Introduction to Philemon
What Is This Letter About?
Paul’s letter to Philemon captures a moment in an ongoing situation that precedes and follows on from this letter. We can make educated guesses about what preceded and prompted the writing of the letter, and we can speculate about what might have transpired as a result of the letter having been sent, but in each instance we are hampered by an inability to be sure about anything.
In fact, we can’t even be sure about what the letter was supposed to accomplish. Its author is agonizingly vague when articulating the outcome that the letter was expected to effect in its audience. This adds to the difficulty of understanding the situation with clarity.
One thing, however, is pretty clear (although even this has been challenged on occasion). In this situation we see, up close, a Jesus-follower who was also a slave owner (a situation known to us from Col. 4:1; Eph. 6:9; 1 Tim. 6:2). The twenty-first-century reader will have theological and moral objections to that situation in general. But despite our modern sensitivities to and justified concerns about this issue, slavery was rarely challenged systematically on the basis of Judeo-Christian principles until the last few centuries.
What we have, then, is a window into a past time and an opportunity to see how Paul handled one complex situation in a world very different from our own (for broader studies of this issue, see Fitzgerald 2010a; Huttunen 2009; Glancy 2002; Byron 2003; Wessels 2010). Most moments of this kind have been lost to us; Paul’s letter to Philemon captures one of them for us to consider.
Who Wrote the Letter?
Two people are listed as the authors of this letter:
- Paul, who undertook a controversial ministry as the “apostle to the gentiles” (Rom. 11:13); and
- thy, a close associate of Paul, who is mentioned in ten of the thirteen Pauline letters (except Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus) and who is listed as a coauthor in five others beyond Philemon (see 2 Cor. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:1–2; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1).
If Paul frequently lists coauthors at the beginning of letters, it is usually the case that he himself is the primary author. That this is the case for the letter to Philemon is illustrated by its first-person singular references throughout; after verse 3 almost every verse of the letter contains at least one first-person singular form (except the Greek of vv. 6, 15, and 25).
Although several of the Pauline letters may have been written after Paul’s death by others who “borrowed his voice” to address problems that had arisen, the letter to Philemon is not among their number.
Paul seems to have regularly used a secretary to inscribe his letters. Sometimes he picked up the inked stylus himself at the very end of the letter and appended a note (1 Cor. 16:21; 2 Thess. 3:17; Col. 4:18), perhaps to highlight important themes of the letter (as in Gal. 6:11–18). This may have been his intention in Philemon 19 when he mentions writing “with my own hand”—perhaps picking up the stylus at that point in order to emphasize what he promises in that verse (“I will repay you”). But the phrase can also be understood to mean that Paul himself had inscribed the papyrus from start to finish (this point being made explicitly only in verse 19, to emphasize the promise made in that verse).
To Whom Was the Letter Addressed?
The first two verses of the letter offer a glimpse into what was probably a small “house church”—a Jesus-group that met in the house of a householder, together with his family and any slaves he might have had. Jesus-groups probably met in other locations too (for example, small shops and tiny apartments in “tenement blocks”), and this might have been true also for those addressed in this letter. But it seems as if the person addressed was not notably disadvantaged by the temporary loss of one slave, which suggests that other slaves remained available to him in the meantime. Moreover, Paul seems to assume that the person addressed has exercised financial generosity to the extent that allows him to stand out from others (at least with regard to his generosity profile). So although we can’t be certain, it seems likely that this group of Jesus-followers met in the home of someone who had at least a modicum of economic resources. In one reconstruction of things, that home may have been located in the Greco-Roman city of Colossae (see “Is the Letter to the Colossians Relevant to the Study of Philemon?” below), or at least its nearby environs.
Three distinct “audiences” can be differentiated in relation to the letter to Philemon.
- The primary addressee: This is Philemon himself.
- The secondary addressees: These include the two other recipients named at the outset of the letter—that is, Apphia and Archippus.
- The wider addressees: These include all the Jesus-followers who worshiped together in the house and who, as listeners to the letter’s discourse, observe Philemon in relation to the thicket of rhetorical and theological warrants that Paul articulates.
