Since as early as the fourth century CE, comparisons have been made between Paul of Tarsus and Seneca the Younger. The two have been compared, among other things, with respect to their views of the divine, the ‘nature’ of human beings, social ethics, and benefaction.Footnote ¹ This article, too, participates in the tradition of comparing Paul and Seneca, albeit from a novel standpoint. Rather than focusing on major themes addressed in each author, the study takes as its point of departure what could otherwise be construed as an insignificant faux pas. Yet, as Pierre Bourdieu has shown, a world of meaning can reside in the simplest gesture. Bourdieu describes ‘an implicit pedagogy which can instill a whole cosmology, through injunctions as insignificant as “sit up straight” or “don't hold your knife in your left hand”, and inscribe the most fundamental principles of the arbitrary content of a culture in seemingly innocuous details of bearing or physical or verbal manners…’Footnote ² The ‘seemingly innocuous detail’ that constitutes the focus of this investigation is an epistolary tactic employed by Paul, which, by Seneca's standards, amounts to a shocking breach of etiquette. The significance of this breach, however, lies not in the light that it sheds on Paul's temperament, but in what it reveals about the divergent ways in which both Paul and Seneca were able strategically to manipulate elements of the Roman reciprocity system within the context of two, almost diametrically opposed economic situations.

Between 56 and 64 CE, Lucius Annaeus Seneca—Seneca the Younger—wrote the most extensive treatise on gift exchange to survive from Greco-Roman antiquity, De Beneficiis, ‘On Benefits’.Footnote ³ Seneca describes a culturally patterned system according to which gifts given ought to be reciprocated by the return of a counter-gift consisting of a valued resource.Footnote ⁴ Counter-gifts could assume various forms, including material donations, wealth, social or political support, and the enhancement of prestige through public praise of the benefactor's magnanimity.Footnote ⁵ No legal sanction enforced the system's operation; social disapproval and approbation served as reciprocity's sanction and reward (Ben. 3.14.2). Although Seneca's treatise ‘draws heavily on specifically Stoic theories and styles of analysis’,Footnote ⁶ not least in his repeated adduction of Chrysippus as an authority (Ben. 1.3.8-4.1; 1.4.4; 2.17.3; 2.25.3; 3.22.1; 7.8.2), the systems of reciprocity that he both describes and advocates reflect prevailing social conventions. ‘What we have here in De Beneficiis is not a philosophical ideal but a shared social ideal… Seneca reflects the language and social etiquette characteristic of the early Principate.’Footnote ⁷

Seneca recognizes the strategic value of ‘placing’ benefits wisely: the wise donor makes every attempt to select donees who are able to reciprocate the gifts given (Ben. 1.10.5; 2.11.4-5)—above all by receiving those gifts with gratitude (2.22; 2.24.1, 4; 2.30.2), but also by returning a counter-gift of value (2.35.1, 5)—although he recognizes that even the most skilled donor will occasionally miscalculate a recipient's willingness or ability to respond with gratitude (1.1.13-1.2.2). Gift-giving is likened to playing a game of pitch and catch: the pitcher makes judgments about the ability of the catcher to receive and return the ball (2.17.3-5; 2.32.1-4).Footnote ⁸ The goal, for Seneca, is to sustain a protracted ‘game’ from which both parties benefit. De Beneficiis serves as a strategy-book for the benefactor, advising him how best to ‘pitch’ his benefits in order to maximize the chance that they will be returned.

Seneca notes, however, that benefactors are motivated by various kinds of rewards: some by the desire for financial counter-gifts that exceed the value of the initial gift, others by the desire for political protection, and still others, including, not least, Seneca himself, by the desire for an enhancement of prestige (3.12.2). Seneca notes that magnanimity results in ‘prestige’ (auctoritas; 3.14.2), ‘merit’ (dignitas; 3.14.3-4), ‘glory’ (gloria; 3.13.2), and ‘renown’ (fama; 2.33.3) for the liberal benefactor.

