Житие и страдание святого апостола Онисима, одного из лика семидесяти

During the apostolic times, in the Phrygian city of Colossae in 1396, there lived a Christian of noble family named Philemon; he was subsequently awarded the episcopal rank and was included among the holy seventy Apostles. Philemon, even before his apostleship, had a slave named Onesimus. Having offended his master and fearing punishment, Onesimus fled from him and arrived in Rome in 1397, where he found the Holy Apostle Paul in chains; Having heard a holy sermon from him and having learned faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, he was baptized by the Apostle and diligently served him together with Saint Tychicus. The Holy Apostle Paul, sending Saint Tychicus with his letter to the Colossians, gave him Saint Onesimus as a companion, as he himself writes at the end of the letter: “Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful servant and co-worker in the Lord, will tell you everything about me, whom I sent to you for this purpose, so that he would learn about your circumstances and comfort your hearts, with Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is from you. They will tell you about everything here” (Colossians 4:7–9). The Apostle wrote to the Colossians through Tychicus, and through Onesimus he sent a special letter to Philemon his master; In this letter, the Apostle asked Philemon to forgive Onesimus for his sin and to accept him not as a slave, but as himself, the Apostle Paul. In his letter, the Apostle Paul calls Onesimus his child: “I ask you for my son Onesimus, whom I begat in my bonds: he was once unfit for you, but now he is fit for you and me; I return it; accept him as my heart” (Phil. 1:10–12). With joy, Philemon did as the Apostle advised: he not only lovingly accepted Onesimus, but also gave him freedom and again sent him to Rome to the holy Apostle Paul so that Onesimus would serve the Apostle there, for this was what St. Paul desired: “I wanted to keep him with me, so that instead of you he would serve me in prison for the gospel; but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your good deed would not be forced, but voluntary” (Phil. 1:13-14). So, the holy Apostle Onesimus was in Rome, serving the Apostles until their death; he was appointed by them as a bishop for the preaching of the word. After the death of the holy Apostles, he, leaving Rome, went around many cities and countries, preaching Christ in Spain 1398, in Corinth, in Colossae, in Patras 1399, then took the throne in Ephesus 1400 after Saint Timothy and Saint John the Theologian. Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer clearly testifies to the episcopate in Ephesus in his letter to the Ephesians from Smyrna; when he was being led from Antioch to Rome to be devoured by wild beasts, he was met by Saint Onesimus on the way to Smyrna with some inhabitants of Ephesus. Saint Ignatius writes about this to the Ephesians this way: - I, in the name of God, accepted your numerous company in (the person of) Onesimus, a man of unspeakable love, your bishop in the flesh. Love him, I beseech you by Jesus Christ, and all of you be like him; for blessed is He who has granted you to be worthy to have such a bishop. In his letter to the Antiochians he again writes: – Onesimus, the shepherd of Ephesus, is kissing you. From here it becomes known that Saint Onesimus, having visited many countries and cities, arrived in Ephesus, already an old man; there he tended the Church of God for some time, then he was captured by unbelievers and brought from that city to Rome, which happened during the reign of Trajan 1401; in Rome he was given over to Eparch Tertillus for torture. The eparch asked the saint: Then the bishop asked again: -Which class do you belong to? “Once I was the slave of one husband, and now I am a faithful servant of the good Master, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The eparch continued to interrogate Onesimus: - Why did you move to another master? “Because I knew the truth and hated idolatry.” - At what price were you sold to the new master? – God’s Son Jesus Christ redeemed me from destruction with His honest blood, resettled me into incorruption, as it is written about in our scriptures: “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, silver or gold, from the vain life handed down to you from your fathers, but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19). – Tell us, what kind of life do your scriptures call vain? – Vain life is lawless adultery, which, for a small carnal sweetness, prepares eternal fire for passionate sinners; it also lies in the love of money, for the sake of which they offend their neighbor, in sorcery, when they live with demons - the latter evil is the root of all slander and entrapment; it is pride, when one rises above others with one’s arrogance, - envy, which taught Cain and many others to fratricide, - slander and an unbridled tongue, which spreads mockery to everyone like a cloud; she is hypocrisy and lies, an opponent of the truth, an accomplice of the devil, through which Eve was deceived by the all-evil enemy; it is anger, which incites curses and incites the abuse and murder of fathers - drunkenness, which is accompanied by intemperance and gives rise to voluptuousness, inciting foul language; there is no good thought in her, just disgrace. All these vices are vain life. The source of such life and the mother of everything is the service to idols that you perform; it is the basis of fornication, the teacher of ignorance of God, the blindness of the mind, the inciter of voluptuous passions; there is no honor in it, it fights against the Lord of all, tries to destroy true worship of God; this service is the leader of death, the servant of the serpent, the food of the evil, the enemy of virtue, it flees incorruption; it is a preacher of your destructive law, an ardent supporter of darkness and gloom, a friend of bloodshed, a prince of hatred; it traps simple people who do not know God, who are alien to bright grace, binds its servants with the bonds of dishonorable deeds, and teaches