Although Philemon is the primary addressee, the other addressees must not be left out of the situational picture. This is because their presence when the letter was read is a key dynamic in the rhetorical occasion. As we will see, when Paul addresses Philemon directly, he does so knowing full well that Philemon is being put on the spot in front of the others who are watching him intently to see what he will do. This is not a private letter to a single person; it is public discourse that singles out one person to comply with the wishes of the letter’s author.
We know nothing about the wider addressees, although we might imagine them being about two dozen in number—a rough estimate of the size of urban Jesus-groups in general.
Regarding the secondary addressees, we know almost nothing about them. Paul speaks of Archippus as “our fellow soldier” (v. 2). We need not take this descriptor literally. Paul often employs language to function at a metaphorical rather than a literal level (cf. Phil. 2:25, where Paul describes Epaphroditus metaphorically as “my fellow soldier”). With this military metaphor, Paul is highlighting Archippus’s role in advancing the gospel, singling him out because of his particular contribution to what unites the senders with the primary and secondary addressees—that is, their mutual concern for the advancement of the gospel. In that joint effort, Archippus had distinguished himself in service, like a single-minded soldier. Having someone like that in the assembly when the letter was read out would help ensure that Philemon would do the right thing, as Paul expected him to do.
Could Archippus have been the householder in whose home the Jesus-followers met (as proposed by Knox 1960)? The possibility cannot be ruled out. When Paul spoke of Jesus-followers meeting in “your house,” he used the singular rather than plural pronoun, and Archippus’s name is the closest antecedent to the word “your.” It seems more likely, however, that Paul was thinking of the house as belonging to Philemon, with the possessive pronoun “your” reaching back to the primary addressee already identified in verse 1.
And what about Apphia? She is sometimes assumed to be the wife of Philemon. But when speaking of the Jesus-followers who meet in the house of the married couple Prisca and Aquila in Rom. 16:3–5 and 1 Cor. 16:19, Paul uses the plural to speak of “their [autōn] house,” whereas in Philemon the referent is singular (“your house,” v. 2). If Apphia had been Philemon’s wife, we might expect Paul to have constructed his greeting differently, permitting a plural personal pronoun to refer to both Philemon and Apphia. Probably Apphia was not Philemon’s wife.
Perhaps then Apphia was noted because she had served the community of Jesus-followers well, much like Archippus and Timothy had done. Or perhaps she was among the increasing number of women who adopted a role in the civic arena by acting as a benefactor to associations (see Matthews 2001, 29–50; MacMullen 1980)—and Jesus-groups had many semblances to Greco-Roman associations. We know of other women in Paul’s circle who acted as benefactors to Jesus-groups—including Phoebe who is said to have been “the benefactor of many people, including me” (Rom. 16:1–2), and perhaps Lydia (Acts 16:13–15, 40).
How then are we to imagine the situation to which Paul’s letter was delivered and in which it was orated? If we answer this question in a certain fashion, we might conceive of a Jesus-group that met in the house of Philemon with one woman and one man being highlighted as excelling in the advancement of the gospel. If we answer them in another fashion, we might conceive of a Jesus-group in which Philemon was a member of a group sponsored by Apphia and meeting in the house of Archippus, who excelled in promoting the gospel. Further still, we might conceive of a Jesus-group meeting in Philemon’s house, sponsored by Apphia, among whose members Archippus had taken a noticeable lead in the service of the gospel. There are any number of permutations to these three scenarios, but we really have nothing to gauge which avenue is preferable.
What Was the Situation That the Letter Addressed?
Knowing something about the situation into which a letter is sent informs how that letter is to be understood. But this short letter of 335 Greek words offers very little by way of situational indicators. What we have to work with are the following indicators:
- Onesimus had served in Philemon’s household as a slave (v. 16).
- Onesimus may have aggrieved Philemon in some fashion (see vv. 18–19, although in those verses Paul may be adding pointedness for rhetorical effect).
- Philemon may have considered Onesimus to be relatively useless as a slave (v. 11; points 2 and 3 can be reversed in order).
