Feast day: February 16

St. Onesimus

Bishop, Martyr · 1st century

Patron of —

A runaway slave converted by St. Paul in prison; Paul sent him back to his master Philemon with a letter that quietly undid slavery, calling him now 'a brother.'

Onesimus enters history in one of the shortest and most personal books of the New Testament: St. Paul's letter to Philemon. He was a slave in the household of Philemon, a well-to-do Christian of Colossae, from whom he ran away — apparently after some theft — and made his way to Rome.

There he encountered the imprisoned Paul, who converted and baptized him and came to love him as a son, calling him 'my own heart.' Roman law gave a master near-total power over a recaptured runaway, yet Paul chose to send Onesimus back, carrying a letter that gently but unmistakably asked Philemon to receive him 'no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother.'

The little letter is a quiet revolution: without abolishing the institution outright, it dissolves the bond of master and slave from within, in the name of their shared baptism. Paul even offers to repay whatever Onesimus owed, and hints that he would gladly have the freed man returned to his own service.

Early tradition holds that Onesimus was indeed freed, became a leader in the Church, and was made a bishop; a generation later St. Ignatius of Antioch praised an Onesimus as bishop of Ephesus. He is honoured as a martyr.

He is the subject of an entire book of the New Testament — Paul's letter to Philemon — pleading that a runaway slave be received back as a beloved brother.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/11797b.htm