Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon

Latin source: Jerome's commentary on the Epistle to Philemon (written at Bethlehem about 386–388 for Paula and Eustochium), from Vallarsi's text as printed in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 26 (Paris, 1845), cols. 599–618, verified against the page images and collated with Vallarsi's edition (Venice, 1769). Scripture is translated as Jerome quotes it, from his own Latin; Psalms keep the Latin (LXX) numbering. The words of Philemon that Jerome expounds are in italics; the footnotes give the alternative readings printed in Migne and the true reference where the printed one is wrong. This English translation is released into the public domain.

Prologue

Those who refuse to receive among the Epistles of Paul the one which is written to Philemon say that the Apostle did not always, nor in all things, speak with Christ speaking in him. For, they argue, human weakness could not have borne the one unbroken course of the Holy Spirit; nor would the necessities¹ of this poor body always be fulfilled in the presence of the Lord: such as arranging a meal, taking food, being hungry, being filled, digesting what has been taken in, replenishing what has been used up. I say nothing of the other things which they unfold in an elaborate and forced manner², so as to affirm that there was some time in which Paul would not dare to say: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20); and this: "Or do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ" (2 Cor. 13:3)? What sort of proof of Christ is it, they say, to hear: "The cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, when you come bring with you" (2 Tim. 4:13)? And this to the Galatians: "Would that they were even cut off who trouble you" (Gal. 5:12). And in this very Epistle: "But at the same time also prepare me a lodging". And this, they say, happened in like manner not only to the apostles but also to the prophets. Hence it is quite often found written: "The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel" (Ezek. 22), or to any other of the prophets, because after the prophecy had been completed, returning again into himself, he became an ordinary man instead of a prophet; and in no one except our Lord Jesus Christ did the Holy Spirit abide permanently³. This sign John the Baptist too had received: that he upon whom he saw the Holy Spirit descending and remaining in him, he should know to be the one (John 1). From this he shows⁴ that the Holy Spirit indeed descends upon many, but that this is the distinctive mark of the Saviour, that he abides permanently in him. By these and other arguments of this kind they hold either that the Epistle which is written to Philemon is not Paul's, or that, even if it is Paul's, it has nothing that can edify us; and that it was rejected by most of the ancients, since it was written merely for the purpose of commending, not of teaching. But on the contrary, those who defend it as of genuine authority say that it would never have been received throughout the whole world by all the churches unless it were believed to be Paul the apostle's. And by this rule, they say, those men ought not to receive even the second Epistle to Timothy, and that to the Galatians, from which he himself also published examples of human weakness: "The cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, when you come bring with you"; and: "Would that they were cut off who trouble you". Very many things are found both in Romans and in the letters to the other churches, and especially to the Corinthians, dictated in a more relaxed way and in almost everyday speech, in which the Apostle says: "But to the rest I say, not the Lord". These too, because they contain something of the sort, must either not be thought epistles of Paul; or, if these are received, that to Philemon must also be received, on the precedent of similar letters already received. And those men, they say, err greatly and naively if they think that buying food, preparing a lodging, procuring clothes, is a sin, and assert that the Holy Spirit is put to flight if for a little while we serve the necessities of the poor body. "Do not", says the Apostle, "grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed in the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30). By what works the Holy Spirit is grieved the prophet records, having set out many vices and sins in order, and adding at the end: "In all these you grieved me". Otherwise, would offering a cup of cold water, washing feet, sacrificing a calf, preparing a meal, be a sin, when we know that through these things certain people are adopted as sons of God? This is not the time to answer everything, since we have not brought forward everything that they are accustomed to propose. But if they do not think that small things belong to those who own the great things as well, then, according to Valentinus, Marcion and Apelles, they must bring in for me one Creator of the ant, of worms, gnats and locusts, and another of heaven, earth, sea and the angels. Or rather, is it not a mark of the same power not to withhold in lesser things also the skill which you have exercised in greater? And since we have made mention of Marcion, let them be taught that the Epistle to Philemon is Paul's at least on Marcion's authority. Although he either did not receive the other Epistles of the same Apostle, or changed and gnawed away certain things in them, on this one alone he did not dare to lay hands, because its brevity defended it. But they seem to me, while they accuse the epistle of simplicity, to betray their own lack of skill, not understanding what power and wisdom lies hidden in its individual words. These things, while you pray, and with the Holy Spirit himself, by whom they were written, prompting us, we shall try to explain in their places. But if brevity is held in contempt, let Obadiah, Nahum, Zephaniah and the others of the twelve prophets⁵ be despised, in whom the things that are related are so wonderful and so great that you would not know whether you ought to admire in them the brevity of the words or the greatness of the meanings. But if those who reject the Epistle to Philemon understood this, they would never despise brevity, which, in place of the long-trailing burdens of the Law, has been written with the beauty of the Gospel, since the Lord makes a word shortened and completed upon the earth. But now the very words of the Apostle are to be set down, which begin thus.

HERE BEGINS THE BOOK.