- Onesimus left Philemon’s household (v. 15), although he evidently remained his slave.
- In some way Onesimus and Paul met while Paul was imprisoned. As a consequence, Onesimus became a Jesus-follower in his own right (v. 10) instead of by association within Philemon’s household (as in Acts 16:31–43).
- Onesimus proved to be useful to Paul during his imprisonment for the gospel (vv. 11, 13).
- Paul and Philemon already had been associates in some fashion (vv. 1, 17–19).
- Paul held the view that Onesimus needed to return to his master in order to allow Philemon to decide the next stage in his relationship with his slave. This situation prompted Paul to write a letter to encourage Philemon’s best response to Onesimus’s situation.
These indicators have been poked and prodded in various ways, resulting in a variety of proposed scenarios lying behind the text, which we can group into four main alternatives.
It has long been held in the traditional scenario that Onesimus had run away after stealing from Philemon, encountered Paul coincidentally during Paul’s imprisonment, and became a Jesus-follower as a consequence of that encounter (see Harris 1991; Nordling 1991, 2004). But this scenario has fallen out of fashion, not least because it is hard to believe that Onesimus and Paul met wholly by chance while Paul was imprisoned; the odds of that happening aren’t themselves slim (Paul met strangers all the time), but the likelihood of that happening when Paul and Philemon had already known each other for several years is negligible.
In a second scenario, several proposals envisage Onesimus not fleeing from Philemon but having been sent to Paul for some reason—either by his master (see Knox 1960, who thinks his master was Archippus; Schenk 1987, who thinks his master was Philemon) or by local Jesus-followers to assist Paul financially (Winter 1987; Wansink 1996; Elliott 2011). These proposals have not fared well, since it is hard to see why Paul would consider Onesimus’s situation to be so fragile if this had been an “authorized” visit, and since it is hard to see why Onesimus would have been entrusted with such a task if he had proved himself to be “useless” (v. 11) and may have done wrong by his master (v. 18) prior to being “birthed” by Paul (v. 10).
In a third scenario, Onesimus has left Philemon not with the intention of deserting him but simply to gain Paul’s advocacy in a grievance that had transpired between the slave and the master (see Lampe 1985; Rapske 1991; a variation on this appears in Arzt-Grabner’s listed works). As an amicus domini (“friend of the master”), Paul would be well placed to arbitrate in a dispute and intercede on Onesimus’s behalf (for a situation that has some pertinence, see Pliny the Younger, Letter 9.21, 24).
These scenarios all build on the notion that Onesimus was Philemon’s slave—a view derived from verse 16. But a fourth scenario reads that same verse in a different fashion (most recently by Callahan 1997; earlier by Barnes 1846). When Paul asks Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave,” he is not referring to Onesimus’s status (i.e., slavery) but is only characterizing Philemon’s past treatment of him (i.e., as if he were only as good as a slave). Their real relationship shines through, it is argued, in the second half of the verses: “but as a brother.” That is, Onesimus was not Philemon’s slave; instead, they are only bickering biological brothers.
While this reading relieves us of one instance in which an early Jesus-follower is also a slave owner and forces us to reconsider an established reading of the text, it is nonetheless a difficult reading to sustain. Not only is the sense of “not only as a slave” in verse 16 stretched too far, but the interpretation fails to do justice to several other features of Paul’s letter that resonate perfectly with a slave scenario but not so well if Philemon and Onesimus were simply biological brothers—such as Paul’s talk of Onesimus as Philemon’s representative, of Philemon’s consent in the matter, and of Philemon’s voluntary good deed (vv. 13–14). Accordingly, this interpretation appears more like an exercise in side-stepping uncomfortable features of the text rather than offering a largely compelling reading of the text.
Of these scenarios, then, the most favored explanations are the first and the third, and the truth of the situation probably lies close to at least one of these two scenarios. I say “at least” since the two can also bleed into each other with some ease. Perhaps Onesimus had originally fled from Philemon as a runaway but subsequently rethought his strategy, seeking out Paul (known to be Philemon’s friend) to act as a mediator between the slave and his master, facilitating the return of a repentant Onesimus to his master’s household (Barclay 1997, 101).
