AS our knowledge of the life of St. Paul, after his first imprisonment, depends entirely on the decision as to the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles, I will here briefly examine the evidences.
I. Turning first to the external evidence in their favour, we find an almost indisputable allusion to the First Epistle to Timothy in Clement of Rome.1 That they were universally accepted by the Church in the second century is certain, since they are–found in the Peshito Syriac, mentioned in the Muratorian Canon, and quoted by Ignatius, Polycarp, Hegesippus, Athenagoras, Irenæus, Clemens of Alexandria,
Theophilus of Antioch, and perhaps by Justin Martyr. After the second century the testimonies are unhesitating and unbroken, and Eusebius, in the fourth century, reckons them among the homologomena or acknowledged writings of St. Paul. With the exception of Marcion, and Tatian, who rejected the two Epistles to Timothy, there seems to have been no doubt as to their genuineness from the first century down to the days of Schmidt and Schleiermacher. On what grounds Marcion rejected them we are not informed. It is possible that Baur may be right in the supposition that he was not aware of their existence.2 But this would be no decisive argument against them, since the preservation and dissemination of purely private letters, addressed to single persons, must have been much more precarious and slow than that of letters addressed to entire Churches. But in such a case Marcion’s authority is of small value. He dealt with the Scriptures on purely subjective grounds. His rejection of the Old Testament, and of all the New Testament except ten Epistles of St. Paul, and a mutilated Gospel of St. Luke, shows that he made no sort of scruple about excluding from his canon any book that militated against his peculiar dogmas. Nor is Tatian’s authority of more weight. The only reason why he accepted as genuine the Epistle of Titus while he rejected those of Timothy, is conjectured to have been that in the Epistle to Titus the phase of incipient Gnosticism which meets with the condemnation of the Apostle is more distinctly identified with Jewish teaching.3
But perhaps it may be argued that the Pastoral Epistles were forged in the second century, and that the earlier passages which are regarded as allusions to them, or quotations from them, are in reality borrowed from Clemens, Polycarp, and Hegesippus, by the writer, who wished to enlist the supposed authority of St. Paul in condemnation of the spreading Gnosticism of the second century. No one would argue that there is a merely accidentalconnection between, “Avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions [or antitheses] of the knowledge [Gnosis] which is falsely so called” in 1 Tim. 6:20, and “the combination of impious error arose by the fraud of false teachers [ἑτεροδιδασκάλων, comp. 1 Tim 1:3, ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖν] who henceforth attempted to preach their science falsely so called” in Hegesippus.4 But Baur argues that the forger of the Epistle stole the term from Hegesippus, and that it was aimed at the Marcionites, who are especially indicated in the word “Antitheses” which is the name of a book written by Marcion to point out the contradiction between the Old and New Testament, and between those parts of the New Testament which he rejected and those which he retained.5 Now, “antitheses” may mean simply “oppositions” as it is rendered in our version, and the injunction is explained by Chrysostom and Theophylact, and even by De Wette, to mean that Timothy is not to embroil himself in idle and fruitless controversies. But even, supposing that “antilogies” are meant, what shadow of proof is there that nothing of the kind existed among the “vain babblings” of Essenian speculation? “Hegesippus,” says Baur,6 “considering his Ebionite views, can scarcely have drawn from an Epistle supposed to be by Paul.” It is difficult to believe that this remark is perfectly serious;7 but if it be, I would ask, Is it not indefinitely more improbable that the falsarius8 would instantly condemn his own work as spurious by interpolating marked passages from Clemens, Polycarp, and Hegesippus, which his instructed readers would be sure to recognise, and which would then be absolutely fatal to the success of his design?
II. Let us, then, pass to the internal evidence. It is argued that these three Epistles cannot have been written by St. Paul—(1) Because “they stand far below the originality, the wealth of thought, and the whole spiritual substance and value of the authentic Epistles;”9 (2) Because they abound in un–Pauline words and phrases; (3) Because their theology differs from that of the Apostle; (4) Because they deal with conditions of ecclesiastical organisation which had no existence till long after the age of the Apostles; (5) Because they betray allusions to later developments of Gnostic heresy: and these objections we will briefly consider.
