Sons of Korah. Neither Samuel nor Ruth nor Esther were supposed to be the authors of the books which bore their names. Koheleth, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, impersonates Solomon, and the Proverbs and the Canticles both bear his name.
The church of the second century thankfully accepted these three Epistles, and, inferior though they were in spiritual power and richness of idea to the genuine Pauline letters or the Epistle to the Hebrews, incorporated them with these among the New Testament writings. They are valuable in exhibiting to us certain features of post-Pauline Christianity. They testify to the energy and purity of the church’s moral impulses as nourished by the religious principles of Christen- dom. They show us the causes out of which grew the increased emphasis upon authority and external regimen. By their strong attestation of the value of the inheritance from the apostolic age, by their high ethical character, based on religion and exhibiting the moral consequences of the Christian faith, by their emphasis upon the practical rather than the doctrinal edification of the church, upon the significance of the church, and upon the representation of Christianity by Christian personality —they justify their canonisation.
H. J. Holtzmann, Die Pastoralbriefe kritisch und emegetisch be- handelt, 1880.
H. von Soden, “ Introduction to Pastoral Epistles,” Hand-Com- mentar, by Holtzmann, Lipsius, Schmiedel, and von Soden, 1893.
Samuel Davidson, Introduction to the Study of the New Testa- ment.
C. von Weizsicker, Das apostolische Zeitalter der christlichen Kirche, 1891. Transl. by Millar, 1894.
O. Pfleiderer, Das Urchristenthum, seine Schriften und Lehren, 1887. Der Paulinismus, 1890.
A. Sabatier, LZ’ Apdtre Paul. Transl. by Hellier, 1890.
Ad. Jilicher, Hinleitung in das Neue Testament, 1894.
Edwin Hatch, art. “Pastoral Epistles,” Encyclopaedia Britan- NiCd.
A. McGiffert, The Apostolic Age, 1897.
Lemme, Das echte Ermahnungschreiben des Apostels Paulus an Timotheus, 1882.
I. H. Hesse, Die Hntstehung der neutestamentlichen Hirtenbriefe, 1889.