In keeping with his view that benefaction constituted a strategy by which the skilled giver could maximize his access to valued resources, Seneca warns the would-be donor against behavior that, because it humiliates the donee, minimizes the chance of receiving a counter-gift. Donors are not to give gifts grudgingly, nor with a haughty demeanor, nor are they to seize the act of gift-giving as an opportunity to admonish the donee (2.11.6; 2.13.1-3; 2.17.5). Seneca cites a precedent for this view: ‘Fabius Verrucosus used to say that a benefit rudely given by a harsh man is like bread with gravel in it—a hungry man has to take it, but it is hard to swallow’ (2.7.1).Footnote ⁹ Leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of the recipient, such actions threaten to undermine the efficacy of the act of gift-giving, failing either to elicit social support or to enhance prestige.

The giver, Seneca argues, should not operate like a banker, keeping books and insisting on repayment:Footnote ¹⁰ ‘No one records benefits in an account book (in calendario) and then, like a greedy collection agent (avarus exactor), demands payment at a set day and time. A good man (vir bonus) never thinks about his gifts unless he is reminded by someone wishing to repay them’ (1.2.3). A ‘good man’ never requests that his donation be reciprocated. To remind a donee of a gift given constitutes shameful behavior. ‘It would be hard to say which is more shameful’, Seneca writes, ‘repudiating a benefit or asking for repayment’ (1.1.3). The best way to remind a donee of a gift given is to shower him with additional gifts: ‘Is a man ungrateful in the face of the first benefit? He won't be in the face of the second. Has he forgotten them both? The third will remind him of those he has let slip’ (1.2.5). Again, Seneca writes: ‘Someone who perseveres and heaps benefit upon benefit will squeeze gratitude even from a heart that is hard and forgetful. The recipient won't have the nerve to stare down so many benefits… Besiege him with your benefits’ (1.3.1). This advice is strategic: through multiple acts of gift-giving, the donor is able to demonstrate his magnanimity, and in so doing is more likely to be able to elicit a counter-gift in return. Seneca writes: ‘For benefits attend the person who asks no return and, just as glory (gloria) attends those who flee from it, so those who allow others to be ungrateful will receive a more grateful return for their benefits’ (5.1.4). The benefactor who gives under the pretence that no counter-gift is expected maximizes his returns.Footnote ¹¹ Moreover, such largesse effectively mobilizes the donor's larger community to praise the gift-giver for his beneficence; the benefactor's prestige is thereby enhanced: ‘The more and the greater [the gifts] are, the more praise (laus) they bring to the giver’ (1.15.1).

Paul of Tarsus's Letter to Philemon is a study in contrast to Seneca's advice. Paul does not follow Seneca's admonitions to the benefactor never to call attention to the fact that a gift has been given, and never to approach gift-giving as an accountant, recording profits and expenses in account-books. In an epistolary attempt to persuade the slaveholder Philemon to relinquish one Onesimus into his custody, Paul turns Seneca's advice upside down: he both calls attention to a gift given and raises the specter of an account-book. By Paul's reckoning, Philemon owes Paul, and he owes a great deal. Paul places Philemon in debt for his very life, and he lets Philemon know it.

Although the circumstances that prompted Paul to compose his letter to Philemon from a jail cell, perhaps in Colossae, are less than clear, the most likely views are (1) that the slave Onesimus, having wronged his master in some way and expecting punishment, visited Paul to ask him to intercede with Philemon on his behalf with an appeal for clemency (vv. 17-19)Footnote ¹² or (2) that Onesimus, playing a role analogous to that of Epaphroditus in Paul's letter to Philippi, had been sent to provide for Paul's needs during a period of imprisonment (v. 13).Footnote ¹³ Since vv. 17–19 are difficult to explain if Onesimus had been sent to Paul as the delegate of a house church, the first option may be slightly more probable. Even if the occasion for the prison visit is less than clear, one event that transpired during it is almost certain: Onesimus allowed himself to be convinced by Paul's religious views (vv. 15–16). This was perhaps a strategic move on the slave's part, as it united the two in a hierarchical bond of fictive kinship; Paul construes himself as Onesimus's ‘father’ (v. 10).Footnote ¹⁴ As parent and guardian, Paul writes to Philemon to intercede on Onesimus's behalf: ‘And so if there is any fellowship between us, receive him as you would me. If he has wronged you in any way or owes you, charge it to my account (τοῦτο ἐμοὶ ἐλλόγα)… I will repay it’ (ἐγὼ ἀποτίσω vv. 17–19).Footnote ¹⁵

