. i. 2.

πάντοτε] should probably be taken with εὐχαριστῶ (rather than with μνείαν κ.τ.λ.), according to St Paul’s usual collocation in these opening thanksgivings: see the notes on Col. i. 3, Phil. i. 3.

μνείαν σου κ.τ.λ.] ‘making mention of thee.’ For μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι see the note on 1 Thess. i. 2. Here the ‘mention’ involves the idea of intercession on behalf of Philemon, and so introduces the ὅπως κ.τ.λ. of ver. 6. See the note there.

5. ἀκούων] This information would probably come from Epaphras (Col. i. 7, 8, iv. 12) rather than from Onesimus. The participle is connected more directly with εὐχαριστῶ than with the intervening words, and explains the grounds of the Apostle’s thanksgiving.

τὴν ἀγάπην κ.τ.λ.] i.e. ‘the faith which thou hast towards the Lord Jesus Christ and the love which thou showest to all the saints.’ The logical order is violated, and the clauses are inverted in the second part of the sentence, thus producing an example of the figure called chiasm; see Gal. iv. 4, 5. This results here from the Apostle’s setting down the thoughts in the sequence in which they occur to him, without paying regard to symmetrical arrangement. The first and prominent thought is Philemon’s love. This suggests the mention of his faith, as the source from which it springs. This again requires a reference to the object of faith. And then at length comes the deferred sequel to the first thought—the range and comprehensiveness of his love. The transition from the object of faith to the object of love is more easy, because the love is represented as springing from the faith. Some copies transpose the order, reading τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην—an obvious emendation. Others would obviate the difficulty by giving to πίστιν the meaning ‘fidelity, stedfastness’: Winer § 1. p. 511 sq. Thus they are enabled to refer both words, πίστιν καὶ ἀγάπην, equally to both the clauses which follow. But, though this is a legitimate sense of πίστις in St Paul (see Galatians, p. 155), yet in immediate connexion with ἣν ἔχεις πρὸς τὸν Κύριον Ἰησοῦν, it is hardly possible that the word can have any other than its proper theological meaning. See the opening of the contemporary epistle, Col. i. 4.

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καὶ τὴν πίστιν ἣν ἔχεις πρὸς τὸν Κύριον Ἰησοῦν καὶ εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους, ^6ὅπως ἡ κοινωνία τῆς πίστέως σου ἐνεργὴς γένηται ἐν ἐπιγνώσει παντὸς ἀγαθοῦ τοῦ ἐν

πρὸς κ.τ.λ.] The change of prepositions, πρὸς τὸν Κύριον ‘towards the Lord’ and εἰς τοὺς ἁγίους ‘unto the saints’, deserves attention. It seems to arise from the instinctive desire to separate the two clauses, as they refer to different words in the preceding part of the sentence. Of the two prepositions the former (προ-ς) signifies direction ‘forward to’, ‘towards’; the latter (ἐν-ς) arrival and so contact, ‘in-to’, ‘unto.’ Consequently either might be used in either connexion; and as a matter of fact εἰς is much more common with πίστις (πιστεύειν), as it is also with ἀγάπη, πρός being quite exceptional (1 Thess. i. 8 ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν ἡ πρὸς τὸν Θεόν; comp. 2 Cor. iii. 4). But where a distinction is necessary, there is a propriety in using πρός of the faith which aspires towards Christ, and εἰς of the love which is exerted upon men. Some good copies read εἰς here in both clauses.

6. ὅπως κ.τ.λ.] to be taken with μνείαν σου ποιούμενος κ.τ.λ., as giving the aim and purport of St Paul’s prayer. Others connect it with hὲν ἔχεις, as if it described the tendency of Philemon’s faith, ‘ita ut’; but, even if ὅπως could bear this meaning, such a connexion is altogether harsh and improbable.

ἡ κοινωνία κ.τ.λ.] Of many interpretations which have been, or might be, given of these words, two seem to deserve consideration. (1) ‘Your friendly offices and sympathies, your kindly deeds of charity, which spring from your faith’: comp. Phil. i. 5 ἐπὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ ὑμῶν εἰς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, Heb. xiii. 16 τῆς εὐποι"ίας καὶ κοινωνίας, whence κοινωνία is used especially of ‘contributions, almsgiving’, Rom. xv. 26, 2 Cor. viii. 4, ix. 13. (2) ‘Your communion with God through faith’: comp. 1 Cor. i. 9, and see also 2 Cor. xiii. 13, 1 Joh. i. 3, 6, 7. The parallel passages strongly support the former sense. Other interpretations proposed are, ‘The participation of others in your faith, through your example’, or ‘your communion with me, springing out of your faith’. This last, which is widely received, is suggested by ver. 17; εἰ κοινωνὸς εἶ, φησί, κατὰ τὴν πίστιν, writes Chrysostom, καὶ κατὰ τὰ ἄλλα ὀφείλεις κοινωνεῖν (comp. Tit. i. 3 κατὰ κοινὴν πίστιν): but it seems quite out of place in this context.

ἐνεργής] ‘effective’. The Latin translators must have read ἐναργής, for they render the word evidens or manifesta. Jerome (ad loc.) speaks of evidens as the reading of the Latin, and efficax of the Greek text. The converse error appears in the MSS of Clem. Hom. xvii. 5, ἐνέργεια for ἐνάργεια.

ἐν ἐπιγνώσει κ.τ.λ.] ‘in the perfect knowledge of every good thing’. This ἐπίγνωσις, involving as it does the complete appropriation of all truth and the unreserved identification with God’s will, is the goal and crown of the believer’s course. The Apostle does not say ‘in the possession’ or ‘in the performance’ but ‘in the knowledge of every good thing’; for, in this higher sense of knowledge, to know is both to possess and to perform. In all the epistles of the Roman captivity St Paul’s prayer for his correspondents culminates in this word ἐπίγνωσις: see the note on Col. i. 9. This ἐπίγνωσις is the result and the reward of faith manifesting itself in deeds of love, ὅπως ἡ κοινωνία τῆς πίστεως κ.τ.λ. For the sequence comp. Ephes. iv. 13 εἰς τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς πίστεως καὶ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως κ.τ.λ., Tit. i. 1 κατὰ πίστιν ἐκλεκτῶν Θεοῦ καὶ ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας τῆς κατ’ εὐσέβειαν. The ἐπίγνωσις therefore which the Apostle contemplates is Philemon’s own. There is no reference to the force of his example on others, as it is sometimes interpreted, ‘in their recognition of every good thing which is wrought in you’.

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ἡμῖν εἰς Χριστόν. ^7χαρὰν γὰρ πολλὴν ἔσχον καὶ παράκλησιν ἐπὶ τῇ ἀγάπῃ σου, ὅτι τὰ σπλάγχνα τῶν ἁγίων ἀναπέπαυται διὰ σοῦ, ἀδελφέ.

6. ἐν ὑμῖν εἰς Χριστόν.

τοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν] ‘which is in us Christians’, ‘which is placed within our reach by the Gospel’; i.e. the whole range of spiritual blessings, the complete cycle of Christian truth. If the reading τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν be adopted, the reference will be restricted to the brotherhood at Colossæ, but the meaning must be substantially the same. Though ὑμῖν has somewhat better support, we seem to be justified in preferring ἡμῖν as being much more expressive. In such cases the MSS are of no great authority; and in the present instance scribes would be strongly tempted to alter ἡμῖν into ὑμῖν from a misapprehension of the sense, and a wish to apply the words to Philemon and his household. A similar misapprehension doubtless led in some copies to the omission of τοῦ, which seemed to be superfluous but is really required for the sense.

εἰς Χριστόν] ‘unto Christ’, i.e. leading to Him as the goal. The words should be connected not with τοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν, but with the main statement of the sentence ἐνεργὴς γένηται κ.τ.λ.

7. χαρὰν γάρ] This sentence again must not be connected with the words immediately preceding. It gives the motive of the Apostle’s thanksgiving mentioned in ver. 4. This thanksgiving was the outpouring of gratitude for the joy and comfort that he had received in his bonds, from the report of Philemon’s generous charity. The connexion therefore is εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ μου ...... ἀκούων σου τὴν ἀγάπην ... χαρὰν γὰρ πολλὴν ἔσχον κ.τ.λ. For χαράν the received text (Steph. but not Elz.) reads χάριν, which is taken to mean ‘thankfulness’ (1 Tim. i. 12, 2 Tim. i. 3); but this reading is absolutely condemned by the paucity of ancient authority.

τὰ σπλάγχνα] ‘the heart, the spirits’. On τὰ σπλάγχνα, the nobler viscera, regarded as the seat of the emotions, see the note on Phil. i. 8. Here the prominent idea is that of terror, grief, despondency, etc.

ἀναπέπαυται] ‘have been relieved, refreshed’, comp. ver. 20. The compound ἀναπάυεσθαι expresses a temporary relief, as the simple παύεσθαι expresses a final cessation: Plut. Vit. Lucull. 5 πολλῶν αὖθις ἀνακινούντων τὸν Μιθριδατικὸν πόλεμον ἔφη Μάρκος

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^8 Διὸ πολλὴν ἐν Χριστῷ παρρησίαν ἔχων ἐπιτάσσειν σοι τὸ ἀνῆκον, ^9 διὰ τὴν αγάπην μᾶλλον παρακαλῶ, τοιοῦτος ὢν ὡς Παῦλος πρεσβύτης νυνὶ δὲ καὶ δέσμιος

9. νῦν δὲ καὶ δέσμιος.

αὐτὸν οὐ πεπαῦσθαι ἀλλ’ ἀναπεπαῦσθαι. Thus it implies ‘relaxation, refreshment,’ as a preparation for the renewal of labour or suffering. It is an Ignatian as well as a Pauline word; Ephes. 2, Smyrn. 9, 10, 12, Trall. 12, Magn. 15, Rom. 10.

ἀδελφέ] For the appeal suggested by the emphatic position of the word, comp. Gal. vi. 18. See also the note on ver. 20 below.

8–17. ‘Encouraged by these tidings of thy loving spirit, I prefer to entreat, where I might command. My office gives me authority to dictate thy duty in plain language, but love bids me plead as a suitor. Have I not indeed a right to command—I Paul whom Christ Jesus long ago commissioned as His ambassador, and whom now He has exalted to the rank of His prisoner? But I entreat thee. I have a favour to ask for a son of my own—one doubly dear to me, because I became his father amidst the sorrows of my bonds. I speak of Onesimus, who in times past was found wholly untrue to his name, who was then far from useful to thee, but now is useful to thee—yea, and to myself also. Him I send back to thee, and I entreat thee to take him into thy favour, for in giving him I am giving my own heart. Indeed I would gladly have detained him with me, that he might minister to me on thy behalf, in these bonds with which the Gospel has invested me. But I had scruples. I did not wish to do anything without thy direct consent; for then it might have seemed (though it were only seeming) as if thy kindly offices had been rendered by compulsion and not of free will. So I have sent him back. Indeed it may have been God’s providential design, that he was parted from thee for a season, only that thou mightest regain him for ever; that he left thee as a slave, only that he might return to thee a beloved brother. This indeed he is to me most of all; and, if to me, must he not be so much more to thee, both in worldly things and in spiritual? If therefore thou regardest me as a friend and companion, take him to thee, as if he were myself’.

