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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 680. The Letter
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The Letter
But there is, as has been said, a remarkable exception to the general rule. In one instance, that of the Epistle to Philemon, we have a letter which does not belong to the official correspondence of the Apostle, but is entirely personal and private. It contains no doctrinal instruction or spiritual exhortation; it is wholly taken up with a request of a very delicate kind-a request arising out of a particular circumstance. The other Epistles were intended to be read aloud to the churches, and St. Paul, we may think, would not have been greatly surprised at their being used still in this way many years after his death. But he would have been astonished indeed to know that this private letter of his, intended only for the eye of its recipient, would be preserved through nineteen centuries and included in the Church's lectionary. In fact, such writers as Chrysostom and Jerome had to defend the canonicity of the Epistle to Philemon against those who argued that a private letter of this sort had no place in the Bible.
Jerome tells us that the Epistle to Philemon was rejected by many writers. From the absence of any approach to doctrinal teaching in this Epistle, they concluded that it was not by St. Paul, or that, if it was his, it did not belong to the canon, since it contained nothing by which the Church might be edified. This decision arose out of a narrow view of the canon, and the primitive Church, as a whole, did not ratify the verdict. Preserved at first as a precious relic in the family of Philemon, this apostolic document was subsequently placed among the archives of the Church at Colosse, in the house of one of its elders. We find the first mention of it, as forming part of the Pauline collection, in the writings of Marcion, son of the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus, who about the year 140 went to Rome from Asia Minor. Soon after this it finds a definite place in the Canon of Muratori, in the fragment found at Milan in the middle of the last century, which dates from about the year 170, and contains a list of the writings received and publicly read at that time in one of the Western churches, either that of Italy, or more probably that of Africa.
We observe, moreover, that the Epistle to Philemon formed part of the Western canon, included in the old Latin translation, usually called Itala, and that in the Church most remote from this, the Church of Syria, it also found a place in the authorized translation of the Scriptures, the Peshito, in the latter part of the second century.1 [Note: F. Godet, in Expositor, 3rd Ser., v. 139.]
2. In many ways this document is of interest and value. It throws fresh light upon the character of the Apostle who wrote it, as well as incidentally upon the character of the man to whom it was written. It is almost as great a credit to Philemon as it is to St. Paul. What a tribute, only to have had such a letter addressed to one! A man's nature, it has been said, is shown as much by the letters which he receives as by those which he writes. And St. Paul, with his swift perception of character, with his adaptability to become all things to all men, would have used the tender language of this Epistle, appealing to the highest motives, only in the case of one with whom, as he felt sure, this line of argument would prevail. It was simply the sweetness and loving-kindness of Philemon's nature that encouraged St. Paul to address him with these persuasions, and to trust that he would do what was right and loving in this difficulty.
There is a letter of the younger Pliny's (a generation later than St. Paul), the 21st in the ninth book of his Letters, written to his friend Sabinian, asking him to forgive an offending freedman. Its subject is akin to that of our Epistle, and the two have often been compared. It reads as follows:
“Your freedman, who so greatly displeased you, as you told me, has come to me, fallen at my feet, and clung to them as if they were your own; he wept much, begged much, was much silent too, and in brief guaranteed to me his penitence. I think him really reformed, for he feels that he has sinned. You are angry, as I know; justly angry, as I also know; but clemency wins its highest praise when the reasons for anger are most just. You have loved the man, and I hope you will yet love him again; in the interval (interim) you are only asked to let yourself be brought to forgive. You will be quite free to be angry again if he deserves it; and this will have the more excuse if now you yield. Allow something for his youth, something for his tears, something for your own indulgence (of him); do not put him to torture, or you may torture yourself too. For tortured you are when you, kindliest of men, are angry. I fear I may seem rather to insist than entreat, if I join my prayers to his. But I will join them, the more fully and without reserve as I chid him sharply and severely, adding a stern warning that I could never beg him off again. This for him, for I had to frighten him; but I take another tone with you! Perhaps I shall entreat again, and win again; so the case is one in which I may properly entreat, and you may properly bestow. Farewell.”
It is a graceful, kindly letter, written by a man whose character is the ideal of his age and class; the cultured and thoughtful Roman gentleman of the mildest period of the Empire. Yet the writer seems somewhat conscious of his own epistolary felicity, and his argument for the offender is much more condescending than sympathetic. His heart has not the depth of Paul's, nor are his motives those of the Gospel, which taught Paul to clasp Onesimus in his arms, and to commend him to Philemon, as a friend in God for immortality. From the merely literary view-point, a perfect freedom of style, along with a delicate tact of manner, easily gives the letter to Philemon the palm over that to Sabinian.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule.]
3. The letter also shows the spirit in which St. Paul faced one of the most difficult social problems of his time. And, if for no other reason, its inclusion in the New Testament is justified by the fact that it gives us an example of applied Christianity. Elsewhere St. Paul lays down for others the principles of Christian conduct; here, all unconsciously, he shows how he himself translated them into practice. Our religion should influence each detail of our daily life. How it swayed St. Paul in so small a matter as the writing of a friendly note is apparent from the Epistle to Philemon.
Lo! this one preached with fervent tongue;
The world went forth to hear;
Upon his burning words they hung,
Intent, with ravished ear.
Like other lives the life he led,
Men spake no word of blame:
And yet, unblest, unprofited,
The world went on the same.
Another came, and lived, and wrought,
His heart all drawn above;
By deeds, and not by words, he taught
Self-sacrificing love.
No eager crowds his preaching drew;
Yet one by one they came;
The secret of his power they knew,
And caught the sacred flame.
And all around, as morning light
Steals on with silent wing,
The world became more pure and bright
And life a holier thing.
Ah! Pastor, is thy heart full sore
At all this sin and strife?
Feed with the Word, but ah! far more
Feed with a holy life.1 [Note: W. W. How.]