This post is a chapter of Neither Slave nor Free, a serial novel that tells a literary-fictional, historically-plausible backstory to the New Testament letter, Philemon. New chapter every Sunday. Listen to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Risking crucifixion, Onesimus, an enslaved shepherd, flees his bitter half-brother and master, Philemon, only to find that freedom requires more than mere escape.
“. . . a masterful grasp of the cultural, political and spiritual context of the time . . . The heart of the novel beats for hope, and asks one essential question: what does it mean to truly be free?” —Claire Gibson, author of Beyond the Point: A Novel
“. . . one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read on a New Testament figure . . . Mead’s novel utilizes cutting edge scholarship as he weaves a beautiful and inspiring story of hope and faith.” —Demetrius K. Williams, Professor of Comparative Literature and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukie; Editor of Onesimus Our Brother: Reading Religion, Race and Slavery in Philemon
“Through characters that are vividly complex, defying any easy, moralizing categorization, Mead delivers a thrilling piece of historical fiction that sheds needed light on a tiny letter whose controversial impact has been, and remains, gargantuan.” —Tommy Givens, Associate Professor of New Testament Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary
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Story Recap
At Pater’s funeral feast, Philemon reveals that his father’s will is missing. As the sole heir to Pater’s estate, Philemon uses his discretion to free Onesimus’s mother, Apphia, from slavery but fails to free his half-brother, Onesimus, contrary to Onesimus’s expectations.
After the funeral, Onesimus and Neos had trudged back to the villa in silence, the rest of the country slaves chattering and buzzing, a mobile hive regurgitating the day’s nectar and converting it to honey-sweet gossip. Onesimus knew he’d been the conversation topic.
As the shock faded, he’d tried to make sense of the missing will. Had there been one at all? Pater could have failed to make it. The drunken haze in which his father had spent the last three years of his life was hardly conducive to careful household management. If he had made one, had he willed Onesimus what he’d promised, freedom and a third of the flock, or had those been empty words meant to pacify, false hope to extract obedience? Another idea struck him: maybe the will was sitting on Philemon’s desk, and he’d just refused to read it. Or maybe he destroyed it. If so, he’d taken a serious legal risk, but perhaps an understandable one: a third of the flock was valuable. And if he had destroyed it or “misplaced” it, who would challenge him? Not Onesimus or Apphia—as slaves, they had no legal standing—and beyond them, Philemon was the only one with any claim to the estate.
Back at the villa, Onesimus had taken first watch and then tossed in his cot most of the night, endlessly analyzing Philemon’s speech at the feast and strategizing how to navigate his new master. He dragged through his work the next day, a thorough grooming of the flock now they’d returned from the wilds, and in the late afternoon, he bathed under the cold-water spigot, shaved himself, and changed into a fresh dark tunic, preparing to head back to Colossae. He was expected at the ninth-day feast in honor of his father, hosted by the Fellowship of the Crossroads Temple.
Joining the fellowship had felt like a passage to manhood. From a young age, Apphia had taught him numbers. He’d count autumn pears picked in the orchard, spring carrots pulled in the garden, and summer blackberries snuck from brambles behind the villa while avoiding work. When Apphia reconciled the villa accounts, she’d invite him onto her lap. She taught him the counting board and showed him the shapes of letters and numerals. She watched him imitate her figures with a reed pen on his own small papyrus and eventually scratch them onto the scroll of accounts itself, once he’d got the gist.
One morning, when he was thirteen, Lupus—Marius’s freedman in charge of tax collection—had been assessing Pater’s property at the villa. Onesimus stood in the sheepfold next to Voskos, the aging head shepherd, who stood next to Pater. The edgy flock clustered behind them for inspection. With his wax tablet and stylus at the ready, Lupus queried Pater, who looked to Voskos for answers: number of slaves in the sheepfold, number of dogs, size of the flock. After Voskos recited the inventory, Onesimus whispered in his ear: two ewe lambs and a wether had been slaughtered for market that morning, which shrank the tax bill. As Voskos stated the correction, crediting the junior shepherd, Lupus glared at Onesimus. But Pater had studied his son, a glint of pride in his eye.
