The First Christian Slave

Onesimus in Context

Mary Ann Beavis

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781725270183
  9781725270145
• eBook ISBN:
  9781725270190
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

The slave Onesimus is the central figure in the letter to Philemon, but he remains silent throughout the discourse. Studies of the letter focus on whether or not Onesimus was a fugitive slave, and on the question of Paul's intentions for him: did he want Philemon to accept him back as a brother in faith; did he expect Philemon to return Onesimus to him for his own use; or was Paul hinting that Philemon should manumit Onesimus? This study centers on Onesimus as an intentional convert; the first Christian slave whose name we know. Using research about early Christian slavery, slavery in the Roman world, and comparative evidence from African-American slave narratives, this study starts from the assumption that Onesimus had his own motives and aspirations in pursuing his association with Paul, and reconstructs his voice using hints within and outside the text that suggest his agency and subjectivity.

2

More Than a Slave

Before proceeding to a doulocentric commentary on the letter about Onesimus, the thorny question of the circumstances that prompted its writing must be considered. In the last chapter, I used the traditional, and widely accepted, theory that Onesimus was a runaway slave simply to illustrate that it presupposes a high degree of agency on the part of the fugitive. However, it seems highly unlikely that a runaway slave, himself a criminal in legal terms, would seek assistance from an acquaintance himself in prison (Phlm 1, 9, 10, 13, 23). It seems more likely that Onesimus was sent to Paul—perhaps in the company of others—in order to provide him with food, clothing, and financial assistance.117 Possibly, Philemon himself travelled with Onesimus to visit Paul, and left his slave behind to continue to provide the apostle with assistance before his trial. A slave on a long, unaccompanied journey would be a flight risk, but as Keith Bradley notes, some categories of slaves—shepherds, business agents, ships’ captains, slave dealers—travelled considerable distances in carrying out the duties assigned to them.118 Paul’s reference to Onesimus as serving Paul on Philemon’s behalf (hyper sou) in v. 13 supports this interpretation. These issues will be taken up in more detail in the commentary below.

For the purposes of doulocentric exegesis, we have the advantage of several interpretations of Philemon by the enslaved or formerly enslaved. The traditional interpretation of the epistle—that Onesimus was a runaway slave sent back by Paul to his master—was well suited to the aims of American slaveholders. The white, slaveholding preacher Charles Colcock Jones recalled a sermon on Philemon where he “insisted on fidelity and obedience as Christian virtues in servants and upon the authority of Paul,” which elicited strong reactions from the slaves in the audience: “some solemnly declared ‘there was no such Epistle in the Bible’; others, ‘that they did not care if they ever heard me preach again!’ . . . There were some, too, who had strong objections against me as a Preacher, because I was a master, and said, ‘his people have to work as well as we.’”119 In this instance, the reaction of the enslaved audience was a clear example of a hermeneutic of suspicion that saw through the kyriocentrism of the sermon and the pro-slavery interests it served. In contrast, Anthony Burns, himself a self-emancipated slave, “wrote to the Baptist congregation in Virginia which had excommunicated him for running away, ‘and gave me the same right to myself that he gave the man who stole me to himself.’ St. Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon not as a servant, Burns reminded them, but as ‘a brother beloved—both in the flesh and in the Lord,’ as ‘both a brother-man and a brother-Christian.’”120

The freedman and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano held a similar opinion. In his letter to the pro-slavery Rev. Raymund Harris (1778), he insisted that Paul would never have sent Onesimus back to Philemon in order to be a “slave and private property the very time when all Christians had one heart, one mind, one spirit; and all those who had property sold it, and they had all things in common amongst them. . . . I think you have done no credit to the doctrine of Christ, in asserting that Philemon was to be received back for ever as a slave.”121 For Equiano, as for Burns, Paul’s exhortation that Philemon should receive Onesimus back as a more than a slave, a beloved brother (Phlm 16), clearly meant manumission.122 In contrast, Zilpha Elaw, a free black abolitionist preacher, was skeptical of the good faith of the slaveholding Philemon: “Oh, the abominations of slavery! Though Philemon be the proprietor, and Onesimus the slave, yet every case of slavery, however lenient its afflictions and mitigated its atrocities, indicates an oppressor and the oppression.”123 While none of these interpreters explicitly takes the part of Onesimus, they all reject the rights of the slaveholder Philemon over his person, and they identify with Onesimus insofar as they hold that the optimal response to Paul’s request would be his manumission. Equiano, who bought his own freedom, contended that if Christianity had been the state religion of his time, Paul would have insisted on the abolition of such an oppressive institution124...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Illustrations
• Foreword
• Abbreviations
• The Voice of Onesimus
• The Agency of Onesimus
• More Than a Slave
• On Behalf of Onesimus
• Borne in Chains
• The Faithful and Beloved Brother
• A Man of Inexpressible Love
• Bibliography