shall probably not err in assigning them even to the age of the Antonines, to whom Baur supposes the pastoral letters to contain a particular allusion.1 The Pastoral Letters. The oldest known list of Pauline Epistles, namely the "Apostolicon" of Marcion, contained ten letters only. The so-called "Pastorals" were absent; either because they were unknown to this enthusiastic admirer of the apostle, or that, knowing, he deliberately rejected them. Schleiermacher, in 1807, questioned the first Epistle to Timothy, and Eichhorn had previously denied all three letters to be St. Paul's. The denial was chiefly founded on absence of the usual Pauline phraseology, the desultory unconnected style, the impossibility of finding a fitting interval in the apostle's life for their composition, and historical difficulties as to the "second Roman captivity" gratuitously invented to supply one. But these arguments were not thoroughly conclusive, and divines could still avail themselves of the plea of Eichhorn, that if not actually written by St. Paul, they were at least composed by some friend or follower at his suggestion, or after verbal instructions given during his life. Baur in 1835 first distinctly pointed out the historical place of these letters; and the present state of the argument justifies our placing them with"Hebrews," in the list of decidedly spurious (vola), rather than that of questionable or "doubtful" (avriλeyoμeva) writings. For not only has an historical situation to be invented in order to make room for them; but their general character refutes their apostolic claims. St. Paul's He supposes 1 1 Tim. ii. 2. See Baur's Pastoral Briefe, p. 126. 66 βασιλεις” " in the plural, especially as contrasted with 1 Peter ii. 13, to be an allusion to the practice of adopting an imperial successor or associate. 66 99 66 66 doctrine of "justification" is indeed noticed; but the allusion stands parenthetically isolated among incessant recurrences of the neutral formula characteristic of the second century combining faith and works; the key note of exhortation is not faith alone, but faith and loveπιςις και αγαπη ; ευσεβεια” and “ θεοσεβεια” occur where St. Paul would assuredly have said “πısıs ; πιεις Eрya kaλa," or good works, are especially insisted on ;in short, the Apostle's theory is scarcely seen, and faith, instead of being an inward condition of the soul, is taken in the above-mentioned ecclesiastical sense of creed allegiance. Other circumstances inconsistent with authenticity are enumerated by De Wette and by Baur; but the points chiefly deserving attention are the formal protest against heresy, the kind of heresy denounced, and the means recommended for its suppression. Denunciations of heresy -here occurring for the first time in the New Testament,were unknown in the first century, when instead of a settled "truth" or doctrine confidently assumed as infallible, the primary notions of Christianity were still unsettled, and its very existence as a religion was yet to be secured. In his Corinthian and Galatian controversies St. Paul had to contend with important errors; but he never styles these errors heresies;" he does not assume the existence of an ecclesiastical rule or settled doctrine; he speaks indeed of "divisions" among Christians but in quite a different sense from that of the "Pastorals," where the word heresy implies the guilty repudiation of orthodoxy. And it is especially important to consider the nature of the heresies denounced, to determine who were the "false teachers" alluded to. These Baur conceives to be partly the Valentinians and Ophitæ, whose endless "mythi," "genealogies" and "æons," tally with some allusions in the letters; but more especially the oppositions or "antitheses" 66 1 See 2 Tim. i. 9; Titus iii. 5. 2 2 1 Cor. xi. 19; Gal. v. 20. 4 of Marcion; so that we are plainly confronted with the controversies of the second century; the "false teachers" are not the personal opponents indicated in Galatians and Corinthians, but persons systematically controverting "sound doctrine," or the settled faith of a church. They are spoken of sometimes as present, sometimes in a more just feeling of chronological consistency as future;3 and it should be recollected in extenuation of the somewhat vague terms in which they are mentioned that a more exact description would have belied dramatic propriety, as too palpably contradicting the assumed circumstances of date and authorship. The reiterated assurances of the universality of salvation are directed not against those who limited the privilege to the fulfilment of certain voluntary conditions, like the Judaists of a former age, but against those who, like the Gnostics, made it contingent on physiological distinctions inherent in human nature considered as pneumatic, psychic, or hylic. For a more accurate understanding of these letters it will be useful to recollect that orthodoxy, although originated through antagonism to the gnostics, itself incorporated in its nascent state many elements allied to gnosticism. Hence it is that here, as elsewhere, we meet with language somewhat akin to the heresies combated; for instance, in the predicates of Christ and in the emphatic assertions of divine unity; hence too, while aberrant opinion is proscribed in general terms, the heretic is chiefly censured for his immoral practices; and 1 1 Tim. vi. 10, taken in connection with the ascetical tenets denounced, the injunction to marry given in 1 Tim. v. 14; and it may deserve consideration whether the celebrated 66 passage πада yраpη OεoπVEνsos,"-2 Tim. iii. 16,may not be meant to contradict Marcion's critical treatment of Scripture. De Wette, however (Lehrbuch, p. 279), quotes the word “ voμodidaokaλoi” as unfavourable to this view. 2 1 Tim. i. 10, and iii. 15. 