Philammon

“ In proportion to any man’s reputation for orthodoxy and sanctity, Philammon’s judgment of him was stern and pitiless. More than once events proved him to have been unjust: when he saw himself to be so, none could confess his mistake more frankly, or humiliate himself for it more bitterly: but from his rule he never swerved; and the Pharisees of the Nile dreaded and avoided him, as much as the publicans and sinners loved and followed him.
One thing only in his conduct gave some handle for scandal, among the just persons who needed no repentance. ”

“ Monks have no more business with sons than with wives. Shall we hustle him for you, Philammon?'
'Take care how you show off, gentlemen: the Goths are not yet out of hearing!' answered Philammon, who was learning fast how to give a smart answer; and then, fearing the temper of the young dandies, and shrinking from the notion of any insult to one so reverend and so beloved as Arsenius, he drew the old man gently away, and walked up the street with him in silence, dreading what was coming. ”

“ But man can no more live upon Platonic love than on the more prolific species of that common ailment; and for the first month Philammon would have gone hungry to his couch full many a night, to lie awake from baser causes than philosophic meditation, had it not been for his magnanimous host, who never lost heart for a moment, either about himself, or any other human being. As for Philammon’s going out with him to earn his bread, he would not hear of it. Did he suppose that he could meet any of those monkish rascals in the street, without being knocked down and carried off by main force? ”

“ Then get at wisdom as Solomon did, and give your heart first to know folly and madness . . . . You have read the Book of the Preacher?'
Poor Philammon! He was no longer master of himself. The arguments —the wine—the terrible spell of the old woman's voice and eye, and the strong overpowering will which showed out through them, dragged him along in spite of himself. As if in a dream, he followed her up the stairs.
'There, throw away that stupid, ugly, shapeless philosopher's cloak. So! You have on the white tunic I gave you? And now you look as a human being should. ”

“ With tears of surprise, joy, sorrow, almost of dread, Philammon hung back.
‘Nay—come. Why shouldst thou break thy brethren’s hearts and ours by many leave-takings! Bring from the storehouse a week’s provision of dried dates and millet. The papyrus boat lies at the ferry; thou shalt descend in it. The Lord will replace it for us when we need it. Speak with no man on the river except the monks of God. When thou hast gone five days’ journey downward, ask for the mouth of the canal of Alexandria. Once in the city, any monk will guide thee to the archbishop. ”

“ Philammon walked on in silence by the old priest’s side, stunned and sickened.... ‘And this is what I have come out to see—reeds shaken in the wind, and men clothed in soft raiment, fit only for kings’ palaces!’ For this he had left the dear old Laura, and the simple joys and friendships of childhood, and cast himself into a roaring whirlpool of labour and temptation! This was the harmonious strength and unity of that Church Catholic, in which, as he had been taught from boyhood, there was but one Lord, one Faith, one Spirit. ”

“ No answer.
‘Why, sir, are they not among the most holy and devoted of men?’
‘Ah—yes,’ said his companion, in a tone which sounded very like ‘Ah—no.’
‘You do not think so?’ asked Philammon bluntly.
‘You are young, you are young. Wait a while till you have seen as much as I have. A degenerate age this, my son; not like the good old times, when men dare suffer and die for the faith. We are too prosperous nowadays; and fine ladies walk about with Magdalens embroidered on their silks, and gospels hanging round their necks. ”

“ I should be sorry to accustom Philammon to suppose that the essence of philosophy was to be found in those minute investigations of words and analyses of notions, which seem to constitute Plato’s chief power in the eyes of those who, like the Christian sophist Augustine, worship his letter while they neglect his spirit ”

“ Foul hearts alone harbour such foul suspicions, and fancy others to be what they know they might become themselves. Go! Do I look like—? The very tapering of these fingers, if you could read their symbolism, would give your dream the lie.’ And she flashed full on him, like sun-rays from a mirror, the full radiance of her glorious countenance.
Alas, poor Philammon! where were thy eloquent arguments, thy orthodox theories then? Proudly he struggled with his own man’s heart of flesh, and tried to turn his eyes away; the magnet might as well struggle to escape from the spell of the north. ”