1:1-3

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy the brother, to Philemon the beloved and our fellow worker, and to Apphia the sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that is in your house: grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

You have been pleased to have me dictate to you on the Epistles of Paul in a back-to-front and inverted order. For when you, O Paula and Eustochium, often asked me to do it, and I stubbornly refused, you compelled me at least to discuss a short one, and one which seemed to you the last in sense and order as well as in the number of its verses. I shall therefore attempt at the end what belongs to the beginning. Another commentator would ask at once, in his introduction to the Apostle, why, or at what time, or by whose naming, he received the name of Paul in place of Saul. I am now compelled to do this, although before this day I had never dared to utter even a mu about him, as the saying goes. Nor indeed should it be thought, as the simpler Latins read it, that he was formerly called Saulus and not Saul; for he was of the tribe of Benjamin, in which this name was quite familiar. Indeed, that well-known Saul, king of Judea, the persecutor of David, was also of the tribe of Benjamin. But as for his being called Saulus by us, it is no wonder that Hebrew names are declined after the likeness of the Greek and Roman cases, so that just as Josephus is said for Joseph, and Jacobus for Jacob, so Saulus too is said for Saul in our language and speech. The question, then, is why, or at whose command, he either lost his old name or took a new one. That Abram should be called Abraham was accomplished by God's bidding (Gen. 17, etc.); that the name Sarai should become Sarah was likewise God's command. And to come to the New Testament: that Simon should receive the name of Peter (Mark 3), and that the sons of Zebedee should be called BANE REEM (בני רעם), that is, "sons of thunder", was ordained by the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ (ibid.). But why he was called Paul instead of Saul, no Scripture records. I shall therefore act boldly, but perhaps truly, in setting out my conjectures from the Acts of the Apostles. We read in them that the Holy Spirit said at Antioch: "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have taken them up. Then, fasting and praying and laying hands on them, they sent them away" (Acts 13:3 ff.). They went down to Seleucia of Syria and sailed to Salamis of Cyprus, which is now called Constantia. They had John with them in the ministry (on whose account a quarrel edifying to the Church was later stirred up). When they had travelled through the whole island and come as far as Paphos, they found a certain magician⁶, a false prophet named Bar-Jesus, with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a prudent man. The proconsul summoned Barnabas and Saul⁷ and desired to hear the word of God from them. So when the magician⁸ resisted and was perverting Sergius from the right faith, "Saul" (says Scripture) "who is also Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looking upon him said: O full of all guile and all deceit, son of the devil, enemy of all justice, do you not cease to subvert the right ways of the Lord? And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time. And immediately a mist and darkness fell upon him, and going about he sought someone to give him his hand. Then the proconsul, when he had seen what was done, believed, marvelling at the teaching of the Lord. And when Paul and those who were with him had sailed from Paphos, they came to Perga of Pamphylia". Note carefully that it is here that he first received the name of Paul. Scipio, having subdued Africa, took for himself the name of Africanus; Metellus, having subjugated the island of Crete, brought back to his family the distinction of Creticus; and Roman emperors down to the present day are styled Adiabenicus, Parthicus and Sarmaticus from the nations they have subdued. In the same way Saul, sent to preach to the Gentiles, brought back the trophies of his victory from the first spoil of the Church, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, and raised his standard, so that he was called Paul instead of Saul. But if the meaning of the name is also sought, Paul in Hebrew means "wonderful". And truly it is a wonder that after being Saul, which means "sought after" (because he had been demanded by the devil to harass the Church), he should become, from a persecutor, a vessel of election. This has been discussed at greater length perhaps than was fitting, but necessarily. As for what follows, prisoner of Jesus Christ: in no Epistle has he used this title, although in the body of the Epistles, namely those to the Ephesians, the Philippians and the Colossians, he testifies that he is in chains for his confession. And it seems to me a mark of greater loftiness to call himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ than an apostle. For the apostles gloried that they had been worthy to suffer insult for the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 5:41); but the authority of the chains was necessary. Since he was about to plead for Onesimus, he had to plead as one who could obtain what he asked. Happy indeed is he who glories not in wisdom, not in riches, not in eloquence and worldly power, but in the sufferings of Christ. With such words he also concludes his Epistle to the Galatians: "For the rest," he says, "let no one trouble me; for I bear the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ in my body" (Gal. 6). Not everyone who is a prisoner, however, is a prisoner of Christ. Whoever is bound for the name of Christ and for confessing him, he is truly called a prisoner of Jesus Christ; and only that shed blood makes a martyr which is poured out for the name of Christ. He writes to Philemon, then, as a prisoner in prison at Rome, at the time when, it seems to me, the Epistles to the Philippians, Colossians and Ephesians were dictated. I place the Epistle to the Philippians there for this reason: first, because he writes with Timothy alone, as he also does in this Epistle. Next, because he says that his chains have become manifest for Christ throughout the whole praetorium. What the praetorium is, he indicates at the end of that same Epistle: "All the saints greet you, but especially those who are of Caesar's household". Sent to prison by Caesar and having become better known to his household, he made the persecutor's house a church of Christ. Then he says: "But some proclaim Christ out of contention, not sincerely, thinking to stir up affliction for my chains" (Phil. 1:17). Further, the opening to the Colossians is also similar: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy the brother". And in what follows: "Of which I, Paul, have been made a minister, who now rejoice in sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ, for his body, which is the Church" (Col. 1:2, 23, 24). And at the end: "My greeting by the hand of Paul. Be mindful of my chains" (Col. 4:18). I cite this so that we may know that these Epistles too were dictated from prison and in chains. But the Epistle to the Colossians has this peculiar feature, that the same Onesimus who is now commended to Philemon was also the bearer of that letter. Accordingly he says: "All that concerns me Tychicus will make known to you, the dearest brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord, whom I have sent to you for this purpose, that he may know what concerns you and comfort your hearts, with Onesimus, the dearest and faithful brother, who is one of you" (ibid. 7, 8). Now Philemon, to whom this epistle is written, is the master of Onesimus, or rather has begun to be his brother in the Lord. And the Colossians are told that Onesimus is one of them. If so, reason itself and the order of things lead us to conclude two things: that Philemon too was a Colossian, and that Onesimus carried the letter common to the whole church at the same time as he took up the private letter commending him to his master. There is also another indication: in this same epistle Archippus too is named, to whom the present letter is written along with Philemon. "Say", he says, "to Archippus: See to the ministry which you have received from⁹ the Lord, that you fulfil it". What is the ministry which Archippus received from the Lord? In the letter to Philemon we read: "And to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that is in your house". From this I think that he was bishop of the Colossian church and is admonished to preside over it zealously and diligently, as a preacher of the Gospel. Or, if that is not so, this suffices me for the present: that Philemon and Archippus, and Onesimus himself who carried the letters, were Colossians, and that the four Epistles (as we said before) were written at the same time. I place the Epistle to the Ephesians there for this reason. Here too he says that he is a prisoner for Christ. At the end of this Epistle he also enjoins the same things he had commanded the Colossians: that wives be subject to their husbands, and husbands love their wives; that children obey their parents; that fathers not provoke their children to anger; that slaves obey their masters according to the flesh; that masters lay aside threats and grant their slaves what is just. And at the very end he concludes his Epistle thus: "What I am doing Tychicus will make known to you, the dearest brother and faithful minister in the Lord, whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know what concerns me, and that he may comfort your hearts". Now Tychicus is the one who is also sent to the Colossians with Onesimus, and he had Onesimus as his travelling companion at the time when Onesimus was carrying the letter to Philemon.

