2 πρὶ ο)
THE EPISTLE, OF PAUL TO
8.1. Authorship, Place and Date.—The external evidence for the authenticity of this Epistle is sufficiently strong ; it is included among the Pauline writings in the collection of Marcion; Tertullian men- tions this in his ddv. Marc. v. 42. It is also mentioned, in connexion with the Pastoral Epistles, in the Muratorian Pragment. Origen ascribes it to St. Paul (Hom. in Μα. xxxili., xxxiv.); Eusebius reckons it among the ὁμολογούμενα (ΗΠ. E. iii. 25): Jerome, in his com- mentary on the Epistle, mentions the fact that its genuineness was disputed by some because it did not treat of doctrinal matters; he holds that it would not have been received by the Church from the beginning unless it had been St. Paul’s. The fact that it is not mentioned in the sub-apostolic literature cannot excite suspicion, for its shortness and the character of its contents sufficiently account for this non-mention, The internal evidence is equally strong; the Epistle bears the impress of the Pauline spirit throughout ; and one has only to compare the vocabulary and style with those of the other Pauline Epistles to be convinced at once that St. Paul wrote it. Very few among modern scholars reject its Pauline authorship ; van Manen, for example, finds a difficulty in the ‘‘ surprising mixture of singular and plural both in the persons speaking and in the persons addressed. This double form points at once to some peculiarity in the composi- tion of the Epistle. It is not a style that is natural to any one who is writing freely and untrammelled, whether to one person or many” (Encycl. Bibl. col. 3695). Such’ a futile objection is self-condemna- tory; but he continues: ‘‘ Here, as throughout the discussion, the constantly recurring questions as to the reason for the selection of the forms, words, expressions adopted, find their answer in the ob- servation that the Epistle was written under the influence of a perusal of ‘Pauline’ epistles, especially of those to the Ephesians and Colossians” (¢bid.). That is as much as to say that the fact that a writer is writing in his usual style is presumptive evidence that his style is being imitated by someone else! The minute verbal com- parisons which van Manen tabulates between this and the other