St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A...

The estimate formed of this epistle at various epochs has differed widely. In the fourth century there was a strong bias against it. The ‘spirit of the age’ had no sympathy with either the subject or the handling. Like the spirit of more than one later age, it was enamoured of its own narrowness, which it mistook for largeness of view, and it could not condescend to such trivialities as were here offered to it. Its maxim seemed to be De minimis non curat evangelium. Of what account was the fate of a single insignificant slave, long since dead and gone, to those before whose eyes the battle of the creeds was still raging? This letter taught them nothing about questions of theological interest, nothing about matters of ecclesiastical discipline; and therefore they would have none of it. They denied that it had been written by St Paul. It mattered nothing to them that the Church from the earliest ages had accepted it as genuine, that even the remorseless ‘higher criticism’ of a Marcion had not ventured to lay hands on it[728]. It was wholly unworthy of the Apostle. If written by him, they contended, it must have been written when he was not under the influence of the Spirit: its contents were altogether so unedifying. |Reply of the fathers.|We may infer from the replies of Jerome[729], of Chrysostom[730], and of Theodore of Mopsuestia[731], that they felt themselves to be stemming a fierce current of prejudice which had set in this direction. But they were strong in the excellence of their cause, and they nobly vindicated this epistle against its assailants.

In modern times there has been no disposition to under-rate its value. Even Luther and Calvin, whose bias tended to the depreciation of the ethical as compared with the doctrinal portions of the scriptures, show a true appreciation of its beauty and significance. |Luther.|‘This epistle’, writes Luther, ‘showeth a right noble lovely example of Christian love. Here we see how St Paul layeth himself out for poor Onesimus, and with all his means pleadeth his cause with his master: and so setteth himself as if he were Onesimus, and had himself done wrong to Philemon. Even as Christ did for us with God the Father, thus also doth St Paul for Onesimus with Philemon.... We are all his Onesimi, to my thinking’. |Calvin.|‘Though he handleth a subject’, says Calvin, ‘which otherwise were low and mean, yet after his manner he is borne up aloft unto God. With such modest entreaty doth he humble himself on behalf of the lowest of men, that scarce anywhere else is the gentleness of his spirit portrayed more truly to the life.’ And the chorus of admiration has been swelled by later voices from the most opposite quarters. |Later writers.|‘The single Epistle to Philemon,’ says one quoted by Bengel, ‘very far surpasses all the wisdom of the world’[732]. ‘Nowhere’, writes Ewald, ‘can the sensibility and warmth of a tender friendship blend more beautifully with the loftier feeling of a commanding spirit, a teacher and an Apostle, than in this letter, at once so brief, and yet so surpassingly full and significant[733].’ ‘A true little chef d’œuvre of the art of letter-writing,’ exclaims M.

Renan characteristically[734]. ‘We have here’, writes Sabatier, ‘only a few familiar lines, but so full of grace, of salt, of serious and trustful affection, that this short epistle gleams like a pearl of the most exquisite purity in the rich treasure of the New Testament[735]’. Even Baur, while laying violent hands upon it, is constrained to speak of this ‘little letter’ as ‘making such an agreeable impression by its attractive form’ and as penetrated ‘with the noblest Christian spirit’[736].

Your freedman, with whom you had told me you were vexed, came to me, and throwing himself down before me clung to my feet, as if they had been yours. He was profuse in his tears and his entreaties; he was profuse also in his silence. In short, he convinced me of his penitence. I believe that he is indeed a reformed character, because he feels that he has done wrong. You are angry, I know; and you have reason to be angry, this also I know: but mercy wins the highest praise just when there is the most righteous cause for anger. You loved the man, and, I hope, will continue to love him: meanwhile it is enough, that you should allow yourself to yield to his prayers. You may be angry again, if he deserves it; and in this you will be the more readily pardoned if you yield now. Concede something to his youth, something to his tears, something to your own indulgent disposition. Do not torture him, lest you torture yourself at the same time. For it is torture to you, when one of your gentle temper is angry. I am afraid lest I should appear not to ask but to compel, if I should add my prayers to his. Yet I will add them the more fully and unreservedly, because I scolded the man himself with sharpness and severity; for I threatened him straitly that I would never ask you again. This I said to him, for it was necessary to alarm him; but I do not use the same language to you. For perchance I shall ask again, and shall be successful again; only let my request be such, as it becomes me to prefer and you to grant. Farewell.