The next week, Pater had brought him to a feast at the temple and stood by as the curator led him through initiation rites: a recitation of the fellowship rules, a vow of allegiance, and prayers to Artemis, the emperor, and the lares, the neighborhood gods. Then the Curator looped the leather strap of a coffer over his head, filled the inkwell, handed him the scroll of accounts and a pen, and sent him around to collect dues: funds to supply their feasts and a basic funeral for each member—for what could be worse than dying without respect, forgotten by the world?
Onesimus had beamed, puffing out his skinny chest, proud of his new duties in the world of men. As he took in money from freeborns, freedmen, and other slaves, he felt good enough, and, in a way, equal to them all. At the villa he was a tool to be used. But at the fellowship, for the first time, he had status, as if he were free. Now, as he prepared for the ninth-day feast in honor of his dead father, that freedom seemed empty, gutted by Philemon’s decision the night before. The evening’s service to the fellowship felt like slave’s work in different guise.
Outside the temple, fleshy entrails smoldered on a brazier in the middle of the pavement. A slave prodded the grilling organs while flames reached through the grate like the hands of hungry prisoners. Salted flour, splashes of wine, and an oblong patch of dried blood coated the pavement. In the middle of the patch, a shirtless blood-spattered slave hacked at the carcass of a bull with a long-handled axe. The metallic smell of blood hung in the chilly air. The slave had already removed the choicest meat to the temple kitchen and now separated chunks of flesh to be sold at market.
Onesimus took in the columns of the temple. Before entering the feast, he would worship, he thought. Artemis hadn’t granted his prayer at the funeral, but perhaps she would have compassion on him now, in light of his mistreatment. He ascended the stone steps, two at a time, and crossed the portico between columns, but as he made for the doorway into the temple, a cluster of bulky men emerged from the shadows to block his way. They wore the segmented armor of legionaries under red woolen saga, and on their left shoulders rested fasces—bundles of birch rods and an axe head bound together by red straps, symbolizing Roman imperium and a magistrate’s power of execution. The leader put a hand on Onesimus’s chest and shoved him backward. “What’s your business here, slave?” he said, his voice gravelly.
Flustered and struggling to find words, Onesimus said, “Worship. And the feast.”
“The feast?” The leader raised his eyebrows.
“I’m . . . I’m part of the fellowship,” said Onesimus, stuttering like Neos.
The leader tilted his head slightly and squinted at him. “The governor is offering,” he said. “Wait your turn.” He pushed Onesimus back onto the portico.
Onesimus turned away from the temple, toward the pavement, and scuttled across the portico to the top of the steps he’d just ascended, his flushed face fading to its normal olive color. Governor? Since when did the governor come to Colossae? He looked out at the bloodied slave still chopping at the bull carcass with his axe. One of the temple cooks emerged from the kitchen door and began across the pavement, barking at the slave. The slave rested the axe head on the ground and looked on with a blank face while the cook continued his verbal lashing, pointing at the ragged remains of the bull and then spreading his hands in frustration.
Onesimus looked away, shifting his shoulders to readjust the uncomfortable neckline of his tunic. What would he pray? He studied the joints between the marble floor panels. He’d never learned formal prayers, so he’d always improvised, prayers of need mostly, but sometimes of praise and gratitude. Tonight, it would be need. He’d pray for Pater’s will to be found, he thought. If there was any hope of freedom before he was old, it was in that will. If indeed it existed.
He felt a shove in the back, and suddenly he was tumbling down the sharp-edged marble steps. The boiled barley cake he’d brought for the goddess spilled from his cloak onto the ground and split into pieces. “Out of the way,” said the lead soldier as he descended the steps with his five brawny companions. They passed Onesimus, who cowered on the pavement, cuts on his knees and elbows beginning to throb. Two men in togas followed behind. As they descended the steps and removed the fabric of their togas from over their heads, Onesimus saw their faces: Philemon and his friend, Marius, a giant of a man, taller than Philemon by a head. The two men stopped, and Onesimus watched his master’s pudgy face recognize him and convert to a glare.