(1) Now as to the style of these Epistles, we admit at once that it is inferior to that of St. Paul’s greatest productions. For eloquence, compression, depth, passion, and logical power, they cannot for one moment be compared to the letters to the Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, or Ephesians. St. Paul is not here at his best or greatest. “His restless energies,” says Alford,10 “are still at work; but those energies have changed their complexion; they have passed from the dialectic character of his earlier Epistles, from the wonderful capacity of intricate combined rationalism of his subsequent Epistles, to the urging, and repeating, and dilating upon truths which have been the food of his life; there is a resting on former conclusions, a constant citation of the temporisacti, which lets us into a most interesting phase of the character of the great Apostle. We see here rather the succession of brilliant sparks than the Steady flame; burning words indeed and deep pathos, but not the flower of his firmness as in his discipline of the Galatians; not the noon of his bright, warm eloquence, as in the inimitable Psalm of Love.”11
But in what way does this invalidate their authenticity? We entirely dissent from Baur’s exaggerated depreciation of their value; if we admitted that they were as meagre of contents, as colourless in treatment, as deficient in motive and connexion, as full of monotony, repetition, and dependence, as he asserts—what then? Must a writer be always at his greatest? Does not the smallest knowledge of literary history prove at once that writers are liable to extraordinary variations of literary capacity? Do not their shorter and less important works offer in many cases a most singular contrast to their more elaborate compositions? Are all the works of Plato of equal value? Do we find in the Epinomisthe grandeur and profundity which mark the Phaedoand the Theaetetus? Is the Legesas rich in style as the Phaedrus? Is there no difference in manner between the Annals of Tacitus and the dialogue De Oratoribus? Was it the same hand which wrote Love’s Labour’sLost and Hamlet? Would any one who read the more prosaic parts of the ParadiseRegainedrecognise the poet of the first or sixth books of the ParadiseLost? Is the style of Burke in the EssayontheSublimeandBeautifulthe same as his style in the EssayontheFrenchRevolution? It would be quite superfluous to multiply instances. If it be asserted that the Pastoral Epistles are valueless, or unworthy of their author, we at once join issue with the objectors, and, independently of our own judgment, we say that, in that case, they would not have deceived the critical intuition of centuries of thinkers, of whom many were consummate masters of literary expression. If, on the other hand, it be merely contended that the style lacks the verve and passion of the earlier Epistles, we reply that this is exactly what we should expect. Granted that “it is not the object of this, as of preceding Epistles, to develop fully some essentially Pauline idea which has still to vindicate itself, and on which the Christian consciousness and life are to be formed, but rather to apply the contents of Christian doctrine to practical life in its varying circumstances,” we reply that nothing could be more natural. Granted that, unlike all the other Epistles, they have no true organic development; that they do not proceed from one rootidea which penetrates the whole contents, and binds all the inner parts in an inner unity, because the deeper relations pervade the outward disconnectedness; that no one creative thought determines their contents and structure; that they exhibit no genuine dialectic movement in which the thought possesses sufficient inherent force to originate all the stages of its development;12 granted, I say—and it is a needlessly large concession—that this depth of conception, this methodical development, this dialectic progress, are wanting in these three letters, we entirely refuse to admit that this want of structural growth belies their Pauline origin. It is little short of absurd to suppose that every one of St. Paul’s letters—however brief, however casual, however private—must have been marked by the same features as the Epistles to the Romans or the Galatians. I venture to say that every objection of this kind falls at once to the ground before the simple observation of the fact that these were not grand and solemn compositions dealing with the great problems which were rending the peace of the assembled Churches before which they would be read, but ordinary private letters, addressed by an elder and a superior to friends whom he had probably known from early boyhood, and who were absolutely familiar with the great main features of his teaching and belief. Add the three circumstances that one of them was written during the cruel imprisonment in which his life was drawing to its close; that they were probably written by his own hand, and not with the accustomed aid of an amanuensis;13 and that they were certainly written in old age,—and we shall at once see how much there is which explains the general peculiarities of their style, especially in its want of cohesion and compression. There are in these Epistles inimitable indications that we are reading the words of an old man. There is neither senility nor garrulity, but there is the dignity and experience which marks the jucunda senectus.14 The digressiveness becomes more diffuse, the generalities more frequent, the repetitions more observable.15 Formulæ are reiterated with an emphasis which belongs less to the necessities of the present than to the reminiscences of the past. Divergences into personal matters, when he is writing to Timothy, who had so long been his bosom companion, become more numerous and normal.16 And yet it is impossible not to feel that a Paul is still the writer. There are flashes of the deepest feeling, outbursts of the most intense expression. There is rhythmic movement and excellent majesty in the doxologies, and the ideal of a Christian pastor is drawn not only with an unfaltering hand, but with a beauty, fulness, and simplicity, which a thousand years of subsequent experience have enabled no one to equal, much less to surpass. In these Epistles direct logical controversy is to a great extent neglected as needless. All that the Apostle had to say in the way of such reasoning had probably been said to his correspondents, in one form or other, again and again. For them, as entrusted with the supervision of important Christian communities, it was needless to develop doctrines with which they were familiar. It was far more necessary to warn them respecting the fatal moral tendencies in which heresies originated, and the fatal moral aberrations in which they too often issued.