Having raised the specter of accounts and repayment,Footnote ¹⁶ Paul paraleipticallyFootnote ¹⁷ reminds Philemon of his own indebtedness (v. 19): ‘I need not remind you that you owe me your very self’ (ἵνα μὴ λέγω σοι ὅτι καὶ σεαυτόν μοι προσοϕείλεις). This statement is generally understood as alluding to Paul's view—apparently shared by Philemon—that a positive response to his ‘gospel’ entitled the respondent to salvation from eschatological judgment and eternal life in a heavenly commonwealth.Footnote ¹⁸ Paul construes his position as that of mediator of divine patronage: the god of Israel grants gifts of eschatological salvation—or the promise thereof— and these gifts are mediated through Jesus, the Christ, and in particular through his death on the cross.Footnote ¹⁹ Paul, in turn, mediates these gifts by preaching the gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection (cp. Rom 10.8–9, 14–17). For gifts which the god of Israel has proleptically granted, Jesus' death has enacted, and Paul's gospel mediates, Paul himself, under the norms of reciprocity, lays claim to some form of gift ‘repayment’.Footnote ²⁰

The gift that Paul claims to mediate is a heady one; escape from an eschatological judgment viewed as imminent (1 Thess 1.10; 5.1–10; Rom 1.18; 2.5) and, subsequently, eternal life in a heavenly home (1 Thess 4.13–18; 1 Cor 15.35–55). Inasmuch as the eschatological judgment involves the destruction of ‘sinners’,Footnote ²¹ those who, as the result of their favorable response to his proclamation of the gospel, are construed as recipients of the gift of salvation, become indebted to Paul for their very lives, which, through his preaching of the gospel, Paul saves. Although Philemon owes Paul his very life, or ‘self’, Paul is willing to accept as a substitute for Philemon's ‘life’ the service of his slave, Onesimus.Footnote ²² As Paul writes, ‘I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me (ἵνα…μοι διακονῇ) in your place (ὑπὲρ σοῦ) during my imprisonment for the gospel…’ (v.13). The prepositional phrase ὑπὲρ σοῦ, ‘in your place’, indicates that Onesimus's service constitutes a substitute for Philemon's.Footnote ²³ Paul's words contain an implicit request: ‘I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me…but I preferred to do nothing without your consent… Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say’ (vv. 13-14, 21).Footnote ²⁴ Evidently, Paul wishes Philemon to lend him his slave for some period of time,Footnote ²⁵ either to serve his needs while in prisonFootnote ²⁶ or to assist in his missionary endeavors.Footnote ²⁷

Paul's Letter to Philemon breaks two of Seneca's cardinal rules of benefaction: he draws attention to a gift given, and approaches benefaction as an accountant, asserting that Philemon ‘owes’ him. He owes, in fact, a debt that he cannot repay, that is, his very life, or ‘self’. In Seneca's terms, Paul's heavy-handed deployment of the rhetoric of reciprocity constitutes ‘shameful’ behavior; he does not act as a ‘good man’ should. How are we to account for Paul ‘shameful’ behavior in comparison with Seneca's virtuous advice? Before drawing conclusions that would attribute either a dearth of virtue to Paul, or a surplus to Seneca, an examination of the different economic locations of each is required.

Seneca was born into an equestrian family in the city of Corduba (modern Córdoba) in the Roman military province of Hispania between the years 4 and 1 BCE.Footnote ²⁸ In 37 CE, toward the end of Tiberius's reign, Seneca achieved Senatorial status, beginning a quaestorship in that year. Exiled to Corsica under Claudius in 41 CE, he was recalled in 49 at the prompting of Iulia Agrippina, who promptly enlisted him as the tutor of her son, Nero. Following Nero's elevation as emperor in 54, Seneca was named an amicus principis, a ‘friend of the emperor’. The economic advantages accompanying such a relationship were significant: according to Tacitus, Nero's gifts to Seneca included money, properties, and villas.Footnote ²⁹ Seneca was also enriched during this period through the acquisition of legacies. Tacitus reports that Suillius criticized Seneca for amassing great wealth during the period of his ‘friendship with the king’ (Ann. 13.42). Although it is difficult to assess the accuracy of the figure, Suillius estimated Seneca's worth in 58 CE at 300 million sesterces.Footnote ³⁰

Walter Scheidel and Stephen Friesen, in a recent study of the gross domestic product and the distribution of income in the ancient Roman economy, estimate that wealthier senatorial households—and, during his years as an amicus principis, Seneca would easily have fallen into that category—constituted a rarefied economic bracket that was inhabited by only six ten thousandths to eight ten thousandths of one percent (0.0006–0.0008%) of the Roman population.Footnote ³¹ At the height of his prosperity, there were few who could match Seneca's wealth.