“ To buy clothes, books, and chapel furniture for the common necessities, education, and worship, each man sat, day after day, week after week, his mind full of high and heavenly thoughts, weaving the leaves of their little palm-copse into baskets, which an aged monk exchanged for goods with the more prosperous and frequented monasteries of the opposite bank. Thither Philammon rowed the old man over, week by week, in a light canoe of papyrus, and fished, as he sat waiting for him, for the common meal. ”

“ For the notion of that God-man was receding fast to more and more awful abysmal heights, in the minds of a generation who were forgetting His love in His power, and practically losing sight of His humanity in their eager doctrinal assertion of His Divinity. And Philammon’s heart re-echoed the spirit of his age, when he felt that for an apostate like himself it were presumptuous to entreat for any light or help from the fountain-head itself. He who had denied his Lord, he who had voluntarily cut himself off from the communion of the Catholic Church—how could he restore himself? ”

“ The porter opened his eyes very wide, put his middle finger in a careful and complicated fashion between his fore and third fingers, and extending it playfully towards Philammon, performed therewith certain mysterious signals, the effect whereof being totally lost on him, the little man stopped, took another look at Philammon’s stately figure, and answered—
‘Of the human race in general, my young friend. The philosopher must rise above the individual, to the contemplation of the universal.... ”

“ Can monks do works like these?'
'Other men have laboured, and we have entered into their labours,' answered Philammon, trying to seem as unconcerned as he could. He was, indeed, too utterly astonished to be angry at anything. ”

“ In the four hundred and thirteenth year of the Christian Era, some three hundred miles above Alexandria, the young monk Philammon was sitting on the edge of a low range of inland cliffs, crested with drifting sand. ”

“ Now go; you have been favoured beyond your deserts, and should learn that the philosopher can practise what the Christian only preaches, and return good for evil.' And he put into Philammon's hand a slip of paper, and bid one of the secretaries show him to the outer door. ”

“ And after all, Philammon could pay him back when he became a great sophist, and made money, as of course he would some day or other; and in the meantime, something might turn up—things were always turning up for those whom the gods favoured; and besides, he had fully ascertained that on the day on which he first met Philammon, the planets were favourable, the Mercury being in something or other, he forgot what, with Helios, which portended for Philammon, in his opinion, a similar career with that of the glorious and devout Emperor Julian. ”

“ Philammon, it may be seen, was far advanced by this time; for he bore the allusions to Isis without the slightest shudder. Nay—he dared even to offer consolation to the beautiful mourner.
'The philosopher,' he said, 'will hardly lament the loss of a mere outward idolatry. For if, as you seem to think, there were a root of spiritual truth in the symbolism of nature, that cannot die. ”

“ He would go down, gather a few sticks, and then return, to tell the abbot of the treasure which he had found, and consult him as to the propriety of revisiting it.
So down he went, hardly daring to raise his eyes to the alluring iniquities of the painted imagery which, gaudy in crimson and blue, still blazed out upon the desolate solitude, uninjured by that rainless air. But he was young, and youth is curious; and the devil, at least in the fifth century, busy with young brains. Now Philammon believed most utterly in the devil, and night and day devoutly prayed to be delivered from him ”

“ Philammon at last escaped from the crowd, and putting the letter which he had carried in his bosom into the hands of one of the priests who was mixing with the mob, was beckoned by him into a corridor, and up a flight of stairs, and into a large, low, mean room, and there, by virtue of the world-wide freemasonry which Christianity had, for the first time on earth, established, found himself in five minutes awaiting the summons of the most powerful man south of the Mediterranean. ”

