Beside the clear and unequivocal import of the word applied to Onesimus, it is evident, from other considerations, that he was the slave of Philemon. To dwell upon all of these would, we fear, be more tedious than profitable to the reader. Hence we shall confine our attention to a single circumstance, which will, we think, be sufficient for any candid or impartial inquirer after truth. Among the arguments used by St. Paul to induce Philemon to receive his fugitive slave kindly, we find this: "For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever." This verse is thus paraphrased by Macknight: "To mitigate thy resentment, consider, that perhaps also for this reason he was separated from thee for a little while, (so προς ὡραν signified, 1 Thess. ii. 17, note 2,) that thou mightest have him thy slave for life." Dr. Macknight also adds, in a footnote: "By telling Philemon that he would now have Onesimus forever, the apostle intimates to him his firm persuasion that Onesimus would never any more run away from him." Such seems to be the plain, obvious import of the apostle's argument. No one, it is believed, who had no set purpose to subserve, or no foregone conclusion to support, would view this argument in any other light. Perhaps he was separated for a while as a slave, that "thou mightest have him forever," or for life. How have him? Surely, one would think, as a slave, or in the same capacity from which he was separated for a while. The argument requires this; the opposition of the words, and the force of the passage, imperatively require it. But yet, if we may believe Mr. Barnes, the meaning of St. Paul is, that perhaps Onesimus was separated for a while as a servant, that Philemon might never receive him again as a servant, but forever as a Christian brother! Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall give his own words. "The meaning is," says he, "that it was possible that this was permitted in the providence of God, in order that Onesimus might be brought under the influence of the gospel, and be far more serviceable to Philemon as a Christian than he could have been in his former relation to him."
In the twelfth verse of the epistle, St. Paul says: "Whom I have sent again," or, as Macknight more accurately renders the words, "Him I have sent back," (ὁν ανεπεμφα.) Here we see the great apostle actually sending back a fugitive slave to his master. That act of St. Paul is not, and cannot be, denied. The words are too plain for denial. Onesimus "I have sent back." Surely it cannot be otherwise than a most unpleasant spectacle to abolitionist eyes thus to see Paul, the aged—perhaps the most venerable and glorious hero whose life is upon record—assume such an attitude toward the institution of slavery. Had he dealt with slavery as he always dealt with every thing which he regarded as sin; had he assumed toward it an attitude of stern and uncompromising hostility, and had his words been thunderbolts of denunciation, then indeed would he have been a hero after the very hearts of the abolitionists. But, as it is, they have to apologize for the great apostle, and try, as best they may, to deliver him from his very equivocal position! But if they are true apostles, and not false, then, we fear, the best apology for his conduct is that he had never read the Declaration of Independence, nor breathed the air of Boston.
This point, however, we shall not decide. We shall examine their apologies, and let the candid reader decide for himself. St. Paul, it is not denied, sent back Onesimus. But, says Mr. Barnes, he did not compel or urge him to go. He did not send him back against his will. Onesimus, no doubt, desired to return, and St. Paul was moved to send him by his own request. Now, in the first place, this apology is built on sheer assumption. There is not the slightest evidence that Onesimus requested St. Paul to send him back to his master. "There may have been many reasons," says Mr. Barnes, "why Onesimus desired to return to Colosse, and no one can prove that he did not express that desire to St. Paul, and that his 'sending' him was not in consequence of such request." True; even if Onesimus had felt no such desire, and had expressed no such desire to St. Paul, it would have been impossible, in the very nature of things, for any one to prove such negatives, unless he had been expressly informed on the subject by the writer of the epistle. But is it not truly wonderful, that any one should, without the least particle or shadow of evidence, be pleased to imagine a series of propositions, and then call upon the opposite party to disprove them? Is not such proceeding the very stuff that dreams are made of?
No doubt there may have been reasons why Onesimus should desire to return to his master. There were certainly reasons, and reasons of tremendous force, too, why he should have desired no such thing. The fact that Philemon, whom he had offended by running away, had, according to law, the power of life and death over him, is one of the reasons why he should have dreaded to return. Hence, unless required by the apostle to return, he may have desired no such thing, and no one can prove that an expression of such desire on his part was the ground of the apostle's action. It is certain, that he who affirms should prove.