And while we are on this subject of style, how much is there which we must at once see to be favourable to the authenticity of these writings! Take the First Epistle to Timothy alone, which is more seriously attacked than the other two, and which is supposed to drag down its companions by the evidence of its spuriousness. Do we not find in it abundant traces of a familiar style? Is it even conceivable that a forger would have actually begun with an anakoluthton or unfinished construction? Such sentences abound in the style of St. Paul, and to imitate them with perfect naturalness would be no easy task. But even supposing the possibility of imitation, would a forger have started off with one? Again, it would be very easy to caricature or clumsily imitate the digressive manner which we have attributed to familiarity and age; but to reproduce it so simply and naturally as it here appears would require supreme literary accomplishment. Would an imitator have purposely diverged from St. Paul’s invariable salutation by the insertion of “mercy” between “grace” and “peace”? It is easy to understand on psychological grounds that St. Paul might call himself “the chief of sinners” (1:15); but would a devoted follower have thus written of him? Would he purposelyand continuallyhave lost the main thread of his subject as at 2:3, 7? A writer with a firm grasp of truths which he knows to be complementary to each other would never hesitate at any merely apparent contradiction of his previous opinions; still less would he hesitate to modify those opinions in accordance with circumstances; but would a forger have been so bold as apparently to contradict in 2:15 what St. Paul had taught in 1 Cor. 7.? Would he be skilful enough to imitate the simple and natural manner in which, more than once, the Apostle has resumed his Epistle after seeming to be on the point of ending it, as at 3:14, 15? St. Paul, like most supremely noble writers, is quite indifferent to confusion of metaphors; but would an imitator be likely to follow him with such lordly indifference as at 6:19? In writing to familiar friends, nothing is more natural than the perfectly casual introduction of minute and unimportant particulars. There is nothing like this in St. Paul’s other letters, not even in that to Philemon, and therefore a forger would have had no model to copy. How great a literary artist, then, must have been the forger who— writing with some theory of inspiration, and under the shadow of a great name, and with special objects in view— could furnish accidental minutiæ so natural, so interesting, and even so pathetic as that in 1 Tim. 5:23, or introduce, by way of precaution, such particulars—“unexampled in the Apostle’s other writings, founded on no incident, tending to no result”—as the direction to Timothy to bring with him to Rome “the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments.” It seems to me that forgery, even under the dominant influence of one impressive personality and one supreme idea, is by no means the extraordinarily easy and simple thing which it appears to be to the adherents of the Tübingen criticism. It is a comparatively simple matter to pass off imitations of a Clemens Romanus Or an Ignatius, but it is hardly likely that the world would be long deceived by writings palmed off upon it as those of a Milton—still less of a St. Paul.