8. Διό] i.e. ‘Seeing that I have these proofs of thy love, I prefer to entreat, where I might command’.

παρρησίαν] ‘confidence’, literally ‘freedom’ or ‘privilege of speech’; see the notes on Col. ii. 15, Ephes. iii. 12. It was his Apostolic authority which gave him this right to command in plain language. Hence the addition ἐν Χριστῷ.

το ἀνῆκον] ‘what is fitting’: see the note on Col. iii. 18.

9. διὰ τὴν ἀγάπην] ‘for love’s sake’, i.e. ‘having respect to the claims of love’. It is not Philemon’s love (vv. 5, 7,) nor St Paul’s own love, but love absolutely, love regarded as a principle which demands a deferential respect.

τοιοῦτος ὢν κ.τ.λ.] ‘being such an one as Paul an ambassador, and now also a prisoner, of Christ Jesus’. Several questions of more or less difficulty arise on these words. (1) Is τοιοῦτος ὤν to be connected with or separated from ὡς Παῦλος κ.τ.λ.? If separated, τοιοῦτος ὤν will mean ‘though as an Apostle I am armed with such authority’, and ὡς Παῦλος κ.τ.λ. will describe his condescension to entreaty, ‘yet as simply Paul, etc.’ But the other construction is much more probable for the following reasons., (a) τοιοῦτος ὤν so used, implying, as it would, something of a personal boast, seems unlike St Paul’s usual mode of speaking. Several interpreters indeed, taking τοιοῦτος ὤν separately, refer it to ver. 8, ‘seeing that this is my disposition’, i.e. ‘seeing that I desire to entreat’; but τοιοῦτος suggests more than an accidental impulse. (b) As τοιοῦτος and ὡς are correlative words, it is more natural to connect them together; comp. Plato Symp. 181 E προσαναγκάζειν τὸ τοιοῦτον ὥσπερ καὶ κ.τ.λ., Alexis (Meineke Fragm. Com. III. p. 399) τοιοῦτο τὸ ζῆν ἐστιν ὥσπερ ὁι κύβοι. Such passages are an answer to the objection that τοιοῦτος would require some stronger word than ὡς, such as οἷος, ὅς, or ὥστε. Even after such expressions as ὁ ἀυτός, τὸ ἀυτό, instances occur of ὥς (ὥσπερ): see Lobeck Phryn. p. 427, Stallbaum on Plat. Phæd. 86 A. Indeed it may be questioned whether any word but ὡς would give exactly St Paul’s meaning here. (c) All the Greek commentators without a single exception connect the words τοιοῦτος ὢν ὥς Παῦλος together. (2) Assuming that the words τοιοῦτος ὢν ὡς κ.τ.λ. are taken together, should they be connected with the preceding or the following sentence? On the whole the passage is more forcible, if they are linked to the preceding words. In this case the resumptive παρακαλῶ (ver. 10) begins a new sentence, which introduces a fresh subject. The Apostle has before described the character of his appeal; he now speaks of its object. (3) In either connexion, what is the point of the words τοιοῦτος ὢν ὡς Παῦλος κ.τ.λ.? Do they lay down the grounds of his entreaty, or do they enforce his right to command? If the view of πρεσβύτης adopted below be correct, the latter must be the true interpretation; but even though πρεσβύτης be taken in its ordinary sense, this will still remain the more probable alternative; for, while πρεσβύτης and δέσμιος would suit either entreaty or command, the addition Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ suggests an appeal to authority.

ὡς Παῦλος] The mention of his personal name involves an assertion of authority, as in Ephes. iii. 1; comp. Gal. v. 2, with the note there. Theodoret writes, ὁ Παῦλον ἀκούσας τῆς οἰκουμένης ἀκούει τὸν κήρυκα, γῆς καὶ θαλάττης τὸν γεωργόν, τῆς ἐκλογῆς τὸ σκεῦος, κ.τ.λ.

πρεσβύτης] Comparing a passage in the contemporary epistle, Ephes. vi. 20 ὑπὲρ ὁῦ πρεσβεύω ἐν ἁλύσει, it had occurred to me that we should read πρεσβευτής here, before I was aware that this conjecture had been anticipated by others, e.g. by Bentley (Crit. Sacr. p. 93) and by Benson (Paraphrase etc. on Six Epistles of St Paul p. 357). It has since been suggested independently in Linwood’s Observ. quæd. in nonnulla N. T. loca 1865, and probably others have entertained the same thought. Still believing that St Paul here speaks of himself as an ‘ambassador’, I now question whether any change is necessary. There is reason for thinking that in the common dialect πρεσβύτης may have been written indifferently for πρεσβευτής in St Paul’s time; and if so, the form here may be due, not to some comparatively late scribe, but to the original autograph itself or to an immediate transcript. In 1 Macc. xiv. 21 the Sinaitic MS has οι πρεσβυτεροι (a corruption of οι πρεσβυται οι, for the common reading is οἱ πρεσβευτὰι οἱ); in xiv. 22 it reads πρεσβυται Ιουδαιων; but in xiii. 21 πρεσβευτας: though in all passages alike the meaning is ‘ambassadors’. Again the Alexandrian MS has πρεσβυτας in xiii. 21, but πρεσβευται in xiv. 22, and οι πρεσβευτε οι (i.e. οἱ πρεσβευτὰι οἱ) in xiv. 21. In 2 Macc. xi. 34 this same MS has πρεσβυτε, and the reading of the common texts of the LXX (even Tischendorf and Fritzsche) there is πρεσβῦται. Grimm treats it as meaning ‘ambassadors’, without even noticing the form. Other MSS are also mentioned in Holmes and Parsons which have the form πρεσβυτης in 1 Macc. xiii. 21. In 2 Chron. xxxii. 31 again the word for ‘ambassador’ is written thus in the Vatican MS, though the ε is added above the line; and here too several MSS in Holmes and Parsons agree in reading πρεσβύταις. Thus it is plain that, in the age of our earliest extant MSS at all events, the scribes used both forms indifferently in this sense. So also Eusebius on Isaiah xviii. 2 writes ὁ δε Ἀκύλας πρεσβύτας ἐξέδωκεν εἰπών, (Ο ἀποστέλλων ἐν θαλάσσῃ πρεσβύτας. Again in Ignat. Smyrn. 11 θεοπρεσβύτης is the form in all the MSS of either recension, though the meaning is plainly ‘an ambassador of God.’ So too in Clem. Hom. Ep. Clem. 6 the MSS read ὁ τῆς ἀληθείας πρεσβύτης, which even Schwegler and Dressel tacitly retain. See also Appian Samn. 7, where πρεσβευτοῦ is due to the later editors, and Acta Thomæ § 10, where there is a v. l. πρεσβύτης in at least one MS. And probably examples of this substitution might be largely multiplied. The main reason for adopting this reading is the parallel passage, which suggests it very strongly. The difficulty which many find in St Paul’s describing himself as an old man is not serious. On any showing he must have been verging on sixty at this time, and may have been some years older. A life of unintermittent toil and suffering, such as he had lived, would bring a premature decay; and looking back on a long eventful life, he would naturally so think and speak of himself. Thus Roger Bacon (Opus Majus I 10, p. 15, ed. Jebb; Opus Tertium p. 63, ed. Brewer) writes ‘me senem’, ‘nos senes’, in 1267, though he appears to have been not more than fifty-two or fifty-three at the time and lived at least a quarter of a century after (see E. Charles Roger Bacon, Sa Vie etc. pp. 4 sq., 40). So too Scott in his fifty-fifth year speaks of himself as ‘an old grey man’ and ‘aged’ (Lockhart’s Life VIII. pp. 327, 357). It is more difficult to understand how St Paul should make his age a ground of appeal to Philemon who, if Archippus was his son, cannot have been much younger than himself. The commentator Hilary says that the Apostle appeals to his friend ‘quasi coævum ætatis’, but this idea is foreign to the context. The comment of Theophylact is, τοιοῦτος ὤν, φησι, πρεσβευτής, καὶ ὅυτως ἄξιος ἀκούεσθαι, ὡς εἰκὸς Παῦλον πρεσβύτην, τουτέστι καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ διδασκαλικοῦ ἀξίωματος καὶ τοῦ χρόνου τὸ αἰδέσιμον ἔχοντα κ.τ.λ. Does he mean to include both meanings in πρεσβύτης? Or is he accidentally borrowing the term ‘ambassador’ from some earlier commentator without seeing its bearing?

καὶ δέσμιος] Another title to respect. The mention of his bonds might suggest either an appeal for commiseration or a claim of authority: see the note on ver. 13. Here the addition of Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ invests it with the character of an official title, and so gives prominence to the latter idea. To his old office of ‘ambassador’ Christ has added the new title of ‘prisoner’. The genitive Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ belongs to πρεσβύτης as well as to δέσμιος, and in both cases describes the person who confers the office or rank.

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Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ. ^{10}παρακαλῶ σε περὶ τοῦ ἐμοῦ τέκνον,

10. παρακαλῶ σε κ.τ.λ.] St Chrysostom remarks on the Apostle’s withholding the name, until he has favourably disposed Philemon both to the request and to the object of it; τοσούτοις δὲ προλέανας αὐτοῦ τὴν ψυχήν, οὐδὲ εὐθέως ἐνέβαλε τὸ ὄνομα, ἀλλὰ τοσαύτην ποιησάμενος αἴτησιν ἀναβάλλεται κ.τ.λ. The whole passage deserves to be read.

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ὃν [ἐγὼ] ἐγέννησα ἐν τοῖς δεσμοῖς, Ὀνήσιμον, ^{11}τόν ποτέ

ὃν ἐγέννησα κ.τ.λ.] So too 1 Cor. iv. 15. In Gal. iv. 19 he speaks of himself as suffering a mother’s pangs for his children in the faith. Comp. Phil. Leg. ad Cai. 8 (II. p. 554) ἐμόν ἐστι τοῦ Μάκρωνος ἔργον Γαΐος· μᾶλλον αὐτὸν ἢ οὐχ ἧττον τῶν γονέων γεγέννηκα.

ἐν τοῖς δεσμοῖς] He was doubly dear to the Apostle, as being the child of his sorrows.

Ὀνήσιμον] for Ὀνησίμου by attraction, as e.g. Mark vi. 16 ὃν ἐγὼ ἀπεκεφάλισα Ἰώαννην, οὗτός ἐστιν. Henceforward he will be true to his name, no longer ἀνόνητος, but ὀνήσιμος: comp. Ruth i. 20 ‘Call me not Naomi (pleasant) but call me Mara (bitter) etc.’ The word ἄχρηστος is a synonyme for ἀνόνητος, Demosth. Phil. iii. § 40 (p. 121) ἅπαντα ταῦτα ἄχρηστα ἄπρακτα ἀνόνητα κ.τ.λ.: comp. Pseudophocyl. 37 (34) χρηστὸς ὀνήσιμός ἐστι, φίλος δ’ ἀδικῶν ἀνόνητος. The significance of names was a matter of special importance among the ancients. Hence they were careful in the inauguration of any great work that only those who had bona nomina, prospera nomina, fausta nomina, should take part: Cic. de Div. i. 45, Plin. N.H. xxviii. 2. 5, Tac. Hist. iv. 53. On the value attached to names by the ancients, and more especially by the Hebrews, see Farrar Chapters on Language p. 267 sq., where a large number of instances are collected. Here however there is nothing more than an affectionate play on a name, such as might occur to any one at any time: comp. Euseb. H.E. v. 24 ὁ )Ειρηναῖος φερώνυμός τις ὢν τῇ προσηγορίᾳ, αὐτῷ τε τῷ τρόπῳ εἰρηνόποιος.

