But without your consent would I do nothing; that your benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.
All Commentaries on Philemon 1:14 Go To Philemon 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
This particularly flatters the person asked, when the thing being profitable in itself, it is brought out with his concurrence. For two good effects are produced thence, the one person gains, and the other is rendered more secure. And he has not said, That it should not be of necessity, but as it were of necessity. For I knew, he says, that not having learned it, but coming to know it at once, you would not have been angry, but nevertheless out of an excess of consideration, that it should not be as it were of necessity.