In stark contrast to Seneca's great wealth, Paul of Tarsus claimed to have often suffered from hunger and lack of adequate clothing (1 Cor 4.11; 2 Cor 11.27). As a leatherworking craftsman, Paul inhabited the lower end of the Roman economic scale.Footnote ³² His itinerant mission was likely a source of economic instability, as days or weeks spent on the road did not constitute productive work time.Footnote ³³ Paul found it necessary to ask the communities to whom he preached to provide his travel expenses (Rom 15.24).Footnote ³⁴ Stephen Friesen locates the itinerant preacher's income level at between five and seven on his ‘poverty scale’ of Roman income distribution.Footnote ³⁵ This means that at any given point in time, Paul's income fell somewhere from slightly above to slightly below subsistence level. Friesen recognizes that Paul was likely hosted at times in households that commanded access to a moderate surplus of resources (see, e.g., Phlm 22).Footnote ³⁶ In Corinth, however, tensions within house-churches between factions commanding a moderate surplus of resources and those existing near or below subsistence level rendered the acceptance of such forms of patronage politically unwise.Footnote ³⁷ Paul's boast to the Thessalonians that he worked ‘night and day so as not to burden anyone [economically]’ (1 Thess 2.9; cp. 1 Cor 4.12) is likely indicative of conditions he frequently faced, working to maintain himself near subsistence level.

Information on the widely divergent economic locations of Seneca and Paul allows for an explanation of their differential use of reciprocity ideals that does not simplistically attribute their differences to either a surplus or lack of moral virtue. Seneca's access to vast amounts of economic wealth, and Paul's lack of access to the same, set the conditions under which each creatively deployed elements of the reciprocity system in efforts to obtain valued resources.

Seneca's great wealth inflects his description of gift exchange: it is shameful for the benefactor to call attention to the fact that a gift has been given; the ‘good man’ does not do so. The proper means of reminding a donee that a gift has been given is to give a second or even a third gift. Following Seneca's advice could prove quite costly: the sometime donation of two or even three gifts to a single donee without the assurance of a return, when viewed in terms of the market economy, constitutes a losing strategy. Seneca, however, is at pains to point out that reciprocity does not constitute a market economy: unlike a market exchange, in which a price is decided prior to any transaction, gift-giving is to be carried out, as Seneca opines, ‘for the sake of giving’ (Ben. 1.2.4).

And yet Seneca's careful distinction of the gift economy from that of the market should not be mistaken for altruism.Footnote ³⁸ The distribution of gifts, when they cannot be reciprocated on equal terms, effectively institutes an asymmetrical social relationship between gift-giver and recipient; in Saller's view, that is the definitive characteristic of patronage.Footnote ³⁹ Patronage institutes a social hierarchy in which clients are obliged continually to attempt to discharge the ‘debt’ accrued by their acceptance of patronal gifts.Footnote ⁴⁰ This may be accomplished by providing the patron with social support, gratitude, and public praise.Footnote ⁴¹ Seneca's gift-giving strategy, although economically costly, tenders social and political advantages through the production of a group of subordinates whose support could be called upon when needed.Footnote ⁴² It also effectively elevates the prestige of the donor, who gives in a manner calculated to elicit the gratitude of his clients, to be expressed in public praise.

Such declarations of praise would be expected to exert a multiplicative effect: as individuals and groups hear of the patron's beneficence, his reputation for unstinting giving spreads through the community.Footnote ⁴³ This enhanced reputation, in turn, generates additional clients who imagine that they, too, may be able to benefit from the donor's largesse. Seneca's gift-giving advice may be attributed neither to extraordinary virtue nor to altruism: repeated acts of gift-giving, especially those directed toward recipients who are recalcitrant in returning counter-gifts, serve both to hierarchize social relationships and to enhance the prestige of the benefactor.

