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- Where it sits
- The Letters of Paul
What it is
A private note, twenty-five verses long, written from prison to a Christian man in Colossae whose slave, Onesimus, had run away — possibly after stealing from him — met Paul in prison, and become a Christian.
Paul is sending him back. He does not order Philemon to do anything; he says he could, and then does not. He asks him to receive Onesimus no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother, and offers to pay whatever is owed out of his own pocket.
The letter does not demand Onesimus’s freedom or condemn slavery as an institution. Honest readers have noticed that for a very long time, and the site is not going to pretend otherwise.
A note for Orthodox readers
Later tradition identifies this Onesimus with a bishop of Ephesus named by Ignatius of Antioch, and the Church venerates him among the Seventy. That is a later identification, not something the letter establishes.
Where it sits
Undisputed.
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