Marius looked back and forth between them with a fool’s grin. “It’s your brother!” he said, almost laughing.
“Why are you here, slave?” said Philemon, emphasizing the label.
Onesimus’s cheeks flushed again. Before he could answer, Marius addressed him, still grinning and nodding toward the soldiers: “You’ve met my lictors. Aren’t they charming?” Onesimus didn’t know what to say. Marius chuckled and turned to Philemon. “Is he mute?”
“Why are you here?” Philemon repeated, staring down at him, his voice now tinged with anger.
Why was he here? Granted, it had been months since Onesimus attended a feast at the temple, but had Philemon really forgotten he was part of the fellowship? His cheeks now felt warm, not from embarrassment but anger. Onesimus got to his feet, straightened his tunic, and gave Philemon a steely look. “For the feast.”
Philemon stared back at him, confusion flashing across his face.
“I’m a member,” said Onesimus, his tone sharp.
Philemon’s face showed signs of comprehension, followed by disdain.
“Insolent,” said Marius, looking down at Philemon. “You’ll let that stand?”
The frozen look on his master’s face reminded Onesimus of a child unsure how he’s failed his father.
“Would you like my men to handle him?” said Marius.
Philemon stared blankly at Marius and then looked back at Onesimus, narrowing his eyes, lingering on his slave’s face for several uncomfortable moments. Finally, he sighed and shook his head. “Just stay out of the way,” he said as he began across the pavement toward the feasting hall. Marius followed a few steps behind, muffling laughter with his meaty hand.
Onesimus watched the two men go, rubbing a sore spot on his elbow. He stooped to collect the broken barley cake and stuffed the pieces into his cloak pocket. He climbed the steps again, this time gingerly, and entered the dim cella, the gods’ dwelling place, with its vaulted ceiling and expansive marble floor. He hushed his echoing footsteps to a shuffle and inhaled the holy blend of incense and dust suspended in the still air. He felt small.
Onesimus shuffled to the back of the cella, and stood in front of the altar—a rectangular stone table the length of five people. Behind the altar stood four statues on pedestals. The two central ones were life-sized and made of polished white marble. The first was Artemis, flanked by a buck and a dog, bow and quiver on her shoulder, and the second, beside her, the Genius Augusti—the spirit of the emperor—Caesar Augustus with a toga draped over his head in reverence, one hand extended in a welcoming gesture, the other offering a shallow libation dish. Worship of the emperor had always seemed suspect to Onesimus. Augustus’s power certainly evoked a god: at his command, armies of thousands would march, kings were ousted, nations crushed. But he’d died. Was this, then, not a man? A powerful one, yes, but surely a man and not a god? Though Artemis was birthed, she would never die.
To either side of the marble statues stood the neighborhood lares—diminutive bronze deities dressed in frilly tunics, charged with guarding their quarter of the city. Each androgynous lar balanced on the tiptoes of one foot, as if performing an intricate dance. They held horns of wine above their heads in one hand and libation dishes at chest-height in the other.
Onesimus draped his hood over his head in imitation of the genius, his stomach beginning to unclench. On the altar sat a basket of whole barley cakes, a small jug of wine beside an already-brimming libation dish, two flickering oil lamps, a bowl of water, a bronze knife, and a lit censor, its sweet smoke curling upward. Onesimus poured more wine from the jug, overflowing the dish and painting a red blotch on the altar. He placed the broken pieces of his cake in the basket and regained his composure. He closed his eyes and listened to himself inhale, a deep breath that filled his lungs and lifted his shoulders. The smell of frankincense calmed him further. He exhaled through his mouth with a sharp sigh. “Goddess, forgive my broken offering,” he whispered. With his eyes still closed, he inhaled again, this time into his belly, and remembered his plan. He prayed again, his voice hushed: “Reveal my father’s will.”