The younger Pliny is the noblest type of a true Roman gentleman, and this touching letter needs no words of praise. Yet, if purity of diction be excepted, there will hardly be any difference of opinion in awarding the palm to the Christian Apostle. As an expression of simple dignity, of refined courtesy, of large sympathy, and of warm personal affection, the Epistle to Philemon stands unrivalled. And its pre-eminence is the more remarkable because in style it is exceptionally loose. It owes nothing to the graces of rhetoric; its effect is due solely to the spirit of the writer.

But the interest which attaches to this short epistle as an expression of individual character is far less important than its significance as exhibiting the attitude of Christianity to a widely spread and characteristic social institution of the ancient world.

Slavery was practised by the Hebrews under the sanction of the Mosaic law, not less than by the Greeks and Romans. But though the same in name, it was in its actual working something wholly different. The Hebrew was not suffered either by law-giver or by prophet to forget that he himself had been a bondman in the land of Egypt; and all his relations to his dependents were moulded by the sympathy of this recollection. His slaves were members of his family; they were members also of the Holy Congregation. They had their religious, as well as their social, rights. If Hebrews, their liberty was secured to them after six years’ service at the outside. If foreigners, they were protected by the laws from the tyranny and violence of their masters. Considering the conditions of ancient society, and more especially of ancient warfare, slavery as practised among the Hebrews was probably an escape from alternatives which would have involved a far greater amount of human misery. Still even in this form it was only a temporary concession, till the fulness of time came, and the world was taught that ‘in Christ is neither bond nor free[738]’.

Among the Jews the slaves formed only a small fraction of the whole population[739]. They occupy a very insignificant place in the pictures of Hebrew life and history which have been handed down to us. |Large number of slaves in Greece and Rome.|But in Greece and Rome the case was far different. In our enthusiastic eulogies of free, enlightened, democratic Athens, we are apt to forget that the interests of the many were ruthlessly sacrificed to the selfishness of the few. The slaves of Attica on the most probable computation were about four times as numerous as the citizens, and about three times as numerous as the whole free population of the state, including the resident aliens[740]. They were consigned for the most part to labour in gangs in the fields or the mines or the factories, without any hope of bettering their condition. In the light of these facts we see what was really meant by popular government and equal rights at Athens. The proportions of the slave population elsewhere were even greater. In the small island of Ægina, scarcely exceeding forty English square miles in extent, there were 470,000 slaves; in the contracted territory of Corinth there were not less than 460,000[741]. The statistics of slave-holding in Italy are quite as startling. We are told that wealthy Roman landowners sometimes possessed as many as ten or twenty thousand slaves, or even more[742].

We may indeed not unreasonably view these vague and general statements with suspicion: but it is a fact that, a few years before the Christian era, one Claudius Isidorus left by will more than four thousand slaves, though he had incurred serious losses by the civil war[743].

And these vast masses of human beings had no protection from Roman law[744]. The slave had no relationships, no conjugal rights. Cohabitation was allowed to him at his owner’s pleasure, but not marriage. His companion was sometimes assigned to him by lot[745]. The slave was absolutely at his master’s disposal; for the smallest offence he might be scourged, mutilated, crucified, thrown to the wild beasts[746]. Only two or three years before the letter to Philemon was written, and probably during St Paul’s residence in Rome, a terrible tragedy had been enacted under the sanction of the law[747]. |Murder of Pedanius Secundus.|Pedanius Secundus, a senator, had been slain by one of his slaves in a fit of anger or jealousy. The law demanded that in such cases all the slaves under the same roof at the time should be put to death. On the present occasion four hundred persons were condemned to suffer by this inhuman enactment. The populace however interposed to rescue them, and a tumult ensued. The Senate accordingly took the matter into deliberation. Among the speakers C. Cassius strongly advocated the enforcement of the law. ‘The disposition of slaves,’ he argued, ‘were regarded with suspicion by our ancestors, even when they were born on the same estates or in the same houses and learnt to feel an affection for their masters from the first. Now however, when we have several nations among our slaves, with various rites, with foreign religions or none at all, it is not possible to keep down such a rabble except by fear.’ These sentiments prevailed, and the law was put in force.