Seneca himself visits the question of motive in gift-giving. In a passage that is to be classed among the examples of hyperbole that admittedly pepper his treatise,Footnote ⁴⁴ he writes, ‘the true wish to confer a benefit calls us away, drags us off to endure loss, and abandons self-interest (utilitates relinquit) for the supreme delight of merely doing good’ (Ben. 4.14.4). However, when pressed by the questioning of an imagined interlocutor, Seneca admits that many advantages (commoda) spring from the virtue (virtus) of giving. These include greater security (aetasque securior) through the enhancement of one's ability to mobilize social support, as well as the ‘love and respect of good men’ (amorque et secundum bonorum iudicium; 4.22.3). Seneca asserts that the virtue of gift-giving is to be pursued for its own sake, even as he acknowledges that ‘accessory advantages’ (adventiciis…dotibus; 4.22.4) always accompany benefactions. Seneca devotes sustained attention to the rewards, costs, and motives involved in benefaction, an enterprise that, in his view, involves both rational calculation and risk; he operates self-consciously as a strategist.

Seneca's strategic—and costly—advice of repeated acts of giving is only made possible by his extraordinary wealth.Footnote ⁴⁵ For those who, like Seneca, commanded the economic resources necessary to sustain such patronal practices, substantial non-economic rewards beckoned.

Paul obviously did not command the economic resources necessary to sustain gift-giving practices on the lavish scale advocated by Seneca. Without the economic ability to donate gift after gift to potentially ‘ungrateful’ recipients, Paul literally could not afford to engage in such practices. This does not mean, however, that he lacked the resources necessary to derive benefit from the workings of reciprocity.

In an inversion of the normal patron–client relationship, Paul, an itinerant leather-worker commanding scant economic resources, effectively claims a role as patron, even among those who were, in economic terms, his superiors. By construing those to whom he preached as obliged to render ‘repayment’ in return for his mediation of the gift of their very lives, Paul effectively subordinates as clients even moderately wealthy individuals such as Philemon, who is construed as bound to the apostle by an unrepayable debt.Footnote ⁴⁶ Some brief remarks will suffice to indicate the role of Paul's claim in v. 19 that Philemon stands indebted to him within the broader rhetorical project of the letter.

In his opening address, Paul greets Philemon as a ‘beloved fellow worker’ (v. 1), and in his thanksgiving he refers to the ‘love and faithfulness’ that Philemon exercises toward ‘all the saints’ (v. 5). Philemon's ‘love’ was no doubt tangibly expressed in acts of beneficium (i.e. benefits, gifts, or services, such as those provided by a patron to clients) on behalf of the assembly.Footnote ⁴⁷ In v. 1, Paul names Philemon as a ‘fellow worker’ or ‘colleague’ (συνεργός), lending the impression that both Paul and Philemon are united in a larger project, namely, that of spreading the ‘gospel’ and ‘building up’ the assembly (cp. Rom 14.19; 15.2; 1 Cor 10.3–24).Footnote ⁴⁸ The language of shared community appears again in v. 6, where Paul mentions Philemon's ‘faithful partnership’ (κοινωνία τῆς πίστεως) evident above all in his beneficia to the community, and in v. 17, which points to a ‘partnership’ or ‘association’ (εἰ οὖν με ἔχεις κοινωνόν) between himself and Philemon.Footnote ⁴⁹ Ideals of communal association are also evident in Paul's use of familial language: three times he addresses Philemon as ‘brother’ (vv. 1, 7, 20); they share the same god as father (v. 3).

Paul's language of communal association, especially his depiction of himself and Philemon as ‘brothers’, appears to imply an egalitarian social system that attempted to displace—or at least minimize—a hierarchical social order.Footnote ⁵⁰ Yet the matter is not so simple. Paul's deployment of the language of authority reflects his superior position in a hierarchical relation with Philemon.Footnote ⁵¹ ‘Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty’ (ἐπιτάσσειν σοι τὸ ἀνῆκον), Paul writes, ‘yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love’ (v. 8). By characterizing his appeal as a request based on ‘love’, Paul provides the means for Philemon to avoid the humiliation of being publiclyFootnote ⁵² commanded to do his ‘duty’. The reference to his authority to command, however, carries with it the implication that, should his gracious appeal ‘on the basis of love’ be refused, Paul stands ready to resort to his authority.Footnote ⁵³ The parallel in 1 Cor 4.21 is instructive: τί θέλετε; ἐν ῥάβδῳ ἔλθω πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἢ ἐν ἀγάπῃ πνεύματί τε πραΰτητος; Should the appeal to love fail, Paul indicates that he is willing to resort to the ‘stick’ of disciplinary action.

