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The Old Paul: Philemon 9 in Light of Recent Research on the Experience and Ideology of Age in Antiquity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2025

Laurence Welborn Open the ORCID record for Laurence Welborn [Opens in a new window]
Laurence Welborn*
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Department of Theology, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA
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Email: welborn@fordham.edu
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Abstract

The essay explores the implications of Paul's description of himself as an ‘old man’ (πρεσβύτης) in Phlm. 9 for his rhetorical strategy, his psychological state and his social role. The essay first counters the interpretation of πρεσβύτης in Phlm. 9 as ‘ambassador’ and identifies the sources of the interpreters’ resistance to Paul’s description of himself as an ‘old man’. On the basis of demographic data, the essay suggests that Paul was a man of about sixty when he wrote to Philemon and that Paul would have aged prematurely in consequence of what he had suffered as an apostle. The essay then argues that Paul’s description of himself as an ‘old man’ functions in the argumentative rhetoric of his epistle both as a pathetic and an ethical appeal, simultaneously arousing pity and engendering respect. Finally, the essay contemplates the source of the ‘confidence’ shown by Paul in his appeal to Philemon, despite his senescence and imprisonment.

Keywords

old ageπρεσβύτηςπρεσβευτήςdemographypathetical proofethical prooflogical proof

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New Testament Studies , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , April 2025 , pp. 218 - 230
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press.

1 Introduction

The Apostle Paul is the only writer in the New Testament who makes a statement about his age. Appealing to Philemon on behalf of his slave Onesimus, Paul describes himself in the following manner (Phlm 9): ‘being such as I am, Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus’ (τοιοῦτος ὢν ὡς Παῦλος πρεσβύτης νυνὶ δὲ καὶ δέσμιος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ).Footnote 1 The great Antiochene commentator, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, clearly recognised the term πρεσβύτης in Phlm 9 as a reference to Paul’s old age.Footnote 2 But modern interpreters have been reluctant to embrace this understanding, preferring to translate πρεσβύτης as ‘ambassador’. Among interpreters who judge that Paul is referring to his age, few explore the implications of Paul’s self-description for his rhetorical strategy, his psychological state and his social role. A notable exception is Ronald Hock, who argued that, by ‘identifying himself as an old man and a prisoner (vs. 9) and Onesimus as his child (vs. 10)’, Paul casts himself ‘in the role of an old father who is in need of his child’s support – an accepted convention of children toward their aged parents’.Footnote 3

Meanwhile, in the last few decades, there has been a surge of interest in old age as a social and cultural phenomenon in the Greco-Roman world.Footnote 4 And yet, apart from a few studies of the Pastoral Epistles,Footnote 5 the growing body of knowledge about age as an aspect of social identity has not been imaginatively applied to the writings of the New Testament. Thus, one may hope that recent research will open fresh insights into the only New Testament writing in which the author identifies himself as ‘old’.

2 The Meaning of πρεσβύτης

To begin, it is necessary to counter the interpretation of πρεσβύτης in Phlm 9 as ‘ambassador’ and to identify, if possible, the sources of resistance to Paul’s description of himself as an ‘old man’. In his commentary on Philemon, John Calvin may be said to have initiated the modern debate over whether to render πρεσβύτης as ‘old man’ or ‘ambassador’.Footnote 6 Although Calvin retained the term senex in his translation, he remarked at the end of his exposition of Phlm 9: ‘The designation presbytēs, here, denotes not the age, but the office (non aetatum, sed officium),’ adding, ‘for this reason he calls himself an apostle’.Footnote 7 In Calvin’s comments, the concern becomes audible that Paul’s reference to his age may diminish his authority. Calvin insists: ‘he does not mean that they whom Christ has appointed to be apostles are destitute of authority.’Footnote 8 As we shall see, a concern about Paul’s authority runs through the interpretive tradition of πρεσβύτης as ‘ambassador’.

Then, in the eighteenth century, the great Cambridge classicist Richard Bentley offered a conjectural emendation of the text of Phlm 9 which happened to accord with Calvin’s view of Paul’s meaning: he proposed the addition of a single letter, an epsilon, to the problematic term πρεσβύτης, thus producing the word that he thought Paul intended: πρεσβευτής, that is, ‘legatus’.Footnote 9 Bentley judged that the emendation was supported by the language of Eph 6.20, πρεσβεύω ἐν ἁλύσει (‘I am an ambassador in chains’) and 2 Cor 5.20, ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ πρεσβεύομεν (‘on behalf of Christ we are ambassadors’). The reason Bentley offered for viewing πρεσβευτής as a ‘definite improvement’ (certa emendatio) was not only the appearance of the verb πρεσβεύω in certain Pauline texts, but a speculative calculation of Paul’s probable age at the time of composition of the epistle to Philemon. Observing that Paul is described as νεανίας (‘a young man’) at the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7.58, Bentley questioned whether Paul could plausibly refer to himself as an ‘old man’ in Phlm 9, asking ‘Ergo quomodo πρεσβύτης?’Footnote 10 Beneath Bentley’s conjecture and its rationale, one senses an aversion to the category of old age as applied to the apostle, as if by being old, Paul would have lost some part of himself.

Both sources of resistance to Paul’s description of himself as an old man combine in the influential commentary on Philemon by Joseph Barber Lightfoot.Footnote 11 In his comment on Phlm 9, Lightfoot relates that he was inclined to read πρεσβευτής rather than πρεσβύτης, on account of the comparable language of Eph 6.20 (ὑπὲρ οὗ πρεσβεύω ἐν ἁλύσει), even before he became aware of the conjectural emendation proposed by Bentley.Footnote 12 Thus, being convinced that Paul spoke of himself as an ‘ambassador’, Lightfoot began to question whether any emendation was necessary.Footnote 13 Lightfoot argued that by Paul’s time the difference between πρεσβύτης and πρεσβευτής had begun to vanish in common usage, so that πρεσβύτης might be used with the meaning ‘ambassador’.Footnote 14 In support of this assertion, Lightfoot adduced several Septuagint mss. (2 Chron 32.31; 1 Macc 13.21; 14.21; 15.17; 2 Macc 11.34) in which the two nouns appear to be used interchangeably, along with Ignatius Smyrn. 11.2, where the mss. read θεοπρεσβύτης, although the meaning is ‘an ambassador of God’.Footnote 15 Lightfoot’s further comments reveal the assumptions underlying his preference for ‘ambassador’ as the meaning of πρεσβύτης. First, Lightfoot supposes that the point of Phlm 9 is to ‘enforce Paul’s right to command’, arguing that the addition of the qualifier Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ to the words πρεσβύτης and δέσμιος ‘suggests an appeal to authority’.Footnote 16 Second, Lightfoot allows that he finds a reference to Paul’s age in Phlm 9 problematic: ‘It is difficult to understand how St. Paul should make his age a ground of appeal to Philemon who, if Archippus was his son, cannot have been much younger than himself.’Footnote 17