(2) It is said they abound in unusual, isolated, and un– Pauline expressions. Among these are “It is a faithful saying,”17 “piety,” and “piously” (εὐσέβεια, εὐσέβῶς), found eight times in these Epistles, and nowhere else except in 2 Pet;18 the metaphor of “wholesomeness” (ἱγιὴς,ὑλιαίνειν), applied to doctrines nine times in these Epistles, and not elsewhere;19 the use of δεσπότης “Lord” for κύριος “master;”20 the use of ἀρνεῖσθα “to deny” for the renunciation of true doctrine; and of παραιτεῖσεαι “to avoid,” of which the latter is, however, used by Paul in his speech before Festus, and which, as well as προσέχειν, with a dative in the sense of “attend to,” he very probably picked up in intercourse with St. Luke, to whom both words are familiar.21 No one, I think, will be seriously startled by these unusual phrases, nor will they shake our belief in the genuineness of the Epistles when we recall that there is not a single Epistle of St. Paul in which these hapaxlegomena, or isolated expressions, do not abound. Critics who have searched minutely into the comparative terminology of the New Testament Scriptures, tell us there are no less than 111 peculiar terms in the Epistle to the Romans, 186 in the two Epistles to the Corinthians, 57 and 54 respectively in the short Epistles to the Galatians and Philippians, 6 even in the few paragraphs addressed to Philemon. It is not therefore in the least degree surprising that there should be 74 in the First Epistle to Timothy, 67 in the Second, and 13 in that to Titus. Still less shall we be surprised when we examine them. St. Paul, it must be remembered, was the main creator of theological language. In the Pastoral Epistles he is dealing with new circumstances, and new circumstances would inevitably necessitate new terms. Any one who reads the list of unusual expressions in the Epistles to Timothy will see at once that the large majority of them are directly connected with the new form of error with which St. Paul had recently been called upon to deal. Men who are gifted with a vivid power of realisation are peculiarly liable to seize upon fresh phrases which embody their own thoughts and convictions, and these phrases are certain to occur frequently at particular periods of their lives, and to be varied from time to time.22 This is simply a matter of psychological observation, and is quite sufficient to account for the expressions we have mentioned, and many more. We can have little conception of the plasticity of language at its creative epoch, and we must never forget that St. Paul had to find the correct and adequate expression for conceptions which as yet were extremely unfamiliar. Every year would add to the vocabulary, which must at first have been more or less tentative, and the harvest of new expressions would always be most rich where truths, already familiar, were brought into collision with heresies altogether new. The list of hapaxlegoomcnain the note23 are all due, not to the difference of authorship, but to the exigencies of the times.
(3) It would be a much more serious—it would indeed be an all but fatal—objection to the authenticity of these Epistles, if it could be proved that their theology differs from that of Paul. But a very little examination will show that there is no such contradiction—nothing beyond the varying expression of truths which complement but do not contradict each other. Some, indeed, of the alleged discrepancies are too shadowy to grasp. If Christianity be described as “the doctrine” and as “sound doctrine”;24 if the word “faith” has acquired a more objective significance, so as sometimes almost to imply a body of truths as opposed to heresy;25 if the name “Saviour”—rare in St. Paul—be applied to God, and not to Christ;26 if “Palingenesia” (regeneration) occurs only in the Epistle to Titus;27 these are peculiarities of language, not differences of theology. There is a dominant practical tendency in these Epistles;—so there is, we reply, in all St. Paul’s Epistles. The value and blessedness of good works is incessantly insisted on;28—is this, then, to be stigmatised as “utilitarianism and religious eudæmonism,” and a decided pietistic attenuation of the Pauline doctrine? Are they not, then, insisted on even in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, though there he is developing a theory, and here he is professedly occupied with moral instructions? Will any one attempt to prove that St. Paul, either in these Epistles or elsewhere, held any other view of good works than this—that they are profitless to obtain salvation, but are morally indispensable?29 De Wette’s further objection, that St. Paul here makes an apology for the Law (1 Tim. 1:8), and his attempt to draw a subtle distinction between the universalism of these Epistles and of the other Pauline writings, deserve no serious refutation. St. Paul’s method and object are here wholly unlike those of his Epistles to Churches composed of heterogeneous and often of hostile elements; but it may be asserted, beyond all fear of contradiction, that, bearing in mind the non–theoretical treatment of the points on which he here touches, and the fact that he is writing to friends and disciples already absolutely convinced of the main truths of his theology, there is not one word in these Epistles which either contradicts or seriously differs from the fundamental ideas of St. Paul. Even Baur—candid, with all his hypercritical prejudices—only sees in them “a certain somethingof the specific Pauline doctrine with a dominant practical tendency,” an “applying of the contents of Christian doctrine to the various circumstances of practical life.”30
(4) It is not, however, on the above grounds that the Pastoral Epistles have been most seriously attacked. The considerations which we have here seen to be untenable are really due to after–thoughts; and the assaults on the genuineness of the Epistles have mainly risen from the belief that they are “tendency–writings,” meant to serve the twofold object of magnifying ecclesiastical organisation and of covertly attacking a Gnosticism which was not prevalent till long after the Apostle’s time. The two subjects are by no means disconnected. The Gnostics, it is said—as the first heretics properly so called—gave occasion for the episcopal constitution of the Church; and if there were no such heretics at that time, then these ecclesiastical arrangements will be devoid of any historical occasion or connexion! I have sought the strongest and fullest statements of these objections, and shall try to express the reasons why they appear to me to be most absolutely groundless. I quite freely admit that there are some remarkable peculiarities in these Epistles; I do not deny that they suggest some difficulties of which we can give no adequate explanation; I cannot go so far as to say that the objections brought against them are “not adequate even to raise a doubton the subject of their authenticity;” but for these very reasons I can say, with all the deeper sincerity, that, whatever minor hesitations and doubts may remain unremoved, the main arguments of those who reject the Epistles have—even without regard to other elements of external testimony and internal evidence in their favour—been fairly met and fairly defeated all along the line.
