The Most Dangerous Letter: Paul's Appeal for Onesimus

The chains clink softly as Paul shifts position.

Rome's winter seeps through the stone walls of his rented quarters—a prisoner's apartment, technically, though the guard stationed at the door reminds everyone of the reality. Paul has been here two years now, awaiting a trial that may never come, receiving visitors, writing letters, planting churches from a jail cell.

Today he writes to Philemon.

Tertius serves as his usual amanuensis, but this letter is too personal, too delicate. Paul takes the stylus himself. His handwriting is famously poor—"See what large letters I use," he'd joked to the Galatians—but some things require his own hand.