There greet you Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus;
All Commentaries on Philemon 1:23 Go To Philemon 1
Jerome
AD 420
Concerning the identity of Epaphras, Paul’s coprisoner, we accept a story. Some say that the apostle Paul’s parents were from Giscala in Judea and that when the province was devastated by the Romans and the Jews scattered, they emigrated to Tarsus in Cilicia, where Paul was born. Here he inherited as a young man the personal status of his parents. Thus he could state: “They are Hebrews, but so am I; they are Israelites, so am I; they are Abraham’s seed, so am I.” And again, “I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” These indicate that he felt himself more of a Jew than a citizen of Tarsus. Because this was so, we can guess that Epaphras was captured and imprisoned about the same time and that with his parents in Colossae, a city of Asia, he later received the word about Christ. .