But the roads were lined by a military guard, as the prisoners were led to execution, to prevent a popular outbreak. This incident illustrates not only the heartless cruelty of the law, but also the social dangers arising out of slavery. Indeed the universal distrust had already found expression in a common proverb,‘As many enemies as slaves[748].’ But this was not the only way in which slavery avenged itself on the Romans. The spread of luxury and idleness was a direct consequence of the state of things. Work came to be regarded as a low and degrading, because a servile occupation. Meanwhile sensuality in its vilest forms was fostered by the tremendous power which placed the slave at the mercy of the master’s worst passions[749].

With this wide-spread institution Christianity found itself in conflict. How was the evil to be met? Slavery was inwoven into the texture of society; and to prohibit slavery was to tear society into shreds. Nothing less than a servile war with its certain horrors and its doubtful issues must have been the consequence. Such a mode of operation was altogether alien to the spirit of the Gospel. ‘The New Testament’, it has been truly said, ‘is not concerned with any political or social institutions; for political and social institutions belong to particular nations and particular phases of society’. ‘Nothing marks the divine character of the Gospel more than its perfect freedom from any appeal to the spirit of political revolution[750]’. It belongs to all time: and therefore, instead of attacking special abuses, it lays down universal principles which shall undermine the evil.

Hence the Gospel never directly attacks slavery as an institution: the Apostles never command the liberation of slaves as an absolute duty. It is a remarkable fact that St Paul in this epistle stops short of any positive injunction. The word ‘emancipation’ seems to be trembling on his lips, and yet he does not once utter it. He charges Philemon to take the runaway slave Onesimus into his confidence again; to receive him with all affection; to regard him no more as a slave but as a brother; to treat him with the same consideration, the same love, which he entertains for the Apostle himself to whom he owes everything. In fact he tells him to do very much more than emancipate his slave, but this one thing he does not directly enjoin. St Paul’s treatment of this individual case is an apt illustration of the attitude of Christianity towards slavery in general.

Similar also is his language elsewhere. Writing to the Corinthians, he declares the absolute equality of the freeman and the slave in the sight of God[751]. It follows therefore that the slave may cheerfully acquiesce in his lot, knowing that all earthly distinctions vanish in the light of this eternal truth. If his freedom should be offered to him, he will do well to accept it, for it puts him in a more advantageous position[752]: but meanwhile he need not give himself any concern about his lot in life. So again, when he addresses the Ephesians and Colossians on the mutual obligations of masters and slaves, he is content to insist on the broad fact that both alike are slaves of a heavenly Master, and to enforce the duties which flow from its recognition[753]. He has no word of reproach for the masters on the injustice of their position; he breathes no hint to the slaves of a social grievance needing redress.

But meanwhile a principle is boldly enunciated, which must in the end prove fatal to slavery. When the Gospel taught that God had made all men and women upon earth of one family; that all alike were His sons and His daughters; that, whatever conventional distinctions human society might set up, the supreme King of Heaven refused to acknowledge any; that the slave notwithstanding his slavery was Christ’s freedman, and the free notwithstanding his liberty was Christ’s slave; when the Church carried out this principle by admitting the slave to her highest privileges, inviting him to kneel side by side with his master at the same holy table; when in short the Apostolic precept that ‘in Christ Jesus is neither bond nor free’ was not only recognised but acted upon, then slavery was doomed. Henceforward it was only a question of time. Here was the idea which must act as a solvent, must disintegrate this venerable institution, however deeply rooted and however widely spread. |Its general tendency.|‘The brotherhood of man, in short, is the idea which Christianity in its social phase has been always striving to realise, and the progress of which constitutes the social history of Christendom.

