Philemon 1:9

9. Being such Alford, and others of the best class of commentators, place a period before being, a comma after such, and a comma after Christ. The following as, then, does not correspond with such; and such refers to Paul as being entitled to enjoin, as above. Being such, (as might enjoin thee,) being Paul the aged, being also Christ’s prisoner for these three motives he does beseech. He is thus triply a supplicator for Onesimus, placing his own personality as pleader in front of his client.

The aged The veneration for his own age, for his long antecedents of toils, imprisonments, and martyrdoms, must plead for Onesimus. Paul was “a young man” at the martyrdom of St. Stephen, (Acts 7:58,) but as he was then clothed by the Sanhedrin with plenary authorities, and was himself a member of the Sanhedrin, he was, probably, not less than thirty years of age. Supposing this to have been A.D. 37, and the letter to Philemon A.D. 63, Paul must now be near sixty. But bearing the weight of only sixty years, he bore the load of a life of labours and excitements, and the prestige of a great history, so as to have possessed the venerability of near seventy. But his age of sixty would imply that Philemon, from whom St. Paul claims the deference due to age, was a much younger man, so that Archippus could hardly have been, as some commentators suggest, his son.