Lightfoot’s interpretation has attracted many adherents.Footnote 18 Some repeat and augment Lightfoot’s lexical argument that ‘old man’ and ‘ambassador’ are equally viable translations of πρεσβύτης, so that only the context can determine which meaning is preferable.Footnote 19 Ernst Lohmeyer, for example, asserted that δέσμιος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ should be regarded as a title, so that πρεσβύτης, which is paired with δέσμιος, must also be a title, necessitating the translation ‘ambassador’.Footnote 20 Others offer syntactical arguments for understanding πρεσβύτης as ‘ambassador’. Ulrich Wickert construed the circumstantial participles in Phlm 8 and 9, ἔχων and ὤν, as compositionally parallel and logically concessive, so that Paul relinquishes both his confidence to command and his status as a πρεσβύτης; in this case, Wickert argued, πρεσβύτης must be understood as ‘ambassador’.Footnote 21 Still others provide rhetorical analyses in support of taking πρεσβύτης as ‘ambassador’. Norman Petersen found a series of semantic contrasts running through Phlm 8–16 (e.g., ‘formerly useless…now useful’ in vs. 11);Footnote 22 within this series, he argued, πρεσβύτης contrasts with δέσμιος, suggesting that πρεσβύτης must mean ‘ambassador’, since ‘old man’ and ‘prisoner’ are ‘not a contrast at all’.Footnote 23

Throughout the interpretive tradition which renders πρεσβύτης as ‘ambassador’, one encounters two sources of resistance to the idea of Paul as an old man: first, a concern to defend Paul’s apostolic authority against the encroachment of age, and second, a recoil from the image of the elderly Paul as pitiable. So, for example, F. F. Bruce reasons: ‘If Paul did refer to himself here as an old man, then his appeal would appear to be based on pity…But Paul did not regard his being “a prisoner of Christ Jesus” as a disgrace, or as a situation calling for pity; to him it was a matter of pride. Therefore, we should expect the term which he uses in such close conjunction with this to be also a designation of honor; and the more recent versions are probably right to prefer the rendering “ambassador” to “old man”.’Footnote 24 Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke reject the translation ‘old man’ as contributing to the notion that Paul ‘displays a lachrymose self-pity’, concluding that ‘a sentimental way of exhortation is out of the question,’ because it does not comport with the reality of Paul’s ‘rightful authority’.Footnote 25

Despite the strength of the interpretive tradition which prefers to render πρεσβύτης as ‘ambassador’, some modern scholars have continued to defend the patristic understandingFootnote 26 that in Phlm 9 Paul describes himself as ‘an old man’.Footnote 27 So, for example, in his Hermeneia commentary, Eduard Lohse concludes: ‘Therefore, in saying that he is a πρεσβύτης, Paul is alluding to his age. Paul is not employing his apostolic authority here; he is speaking to Philemon as an elderly man.’Footnote 28 Similarly, Joseph Fitzmyer comments: ‘Paul identifies himself by name and thus implies his authority, given his seniority, in virtue of which he pleads with the younger Philemon. This part of the verse describes his current status, as elderly man and a prisoner, and thus offers a basis for the plea he is making.’Footnote 29

If the number of scholars favouring the interpretation of πρεσβύτης as ‘ambassador’ has declined in the last twenty-five years,Footnote 30 and if the NRSV has opted for the translation ‘old man’, rather than ‘ambassador’,Footnote 31 it is because the foundation of the modern preference for the reading ‘ambassador’ has crumbled, piece by piece. First, all Greek mss. of Phlm 9 read πρεσβύτης, ‘an old man’, without evidence of any other reading, and without indication of any difficulty perceived in the word;Footnote 32 that is, there is no manuscript evidence to justify the substitution of πρεσβευτής, ‘ambassador’, for πρεσβύτης. Second, the conjectural emendation proposed by Bentley has been shown to be without merit. On the basis of an investigation of the papyri, J. N. Birdsall demonstrated that ‘Changes of /ευ/ to /υ/’, such as Bentley supposes to have occurred in the transmission of the text, ‘are extremely rare whether in the Ptolemaic, the Roman or the Byzantine periods. When it occurs, there is no deductible phonetic reason’.Footnote 33 Third, the lexical argument of Lightfoot, that πρεσβύτης might be written indifferently for πρεσβευτής, has been undermined by the discovery of new manuscripts and by further evaluation of the textual tradition. A papyrus ms. of Ignatius Smyrn. 11.2 has come to light which reads θεοπρεσβευτής,Footnote 34 rather than the previously known θεοπρεσβύτης, adduced by Lightfoot. To be sure, in some Byzantine mss. of the LXX, instances of πρεσβύτης as a variant for πρεσβευτής occur – namely, those cited by Lightfoot. But these instances should be regarded as natural errors, occasioned by the familiarity of the former term and the rarity of the latter,Footnote 35 and cannot support the conclusion that the scribes regarded these terms as synonymous.Footnote 36 That an error did not occur in the copying of Paul’s epistle is indicated by the unanimous attestation of πρεσβύτης throughout the whole manuscript tradition of whatever date.Footnote 37

3 Demographic Factors

If we accept that Paul describes himself as an ‘old man’ in Phlm 9, what does this tell us – first of all, about Paul’s age at the time of composition of this epistle? It must be acknowledged that there is no agreement in ancient sources on when old age began.Footnote 38 As Tim Parkin observes, ‘Literary evidence from antiquity may be adduced to “show” that old age could be stated as beginning as early as the age of 42 years or as late as 77 years.’Footnote 39 Nevertheless, in sources from the first century bce onwards, the age of sixty is commonly mentioned as the threshold of old age.Footnote 40 In De specialibus legibus, Philo uses πρεσβύτης to designate a man who has lived beyond the age of sixty.Footnote 41 In De opificio mundi, Philo records a tradition (ascribed to Hippocrates) which divides human life into seven ages – the little boy (παιδίον), the boy (παῖς), the lad (μειράκιον), the young man (νεανίσκος), the man (ἀνήρ), the elderly man (πρεσβύτης), the old man (γέρων) – and explains that these ages are measured by multiples of seven.Footnote 42 According to this calculation, a πρεσβύτης would be somewhat less than sixty – that is, a man fifty to fifty-six years old. Other systems of reckoning the ‘ages of man’ (gradus aetatum) are found in astronomical and medical writers.Footnote 43 Ptolemy articulated a sevenfold division of life, each age under the influence of a planet, ingeniously calculating the duration of each stage of life in proportion to the orbit of the corresponding planet around the earth: accordingly, elderly age (ἡ πρεσβυτικὴ ἡλικία), allotted to Jupiter, lasts twelve years, from fifty-six to sixty-eight; while to Saturn falls old age (ἡ γεροντικὴ ἡλικία), from sixty-eight to the end of life.Footnote 44 It may be doubted whether these ancient ‘scientific’ divisions of human life, with their obvious preference for numerology, had any influence upon Paul when he described himself as a πρεσβύτης. But ancient testimony is generally consistent with the idea that old age began at about the age of sixty, a conclusion which is confirmed by the rather limited evidence of the papyri: e.g., in P.Flor. I.50, 3, 62 (268 ce), a certain Victor is described as a πρεσβύτης of about 68 years.Footnote 45

