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PHILEMON, EPISTLE TO

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 375 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PHILEMON, See also:EPISTLE TO , a scripture of the New Testament. Onesimus, a slave, had robbed (vv. II, 18–19) and run away from his See also:master Philemon, a prosperous and influential See also:Christian See also:citizen of See also:Colossae (See also:Col. iv. 9), either offence rendering him liable to be crucified. Voluntarily or accidentally, he came across See also:Paul, who won him over to the Christian faith. In the few tactful and charming lines of this brief See also:note, the apostle sends him back to his master with a plea for kindly treatment. After greeting Philemon and his wife, with See also:Archippus (possibly their son) and the Christians who met for See also:worship at Philemon's See also:house (vv. 1-2), Paul rejoices over (vv. 4–7) his correspondent's See also:character; it encourages him to make an See also:appeal on behalf of the unworthy Onesimus (8-21), now returning (Col. iv. 9) along with Tychicus to Colossae, as a penitent and sincere Christian, in See also:order to resume his See also:place in the See also:household. With a See also:line or two of See also:personal detail (22–25) the note closes. See also:Rome would be a more natural See also:rendezvous for fugitivarii (runaway slaves) than Caesarea (See also:Hilgenfeld and others), and it is probable that Paul wrote this note, with See also:Philippians and See also:Colossians, from the See also:metropolis.

As See also:

Laodicea is See also:close to Colossae it does not follow, even if Archippus be held to have belonged to the former See also:town (as See also:Lightfoot argues from Col. iv. 13-17), that Philemon's See also:residence must have been there also (so A. Maier, See also:Thiersch, Wieseler, &c.). Paul cannot have converted Philemon at Colossae (Col. ii. 1), but elsewhere, possibly at See also:Ephesus; yet Philemon may have been on a visit to Ephesus, for, even were the Ephesian Onesimus of See also:Ignatius (Eph. ii.) the Onesimus of this note, it would not prove that he had always lived there. No adequate See also:reason has been shown for suspecting that the note is interpolated at any point. The association of See also:Timotheus with Paul (v. 1) does not involve any See also:official tinge, which would justify the deletion of Kai TiuhOeos o aSeXior ,uov in that See also:verse, and of i'µwv in vv. 1–2 (so See also:Holtzmann), and See also:Hausrath's suspicions of the allusion to Paul as a prisoner and of v. 12 are equally arbitrary. The construction in vv. 5–6 is difficult, but it yields to exegetical treatment (cf. especially See also:Haupt's note) and does not involve the See also:interpolation of See also:matter by the later redactor of Colossians and See also:Ephesians (Holtzmann, Hausrath' and See also:Bruckner, Reihenfolge d.

Paul. Briefe, 200 seq.). The brevity of the note and its lack of doctrinal significance prevented it from gaining frequent See also:

quotation in the See also:early Christian literature, but it appears in See also:Marcion's See also:canon as well as in the Muratorian, whilst See also:Tertullian mentions, and See also:Origen expressly quotes it. During the 19th See also:century, the hesitation about Colossians led to the rejection of Philemon by some critics as a pseudonymous little pamphlet on the slave question—an See also:aberration of See also:literary See also:criticism (reproduced in Ency. Bib., 3693 seq.) which needs simply to be chronicled. It is interesting to observe that, apart from the See also:letter of See also:commendation for See also:Phoebe (Rom. xvi.), this is the only letter in the New Testament addressed, even in See also:part, to a woman, unless the second epistle of See also:John be taken as meant for an individual. i See also:History of the New Testament Times (1895), iv. 122-123. See, on this, See also:Schenkel's Bibel-Lexikon, iv. 531-532. Drysdale's devotional commentary (See also:London, 1906). (J.

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