And Timothy the brother. In other epistles Sosthenes and Silvanus are associated with him, and sometimes Timothy the brother¹⁰. In only four is Timothy named alone, because they were dictated either at the same time, or with Timothy and the others present. I think this was done for a twofold reason. First, so that the Epistle might have greater authority, since it was not written by one man. Second, there was no rivalry among the apostles: if perhaps, while Paul was dictating, the Spirit had suggested something to another, Paul added it without any vexation to the letter he was dictating. He did so in accordance with what he himself enjoined on the Corinthians: if, while one is prophesying, something is revealed to another, he who was prophesying first should be silent (1 Cor. 14). Thus he too fulfilled his own precept in deed, and because of the few things he had added at another's suggestion, he headed the epistle as another's as well as his own. To Philemon, he says, the beloved. The Greek does not have ἠγαπημένῳ, which is rendered "beloved" (dilectus), but ἀγαπητῷ, that is, "lovable" (diligibilis). Between beloved (dilectus) and lovable (diligibilis) there is this difference: even one who does not deserve love can be called beloved, but only one who is loved for his merit is lovable. Thus we are commanded to love even our enemies, who are beloved, but not lovable. For we love them, not because they deserve to be loved, but because we are commanded not to hold them in hatred. Again, what is set down in the title of the forty-fourth Psalm, "for the beloved", is better in the Greek, "for the lovable"; and this passage is most plainly understood of Christ. The Jews think that Solomon is called IDIDIA (ידידיה), that is, "loved by God", because that name was given him by God on account of his wisdom (2 Sam. 12). Yet who can more truly be called loved by God than he of whom the Father speaks in the Gospel: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him" (Luke 9:36)? So also in Isaiah it is written thus: "I will sing to the beloved a song of the lovable one for my vineyard. A vineyard was made for the beloved" (Isa. 5:1). The circumcision thought that this was to be understood of the Jewish people, and so struck against the stone of stumbling and the rock of scandal. They did not reflect that the vineyard transplanted from Egypt is the house of Israel, and that it is Christ who is here called either lovable or beloved. For he both deserves to be loved by the saints, and the saints love him, offering him love rather than demanding any¹¹ rewards for their love. Paul and Timothy therefore write to Philemon, dearest and fellow worker; he is called dearest for this reason, that he is engaged in the same work of Christ. They write also to Apphia¹² the sister, who had in her nothing of a false and feigned sisterhood. And they write to Archippus the fellow soldier: I think that, fighting with Paul and Timothy against adversaries for the name of Christ, he proved victorious, and is therefore now called fellow soldier because he prevailed in the same contest and war. It is written also to the church that is in his house. But this is ambiguous: is it the church in the house of Archippus, or the one in the house of Philemon? It seems to me that it should be referred not to the person of Archippus but to that of Philemon, to whom the epistle itself is assigned. For although Paul and Timothy write jointly to Philemon, Apphia, Archippus and the church, yet what follows proves that Paul alone is writing to Philemon, one conversing with one: "I give thanks to my God always, and making remembrance of you". You will be able to find this manner of writing in a number of his epistles: several persons, writing to several, are set down in the preface, but afterwards, throughout the whole body of the Epistle, one alone is brought in as discoursing. Writing to the Galatians, the Apostle says that in the faith of Christ it makes no difference whether one is a Gentile or a Jew, man or woman, slave or free (Gal. 3:28); this too becomes clear in this place. For between two men, and apostolic men, between Paul's fellow worker and his fellow soldier, the name of Apphia is inserted in the middle, so that, supported on either side by such company¹³, she may be seen to hold her rank by merit, not by sex. As for his saying, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, it is still written by two to several. In almost all the Epistles the opening is the same, calling down upon them grace and peace from God the Father and Christ the Lord. From this it is shown that the nature of the Son and of the Father is one, since the Son can bestow what the Father bestows, and the Father is said to bestow what the Son bestows. Now grace is that by which we are saved through no merit or work. Peace is that by which we have been reconciled to God through Christ, as in the passage: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:20).