With what difficulties this idea has struggled; how it has been marred by revolutionary violence, as well as impeded by reactionary selfishness; to what chimerical hopes, to what wild schemes, to what calamitous disappointments, to what desperate conflicts, it has given birth; how often being misunderstood and misapplied, it has brought not peace on earth but a sword—it is needless here to rehearse. Still, as we look back over the range of past history, we can see beyond doubt that it is towards this goal that Christianity as a social principle has been always tending and still tends[754].’

And this beneficent tendency of the Gospel was felt at once in its effects on slavery. The Church indeed, even in the ardour of her earliest love, did not prohibit her sons from retaining slaves in their households. It is quite plain from extant notices, that in the earlier centuries, as in the later, Christians owned slaves[755] like their heathen neighbours, without forfeiting consideration among their fellow-believers. But nevertheless the Christian idea was not a dead-letter. |Protection and manumission of slaves.|The chivalry of the Gospel which regarded the weak and helpless from whatever cause, as its special charge, which extended its protection to the widow, the orphan, the sick, the aged, and the prisoner, was not likely to neglect the slave. Accordingly we find that one of the earliest forms which Christian benevolence took was the contribution of funds for the liberation of slaves[756]. |Honours paid to slave martyrs.|But even more important than overt acts like these was the moral and social importance with which the slave was now invested. Among the heroes and heroines of the Church were found not a few members of this class. When slave girls like Blandina in Gaul or Felicitas in Africa, having won for themselves the crown of martyrdom, were celebrated in the festivals of the Church with honours denied to the most powerful and noblest born of mankind, social prejudice had received a wound which could never be healed.

While the Church was still kept in subjection, moral influence and private enterprise were her only weapons. But Christianity was no sooner seated on the throne of the Cæsars than its influence began to be felt in the imperial policy[757]. |Legislation of Constantine.|The legislation of Constantine, despite its startling inequalities, forms a unique chapter in the statute book of Rome. In its mixed character indeed it reflects the transitional position of its author. But after all allowance made for its very patent defects, its general advance in the direction of humanity and purity is far greater than can be traced in the legislation even of the most humane and virtuous of his heathen predecessors. More especially in the extension of legal protection to slaves, and in the encouragement given to emancipation, we have an earnest of the future work which Christianity was destined to do for this oppressed class of mankind, though the relief which it gave was after all very partial and tentative[758].

And on the whole this part has been faithfully and courageously performed by the Church. There have been shameful exceptions now and then: there has been occasional timidity and excess of caution. The commentaries of the fathers on this epistle are an illustration of this latter fault[759]. Much may be pardoned to men who shrink from seeming to countenance a violent social revolution. But notwithstanding, it is a broad and patent fact that throughout the early and middle ages the influence of the Church was exerted strongly on the side of humanity in this matter[760]. The emancipation of slaves was regarded as a principal aim of the higher Christian life[761]; the amelioration of serfdom was a matter of constant solicitude with the rulers of the Church.

And at length we seem to see the beginning of the end. The rapid strides towards emancipation during the present generation are without a parallel in the history of the world. The abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire at an enormous material sacrifice is one of the greatest moral conquests which England has ever achieved. The liberation of twenty millions of serfs throughout the Russian dominions has thrown a halo of glory round the name of Alexander II., which no time can dim. The emancipation of the negro in the vast republic of the New World was a victory not less important than either to the well-being of the human race. Thus within the short period of little more than a quarter of a century this reproach of civilisation and humanity has been wiped out in the three greatest empires of the world. It is a fit sequel to these achievements, that at length a well directed attack should have been made on the central fortress of slavery and the slave-trade, the interior of Africa. May we not venture to predict that in future ages, when distance of view shall have adjusted the true relations of events, when the brilliancy of empires and the fame of wars shall have sunk to their proper level of significance, this epoch will stand out in the history of mankind as the era of liberation? If so, the Epistle to Philemon, as the earliest prelude to these magnificent social victories, must be invested with more than common interest for our generation.