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σοι ἄχρηστον, νυνὶ δὲ [καὶ] σοὶ καὶ ἑμοὶ εὔχρηστον· ὃν ἀνέπεμψά σοι. ^{12}αὐτόν, τουτέστιν τὰ ἐμὰ σπλάγχνα,

11. ἄχρηστον, εὔχρηστον] Comp. Plat. Resp. iii. p. 411 A χρήσιμον ἐξ ἀχρήστου ... ἐποίησεν. Of these words, ἄχρηστος is found only here, εὔχρηστος occurs also 2 Tim. ii. 21, iv. 11, in the New Testament. Both appear in the LXX. In Matt. xxv. 30 a slave is described as ἀχρεῖος. For the mode of expression comp. Ephes. v. 15 μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἀλλ’ ὡς σόφοι. Some have discovered in these words a reference to χριστός, as commonly pronounced χρηστός; comp. Theoph. ad Autol. i. 12 τὸ χριστὸν ἡδὺ καὶ εὔχρηστον κ.τ.λ. and see Philippians p. 16 note. Any such allusion however, even if it should not involve an anachronism, is far too recondite to be probable here. The play on words is exhausted in the reference to Ὀνήσιμος.

καὶ ἐμοί] An after-thought; comp. Phil. ii. 27 ἠλέησεν αὐτόν, οὐκ αὐτὸν δὲ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐμέ. This accounts for the exceptional order, where according to common Greek usage the first person would naturally precede the second.

ἀνέπεμψα] ‘I send back’, the epistolary aorist used for the present: see the notes on Phil. ii. 25, 28. So too ἔγραψα, ver. 19, 21 (see the note). It is clear both from the context here, and from Col. iv. 7–9, that Onesimus accompanied the letter.

12. αὐτὸν κ.τ.λ.] The reading of the received text is σὺ δὲ αὐτόν, τουτέστι τὰ ἐμὰ σπλάγχνα, προσλαβοῦ. The words thus supplied doubtless give the right construction, but must be rejected as deficient in authority. The accusative is suspended; the sentence changes its form and loses itself in a number of dependent clauses; and the main point is not resumed till ver. 17 προσλαβοῦ αὐτὸν ὡς ἐμέ, the grammar having been meanwhile dislocated. For the emphatic position of αὐτόν comp. John ix. 21, 23, Ephes. i. 22.

τὰ ἐμὰ σπλάγχνα] ‘my very heart’, a mode of speech common in all languages. For the meaning of σπλάγχνα see the note on Phil. i. 8. Comp. Test. Patr. Zab. 8, Neph. 4, in both which passages Christ is called τὸ σπλάγχνον of God, and in the first it is said ἔχετε εὐσπλαγχνίαν ... ἵνα καὶ ὁ Κύριος εἰς ὑμᾶς σπλαγχνισθὲις ἐλέησῃ ὑμᾶς· ὅτι καίγε ἐπ’ ἐσχάτων ἡμερῶν ὁ Θεὸς ἀποστέλλει τὸ σπλάγχνον αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς κ.τ.λ. Otherwise τὰ ἐμὰ σπλάγχνα has been interpreted ‘my son’ (comp. ver. 10 ὃν ἐγέννησα κ.τ.λ.), and it is so rendered here in the Peshito. For this sense of σπλάγχνα comp. Artemid. Oneir. i. 44 οἱ παῖδες σπλάγχνα λέγονται, ib. v. 57 τὰ δὲ σπλάγχνα [ἐσήμαινε] τὸν παῖδα, οὕτω γὰρ καὶ τὸν παῖδα καλεῖν ἔθος ἐστι. With this meaning it is used not less of the father than of the mother; e.g. Philo de Joseph. 5 (II. p. 45) θηρσὶν εὐωχία καὶ θοίνη γέγονας γευσαμένοις ... τῶν ἐμῶν σπλάγχνων, Basil. Op. III. p. 501 ὁ μὲν προτείνεται τὰ σπλάγχνα τιμὴν τῶν τροφῶν. The Latin viscera occurs still more frequently in this sense, as the passages quoted in Wetstein and Suicer show. For this latter interpretation there is much to be said. But it adds nothing to the previous ὃν ἐγέννησα κ.τ.λ., and (what is a more serious objection) it is wholly unsupported by St Paul’s usage elsewhere, which connects σπλάγχνα with a different class of ideas: see e.g. vv. 7, 20.

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^{13}ὃν ἐγὼ ἐβουλόμην πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν κατέεχειν, ἵνα ὑπὲρ σοῦ μοι διακονῇ ἐν τοῖς δεσμοῖς τοῦ εὐαγγελίου· ^{14}χωρὶς

13. ἐβουλόμην] ‘I was of a mind’, distinguished from ἠθέλησα, which follows, in two respects; (1) While βούλεσθαι involves the idea of ‘purpose, deliberation, desire, mind’, θέλειν denotes simply ‘will’; Epictet. i. 12. 13 βουλόμαι γράφειν, ὡς θέλω, τὸ Δίωνος ὄνομα; οὔ ἀλλὰ διδάσκομαι θέλειν ὡς δεῖ γράφεσθαι, iii. 24, 54 τοῦτον θέλε ὁρᾷν, καὶ ὃν βούλει ὄψει. (2) The change of tenses is significant. The imperfect implies a tentative, inchoate process; while the aorist describes a definite and complete act. The will stepped in and put an end to the inclinations of the mind. Indeed the imperfect of this and similar verbs are not infrequently used where the wish is stopped at the outset by some antecedent consideration which renders it impossible, and thus practically it is not entertained at all: e.g. Arist. Ran. 866 ἐβουλόμην μὲν οὐκ ἐρίζειν ἐνθάδε, Antiph. de Herod. cæd. I (p. 129) ἐβουλόμην μὲν ... νῦν δὲ κ.τ.λ.; Isæus de Arist. hær. I (p. 79) ἐβουλόμην μὲν ... νῦν δὲ οὐκ ἐξ ἴσου κ.τ.λ., Æsch. c. Ctes. 2 (p. 53) ἐβουλόμην μὲν οὖν, ὦ )Αθηναῖοι ... ἐπειδὴ δὲ πάντα κ.τ.λ., Lucian Abd. I ἐβουλόμην μὲν οὖν τὴν ἰατρικὴν κ.τ.λ. ... νυνὶ δὲ κ.τ.λ.; see Kühner § 392 b (II. p. 177). So Acts xxv. 22 ἐβουλόμην καὶ αὐτὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀκοῦσαι, not ‘I should wish’ (as Winer § xli. p. 353) but ‘I could have wished’, i.e. ‘if it had not been too much to ask’. Similarly ἤθελον Gal. iv. 20, ηὐχόμην Rom. ix. 3. See Revision of the English New Testament p. 96. So here a not improbable meaning would be not ‘I was desirous’, but ‘I could have desired’.

κατέχειν] ‘to detain’ or ‘retain’, opposed to the following ἀπέχῃς, ver. 15.

ὑπὲρ σοῦ κ.τ.λ.] Comp. Phil. ii. 30 ἵνα ἀναπληρώσῃ τὸ ὑμῶν ὑστέρημα τῆς πρὸς μὲ λειτουργίας, 1 Cor. xvi. 17 τὸ ὑμέτερον ὑστέρημα αὐτοὶ ἀνεπλήρωσαν. See the note on Col. i. 7. With a delicate tact the Apostle assumes that Philemon would have wished to perform these friendly offices in person, if it had been possible.

ἐν τοῖς δεσμοῖς] An indirect appeal to his compassion: see vv. 1, 9, 10. In this instance however (as in ver. 9) the appeal assumes a tone of authority, by reference to the occasion of his bonds. For the genitive τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, describing the origin, comp. Col. i. 23 τῆς ἐλπίδος τοῦ εὐαγγελίου. They were not shackles which self had riveted, but a chain with which Christ had invested him. Thus they were as a badge of office or a decoration of honour. In this respect, as in others, the language of St Paul is echoed in the epistles of St Ignatius. Here too entreaty and triumph alternate; the saint’s bonds are at once a ground for appeal and a theme of thanksgiving: Trall. 12 παρακαλεῖ ὑμᾶς τὰ δεσμά μου, Philad. 7 μάρτυς δὲ μοι ἐν ᾧ δέδεμαι, Ephes. 11 ἐν ᾧ (i.e. Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ) τὰ δεσμὰ περιφέρω, τους πνευματικοὺς μαργαρίτας, Smyrn. 10 ἀντίψυχον ὑμῶν τὸ πνεῦμά μου καὶ τὰ δεσμά μου, Magn. 1 ἐν οἷς περιφέρω δεσμοῖς ᾄδω τὰς ἐκκλησίας; see also Ephes. 1, 3, 21, Magn. 12, Trall. 1, 5, 10, Smyrn. 4, 11, Polyc. 2, Rom. 1, 4, 5, Philad. 5.

14. χωρὶς κ.τ.λ.] ‘without thy approval, consent’; Polyb. ii. 21. 1, 3, χωρὶς τῆς σφετέρας γνώμης, χωρὶς της αὐτοῦ γνώμης: similarly ἄνευ [τῆς] γνώμης, e.g. Polyb. xxi. 8. 7, Ign. Polyc. 4.

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δὲ τῆς σῆς γνώμης οὐδὲν ἠθέλησα ποιῆσαι, ἵνα μὴ ὡς κατὰ ἀνάγκην τὸ ἀγαθόν σου ᾖ, ἀλλὰ κατὰ ἑκούσιον· ^{15}τάχα γὰρ διὰ τοῦτο ἐχωρίσθη πρὸς ὥραν, ἵνα αἴωνιον αὐτὸν ἀπέχῃς, ^{16}οὐκέτι ὡς δοῦλον, ἀλλὰ ὑπὲρ δοῦλον,

ὡς κατὰ ἀνάγκην] St Paul does not say κατὰ ἀνάγκην but ὡς κατὰ ἀνάγκην. He will not suppose that it would really be by constraint; but it must not even wear the appearance (ὡς) of being so: comp. 2 Cor. xi. 17 ὡς ἐν ἀφροσύνῃ. See Plin. Ep. ix. 21 ‘Vereor ne videar non rogare sed cogere’; where, as here, the writer is asking his correspondent to forgive a domestic who has offended.

τὸ ἀγαθόν σου] ‘the benefit arising from thee’, i.e. ‘the good which I should get from the continued presence of Onesimus, and which would be owing to thee’.

κατὰ ἑκούσιον] as in Num. xv. 3. The form καθ’ ἑκουσίαν is perhaps more classical: Thuc. viii. 27 καθ’ ἑκουσίαν ἢ πάνυ γε ἀνάγκῃ. The word understood in the one case appears to be τρόπον (Porphyr. de Abst. i. 9 καθ’ ἑκούσιον τρόπον, comp. Eur. Med. 751 ἑκουσίῳ τρόπῳ); in the other, γνώμην (so ἑκουσίᾳ, ἐξ ἑκουσίας, etc.): comp. Lobeck Phryn. p. 4.