As an ‘elderly man’ of about sixty, to what proportion of the population of the Greco-Roman world would Paul have belonged? An answer to this question necessitates consideration of the probable age structure of ancient society. The calculations of the demographers put average life expectancy at birth in the ancient world in the range of twenty to thirty years.Footnote 46 In large measure, this average life expectancy was the result of high infant mortality.Footnote 47 But the mortality rate of those who survived infancy may also have been high,Footnote 48 owing to the chronic malnutrition of the poor,Footnote 49 and the lack of public hygiene that might have prevented the spread of disease.Footnote 50 To be sure, some individuals are known to have lived longer, especially persons from the upper class.Footnote 51 But if we adopt the estimates of the demographers and take the average life expectancy at birth to be twenty-five years, then only between 6% and 8% of the population would have reached the age of sixty.Footnote 52

It is worthy of note that Paul describes himself as old. Researchers on old age, both historians of antiquity and modern gerontologists, recognise that, in everyday life, old age is not usually defined chronologically, but is rather a result of a subjective and intersubject-ive assessment.Footnote 53 One is ‘old’ when one sees oneself as old, and when one is treated as old by others. When and how this happens is dependent upon a number of social and cultural factors. The great Dutch Catholic commentator on Paul’s epistles, Willem Hessels van Est, suggested that Paul had aged prematurely in consequence of what he had suffered as an apostle, and that Paul’s consciousness of this condition comes to expression in Phlm 9.Footnote 54 In 2 Cor 11. 23–5, Paul lists the hardships he had endured as a minister of Christ: imprisonments, floggings, near-death experiences, five times the Jewish punishment of forty lashes minus one, three times beaten with rods, once he was stoned, three times shipwrecked, a night and a day adrift at sea.Footnote 55 There can be little doubt that such torturous experiences would have resulted in premature ageing. Moreover, Moses Finley emphasised that class distinctions governed the way in which old age took hold of a person in antiquity.Footnote 56 In his essay on old age, De senectute, Cicero concedes that ‘old age cannot be easy in extreme poverty’.Footnote 57 In 1 Cor 4.11–12, Paul recounts the privations he suffered as an apostle of Christ: ‘To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands.’Footnote 58 Hunger was endemic among the lower classes of the Roman Empire,Footnote 59 and homelessness was the occasional lot of the poor;Footnote 60 both conditions would have fallen with special force upon the elderly, and would have accelerated Paul’s process of ageing. But surely imprisonment would have contributed most to Paul’s sense of himself as aged,Footnote 61 because of the lack of proper nourishment, the prevalence of disease and the incidence of torture by prison guards.Footnote 62 In Phil 1.21–2, Paul reveals that death might be considered a ‘gain’ (κέρδος) under the harsh conditions of his imprisonment and implies that he actually might prefer death.Footnote 63

4 The Rhetoric of Paul’s Argumentation

How, then, does Paul’s description of himself as an ‘old man’ function in the argumentative rhetoric of his appeal to Philemon? In our attempt to comprehend Paul’s strategy, we shall consider each of the ‘proofs’ involved in the invention of Paul’s discourse,Footnote 64 beginning with the pathetic proofs, or appeals to the emotions.Footnote 65 Although commentators are averse to the idea that Paul is appealing to pity, ancient literature makes clear that old age was regarded as pitiable.Footnote 66 In the compilation of quotations on old age (περὶ γήρως) created by Stobaeus in his Florilegium, the majority convey a negative image, evoking or deserving pity.Footnote 67 In the pseudo-Platonic Axiochus (first century bce), Socrates quotes from a discourse by the sophist Prodicus, which describes the effects of nature upon an aged man: ‘Then old age creeps upon him unawares, into which flows all in nature that is mortal and perishable. And unless one quickly pays back living, like a debt, nature stands by like a money lender, taking security – sight from one, from another hearing, and often both. And if someone resists, nature paralyses, mutilates, or dislocates limbs.’Footnote 68

A lengthy passage in Juvenal’s tenth satire describes old persons as losing their physical and mental faculties.Footnote 69 An old man is one in whom ‘diseases of every kind dance around in a troupe’; Juvenal elaborates: ‘One suffers in the shoulder, another in the loins, a third in the hip; another has lost both eyes, and envies those who have one; another takes food into his pallid lips from someone else’s fingers.’ Juvenal continues: ‘But worse than any loss in body is the failing mind which forgets the names of slaves and cannot recognize the face of the old friend who dined with him last night, nor those of the children whom he has begotten and brought up.’Footnote 70

Pliny the Younger describes an acquaintance, Domitius Tullus, as a pitiful example of decrepit and dependent old age. Despite his fortune, Tullus was a helpless invalid: ‘Crippled and deformed in every limb, he could only enjoy his vast wealth by contemplating it and could not even turn in bed without assistance. He also had to have his teeth cleaned and brushed for him – a squalid and pitiful detail – and when complaining about the humiliations of his infirmity was often heard to say that every day he licked the fingers of his slaves.’Footnote 71

With a view to the impoverished conditions of Paul’s life described in 1 Cor 4.9–13, a passage from the second-century ce philosopher Juncus (preserved in Stobaeus) frankly acknowledges the additional miseries which poverty brings upon the aged: ‘If moreover poverty happened to befall a man when he had become old, he would himself pray to be freed totally from life: this is because of his deprivation in all respects, not having anyone to guide him, nor a source of support, nor having adequate clothing, and lacking shelter and food. There are times when he does not have anyone to draw even some water for him.’Footnote 72

That persons made old age a ground of appeal for remission of duties and obligations is illustrated by a second-century ce papyrus, a petition in which a veteran asks for release because he is an old man and alone, ἄνθρωπος πρεσβύτης καὶ μόνος τυγχάνων,Footnote 73 hoping to arouse pity.

