for he commands him;1551 and that he is exceedingly concerned about the matter, wherefore he beseeches him. “Being such an one,” he says, “as Paul the aged.” Strange! how many things are here to shame him into compliance! Paul, from the quality of his person, from his age, because he was old, and from what was more just than all, because he was also “a prisoner of Jesus Christ.” For who would not receive with open arms a combatant who had been crowned? Who seeing him bound for Christ’s sake, would not have granted him ten thousand favors? By so many considerations having previously soothed his mind, he has not immediately intro- duced the name, but defers making so great a request. For you know what are the minds of masters towards slaves that have run away; and particularly when they have done this with robbery, even if they have good masters, how their anger is increased. This anger then having taken all these pains to soothe, and having first persuaded him readily to serve him in any- thing whatever, and having prepared his soul to all obedience, then he introduces his request, and says, “I beseech thee,” and with the addition of praises, “for my son whom I have begotten in my bonds.” Again the chains are mentioned to shame him into compliance, and then the name. For he has not only extinguished his anger, but has caused him to be delighted. For I would not have called him my son, he says, if he were not especially profitable. What I called Timothy, that I call him also. And repeatedly showing his affection, he urges him by the very period of his new birth, “I have begotten him in my bonds,” he says, so that on this account also he was worthy to obtain much honor, because he was begotten in his very conflicts, in his trials in the cause of Christ. “Onesimus,” Ver. 11. “Which in time past was to thee unprofitable.” See how great is his prudence, how he confesses the man’s faults, and thereby extinguishes his anger. I know, he says, that he was unprofitable. “But now” he will be “profitable to thee and to me.” He has not said he will be useful to thee, lest he should contradict it, but he has intro- duced his own person, that his hopes may seem worthy of credit, “But now,” he says, “profitable to thee and to me.” For if he was profitable to Paul, who required so great strictness, much more would he be so to his master. Ver. 12. “Whom I have sent again to thee.” By this also he has quenched his anger, by delivering him up. For masters are then most enraged, when they are entreated for the absent, so that by this very act he mollified him the more. 1551 He means that his words would be felt as a command, and were really not less, but more. 954 Philemon 1:4-6