vanity; it dishonors gray-haired elders, inspiring them to dance to the sound of the priestly trumpet; it destroys girlish chastity; it dissolves its festivals with sword and iron, with the shedding of the blood of animals and their defilements; it points out the defilements of its shamelessness; it forces husbands to bare their bodies in the midst of the city and shows them naked to their wives; it accompanies its sacraments with murders and adulteries; it overwhelms human minds with various images of idolatry, like boats: either it commands its priests to eat from poisonous serpents, then, exhorting them to eat other people’s gods, it inspires them to either slaughter an ox, then sacrifice an ox, sacrifice a sheep, consider the same thing to be god and cattle 1402, then it kills a man as a sacrifice to a man, made of stone and wood, so that instead of doing good, it commits murder, sacrificing the animate to the soulless. But why should I talk a lot? Your malice even gives divine honor to garlic in order to bring people down to hell in great blindness and ignorance. Having considered such a vain, wicked and nasty life, which you adhere to in your idolatrous service - a life exposed by the Holy Scriptures, I fled from it, as from a troubled sea, and arrived in a good refuge - in a righteous and reverent life, consisting in holy faith in the One and True God, in faith and love for one's neighbor. And I exhort you, Tertillus, to fulfill the law of love, which commands you to love your neighbor as yourself; then you, having come to know the truth, like me, will leave behind the temporary vanity and everything that passes in this world as if like a dream or a shadow; then you will approach the Creator of all, God, and you will be saved, having come to the true mind; God does not rejoice at the death of those who anger Him, but rejoices at their conversion and repentance and forgives their former sins. Then Tertill the Eparch answered: “So not only do you not want to worship the gods yourself, without fear of torment, but you even want to lead us into your error.” “Your torments cannot frighten me,” answered Saint Onesimus, “no matter how strong they may be, for I, consoled by the expectation of future benefits and strengthened by the power of my Christ, will easily endure the suffering that you subject me to.” Then the eparch ordered Onesimus to be imprisoned; The saint stayed here for 18 days, and the prison for him was not a terrible place of imprisonment, but a bright, full of spiritual joy, paradise, where he was, rejoicing in his Lord. The faithful came to him, glorified the saint’s suffering and, with their own words, strengthened him for heroic deeds. The saint preached the Word of God to the infidels who came here along with the Christians, and converted them to the true faith of Christ. After this, the eparch, wanting to show himself merciful before the people, did not condemn the saint to death, but sent him to imprisonment in Putioli 1403. There, too, the Holy Apostle zealously preached the teachings of Christ and instructed many on the true path. Tertillus, having learned about this, took him again and ordered him to be brought in chains to himself for trial. He interrogated him and learned that the saint, as before, unshakably confessed the faith of Christ. Then the eparch ordered to lay the saint down and beat him mercilessly with four clubs. The torturers struck the holy sufferer for a long time and mercilessly, crushed his legs and other bones, and finally beheaded his head with a sword. This is how Saint Onesimus died in 1404. A certain wife from the royal family took his holy body, placed it in a silver shrine and commemorated the martyr. By this she earned herself a memory from the Lord in the Kingdom of Heaven through the prayers of the Holy Apostle Onesimus, which may the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever, vouchsafe to us. Amen. Like a ray, you have shone forth throughout the universe, like the shining dawn of the sun, blessed, all-bright Paul, who enlightened the world: we honor you in the same way, more glorious than Onesima. Colossae is a city in the southwestern part of Phrygia, a region of Asia Minor, near the Lycus River, near Laodicea and Hierapolis. In the 10th year of the reign of Nero (64 A.D.), the Colossi were destroyed by an earthquake; Afterwards they were built again, but never achieved their former glory. Subsequently the city was called Khony. Nowadays it is a small village on one of the slopes of Mount Khonas, where the ruins of the ancient city are still preserved. One of the messages of St. Ap. Paul is written to the inhabitants of this city. The main city of the Roman state; lies in the central part of Italy on both sides of the Tiber River as it flows into the sea. Spain in ancient times embraced present-day Spain and Portugal together. In the north it is separated from France by the Pyrenees Mountains; to the east it borders the Mediterranean Sea; to the south with the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar; to the west - with the Atlantic Ocean. Patras is an ancient city on the northern shore of the Peloponnese; was one of 12 independent cities of the Achaean region; converted into a Roman colony by Emperor Augustus; in 1205–1408 was the main city of the Frankish duchy of Achaea; in 1463 it fell into the hands of the Turks; currently a city in the kingdom of Greece near the entrance to the Lepanto (Corinthian) Gulf. Ephesus, on the Aegean Sea, is an important trading city in Asia Minor. Its coastal location, good climate, beautiful harbor, and the famous Church of Diana made it one of the richest and most famous cities in Asia Minor. The Gospel was preached here by the Holy Apostle Paul. Saint Onesimus points here to one of the glaring contradictions that existed in the pagan religion, taken together without distinction of place and time: in one area they revered an animal as a god, but in another they did not distinguish it from the ranks of four-legged animals and sacrificed it to some deity. Putioli is a seaside town in Campania, a region of central Italy. You might be interested in: