A Phrygian by birth, slave to Philemon and a person of note in the city of Colossae, Onesimus, having robbed his master, in his escape, providentially met St. Paul in his flight. In Rome St. Paul converted and baptized him and sent him with his canonical letter of recommendation to Philemon, by whom he was pardoned, set at liberty and sent back to his spiritual father, whom he afterwards faithfully served. Onesimus, along with Tychicus, was the bearer of St. Paul’s epistle to the Colossians and afterwards a preacher of the gospel and a bishop. The Greeks say he was crowned with martyrdom under Domitian in the year 95.