It is therefore likely that in describing himself as ‘an old man and now also a prisoner’, Paul was appealing for Philemon’s pity.Footnote 74 Among the pathetic proofs, the appeal to pity was regarded by ancient rhetorical theorists as the most powerful.Footnote 75 As Quintilian observes: ‘but the appeal which will carry the most weight is the appeal to pity (plurimum tamen valet miseratio), which not merely forces one to change his views, but even to betray his emotions by tears.’Footnote 76

Only, it should be questioned whether in appealing for Philemon’s pity, Paul was touching upon something deeper. Three times in the epistle, Paul invokes ἀγάπη (Phlm 5, 7, 9) as the emotion which binds all involved in the correspondence – Philemon, the saints in his household and himself. Three times Paul refers to the σπλάγχνα, the ‘affection’, that connects all who are in Christ. That is, in the course of Paul’s epistle, it seems that pity is being transformed into a deeper emotion: affection, compassion, love.Footnote 77

Nevertheless, the commentators are not wrong who view Paul’s description of himself as ‘an old man’ as an ethical appealFootnote 78 for the respect that is due to an elder because of his experience, endurance and wisdom.Footnote 79 In his De senectute, Cicero refutes four complaints against old age: that old age takes a person away from public activities, that old age weakens the body, that old age is lacking in pleasures and that old age is not far from death.Footnote 80 The dialogue is placed in the mouth of the venerable Cato the Elder, who is eighty-three years old. Cato, the novus homo with dignitas,Footnote 81 serves as the exemplar of praiseworthy old age, active and influential to the end.Footnote 82 Cato argues that the old man can provide an example of moderation and good sense, together with sound advice. The greatest pleasure of old age – the apex senectutis – is held to be auctoritas, the prestige and respect an old man may enjoy if he has led an active public life.Footnote 83

A message about the dignity of old age is conveyed by the veristic old-age portrait busts which appeared during the first century bce, portraits which depict wrinkles, folds of loose, flabby skin, sunken cheeks and balding heads.Footnote 84 Yet, these features evidently seek to represent the dignitas and gravitas of age. As Karen Cokayne observes, ‘Importantly, these portraits reveal how these old people wanted to be seen, and the depiction and characterization of old age is deliberate.’Footnote 85 The old are consistently depicted with well-composed, serious expressions. The exaggerated wrinkles and creases of skin created a ‘topography of virtue’, so to speak: ‘they were suggestive of years of experience and time-induced strength of character, of hard work and service to the state.’Footnote 86 The wrinkles and solemn facial expressions aimed to elicit approving responses from spectators.Footnote 87 The libertini adhered to this realistic style of portraiture down to the second century ce. The funerary reliefs depict ordinary people as proud of the way they looked in old age – both men and women, artisans, as shown by the attributes of their trades carved at their sides.Footnote 88

In his essay ‘On whether an old man should engage in public affairs’, Plutarch argues that the statesman should not retire on account of age; indeed, the spirit of service to the community never grows old.Footnote 89 Plutarch observes that ‘cities, when they are in difficulties or in fear, long for the rule of older men’.Footnote 90 Old men, Plutarch asserts, can benefit the commonwealth by their reason (λόγος), judgement (γνώμη), frankness (παρρησία), justice (δικαιοσύνη), moderation (σωφροσύνη) and wisdom (ϕρόνησις) – all qualities which are acquired ‘late and slowly’.Footnote 91 Above all, the old should advise and instruct the young, encouraging, directing, guiding and supporting them, so that they are prepared for service to their communities.Footnote 92

Pliny the Younger praises T. Vestricius Spurinna for the orderliness of his life in old age.Footnote 93 Spurinna’s daily regimen includes walking three miles, conversation with friends, listening as a book is read aloud, taking a carriage ride, composing poems in Greek and Latin, all before his bath and dinner.Footnote 94 ‘The consequence is that, though he has passed his seventy-seventh year, his hearing and sight are strong and unimpaired, his body is still active and alert, and the only symptom of his age is his wisdom.’Footnote 95 Pliny judges: ‘There is no one whom I should prefer to take as my model in old age, if I am allowed to grow old.’Footnote 96

In Ptolemy’s account of the stages of life, the astronomer insists that ‘it is essential to consider the different qualities of the several stages of life, and to pre-determine the appropriate fitness of every age to such events as may be expected’.Footnote 97 In the sphere of Jupiter, who presides over ‘elderly age’ (ἡ πρεσβυτικὴ ἡλικία), ‘toil and turmoil’ are replaced by ‘decorum, foresight, retirement, together with all-embracing deliberation, admonition, and consolation’.Footnote 98 Ptolemy concludes: ‘Now, especially, Jupiter brings men to care about honor, praise, and independence, accompanied by modesty and dignity.’Footnote 99

The evidence adduced above makes clear that old age was regarded positively in some circles, as a season of life that might bring wisdom and moderation, and that often engendered respect. However, it should not go unnoticed that the literature which conveys this perspective is the product of upper-class authors, such as Cicero and Pliny. As Socrates wryly remarks to his elderly friend Cephalus, ‘most people might think that you bear old age lightly not because of your character but because of your wealth; for the rich, they say, have many consolations’.Footnote 100 Nevertheless, Paul’s description of himself as ‘an old man’ should be recognised as a contribution to his rhetorical ἦθος, as an appeal for the respect that members of a group should pay to an elder.Footnote 101 It should not be surprising that a single locution, ‘old man’, should function both as a pathetic and an ethical appeal, since scholars have long recognised the rhetorical sophistication and complexity of Paul’s letter to Philemon.Footnote 102

With respect to the logical proof of Paul’s letter to Philemon, the analysis of Ronald Hock must be regarded as successful. According to Hock, Paul casts himself ‘in the role of an old father who is in need of his child’s support’.Footnote 103 Hock’s argument was criticised by G. K. Beale, among others, because the word πρεσβύτης does not appear in the Hellenistic texts which Hock cites, where aged parents are in need of the aid of their children.Footnote 104 But in Xenophon of Ephesus’ novel, An Ephesian Tale, the tutor of Habrocomes is described as ‘an elderly man, venerable in appearance and pitiful on account of his age’ (πρεσβύτης ἤδη, σεμνὸς ἰδεῖν καὶ διὰ τὸ γῆρας ἑλεεινός); ‘unable to bear Habrocomes’ abduction, the old tutor threw himself overboard into the sea, and swam after the trireme crying. “Why are you abandoning me, my child, the old man, your pedagogue”? (τίνι με καταλείπεις, τέκνον, λέγων, τὸν γέροντα)’.Footnote 105

The parental expectation of care (θεραπεία) by their children was a feature of Greek society. Athenian law mandated that elderly parents be fed, housed and cared for by their sons.Footnote 106 The filial duty of caring for parents was underscored on public occasions, such as the annual examination of new civic officers (δοκιμασία), who were asked whether they had treated their parents well (γονέας εἰ εὖ ποιεῖ).Footnote 107 The second-century Stoic philosopher Hierocles insisted that care for aged parents was a moral duty: ‘For our parents, therefore, we should provide food freely, and such as is fitting for the weakness of old age (τὴν ἀσθένειαν τοῦ γήρως); besides this, a bed, sleep, oil, a bath, and clothing – in short, general physical necessities, so that they should never lack any of these things.’Footnote 108

