The story takes for granted that Onesimus, the runaway slave, was Onesimus, the young bishop. This is a disputed point. I don’t care to take up the dispute. It is nonessential to the aim of the story; but if the question of his age be asked it is easily answered. If Onesimus were a young man of twenty with Paul in Rome in 64 to 68, then by 86 to 96 A.D., when John is supposed “to have fallen asleep in Ephesus,” he would still be a young man in his forties to preside over the destinies of Christianity at the very pivotal point in Grecian Asia.
For those who like to worry disputes out as a dog worries a cat, or a cat worries a mouse, the references of the early fathers to Onesimus may be quoted:
In Ignatius’ Letters to the Ephesians, which Archbishop Usher of Oxford, 1644 (see Evelyn’s Journals), issued, and later scholars regarded as authentic letters, though corrupted in texts—when Ignatius himself was on his way to martyrdom in Rome, are found the words—“I received, therefore, in the name of God, your whole multitude in Onesimus . . . who, according to the flesh is your bishop . . . whom I beseech you . . . that you strive to be like unto him . . . and blessed be God . . . you are worthy . . . enjoy such an excellent bishop.” Then he goes on to speak of “Burrhus,” who was a handy man for Nero in the days Onesimus was in Rome, and Paul and Luke wrote of “friends in Cæsar’s household.” Again, he couples the names of Onesimus and Burrhus in the seventh verse of the first chapter. Again, he congratulates them on their Bishop in Chapter II, who commends their “good order” to Ignatius on his way to Rome in bonds. In his letter to the Magnesians he refers to Onesimus and Apollonius as working together and begs them not to use their “bishop too familiarly, owing to his youth.” Though “to appearance young, he must be obeyed, because he presides in the place of God.” In his letter from Smyrna to the Trallians, he refers to the faith having got inside the Palace at Rome; and his letter to the Philadelphians is written by “Burrhus sent from Ephesus”; and Ignatius of Antioch, to quote Turner of Oxford, “was a trusted and responsible leader.” The martyrdom of Ignatius is no longer placed as late as 107 A.D., so the discrepancy in dates here is still unsettled. (See Bishop Lightfoot.) To show how widely and wildly scholars vary in their dates, take your New Testament, note the dates of the letters at the heads of the Epistles, and compare to these dates given in Turner—Peter visits Rome 42 A.D. (See date 60 to 66 A.D. of Peter’s letters from Babylon.) Peter and Paul martyred in Rome 57 or 58 A.D. (Note the dates of Paul’s Epistles from 59 to 64 A.D.) Suicide Nero, 67 or 68 A.D. (Yet Paul’s second trial was towards the end of Nero’s life.) Death Domitian 95 or 96. (Note date of Apollonius’ prediction in Ephesus.) I give these wide variations in authorities solely to show how picayune and childish and nonessential to the picture as a whole are the minor points over which scholars have wrangled; while youth grew bored and slipped away from teachers, who wrangled instead of teaching.
All these references are not proofs, but they throw the burden of disproof on those who call Paul’s servant a “bell hop” and declare the Onesimus of Ephesus another Greek. Onesimus was the carrier of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians; and Apollos was the great Gnostic leader in Ephesus at this time.
The passing of Apollonius in Crete is too long a story to be repeated here. I have followed Flinders Petrie, though those who want to jump into the controversy over Apollonius would do well to read Phillimore’s acrid comments and the Theosophists’ who are a modern and divided edition of the ancient Gnostics. The Theosophists say Apollonius is the riddle of riddles of the first century. “No one knows where he came from or where he went.” By Empire and Church, “every means were used to sweep his memory from men’s minds,” because he would conform to neither Empire nor Church. Whether he died in Crete, or Ephesus, about 96 A.D., the modern Gnostics do not say. He remained always the aristocrat, the scorner of all outward show of piety or power. The churches of Asia actually prayed to Apollonius after his death, so one sees another reason why the church discouraged his cult, just as Paul had to stop Asiatic Greeks from worshiping him. He was lecturing in Ephesus at the time Domitian was murdered in Rome—and suddenly stopped in the middle of his lectures and described the far-off crime in the Imperial City, crying out to the assassins to strike home to the tyrant’s heart. Then he described the wild joy in the Roman city streets over the news of Domitian’s death. A descendant of Trefina’s of the Thecla legend built him a fane in Asia Minor. In those days, they called it a Temple to a new god, Apollonius. In our day, we would probably call it a memorial church.
With these hints, any one feeling it a personal mission to settle the disputes on which the flashlight has been cast by the five stories of the apostolic ages—can do the settling for his own conscience and let his fellow readers do the same.
The day has passed when youth will be bludgeoned into belief. It wants facts, or as close as it can get to facts—then it will do its own believing or disbelieving; and as Malden says, Christianity takes its stand on the ground of historic truth. Let us get the flashlight on the essential truths.
FINALE
At a time when our own modern world seems to be passing through a welter similar to the apostolic ages, it may not be amiss to close by quoting from Bishop Solomon at Lake Van, Armenia, who officiated between the Tigris and Euphrates about 1222 A.D. His Book of the Bee, translated by Wallis Budge, the great orientalist, in 1886 (Oxford), reflects many of the ancient church traditions among the religious communities founded by the Apostles.
The old scholar gives his work the name of the Bee because the bee culls its pure honey from all flowers; and so he attempts to cull the best from the old records of the early church.