(α) Let us first consider the question of ecclesiastical organisation. And here we are at once met with the preliminary and fundamental objection of Baur, that in the Epistles which supply us with the surest standard of St. Paul’s principles he never betrays the slightest interest in ecclesiastical institutions, not even when they might be thought to lie directly in his way; and that this want of interest in such things is not merely accidental, but founded deep in the whole spirit and character of Pauline Christianity.
But this form of statement is invidious, and will not stand a moment’s examination. In the minutiæ of ecclesiastical institutions, as affected by mere sectarian disputes, St. Paul would have felt no interest; and to that exaltation of human ministers which has received the name of sacerdotalism— feeling as he did the supreme sufficiency of one Mediator— he would have been utterly opposed. It is very probable that he would have treated the differences between Presbyterianism and Episcopacy as very secondary questions—questions of expediency, of which the settlement might lawfully differ in different countries and different times. But to say that he would have considered it superfluous to give directions about the consolidation of nascent Churches, and would have had no opinion to offer about the duties and qualifications of ministers, is surely preposterous. It is, moreover, contradicted by historic facts. His tours to confirm the Churches, his solemn appointment of presbyters with prayers and fastings in his very first missionary journey,31 and his summons to the Ephesian presbyters, that they might receive his last advice and farewell, would be alone sufficient to prove that such matters did—as it was absolutely necessary that they should—occupy a large part of his attention. Are we to suppose that he gave no pastoral instructions to Timothy when he sent him to the Churches of Macedonia, or to Titus when he appointed him a sort of commissioner to regulate the disorders of the Church of Corinth?
It is true that the pseudo–Clementines, the Apostolical constitutions, parts of the letters of Ignatius, and in all probability other early writings, were forged, with the express object of giving early and lofty sanction to later ecclesiastical development, and above all to the supposed primacy of Rome. But what could be more unlike such developments than the perfectly simple and unostentatious arrangements of the Pastoral Epistles? In the rapid growth of the Christian Church, and the counter–growth of error, the establishment of discipline and government would almost from the first become a matter of pressing exigency. Even in the Epistles to the Corinthians and Romans we find terms that imply the existence of deacons, deaconesses, teachers, prophets, apostles, rulers, overseers or presbyters, and evangelists; and a comparison of the passages referred to will show that all these names, with the exception of the first,32 were used vaguely, and to a certain extent even synonymously, or as only descriptive of different aspects of the same office.33 If the imposition of hands is alluded to in the Epistles to Timothy, so it is in the Acts.34 The notion that a formal profession of faith was required at ordination so little results from 2 Tim. 1:13 that the very next verse is sufficient to disprove such a meaning. If the Pastoral Epistles contained a clear defence of the episcopal system of the second century, this alone would be sufficient to prove their spuriousness; but the total absence of anything resembling it is one of the strongest proofs that they belong to the Apostolic age. Bishop and presbyter are still synonyms, as they are throughout the New Testament.35 If ἐπισκοπὀς, “overseer,” or “bishop” be used in the singular, this is partly an accident of language in the common generic use of the Greek article, and partly arises from the very nature of things as a transitional stage to the ultimate meaning of the word—since, even in a presbytery, it is inevitable that some one presbyter shold take the lead. Timothy and Titus exercise functions which would be now called episcopal; but they are not called “bishops”; their functions were temporary; and they simply act as authoritative delegates of the Apostle of the Gentiles.36 Nor is there any trace of exalted pretensions in the overseers whom they appoint. The qualifications required of them are almost exclusively moral. The directions given are “ethical, not hierarchical.” And yet it is asserted that one main object of the First Epistle to Timothy is “to establish the primacy of the bishops as against the presbyters”!37 A more arbitrary statement could hardly be formulated. Let any one turn from the Epistle to the letters of st. Ignatius,38 where he will read “Give heed to the bishop, that God also may give heed to you;” to the pseudo Ignatius,39 who tells us that “he who doeth anything without the knowledge of the bishop serveth the devil”; to the pseudo–Clementines, which say that “the bishop occupies the seat of Christ, and must be honoured as the image of God”;40 and he will see how glaring is the anachronism of supposing that it was written towards the middle of the second century to oppose the Marcionites; and how utterly different is the mild and natural authority which the Apostle assigns to a representative presbyterate from that “crushing despotism” of irresponsible authority for which the writers of the second century were willing to betray their Christian liberty.
