Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

16 INTRODUCTION
lines, inspired by the purest Christian feeling, and against which
suspicion has never been breathed?" (Fau/us). Rejecting
Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, he is compelled to reject
Philemon along with them. The diction is unpauline. Words
and expressions occur which are either not found at all in Paul's
epistles, or only in those which Baur rejects. The epistle exhibits
a peculiar conjunction of circumstances in the flight of Onesimus
and his meeting St. Paul at Rome, which savors of romance. The
letter is the embryo of a Christian romance like the Clettientine
Recognitions, intended to illustrate the idea that what man loses
in time in this world he regains forever in Christianity ; or that
every believer finds himself again in each of his brethren.
Holtzmann is inclined to receive the epistle, but thinks that
the passage 4-6 shows the hand of the author of the Ephesian
letter.
Weizsacker {Apost. Zeital. p. 545) and Pfleiderer {Paulinismus,
p. 44) hold that the play on the name Onesimus proves the letter
to be allegorical (see note on vs. 11).
Steck thinks that he has discovered the germ of the letter in
two epistles of the younger Pliny.
It is needless to waste time over these. They are mostly
fancies. The external testimony and the general consensus of
critics of nearly all schools are corroborated by the thoroughly
PauUne style and diction, and by the exhibition of those personal
traits with which the greater epistles have made us familiar. The
letter, as already remarked, was written and sent at the same time
with that to the Colossians. Its authenticity goes to establish that
of the longer epistle. " In fact," remarks Sabatier, " this short
letter to Philemon is so intensely original, so entirely innocent of
dogmatic preoccupation, and Paul's mind has left its impress so
clearly and indelibly upon it, that it can only be set aside by an
act of sheer violence. Linked from the first with the Colossian
and Ephesian Epistles, it is virtually Paul's own signature appended
as their guarantee to accompany them through the centuries "
{The Apostle Paul, Hellier's trans.).
The general belief from ancient times has been that this, with
the Colossian and Ephesian letters, was composed at Rome ; but
the opinion which assigns their composition to Csesarea has hac.
some strong advocates, among whom may be named Reuss,