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EPISTLE
EPISTLE
while Artaxerxes' ncjn? (rescript, v.") also = K:!riv'} {^ .'^)]. The two latter terms are regularly rendered by e-KKTroK-fi in the LXX. From all this it seems probable that familiarity with the royal posting system of the Persians (cf. d-jrya/jeivcic in Alt 5^') helped to make the lett«r stand out more clearly to the Jewish mind as a distinct literary type. In the post-exilic historical books the exact epistolary form 18 often preserved, including a formal address in certain cases. This is a marked feature in the Bks. of Mac, belonging to the Greek period, where also a closin" ' Farewell ' occurs, sometimes with the addition of the exact date (e.g. 2 Mac 1 1"-3^-»« ^'^Ipetv , , . IppwaSc or iiyialfere). As yet, however, we have no models of private correspondence among the Hebrews ; so that here, as often, we are dependent upon the light shed backwards by NT.
2. In NT. — In view of the numbers and influence of the Diaspora, the collateral eWdence of non-Heb. analogies now becomes of moment. But the letters of literary men, like Cicero or Seneca, are hardly to our purpose. It is rather to the "
papyri, and to the collections of epistles mostly fathered upon great Greek names during the Alex- andrine age, that we must look for hints of real value.* The evidence has been well collected by G. A. Deissmann, who, in his Bibdstudien (pp. 189-252), reaches the following results. A broad line is to be drawn between the letter and the epistle. The one is essentially a spontaneous product, dominated throughout by the image of the reader, his sympathies and interests, iostinct also with the writer's own soul : it is virtually one half of an imaginary dialogue, the suppressed responses of the other party sliaping the course of what is actually written : it is confidential in the sense that it is meant for particular readers known to the writer. The other has a general aim, addressing all and sundry whom it may concern : it is like a public speech, and looks towards publication. But pub- lication is the very note of literature proper. Hence the letter, as private, differs from the epistle in being a ' pre-literary ' type of self-expression, akin to a diary. But, like a diary, if meant ultimately for the public eye a letter may, in spite of its original use, be in fact an epistle (e.g. certain letters of Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny). The literary epistle would arise from actual experience of the postnum- ous value placed on a great man's letters, and might take one of two forms : ( 1 ) those written to make or enhance one's own fame ; (2) those forged under some great name, either for practice, after the fashion of the schools of rhetoric, or to give weight to propaganda of some sort. But in any case it will betray care, efibrt after finish— in a word, art ; whereas the letter proper is unstudied, a thing of nature. This being so, letters require an exegesis all their own, one which seta their contents in vital relations with author and readers. Thus only can their proper sense be ascertained.
These principles have a real bearing on NT epp. , and must rank among the tests of authenticity. But certain special features of primitive Christianity modify their application ; and the universal nature of the interests involved makes the line between letter and ej)istle a fainter one, as we see by placing 1 Th alongside an epistle like Romans, or even the encyclical Epliesians. It was, no doubt, by wTiting letters that St. Paul came to feel an epistle a fit medium of exposition. And it seems tliat he, partly in virtue of his unique missionary labours, partly as a Jew of Gr. -Rom. culture, was the creator of the NT type of epistle, itaelf the most character- i«tic blossom of the New Life in the souls of men, the most notable differentia of NT among sacred books. It is even possible that all otlier NT
• A certain proportion of the Alexandrine pseudo-epistlea, balas Onoco-Jewisli in orijcin have a special claim to attention.
epistles owe their birth to St. Paul as pioneer. B« this as it may, the relevant data can best be grouped as (a) pre-Pauline, (6) Pauline, (c) post- Pauline.
(a) Pre-Pauline Epi.stle.s.— Letters of instruc- tion to the synagogal authorities even outside Pal. were sent by the supreme court of the mother- city as occasion arose (Ac 9^ with 22', cf. 28-'). It was, perhaps, not without some vague sense of this analogy that the Jems, community, acting through the apostles and the elder brethren (Ac lo'^- ^, cf. 2 Mac !'• '"), addressed their Gentile brethren of the province Syria -Cdicia touching terms of com- munion. Common use of ' letters of introduction ' is implied in 2 Co 3' (see Ac 18-'', and cf. Ro 16'- » as a sample), and in a slightly different sense in 1 Co 16'. No doubt, too, foreign synagogues were wont to refer doubtful points to Jems, and thus elicit wTitten responses. But we cannot view the letter of the Cor. Church to its spiritual father or ajjostle (1 Co "', 4"-" 9»-'-'=) exactly in this light. Rather it seems a natural result of the unique relation which St. Paul's personality, at once strong and tender, caused to grow up between him and his ' children in the gospel.' This is the secret of the Pauline letters.