Onesimus


Onesimus was a Christian mentioned in the New Testament. He was a slave to Philemon, a Christian, and is the subject of Paul's Epistle to Philemon.
He may also be the same Onesimus mentioned by Ignatius of Antioch as bishop in Ephesus. Eastern Orthodox tradition also list an Onesimus as the third bishop of Byzantium.

In the New Testament

The name "Onesimus" appears in two of Paul's epistles. The Epistle to Philemon was written by Paul the Apostle to Philemon concerning a runaway slave named Onesimus. Onesimus turned up where Paul was imprisoned to escape punishment for a theft of which he was accused. After hearing the Gospel from Paul, Onesimus converted to Christianity. Paul, having earlier converted Philemon to Christianity, sought to reconcile the two by writing the letter to Philemon which today exists in the New Testament. The letter reads :
In this passage Paul is offering a subtle and implicit wordplay on the name of Philemon’s runaway slave Onesimus Ὀνήσιμος by referring to him as “the one once useless to you, but now useful to you and to me.” Paul follows this wordplay up a few verses later with a figura etymologica on Onesimus’s name: in his exclamation to Philemon—ἐγώ σου ὀναίμην “may I gain some use from you”—he uses a rare verbal form of the word at the root of Onesimus’s name, ὀνίνημι, which is attested only here in the New Testament. By “gaining some use” Paul means that he wishes to gain the services of “Mr. Useful”.
In the Epistle to the Colossians 4:9 a person of this name is identified as a Christian accompanying Tychicus to visit the Christians in Colossae; nothing else is stated about him in this context. He may well be the freed Onesimus from the Epistle to Philemon.

In tradition

He may also be the same Onesimus named by Ignatius of Antioch as bishop in Ephesus In his Epistle written to the Ephesians while on his way to be executed in Rome, Ignatius wrote:
Onesimus must have accepted episcopal see of Ephesus following Saint Timothy. If so, Onesimus went from slave to brother to bishop. According to Tradition), Onesimus was imprisoned and may have been martyred by stoning. Given that Ignatius of Antioch died under Emperor Trajan, Onesimus's death more likely fell under that Emperor as well.
The 4th-century Apostolic Constitutions mention Onesimus as the first bishop of Beroea in Macedonia.
Eastern Orthodox tradition also list an Onesimus as the third bishop of Byzantium, dating his reign from 54 to 68 AD. However, the authenticity of the first 25 bishops of Byzantium are met with skepticism by scholars as "there is no evidence of any significant Christian community at Byzantium before Metrophanes of Byzantium".

Veneration

Onesimus is regarded as a saint by many Christian denominations.

Catholic Church

The traditional Western commemoration of Onesimus is on 16 February. But in the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology, Onesimus is listed under 15 February. There, he is described as " runaway slave, whom the apostle Paul received to the faith of Christ while in prison, regarding him as a son of whom he had become father, as he himself wrote to Philemon, Onesimus's master".

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates Onesimus on a variety of dates:
The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod commemorates him and Philemon on 15 February.