15. τάχα γὰρ κ.τ.λ.] The γὰρ explains an additional motive which guided the Apostle’s decision: ‘I did not dare to detain him, however much I desired it. I might have defeated the purpose for which God in His good providence allowed him to leave thee’.

ἐχωρίσθη] ‘He does not say’, writes Chrysostom, ‘For this cause he fled, but For this cause he was parted: for he would appease Philemon by a more euphemistic phrase. And again he does not say he parted himself, but he was parted: since the design was not Onesimus’ own to depart for this or that reason: just as Joseph also, when excusing his brethren, says (Gen. xlv. 5) God did send me hither.’

πρὸς ὥραν] ‘for an hour’, ‘for a short season’: 2 Cor. vii. 8, Gal. ii. 5. ‘It was only a brief moment after all’, the Apostle would say, ‘compared with the magnitude of the work wrought in it. He departed a reprobate; he returns a saved man. He departed for a few months; he returns to be with you for all time and for eternity’. The sense of αἴωνιον must not be arbitrarily limited. Since he left, Onesimus had obtained eternal life, and eternal life involves eternal interchange of friendship. His services to his old master were no longer barred by the gates of death.

ἀπέχῃς] In this connexion ἀπέχειν may bear either of two senses: (1) ‘to have back, to have in return’: or (2) ‘to have to the full, to have wholly’, as in Phil. iv. 18 ἀπέχω πάντα (see the note). In other words the prominent idea in the word may be either restitution, or completeness. The former is the more probable sense here, as suggested by κατέχειν in verse 13 and by ἐχωρίσθη in this verse.

16. ὡς δοῦλον] St Paul does not say δοῦλον but ὡς δοῦλον. It was a matter of indifference whether he were outwardly δοῦλος or outwardly ἐλεύθερος, since both are one in Christ (Col. iii. 11). But though he might still remain a slave, he could no longer be as a slave. A change had been wrought in him, independently of his possible manumission: in Christ he had become a brother. It should be noticed also that the negative is not μηκέτι, but οὐκέτι. The negation is thus wholly independent of ἵνα ... ἀπέχῃς. It describes not the possible view of Philemon, but the actual state of Onesimus. The ‘no more as a slave’ is an absolute fact, whether Philemon chooses to recognise it or not.

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ἀδελφὸν ἀγαπητόν, μάλιστα ἐμοί, πόσῳ δὲ μᾶλλον σοὶ καὶ ἐν σαρκὶ καὶ ἐν Κυρίῳ. ^{17}εἰ οὖν με ἔχεις κοινωνόν, προσλαβοῦ αὐτὸν ὡς ἐμέ· ^{18}εἰ δέ τι ἠδίκησέν σε ἢ ὀφείλει, τοῦτο ἑμοὶ ἐλλόγα. ^{19}ἐγὼ Παῦλος ἔγραψα

ἀδελφὸν ἀγαπητόν] καὶ τῷ χρόνῳ κεκέρδακας καὶ τῇ ποίοτητι, writes Chrysostom, apostrophizing Philemon.

πόσῳ δὲ μᾶλλον κ.τ.λ.] Having first said ‘most of all to me’, he goes a step further, ‘more than most of all to thee’.

καὶ ἐν σαρκὶ κ.τ.λ.] ‘In both spheres alike, in the affairs of this world and in the affairs of the higher life.’ In the former, as Meyer pointedly says, Philemon had the brother for a slave; in the latter he had the slave for a brother: comp. Ign. Trall. 12 κατὰ πάντα με ἀνέπαυσαν σαρκί τε καὶ πνεύματι.

17. ἔχεις κοινωνόν] ‘thou holdest me to be a comrade, an intimate friend’. For this use of ἔχειν comp. Luke xiv. 18 ἔχε με παρῃτημένον, Phil. ii. 29 τοὺς τοιούτους ἐντιμοὺς ἔχετε. Those are κοινωνοί, who have common interests, common feelings, common work.

18–22. ‘But if he has done thee any injury, or if he stands in thy debt, set it down to my account. Here is my signature—Paul—in my own handwriting. Accept this as my bond. I will repay thee. For I will not insist, as I might, that thou art indebted to me for much more than this; that thou owest to me thine own self. Yes, dear brother, let me receive from my son in the faith such a return as a father has a right to expect. Cheer and refresh my spirits in Christ. I have full confidence in thy compliance, as I write this; for I know that thou wilt do even more than I ask. At the same time also prepare to receive me on a visit; for I hope that through your prayers I shall be set free and given to you once more’.

18. εἰ δέ τι] The case is stated hypothetically but the words doubtless describe the actual offence of Onesimus. He had done his master some injury, probably had robbed him; and he had fled to escape punishment. See the introduction.

ἢ ὀφείλει] defining the offence which has been indicated in ἠδίκησεν. But still the Apostle refrains from using the plain word ἔκλεψεν. He would spare the penitent slave, and avoid irritating the injured master.

ἐλλόγα] ‘reckon it in’, ‘set it down’. This form must be adopted instead of ἐλλόγει which stands in the received text, as the great preponderance of authority shows. On the other hand we have ἐλλογεῖται Rom. v. 13 (though with a v. l. ἐλλογᾶται), ἐλλογουμένων Boeckh C. I. no. 1732 A, and ἐνλογεῖσθαι Edict. Diocl. in Corp. Inscr. Lat. III. p. 836. But the word is so rare in any form, that these occurrences of ἐλλογεῖν afford no ground for excluding ἐλλογᾶν as impossible. The two forms might be employed side by side, just as we find ἐλεᾶν and ἐλεεῖν, ξυρᾶν and ξυρεῖν, ἐρωτᾶν and ἐρωτεῖν (Matt. xv. 23), and the like; see Buttmann Ausf. Gramm. § 112 (II. p. 53). The word λογᾶν, as used by Lucian Lexiph. 15 (where it is a desiderative ‘to be eager to speak’, like φονᾶν, θανατᾶν, φαρμακᾶν, etc.), has nothing to do with the use of ἐλλογᾶν here.

19. ἐγὼ Παῦλος] The introduction of his own name gives it the character of a formal and binding signature: comp. 1 Cor. xvi. 21, Col. iv. 18, 2 Thess. iii. 17. A signature to a deed in ancient or mediæval times would commonly take this form ἐγὼ ὁ δεῖνα,—‘I so and so’; where we should omit the marks of the first person.

ἔγραψα] An epistolary or documentary aorist, as in ver. 21; so too ἀνέπεμψα ver. 11. See the note on ἔγραψα Gal. vi. 11. The aorist is the tense commonly used in signatures; e.g. ὑπέγραψα to the conciliar decrees.

This incidental mention of his autograph, occurring where it does, shows that he wrote the whole letter with his own hand. This procedure is quite exceptional, just as the purport of the letter is exceptional. In all other cases he appears to have employed an amanuensis, only adding a few words in his own handwriting at the close: see the note on Gal. l.c.

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20]

τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί, ἐγὼ ἀποτίσω· ἵνα μὴ λέγω σοι, ὅτι καὶ σεαυτόν μοι προσοφέιλεις. ^{20}ναί, ἀδελφέ, ἐγώ σου ὀναίμην ἐν Κυρίῳ· ἀνάπαυσόν μου τὰ σπλάγχνα ἐν Χριστῷ.

ἵνα μὴ λέγω] ‘not to say’, as 2 Cor. ix. 4. There is a suppressed thought, ‘though indeed you cannot fairly claim repayment’, ‘though indeed you owe me (ὀφείλεις) as much as this’, on which the ἵνα μὴ κ.τ.λ. is dependent. Hence προσοφέιλεις ‘owest besides’; for this is the common meaning of the word.

σεαυτόν] St Paul was his spiritual father, who had begotten him in the faith, and to whom therefore he owed his being; comp. Plato Legg. iv. p. 717 B ὡς θέμις ὀφέιλοντα ἀποτίνειν τὰ πρῶτά τε καὶ μέγιστα ὀφειλήματα ... νομίζειν δὲ, ἃ κέκτῃται καὶ ἔχει, πάντα εἶναι τῶν γεννησάντων ... ἀρχόμενον ἀπὸ τῆς οὐσίας, δεύτερα τὰ τοῦ σώματος, τρίτα τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς, ἀποτίνοντα δανείσματα κ.τ.λ.

20. ναί] introducing an affectionate appeal as in Phil. iv. 3 ναὶ ἐρωτῶ καὶ σέ.

ἀδελφέ] It is the entreaty of a brother to a brother on behalf of a brother (ver. 16). For the pathetic appeal involved in the word see the notes on Gal. iii. 15, vi. 1, 18; and comp. ver. 7.

ἐγώ] ‘I seem to be entreating for Onesimus; but I am pleading for myself: the favour will be done to me’; comp. ver. 17 προσλαβοῦ αὐτὸν ὡς ἐμέ. The emphatic ἐγώ identifies the cause of Onesimus with his own.

σου ὀναίμην] ‘may I have satisfaction, find comfort in thee’, i.e. ‘may I receive such a return from thee, as a father has a right to expect from his child.’ The common use of the word ὀναίμην would suggest the thought of filial offices; e.g. Arist. Thesm. 469 οὕτως ὀναίμην τῶν τέκνων, Lucian Philops. 27 πρὸς τὴν ὄψιν τῶν υἱέων, οὕτως ὀναίμην, ἔφη, τούτων, Ps-Ignat. Hero 6 ὀναίμην σου, παιδίον ποθεινόν, Synes. Ep. 44 οὕτω τῆς ἱερᾶς φιλοσοφίας ὀναίμην καὶ προσέτι τῶν παιδίων τῶν ἐμαυτοῦ, with other passages quoted in Wetstein. So too for ὄνασθαι, ὄνησις, compare Eur. Med. 1025 sq. πρὶν σφῷν ὄνασθαι ... ἄλλως ἄρ’ ὑμᾶς, ὦ τέκν’, ἐξεθρεψάμην, Alc. 333 ἅλις δὲ παίδων· τῶν δ’ ὄνησιν )εύχομαι θεοῖς γενέσθαι, Philem. Inc. 64 (IV. p. 55 Meineke) ἔτεκές με, μῆτερ, καὶ γένοιτό σοι τέκνων ὄνησις, ὥσπερ καὶ δίκαίον ἐστί σοι, Ecclus. xxx. 2 ὁ παιδεύων τὸν ὑὶον αὐτοῦ ὀνήσεται ἐπ’ αὐτῷ (the only passage in the LXX where the word occurs). The prayer ὀναίμην σου, ὀναίμην ὑμῶν, etc., occurs several times in Ignatius; Polyc. 1, 6, Magn. 2, 12, Ephes. 2. It is not unlikely that ὀναίμην here involves a reference to the name Onesimus; see the note on ver. 11. The Hebrew fondness for playing on names makes such an allusion at least possible.