I note, however, that the fourth scenario may also have some merit, although only in a greatly revised form. It is possible that Philemon and Onesimus were, in fact, biologically related as offspring of a single father, with Onesimus also being a slave within the household that was inherited by Philemon from that now-deceased father. (That is, they may have been half-brothers, biologically speaking, even if in social capital they were worlds apart.) In this scenario, Philemon was an offspring of his father’s wife, being the legitimate heir of the household; Onesimus, on the other hand, was an offspring of one of his father’s slaves, therefore being a slave of Philemon’s household despite being biologically related to him. This scenario (common in the ancient world) would add heightened accent to Paul’s frequent familial metaphors in this letter—that is, his relatively frequent use of sibling imagery (“brother,” “sister”) and his claim to have “fathered” Onesimus. Instead of the situation being an either-or (they were either master and slave or biologically related), the reality might have been a both-and.
What Did Paul Want to Accomplish with This Letter?
In other letters Paul is not averse to being quite upfront about his expectations for others. But in this letter he takes a different course, choosing to leave unstated his own preference for Philemon’s consequent course of action.
The only request that Paul explicitly mentions regarding Onesimus is found in verse 17, where Philemon is encouraged to receive Onesimus in a fashion that replicates how Philemon would receive Paul himself. This scenario piggybacks on what Paul says in verse 16, where he speaks of Philemon receiving Onesimus back as a brother “in the Lord.” If Paul could envision several versions of a favorable outcome, the outcome that he sought to avoid involved Onesimus being received by Philemon on unfavorable terms, with Philemon exercising his legal right to treat his slave harshly and maliciously.
Paul subtly directs Philemon’s attention to other possible scenarios instead. This is done almost by means of dropping hints about the strategy he would like Philemon to adopt. Paul expects much from Philemon, but he cannot presume to dictate Philemon’s course of action. Laying out a specific course of action may only have raised the stakes of honor, thereby backing Philemon into a corner and risking an unfavorable outcome unnecessarily.
In verse 14 Paul talks about not wanting to do anything without Philemon’s permission, and in verse 21 Paul emboldens Philemon to “do even more than I’m suggesting.” What does Paul envision by this “even more”? What is “the good deed” that Philemon is to do “voluntarily” that would “delight” Paul and “refresh” his heart (vv. 14, 20)?
Figure 11. A mosaic honoring the “Apostle Onesimus” [Hilandar Research Library]
The best guess is that Paul wanted Philemon to send Onesimus back to him once again in order to assist him in his apostolic ministry (reading between the lines of verse 13; see J. Ryan 2005). Paul may also have hoped that Philemon would free Onesimus from servitude, but we cannot be too sure about this. Paul may have sat lightly to whether Philemon chose to set Onesimus free. The danger in setting him free is that, as a free agent, Onesimus (despite his expected loyalty to his former master) might have chosen not to return to Paul. A safer route would have been for Philemon to command Onesimus to return to Paul for service in the gospel—still as Philemon’s slave but “on loan” (in a sense) to Paul and his ministry. In that situation, Philemon may also have supported Onesimus financially during his time in his service to Paul. Perhaps Paul was hesitant to propose a strategy since these things were for Philemon to adjudicate. It was up to Philemon to devise a strategy that would take into account not only Paul’s desired outcome but also the character of the slave and the best interests of Philemon’s own household. (For instance, would giving freedom to a problematic slave have upset stability within Philemon’s household by encouraging others to follow Onesimus’s example?) Perhaps Paul was simply trusting Philemon to enhance Paul’s Christian ministry in a fashion that took account of all the permutations of the situation most satisfactorily.
Although we will never know for sure, it is likely that Paul had various scenarios in mind as part of his tantalizingly obscure reference to the “even more” that he hoped Philemon would do for Onesimus when being “obedient” to Paul’s largely unstated request (v. 21). If Onesimus were to return to Paul, either as a slave of Philemon or as a freedman, Paul would likely have apprenticed him with new responsibilities in the service of the gospel.