We will consider the minor objections on this head when we come to the actual passages to which exception is taken, and especially the difficult expression in which the Church is apparently called “a pillar and ground of the truth.”41 But another ground of objection is the rules about widows, which, as Baur asserts, “can only be successfully explained out of the ecclesiastical vocabulary of the second century,” in which the term χῆραι is applied to an order consisting not only of bereaved persons but even of young virgins.42 That this use of the word did not arise in the Apostle’s time may be fairly assumed, but if there be not one single fact in the passage referred to which makes this necessary, the objection falls to the ground. Baur’s only argument is that if χῆραι be actual widows, the Apostle gives two directly contradictory precepts about them, bidding the younger widows to marry again (1 Tim. 5:11–14), and yet ordering that a second marriage is to exclude them, should they again become widows, from the viduatus of the Church. But where is the contradiction? We learn from the Acts that the Church continued the merciful and, indeed, essential custom, which it had learnt from the synagogue, of maintaining those widows, who from the circumstances of Eastern and ancient society were its most destitute members, and whose helpless condition constituted a special appeal to pity. But it was only natural that each Church should try as far as possible to utilise this institution, and that the widows should themselves desire to be serviceable to the brethren to whom they owed their livelihood. Hence “the widows” became a recognised order, and acquired a semi–religious position. Into this order St. Paul wisely forbids the admission of widows who are still of an age to marry again. Of the female character in general and in the abstract he does not ordinarily speak in very exalted terms, and in this respect he only resembles most ancient writers, although, in spite of surrounding conditions of society, he sees the moral elevation of the entire sex in Christ. He regarded it as almost inevitable that the religious duties of the “order of widows,” although they involved a sort of consecration to celibacy for the remainder of their lives, would never serve as a sufficient barrier to their wish to marry again; and he thought that moral degeneracy and outward scandal would follow from the intrusion of such motives into the fulfilment of sacred functions. There is here no contradiction, and not the shadow of a proof that in the language of the Epistle there must be any identification of widows with an order of female celibates or youthful nuns.43
(β) We now come to the last objection, which is by far the strongest and most persistent, as it is also the earliest. The spuriousness of the Pastoral Epistles is mainly asserted on the ground that they indicate the existence of a Gnosticism which was not fully developed till after the death of St. Paul. A more extensive theory was never built on a more unstable foundation.44 The one word antitheseis in 1 Tim. 6:20, seems to Baur a clear proof that the first Epistle to Timothy is a covert polemic against Marcion in the middle of the second century. To an hypothesis so extravagant it is a more than sufficient answer that the heretical tendencies of the false teachers were distinctly Judaic, whereas there was not a single Gnostic system which did not regard Judaism as either imperfect or pernicious. Objections of this kind can only be regarded as fantastic until some proof be offered (1) that the germs of Gnosticism did not exist in the apostolic age; and (2) that the phrases of Gnosticism were not borrowed from the New Testament, nor those of the New Testament from the Gnostic systems. Knowing as we do that “Æon” was thus borrowed by Valentinus,45 and that “Gnosis” was beginning to acquire a technical meaning even when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Corinthians,46 we see that on the one hand Gnostic terms are no proof of allusion to Gnostic tenets, and on the other, that Gnostic tendencies existed undeveloped from the earliest epoch of the Christian Church. It would be far truer to say that the absence of anything like definite allusion to the really distinctive elements of Marcionite or Valentinian teaching is a decisive proof that these Epistles belong to a far earlier epoch, than to say that they are an attempt to use the great name of Paul to discountenance those subtle heresies. In the Epistle to the Colossians St. Paul had dealt formally with the pretended philosophy and vaunted insight, the incipient dualism, the baseless angelology, and the exaggerated asceticism of local heretics whose theosophic fancies were already prevalent.47 In these Epistles he merely touches on them, because in private letters to beloved fellow–workers