Who Wrote the . . . Pastoral Epistles?
posted by Clark Bates
July 11, 2016
The Pastoral Epistles (hereafter known
as Pastorals) of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, are possibly some of the most challenged works within
the Pauline corpus. A large number of scholars find the
discrepancies in text, setting and style to be insurmountable for
traditional authorship and thus suggest that the Pastorals should be
seen as the work of a pseudonymous author in the second century.
Others examine the same evidence and find it lacking, or even
supporting of the traditional Pauline view. In keeping with the
series on New Testament authorship what follows is a brief overview
of both positions followed by my own personal conclusion on the
matter:
Arguments Against Pauline
Authorship:
As it relates to textual problems
within the Pastorals, most modern scholarship has sought to build
upon the writings of P.N. Harrison. According to Harrison, “The
three Pastorals make use of 902 words, of which 54 are proper names.
Of the remaining 848 words, 306 do not occur in the other ten Pauline
letters. Of these 306, at least 175 occur nowhere else in the New
Testament. . . this leaves 542 words shared by the Pauline letters
and the Pastorals. . . no more than 50 are characteristic Pauline
words in the sense that they are not used by other writers in the New
Testament.”1
The
existence of such a large amount of foreign word structure is
certainly reason to pause. When one examines the writings of the
uncontested letters of Paul, a certain symmetry exists within them.
Common openings and closings are contained in most, as is the
repetitious use of certain theological phrases and terms. The marked
lacking of these, combined with the addition of terms never before
seen in Paul's work certainly suggests another author. Commenting on
this stylistic differences, Becker writes, “One notes also that the
dramatic vivacity of Pauline argumentation, with its emotional,
outbursts, its dialogue form of thought, its introduction of real or
imaginary opponents and objections, and the use of metaphor and
image, is replaced by a certain heaviness and repetitious style.”2
In
addition to the textual difficulties is the question of “when?”.
Historical problems arise within the Pastorals directly because
nothing that is mentioned within them can be found in the rest of the
New Testament account of Paul's missionary journeys. As it has been
noted, “It is difficult to fit the situations envisaged in the
Pastorals into what we learn of the life of Paul from Acts and the
Pauline letters.” These discrepancies are not minute. The author
of these letters has manufactures allusions that would give the
impression of an historical setting. For example, Paul's only known
contact with Crete was his brief stop there en route to Rome as a
prisoner (Acts 27:7-13), and this does not easily square with Titus
1:5, “The reason I left you in Crete. . .” We do not have any
source to confirm Paul's wintering at Nicopolis (Tit. 3:12).
Similarly, the personalia in the Timothy's do not easily square with
what we know of Paul's ministry.3
Given
that the texts contain a large number of foreign terms, more commonly
seen in the time of the apostolic fathers (2nd
century) and the instances recounted within them cannot be found
within the recorded account of Paul's travels, the case against
traditional authorship increases. This evidence is only bolstered by
the theological problems that exist. Many contend that these letters
contain quite a number of Hellenistic terms for the salvation event
that Paul would not have used. Phrases such as, “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); “one
mediator between God and human beings” (1 Tim. 2:5); “the grace
of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people” (Tit.
2:11) all incorporate some Pauline terms but are used in non-Pauline
ways, leading many scholars to propose a pseudonymous author
mimicking Paul.
One
merely needs to consider how they might respond if someone handed
them a letter from, say a pen pal, and when they opened it found that
it was written in a way they'd never seen their friend write,
discussing events they'd never heard of and covering topics, to this
point, never before discussed between the two of you. Your immediate
reaction would be that some forgery has taken place. If possible,
you might try to contact this friend and verify the letter with them.
This is not possible with the ancient text, but skeptics of
traditional authorship that the same suspicion would, and should, be
warranted.
Arguments
For Pauline Authorship
In
addition, it is misleading to say that 306 non-Pauline words occur in
the Pastorals. 127 of these words occur in 1 Timothy alone, while 2
Timothy contains 81 and Titus 45.5
This means that the vast majority of words are found only in one
epistle and the three differ from one another as well. No one
suggests that there were three separate pseudepigraphers, yet,
according to the earlier reasoning, this should be the case. To put
it another way, if the figures show that the three Pastorals were
written by one author other than Paul, they also show that the author
may well have been Paul.
While
much has been said regarding the statistical data of the text it
remains that the statistics themselves cannot tells us why
the differences exist. They only raise more questions. Is it
because of different topics, or because these epistles were written
to individuals with certain challenges and not to churches with quite
a different set of challenges, or because of different amaneusis?6
7
As was suggested above, these uncertainties are quantified if
we posit the use of an amaneusis. Some have speculated that Paul
used the historian, Luke as his amaneusis, giving him more freedom in
the case of the pastorals than in the ten, while others contend that
the differences are accounted for precisely because Paul did not
use an amaneusis in the Pastorals as he did with ten. While each of
these positions are possible, both are speculative and lack enough
information to be considered as anything beyond a reasonable
possibility. Undoubtedly there are differences. The question is how
to account for them. One wonders if the difference between the
Pastorals and the ten Pauline letters is greater than the difference
that might legitimately be expected between private letters to
trusted fellow workers and public letters to churches, letters
usually addressing specific difficulties.8
Something
not regularly addressed by those favoring pseudonymity is the genre
of the individual Pastorals. The genres of 1 Timothy and Titus are
commonly accepted as “mandate letters” while 2 Timothy is seen as
the genre of “testament”. Both of these genres would be well
known to the apostle but less so to someone writing in the second
century. The mandate letter, in particular, lends considerable
support to Pauline authorship, as Johnson notes, “When the letter
was read to the people to whom the delegate was sent, the will of the
chief administrator would be clear, and the standards expected of the
delegate would simultaneously encourage the delegate to faithfulness
and provide some written security for the readers against whimsical
authority usurped by the delegate. . .”9
The reality is that we know fairly little of what Paul did during those years, and there are huge gaps when other events could be squeezed in.
