A Private Letter. To the Epistle to Philemon belongs the distinction that it is the only strictly private letter that has come down to us from Paul’s hands. With the exception of 2 and 3 John, indeed, it is the only private letter included in the canon of the New Testament. The ‘Pastoral Epistles’ are, to be sure, addressed each to one individual, and 2 Timothy is in tone and contents almost a personal letter: But they are not strictly private letters, but official letters from a superior to subordinates in the transaction of important public business. The letter to Philemon, on the other hand, is occupied entirely with a purely personal matter and speaks straightforwardly from man to man. It has accordingly all the characteristics that belong to personal correspondence. Alone of Paul’s letters it was written throughout with his own hand. Although redolent of Paul’s manner, it is written in an exceptionally loose style, in all the undress of ordinary epistolary freedom. Baur, to be sure, speaks of it as ‘the embryo of a Christian poem,’ and, so far as the words go, justly: but its beauty does not lie in purity of diction, but in purity of spirit, delicate courtesy, perfection of feeling, greatness of heart. When Renan calls it a ‘little chef d’œuvre‘ he is thinking of its accent of sincerity, not of any perfection of style. There is no art in it but the artless art of the heart. It is a masterpiece of Christian feeling, expressing itself in unpremeditated language. No more perfect letter exists in all literature.
A Christian Household of the Middle of the First Century. This epistle enjoys also the distinction that it is the only letter in the New Testament which gives us a glimpse into a Christian household of the time. It was a well-to-do household, served by slaves and standing out among other Christian households of its city for frequent hospitalities and abundant charities. Paul, without hesitation, asks for a lodging in it. It was within its precincts that at least a portion of the Christian congregation at Colossæ was accustomed to convene for social worship. Philemon was himself a convert of Paul’s and a close friendship was cherished between them. His wife and son shared his Christian hope, and the son seems to have exercised some official ministry in the Church.
From this Christian home a slave had fled, after some act of rapine by which Philemon had suffered loss. Drifting to Rome, that cesspool of the dregs of the nations, he had there fallen in with Paul and received the Gospel from his lips. The conversion was of that genuine sort which works itself thoroughly out in life. The runaway slave became an efficient helper to the Apostle, and won a place in his love. He is called by him his child, his beloved brother, his very heart. But Paul did not feel justified in retaining him at his side: the slave must return to his own master, and restitution must be made for the injuries he had inflicted. Paul sends him back armed with this exquisite letter as a defence against his master’s just anger. Nor does he send him alone. Tychicus, a ‘beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord,’ is journeying east, bearing official letters to the Churches, and among them to the Church at Colossæ. With him the returning slave goes, protected by this companionship, by Tychicus’s reports, and by a formal commendation to the Colossian Church as ‘a faithful and beloved brother’ (Col. iv. 9). It certainly would have been difficult for Philemon in such circumstances to have withheld his forgiveness. But the Apostle does not stop there. He puts himself in the slave’s place and assumes personal responsibility for all that Philemon had lost by him. In the precise formula of legal obligation he sets his hand to the bond: ‘I, Paul, write it with my own hand, I will repay it.’ Nor does he content himself with this, ‘Witness my signature.’ He adjoins Timothy with himself in the superscription of the letter, no doubt, in part, in order that a witness might stand forth both to the appeal made for the slave and to the obligation assumed by the Apostle.
Apostolic Attitude towards Social Evils. The greatest distinction of the letter is the light it throws upon the Apostolic attitude towards the social evils of the time. Paul converts a runaway slave and sends him back to his master. He thus implicitly recognised ownership in human chattels. He even explicitly allows this ownership (verse 14). In his view, obviously, the principles of the Gospel required the slave himself to recognise it: by returning to his lawful master only could the runaway do works meet for repentance. All that Paul ventures to ask is that the undutiful servant should be received back without harshness, and that the Christian brother, even though a brother of low degree, should be esteemed a brother. Even this he does not demand in a masterful tone but pleads for under the sanction of love. There is no hint of emancipation as a duty: not even a request for it as a favour. There is nothing in this, certainly, that should surprise us: it is all in the closest harmony with the attitude towards slavery exhibited in Paul’s didactic epistles. More, it is in full accord with the uniform attitude of the whole New Testament to the relation of the religion of Christ to the established order of society, and but illustrates in a new instance the maxim of our Lord that to Cæsar the things of Cæsar are to be rendered, to God the things of God. More still, it is but a peculiarly striking example of the general ethical method of the Apostle, which was distinctly to emphasise duties rather than rights. He who has attentively read the notable passage of which, for our present purpose, I Cor. vii. 22 may be considered the pivot, cannot fail to perceive that in his dealing with Onesimus Paul but illustrated in act his own professed principles of living under the Gospel.
It surely cannot be necessary to add that, nevertheless, Christianity is not indifferent to evil social usages. Only, it has its own way of correcting them. And that way is not the way of the world. If the slave has his duties and must perform them as to the Lord, no less has the master his duties, which also must be performed as to the Lord. And when both slave and master have performed all their mutual duties as to the Lord, slavery will be no more. The Kingdom of God is truly like leaven hidden in the meal; and its working is not the less powerful or pervasive that it is hidden—ultimately it shall leaven the whole lump. In a word, Christianity, cast whether into the heart or into society, is a regenerating rather than a revolutionary principle. The Kingdom of God does not come with observation. But its working is not the less, but rather the more, radical on that account: though it certainly is less noisy. Paul does not sanction slavery in the Epistle to Philemon; but neither
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