When Did Paul Write This Letter?
Paul wrote this letter while he was in Roman custody. Paul was in prison at various points in his ministry, and there is some debate as to which of these imprisonments pertains to the writing of Philemon. The main options are as follows:
- sus in the mid-50s (no text refers specifically to Paul being imprisoned in Ephesus, but this can be postulated on the basis of comments in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians; see 1 Cor. 15:32; 16:8; 2 Cor. 1:8–9; 6:5; 11:23–24)
- Caesarea in the late 50s (see Acts 24:27)
- Rome at some point in the 60s (see Acts 28:16); some think that Paul was a prisoner in Rome on only one occasion in the early 60s, while others think he was imprisoned in Rome on two occasions—the early and late 60s
Of these options, Ephesus and Rome are the two strongest contenders (for Ephesus, see Fitzmyer 2000; for Rome, see Bruce 2000; Cassidy 2001, 68–142). A determination of this matter does not impact the commentary that follows. It only comes into play when reconstructing an outline of Paul’s life, an issue that exceeds the bounds of this commentary.
Figure 12. The cities of Ephesus and Colossae are separated by a distance of approximately 110 miles “as the crow flies.”
Is the Letter to the Colossians Relevant to the Study of Philemon?
It does not take long to notice a relationship between Paul’s letters to Philemon and to the Colossians. Notably, the two letters make mention of the same eight people:
Timothy (Philem. 1; Col. 1:1)
Archippus (Philem. 2; Col. 4:17)
Onesimus (Philem. 10; Col. 4:9)
Epaphras (Philem. 23; Col. 1:7; 4:12)
Mark (Philem. 24; Col. 4:10)
Aristarchus (Philem. 24; Col. 4:10)
Demas (Philem. 24; Col. 4:14)
Luke (Philem. 24; Col. 4:14)
The only people mentioned in Philemon who are not mentioned in Colossians are Philemon (v. 1) and Apphia (v. 2).
For those who think that Colossians was authored by Paul himself, these links testify to the two letters having been written within roughly the same time period. For those who think Colossians was written by one of Paul’s followers after Paul’s death, these links are taken to be artificially constructed in order to yield a higher level of authenticity to the pseudonymous letter.
If Colossians was authored by Paul, then it would seem that Philemon resided in the city of Colossae, since Paul’s letter to the Colossians refers to both Onesimus (Philemon’s slave) and Epaphras (Paul’s colleague when writing Philemon) as being resident there (Col. 4:9, 12; see also Col. 4:17, where Archippus is mentioned in a fashion that many consider to link him to Colossae). Even if Colossians was not authored by Paul, there is scope for thinking that Philemon was resident in Colossae because linking these people to that city in Colossians was unlikely to have been created out of thin air.
Figure 13. The cities of Rome and Colossae are separated by a distance of approximately 890 miles “as the crow flies.”
Who Read the Letter to the Community?
Who would have read this letter out loud, in front of Philemon and the rest of the Jesus-followers who had gathered?
Some have thought that Onesimus himself would have read the letter aloud to Philemon. This is unlikely. The letter makes a significant request (albeit largely unspecified) of an aggrieved slave master, encouraging him to make a beneficial decision regarding the fate of his slave, with significant rhetorical pressure being placed upon the master in the process; such a letter is unlikely to have been read to the master by the slave himself. That would have raised the stakes far too high, forcing the situation to become unnecessarily adversarial. As is evidenced throughout the letter, Paul is not averse to pressing Philemon toward a particular course of action, but he is mindful to provide Philemon with an honorable resolution of the situation; having Philemon’s slave read the letter would have confused the clarity of “the rhetorical signal” and detracted from the other rhetorical strategies that Paul employed in the letter.
Consequently, we should imagine that Paul made other provisions for the reading of the letter. Perhaps he knew of someone within the local Jesus-group who would be commissioned to read it, allowing Onesimus to slink into the background while the letter was being read, until Philemon had made his decision. Or perhaps funds were provided to enable someone to accompany Onesimus as a fellow traveler (not least to help stave off the dangers of ancient travel, since a single traveler was vulnerable to a variety of threats), with this person acting also as the letter reader.