there was no need to enter into any direct controversy with their erroneous teachings. But he alludes to these elements with the distinct statement that they were of Judaic origin. Valentinus rejected the Mosaic law; Marcion was Antinomian; but these Ephesian and Cretan teachers, although their dualism is revealed by their ascetic discouragement of marriage, their denial of the resurrection, and their interminable “genealogies” and myths,48 are not only Jews, but founded their subtleties and speculations on the Mosaic law.49 In dealing with these Paul has left far behind him the epoch of his struggle with the Pharisaic legalists of Jerusalem. Thought moves with vast rapidity; systems are developed into ever–varying combinations in an amazingly short space of time, at epochs of intense religious excitement, and as the incipient Gnosticism of the apostolic age shows many of the elements which would hereafter be ripened into later development, so it already shows the ominous tendency of restless speculation to degenerate into impious pride, and of over–strained asceticism to link itself with intolerable license.50 These are speculations and tendencies which belong to no one country and no one age. Systems and ideas closely akin to Gnosticism are found in the religions and philosophies of Greece, Persia, India, China, Egypt, Phœnicia; they are found in Plato, in Zoroaster, in the Vedas, in the writings of the Buddhists, in Philo, in neo– Platonism, and in the Jewish Kabbalah. In all ages and all countries they have produced the same intellectual combinations and the same moral results. A writer of the second century could have had no possible object in penning a forgery which in his day was far too vague to be polemically effective.51 On the other hand, an apostle of the year 65 or 66, familiar with Essene and Oriental speculations, a contemporary of Simon Magus the reputed founder of all Gnosticism, and of Cerinthus, its earliest heresiarch, might have had reason—even apart from divine guidance and prophetic inspiration—to warn the disciples to whom he was entrusting the care and constitution of his Churches against tendencies which are never long dormant, and which were already beginning to display a dangerous activity and exercise a dangerous fascination. If there is scarcely a warning which would not apply to the later Gnostics, it is equally true that there is not a warning which would not equally apply to errors distinctly reprobated in the Epistles to the Philippians, Corinthians, and Colossians, as well as to the Churches addressed by St. Peter St. Jude, and St. John.52 Greek subtleties, Eastern imagination, Jewish mysticism—in one word, the inherent curiosity and the inherent Manicheism of unregenerate human nature— began from the very first to eat like a canker into the opening bud of Christian faith.
Those who wish to see every possible argument which can be adduced against the Pauline authorship of these Epistles, may find them marshalled together by Dr. Davidson in the later editions of his “Introduction to the Study of the New Testament.”53 To answer them point by point would be tedious, for many of them are exceedingly minute; nor would it be convincing, for critics will make up their minds on the question on the broader and larger grounds which I have just examined. But to sum up, I would say that, although we cannot be as absolutely certain of their authenticity as we are of that of the earlier Epistles, yet that scarcely any difficulty in accepting their authenticity will remain if we bear in mind the following considerations. (1) In times like those of early Christianity, systems were developed and institutions consolidated with extraordinary rapidity. (2) These letters were written, not with the object of entering into direct controversy, but to guide the general conduct of those on whom that duty had devolved, and who were already aware of that fixed body of truth which formed the staple of the apostolic teaching. (3) They abound in unusual expressions, because new forms of error required new methods of stating truth. (4) Their unity is less marked and their style less logical, bacause they are the private and informal letters of an elder, written with the waning powers of a life which was rapidly passing beyond the sphere of earthly controversies. Pauline in much of their phraseology, Pauline in their fundamental doctrines, Pauline in their dignity and holiness of tone, Pauline alike in their tenderness and severity, Pauline in the digressions, the constructions, and the personality of their style, we may accept two of them with an absolute conviction of their authenticity, and the third—the First Epistle to Timothy, which is more open to doubt than the others—with at least a strong belief that in reading it we are reading the words of the greatest of the Apostles.54