3 1 Tim. iv. 1. 4 See Baur's observations on the names "Hymenæus and Alexander," pp. 36, 37 sq. 5 "pure whoμevol." See Clem. Alex. Strom. 6, 13; also 2, 3, and 5, 1. 6 1 Tim. i. 17, and vi. 15. See Baur, p. 28. 7 Baur, pp. 25, 35. 2 while the humanity of Christ is repeatedly asserted against the Docetæ, the assertion is curiously balanced by conflicting allusions savouring of Docetism, as, for instance, in the peculiar expression so often occurring of “deos σwτηp," and the curious group of antitheses expressing in a popular way Christ's humanity and spirituality as commingled and balanced in the "mystery of godliness.”3 66 This controversy with gnosticism forms the main argument against the authenticity of the letters. For how could Hegesippus have expressed himself as he does as to the first appearance of an heretical “ ψευδωνυμος γνωσις in the second century, had there existed in his day epistles believed to be St. Paul's, condemning it as a phenomenon of the first? And indeed the singular verbal coincidences occurring in these letters with the above-mentioned passage in Eusebius may possibly suggest that since the Judaising Hegesippus can scarcely be supposed to have copied an ostensibly Pauline Epistle, the latter may have been framed subsequently with a view to Hegesippus.5 In thus coming forward as champion of orthodoxy Paulinism enters on a new phase of existence. Although the earliest gnosticism was Jewish, the first opposition to gnosticism appears to have been also Jewish, as instanced in Justin and Hegesippus. But Paulinism, in its advance towards church establishment, began to shew equal antipathy to doctrinal aberrations. There was an undoubted affinity between St. Paul's doctrine and Marcion's; and although the latter was rather a fantastic exaggeration than a true reflection, still the fundamental assumptions were the same. Paulinism was therefore held responsible by the Petrine party represented in the Homilies for all the vagaries of gnosis; and it became necessary for Pauline catholicism to make that distinct disclaimer of destructive Thus 1 Tim. ii. 3 1 Tim. iii. 16. 5; 2 Tim. ii. 8. 2 See 2 Tim. i. 9; Titus äi. 11. 4 In Eusebius H. E. 3, 32. 5 See Baur's "Paulus," p. 494. 66 errors, which the 2nd Epistle of Peter (iii. 16) treats as the indispensable condition of admitting the genuine unperverted doctrine of the apostle himself. Hence St. Paul is here himself made to insist on the "form of sacred words and "salutary doctrine;" and it was natural that the Pauline advocate should treat the obnoxious deviations as proceeding from the opposite or Jewish party,1 rather than as connected with his own views. The lesson inculcated is peace," the avoidance of all those "questionings" which seemed not only useless but dangerous; to shun vain speculations, and to follow practical righteousness. The great remedy proposed to secure these ends is ecclesiastical union under episcopal government. This symptom of nascent catholicity makes another fatal objection to the authenticity of the letters. In his genuine Epistles St. Paul nowhere alludes to an organised hierarchy, although the Corinthian disorders were exactly such as to require and to suggest the expedient. In advocating episcopacy, the Pastorals stand parallel with the Clementines and the letters of Ignatius. The institution arose concurrently with the first dangerous outbreak of the heresies and divisions it was calculated to suppress and it would be strange to find St. Paul here anticipating later circumstances by pleading for a discipline of Judaical character to which in his unquestionably authentic letters he never alludes. Among minor circumstances indicating a later origin of the letters, is the institution of titular widows, alluded to in 1 Tim. v. It seems that there existed in the second century an ecclesiastical order technically called "widows," from the circumstance of its having originally consisted of real widows; but that a practice had arisen of receiving 1 Titus i. 10, 14. 2 1 Tim. iii. 15. So that the church ministry was conducted by four classes; the elσKOTTOL, πρεσβύτεροι, διακονοι, and “ χηραι,” or deaconnesses. Thus Peter says in the Clementines (Hom. xi. 36), that he had appointed at Tripolis in Syria, a bishop, twelve presbyters and deacons, and also made arrangements as to the widows. |