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| The Apostle Onesimus St. Petka Chapel, Belgrade |
Over the past several years, the historical issue of slavery has regained currency as a topic of discussion in American society in general and in Rhode Island in particular. The film Traces of the Trade documents how the fortunes of many prominent Rhode Islanders depended on the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Mindful of this painful legacy, the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island has undertaken the project of establishing a Center of Reconciliation to be housed at the now disused Cathedral, including exhibits on the state’s historic connections with slavery.
In light of this conversation in our wider community, it seems appropriate to comment today on our Epistle reading, Saint Paul’s Letter to Philemon. It’s one of the few places in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul explicitly engages with the practice of slavery in the Roman Empire of his day. So it may have something to teach us about the implications of the Christian Gospel for this still sensitive and sometimes contentious issue.
In his letters, Paul’s attitude to slavery is somewhat ambiguous. On one hand, he writes in Ephesians 6:5, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters …”; in Colossians 4:1, “Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters …”; in I Timothy 6:1, “Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor …”; and in Titus 2:9 “Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to be refractory.”
On the other hand, writing of the Church Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”; and again in Colossians 3:11, “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.”
In the nineteenth century, both slaveholders and abolitionists quoted these various passages, as well as the Letter to Philemon, to bolster their positions. More recently, some critics have faulted Paul for not having taken a clearer stand against slavery, suggesting that his apparent acceptance of the institution led to its persistence many centuries longer than it might otherwise have survived. Others rightly point out, however, that opponents of slavery and the slave trade were almost all Christians – such as the Anglican Evangelicals William Wilberforce and John Newton – who derived their abolitionist principles from Scripture. (John Newton, by the way, was the captain of a slave ship who was converted to Christian faith and became a leader in the movement to abolish the slave trade; we know him today primarily as the author of the text of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”)
With that background in mind, then, we turn to Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Just 25 verses long, Philemon is the shortest of all Paul’s letters preserved in the New Testament. Unlike most of his other letters, which he wrote for entire church communities, or for even wider circulation, it has the form of a personal note to an individual.
The letter is addressed to Philemon, whom we know from some of Paul’s other letters as a leader in the Church at Colossae, which Paul founded. At the time of writing, Paul is in prison, but we don’t know where, since he suffered several imprisonments in his missionary journeys. The subject of the letter is Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, who’s been with Paul for a time, but whom Paul is now sending back to Philemon, possibly as the bearer of the letter.
Two theories offer competing interpretations of why Onesimus has been with Paul. The majority interpretation, which goes back to some of the early Church fathers, is that Onesimus has run away from Philemon and has taken refuge with Paul. The minority interpretation suggests instead that Philemon has sent Onesimus to serve Paul in his imprisonment for a certain period of time, which is now coming to an end—perhaps because Philemon has requested him back—so that Paul is returning him to his owner. (It seems to me that the text can bear either interpretation.)
Either way, something remarkable has happened. Paul writes that in his imprisonment he has become Onesimus’s father. In early Christian language this almost certainly means that Onesimus has become a Christian and that Paul has baptized him. Therefore, Paul writes, he is sending Onesimus back to Philemon “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.” And he exhorts Philemon, “if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.”
The letter is a masterpiece of rhetorical understatement, calling for a good deal of reading between the lines. Paul writes that while he’s bold enough to command Philemon to do what’s required, yet for love’s sake he prefers to appeal to him. (But he does not say what it is that is required.) Instead of keeping Onesimus with him, Paul is sending him back so that Philemon’s goodness might not be from compulsion but of his own free will. (But he does not say what this goodness is to consist of.) And he concludes, “Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say.” (But he does not say that this “something more” is.) Here Paul is clearly hinting at some good deed that he wants from Philemon—and it’s not too much of a stretch to suppose that this is granting Onesimus his freedom so that he can return to Paul and assist him in his work.
(Incidentally, one tradition holds that Philemon did emancipate Onesimus who went on to become a bishop in the Church. About a half-century later, in the year 110, Saint Ignatius of Antioch addressed a letter to the Church at Ephesus in the person of Onesimus, their bishop. We don’t know if it’s the same Onesimus, but it very well could be.)
As I mentioned, some contemporary writers criticize Paul for his failure to condemn slavery outright. Others suggest that since Paul expected Christ’s return and the end of the world any day now, he probably regarded slavery as just another corrupt social institution that was soon to pass away, so there was no point in opposing it in the present age.
My own hunch is that the question of whether slavery should be perpetuated or abolished simply never occurred to Paul, and it’s anachronistic to suppose that it could have. Slavery was simply there, a given, an integral component of the world in which Paul lived, and neither he nor his contemporaries could imagine that world without it. (The world to come would be another matter.)
However that may be, in his Letter to Philemon, whether he knows it or not, Paul articulates a principle that spells the ultimate doom of slavery and all other forms of social oppression and exploitation. In Christ Onesimus is no longer a slave but a beloved brother; Philemon is to receive him as he would receive Paul himself. The Gospel sets before us this ideal of the equal worth and dignity of all human beings in God’s eyes; and it remains no less relevant and compelling in our own day than it was in Paul’s.