In the second place, if St. Paul were an abolitionist at heart, he should have avoided the appearance of so great an evil. He should not, for a moment, have permitted himself to stand before the world in the simple and unexplained attitude of one who had sent back a fugitive slave to his master. No honest abolitionist would permit himself to appear in such a light. He would scorn to occupy such a position. Hence, we repeat, if St. Paul were an abolitionist at heart, he should have let it be known that, in sending Onesimus back, he was moved, not originally by the principles of his own heart, but by the desire and request of the fugitive himself. By such a course, he would have delivered himself from a false position, and spared his friends among the abolitionists the necessity of making awkward apologies for his conduct.
Thirdly, the positions of Mr. Barnes are not merely sheer assumptions; they are perfectly gratuitous. For it is easy to explain the determination of St. Paul to send Onesimus back, without having recourse to the supposition that Onesimus desired him to do so. Such determination was, indeed, the natural and necessary result of the well known principles of the great apostle. He had repeatedly, and most emphatically, inculcated the principle, that it is the duty of slaves to "obey their masters," and to "count them worthy of all honor." This duty Onesimus had clearly violated in running away from his master. If St. Paul, then, had not taught Onesimus a different doctrine from that which he had taught the churches, he must have felt that he had done wrong in absconding from Philemon, and desired to repair the wrong by returning to him. "It is," says Mr. Barnes, "by no means necessary to suppose that Paul felt that Onesimus was under obligation to return." But we must suppose this, unless we suppose that Paul felt that Onesimus was under no obligation to obey the precepts which he himself had delivered for the guidance and direction of all Christian servants.
We shall now briefly notice a few other of Mr. Barnes' arguments, and then dismiss this branch of the subject. "If St. Paul sent back Onesimus," says he, "this was, doubtless, at his own request; for there is not the slightest evidence that he compelled him, or even urged him, to go." We might just as well conclude that St. Paul first required Onesimus to return, because there is not the slightest evidence that Onesimus made any such request.
"Paul," says Mr. Barnes, "had no power to send Onesimus back to his master unless he chose to go." This is very true. But still Onesimus may have chosen to go, just because St. Paul, his greatest benefactor and friend, had told him it was his duty to do so. He may have chosen to go, just because the apostle had told him it is the duty of servants not to run away from their masters, but to obey them, and count them worthy of all honor. It is also true, that "there is not the slightest evidence that he compelled him, or even urged him, to go." It is, on the other hand, equally true, that there is not the slightest evidence that any thing more than a bare expression of the apostle's opinion, or a reiteration of his well-known sentiments, was necessary to induce him to return.
"The language is just as would have been used," says our author, "on the supposition, either that he requested him to go and bear a letter to Colosse, or that Onesimus desired to go, and that Paul sent him agreeably to his request. Compare Phil. ii. 25: 'Yet I suppose it necessary to send Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labor,' etc.; Col. iv. 7, 8: 'All my estate shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate.' But Epaphroditus and Tychicus were not sent against their own will,—nor is there any more reason to think that Onesimus was." Now there is not the least evidence that either Epaphroditus or Tychicus requested the apostle to send them as he did; and, so far as appears from his statements, the whole thing originated with himself. It is simply said that he sent them. It is true, they were "not sent against their own will," for they were ready and willing to obey his directions. We have good reason, as we have seen, to believe that precisely the same thing was true in regard to the sending of Onesimus.
But there is another case of sending which Mr. Barnes has overlooked. It is recorded in the same chapter of the same epistle which speaks of the sending of Epaphroditus. We shall adduce it, for it is a case directly in point. "But ye know the proof of him, (i. e. of Timothy,) that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel. Him, therefore, I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me." Now, here the apostle proposes to send Timothy, not so soon as Timothy should request to be sent, but so soon as he should see how it would go with himself as a prisoner at Rome. "As a son with the father," so Timothy, after his conversion, served with the great apostle, and, not against his own will, but most cheerfully, obeyed his directions. And in precisely the same ineffably endearing relation did Onesimus stand to the apostle. As a recent convert,—as a sincere and humble Christian,—he naturally looked to his great inspired teacher for advice, and was, no doubt, with more than filial affection, ready to obey.