Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

2o2
INTRODUCTION.
apostle's exhortation would have been directed to him personally,
rather than through others. To this Moyer lias replied, and I accord
peifectly with
him, that that argument drawn from the connecting
Kai would have force only if ver. 17 followed immediately on ver.
15 ; and that it is unnatural to suppose Paul requiring Archippus
to be admonished by a foreign church. Again, from the position of
the places, Tychicus with Onesimus came from Rome first to Laodicea,
and then to Colossa3. If, therefore, the letter indicated by
the T7IV tK AaodiKeiag be understood as the one to Philemon, we must
assume from this as well as from Paul's speaking of that letter as a
thing known to his readers, that Tychicus had already been to Laodicea,
and had delivered the letter to Philemon. But there then
arises the difficulty why Onesimus did not remain with his master
in Laodicea, and how Paul could take for granted that Onesimus
would accompany Tychicus to Colossas, and also (Col. iv, 7-9), remain
there a considerable time. For the traditions regarding Philemon
and Onesimus, see Winer, R.W.B.
With the untenable supposition of Philemon's residence in Laodicea,
is (as intimated above) closely connected another, that our
epistle is the long-lost Epistle to the Laodiceans, a view earlier
propounded (see De Wette, and Wieselcr p. 451), and recently defended
by Wieseler and assumed by Thiersch. It, of course, is overthrown
along with the hypothesis which places Philemon in Laodicea.
And if we are not authorized
in assuming that the Epistle to Philemon
was designed for the whole church at Laodicea (comp. Philem. 2,
and Col. iv. 15, which give us two kut' oIkov mKAriaiai)^ we surely cannot
suppose that it would have been required to be read to a foreign
church, and that when it is essentially a mere commendatory epistle.
Onesimus was certainly sufficiently commended to the church
in Colossse by Tychicus, and the epistle to themselves (iv. 9); for
this purpose, therefore, the reading of the other was unnecessary.
The epistle to the Laodiceans too, seems from all indications to
have sprung from a like occasion, and to have been similar in contents
to that to the Colossians. Hence De Wette and Meyer justly,
as I think, dissent from this theory.
Tlie view, moreover, which we have expressed regarding ih^time
andjjlace of the composition of our epistle, though guaranteed by
the tradition of the ancient church, has not been unassailed. As
the Epistle to the Philippians has been transferred from the imprisonment
in Home to that in Cesarea, so also, and with a wider consent,
those to the Ephesians, tlie Colossians, and to Philemon (ciMup.
Qls. Introd. to E]»h.), It helongs not to this i)lace to discuss this
question in its full extent. The main objection to the hypothesis
alluded to has been urged liy Olshausen, viz., that the apostle has a
freedom of religious action conceivable only in his condition at