1:4-6

I give thanks to my God always, making remembrance of you in my prayers, hearing of your love and the faith which you have in the Lord Jesus and in all his saints: that the sharing of your faith may become evident in the full knowledge of every good which is in you in Christ.

These words he now speaks not as Paul and Timothy to Philemon and the rest, but as Paul alone to Philemon alone: I give thanks, he says, to my God always¹⁴ making remembrance of you in my prayers. It is said ambiguously, however, whether he gives thanks to his God always, or makes remembrance of him in his prayers always. And both can be understood. For he who instructs others to give thanks to God in all things can be hemmed in by no straits so tight that he does not himself render thanks to God always. But if Paul always prayed for the saints and for all the better sort (and Philemon too is holy, having in himself such faith and love that he was known to him not only by report but also by deed), it is credible that Paul also prayed always for Philemon. He prayed, namely, that the faith and love which Philemon had in Christ and in all his saints might be preserved by Christ's mercy, through the sharing of faith and the operation of full knowledge in every good. And concerning the love which he had in Christ Jesus and in all his saints, the interpretation is indeed not difficult: it is the love by which, after God, we bid [men] to love our neighbors too. Now the question is this: how can anyone have the same faith in Christ Jesus and in his saints? For, by ἀπὸ κοινοῦ, the phrase sounds both ways: the love which you have in the Lord Jesus and in all his saints, and the faith which you have in the Lord Jesus and in all his saints. To expound this passage let us take an example from Exodus: "The people believed God and Moses his servant" (Exod. 19)¹⁵. One and the same belief is directed to Moses and to God, so that the people who believed in the Lord is said¹⁶ to have believed equally in the servant. And this holds not only in Moses but in all his saints, so that whoever has believed God cannot receive faith in him in any other way unless he also believes in his saints. For that love and faith toward God is not perfect which is thinned by hatred and unbelief toward his ministers. What I mean is this. Someone has believed¹⁷ in God the Creator. He cannot believe unless he has first believed that what is written about his saints is true: that Adam was formed by God; that Eve was fashioned from his rib and side; that Enoch was translated; that Noah alone was saved when the world was shipwrecked; that Abraham, the first to be commanded to go out from his land and his kindred, left to his descendants the circumcision which he had received as a sign of the offspring to come; that Isaac was offered as a victim, and that a ram, sacrificed in his place and crowned with thorns, foreshadowed the Lord's passion; that Moses and Aaron afflicted Egypt with ten plagues; that at the voice and prayers of Joshua the son of Nun the sun stood still in Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Aijalon. It would be long to run through all the deeds of the Judges, and to draw the whole story of Samson to the mystery of the true sun (for that is what his name signifies). I shall come to the books of Kings¹⁸: when at harvest time, at Samuel's entreaty, rains and streams suddenly poured down from heaven; and David was anointed king; and Nathan and Gad prophesied mysteries; when Elijah was caught up in a fiery chariot, and Elisha, with a double spirit, though dead raised the dead. Unless one has believed all these things and the rest that are written about the saints, he will not be able to believe in the God of the saints. Nor can he be brought to faith in the Old Testament unless he has accepted as true whatever the history narrates about the patriarchs and prophets and other distinguished men: so that from the faith of the Law he may come to the faith of the Gospel, and the righteousness of God may be revealed in him from faith to faith, as it is written: "But the just lives by faith" (Hab. 2). It is also commanded in another place: "Be holy, because I am holy, says the Lord your God" (Lev. 19:2). The same holiness is owed to the servants and to the Lord: for both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one. Let us not think it slight praise of Philemon that he has the same faith in the saints as in God. He who believes God to be holy certainly does not err. But if anyone believes a man who is not holy to be holy, and joins him to fellowship with God, he violates Christ, of whose body we are all members. "He who says", he says, "that the just is unjust and the unjust just, both are abominable before God" (Prov. 7:15)¹⁹. Likewise he who says that the holy is not holy, and again asserts that the unholy is holy, is abominable before God. All believers, according to the Apostle, are made²⁰ the body of Christ (1 Cor. 6). Whoever errs and slips with regard to the body of Christ, asserting that a member of it is holy when it is not, or not holy when it is holy, see what a charge he becomes liable to: "Woe", says Isaiah, "to those who call sweet bitter and bitter sweet, making darkness light and light darkness" (Isa. 5:20). Sweet, I think, is holiness; bitter is what is contrary to holiness. Likewise holiness can be understood as light, and darkness as what is contrary to holiness. Which of us, do you think, though a moneychanger skilled in testing coins, will not err in discerning the saints? He who has equal love and faith in God and in his saints ought to have a sharing of that faith which is not unequal: so that as he believes and loves, so he may complete his love and faith in deed. Hence he says: May become evident in the full knowledge of every good; or, as it stands better in the Greek, "effective". For ἐνεργής can properly be rendered effective or operative: so that we may not merely believe that faith and love in God and in his saints can suffice for us, but that what we believe²¹ may be fulfilled in deed. It can happen, however, that someone has faith and completes it in deed, but simply and barely, without having full knowledge or knowledge of it, according to that saying of the Apostle: "I confess that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge" (Rom. 10:2). There are today many among the simple who do works of righteousness and have no knowledge of the things they themselves do. Hence he added: That the sharing of your faith may become operative in the full knowledge of every good. By what great steps and what great leaps does the apostolic word stretch itself toward higher things? Someone has love and faith in God and in his saints, but perhaps he does not share it with all in an equal balance. Perhaps he shares it with all, but does not carry it out in deed. Someone may fulfil it in will and in deed, yet he cannot have a perfect understanding of his own actions. Let there also be such a one as has both the work and the knowledge, yet he does not have the full knowledge of every good. For though he performs many things justly, gently and zealously, he is unequal in some part to his own virtues. Is not Philemon such a one? For he has the sharing of an operative faith and love in the full knowledge of every good. And since this is in the apostles, let us not think it perfect merely because it is in them, but entire in this, that it is Christ's. So whatever good is both praised in Philemon and taken from the example of the apostles is good for this reason, that it is drawn from the fountain of Christ.