In a fragment of Menander’s play ‘The Farmer’, a slave explains that a young man, thinking an elderly farmer to be his father, cared for the old man when he was injured, ‘raising him up again, kept on anointing him, rubbing him down, washing the wound, bringing him food to eat, comforting him where he is suffering, and by his care restored and brought him through alive again’.Footnote 109 The farmer, grateful for such nursing, is described as ‘being alone and an old man’ (μόνος τ᾿ ὤν καὶ γέρων).Footnote 110

5 The Confidence of the Old Paul

Finally, the confidence shown by Paul in his letter to Philemon, despite his old age, is remarkable. There is none of the anxiety which pervades Plutarch’s pamphlet on ‘whether an old man should engage in public affairs’, none of Plutarch’s fear that old age and infirmities might prompt a withdrawal, that old age might blunt and baffle duty, and lead to retirement, which Plutarch regards as pure laziness.Footnote 111

By contrast, Paul avers that he has ‘much confidence to command’ (παρρησία ἔχων ἐπιτάσσειν), even as he makes a show of relinquishing it (Phlm 8). Paul does not hesitate to advise Philemon on how to dispose of the affairs of his household. Paul actively negotiates with Philemon, offering to repay any debt that Onesimus might owe (Phlm 18–19a). Paul engages in social coercion, reminding Philemon that he owes him his own life (Phlm 19b). Paul expresses his confidence that Philemon will do even more than he suggests (Phlm 21). And just in case Philemon does not, Paul threatens to come and inspect the situation in person, when he is released from prison (Phlm 22).

The impression made by the old Paul is very different from that which Juncus predicates of the old man who attempts to remain engaged in public life:

If the old man has the audacity to enter the agora, he provokes the laughter of those who see him, for he cannot see properly and cannot hear when people shout. Trying to make his way forward, he trips and falls. He is accused of getting in the way and using up the common air of the city. For when he appears in the assembly, he is not included among the ranks of the tribes, nor is he capable of holding office, on account of the aforementioned disabilities: he is bowed and withered, misshapen and feeble, and in spirit, as the saying goes, he has become a child again.Footnote 112

By contrast, Paul is more like the elder Cato, of whom Plutarch said: ‘He did not think age an exemption from service to the public, but considered that service his indispensable duty.’Footnote 113 How should one explain the fact that Paul, impoverished and imprisoned, shows confidence of spirit like that of Cato or Cicero, men far above his station? Should one think that Paul’s experience of a new being in Christ has created this mysterious confidence, so that while his ‘outer nature’ was ‘wasting away’, his ‘inner nature’ was ‘renewed day by day’ (2 Cor 4.16)?

Competing interests

The author declares none.

References

1 On the phrase τοιοῦτος ὤν meaning ‘since that is what I am’, see BDAG 1009 s.v. τοιοῦτος 2b: ‘since I am the sort of person’; cf. Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971) 199 n. 15. On the particle ὡς before a proper name, see BDAG s.v. ὡς III: ‘ὡς introduces the characteristic quality of a person…referred to in the context’; cf. the letter of Theoninus to Didymus in P. Flor. 367.5–6 (3rd century ce): ἀλλ᾽ [ἐπι]στέλλω ὡς Θεωνεῖνος πάλιν Δ[ιδύ]μῳ, cited in Peter Arzt-Grabner, Philemon (Papyrologische Kommentare zu Neuen Testament 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003) 201. The phrase νυνὶ δὲ καί is ascensive (‘and now also’) rather than contrastive (‘but now also’).

2 Theodoret, Interpretatio Epist. ad Philemonem 714, J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae Graeca 82:873: Προστέθεικε δὲ καὶ τὸν πρεσβύτην, ἐπιδεικνὺς πολιὰν ἐν πόνοις βλαστήσασαν, καὶ ταύτῃ τὸν λόγον ἀξιοπιστότερον ἐργαζόμενος…Αἰδέσθητι Παῦλον, αἰδέσθητι μου τὸ γῆρας (‘He even added “the aged” to point out the gray hairs brought forth by his labors, and in this way gives his argument more credibility…Show regard for Paul; show regard for my old age’); (trans. Misty S. Irons, James T. Dennison, Catherine T. Drown and Lee Irons, ‘Theodoret of Cyrhus; The Epistle of Paul to Philemon’, WTJ 61 (1999)) 111–17, at 115.

3 Ronald F. Hock, ‘A Support for His Old Age: Paul’s Plea on Behalf of Onesimus’, The Social World of the First Christians (ed. L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) 67–81, at 81.

4 Thomas M. Falkner, The Poetics of Old Age in Greek Epic, Lyric, and Tragedy (Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995); Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence, Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 2002); Karen Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 2003); Tim G. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence, Age and Ageing in the Roman Empire (Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2007); On Old Age: Approaching Death in Antiquity (ed. Christian Krötzl and Katarina Mustakallio; Tournhout: Brepols, 2011); Haim Weiss and Mira Balberg, When Near Becomes Far: Old Age in Rabbinic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021); Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén, Age, Ages and Ageing in the Greco-Roman World (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022).

5 Abraham J. Malherbe, ‘Paulus senex’, Restoration Quarterly 36 (1994) 197–207; idem, ‘How to Treat Old Women and Old Men: The Use of Philosophical Traditions and Scripture in 1 Timothy 5’, Scripture and Traditions (ed. Patrick Gray and Gail R. O’Day; Leiden: Brill, 2008) 263–90; James R. Harrison, ‘Two Approaches to Ageing in Antiquity: Comparing Cicero’s De Senectute and Paul’s Intergenerational Relationships in Philemon and 1 Timothy’, Embracing Life and Gathering Wisdom: Theological, Pastoral and Clinical Insights into Human Flourishing at the End of Life (ed. Stephen Smith, Edwina Blair and Catherine Kleemann; Macquarie Park: SCD Press, 2020) 247–74; Mona Tokarek Lafosse, Honouring Age: The Social Dynamics of Age Structure in 1 Timothy (Studies in Christianity and Judaism; Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023).

6 So, already, C. J. Ellicott, A Critical and Grammatical Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles to the Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon (Andover: Draper, 1872) 223; H. A. W. Meyer, Kritisch exegetisches Handbuch über die Briefe Pauli an die Philipper, Kolosser und an Philemon (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1886) 528.

7 Johannis Calvini in omnes Novi Testamenti epistolas commentarii (Vol. 2; ed. A. Tholuck; Halle, 1834²) 369.

8 Op. cit.

9 Bentleii Critica Sacra (ed. Arthur Ayres Ellis; Cambridge: Deighton, Bel, and Co., 1862) 73. Bentley’s emendation was accepted by Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881) and appears in the apparatus criticus of the 27th edition of Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993).

