Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Philemon 1:2 - 1:2
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Phm_1:2. That Appia was the wife of Philemon (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and many) does not indeed admit of proof, but is the more probable, in proportion as the intercession for the slave was a matter of household concern, in which case the méstress of the house came into view. On the form of the name with πφ instead of ππ (Act_28:15), comp. Ἀπφιανός in Mionnet, Description des midailles, III. 179, IV. 65, 67, and the forms ἀπφύς and ἀπφά . See also Lobeck, Paral. p. 33.
τῇ ἀδελφῇ ] in the sense of Christian sisterhood, like ἀδελφός , Phm_1:1.
Archippus, too (see on Col_4:17), must have belonged to the family circle of Philemon. But whether he was precisely son of Philemon (Michaelis, Eichhorn, Rosenmüller, Olshausen, Hofmann, and already Theodore of Mopsuestia) we cannot determine. Chrysostom and Theophylact take him to be a friend of the household; Theodoret, to be the teacher to the household.
τῷ συστρατ . ἡμ .] As in Php_2:25. The relation cannot be more precisely ascertained. He may have been deacon (according to Ambrosiaster and Jerome, he was even bishop), but must have endured conflict and trouble for the gospel. Comp. likewise 2Ti_2:3.
καὶ τ . κατʼ οἶκ . σ . ἐκκλ .] not to be understood of the family of Philemon (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact: πάντας τοὺς ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ πιστοὺς λέγει , συμπαραλαβὼν καὶ δούλους , comp. Calvin and Storr), but of the section of the Christians at Colossae, which met in his house.[65] See on Col_4:15. Wisely (see on Phm_1:1) does Paul—although otherwise in Phm_1:4-24 he only speaks to Philemon—enlist the interest not merely of Appia and Archippus, but also of the church in the house, and therewith embrace the whole circle, in which there was to be prepared for the converted fugitive a sanctuary of pardon and affection. But farther than this he does not go; not beyond the limits of the house, since the matter, as a household-affair, was not one suited to be laid before the Christian community collectively. To the latter, however, he at the same time (Col_4:9) commended his protégé, though without touching upon the particular circumstances of his case. Correct tact on the part of the apostle.
[65] Perhaps it is to this part of the address, which directed the letter to a congregational circle, that we are indebted for the preservation of the document—the only one of the certainly very numerous private letters, which the apostle wrote in the prosecution of his many-sided labours.