1:7

For we have had great joy and consolation in your love, because the bowels of the saints have found rest through you, brother.

He drives home and explains more fully why he had said: "I give thanks to my God, always making remembrance of you in my prayers". For it was indeed fitting to give thanks to God for the love of Philemon, who, by receiving them, had refreshed the inner affection of the heart and the deep recesses of the saints' souls. And this is an apostolic idiom: he always says "bowels" when he wishes to show the full love of the mind. Therefore, rejoicing with those who rejoice, and believing that he himself had been refreshed along with those who had found rest, he has a joy that is not passing and light, nor such as might come about by chance. It is great, and as surpassing as the love that was in Philemon. That joy was increased by the consolation over Philemon's love, a consolation coming down, full, from the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation.

1:8-9

Wherefore, having much confidence in Christ Jesus to command you what is profitable for love's sake, I rather beseech, since you are such a one, as Paul an old man, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

Many praises of Philemon have been set out beforehand. The matter for which he is asked is also such as to be useful both to the one who grants it and to the one who asks. Paul therefore could have commanded rather than requested. This came from that confidence: one who had accomplished such great works for Christ's sake could surely not be unequal to himself in other matters. But he prefers to ask rather than to order, having first set forth the great authority of the one who asks, by which it is at once the Apostle who beseeches, and an old man, and a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Now the whole matter for which he asks is this. Onesimus, Philemon's slave, heaping theft upon flight, had pilfered certain things belonging to the household. Setting out from there for Italy, so that he could not be caught so easily close at hand, he had squandered his master's money in riotous living. Lest anyone think this rashly said and invented by us at our pleasure, let him learn it from what follows. For Paul would never say: "If he has done you any harm or owes you anything, charge this to me: I Paul have written it with my own hand, I will repay." Nor would he become guarantor for property taken away unless what had been taken had been squandered. This man, then, when Paul was in prison at Rome for confessing Christ, believed in Christ. Baptized by him, he wiped away the stains of his former life by a worthy penitence, so much so that the witness of his conversion was that apostle who had once rebuked Peter for not walking with a straight foot in the truth of the Gospel (Gal. 2). So far, therefore, as concerns the sin and the crime by which he had wronged his master, he does not deserve pardon. But so far as concerns the testimony of the Apostle, who knows him to be fully converted, great weight presses upon the one who is asked, that the man who from a runaway slave and robber had been made a minister of the Apostle (and what other ministry does the Apostle have but that of the Gospel of Christ Jesus?) should now be pardoned, no longer as by a master but as by a fellow servant and fellow evangelist, since he was likewise a servant and minister of Christ.

1:10-13

I beseech you for my son, whom I have begotten in chains, Onesimus, who was once unprofitable to you, but now is profitable both to you and to me: whom I have sent back to you. But do you receive him, that is, my bowels, whom I had wished to keep with me, so that in your stead he might minister to me in the chains of the Gospel.

Wishing to obtain what he asks, he declares that he is now pleading not for Philemon's slave but for his own son, and for that son whom he had begotten in the chains of the Gospel, that is, the chains he was enduring for the Gospel of Christ. Before, this man had been unprofitable only to his master (for a slave who is a thief and a runaway has harmed no one but his master). Now, on the contrary, he is useful to his master himself and to Paul, and through Paul to the rest. By this compensation of usefulness he deserves more love than he had before deserved hatred. Hence he says: Who was once unprofitable to you. To you, he says, alone, not to the rest; but now profitable both to me and to you. He is profitable to his master in this, that he could also serve Paul in his master's stead; and profitable to Paul in this, that while Paul was held in prison and in chains, he could minister to him in the Gospel. At the same time we must marvel at the greatness of soul of the Apostle, and at his mind burning toward Christ. He is held in prison, he is bound tight with chains, he is hemmed in by the squalor of his body, by separation from those dear to him, by the darkness of punishment; and yet he does not feel the injury, he is not tormented by pain, he knows nothing else but to think about the Gospel of Christ. He knew that a slave, he knew that a runaway, he knew that one who had once been a robber had been converted to the faith of Christ. It is a matter of great labor for such a man to persevere in what he has begun. Therefore he presses home and repeats "his son," and "the son of his chains," and "the minister of the Gospel to one placed in chains." He does this so that Philemon, whom he had prudently and by way of accommodation praised so highly in the preface, would not dare to refuse, lest he seem unworthy of his own praises. As for his saying: But do you receive him, that is, my bowels, this is what I said a little earlier: bowels signify the inner affection of the heart and a full and heartfelt will, when the one who is asked receives everything whatever that is in us. Otherwise, all children are the bowels of their parents.

1:14

But without your counsel I wished to do nothing, so that your good might not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary.

