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Audiobook edition · 10 h 15 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does freedom mean when another man owns your days?
In Colossae, Onesimus lives as a slave in the household of Philemon. Restless and full of doubt, he has no say over his own days. Edwin Abbott Abbott gives this briefly mentioned biblical figure a voice in a novel shaped as a memoir, making questions of slavery and faith deeply personal.
Onesimus leaves his master and meets Paul, a prisoner whose words and manner draw him toward the new faith. Abbott builds his imagined life around Paul's letter to Philemon, which asks that the slave be received as a brother. At stake is more than legal release: Onesimus seeks a freedom that changes how he understands himself.
What you’ll discover
- A life under ownership Enter an ancient Greek city through a man whose days belong to someone else.
- Doubt with a voice Follow Onesimus as he looks back and tries to make sense of his life.
- A prisoner who teaches Meet Paul through the eyes of a doubting slave drawn toward his words and manner.
- Freedom beyond legal release Consider whether freedom means only release from ownership, or something deeper within a person's life.
- A household facing change See how the call to receive a slave as a brother challenges Philemon's familiar authority.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy ancient Rome and Greece, early Christian history, lively debate, and a narrator who tells his own failures plainly.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A happy childhood hides their slavery
- Loss turns trust into hatred
- Religious wonders leave his questions unanswered
- The Christians unsettle his easy judgments
- Love makes freedom a personal need
- Philosophy meets the test of grief
- Flight cannot silence his longing
- His search asks what deserves trust
Who’s who
- OnesimusA foundling raised as a slave who loses everyone he loves and searches through philosophy and religion for something worth trusting.
- ChrestusOnesimus's beautiful twin brother, torn from him at sixteen, whose seal reads TRUST ME.
- AmmianeThe kind woman of Lystra who raises the twins as her sons, though they legally remain her slaves.
- PhilemonA learned, gentle master in Colossae who buys Onesimus as a secretary and searches anxiously for healing and faith.
- ArtemidorusAn honest Epicurean friend who explains every wonder by natural causes and prizes truth above comfort.
- EpictetusA lame slave philosopher who teaches that only the will lies in our power.
- EucharisMolon's wise and gentle daughter in Athens, who loves Onesimus and gives him an amulet marked HOPE.
- PaulusThe traveling preacher whose blessing Onesimus receives as a child and whom he meets again in Rome.
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Onesimus
by Edwin Abbott Abbott · 1882
Two abandoned twins wear silver seals reading I LOVE THEE and TRUST ME, and one of them grows up doubting every god.
Challenging5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.”
In short
What makes a slave stop trusting the gods? Onesimus begins life as a baby left on the temple steps at Pergamus, in one cradle beside his twin brother Chrestus.
Onesimus at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 35 min4 h 30 min fast, 6 h 40 min slow
- Length
- 80,300 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1882by Edwin Abbott Abbott
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Twin foundlings meet a stranger at Lystra
The story opens in the last year of the Emperor Tiberius. Onesimus and Chrestus are found on the temple steps, and a kind woman named Ammiane takes them up. She has lately lost her own son, and she raises the twins in Lystra as her own. They learn to call her Mother.
The law, however, says that a rescued child belongs to the household that raised him. Nobody ever freed the boys; their emancipation is delayed, then forgotten amid Menneas’s illness and death. They grow up singing, riding and wrestling beside the sons of good families. They are happy and never guess that they are slaves.
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Details
- First published
- 1882
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 6 h 40 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Abbott, Edwin Abbott. Onesimus. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/onesimus.
Abbott, E. A. (2026). Onesimus. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/onesimus (Original work published 1882)
Abbott, Edwin Abbott. Onesimus. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/onesimus.
@book{abbott2026onesimus,
author = {Abbott, Edwin Abbott},
title = {Onesimus},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/onesimus},
note = {First published 1882}
}
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What is Onesimus by Edwin Abbott Abbott about?
It follows an abandoned twin who grows up a slave and searches the ancient world for something to trust. He meets oracles, philosophers and Christians before encountering the Apostle Paul again in Rome.
Who was the real Onesimus?
Onesimus is the runaway slave of Philemon mentioned in Paul's short letter to Philemon in the New Testament. Abbott invents his earlier and later life, so the novel is imagined history around a real name.
What do the tokens I LOVE THEE and TRUST ME mean?
They are silver seals worn by the twin babies. Onesimus later adds a third token reading HOPE, and the three words become the heart of his story.
The author
Edwin Abbott Abbott
1838–1926 · English theologian and novelist
Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838–1926) was an English teacher, theologian and author who was born and died in London. He was headmaster of the City of London School from 1865 to 1889. He wrote Flatland (1884), Onesimus (1882) and Silanus the Christian (1906), as well as works on grammar and religion.
“Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.”
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