J. B. Lightfoot on Philemon 1:1-5

καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. ^4Εὐχαριστῶ τᾷ Θεῷ μου πάντοτε, μνείαν σου ποιούμενος ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν μου, ^5ἀκούων σου τὴν ἀγάπην 4–7. ‘I never cease to give thanks to my God for thy well-doing, and thou art ever mentioned in my prayers. For they tell me of thy love and faith—thy faith which thou hast in the Lord Jesus, and thy love which thou showest towards all the saints; and it is my prayer that this active sympathy and charity, thus springing from thy faith, may abound more and more, as thou attainest to the perfect knowledge of every good thing bestowed upon us by God, looking unto and striving after Christ. For indeed it gave me great joy and comfort to hear of thy loving-kindness, and to learn how the hearts of God’s people had been cheered and refreshed by thy help, my dear brother’. The Apostle’s thanksgiving and intercessory prayer (ver. 4)—the cause of his thanksgiving (ver. 5)—the purport of his prayer (ver. 6)—the joy and comfort which he has in Philemon’s good deeds (ver. 7)—this is the very simple order of topics in these verses. But meanwhile all established principles of arrangement are defied in the anxiety to give expression to the thought which is uppermost for the moment. The clause ἀκούων κ.τ.λ. is separated from εὐχαριστῶ κ.τ.λ., on which it depends, by the intervening clause μνείαν σου κ.τ.λ. which introduces another thought. It itself interposes between two clauses μνείαν σου κ.τ.λ. and ὅπως ἡ κοινωνία κ.τ.λ., which stand in the closest logical and grammatical connexion with each other. Its own component elements are dislocated and inverted in the struggle of the several ideas for immediate utterance. And lastly, in χαρὰν γὰρ κ.τ.λ. there is again a recurrence to a topic which has occurred in an earlier part of the sentence (τὴν ἀγάπην ... εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους) but which has been dropped, before it was exhausted, owing to the pressure of another more importunate thought. 4. Εὐχαριστῶ] See the note on 1 Thess. i. 2. πάντοτε] should probably be taken with εὐχαριστῶ (rather than with μνείαν κ.τ.λ.), according to St Paul’s usual collocation in these opening thanksgivings: see the notes on Col. i. 3, Phil. i. 3. μνείαν σου κ.τ.λ.] ‘_making mention of thee_.’ For μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι see the note on 1 Thess. i. 2. Here the ‘mention’ involves the idea of intercession _on behalf of_ Philemon, and so introduces the ὅπως κ.τ.λ. of ver. 6. See the note there. 5. ἀκούων] This information would probably come from Epaphras (Col. i. 7, 8, iv. 12) rather than from Onesimus. The participle is connected more directly with εὐχαριστῶ than with the intervening words, and explains the grounds of the Apostle’s thanksgiving. τὴν ἀγάπην κ.τ.λ.] i.e. ‘the faith which thou hast towards the Lord Jesus Christ and the love which thou showest to all the saints.’ The logical order is violated, and the clauses are inverted in the second part of the sentence, thus producing an example of the figure called chiasm; see Gal. iv. 4, 5. This results here from the Apostle’s setting down the thoughts in the sequence in which they occur to him, without paying regard to symmetrical arrangement. The first and prominent thought is Philemon’s love. This suggests the mention of his faith, as the source from which it springs. This again requires a reference to the object of faith. And then at length comes the deferred sequel to the first thought—the range and comprehensiveness of his love. The transition from the object of faith to the object of love is more easy, because the love is represented as springing from the faith. Some copies transpose the order, reading τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην—an obvious emendation. Others would obviate the difficulty by giving to πίστιν the meaning ‘fidelity, stedfastness’: Winer § 1. p. 511 sq. Thus they are enabled to refer both words, πίστιν καὶ ἀγάπην, equally to both the clauses which follow. But, though this is a legitimate sense of πίστις in St Paul (see _Galatians_, p. 155), yet in immediate connexion with ἣν ἔχεις πρὸς τὸν Κύριον Ἰησοῦν, it is hardly possible that the word can have any other than its proper theological meaning. See the opening of the contemporary epistle, Col. i. 4.