The question asked by very many, and very often taken up again, is why God, in making man, did not create him good and upright. It can be resolved from the present passage. For if God is good voluntarily, and not of necessity, then in making man he ought to have made him after his own image and likeness, that is, so that man too would be good voluntarily, and not of necessity. But those who assert that he ought to have been made such that he could not admit evil are saying this: he ought to have been made such that he would be good by necessity, and not by will. Yet if he had been made such as to accomplish good not by will but by necessity, he would not be like God, who is good because he wills it, not because he is compelled. From this it is manifest that they are demanding two things contrary to each other. For when they say, 'Man ought to have been made like God,' they are asking that he be made with free will, as God himself is. But when they infer²², 'He ought to have been made such that he could not admit evil,' they impose upon him a necessity of good, and so they want man not to be made like God. So the Apostle Paul too could have kept Onesimus with him for his ministry without Philemon's will. But if he had done this without Philemon's will, it would indeed have been good, but not voluntary. And what was not voluntary would be shown on another ground not to be good. For nothing can be called good except what is spontaneous. From this we should consider the prudence of the Apostle: he sends the runaway slave back to his master for this reason, that he may be of profit to his master. He could not be of profit if he were kept while his master was absent. The question above, then, is resolved thus: God could have made man good without man's will. But if he had done this, the good would not have been voluntary, but of necessity. And what is good by necessity is not good, and on another ground is shown to be evil. Therefore, by leaving us to our own free choice, he made us all the more after his own image and likeness. And to be like God is absolutely good.

1:15-16

For perhaps he therefore departed from you for an hour, that you might receive him eternal. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a dearest brother, especially to me: but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

Sometimes evil becomes the occasion of good things, and God turns the crooked counsels of men to what is right. What I say will be made clearer by an example. Joseph's brothers, spurred on by the goads of their jealousy, sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty gold pieces (Gen. 37). This was the beginning of all good things for his father, for his brothers, and for all Egypt. Finally, he himself afterward said to his brothers: "You", he says, "thought evil things concerning me: and God thought good things concerning me" (Gen. 45:8). We can understand something similar in Onesimus too: evil beginnings were the occasions of a good thing. For if he had not run away from his master, he would never have come to Rome, where Paul was a prisoner in prison. If he had not seen Paul in chains, he would not have received faith in Christ. If he had not had the faith of Christ, he would never have been made Paul's son and sent into the work of the Gospel. From this, little by little and step by step, with the reasoning running back in reverse, Onesimus was made a minister of the Gospel precisely because he ran away from his master. But by adding perhaps he finely tempered his statement. For the judgments of God are hidden, and it is rash to pronounce as if on a certainty what is doubtful. Perhaps, he says, he therefore departed: cautiously, timidly, with trembling, and not with the whole²³ foot firmly planted. For if he had not put perhaps, all slaves would have to run away in order to become apostolic men. As for his adding for an hour, we ought to take "hour" for "time". For in comparison with eternity, all time is short. That you might receive him eternal. No one is the eternal master of his slave: for his power, and the condition of each of them, is ended by death. But Onesimus, who was made eternal through the faith of Christ, having received the spirit of liberty, began, from a slave, to be no longer a slave but a brother to Philemon, who is eternal because he too had believed in Christ: a dearest brother, an eternal brother; also to the eternal Apostle himself and to his master, to whom, as the condition of the flesh joined Onesimus before, so afterward the spirit joins him. And indeed then, when he was subject to him in the flesh, he was not joined to him in the Lord; but now he is joined to him both in the flesh and in the Lord. From this we understand that a slave who has believed in Christ is bound to his master by a twofold law: he is joined to him for a time by the necessity of the flesh, and united to him forever by the spirit.

1:17

If therefore you have me as a partner, receive him as me.

Philemon desired to have Paul as a partner, and, believing in Christ, he certainly wished to make such progress as to become like Paul and to share with him in his chains. Let us consider, therefore, how greatly Onesimus is praised here, and how far he is said to have progressed: for he is to be received as the Apostle is, and his master ought to desire his companionship just as he desires Paul's. In brief, what he says is this: If you wish to have me as a companion, have Onesimus too, whom I hold as my companion, and my son, and my bowels; if you do not receive him and are unwilling to have him, you yourself understand that you cannot have me.

1:18

But if he has harmed you in anything, or owes you, charge this to me.

He imitates his Lord and has Christ speaking in him, so he ought to do, as far as his strength allows, the things that Christ does. For if He bore our infirmities and grieved over our wounds, the Apostle rightly puts himself forward on behalf of Onesimus and pledges to pay what Onesimus owed. But, as we said above, the whole of it is what was taken by theft and squandered in luxury and could not be repaid. Philemon weighed this against²⁴ a great price: in return for a runaway slave and money lost, he would receive both a dearest brother and an eternal brother, and through him he would make the Apostle his debtor.

1:19

I Paul have written with my own hand. I will repay, not to say to you that you owe me even your own self.

What he says amounts to this: What Onesimus carried off by theft, I pledge that I will repay. Of this pledge this Epistle is witness, and so is my own hand, for I did not dictate it in the usual way but wrote it out myself with my own hand. Believe me, therefore, when I make a promise on behalf of Onesimus. But I say this as though speaking to a stranger. Otherwise, if I return to my own right: because of the word of Christ which I preached to you as the Gospel, and you were made a Christian, you owe me your own self. But if you are mine, then all that is yours is also mine: Onesimus too, who is yours, is mine. I could therefore have used him as my own; but I leave it to your will, so that you may have a reward by pardoning.

1:20

Yes, brother, may I enjoy you in the Lord.

