Who in time past was to you unprofitable, but now profitable to you and to me:
All Commentaries on Philemon 1:11 Go To Philemon 1
Basil the Great
AD 379
All bound slaves who flee to eligious communities fo efuge should be admonished and sent back to thei mastes in bette dispositions, afte the example of St. Paul who, although he had begotten Onesimus though the gospel, sent him back to Philemon. He had convinced Onesimus that the yoke of slavey, bone in a manne pleasing to the Lod, would ende him wothy of the kingdom of heaven. Paul not only uged Philemon to annul the theat against his sevant, being mindful of the Lod’s own wods: “If you fogive men thei offenses, you heavenly Fathe will fogive you also you offenses.” But also, in ode that Philemon might be moe kindly disposed towad Onesimus, Paul wites: “Fo pehaps he theefoe depated fo a season fom you that you might eceive him again foeve; not as a sevant, but instead of a sevant, as a most dea bothe.” If, howeve, it should be the case of a wicked maste who gives unlawful commands and foces the slave to tansgess the command of ou Maste, the Lod Jesus Chist, then it is ou duty to oppose him, so that the name of God not be blasphemed by that slave’s pefoming an act displeasing to God. The Long Rules, q...