The
difficulty with placing Paul in the locations and circumstances noted
in the Pastorals I clearly a matte that requires address, and, as
should be expected, there is no shortage of response. In way of
historical support for the Pastorals, it's often disclosed that the
epistle 1 Clement offers credence to the writing of the Pastorals
within Paul's lifetime. In 1 Clement 5:7 it is reported that Paul
journeyed “to the outer limits of the West.” Within the Roman
Empire this would commonly be received as Spain, despite the protests
of skeptics. If this is the case, what Clement records could only
have taken place after Acts 28.
The
reality is that we know fairly little of what Paul did during those
years, and there are huge gaps when other events could be squeezed
in. When did Paul undergo the frequent imprisonments, five beatings,
three shipwrecks and other sufferings mentioned in 2 Cor. 11:23-27?
Acts 20:31 records that Paul spent three years in Ephesus but records
none of Paul's trips during those years, even though we read in 2
Cor. 1:23-2:1 that Paul visited Corinth at that time. What other
journeys might he have taken?
One
proposal is that Paul endured two separate Roman imprisonments, only
one of which is recorded in Scripture. There is nothing improbable
with believing that Paul could have been released after his meeting
with Caesar at the close of Acts, and what's more, numerous patristic
sources stipulate that Paul was released from his imprisonment in
Rome and ministered once again in the East.10
You may say that it is difficult
to fit the events of the Pastorals into the recorded life of Paul,
but it is a far greater claim to say that it is impossible
to do so.
Finally,
if the letter were written by a pseudonymous author a century later,
what are we to make of the need for Paul's cloak and scrolls (2 Tim.
4:13); his leaving Timothy in Ephesus when he went to Macedonia (1
Tim. 1:3); his hope to see Timothy soon (1 Tim. 3:14-15); his saying
that Onesiphorus searched and found him in Rome (2 Tim. 1:16-17); or
his instruction to Titus to help Zenas and Apollos (Tit. 3:13)? No
convincing reason has been suggested for the manufacture of
hypothetical situations of this nature. The pastorals contain
nothing of the legendary accounts contained within known pseudonymous
writings like the Acts of Paul
in the second century. The Pastorals are more akin tot he Pauline
letters than they are to the catalog of known pseudonymous documents
of the early church.
Similar
arguments for theological support of Pauline authorship are leveled
in the same manner as those for textual and historical support.
Primarily they rest upon the uneven nature of reporting from those in
opposition. Much is made of the theological phrases used in the
Pastorals containing Pauline phrases used in non-Pauline ways, but it
must be acknowledged that the phrases are still Pauline. Just as it
is in the statistical data, the anti-Pauline emphasis is often
focused on at the expense of the numerous Pauline phrases used within
the Pastorals in the same manner as the uncontested letters of Paul.
Terms such as Christ's coming to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15);
salvation because of divine mercy and not our works (Tit. 3:5); the
importance of faith in Christ (1 Tim.3:13); of election (Tit. 1:!);
and of grace (2 Tim. 1:9), among others. The theological style of
the Pastorals is inconclusive. Scholars are divided regarding the
implication of specific verses, seeing direct opposition to
traditional authorship as well as direct support for it.
Historically, each of the Pastorals was quoted by church fathers like
Polycarp, Irenaeus. Trajan, Clement of Alexandria and others. Its
canonicity was never questioned with the exception of the heretic
Marcion and Tatian, both of which were unique in their perspectives
and not indicative of the whole.
Conclusion
As I
have written before, where tradition maintains a particular author
and the evidence against such authorship is weak or speculative,
there is little reason to adopt another view. In the case of the
Pastorals, I believe it can rightly be said that the evidence for and
against authorship rests largely on speculation. It is simply the
case that not enough information is known for certain. What remains
is what might be seen as more likely. I believe that, given the
evidence, it is more likely that the Pastoral epistles are the work
of the apostle Paul somewhere near the end of his life in the mid to
late 1st
century. To believe otherwise creates more problems than it answers
and becomes like the pulling of a loose string that unravels a
sweater. Each is welcome to conduct their own study to determine
where they might fall, for what has been presented is only a cursory
examination of the topic.
1
P.N. Harrison, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles,
(London: Oxford University Press, 1921) 20.
2
J.C. Becker, “Pastoral Letters,” IDB,
3.670.
3
D.A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An
introduction to the New Testament,
“The
Pastoral Epistles” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 561.
4
Donald Guthrie, The Pastoral Epistles and the Mind of
Paul, (London: Tyndale, 1956),
9.
5Harrison,
Epistles, 20.
6
George K. Barr, “Two Styles in the New Testament Epistles,”
LLC, 18 (2003):
235-48.
7As
a side note, an amaneusis was a term applied to someone hired by a
person seeking to communicate a letter or writing but unable or
unwilling to write it themselves. This was a common practice in
Greco-Roman culture and one employed by the apostle Paul regularly.
The level of freedom allowed to an amaneusis was largely left up to
the employer. Some were given a wide range of freedom with
linguistic style and interpretation while others were directed to
merely record. Because of this and the unknown freedom Paul may
have allowed, the use of amaneusis creates another caveat into
understanding the differences in the Pastorals.
8Carson
and Moo, Introduction, 561.
9
Luke Timothy Johnson, Letters to Paul's Delegates: 1
Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, The
New Testament in Context (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International,
1996), 106-8.
10
The Muratorian Canon, Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Jerome,
Theodoret of Mopsuestia, Pelagius and Theodoret.
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