Theology
Theology
Many contend that these three letters contain quite a number of Hellenistic terms for the salvation event, terms that Paul would not have used. Thus we read of "the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10); there is "one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5); "the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11). These and other such expressions, however, often incorporate Pauline terms—perhaps used in a different way, but still Pauline. And there are many terms used as Paul uses them, such as Christ’s coming to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15); salvation because of divine mercy, not our works (Titus 3:5); the importance of faith in Christ (1 Tim. 3:13), of election (Titus 1:1), and of grace (2 Tim. 1:9). The discussion along these lines is inconclusive. Those who think of an author other than Paul are impressed by the number of new terms and the new uses of old ones; those who think Paul wrote the letters stress the number of common terms and see the new ones and new uses as no more than the legitimate variation in use that characterizes anyone writing in a variety of situations.
The problem may be illustrated by considering these words: "We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels” (1 Tim. 1:8-9). On this passage Moule comments, "It is astonishing that anyone could seriously attribute to Paul at any stage of his life the definition there offered of wherein the goodness of the law lies,” 16while Zahn cites the same passage in support of Pauline authorship and goes on to speak of "the bold statement (1 Tim. 1.9) that for the just man, and consequently for the sinner who has been made righteous by the mercy of the Saviour (1 Tim. 1.13-16), there is no law.” 17When such diverse pronouncements can be made on the same passage, clearly it does not tell conclusively against Pauline authorship. The same may be said at many
points. While some statements are confidently urged by objectors as proving that Paul could not have been the author, they are all accepted by others as things that Paul would have said.
But it is not only a matter of terminology. Many suggest that the entire piety of the Pastorals is different. There is a demand for "godliness” (έυσέβέια [eusebeia, G2354], 1 Tim. 2:2 etc.), correct teaching (1 Tim. 6:3), and, above all, "sound doctrine” (2 Tim. 4:3). Kummel speaks of "this rational, ethicized description of the Christian life and the Christian demand” and cites M. Dibelius, who "called this Christianity which is settling down in the world and which speaks a strongly Hellenistic language a ‘bourgeois’ Christianity,” and Bultmann for the view that it is "a somewhat faded Paulinism.” 18There is no denying that there is a difference of emphasis in these letters, but the question is whether such writers as these are exaggerating. Granted that there is something of a change of pace, can it be seriously denied that Paul looked for such things as godliness (2 Cor. 1:12), correct teaching (Rom. 6:17), and sound doctrine (see his emphasis on knowledge, his repeated "I would not have you ignorant,” and his fierce denunciations of false teaching)? Again we reach an impasse. To some the general tone of the Pastorals seems quite incompatible with that of the ten Paulines; to others it is no more than a development, appropriate enough in different circumstances. 19
Some parts of these letters are very Pauline, and some scholars suggest that the author has made use of authentic fragments originally written by Paul. P. N. Harrison, for example, finds five such fragments, 20but he has not won universal support for the hypothesis. No one seems to have been able to give a convincing reason for the fragments being preserved. (What happened to the letters of which they were parts? How did only parts survive?) Nor is it clear why the author should have inserted the fragments in the scattered places suggested. There is the further difficulty that the main reason for the identification of the fragments is that they fit in with what we know about some part of the life of Paul—but is that a sufficient criterion? Is there any reason why the particular epistle in which they occur should not have been written as a whole at that time? Or that the fragments should not fit into another part of Paul’s life? It cannot be said that the hypothesis has a great deal to commend it. We should think of the entire corpus as coming from Paul or hold it all to be pseudonymous.
There is a problem about the view that these letters are pseudonymous that is rarely faced. According to Childs, "The purpose served by the Pastorals is strongly biased by its initial literary classification as pseudepigraphical. Its meaning cannot be obtained from the verbal sense of the text, but must be derived from a reconstruction of the author’s ‘real’ intentions which have been purposely concealed....The kerygmatic witness of the text is, thereby, rendered mute, and its interpretation is made dependent on other external forces which are set in a causal relationship.” 21There is no agreement on the exact situation of the pseudonymous author, no certainty about the problems he faced or the time he faced them or the ecclesiastical situation out of which he faced them. How then can we discover the real meaning of what he says?
Some of what is said seems unlikely from the pen of an admirer of Paul. Would such a person refer to Paul as the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15)? Would he dredge up, many years after Paul’s death, the fact that he had been "a persecutor and a violent man” (1 Tim. 1:13)? And we may wonder whether such a person would remind people that at a critical hour there was nobody who stood by the great apostle (2 Tim. 4:16). All the historical references in these letters ring true as statements coming from the life of Paul, but the same cannot be said of a date quite a long time after he had died. 22 It is assumed by those who deny the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles that pseudonymous epistles were accepted as quite natural among the early Christian community. This view has been aided by the fact that pseudonymous writings of other sorts (apocalypses, gospels, acts) were certainly widely accepted in the first century.
But the subject is not simple, so it is worth taking a little time to look at the whole issue of pseudonymous writings.