Paul's statement in v. 14, ‘I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary (κατὰ ἑκούσιον) and not something forced’ (μὴ ὡς κατὰ ἀνάγκην), employs a dialectic between volunteerism and compulsion similar to that of v. 8. Pliny's first letter to Sabinianus exhibits the same dialectic: ‘I fear that I may seem to be applying pressure (cogere) rather than to be pleading (rogare) with you, if I join my prayers (precibus) to his, and I shall do this all the more fully and frankly for having rebuked him more sharply and severely…’ (Ep. 9.21).Footnote ⁵⁴

Paul again points to the asymmetry inherent in his relationship with Philemon in v. 21: ‘Confident of your obedience (ὑπακοή), I am writing to you’ (v. 21).Footnote ⁵⁵ His use of the imperative in v. 22 (ἑτοίμαζέ μοι ξενίαν; ‘prepare a guest room for me’) likewise indicates Paul's superior status. The issue of social stratification takes us to the heart of Paul's use of patronage motifs in his letter to Philemon.

In v. 7, Paul's characterization of the tangible ‘love’ that Philemon extends to the members of the Colossian assembly (v. 7) likely refers to material benefits bestowed on the community. That, combined with the fact that the assembly met in his house (v. 2), and that his household included guest quarters that could accommodate Paul (i.e. the ξενία requested in v. 22),Footnote ⁵⁶ indicates that Philemon played a role in the Colossian assembly analogous to that of the Roman patron, providing needed goods and services to those who enjoyed less wealth and fewer political connections.Footnote ⁵⁷ However, the fact that Philemon provides benefits does not, as often with patron–client relationships, lead to any suggestion that Paul, as beneficiary, occupies a subordinate social position. On the contrary, Paul treats Philemon as his subordinate. In Paul's view, Philemon owes him a debt that he cannot repay, the debt of his own ‘self’ (v. 19); Philemon is effectively reduced to the level of client.

Although it does not, as with Paul, involve the mediation of heavenly patronage by a broker, a narrative in Apuleius of Madauros's Metamorphoses provides an instructive parallel regarding the nature of gift-debt and its implications for social hierarchy. Apuleius's protagonist is one Lucius who, as the result of a mishap precipitated by an excessive curiosity regarding magic, is transformed into an ass. Later, Lucius's human form is restored through the intervention of the goddess Isis. The goddess' transformation of Lucius is described as an act of heavenly patronage (de caelo patronicium; Met. 11.16) and a benefaction (beneficium; Met. 11.6, 12, 13, 18), to which the proper response is gratitude (gratia; 11.14) expressed in the following manner: ‘You will clearly remember and keep forever sealed deep in your heart the fact that your life's course is pledged to me [i.e. Isis] until your last breath. Nor is it unjust that you should owe all the time you have to live (totum debere quod vives) to her by whose benefit (beneficium) you return to the world of men’ (11.6). As a perpetually indebted client, Lucius is to ‘take on the voluntary yoke of [the goddess'] service’ (ministerii iugum subi voluntarium); he is to become her slave (deae servire; 11.15).Footnote ⁵⁸ For the gift of a life, a life is owed; that is why Paul is able to claim Philemon's (Phlm 17).Footnote ⁵⁹ In Paul's view, however, the services of Philemon's ‘useful’ slave (v. 11), Onesimus, provided an acceptable substitute (v. 13: ‘in order that he might serve in your place…’).

