Philemon and the New Apostolic Age
By Scott Powell, PhD
In Lent of 2021, Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver issued a call for the faithful to recognize our age as a “new apostolic moment.” In his Pastoral Note, he cites Pope Francis who says that what the Church is experiencing today culturally, is not “an age of change, but a change of age.”
As many of us know, and as others have said, we are witnessing (and have been for some time) the close of Christendom.
Archbishop Aquila insists that “In this new apostolic age, we will respond as we always have, with the Gospel. Like the early Church, we must become capable of compellingly proclaiming Jesus Christ and the freedom he won for us from the current and eternal damage inflicted by sin.”
This call got me thinking—believe it or not—about one of the most obscure and often-forgotten books of the New Testament, Paul’s Letter to Philemon. So obscure, and so short (only 335 words in the original Greek), that many faithful have a similar reaction as the Ephesians when Paul asked them if they’d received the Holy Spirit: “We had not heard that there even was a Philemon!” (see Acts 19:2).
So why spend our time on this letter? The more I have reflected on it, the more I’ve come to believe that the Letter to Philemon, an epistle to a small group of ordinary, everyday, utterly forgettable-to-the-grand-sweep-of-Church-history folks, can give us insight into living at the close of an era, in this post-Christian culture.
Though forgotten by many, we know that the early Church considered Philemon very important. But isn’t it possible that Paul wrote many such letters and small notes of encouragement to church leaders and ecclesial communities far more prominent than a somewhat obscure house church leader around the city of Colossae, and with seemingly far wider reaching theological messages than this one? We know that for this book to have made it into the canon, it would have had to have been repeatedly copied, and widespread in its geographic reach and liturgical usage.
So…why was this tiny letter so revered, and so loved in the early Church?
Though small, I believe that this is one of Paul’s most important epistles. Why? Because it is where the rubber of the Gospel meets the road; where Paul’s grand theological vision of what it means to be “in Christ,” is played out in the real world, with real world problems—problems like households, brotherhood, social status, community, and what it looks like when the Gospel flips all of these things on their heads. In it, Paul manages to weave together Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and the narrative of fall and redemption. So how does it apply to our “Apostolic Moment?”
Old Evangelization or New Evangelization?
For a long time, the Church has been talking about the “New Evangelization.” This was something of a buzz-term around the pontificate of Pope St. John Paul II. But perhaps, with the closing of the age of Christendom, we need to think more about the “Old Evangelization.”
What do I mean?
First, what exactly is “new” about evangelization? The Church has one mission: To evangelize—in other words, to bring souls into communion with Jesus Christ. John Paul II said in Redemptoris Missio that evangelization is the primary service the Church can render the human family. So, this is not new. There are always new challenges in evangelization, and new ways we can devise of sinning, but ultimately, the Gospel is the Gospel.
Traditionally, the Church has seen two primary areas where she carries out the work of evangelizing.
Ad Gentes: to the nations, to the peoples, and to the cultures where the Gospel is not known. This, we might say, is the “Old Evangelization.” This was the task of the original Apostolic Age. But that was always meant to lead to number 2:
Ad Intra: ministering to those Catholics who are practicing their faith and have a Christian outlook on the world. Here, the Church seeks to deepen their faith, and in turn, make them evangelizers.
The New Evangelization was meant to be a sort of midpoint between these two. It was an attempt to deal with the question of what we do with whole communities who have (supposedly) heard the Gospel, are baptized, and either no longer practice the faith or never really practiced it to begin with. This is a difficult problem. In fact, John Paul II wrote in “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” that this loss of faith isn’t the exception anymore—it’s the norm!
The Church historically knows that the greatest impediments to evangelization (old or new) are never primarily from the outside (as daunting as the cultural, political, and legal challenges we face are) but from inside—usually embodied in the corruption, complacency, and sin of its members.
Philemon
This brings us back to Philemon. Now, if you’re not terribly familiar with the Letter to Philemon (you are in good company), let me introduce you.
Philemon, the recipient of the letter, was believed to be a house church leader in Colossae, a midsized, not terribly consequential city in Asia minor. What’s interesting about the Letter to Philemon is that unlike the Pastoral Epistles, it is not written solely to one individual, although the letter bears his name. Likewise, unlike the epistles of Romans, Corinthians, or Ephesians, it’s also not strictly written to the local church. Paul makes clear in the opening lines that this letter, while certainly written to the individual Philemon, was intended to be read in the presence of the church that meets in his home. In this sense, one of the many things that Paul is seeking to do is introduce the concept of accountability; so that what he says to Philemon is not lost to Philemon. The whole community needs to hear it as well.
Why? Because the household of Philemon is in a sticky situation. There are three primary characters in the letter. The first is Paul, the author of the letter, who appears to be imprisoned at the time of its writing.
The second is Philemon himself, the recipient, and a house church leader in Colossae. This means of course, that he is not ordained clergy, but that he is presumably wealthy, presumably well respected, and presumably a man of character and repute.
The final character is Onesimus—who is the whole reason for the letter. Onesimus was a slave in the household of Philemon. Now, there is speculation as to why Philemon was parted from his master. Traditionally, it is believed that Philemon has perhaps stolen something, escaped from his master’s household, run away, and has now encountered (whether by intent or Providence), Paul.
