Philemon part 2

This is part two of a multi-part post. See part one here. Part one was the warm-up. Somehow I wound up commenting on Ephesians in order to comment on Philemon. In any case, here's the actual commentary on Philemon.

Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved fellow worker and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house; Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The ancients really knew how to start a letter. I actually saw a "loose" translation of the Bible once that had this as "Dear Philemon," and had the letter end with "Sincerely, Paul." AAACK! You might as well translate Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 as, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? No, but you're pretty damn good looking." I wanted to comment on some of the text within Paul's greeting, but I couldn't bear to chop it up. Take a moment to savor it before continuing.

OK now bit by bit:

Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus

Obviously this letter was written during one of Paul's many imprisonments for preaching the gospel. This is one of the Pauline letters considered indisputably authentic, i.e., written by the one and only Paul of Tarsus. Despite its brevity scholars have deduced a lot about where it was probably written, where Philemon probably lived, when it was probably written in relation to other letters, what brand of cereal Paul had for breakfast that day, etc. I was raised on the Historical Critical method. It was probably the first lesson I learned at Gonzaga, and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced cheese. I'm still on awe of the fact that the Church has the guts to let the Scriptures undergo the same scientific analysis that would be given to any other ancient text. But I have to agree with the pope, that if you go overboard with it it turns Scripture reading into trivia hour (O.K. the pope didn't quite put it like that). At some point though, you've got to lay off the historicizing and listen to the text.

Back to the text then. Paul mentions his imprisonment here to emphasize the sacrifices he has made for the gospel, because he is about to ask Philemon to make a sacrifice for Paul (a much smaller one by comparison). It's also an opening of stark, poetic beauty.

and Timothy our brother,

One of Paul's companions, and recipient of Paul's Letter to Timothy.

To Philemon our beloved fellow worker and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier

Philemon is the owner of the slave Onesimus, who hasn't received mention yet. As a slave owner, he must have been a relatively wealthy man. Paul greets him as a "beloved fellow worker," a colleague in the gospel. Apphia was probably his wife, and Archippus possibly a son.

and the church in your house

I recall reading that one possible explanation of this is that Philemon had a large household of servants and slaves, and that the entire household converted to Christianity when he did. But now I can't find any reference to that idea; all the references I can find agree that this indicates that Philemon must have regularly held the Church services that would one day be labeled (somewhat randomly) the "Mass" in his house. In these very early days, the Mass was celebrated in individual homes rather than in dedicated church buildings. See this for a nice description of what the early Mass looked like. This would explain the effusive compliments Paul lavishes on Philemon in this letter. Philemon must have been a leading figure in the Christian community in his city.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

A truly beautiful blessing to start the letter off.