“ But, in fact, they regard Deity as the maker of a dead machine, which, once made, will move of itself thenceforth, and repudiate as heretics every philosophic thinker, whether Gnostic or Platonist, who, unsatisfied with so dead, barren, and sordid a conception of the glorious all, wishes to honour the Deity by acknowledging His universal presence, and to believe, honestly, the assertion of their own Scriptures, that He lives and moves, and has His being in the universe.'
Philammon gently suggested that the passage in question was worded somewhat differently in the Scripture. ”

“ But pray, my good fellow (that I may give yon no other name) , try the living with the living and with his competitors, as you would in all cases—poets, dancers, athletes. Philammon did not, because he was inferior to Glaucus of Carystus and some other champions of a bygone age, depart uncrowned from Olympia, but, because he beat all who entered the ring against him, was crowned and proclaimed conqueror. So I ask you to compare me with the orators of the day, with yourself, with any one you like ”

“ Philemon, the master of Onesimus, was the principal, to whom the letter is inscribed, the head of the family, in whom were the authority and power of taking in or shutting out, and whose property Onesimus was: with him therefore chiefly lay the business. To Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow-labourer; a good man he was, and probably a minister, and on both accounts dearly beloved by Paul. A lover of good men is one property of a good minister (Tit. i. 8) , and especially must such love those who labour with them in the work of the gospel, and who are faithful therein. ”

“ Good thoughts and expectations of us more strongly move and engage us to do the things expected from us. The apostle knew Philemon to be a good man, and was thence persuaded of his readiness to do good, and that not in a scanty and niggardly manner, but with a free and liberal hand. Observe, Good persons will be ready for good works, and not narrow and pinching, but abundant in them. ”

“ The apostle's thanksgiving and prayer for Philemon are here set forth by the object, circumstance, and matter of them, with the way whereby much of the knowledge of Philemon's goodness came to him.
1. Here is the object of Paul's praises and prayers for Philemon: I thank my God, making mention of thee in my prayers, v. 4. Observe, (1.) God is the author of all the good that is in any, or that is done by them. ”

“ Read first chapter of Philemon
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Philemon
WRITER: The Apostle Paul ( 1:1)
DATE: Probably A.D. 64. It is one of the Prison Epistles. See Introductions to Ephesians and Colossians.
THEME: Onesimus ("profitable") , a slave of Philemon, a Christian of Colosse, had robbed his master and fled to Rome. There he became a convert through Paul, who sent him back to Philemon with this letter. It is of priceless value as a teaching
(1) in practical righteousness; (2) in Christian brotherhood; (3) in Christian courtesy; (4) in the law of love. ”

“ Jesus Christ finds us, and by his grace works a change in us, and then intercedes for us with the Father, that we may be received into his favour and family again, and past offences may be forgiven; and we are sure that the Father heareth him always. There is no reason to doubt but Paul prevailed with Philemon to forgive and receive Onesimus: and more reason have we to be confident that the intercession of Christ with the Father is prevalent for the acceptance of all whose case he takes in hand and recommends to him. From these general observations we come to the epistle itself. ”

“ Observe, Even good men may sometimes need great earnestness and entreaty to lay their passions, let go their resentments, and forgive those who have injured and offended them. Some have thought it to look this way, when Paul is so pathetic and earnest, mustering up so many pleas and arguments to gain what he requests. Philemon, a Phrygian, might perhaps be naturally of a rough and difficult temper, and thence need no little pains in touching all the springs that might move him to forgiveness and reconciliation ”

“ Aged, and in prison, he is content to supplicate and entreat. Onesimus was rendered dear to him by his conversation and his services; the child of his affliction, and "ministering unto him in the bonds of the Gospel." This ought to recommend him, whatever had been his fault, to Philemon's forgiveness: "Receive him as myself, as my own bowels." Every thing, however, should be voluntary. St. Paul was determined that Philemon's compliance should flow from his own bounty; "Without thy mind would I do nothing, that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly;" ”