10 Op. cit. Bentley dated the stoning of Stephen to ad 35 and the writing of Philemon to ad 62, without providing justification for the dates in either case.

11 J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon (London: Macmillan, 1879) 336–7.

12 Lightfoot, Philemon, 336.

13 Op. cit.

14 Op. cit.

15 Lightfoot, Philemon, 337.

16 Lightfoot, Philemon, 336.

17 Lightfoot, Philemon, 337.

18 Among commentators who favour the meaning ‘ambassador’, see Erich Haupt, Die Gefangenschaftsbriefe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1902) 188–9; Ernst Lohmeyer, Die Briefe an die Philipper, an die Kolosser und an Philemon (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1953) 185; C. F. D. Moule, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians and to Philemon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957) 144; Ralph P. Martin, Colossians and Philemon (London: Oliphants, 1974) 144, 163; Josef Ernst, Die Briefe an die Philipper, an Philemon, an die Kolosser, an die Epheser (Regensburg: Pustet, 1974) 133–4; Alfred Suhl, Der Brief an Philemon (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1981) 31; Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon: Colossians and Philemon (Vol 44; World Biblical Commentary; Waco: Word, 1982) 289–90; F. F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984) 212; Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke, The Letter to Philemon (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 321–3; N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary (vol 12; TNTC; Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2008) 277–80; Murray J. Harris, Colossians and Philemon (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010) 260. Among studies arguing for the translation ‘ambassador’, see Ulrich Wickert, ‘Der Philemonbrief – Privatbrief oder apostolisches Schreiben?’, ZNW 52 (1961) 230–8, at 235; C. J. Bjerkelund, ΠΑΡΑΚΑΛΩ: Form, Funktion und Sinn der ΠΑΡΑΚΑΛΩ-Sätze in den paulinischen Briefen (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1967) 119–20; F. F. Church, ‘Rhetorical Structure and Design in Paul’s Letter to Philemon’, HTR 71 (1978) 17–33, at 25; Norman R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul’s Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985) 125–8; J. D. M. Derrett, ‘The Function of the Epistle to Philemon’, ZNW 79 (1988) 63–91, at 86–7.

19 Lohmeyer, Philemon, 185; Moule, Philemon, 144; Martin, Philemon, 163; Ernst, Philemon, 133; O’Brien, Philemon, 290; Bruce, Philemon, 212; Barth and Blanke, Philemon, 323; Wright, Philemon, 277.

20 Lohmeyer, Philemon, 185; similarly, Bruce, Philemon, 212; Barth and Blanke, Philemon, 323.

21 Wickert, ‘Der Philemonbrief’, 233, 235; followed by Bjerkelund, ΠΑΡΑΚΑΛΩ, 210 n. 3; Church, ‘Rhetorical Structure’, 25 n. 41.

22 Petersen, Rediscovering Paul, 126.

23 Petersen, Rediscovering Paul, 127.

24 Bruce, Philemon, 212.

25 Barth and Blanke, Philemon, 322–3.

26 In addition to Theodoret, Interpretatio Epist. ad Philemonem 714 in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae Graeca 82:873 (cited in n. 2 above), see John Chrysostom Hom. II in Epist. ad Philemonem in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae Graeca 62: ‘Τοιοῦτος ὢν, φησὶν, ὡς Παῦλος πρεσβύτης.’ Βαβαὶ πόσα δυσωπητκά; Παῦλος, ἀπὸ τῆς ποιότητος τοῦ προσώπου˙ ἀπὸ τῆς ἡλικίας, ὅτι πρεσβύτης˙ ἀπὸ τοῦ δικαιοτέρου πάντων, ὅτι καὶ, ‘δέσμιος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ’. (‘Being such a one,’ he says, ‘as Paul an old man.’ Remarkable! How many importunate things! Paul, from the quality of his person, from his age, because he was old, and from what is more just than all, ‘a prisoner of Jesus Christ’).

27 Favouring the translation of πρεσβύτης as ‘old man’, Marvin R. Vincent, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1897) 184; Martin Dibelius and Heinrich Greeven, An die Kolosser, Epheser, an Philemon (HNT 12; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1953) 104–5; Gerhard Friedrich, Die kleineren Briefe des Apostels Paulus. Der Brief an Philemon (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965) 193; Günther Bornkamm, ‘πρεσβύτης’, TDNT 6 (1968) 683; Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971) 199; Peter Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an Philemon (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1975) 37–8; Joachim Gnilka, Der Philemonbrief (HThKNT 10/4; Freiburg: Herder, 1982) 43; Wolfgang Schenk, ‘Der Brief des Paulus an Philemon in der neueren Forschung (1945-1987)’, ANRW 2.25.4 (1987) 3439–95, at 3463; Michael Wolter, Der Brief an die Kolosser / Der Brief an Philemon (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1993) 260; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) 105; Arzt-Grabner, Philemon, 76–7; Douglas Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 404–6; James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014) 327.

28 Lohse, Philemon, 199.

29 Fitzmyer, Philemon, 105.

30 Only three commentators in the last twenty-five years favour the translation ‘ambassador’: Harris, Colossians and Philemon, 260; Barth and Blanke, Philemon, 322–4; Wright, Colossians and Philemon, 277–80.

31 As in the RSV.

32 The Vg. has senex.

33 J. N. Birdsall, ‘ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΗΣ in Philemon 9: A Study in Conjectural Emendation’, NTS 39 (1993) 625–30, at 627, drawing upon the data accumulated and codified by Karl Dieterich, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der griechischen Sprache von der hellenistischen Zeit bis zum 10. Jahr. N. Chr. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898); Stylianos G. Kapsomenakis, Voruntersuchungen zu einer Grammatik der Papyri der nachchristlichen Zeit (München: C. H. Beck, 1938); Francis Thomas Gignac, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods I: Phonology (Milano: Instituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1975).

34 P.Berlin 10581, cited in Karl Bihlmeyer, Die apostolischen Väter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1956) 109.

35 As suggested by Henry St. John Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek I: Introduction, Orthography and Accidence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909) 97.

36 Birdsall, ‘ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΗΣ in Philemon 9’, 628.

37 Similarly, Birdsall, ‘ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΗΣ in Philemon 9’, 628.

38 Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 16–18.

39 Tim G. Parkin, ‘Ageing in Antiquity: Status and Participation’, Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity (ed. Paul Johnson and Patricia Thane; London: Routledge, 1998) 19–42, at 21.

40 Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome, 1, 180, referencing Ovid Met. 15.199–213 (senex, from the age of 60); Digest (Ulpian) 16.3; Cod. Iust. 5.4.27; Plautus Merc. 1015 ff.; Terence Ad. 938 ff. See also Weiss and Balberg, When Near Becomes Far, 12–13: ‘Strictly speaking, the rabbis did have an established chronological criterion for when old age begins, and they determined that this age was sixty. Seventy was considered extreme old age, and one who lived to be seventy was seen as having lived a full life’, referencing M. Avot 5.21 and PT Bikkurim 2.1, 64c.

