Whom I have sent again: you therefore receive him, that is, my own heart:
All Commentaries on Philemon 1:12 Go To Philemon 1
Thomas Aquinas
AD 1274
Then when he says, I am sending him back to you, he makes his request. First, he makes it, then he answers a question: I had wanted to keep him here. And so he says, and do you welcome him as though he were my very heart. And this because I have seen him changed, the sign of which is, I send him back to you. On the contrary, Deuteronomy 23.15: ‘Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant that is fled to you.’ I reply that is true when the master seeks him in order to put him to death. Therefore, he says, I did not want to do anything...’ Philippians 1-7: ‘I have the right to feel so about you, because I have you in my heart, all of you, alike in my chains.’
