The life and work of St. Paul

626 tHE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
Philemon, a Consular, a Praefect of the city, named Pedauius Secundus, had
been murdered by a slave under circumstances of infamy which characterised
that entire epoch. In spite of the pity of the people, the Senate had decided
that the old ruthless law, re-established by the Silanian decree under
Augustus, should be carried out, and the entire familia of slaves be pxit
to death. Regardless of the menaces of the populace, Nero ordered the
sentence to be executed by military force, and four hundred human beings of
every age and of both sexes had been led through lines of soldiers to their
slaughter in spite of the indubitable innocence of the vast majority. This
horrible event, together with the thrilling debate to which it had given rise in
the Senate, had made the subject of slavery a " burning question " at Borne,
and deepened the general feeling which had long found proverbial expression,
that "the more slaves the more enemies." In that memorable debate, it had
been asserted by C. Cassius Longinus that the only way in which the rich
could live in Rome few amid multitudes, safe amid the terrified, or, at the
worst, not unavenged among the guilty would be by a rigid adherence to the
old and sanguinary law.
Such then, was the state of things in which St. Paul sat down to write his
letter of intercession for the Phrygian runaway. Ho could not denounce
slavery ; he could not even emancipate Onesimus ; but just as Moses, " because
of the hardness of your hearts," 1 could not overthrow the lex talionis, or
polygamy, or the existence of blood-feuds, but rendered them as nugatory as
possible, and robbed them as far as he could of their fatal sting, by controlling
and modifying influences, so St. Paul established the truths that rendered
slavery endurable, and raised the slave to a dignity which made emancipation
itself seem but a secondary and even trivial thing. A blow was struck at the
very root of slavery when our Lord said, " Te all are brethren." In a
Christian community a slave might be a " bishop," and his master only a
catechumen and ; St. Paul writes to bid the Corinthians pay due respect and
subjection to the household of Stephanas, though some of the Corinthians
were people of good position, and these were slaves. 2 Onesimus repaid by
gratitude, by affection, by active and cherished services to the aged prisoner,
the inestimable boon of his deliverance from moral and spiritual death.
Gladly would St. Paul, with so much to try him, with so few to tend him, have
retained this warm-hearted youth about his person, one whose qualities,
however much they may have been perverted and led astray, wore so naturally
sweet and amiable, that St. Paul feels for him all the affection of a father
towards a son. 3 And had ho retained him, he felt sure that Philemon would
not only have pardoned the liberty, but would even have rejoiced that one over
whom he had some claim should discharge some of those kindly duties to the
1 Matt. six. 8.
* See Hausrath, Newt. Zeitg. ii. 405.
8
It is not said in so many words that Onesinius was young, but the language used
respecting him seeins clearly to show that this was the case (Philem. 10, 12, &c.). The
expression an^dyxva., like the Latin viscera, is used of sons o! iraiSes