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Phm_1:18. And herein the offence against thee, with which Onesimus is chargeable, is not to present an obstacle.
εἰ ] indication in a hypothetic form, so as to spare the feelings: Attic politeness, see Herbst, ad Xen. Mem. i. 5. 1; Bornem. ad Conviv. iv. 3; Winer, p. 418 [E. T. 562].
τι ἠδίκησέ σε ] Comp. Col_3:25; Gal_4:12; Act_25:10. In what the wrong done to Philemon by Onesimus, and without doubt confessed to the apostle by the latter, actually consisted, is hinted in what follows.
ἢ ὀφείλει or—more precisely to describe this ἠδίκησε ]—oweth (anything). This applies to a money-debt (see Phm_1:19). Accordingly the slave had probably been guilty, not merely in general of a fault in service which injured his master (Hofmann), but in reality (comp. already Chrysostom) of purloining or of embezzlement, which Paul here knows how to indicate euphemistically. The referring it merely to the running away itself, and the neglect of service therewith connected, would not be (in opposition to Bleek) in keeping with the hypothetical form of expression.
τοῦτο ] the τί , which he ἠδίκησέ σε ἢ ὀφείλει ; hence we have not, with Grotius, Fliatt, and others, to explain these two verbs of different offences (the former as referring to theft at his running away, the latter to defalcation).
ἐμοὶ ἐλλόγα ] set it down to my account; “me debitorem habe,” Bengel. Friendly pleasantry, which in Phm_1:19 becomes even jocular ( μετὰ χάριτος τῆς πνευματικῆς , Chrysostom), with which the subsequent ἵνα μὴ λέγω σοι κ . τ . λ . is very compatible (in opposition to Hofmann), if it is correctly apprehended. On the form ἐλλογάω we have not, with Fritzsche, ad Rom. v. 13, at once to pronounce against it: “nulla est” (comp. Matthies: “stultum est”), since ἐλλογέω likewise is only with certainty preserved in Rom. l.c., and in Boeckh, Inscr. I. p. 850. It is true λογάω , in Lucian, Lexiph. 15, means to be fond of speaking; but this single passage, in which the simple form is preserved, does not suffice to negative the use of the word in the sense of reckoning.