ONESIFORO. — A figure of the Church of Ephesus, mentioned in II Tim. 1:16 ff. and 4:19 (the “house of O.”). From the context it appears that he was already dead when the letter was written (ca. A.D. 67). In this case, the words of II Tim., 1:18, “may the Lord (ὁ Κύριος = Christ) grant him to find mercy from the Lord (Κύριος, without the article = God) on that day,” would be an example of a prayer for the dead, by which divine mercy is implored for the deceased on the day of Judgment. While Paul was imprisoned for the second time in Rome—notice (ibid. 1:17) the difficulty of reaching him—O. was not ashamed of his chains, and wished to render him, as on an earlier occasion, his services (ἀνέψυξεν [*ibid. 1:16], which the Vulgate rendered with refrigeravit*, may indicate either the comfort of sympathy and solidarity or material assistance).
At Ephesus O. worked for the benefit of the community, perhaps in the capacity of a deacon: the mihi found in several Vulgate manuscripts is opposed by the majority of witnesses to the original text. The detail that Timothy knows O.’s work even better than Paul (βέλτιον might, however, not have comparative force) suggests that this occurred after the Apostle’s departure, when Timothy was governing that community (I Tim. 1:3).
The Acta Theclae (mid-second century?) make O. a householder at Iconium who is said to have hosted Paul during his first missionary journey (M. R. James, The apocryphal New Test., Oxford 1924, reprinted 1950, p. 272 f.). The Greek menologia call him one of the 72 disciples and commemorate him on different dates as bishop now of Colophon, now of Caesarea, now of Corone in Messenia. The Roman Martyrology (6 September) has him suffer martyrdom in the Hellespont, at Patrio, of which he is said to have been bishop.