41 Philo De spec. leg. 2.33.

42 Philo De opif. 105, quoting Ps.-Hippocrates De hebdomadibus.

43 On ancient divisions of the human life-cycle generally, see Emiel Eyben, ‘Die Einteilung des menschlichen Lebens in römischen Altertum’, Rheinisches Museum 116 (1973) 150–90; Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 15–35.

44 Ptolemy Tetr. 4.10.203–7.

45 Cited in J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930) 535 s.v. πρεσβύτης; Arzt-Grabner, Philemon, 77.

46 Keith Hopkins, ‘On the Probable Age Structure of the Roman Population’, Population Studies 20 (1966) 245–64; Bruce W. Frier, ‘Roman Life Expectancy: Ulpian’s Evidence’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86 (1982) 213–51; Tim G. Parkin, Demography and Roman Society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992); Richard Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 9–69. All the data for mortality and demographic structure in the Greco-Roman world are problematic to some degree, because the sources from which the data are derived – Ulpian’s ‘life table’ (Digest 35.2.68), tombstone inscriptions, skel-etal remains, census returns from Roman Egypt, etc. – are tendentious, commemorative, unrepresentative and self-reported: see Keith Hopkins, ‘Graveyard for Historians’, La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (ed. Francois Hinard; Caen: Centre de Publications, 1987) 113–26; Parkin, Demography and Roman Society, 27–41. For life expectancy at birth averaged at twenty-five, Parkin, Saller and others utilise the model life tables of A. J. Coale and P. Demeny, Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations (New York: Academic Press, 1983), esp. Table Level 3 West.

47 On the calculation of infant mortality rates, see Parkin, Demography and Roman Society, 92–111; Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman World, 12: ‘In a population with an average life expectancy at birth of twenty-five, the most common age at death will be under one year.’

48 Walter Scheidel, ‘Roman Age Structure: Evidence and Models’, Journal of Roman Studies 91 (2001) 1–26. Evidence from cemeteries in the vicinity of Rome, notably on the Isola Sacra, suggests that few people lived to age fifty: A. Sperduti, I resti scheletrici umani della necropoli di età romana-imperiale di Isola Sacra (I-III sec. d.C.): analisi paleodemografica (Rome: PhD diss., 1995).

49 Peter Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

50 A. Scobie, ‘Slums, Sanitation, and Mortality in the Roman World’, Klio 68 (1986) 399–433; Walter Scheidel, Death on the Nile: Death and Disease in Roman Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 118–80.

51 E.g., the elder Cato, who lived to be eighty-five, according to Cicero Brut. 20.80 and Valerius Maximus 8.7.1 For a list of aged individuals encountered in the literary and historical record of antiquity, see Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 43–6 and at http://www.clas.canterbury.ac.nz/oldancients.html.

52 Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 36–56, 280, Table 3; Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death, 22–5.

53 Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome, 2; Weiss and Balberg, When Near Becomes Far, 11–12; Robert N. Butler, ‘The Façade of Chronological Age: An Interpretive Summary’, American Journal of Psychiatry 119 (1963) 721–8; Haim Hazan, Against Hybridity: Social Impasses in a Globalizing World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015) 46–55.

54 Gulielmus Estius, In Omnes Pauli Epistolas (vol. 5; ed, Francisus Sausen; Paris/ London, 1843) 412.

55 In the history of research, this passage is treated as an example of a ‘peristasis catalogue’, such as one finds in 1 Cor 4.9–13 and 2 Cor 4.8–9; see John T. Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988) 7–31. Anton Fridrichsen sought the origin of Paul’s catalogue of hardships in 2 Cor. 11.23b–27 in paradoxical imitation of the lists of achievements and services compiled by notable public figures, such as the res gestae of the emperor Augustus (‘Zum Stil des paulinischen Peristasenkatalogs 2 Cor. 11:23ff.’, SO 8 (1929) 78–82). While this suggestion illuminates features of the style and content of 2 Cor 11.23–5, the reality of the hardships and the implications for Paul’s process of ageing remain to be appreciated. Hans Windisch (Der zweite Korintherbrief (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924) 354) observed: ‘Paulus gibt konkrete biographische Daten, die nur teilweise in der Apostelgeschichte belegt sind.’ Indeed, Windisch calculated that Paul ultimately received 195 lashes! (355). See, further, Jennifer A. Glancy, ‘Boasting of Beatings (2 Corinthians 11:23-25)’, JBL 123 (2004) 99–135, who argues that Paul does not represent his endurance of beatings as heroic but evokes the abject habitus of a beaten slave or criminal.

56 M. I. Finley, ‘The Elderly in Classical Antiquity’, Greece & Rome 28 (1981) 156–71, at 165, referencing the central thesis of Simone de Beauvoir’s book Old Age (London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972) 10.

57 Cicero De sen. 3.8.

58 The extremity of the language has puzzled interpreters and has sometimes been explained by reference to Paul’s emotional state (so Johannes Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910) 112, who speaks of ‘Bitterkeit’ resulting from Paul’s adverse experiences), or his rhetorical purposes (so Karl Plank, Paul and the Irony of Affliction (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 33–69, who characterises the language as ‘ironic hyperbole’, and Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991) 220–1, who regards the passage as a ‘paradoxical encomium’). Other interpreters soften the impression produced by these verses by suggesting that they constitute a brief catalogue of hardships, such as philosophers employed to depict the adversities faced by the lover of virtue, and that the vocabulary is, therefore, conventional (so Robert Hodgson, ‘Paul the Apostle and the First Century Tribulation Lists’, ZNW 74 (1983) 59–80, esp. 65; Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel, 132–48; Martin Ebner, Leidenslisten und Apostelbrief: Untersuchungen zu Form, Motivik und Funktion der Peristasenkataloge bei Paulus (Würzburg: Echter, 1991) 20–92). But even if Paul employs irony or the literary form of the peristasis catalogue in this passage, the resulting account cannot have diverged too widely from his actual experience – a point well made by Andreas Lindemann, Der erste Korintherbrief (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000) 108.

59 See, for example, Plautus Stichus 155–70; Menaechmi 77–109. Note Cicero’s description of the lower class as ‘wretched and hungry’ (misera ac ieiuna) in Ad Att. 1.16.11. Martial 10.5 portrays the poor craving morsels of bread fit only for dogs. See esp. the complaint of the poor over hunger in Lucian Saturnalia 19, 31, 38. Even artisans often went hungry, despite having worked day and night; see Lucian Gallus 1; Cataplus 20; Saturn. 20.

