Philemon 1:10 I beseech you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: This and the previous verse taken together seem to contain two references to the Roman law. "For the love's sake I rather beseech — being such an one as Paul, an old man, and, as it is, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I beseech thee for my son, Onesimus." We have here a twofold reference — a plea for legal pardon, a hint at emancipation. 1. I beseech — I beseech thee — puts Paul in the position of a formal precator. The law gave the Roman slave one real right. It relented with humane inconsistency upon one point, and one only. For the slave in the Roman Empire the right of asylum did not exist. His only conceivable resource was that he might, in his despair, fly to a friend of his master, not for the purpose of concealment, but of intercession. The owner, who was absolute as far as any formal tribunal was concerned, might be softened by the entreaties of the friend who took upon himself the office of intercessor. The Roman jurisprudence formally declared that the slave in fly ing to a friend of his proprietor with this intention did not incur the enormous guilt of becoming fugitivus. St. Paul, indeed, was unable to appear with Onesimus. But in the emphatic and repeated "beseech," he seems to declare himself the legal precator. 2. The hint at the emancipation is contained in the recognition of Onesimus by St. Paul as a son of the various forms of manumissio justa, the adoptive stands in the first rank. With the title of son, the rights of domestic and civil life flow in upon the slave, new born into the common family of humanity. May there be a yet further allusion? St. Paul, indeed, hopes to see Philemon again (ver. 22). Yet he may die. In these literally precativa verba ("I beseech," "I beseech thee," vers. 9, 10), in what may be his last will and testament, he lays upon Philemon, as if his heir, the duty, not only of pardoning, but of giving manumission to the penitent slave. (Bp. Wm. Alexander.) Parallel Verses KJV: I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds:WEB: I beg you for my child, whom I have become the father of in my chains, Onesimus, |
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