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21, 22]

^{21}Πεποιθὼς τῇ ὑπακοῇ σου ἔγραψά σοι, εἰδὼς ὅτι καὶ ὑπὲρ ἃ λέγω ποιήσεις. ^{22}ἅμα δὲ καὶ ἑτοίμαζέ μοι ξενίαν· ἐλπίζω γὰρ ὅτι διὰ τῶν προσευχῶν ὑμῶν χαρισθήσομαι ὑμῖν.

ἐν Κυρίῳ] As he had begotten Philemon ἐν Κυρίῳ (comp. 1 Cor. iv. 15, 17), so it was ἐν Κυρίῳ that he looked for the recompense of filial offices.

ἀνάπαυσον κ.τ.λ.] See the note ver. 7.

21. ἔγραψα] ‘I write’: see the note on ver. 19.

ὑπὲρ ἃ λέγω κ.τ.λ.] What was the thought upmost in the Apostle’s mind when he penned these words? Did he contemplate the manumission of Onesimus? If so, the restraint which he imposes upon himself is significant. Indeed throughout this epistle the idea would seem to be present to his thoughts, though the word never passes his lips. This reserve is eminently characteristic of the Gospel. Slavery is never directly attacked as such, but principles are inculcated which must prove fatal to it.

22. ἅμα δὲ κ.τ.λ.] When St Paul first contemplated visiting Rome, he had intended, after leaving the metropolis, to pass westward into Spain; Rom. xv. 24, 28. But by this time he appears to have altered his plans, purposing first to revisit Greece and Asia Minor. Thus in Phil. ii. 24 he looks forward to seeing the Philippians shortly; while here he contemplates a visit to the Churches of the Lycus valley.

There is a gentle compulsion in this mention of a personal visit to Colossæ. The Apostle would thus be able to see for himself that Philemon had not disappointed his expectations. Similarly Serapion in Eus. H.E. vi. 12 προσδοκᾶτέ με ἐν τάχει.

ξενίαν] ‘a lodging’; comp. Clem. Hom. xii. 2 πρόαξωσιν τὰς ξενίας ἑτοιμάζοντες. So the Latin parare hospitium Cic. ad Att. xiv. 2, Mart. Ep. ix. 1. This latter passage, ‘Vale et para hospitium’, closely resembles St Paul’s language here. In the expression before us ξενία is probably the place of entertainment: but in such phrases as καλεῖν ἐπὶ ξενίᾳ, παρακαλεῖν επὶ ξενίαν, φροντίζειν ξενίας, and the like, it denotes the offices of hospitality. The Latin hospitium also includes both senses. The ξενία, as a lodging, may denote either quarters in an inn or a room in a private house: see Philippians p. 9. For the latter comp. Plato Tim. 20 C παρὰ Κριτίαν πρὸς τὸν ξενῶνα, οὗ καὶ καταλύομεν, ἀφικόμεθα. In this case the response would doubtless be a hospitable reception in Philemon’s home; but the request does not assume so much as this.

χαρισθήσομαι] ‘I shall be granted to you’. The grant (χαρίζεσθαι) of one person to another, may be for purposes either (1) of destruction, as Acts xxv. 11 οὐδεὶς με δύναται αὐτοῖς χαρίσασθαι (comp. ver. 16), or (2) of preservation, as Acts iii. 14 ᾐτήσασθε ἄνδρα φονέα χαρισθῆναι ὑμῖν, and here.

23–25. ‘Epaphras my fellow-captive in Christ Jesus salutes you. As do also Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow-labourers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with thee and thy household, and sanctify the spirit of you all.’

23 sq. For these salutations see the notes on Col. iv. 10 sq. Epaphras is mentioned first because he was a Colossian (Col. iv. 12) and, as the evangelist of Colossæ (see p. 29 sq.), doubtless well known to Philemon. Of the four others Aristarchus and Mark belonged to the Circumcision (Col. iv. 11), while Demas and Luke were Gentile Christians. All these were of Greek or Asiatic origin and would probably be well known to Philemon, at least by name. On the other hand Jesus Justus, who is honourably mentioned in the Colossian letter (iv. 11), but passed over here, may have been a Roman Christian.

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23–25]

^{23}Ἀσπάζεταί σε Ἐπαφρᾶς ὁ συναιχμάλωτός μου ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, ^{24}Μάρκος, Ἀρίσταρχος, Δημᾶς, Λουκᾶς, οἱ συνεργοί μου.

^{25}Ἡ χάρις τοῦ Κυρίου [ἡμῶν] Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ μετὰ τοῦ πνεύματος ὑμῶν.

ὁ συναιχμάλωτος] On the possible meanings of this title see Col. iv. 10, where it is given not to Epaphras but to Aristarchus.

25. Ἡ χάρις κ.τ.λ.] The same form of farewell as in Gal. vi. 18; comp. 2 Tim. iv. 22.

ὑμῶν] The persons whose names are mentioned in the opening salutation.

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ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

p. 6, l. 12. On Polemo and his family see Ephemeris Epigraphica I. p. 270 sq. (1873).

p. 38, note 125. The investigations of M. Waddington respecting the chronology of this period (see below) require a modification of the dates here given for the earthquakes in the second century. He enumerates three: (1) One at Rhodes, from A.D. 138–142; (2) One which destroyed Mitylene and did considerable damage to Smyrna, A.D. 151–152; (3) One which destroyed Smyrna A.D. 180. These two last have been confounded together by previous writers. See M. Waddington’s Mémoire, pp. 242 sq., 267 sq.

p. 48, note 160. On the names Ammias, Tatias, which are feminine and not masculine, see below p. 373.

p. 49, note. I have here given the commonly received date for the martyrdom of Polycarp; for I had not then seen M. Waddington’s investigations. This writer seems to have proved conclusively that it took place several years earlier, A.D. 155: see his Mémoire sur la Chronologie du Rhéteur Ælius Aristide p. 232 sq., in the Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, &c. XXVI. (1867).

pp. 52, 53. As these remarks respecting the silence of Eusebius will seem to be directed against the opinions expressed in a recent work, it may be worth while stating that the early sheets of this commentary were struck off nearly twelve months before Supernatural Religion was published. The expression in p. 53, note 170, ‘numerous and patent quotations,’ is too strongly worded, though the references to St James in Clement’s Epistle seem to me to be clear. I might however have chosen other more palpable illustrations from that epistle.

p. 63, l. 12. The Proconsulate of Paullus, under whom this martyrdom took place, is dated by Borghesi ([OE]uvres VIII. p. 507) somewhere between A.D. 163–168, by Waddington (Fastes des Provinces Asiatiques p. 731, in Le Bas and Waddington Voyage Archéologique etc.) probably A.D. 164–166. This rests on the assumption that the Servillius Paullus here named must be identified with L. Sergius Paullus of the inscriptions. The name Sergius is elsewhere confounded with Servius (Servillius) owing to the use of contractions (see Borghesi IV. p. 493, VIII. p. 504). The mistake must have been introduced very early into the text of Eusebius. All the Greek MSS have Servillius (Servilius), and so it is written in the Syriac Version. Ruffinus however writes it correctly Sergius.

p. 71, line 1. We may conjecture that it was the earthquake under Gallienus (A.D. 262) which proved fatal to Colossæ (see above p. 38, note 125). This is consistent with the fact that no Colossian coins later than Gordian (A.D. 238–244) are extant. When St Chrysostom wrote, the city existed no longer, as may be inferred from his comment (XI. p. 323) ‘Ἡ πόλις τῆς Φρυγίας ἦν· καὶ δῆλον ἐκ τοῦ τὴν Λαοδίκειαν πλησίον εἶναι.’

On the other hand M. Renan (L’Antechrist p. 99) says of the earthquake under Nero, ‘Colosses ne sut se relever; elle disparut presque du nombre des églises;’ and he adds in a note ‘Colosses n’a pas de monnaies impériales [Waddington].’ This is a mistake, and he must have misunderstood M. Waddington.

p. 77, note 229. To this list of works add Mansel’s Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries (London 1875).

p. 112, note 336. See p. 330, note 553.

p. 160, l. 4. For ‘argument for silence’ read ‘argument from silence.’

p. 205, col. 1, l. 30. Strike out τοῦ before περιπατῆσαι.

p. 210, col. 1, l. 2. The dissertation to which reference is here made is deferred to a later volume.

p. 250, col. 2, l. 21. Strike out the words in brackets.

p. 270, col. 1. ἅτινά ἐστιν κ.τ.λ. Comp. Seneca de Vit. beat. 7 ‘in ipso usu sui periturum.’

p. 280, col. 1, l. 23. For ‘Ammianus’ read ‘Ammonius.’

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INDEX.

Abercius (Avircius), Bp. of Hierapolis, p. 54 sq. Acts of the Apostles; passages explained, p. 23 (xiii. 4, xvi. 6); p. 95 (xix. 13, 19); p. 370 (xiv. 11). ædificatoriæ, the sufferings of Christ as, p. 232 Ælfric on the Epistle to Laodiceans, p. 362 Alasanda or Alasadda, p. 152 Alexander of Tralles on charms, p. 92 Alexandria, a supposed Buddhist establishment at, p. 151 Andrew, St, in Asia, p. 45 Angelolatry condemned, p. 101, 103, 184, i. 16, ii. 10, 15, 18; forbidden by the Council of Laodicea, p. 68 angelology of Cerinthus, p. 110; of Essenism, p. 96; of the Jews, ii. 18 Angels, orders of, i. 16 Anselm of Laon, p. 361 Antiochus the Great, colony of, in Asia Minor, p. 19 Antiochus Theos refounds Laodicea, p. 5 aorist, epistolary, iv. 8, Ph. 11, 19, 21; contrasted with perfect, i. 16 Apamea, p. 19, 20; Jews at, p. 21 Apocalypse, correspondences with St Paul’s Epistles to Asia, 41 sq. apocrypha, use of word, p. 90, ii. 3 Apollinaris, see Claudius Apollinaris Apollo Archegetes worshipped at Hierapolis, p. 12 Apostolic Fathers, Christology of, p. 190 Apostolic Writings, Christology of, p. 189 Apphia, wife of Philemon, p. 372; the name Phrygian, 372 sq. Archippus, iv. 17; son of Philemon, 374; office and abode, 375; rebuke to, 43 Arian heresy in Hierapolis and Laodicea, p. 64 Arian use of the expression ‘First-born of all creation,’ i. 15 Aristarchus, iv. 10 Aristion, p. 45 Aristotle, on slavery, p. 379; definition of ‘knowledge,’ ii. 3; of ‘wisdom,’ i. 9 Armagh, Book of, p. 348, 352 article, omission of the definite, i. 4 asah, a supposed derivation of Essenes, p. 126 Ascents of James, p. 168 asceticism among the Jewish sects, p. 87; Colossian heretics, p. 104; Essenes, p. 173; a result of Gnosticism, p. 79 Aseis, a Laodicean title of Zeus, p. 8 Asia, meaning of, p. 19 Asia Minor, geography of, p. 1 sq.; list of writers on, p. 1; how divided under the Romans, 7; a modern hypothesis about Christianity in, p. 50 Asidæans, p. 120 asya, a supposed derivation of Essene, p. 125 Athanasius, on ‘Firstborn of all Creation,’ i. 15 Athens, a Buddhist burnt alive at, p. 155 Augustine, on ‘Firstborn of all Creation,’ i. 15; on ‘wisdom and knowledge,’ ii. 3 ἀγάπη, ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, i. 13 ἅγιος, i. 2 ἀγών, ἀγωνία, ἀγωνίζεσθαι, i. 29, ii. 1, iv. 12 ἀδελφός (ὁ), i, 1 ἀθυμεῖν, iii. 21 αἰσχρολογία, iii. 8 ἀκαθαρσία, iii. 5 ἅλας, iv. 6 ἀληθεία, ἡ ἀληθεία τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, i. 5; ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, i. 6 ἀλλά, after εἰ or εἰ καί in St Paul, ii. 5 ἄμωμος, i. 22 ἀναπάυεσθαι, Ph. 7 ἀναπληροῦν, p. 230 ἀνέγκλητος, i. 22 ἀνεψίος, iv. 10 ἀνήκειν, iii. 18; τὸ ἀνῆκον, Ph. 8 ἀνθρωπάρεσκοι, iii. 22 ἀνταναπληροῦν, i. 24 ἀνταπόδοσις, iii. 24 ἀόρατος, i. 16 ἀπεκδύεσθαι, ii. 15 ἀπέκδυσις, ii. 11 ἀπέχειν, Ph. 15 ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι, i. 21 ἀποθνήσκειν, ii. 20 ἀποκαταλλάσσειν, i. 20, 21 ἀπόκρυφος, ii. 3 ἀπολύτρωσις, i. 14 ἀπόχρησις, ii. 22 ἅπτεσθαι, ii. 21 ἀρέσκεια, i. 10 ἀρχή applied to Christ, p. 41; i. 16, 18 αὐξάνειν, i. 6 Αὐτὸς ἔστιν, i. 17 ἀφείδεια, ii. 23 ἁφή, ii. 19 ἀχειροποίητος, ii. 11 ἄχρηστος, Ph. 11

