Yea, brother, let me have joy of you in the Lord: refresh my heart in the Lord.
Read Chapter 1
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
But when you have joy of a man in God, it is God rather than man that you enjoy. For you enjoy Him by whom you are made happy, and you rejoice to have come to Him in whose presence you place your hope of joy. And accordingly, Paul says to Philemon, “Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord.” For if he had not added “in the Lord,” but had only said, “Let me have joy of thee,” he would have implied that he fixed his hope of happiness upon him, although even in the immediate context to “enjoy” is used in the sense of to “use with delight.” (On Christian Doctrine 1.33)
Yea, brother: may I enjoy thee in the Lord, enjoy the fruits of thy friendship and love for me, and rejoice with thee. In this refresh my bowels in the Lord, grant me this satisfaction. I have written freely, and with confidence in thy obedience; that is, ready compliance, in giving him and me more than I ask, to wit, his freedom. After this, he was made a deacon, and, as some say, a bishop and a martyr. See St. Jerome, and Tillemont in his art. 45. on St. Paul, and his notes 70, 71. (Witham)
The Apostle enjoys only him who has in himself many, coherent virtues and all that Christ, for various reasons, is called- wisdom, righteousness, continence, gentleness, self-control, chastity. And lest one think that he means that enjoyment with which we mutually delight one another, he added ‘in the Lord,’ to make it clear that the enjoyment which someone has without the Lord is a quite different kind of enjoyment.
Yea, brother.
What is, Yea, brother? Receive him, he says. For this we must understand though unexpressed. For dismissing all pleasantry, he again pursues his former considerations, that is, serious ones. And yet even these are serious. For the things that proceed from Saints are of themselves serious, even when they are pleasantry.
Yea, brother, let me have joy of you in the Lord, refresh my heart in Christ.
That is, you grant the favor to the Lord, not to me. My heart, that is, toward yourself.
And he adds, Yes, indeed, brother, may I too make use of you, as if to say, if you want me for a partner, take him back, and I will so use you, brother, that is, if you do it, you will fill my wishes with joy. For to make use is to use the fruit and thus it is to use for the useful, as I enjoy fruit. It implies the sweetness of the fruit; Song of Songs 2:3: ‘And his fruit was sweet to my palate.’ And the end, because the ultimate produce of the tree is its fruit. Therefore, to enjoy is properly to have something which is pleasant and final. Hence Augustine says that we enjoy thinking of things in which the will delights because of their sweetness. Again, to enjoy is to adhere to something for its own sake. Sometimes ‘enjoy’ and ,use’ are taken commonly as implying enjoyment without the contrary. Sirach 8:10: ‘and to serve great men without blame’. Therefore he says, May I too make use of you, because you are against me in nothing. And if in this you please me, there will be nothing in ...