The Latin tongue does not render the Greek idiom. For in what he says, ναὶ, ἀδελφέ, ναὶ is a kind of adverb, as it were, of one who speaks coaxingly. But we, in translating it yes (ita), brother, give out a sound that is somehow more watery and diluted, something rather other than what is written. For just as that Hebrew ANNA (אנה), for which the Seventy translators frequently rendered ὦ δή, signifies in its own language the feeling of one who entreats (whence Symmachus sometimes rendered ANNA as δέομαι, that is, "I beseech"), so we too suffer the same strain with the Greek language that the Greeks endure with the Hebrew. But what he says, may I enjoy you in the Lord, is understood as something far different from what is supposed. The Apostle enjoys no one except him who has in himself many virtues in harmony with one another, and all that Christ is called according to the variety of occasions: namely wisdom, justice, continence, gentleness, temperance, chastity. These he invokes upon Philemon, so that when he abounds in them, Paul himself, enjoying him to the full, may be filled. And lest you think that the enjoyment meant is that by which we often delight in one another's presence, he added, in the Lord: so that from the fact that the name of the Lord was joined to it, it might be understood that there is also another enjoyment, by which one may enjoy apart from the Lord.

Refresh my bowels in Christ. Just as he himself wishes to enjoy Philemon in the Lord, so he wishes his own bowels, Onesimus, whom he also called by the same name above, to be refreshed through Philemon. And it is said ambiguously: whether Onesimus is Paul's bowels in Christ, or whether Paul's bowels, Onesimus, are to be refreshed in Christ through Philemon. If you choose to take the former, Onesimus will rightly be called Paul's bowels in Christ, since Paul begot him for Christ in chains. If the latter, Onesimus is to be refreshed in Christ by Philemon, while he is instructed in Christ by Philemon's words.

1:21

Confident of your obedience, I have written to you, knowing that you will do even beyond what I say.

He who presumes upon the one he is about to ask in some way forestalls him by that very presumption, so that he is not free to refuse what is asked. Moreover, if the one who makes the request knows that the person asked will do more than he asked, he asks for lesser things for this reason: so that the one asked may have a voluntary reward, and one made greater by what he performs. But if Philemon does these things at a man's command, how much more will he do them for the love of God? Hence he is deservedly praised by the voice of the Apostle, because he anticipates his commands in deed and can say: "Let the voluntary offerings of my mouth be pleasing to you, O Lord" (Ps. 118:108); and because, doing more than was commanded, he surpasses those who did only what they were ordered, and who are bidden to say: "We are unprofitable servants; what we ought to have done, we have done" (Luke 17:10). For this reason virginity too is crowned with a greater reward: it has no commandment of the Lord, and it reaches beyond what is commanded.

1:22

At the same time, also prepare me a lodging.

I do not think the Apostle was so rich, or so encumbered with baggage, that he needed a lodging prepared for him. Nor do I think he was not content with a single little cell, he who would think a house small by the measure of his body most spacious. He says this rather so that, while Philemon expects²⁵ him to come to him, he may all the more do what he has been asked. But if anyone thinks that this was commanded not by way of accommodation but in earnest, that a lodging should be prepared for him, then the lodging must be prepared for the apostle rather than for Paul. He was about to come to a new city, to preach the Crucified, and to bring doctrines never heard before, and he knew that very many would flock to him. It was therefore necessary, first, that the house be in a frequented part of the city, where people could easily gather. Next, that it be free of every disturbance; that it be ample, to hold a great many hearers; that it not be next to the places of the public shows; that it not be detestable for a shameful neighborhood; and lastly, that it be situated on the ground floor rather than in an upper room. For this reason I think that at Rome too he stayed two years²⁶ in a rented house. Nor, I suppose, was the dwelling small to which crowds of Jews flocked daily.

For I hope that through your prayers I shall be given to you. God, when asked, grants a son to his father, and a brother is often saved by a brother's prayer. The Apostle, however, is granted at the prayers of the whole Church, for the benefit of those who are going to hear him. And this gift is said to be not so much toward him who, though prepared for martyrdom, is brought back²⁷ from martyrdom, as toward those to whom the Apostle is sent. Paul himself says in another place that he was often in prison and was set free from chains: "In prisons frequently" (2 Cor. 11). He was released from these sometimes by the Lord's help, and frequently because the persecutors themselves found nothing in him worthy of death. For no decrees of the senate had yet been passed concerning the Christian name, and Nero's sword had not yet consecrated Christian blood. But because the preaching was new, the peoples were stirred to fury, either by the Jews out of envy or by those who saw their idols being destroyed. Then the preachers were sent to prison, and when the violence and fury had subsided they were let go again. The Acts of the Apostles testify that this is as we say, for there Felix too speaks to Agrippa: Paul could have been released if he had not appealed to Caesar (Acts 25). Felix also says that he had found no charge except certain questions about their own religion and about a certain Jesus, whom Paul preached to be alive. From this we observe that they could likewise have been released by the other judges too, the Lord bringing this about so that the new preaching might be spread through the whole world.

1:23-24

Epaphras my fellow captive in Christ Jesus greets you: Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers.

