Archippus
Archip'pus (῎Αρχιππος, "master of the horse"), a Christian minister, whom the Apostle Paul calls his "fellow-soldier" (Phm 1:2), and whom he exhorts to renewed activity (Col 4:17), A.D. 57. As the former epistle, which concerns a private matter, is addressed to him jointly with Philemon and Apphia, and as "the Church in their house" is also addressed, it seems necessary to infer that he was a member of Philemon's family. From the latter reference (so Jerome, Theodoret, and OEcumenius) it would seem that Archippus had exercised the office of evangelist sometimes at Ephesus, sometimes elsewhere (at Laodicea, according to the Apostolical Constitutions, 7:46), and that he finally resided at Colossae, and there discharged the office of presiding presbyter or bishop when Paul wrote to the Colossian Church (see Dietelmaier, De Archippo, Altdorf. 1751). The exhortation given to him in this epistle has, without sufficient grounds, been construed into a rebuke for past negligence. Tradition states that he had been one of Jesus's 70 disciples, and that he suffered martyrdom at Chonae, near Loadicea (Menalog. Graec. 1, 206).
