Between Pliny and Paul: Two Letters on Forgiveness and Their Meaning for Today

Between Pliny and Paul: Two Letters on Forgiveness

A short pair of ancient letters — one from Pliny the Younger and one from Paul — offers a clear window into competing logics of forgiveness, social order, and what the gospel proposes by way of transformed relationships.

A recent sermon drew my attention to an unlikely but illuminating pair of letters: a note from Pliny the Younger asking his friend Sabinianus to accept back a runaway (or troublesome) freedman, and Paul's personal appeal on behalf of Onesimus in the Epistle to Philemon. Scholars — including N. T. Wright — often read these letters side-by-side to show how different social rhetorics and aims shape appeals for reconciliation in the Roman world.

Two letters, two logics

On the surface the situations look similar: a dependent person has left, and someone of influence is being asked to intervene. But the logic behind those appeals differs in instructive ways.

Pliny’s approach is shaped by Roman elite norms: legal and social order, reputation management, and obligations within a hierarchy. The language is essentially transactional — restore the relationship because it preserves social stability and mutual advantage.

Paul’s approach is pastoral and theological. He reframes Onesimus not simply as a problem to fix but as a brother in Christ. Paul’s appeal moves beyond legal restoration to the claim that the gospel creates new relationships: no longer slave and master, but siblings in the household of God.

Reading them together highlights how radical Paul’s vision is: where much Roman epistolary practice aims to preserve the status quo, Christian speech in Paul's hands imagines a transformed social order produced by the gospel.

Why this matters for us

This contrast is not merely an antiquarian curiosity; it has real pastoral and ethical implications for Christian life today.

• Forgiveness is not always the same as restoring an old status quo. There’s a difference between patching things up and cultivating a new relationship shaped by mutual dignity.
• Power can be used either to control or to reconcile. Which we choose reveals what sort of community we are forming.
• Appeals for mercy are most persuasive when they model the identity they ask for. Paul doesn’t only request forgiveness; he invites Philemon to see Onesimus through the lens of Christ.

Analysis — "On the Basis of Love"

“Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you.” (Philemon 1:8–9a)

Paul’s letter to Philemon finds an intriguing literary parallel in Pliny the Younger’s letter to Sabinianus. The stories are superficially similar: a runaway or estranged dependent has sought help from a man of influence. But the rhetorical aims diverge sharply. Pliny's tone is conciliatory toward the master’s honor and stability; Paul’s is transformative.

Pliny urges a cautious, status-preserving mercy — a measured pardon that keeps the hierarchy intact. Paul, by contrast, frames the appeal on the basis of shared koinonia: Onesimus is now “a beloved brother” (Phm. 1:16), and therefore the relationship must be reimagined within the family of God.

Notably, Paul does not publicly order immediate emancipation. If his aim had been a frontal assault on slavery as an institution, the consequences for early Christians — vulnerable and often marginal — could have been grave. Instead Paul plants a different seed. By changing hearts and relationships within households, a slow, subversive transformation can take root. The gospel’s power is that it reorients identities: slave and master may remain socially distinct in the short term, but their fundamental standing before God is altered.

Paul's tactic is strategic and pastoral. He appeals to the heart so that love becomes the engine for social change. When love takes root and grows, patterns of behavior follow; relationships are reordered from the inside out. The question for Christian communities today is how willing we are to risk humility and moral imagination so that reconciliation does not simply reconstitute old hierarchies but fashions new, mutual ways of belonging.

Practical takeaways and conversation questions

If you'd like to reflect on this with a small group or personally, try these prompts:

• Read Philemon and then read Pliny’s letter to Sabinianus. What differences in tone, purpose, and implied social order do you notice?
• Where today do we default to “Pliny moments,” preserving order and status rather than risking costly reconciliation?
• How might the church practice reconciliation in ways that actually create new relationships instead of merely restoring old hierarchies?
• What risks does Paul’s approach bring — for the one asking forgiveness and for the one being asked to forgive?

Posted by Shane Reynolds | The Good News Blog 07/09/2025

Scripture reference: Philemon. Further reading: Pliny the Younger, Letters §9.21; N. T. Wright on Paul and social practice.