Moreover, having someone travel with Onesimus to read the letter would not simply have avoided a “showdown” situation but would have added rhetorical advantage to Paul’s case. If Philemon were faced with a reader who would soon be returning to Paul with a report about the outcome of the letter, Philemon would be more likely to comply with Paul’s wishes, allowing Onesimus to return to Paul with the letter reader. Paul would probably have preferred a situation like this, since his ministry was repeatedly frustrated by miscommunication (sometimes willful miscommunication) among his audiences. With so much emotional investment in the outcome of this situation, sending a letter reader along with Onesimus would have served a number of favorable purposes and decreased the chance of unwanted outcomes (travel dangers, rhetorical ineffectiveness, and miscommunication).
Unfortunately we may never know for sure who that letter reader was. But if the letters known as Philemon and Colossians were sent together, the letter carrier/reader would probably have been Tychicus, since in Col. 4:7 we read, “Tychicus will tell you all the news about me” (NRSV; see further Col. 4:8–9). Other passages might also be read in this light (Eph. 6:21; 2 Tim. 4:12; Titus 3:12), suggesting that Tychicus may have carried several of Paul’s letters to their addressees (although all references to Tychicus appear in texts whose authorship is disputed).
What Reception Has the Philemon Letter Had in History?
Although Paul’s letter to Philemon has frequently been lauded by theologians, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that few NT texts have had less impact on the course of Christian history than this letter (except perhaps Jude or 2 Peter; an example of moving Philemon from the backseat to the front can be found in Wright 2013, 3–74).
Of course, the Letter to Philemon was preserved within the Pauline corpus, and not all of Paul’s letters were. (We lack, for instance, a letter he wrote to the Corinthians [see 1 Cor. 5:9] and apparently another to the Laodiceans [see Col. 4:16]; moreover, it is likely that Paul wrote other letters that have similarly been lost to us.) This fact itself might testify to the letter’s early reception as a letter of importance. (Some have imagined that Onesimus himself might have been instrumental in ensuring that the letter was preserved and circulated.)
The reception of the letter in the patristic period is somewhat mixed (see Barth and Blanke 2000, 201–6; Decock 2010; Friedl 2010; Fitzgerald 2010b). It is included in most of the lists drawn up to identify which books should be included within the Christian canon (for example, the Muratorian Canon, probably from the third century), although it was not accepted as canonical by the Syrian church and its theologians. Patristic theologians cited from Philemon with some frequency and wrote commentaries on it, but some also found themselves having to defend its utility as edifying for Christians against voices that expressed dissatisfaction with it.
The letter to Philemon leaves a trace on church history here and there throughout the centuries, but it is only in the nineteenth century, with the American debate concerning the enslavement of African peoples, that this letter took on a prominence it had never previously enjoyed. Both sides in the debate claimed the letter as support for their own positions—forcing further debates about the place of “higher criticism” and the authority of Scripture front and center within the church and society (see, e.g., Harrill 2006; Noel and Williams 2012).
Since that time, not much has changed. Along with other passages in the Pauline corpus where slavery is discussed (see 1 Cor. 7:21–24; Col. 3:22–4:1; Eph. 6:5–9; 1 Tim. 1:10; 6:1–2; Titus 2:9–10), Philemon continues to be a storm center for discussion of Christian theology in relation to corporate ethos and social ethics (see, e.g., Barton 1987; I. H. Marshall 1993, 185–91; Giles 1994; Barclay 1991; Barclay 1997, 119–26; Burtchaell 1998; Osiek 2000, 144–46; Bieberstein 2000; Thompson 2006; du Plessis 2006; Harrill 2006; Cousar 2009, 105–6; Avalos 2011; Wolter 2010; de Villiers 2010). For some, the letter offers a sterling example of how the Christian gospel seeps into situations to offset their inbuilt injustices; for others, it is complicit in the very structures of oppression that the gospel should seek to oppose. Space will not permit much engagement with this issue, except to offer a few signposts at the end of the commentary.