B (Cod. Vaticanus), excellence of, p. 314.

Banaim, the, p. 132

Banus not an Essene, p. 161

Bardesanes, on Buddhists, 154; his date, p. 155

Barnabas, life of, iv. 10; epistle ascribed to, ib.

basilica, iv. 15

Basilides, p. 331

Baur, p. 77, 81, 384

Bene-hakkeneseth, p. 130

Brahminism, p. 154, 155

Buddhism, assumed influence on Essenism, p. 151 sq.; supposed establishment of, in Alexandria, p. 151; unknown in the West, p. 153 sq.; four steps of, p. 157

Buddhist at Athens, p. 155

βάπτισμα, βαπτισμός, p. 250

βάρβαρος, iii. 11

βλασφημία, iii. 8

βούλεσθαι, Ph. 13

βραβεύειν, iii. 15

Cabbala, see Kabbala

Cainites, p. 79

Calvin, iii. 8, p. 341, 384

Canonical writings and Papias, p. 52

Carpocratians, p. 79, 80

Cataphryges, p. 98

Cavensis, codex, p. 348

celibacy, p. 173

Cerinthus, p. 107 sq.; Judaism of, p. 108; Gnosticism of, ib.; cosmogony of, p. 109; Christology of, p. 111 sq.; pleroma of, p. 330

chaber, p. 128

Chagigah, on ceremonial purity, p. 128

Chalcedon, council of, p. 65

chasha, chashaim, a derivation of Essene, p. 119

chasi, chasyo, a derivation of Essene, p. 118; connexion with chasid, p. 124

chasid, a false derivation of Essene, p. 115

Chasidim, p. 120; not a proper name for the Essenes, p. 122

chasin, chosin, a false derivation for Essene, p. 116

chaza, chazya, a derivation of Essene, p. 117

Chonos or Chonæ, p. 15, 71

Christ, the Person of, p. 34; St Paul’s doctrine about, p. 41, 181 sq., i. 15–20, ii. 9–15; the Word Incarnate, p. 101, 102; the pleroma in Him p. 102, i. 19, ii. 9, 10; Life in Him, the remedy against sin, p. 34, 186 sq.; His teaching and practice not Essene, p. 170 sq.

Christianity, not an outgrowth of Essenism, p. 159; in relation to Epictetus, p. 13; to Gnosticism, p. 80; to slavery, p. 389, 391 sq.

Christianity in Asia Minor, p. 50

Christianized Essenes, p. 89, 90, 135

Christians of St John, p. 165

Christology of Ep. to Col., p. 101, 188; of other Apostolic writings, p. 189; of succeeding ages, p. 190

Chronicon Paschale, p. 48, 61

Chrysostom, i. 13, 15, iii. 16, p. 340, Ph. 15, p. 383

Cibotus, p. 21

Cibyratic convention, p. 7

Circular Letter—the Ep. to the Ephesians—p. 37

Claudius, embassy from Ceylon in the reign of, p. 156

Claudius Apollinaris, the name, p. 57 sq.; his works, p. 58 sq.

Clement of Alexandria, p. 79, 98, 154, 168, i. 9, 15, ii. 8, iii. 5, 16

Clement of Rome (§ 7) Col. i. 3; (§ 58) i. 11; (§ 33, i. 15; (Ep. ii. § 9), p. 104

Clementine Homilies, p. 136, 168

Clementine Recognitions, p. 164

Clermont, p. 3

collegia, iv. 15

Colossæ, orthography of, p. 16, i. 2; situation, etc., p. 1 sq.; distance from Laodicea, p. 376; site, p. 13; ancient greatness and decline, p. 15; a Phrygian city, p. 18 sq.; Jewish colony at, p. 19; not visited by St Paul when the epistle was written, p. 23; Epaphras the evangelist of, p. 29; intended visit of Mark to, p. 40; visit of St Paul to, p. 41; obscurity of, p. 70; a suffragan see of Laodicea, p. 69; the Turkish conquest of, p. 71

Colossian heresy, nature of, p. 73 sq., 89, ii. 8; writers upon, p. 74; had regard to the Person of Christ, p. 112; relation to Gnosticism, p. 98; St Paul’s answer to, p. 181 sq.

Colossians, Epistle to, p. 33; bearers of, p. 35; salutations in, ib.; charge respecting Laodicea, p. 36; written by an amanuensis, iv. 18; Christology of, p. 188; style of, p. 191; analysis of, p. 192; various readings, see readings

colossinus, p. 4

community of goods, p. 176

Concord of the Laodiceans and Ephesians, etc., p. 31

Congregation, the holy, at Jerusalem, p. 131

Constantine, legislation of, p. 393

Constantinople, Council of, p. 65

conventus (Roman), p. 7

Corinth, visit of St Paul to, during his residence at Ephesus, p. 30

Corinthians, First Epistle to; passages explained: (i. 19, i. 9; (ii. 6, 7, i. 28; (v. 9, iv. 16; (vii. 21) p. 390; (viii. 6) p. 188; (ix. 24, ii. 18; (x. 26) p. 326; (xi. 7, i. 15; (xiii. 3) p. 156; (xiii. 12, i. 9; (xv. 24, i. 16

Corinthians, Second Epistle to; passages explained: (i. 7, i. 24; (iii. 6, i. 12; (iv. 4, i. 15; (v. 14, 15, ii. 20; (vi. 1, i. 6; (vi. 4, 6, i. 11; (viii. 9, i. 6; (ix. 12) ib.; (xiii. 5, i. 27

Cornelius a Lapide, p. 342

Creation, Gnostic speculations about, p. 78 sq.; Essene do., p. 90

Cyril of Alexandria, p. 154

καθὼς καί, i. 6, iii. 1

καί in both members of a comparison, i. 6

καὶ ὅσοι, ii. 1

καινός and νέος, ii. 10

κακία, iii. 8

καρποφορεῖσθαι, i. 6

καταβραβεύειν, ii. 18

κατενώπιον αὐτοῦ, i. 22

κατοικεῖν, i. 19

κενεμβατεύειν, ii. 18

κεφαλή, i. 18

κληρονομία, iii. 24

κλῆρος, i. 12

κλητός, iii. 12

κοινωνία, Ph. 6

κομίζειν, iii. 25

κοπιᾶν, i. 29

κοραξός, p. 4

κόσμος, ii. 8

κρατεῖν, ii. 19

κράτος, i. 11

κρίνειν, ii. 16

κτίσις, i. 15

κύριος, ὁ, (Christ, i. 10; (Master), iii. 24

κυρίοτης, i. 16

χαρακτήρ, i. 15

χαρίζεσθαι, ii. 13, iii. 13, Ph. 22

χάρις, i. 2, (ἡ, iii. 16; ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ, i. 6

χειρόγραφον, ii. 14

Χρηστότης, iii. 12

Damascene: see John Damascene

Darmstadiensis Codex, p. 348

dative (of instrument), ii. 7, iii. 16; (of part affected), i. 4

Demas, p. 36, iv. 14, Ph. 24

Denizli, p. 7; earthquake at, p. 3

diocese, p. 7

Diognetus, Epistle to, i. 18

Dion Chrysostom, p. 81, 153

Diospolis, an old name of Laodicea, p. 68

Divinity of Christ, p. 101 sq., 182 sq., i. 15

Docetæ, use of pleroma by, p. 337

dualism, p. 78, 87, 149

dyes of Colossæ and the neighbourhood, p. 4

δειγματίζειν, ii. 15

δέσμιος, Ph. 1, 10

δεσμός, Ph. 13

διά with gen., used of the Logos, p. 188, i. 16, 20

διακονία, διάκονος, iv. 7, 17

διδάσκειν, i. 28

διοίκησις, p. 7

δόγμα, ii. 14

δογματίζειν, ii. 20

δόξα, i. 11, 27

δοῦλος, Ph. 16; δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, iv. 12

δύναμις, i. 16

δυναμοῦν, i. 11

Earthquakes in the valley of the Lycus, p. 38

Ebionite Christology of Cerinthus, p. 110

economy of revelation perfected, p. 185

Elchesai, founder of the Mandeans, p. 167

Elchesai, Book of, p. 137

elders, primitive, p. 132

Eleazar expels evil spirits, p. 91

English Church on the Epistle to Laodicea, p. 362

English versions of the Epistle to Laodicea, p. 364

Epaphras, p. 34; evangelist of Colossæ, p. 29, 31; mission to St Paul, p. 32, iv. 12, Ph. 23

Epaphroditus, p. 34

Ephesians, Epistle to; a circular letter, p. 37; readings in, harmonistic with Epist. to Col., p. 312 sq.; passages explained, i. 18 , i. 23); i. 21 , i. 16); i. 23 , i. 18); ii. 3 , iii. 6); ii. 4 , iii. 1); ii. 4, 5 , ii. 13); ii. 12 , i. 21); ii. 14 , i. 17); ii. 15 , ii. 14); ii. 16 , i. 20); ii. 20 , ii. 7); iii. 17 , ii. 17); iii. 21 , i. 26); iv. 10, 11 , i. 17); iv. 18 , i. 21); iv. 19, v. 3 (iii. 5); v. 32 (i. 26)

Ephesus, Council of, p. 65

Ephesus, St Paul at, p. 30, 95; exorcists at, p. 95

Epictetus, p. 13

Epiphanius, account of Cerinthus, p. 107; on the Nasareans, p. 136

epistolary aorist, Ph. 11, 19, 21

epulones of Ephesian Artemis called Essenes, p. 96

Erasmus on the Epistle to Laodicea, p. 365

Essene, meaning of term, p. 94; the name, p. 114 sq.; Frankel’s theory, p. 121 sq.