Following up on a suggestion of John Barclay, David Briones has argued that in Second Corinthians, ‘both Paul and the Corinthians operate interchangeably as brokers of one another’; that is, both parties mutually contribute ‘goods’ derived from the god of Israel.Footnote ⁶⁰ The situation in the letter to Philemon is similar. Philemon plays the role of patron or benefactor, offering material benefits to the assembly; Paul, on the other hand, characteristically mediates ‘spiritual’ benefits, including deliverance from apocalyptic judgment (1 Thess 1.10) and divine ‘wisdom’ normally inaccessible to humans (1 Cor 2.6–13).Footnote ⁶¹ However, in light of his treatment of Philemon as a social subordinate, it is clear that Paul does not hold material and spiritual benefits as existing on a par; ‘spiritual’ benefits are accorded greater value. On this point, Paul stands in agreement with the idea expressed in a rhetorical question attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels (Matt 16.26; par. Mark 8.37): ‘What will a person give in exchange for his life (ψυχή)?’ In the view of both Paul and the synoptics, a suitable return cannot be made for the (promised) deliverance of one's life from apocalyptic judgment. Philemon's material benefactions do not adequately compensate Paul's ‘spiritual’ contributions.

The disproportionate value of Paul's ‘spiritual’ contributions implies a patronage relationship with Philemon. As Richard Saller points out, ‘the patronus–cliens relationship had no “technical sense” and no formal standing in law… [T]he words patronus and cliens were applied to a wide range of bonds between men of unequal status… Proculus' basic condition for clientage was the superiority of one party in auctoritas, dignitas, and vires.’Footnote ⁶² Paul's use of the language of authority is sufficient to establish his superior auctoritas, dignitas, and vires in his relationship with Philemon. Although the letter does not employ the Greek equivalents of the terms patronus or cliens,Footnote ⁶³ it construes the relationship between Paul and Philemon as one ‘between men of unequal status’; a discrepancy brought about not least by Paul's mediation of an unrepayable gift. In that respect, Paul's relationship with Philemon mimics that of a patron and his client, even as it inverts the normal hierarchical order based on wealth.Footnote ⁶⁴ In Paul's adaptation of Roman patronage practices, it is one's access to ‘spiritual’ resources, not material wealth, that most effectively confers status.

Although Paul's claims to apostolic authority likely played a role in his construction of hierarchical relations within his house churches,Footnote ⁶⁵ the term ‘apostle’ does not occur in the letter to Philemon. In Philemon's case, it is not least his reduction to the level of client indebted to Paul that maintains the asymmetrical relationship. And Philemon's indebtedness Paul does not hesitate to point out. In return for his mediation of the heavenly gift of eschatological salvation, Paul is able to call upon Philemon to offer as a counter-gift the services of his slave, Onesimus.

Seneca's construction of the image of the patronal ‘good man’ who lavishes gift after gift, even upon the ungrateful, without drawing attention to the fact that gifts have been given may be attributed to virtue as little as it may be to altruism. Conversely, Paul's willingness to point to his role as mediator of divine gifts, and in that role to lay claim to a counter-gift, is not necessarily indicative of a dearth of virtue on his part. Each utilizes the assets at his disposal, whether vast wealth or a discursively constructed role as mediator of divine benefaction, in the manner that maximizes his chances of gaining access to valued resources. These resources include the superior social status attendant upon fulfilling the role of patron or patronage broker, enhanced prestige brought about by the praises of grateful clients, and, in Paul's case, through an inversion of normal patron–client relations, access to the labor services of a wealthier man's slave. Like skilled players in a protracted game of pitch and catch, both Seneca and Paul utilized the resources at their disposal in attempts to gain access to resources they desired.

Their differential utilization of reciprocity norms does not, however, imply that Paul and Seneca functioned as purely self-motivated actors deploying gift-giving conventions to serve only their own interests. In Paul's case, his intervention with Philemon likely benefitted Onesimus, if only by sparing him punishment for whatever ‘wrong’ he had committed against his master. In Seneca's case, his largesse served as a means of support and political advancement for his clients, as both Juvenal and Martial attest. Even so, it is clear that the operations of the gift economy were heavily inflected by the material and socio-political interests of the actors involved. Under the best of circumstances, the interests of donors and recipients complemented one another. Inasmuch as Philemon's positive response to Paul's implicit request in Phlm 13 would have entailed a loss of his slave's labor for some period of time, however, it is evident that as with most games, the winnings and losses associated with benefaction were not necessarily distributed equally among all the players involved.