At some point after meeting Paul—perhaps in prison—Paul preaches the Gospel, and Onesimus is baptized. Somewhere along the line, Paul finds out that Onesimus is the slave of Philemon. Now, here’s where the narrative gets really interesting. Paul had also preached the Gospel to and baptized Philemon, making him, as he sees it, both men’s spiritual father.
Now Paul has a dilemma; two of his baptized “sons” are at odds with each other. This causes Paul to do something unthinkable. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, presumably bearing this letter with him. The problem is that if Onesimus has run away, and perhaps stolen from Philemon in the process, then it is within Philemon’s legal rights, according to Roman law, to punish Onesimus—perhaps by dismemberment or death. So, by sending Onesimus back, Paul is putting the runaway’s life on the line. In this short letter, Paul leans all his apostolic weight, hedging for Onesimus’ survival, using his masterful rhetoric, humor, and persuasion.
At the climax of the letter, Paul says to Philemon,
Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So, if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. (Philemon v. 15-16, NRSV-CE)
I think it’s difficult for many of us to comprehend the weight of social norms that Paul broke here. He equated a runaway slave to a wealthy, dignified leader in the city of Colossae, audaciously claiming that they are brothers in the Lord Jesus. This would have been unthinkable in Roman society.
As the letter ends, we have two questions to ponder. Number one—the question we asked at the beginning—why did this book make it into the Bible at all? And number two, what happened? Did Onesimus make it? Did Philemon (and the local church community) receive Paul’s words?
Let’s answer the second question first. Many scholars believe that Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians was written shortly after that to Philemon. At the close of Colossians, Paul mentions in his greetings “Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of yourselves” (Colossians 4:9). This suggests that not only Philemon, but the whole community truly received the message. What’s more, St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his Letter to the Ephesians, mentions a bishop in that region who was named Onesimus. We cannot know for certain if this is the same person or not, but it doesn’t seem beyond the audacity of the early church that a man like Onesimus, with the background he had, may have been not only welcomed, but elevated to a bishop in the community.
That broader context I believe, helps to explain why this book made it into the canon, why the early Christians copied and passed around this letter, reading it in their liturgies, and why the early followers of Jesus would have loved this letter.Fundamentally, what we have is Paul stepping in between two parties in conflict, stepping in as Jesus Christ, who brings reconciliation and does everything in his power, risking his dignity, his stature, his reputation, so that these two men may be reconciled and see one another as brothers. This is the Gospel embodied.
Is it a “New Evangelization”? Perhaps. Remember, Philemon is baptized, and is a (presumably) faithful leader in the Church. So (presumably) is the community who meets in his home. They weren’t hearing the Gospel for the first time, but they had a desperate need to hear the Gospel anew. They needed it to move beyond the abstract and the comfortable. They needed to apply it to their own community, culture, and circumstances.
Paul has been much criticized in scholarship for seeming to support, or at the very least not do enough to overturn the institution of slavery in his time. People want this epistle to be an anti-slavery tract, but rather than speaking to the legal structure of slavery in the Roman empire, he goes deep into the heart of the baptized person. He seeks to present an anthropology where slavery is utterly unthinkable.
If we are to believe that Bishop Onesimus from Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians was, in fact, the same person as that of Paul’s letter, this tells us a tremendous amount about both the spiritual and cultural power of this first Apostolic Age, about the ability of the Church not only to overturn legal institutions, but to challenge the popular view of the human person—in particular, the baptized person.
The reason the first apostolic age was so utterly successful was not because it was merely programmatic; it wasn’t just a question of methodology. Rather, it was a question of worldview and anthropology. What—it asked—is the human person in light of Jesus Christ? It was a question of proposing the audacious idea that if Jesus Christ truly has saved humanity through his birth, ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, then nothing needs to remain the way that it is. This is the heart of Mary’s Magnificat. No social status, class, ethnicity, disability, financial situation, or anything else can bar a person access to full life in Christ. Everything can be made new. But of course, Paul doesn’t merely say this, he embodies it. His living witness is one of self-emptying, of kenosis. Paul abandons any grasp on his social status and his cultural respectability.
The reason that the categories of Old and New Evangelization are a bit blurry today, is that the New Apostolic Moment is not an either-or moment. Yes, we live in a post-Christian society, but it is a post-Christian society that presumes to know all about Jesus, and all about the Church—whether they are believers or not. It is a culture that has been inoculated against Christianity. Therefore, the task of the Church is no longer about proposing an idea, but of changing angry minds and softening hardened hearts—even (perhaps especially) the hearts of those within the Church. John Paul II’s vision of the New Evangelization, it seems, presumed an essentially Christian culture that had lost its way. I’m not sure it foresaw the utterly post-Christian reality in which we now live.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Philemon (Christian leader though he may have been) initially received this letter with a hardened heart. But at some point, happily for us, it softened.
So how ought we live in this “New Apostolic Moment”? What do we need now to bring souls into communion with Jesus Christ? I think St. Paul would counsel us to find ways to “step in the gap”; to risk ourselves as the service of bringing integration to an utterly disintegrated world. The whole Church—from top to bottom constantly needs re-evangelizing. Does the Letter to Philemon give us an exact roadmap? Probably not. But perhaps, it can act as something of a compass.
Dr. Scott Powell is a Professor of Theology at the St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He and his wife Annie also founded and direct Camp Wojtyla (www.camp-w.com).