Essenes, p. 82, ii. 8; list of writers upon, p. 83; localities of, p. 93; asceticism of, p. 85; speculations of, p. 87; exclusiveness of, p. 92; Josephus and Philo chief authorities upon, p. 134; oath taken by, p. 127; their grades, p. 129; origin and affinities, p. 119 sq.; relation to Christianity, p. 158; to Pharisaism, p. 101, 120; to Neopythagoreanism, p. 143; to Hemerobaptists, p. 166; to Gnosticism, p. 92; to Parsism, p. 149; to Buddhism, p. 157; excused by Herod the Great from taking the oath of allegiance, p. 176; fortune tellers, p. 178; silence of New Test. about, p. 159; in relation to John the Baptist, p. 160; to James the Lord’s brother, p. 168; Christianized Essenes, p. 135

Essenism, p. 82; main features of, p. 83 sq.; compared with Christianity, p. 170 sq.; the sabbath, p. 170; lustrations, p. 171; avoidance of strangers, p. 172; asceticism, celibacy, p. 173; avoidance of the Temple, p. 174; denial of the resurrection of the body, p. 175; certain supposed coincidences with Christianity, p. 175

Eusebius, on the earthquakes in the valley of the Lycus, p. 39; his mistake respecting some martyrdoms, p. 48; silence on quotations from Canonical writings, p. 52; on tracts against Montanism, p. 56; the Thundering Legion, p. 61; on Marcellus, i. 15

evil, Gnostic theories about, p. 78

exorcists at Ephesus, p. 95

ἑαυτοῦ and αὑτοῦ, i. 12; and ἀλλήλων, iii. 13

ἐγώ, Ph. 19

ἐθελοθρησκεία, ii. 23

εἴ γε, i. 23

εἰκών, i. 15, iii. 11

εἶναι καρποφορούμενον, i. 6

εἰς, i. 6, ii. 22, Ph. 6

ἐκ Λαοδικίας (τὴν), iv. 16

ἐκκλησία, iv. 15

ἐκλεκτός, iii. 12

ἐλλογᾶν, Ph. 18

ἐλπίς, i. 5

ἐν, iv. 12; denoting the sphere, i. 4; ἐν αὐτῷ, i. 16; ἐν μέρει, ii. 16; ἐν παντὶ θελήματι, iv. 12; ἐν πᾶσιν, i. 18; ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις, i. 21; ἐν ὑμῖν, i. 27, iii. 16; ἐν Χριστῷ, i. 2

ἐνεργεῖν, ἐνεργεῖσθαι, i. 29

ἔνι, iii. 11

ἐξαγοράζεσθαι, iv. 5

ἐξαλέιφειν, ii. 14

ἐξουσία, i. 13, 16

ἔξω (ὁἰ, iv. 5

ἑορτή, ii. 16

ἐπιγινώσκειν, ἐπίγνωσις, p. 100, i. 6, 9, Ph. 6

ἐπιθυμία, iii. 5

ἐπιμένειν, i. 23

ἐπιστολή (ἡ), iv. 16

ἐπιχορηγεῖν, ii. 19

ἐποικοδομεῖν, ii. 7

ἐργάζεσθαι, iii. 23

ἐρεθίζειν, iii. 21

ἐρῥιζωμένοι, ii. 7

ἔρχεσθαι, iii. 6

εὐάρεστος, iii. 20

εὐδοκία, εὐδοκεῖν, i. 19

εὐχαριστεῖν, εὐχαριστία, ii. 7, i. 3; εὐχάριστος, iii. 15

Ἐφέσια γράμματα, p. 95

ἔχειν, Ph. 17

ἐχθροί, i. 21

F (Codex Augiensis) relation to G, p. 345

Firstborn of all Creation, i. 15

Flaccus, p. 20

Frankel on the Essenes, p. 121 sq.

G (Codex Boernerianus) relation to F, p. 345 Galatia, meaning of, in St Paul and St Luke, p. 24 Galatian and Colossian Judaism compared, p. 105, i. 28 Galatians, Epistle to; passages explained, i. 24 (Gal. ii. 20); i. 28 (iv. 19); ii. 8 (iv. 3) Galen, ii. 19, 20 Ginsburg, (Dr) p. 88, 127 sq. Gnostic, p. 80 sq. Gnostic element in Colossian heresy, p. 73 sq. Gnostic sects, use of pleroma by, p. 330 Gnosticism, list of writers on, p. 77; definition of, p. 76 sq.; intellectual exclusiveness of, p. 77; speculations of, p. 77 sq.; practical errors of, p.79 sq.; independent of Christianity, p. 80; relation to Judaism, p. 81; to Essenism, p. 93; to Colossian heresy, p. 98 grades of Essenes, p. 129 Grätz, p. 123, 160, 161, 170 Greece, slavery in, p. 386 Gregory the Great on the Epistle to the Laodiceans, p. 361 guild of dyers, p. 4 Γαρμάνας, p. 153 γνῶσις, i. 9, ii. 3 γνωστικός, p. 81

Hamartiology of the Old Testament, p. 185 Haymo of Halberstadt, on the Epistle to the Laodiceans, p. 361 Hebrew slavery, p. 385 sq. Hebrews, Epistle to the; passages explained, i. 11 (Heb. xi. 34); i. 15 (i. 2, 3, 6) Hefele on the date of Claudius Apollinaris, p. 185 Hemerobaptists, p. 162 Herod the Great excuses the oath of allegiance to the Essenes, p. 176 Hervey of Dole, on the Epistle to the Laodiceans, p. 361 Hierapolis, p. 9; modern name, p. 9; physical features of, p. 10; a famous watering place, p. 11; the Plutonium at, p. 12; birthplace of Epictetus, p. 13; political relations of, p. 18; attractions for Jews, p. 22; a Christian settlement, p. 45; Philip of Bethsaida at, p. 45 sq.; Council at, p. 59; Papias, bishop of, p. 48 sq.; Abercius, bishop of, p. 54 sq.; Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of, p. 57 sq.; dyes of, p. 4 Hilgenfeld, p. 75; on the Essenes, p. 150 sq.

James the Lord’s brother, p. 167 Jerome, p. 29; on St Paul’s parents, p. 35; on the Epistle to the Laodiceans, p. 359 sq. Jesus Justus, iv. 11 Jews, sects of the, p. 82

imperfect, iii. 18

indicative after βλέπειν μή, ii. 8

infinitive of consequence, i. 10, iv. 3, 6

John (St) in Asia Minor, p. 41; Apocalypse, passages explained, p. 41 (iii. 14–21); Gospel, p. 163 (i. 8, v. 35); Second Epistle, p. 371; Third Epistle, ib.

John the Baptist, not an Essene, p. 160; disciples of, at Ephesus, p. 163

John (St), Christians of, p. 165

John Damascene, p. 15

John of Salisbury on the Epistle to the Laodiceans, p. 362

Josephus on Essenism, p. 133 sq.

Judaism and Gnosticism, p. 81

ἵνα, iv. 16

Ἰοῦστος, iv. 11

ἰσότης, iv. 1

Kabbala, p. 93, i. 16, ii. 8

Lanfranc on the Epistle to the Laodiceans, p. 363 Laodicea, name and history, p. 5; condition, p. 6; political rank and relations, p. 7, 18; religious worship at, p. 8; Council of, p. 66; ecclesiastical status, p. 69; dyes of, p. 4; surnamed Trimetaria, p. 18; the vaunt of, p. 44 Laodicea, the letter from, iv. 16; p. 340 sq. Laodiceans, apocryphal Epistle to the, p. 347 sq.; list of MSS of, p. 349 sq.; Latin text of, p. 353; notes on, p. 355 sq.; theory of a Greek original, p. 357; restoration of the Greek, p. 359; circulation of, p. 360 sq.; English prologue and versions, p. 364; strictures of Erasmus on, p. 365; genuineness maintained by some, p. 366 Latrocinium, see Robbers’ Synod Legio Fulminata, p. 61 legislation of Constantine on slavery, p. 393 Logos, the, i. 15 Luke, St, iv. 14; his narrative of St Paul’s third missionary journey, p. 24 sq.; makes a distinction between Philip the Apostle and Philip the Evangelist, p. 45, 59 lukewarmness at Laodicea, p. 42 lustrations of the Essenes, p. 171 Luther’s estimate of the Epistle to Philemon, p. 383 Lycus, district of the; list of writers on, p. 1 sq.; physical features of, p. 2 sq.; produce of, p. 4; subterranean channel of the, p. 14; earthquakes in, p. 38 sq. Lycus, Churches of the, p. 1 sq.; evangelised by Epaphras, p. 29 sq.; ecclesiastical status of, p. 69 Λαοδικία, iv. 13 λόγον ἔχειν τινός, ii. 23

Magic, forbidden by Council of Laodicea, p. 69; among the Essenes, p. 140 magical books at Ephesus, p. 95; magical charms among the Essenes, p. 90 sq. Mandeans, p. 165 Marcosians, p. 335 Mark (St), iv. 10; visits Colossæ, p. 40 marriage depreciated by the Essenes, p. 139 Matthew (St) Gospel of, accepted by Cerinthus and the Ebionites, p. 108 Megasthenes, p. 153 monasticism of the Essenes, p. 157 Monoimus, the Arabian, p. 339 Montanism, Claudius Apollinaris on, p. 59; Phrygian origin of, p. 98 morning bathers, p. 132 Muratorian Fragment on the Epistle to the Laodiceans, p. 358 μακροθυμία, i. 11, iii. 12 μερίς, i. 12 μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι, Ph. 4 μομφή, iii. 13 μονογενής, i. 15 μυστήριον, i. 26

Naassenes, p. 337 Nasoreans, p. 138, 165 Neander on Cerinthus, p. 108 Neopythagoreanism and Essenism, p. 146 sq. New Testament, relation of, to the Old Testament, p. 184 Nicæa, Bishops of Hierapolis and Laodicea at the Council of, p. 65 Nicetas Choniates, p. 71 nominative with definite article for vocative, iii. 18 Novatianism in Phrygia, p. 98 Nymphas, iv. 15, p. 31 νεομηνία, ii. 16 νέος, iii. 10 νουθετεῖν, i. 28 νῦν with aorist, i. 21

Observance of the Sabbath by the Essenes and our Lord, p. 170

Onesimus, p. 377, Ph. 10; at Rome, p. 33; encounters St Paul, p. 378; returns to Philemon, p. 35, 379 sq.; legendary history of, p. 382

Ophites, the, p. 81, 98, 337

Oracle, see Sibylline Oracle

οἰκονομία, i. 25

οἶκος, τὴν κατ’ οἶκον, iv. 15

ὁμοίωμα, i. 25

ὄνασθαι, ὀναίμην, Ph. 20

ὀργή, iii. 8

ὅστις, iii. 5, iv. 11

ὀφθαλμοδουλεία, iii. 22

ᾠδή, iii. 16

ὡς, Ph. 14, 16

.ix Papias, p. 47; writings of, ib.; life and teaching of, p. 48; account of, given by Eusebius, p. 49; traditions collected by, p. 51 sq.; references to the Canonical writings, p. 51 sq.; silence of Eusebius, p. 52; views inferred from his associates, p. 53