60 The numbers of homeless are impossible to estimate, owing to the failure of archaeology and epigraphy to provide data; see Ramsay MacMullen, Roman Social Relations 50 B.C. to A.D. 284 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) 92–3. We are left to draw inferences from literature, e.g., Strabo 14.2.5; Seneca Adv. Helv. 12.1; Appian B.C. 2.120; Martial 10.5; Juvenal 5.8; Luke 16:20.

61 Compare Demosthenes’ explanation of his decision to depart from Athens into exile rather than endure imprisonment at the age of sixty in Ep. 2.17: ‘I changed my residence to another country because, in the first place, I was pained at contemplating the disgrace of imprisonment, and in the second, on account of my age I was in no condition to endure the bodily discomforts (διὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν οὐκ ἂν οἷός τ᾿ ὢν τῷ σώματι τὴν κακοπαθίαν ὑπενεγκεῖν)’; Demosthenes VII. Letters (trans. Norman J. DeWitt; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962) 219.

62 H. Hitzig, ‘Carcer’, Pauly’s Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft III, 2 (ed. G. Wissowa; Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1899) 1576–81; W. Macheiner, ‘Gefangenschaft’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum (vol. 9; ed. T. Klauser; Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1976) 318–45; W. Eisenhut, ‘Die römische Gefängnisstrafe’, ANRW 1.2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1972) 268–82; Craig S. Wansink, Chained in Christ: The Experience and Rhetoric of Paul’s Imprisonments (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996) 27–95.

63 Arthur Droge, ‘Mori Lucrum: Paul and Ancient Theories of Suicide’, NovT 30 (1988) 263–86; Wansink, Chained in Christ, 119–24.

64 On the ‘proofs’ in the art of rhetoric – the ‘ethical’, the ‘pathetical’, and the ‘logical’ – see Aristotle Rhet. 1.2.3–6; Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study (Leiden: Brill, 1998) 163–4.

65 On the role of the pathetic proofs in the invention of discourse, see in general Josef Martin, Antike Rhetorik: Technik und Methode (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1974) 158–66.

66 Especially evident in the ‘popular’ writings – comedy, mime, satire; see Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age, 15–17; Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 79–89.

67 Stobaeus Flor. 50: ninety-five passages from forty-two different authors; Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 58.

68 Ps.-Plato Axiochus 367B; Pseudo-Plato, Axiochus (trans. Jackson P. Hershbell; Chico: Scholars Press, 1981) 37.

69 Juvenal Sat. 10.188–288; see the detailed analysis in Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 80–6.

70 Juvenal Sat. 10.218–19, 227–9, 232–6; Juvenal and Perseus (trans. G. G. Ramsay; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979) 210–11.

71 Pliny Ep. 8.18.9; Pliny. Letters, Books VIII-X and Panegyricus (trans. Betty Radice; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976) 57. See the similar descriptions of old men in Pliny the Elder NH 28.14.56 and Lucian Dial. Mort. 6.2.

72 Stobaeus Flor. 50.2.85; trans. by Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 225.

73 BGU I 180, lines 18–23 (178 ce); cited and discussed in Arzt-Grabner, Philemon, 76–7, observing: ‘Die Formulierung ist vom Inhalt her jener, die Paulus verwendet, nicht so unähnlich.’

74 Fitzmyer, Philemon, 105: ‘Paul calls himself an old man to provoke sympathy in Philemon and the rest of the audience.’

75 Martin, Antike Rhetorik, 162: ‘Die Hauptrolle bei der Verwendung des πάθος spielt der ἔλεος, οἶκτος, die commiseration.’ On ἔλεος in rhetorical theory and practice, see Anaximenes Rhet. 34.1, 1439b17–18; Aristotle Rhet. 2.8.1–16; Rhet. ad Her. 2.31.50; Cicero Brutus 50.188; Quintilian Inst. Orat. 6.2.20; Anonymous Seguerianus Rhet. 456.20–7 (Spengel).

76 Quintilian Inst. Orat. 6.1.23.

77 Cf. David Konstan, Pity Transformed (London: Duckworth, 2001).

78 On the ‘ethical’ proofs in ancient rhetoric, see Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, 163–4; George Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963) 91–2; Jakob Wisse, Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1989).

79 E.g., Dunn, Philemon, 327; G. K. Beale, Colossians and Philemon (BECNT; Dallas: Baker Academic, 2019) 400–4; Timothy A. Brookins, ‘“I Rather Appeal to Auctoritas”: Roman Conceptualizations of Power and Paul’s Appeal to Philemon’, CBQ 77 (2015) 302–21, esp. 309–12.

80 See the detailed analyses in Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 61–7 and Harrison, ‘Two Approaches to Aging in Antiquity’, 258–63.

81 Cicero De Sen. 3.8.

82 Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 66.

83 Cicero De Sen. 17.61; Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 63.

84 See the iconographic evidence assembled by Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome, 18–29, Plates 2–9.

85 Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome, 18.

86 Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome, 21.

87 Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome, 21.

88 Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome, 23–4, 29.

89 Plutarch An seni 783F. Cf. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 67.

90 Plutarch An seni 788C.

91 Plutarch An seni 797E.

92 Plutarch An seni 795E–796F.

93 Pliny Ep. 3.1.

94 Pliny Ep. 3.1.3–5.

95 Pliny Ep. 3.1.10.

96 Pliny Ep. 3.1.1.

97 Ptolemy Tetr. 6.10.

98 Ptolemy Tetr. 4.10.26.

99 Ptolemy Tetr. 4.10.26.

100 Plato Rep. 1.329e.

101 Similarly, Carolyn Osiek, Philippians, Philemon (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000) 135–6; Dunn, Philemon, 327.

102 Théo Preiss, Life in Christ (London: SCM, 1954) 32: ‘with respect to style, perhaps the best of Paul’s epistles, a true chef d’oeuvre of tact and heart’; F. Forrester Church, ‘Rhetorical Structure and Design in Paul’s Letter to Philemon’, HTR 71 (1978) 17–33.

103 Hock, ‘A Support for His Old Age’, 81.

104 Beale, Colossians and Philemon, 401.

105 Xenophon of Ephesus, Ephesiaca 1.14.4.

106 Plutarch, Solon 22.1.4: the law attributed to Solon stated that he who did not support (τρέφειν) his parents was to be ἄτιμος, deprived of citizen rights. Vitruvius, De arch. 6. Praef. 3: ‘The laws of all the Greeks provide that parents be fed by children, but among the Athenians not all, only those who have taught them a trade.’

107 Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 55.3.

108 Hierocles ap. Stobaeus, Flor. 25.53; Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 208.

109 Menander Γεωργός lines 59–62; Menander. The Principal Fragments (trans. Francis G. Allinson; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) 333.

110 Menander Γεωργός line 73.

111 Plutarch An seni 783B–C, 783F–784A, 785C–E, 788A–B, 789C, 790C.

112 Stobaeus Flor. 50.2.85; Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World, 244.

113 Plutarch Cato Maior 24.