Onesimus

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.^[5] Onesimus turned up where Paul was imprisoned (Rome or Caesarea Maritima)^[6] to escape punishment for a theft of which he was accused.^[7] 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.^[8] The letter reads (in 1:10-16):

I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was useless to you, but now is useful to you and to me. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave — a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

In this passage Paul is offering a subtle and implicit wordplay on the name of Philemon’s runaway slave Onesimus Ὀνήσιμος (“Useful”) by referring to him as “the one once useless (ἄχρηστος) to you, but now useful (εὔχρηστος) [both] to you and to me.” Paul follows this wordplay up a few verses later (Phlm 20) 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” (ὀναίμην) Paul means that he wishes to gain the services of “Mr. Useful” (Ὀνήσιμος).^[9]

In the Epistle to the Colossians 4:9^[10] 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.

He may^[11] also be the same Onesimus named by Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 107) as bishop in Ephesus^[3][12] In his Epistle written to the Ephesians while on his way to be executed in Rome, Ignatius wrote:

I received, therefore, your whole multitude in the name of God, through Onesimus, whose love surpasses words, in the flesh as your bishop. I pray that you may love him with a love according to Jesus Christ and that you may all be like him. For blessed is He Who granted unto you, worthy as you are, to possess such a bishop.

Onesimus must have accepted episcopal see of Ephesus following Saint Timothy.^[2] If so, Onesimus went from slave to brother to bishop. According to Tradition, Onesimus was imprisoned and may have been martyred by stoning (some sources claim he was beheaded).^[13] Given that Ignatius of Antioch died under Emperor Trajan (97-117), Onesimus's death more likely fell under that Emperor as well.

The 4th-century Apostolic Constitutions (VII, 46) mention Onesimus as the first bishop of Beroea in Macedonia.^[14]

Eastern Orthodox tradition also list an Onesimus as the third bishop of Byzantium, dating his reign from 54 to 68 AD.^[4] 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".^[15]

Quick facts Saint, Installed ...

Saint Onesimus of Byzantium
Bishop of Byzantium
Saint Onesimus
Installed	54 AD
Term ended	68 AD
Predecessor	Stachys the Apostle
Successor	Polycarpus I of Byzantium
Personal details
Died	c. 107 AD
Denomination	Christianity

Close

Onesimus is regarded as a saint by many Christian denominations.