Parsism, resemblances to, in Essenism, p. 149 sq.; spread by the destruction of the Persian empire, p. 150; influence of, p. 151

participle used for imperative, iii. 16

Paschal controversy, p. 59, 63

Paul (St) visits Phrygia on his second missionary journey, p. 23; had not visited Colossæ when he wrote, p. 23 sq.; visits Phrygia on his third journey, p. 24; silence about personal relations with Colossæ, p. 28; at Ephesus, p. 30, 95 sq.; at Rome, p. 32; mission of Epaphras to, ib.; meets with Onesimus, p. 33, 378; despatches three letters, p. 33; visits Colossæ, p. 41; his plans after his release, Ph. 22; uses an amanuensis, iv. 18; his signature, iv. 18, Ph. 19; coincidences with words of our Lord, ii. 22; his teaching on the universality of the Gospel, p. 99; on the kingdom of Christ, i. 13 sq.; on the orders of angels, i. 16 sq.; on philosophy, ii. 8; on the Incarnation, ii. 9; on the abolition of distinctions, iii. 11; on slavery, iii. 22 sq., p. 389 sq.; his cosmogony and theology, p. 101 sq.; his answer to the Colossian heresy, p. 181 sq.; his Christology, p. 188, i. 15 sq.; his relations with Philemon, p. 370 sq.; connects baptism and death, ii. 11, 20, iii. 3; makes use of metaphors from the mysteries, i. 26, 28; from the stadium, ii. 18, iii. 14; his rapid change of metaphor, ii. 7

Paul (St) Epistles of, correspondences with the Apocalypse—on the Person of Christ, p. 41; warning against lukewarmness, p. 42; against pride of wealth, p. 43

Paul (St) apocryphal Epistle of, to the Laodiceans, p. 353

Pedanius Secundus, execution of his slaves, p. 388

Person of Christ, St Paul and St John on, p. 41 sq.; St Paul’s answer to the Colossian heresy, p. 181 sq., i. 15 sq.

personal pronoun used for reflexive, i. 20, 22

Peter (St) and the Church in Asia Minor, p. 41

petrifying stream at Colossæ, p. 15

Pharisees, p. 82; relation to Essenes, p. 82, 120, 141

Philemon, p. 31, 370 sq.; legendary history of, p. 371; his wife, p. 372; his son, p. 374

Philemon, Epistle to; Introduction to, p. 369; character of, p. 370; analysis of, p. 380 sq.; different estimates of, p. 382 sq.; compared with a letter of Pliny, p. 384

Philip the Apostle, in Asia, p. 45 sq.; confused with Philip the Evangelist, p. 45

Philippopolis, synod of, p. 64

Philo, on the Essenes, p. 133; his use of Logos, i. 15

Phrygia, p. 17 sq.; meaning of the phrase in St Luke, p. 23; religious tendencies of, p. 97 sq.; see Paul (St)

Pistis Sophia, p. 339

Pliny the younger, a letter of, p. 384 sq.

pleroma, detached note upon, p. 323

Plutonium, at Hierapolis, p. 12

Polycarp, martyrdom of, p. 49

poverty, respect paid to, by Essenes and Christ, p. 177

Prætorius accepts the Epistle to the Laodiceans as genuine, p. 366

Pythagoreanism and Essenism, p. 144; disappearance of, p. 146

πάθος, iii. 5

παρακαλεῖν, ii. 2

παραλαμβάνειν, ii. 6

παράπτωμα, ii. 13

παρεῖναι εἰς, i. 6

παρέχεσθαι, iv. 1

παρηγορία, iv. 11

παρρησία, ἐν παρρησίᾳ, ii. 15, Ph. 8

πᾶς, πᾶς ὁ κόσμος, i. 16; πάση κτίσις, i. 15; τὰ πάντα, i. 16

πατήρ, ὁ θεὸς πατήρ, i. 3; πατὴρ ἡμῶν, i. 2

παύεσθαι, Ph. 7

πιθανολογία, ii. 4

πικραίνεσθαι, iii. 19

πιστός, πιστοὶ ἀδελφοί, i. 2

πλεονεξία, iii. 5

πληροφορεῖν, iv. 12

πληροφορία, ii. 2

πληροῦν, i. 25, iv. 17

πλήρωμα, i. 19, ii. 9, p. 323 sq.

πλησμονή, ii. 23

πλοῦτος, i. 27

πορνεία, iii. 5

πραΰτης, iii. 12

πρεσβευτής, πρεσβύτης, Ph. 8

πρὸ πάντων, i. 17

προακούειν, i. 5

πρός, ii. 23, Ph. 5

προσκαρτερεῖσθαι, iv. 2

προσωπολημψία, iii. 25

πρωτότοκος, i. 15, 18

φιλοσοφία, ii. 8

φθορά, ii. 22

φρόνησις, i. 9

φυλακτήριον, p. 69

ψαλμός, iii. 16

Quartodeciman controversy, p. 59, 63 Quinisextine Council, p. 68

Readings, harmonized with corresponding passages in the Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 312 (iii. 6); p. 313 (ii. 21, v. 19) readings, various, p. 315 (i. 3); p. 316 (i. 4, i. 7); p. 317 (i. 12, i. 14, i. 22); p. 318 (ii. 2); p. 319 (ii. 16); p. 320 (ii. 18, ii. 23); p. 321 (iv. 8); p. 322 (iv. 15) Renan, on the meaning of Galatia in St Paul and St Luke, p. 25; his estimate of the Epistle to Philemon, p. 384 Restoration, under Ezra, p. 119 resurrection of the body denied, p. 88, 175 Revelation; see Apocalypse Robbers’ Synod, p. 65 Roman slavery, p. 387 Rome, Onesimus at, p. 378; St Paul at, p. 32 ῥιζοῦν, ii. 7

Sabbath, observance of, by Christ and the Essenes compared, p. 170 Sabæans, p. 165 sacrifices prohibited by Essenes, p. 89, 134 Sadduceeism, p. 82 Sagaris, Bishop of Laodicea, p. 63 Samanæi, p. 154 Sampsæans, p. 137 Sarmanæ, p. 153 satisfactoriæ, sufferings of Christ regarded as, i. 25 Secundus, see Pedanius Secundus Sibylline Oracle, p. 96 silence of Eusebius, p. 52 sq.; of the New Testament about the Essenes, p. 159 slave martyrs, p. 392 slavery, Hebrew, p. 385; Greek, p. 386; Roman, p. 387; St Paul’s treatment of, p. 389 sq.; attitude of Christianity towards, p. 391 sq.; prohibited by Essenes, p. 177; legislation of Constantine, p. 393; of Justinian, p. 394; abolition of, p. 394 Socrates on Novatianism in Phrygia, p. 98 solidarity of the Church in the second century, p. 62 Sophia of Valentinus, p. 333; Sophia Achamoth, p. 334 soteriology of the New Testament, p. 185 stadium, metaphor from the, ii. 18 Stapleton receives the Epistle to the Laodiceans as genuine, p. 366 Strabo on Buddhism, p. 153 Sunworship, p. 87, 137 sq., 149 σάββατα, ii. 16 σάρξ, τὸ σῶμα τῆς σαρκός, i. 22 Σκύθης, iii. 11 σοφία, i. 9, 28, ii. 3, iii. 16 σπλάγχνα (τὰ), iii. 12, Ph. 7, 12 στερέωμα, ii. 5 στοιχεῖα (τὰ), ii. 8 συλαγωγεῖν, ii. 8 συμβιβάζειν, ii. 2, 19 συναιχμάλωτος, iv. 10 σύνδεσμος, ii. 19, iii. 14 σύνδουλος, i. 7, iv. 7 σύνεσις, i. 9, ii. 2 συστρατιώτης, Ph. 2 σῶμα, τὸ σῶμα τῆς σαρκός, ii. 11 σωματικῶς, ii. 9

Tacitus on the earthquake at Laodicea, p. 39 Talmud, supposed etymologies of Essene in, p. 116 sq., 125 sq.; supposed allusions to the Essenes, p. 128 Temple, avoidance of the, p. 174 Testaments, Old and New, p. 185 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, on the orders of angels, i. 16 theanthropism of the New Testament, p. 185 thundering legion, p. 61 Thyatira, dyes of, p. 4 Timotheus, his position in these epistles, i. 1, Ph. 1; ‘the brother,’ i. 1 Tivoli compared with the valley of the Lycus, p. 3 travertine deposits in the valley of the Lycus, p. 3 Trimetaria, a surname of Laodicea, p. 18 Tychicus, iv. 7, p. 35, 380. ταπεινοφροσύνη, iii. 12 τάξις, ii. 5 τέλειος, i. 28 τις (indef.), St Paul’s use of, ii. 8 τοιοῦτος ὤν, Ph. 9, 12 θέλειν, Ph. 13; θέλειν ἐν, ii. 18 θέλημα θεοῦ, i. 1 θεμελιοῦν, i. 23 θεότης, τὸ θεῖον, ii. 9 θιγγάνειν, ii. 21 θνήσκειν, ἀποθνήσκειν, ii. 20 θριαμβεύειν, ii. 15 θυμός, iii. 8 θύρα τοῦ λόγου, iv. 3

ὕμνος, iii. 16 ὑπεναντίος, ii. 14 ὑπομονή, i. 11 ὑστερήμα, i. 24, p. 335 sq.

Valentinianism, different forms of, p. 332 sq. Valentinians accept St Paul and St John, p. 336 Valentinus, use of pleroma by, p. 331 versions of the Epistle to the Laodiceans, Latin, p. 357; Bohemian, German, and English, p. 363 sq. Vethikin, p. 131

Word, the, p. 101, see Logos, Christ Wycliffe excluded the Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans from his Bible, p. 363

Yavana or Yona, p. 152

Zeller on Essenism, p. 143 sq. Zenda-vesta, p. 149 Zoroastrianism and Essenism, p. 149 sq.

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Transcriber’s Note

Minor lapses in punctuation have been rectified. Certain other editorial or printing errors have been noted below, and corrected.

On p. 286, in the note on i. 12 of Colossians for ὡς ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ, the citation of Romans 8:33, referring to ‘God’s elect’ was incorrect, appearing as Romans 8.3. The correction has been made.

On p. 321. there are two separate references to footnote 537. This seems to be intentional, and have been retained. Likewise, on p. 343, footnote 609 is repeated. It seems most likely that the second instance is correct, but both have been retained.

On p. 416, in the Index, the entry for ἅλας refers to iv. 5. However, the word and its gloss appear in iv. 6.

p. 28 He recal[l]s Added.

p. 43 n. 143 coin[ci]dence Added.

p. 121 n. 339 Zeitsc[h]rift Added.

p. 199 a similar pheno[nem/men]on Transposed.

p. 213 c. Eunom. iv ([p. ]I.p. 292) Removed.

p. 230 The thought underlying νῦν seems Added. [to] be this

p. 231 explaining it [as ]‘the later’ Added.

p. 323 theological con[fu]sion Added.

p. 373 n. 680 from the allied f[ro/or]m Transposed. Apphias.