What we were saying at the beginning, that the Epistle to the Colossians was written at the same time and through the same bearer of the letters as the letter to Philemon, is also shown by the names of those who are introduced as sending greetings. For in that Epistle too it is written thus: "Aristarchus my fellow captive greets you, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, and Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ" (Col. 4:10, 12); and a little further on: "Luke the dearest physician greets you, and Demas; and say to Archippus: See the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you fulfil it" (ibid. 14, 17); and: "Be mindful of my chains" (ibid. 18). But suppose someone thinks that they were not written together, because the Epistle to the Colossians has a few names that are not found written here. Let him know that not everyone is either a friend or an acquaintance of everyone, and that it is one thing for a private letter to be written to one man, and another for a public letter to be written to a whole church. Epaphras my fellow captive in Christ Jesus greets you, he says. As to who Epaphras, Paul's fellow captive, may be, we have received the following story. They say that the parents of the Apostle Paul were from the district of Gischala in Judea. When the whole province was being laid waste by the Roman hand and the Jews were being scattered across the world²⁸, they were removed to Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, and the young Paul followed his parents' lot. In this way, they say, what he testifies of himself can stand: "They are Hebrews, so am I: they are Israelites, so am I: they are the seed of Abraham, so am I" (2 Cor. 11:22). And again elsewhere: "A Hebrew of Hebrews" (Phil. 3:5), and the other things which mark him as a Jew rather than a man of Tarsus. If this is so, we can suppose that Epaphras too was taken captive at the same time that Paul was taken, and that, having been settled with his parents at Colossae, a city of Asia, he afterwards received the word of Christ. Hence, as we said above, it is written to the Colossians: "Epaphras greets you, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, always anxious for you in prayers" (Col. 4:12). If this is the case, Aristarchus too, who in the same Epistle is called his fellow captive, will be brought to the same understanding. That holds unless perhaps something hidden and sacred, as some think, is shown²⁹ in the word captivity: namely, that captured and bound alike, they were brought³⁰ into this valley of tears. But if neither explanation is accepted, then from the fact that in Christ Jesus has been added here, we can suppose that he endured at Rome the same chains for Christ as Paul did, and that, just as he could be called a prisoner of Christ, so he could also be called His captive. Or at any rate it may be in this sense: that he too is noble among the apostles, like Andronicus and Julia, of whom it is written to the Romans: "Greet Andronicus and Julia, my kinsmen and my fellow captives, who are noble among the apostles, who also were in Christ Jesus before me" (Rom. 16:7). So much about Epaphras. As for the rest, in writing the letter to Philemon he names as fellow workers in the Gospel and in his chains Mark, whom I take to be the writer of the Gospel; and Aristarchus, whom we mentioned above; and Demas, of whom he complains in another place: "Demas has forsaken me, loving the present world, and has gone to Thessalonica". And he names Luke the physician, who, in leaving the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles to the churches, was turned from a physician of bodies into a physician of souls, just as the apostles were made from fishers of fish into fishers of men (Matt. 4). Of him it is said in another place also: "I have sent", he says, "with him the brother whose praise is in the Gospel through all the churches" (2 Cor. 8:18). As often as his book is read in the churches, so often his medicine does not cease.

1:25

Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Just as the people of Israel is numbered by the better part of man, the head, as Scripture says, according to their heads (Num. 1:2), so the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed in the whole man and in every part of the saints. But by synecdoche it is said of the whole man, from the greater and better part, that is, the spirit: Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. And when grace is in the spirit, it makes the whole man spiritual, so that the flesh too serves the spirit, and the soul is not overcome by the flesh, and, brought together into a spiritual substance, cleaves to the Lord; for he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor. 6). According to the Jews³¹, Paul means "admirable"; Timothy, "beneficent"; Philemon, "wonderfully gifted" or "mouth of bread", from os "mouth", not os "bone"; Apphia, "continent" or "liberty"; Archippus, "length of work"; Onesimus, "answering"; Epaphras, "fruitful" and "seeing", or "growing up"; Mark, "exalted by commandment"; Aristarchus, "mountain of greater work"; Demas, "silent"; Luke, "himself rising up". If you wish to understand these names according to their meaning, it is not difficult to see that the admirable and beneficent one writes above all to him to whom all faults have been forgiven and whose mouth lies open to the heavenly bread. Next he writes to the continent woman, the free woman, and to the length of work, because he never desists from holy labour. He writes on behalf of him who answers to his own testimony. He writes also that greeting is given to him³² to whom the Epistle is specially dedicated, by growing fruitfulness. And the one³³ who has been made more exalted through the commandments sends greeting, and the greeting comes from him who through greater works has grown up even into a mountain. It comes also from him who set a guard on his mouth and a fortified door on his lips, who perhaps kept silent for this reason, that he had for a little while abandoned the Apostle. And last, it comes from him who, rising up through himself, is daily increased and makes progress, while the world is filled with his Gospel, and he grows as often as, being heard and read, he edifies.

1 Another reading: necessitas, "necessity".
2 Another reading: coacta, "strained".
3 Another reading: remansisse, "remained".
4 Another reading: ostenditur, "it is shown".
5 Another reading: prophetæ, "the other twelve prophets".
6 Another reading: magnum, "great".
7 Another reading: Paulo, "Paul".
8 Another reading: magno, "the great man".
9 Another reading: in, "in".
10 Another reading omits "brother".
11 Another reading: alia, "other".
12 Another reading: Appiæ, "Appia".
13 Another reading: talis, "she, being such".
14 Another reading adds et, "and".
15 The verse quoted is Exod. 14:31.
16 Another reading: scribatur, "is written".
17 Another reading: credit, "believes".
18 Another reading: Regnorum, "of Kingdoms".
19 The verse quoted is Prov. 17:15.
20 Another reading: efficimur, "we are made".
21 Another reading: creditur, "is believed".
22 Another reading: infertur, "it is inferred".
23 Another reading: totum, "entirely".
24 Another reading: compensabat, "compensated".
25 Another reading: spectat, "looks for".
26 Another reading: biennio, "for two years".
27 Another reading: differtur, "is put off".
28 Another reading: orbe, "in the world".
29 Another reading: ostendit, "he indicates".
30 Another reading: deducti, "led down".
31 Another reading: Hebræos, "the Hebrews".
32 Another reading: eum, "him".
33 Another reading: eo, "from the one".