Abstract
If the Pastoral Epistles do not come directly from Paul but from someone else in the Pauline tradition,1 a number of questions pertaining to the emergence of the Pauline writings as Scripture arise. How does the authority of Paul serve to validate the authority of the Pastoral texts? How does the attempt to emulate the authentic—and earlier—Pauline epistles shape the Pastoral Epistles? Finally, can we see already in the Pastoral Epistles something of the early movement toward the development of a body of Pauline Scriptures and ultimately a Pauline canon?2 If, however, we conclude that the Pastorals are in fact from Paul himself, these questions undoubtedly shift, but not dramatically so in each case. The question of Pauline authority still pertains, and the issue of a developing concept of Pauline Scripture shifts only slightly. If the Pastoral Epistles are authentically Pauline, the issue of emulation does change significantly. Paul, of course, would not emulate himself, as would someone writing pseudepigraphically in the name of Paul. In either case, however, the issue of an emerging concept of Scripture is linked to the theological contour of the Pastoral Epistles, as well as to their relationship with one another and with the larger Pauline corpus.3 The thesis to be developed here is that a Pauline concept of Scripture, the precursor to a full-fledged Pauline canon, can be detected already in the theological and literary patterns of the Pastoral Epistles.
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References
For discussions of the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, see J. Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 17–30; L.R. Donelson, Pseudepigrapha and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 7–66; L.T. Johnson, Letters to Paul’s Delegates: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus (NTC; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 1–36; G. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1992), 3–54; I.H. Marshall, `Recent Study of the Pastoral Epistles’, Them 23.1 (1997), 3–21; and P.H. Towner, `Pauline Theology or Pauline Tradition in the Pastoral Epistles: The Question of Method’, TynBul 46.2 (1995), 291–300. See also J.D. Miller’s variation on the composite theory of the Pastoral Epistles, The Pastoral Letters as Composite Documents (SNTSMS 93; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997 ), 1–33.
Here I observe the common distinction between the terms Scripture and canon. See H.Y. Gamble, ‘Canon. New Testament’, ABD 1 (1992), 852–61.
As will be indicated below, I think it is most plausible to view the Pastorals as pseudepigraphic, but the argument developed here about Pauline authority and the formation of the Pauline Scriptures does not rest exclusively on this issue. Hence, it is important to recognize the questions that have prompted this discussion and how those questions shift if a different conclusion is reached on the issue of authorship.
J.W. Aageson, `2 Timothy and Its Theology: In Search of a Theological Pattern’, SBL Seminar Papers 1997 (SBLSP 36; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997 ), 693–94.
N.R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul’s Narrative World ( Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985 ), 1–42.
Petersen, Rediscovering Paul,8–9. In that same discussion, Petersen also writes: `The only history referred to in a letter is its contextual history, which is the total history envisioned by the writer as relevant for the letter. However, as real as this difference between letter and narrative is, because letters refer to a world they have referential worlds,and these are the narrative worlds,from which any real-world history must be reconstructed.’
Aageson, `2 Timothy’, 696–97.
God is identified as saviour, or the one who saves, in Titus 1:3; 2:10; cf. 2:11; 3:4; and 3:5; whereas in 1:4; 2:13; and 3:6 Christ is identified as the saviour. Contrast the use of `saviour’ and `save’ in 1 Timothy. See the excursus in M. Dibelius and H. Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles (trans. P. Buttolph and A. Yarbro; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 100–104 and the discussions by J.M. Bassler, `A Plethora of Epiphanies: Christology in the Pastoral Letters’, Princeton Seminary Review 17.3 (1996), 310–25; Donelson, Pseudepigrapha and Ethical Argument, 135–54; L. Oberlinner, `Die Epiphaneia des Heilswillens Gottes in Christus Jesus: Zur Grundstruktur der Christologie der Pastoralbriefe’, ZNW 71 (1980), 192–213; and F. Young, The Theology of the Pastoral Letters (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 ), 50–55.
Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus,122; B. Fiore, The Function of Personal Example in the Socratic and Pastoral Epistles (AnBib; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1986), 214; Johnson, Paul’s Delegates,253; and Young, Pastoral Letters,5.
Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus,38 and 41 and Johnson, Paul’s Delegates,109.
J.L. Sumney, `A Reading of the Theology of 1 Timothy without Authorial Presuppositions’ (paper presented at the Theology of the Disputed Pauline Epistles Group of the annual meeting of the SBL, New Orleans, 23–26 November 1996), 3. See also Donelson, Pseudepigrapha and Ethical Argument,116–28, and Young, Theology,10–11.
Johnson, Paul’s Delegates,109.
J.C. Beker’s claim (Heirs of Paul: Paul’s Legacy in the New Testament and in the Church Today [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991], 39) that the conflict between the historical Paul and his Jewish and Judaizing opponents is replaced by a conflict between Paul and Jewish-Gnostic opponents is questionable. The Paul of the Pastorals certainly deals with his Jewish opposition in a different manner than does the Paul of the undisputed Paulines, but the claim that they are Jewish-Gnostics would only seem to create unnecessary terminological imprecision.
Bassler (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus,188) says that the threat arose from within Titus’s community, whereas Johnson (Paul’s Delegates,213) thinks the opponents may be outsiders.
See the discussions by R.J. Karris, The Pastoral Epistles (NTM; Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1979 ), ix-xiv, and M.Y. MacDonald, The Pauline Churches: A Socio-historical Study of Institutionalization in Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Writings (SNTSMS 60; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988 ), 159–70.
L.R. Donelson (`Studying Paul: 2 Timothy as Remembrance’, SBL Seminar Papers 1997,721) writes: `Paul is not simply author. Paul inscribes himself in his own text. Or, in my opinion, an unknown author has Paul inscribe himself in his own text.’
Cf. the discussion by Beker, Heirs of Paul,36–39.
See Johnson, Paul’s Delegates,37 and 214.
S.K. Stowers, `Friends and Enemies in the Politics of Heaven: Reading Theology in Philippians’, in J.M. Bassler (ed.), Pauline Theology. I. Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 105–21. As Stowers points out, scholars of ancient letter writing for a long time have made the connection between Philippians and letters of friendship, but in this essay he brings this to bear on his reading of the theology of Philippians.
In both Phil 2:17 and 2 Tim 4:6, the term rnc£vSoµat is used, the only two places where it appears in the New Testament, and has sacrificial connotations relating to Paul’s suffering.
As Stowers (`Friends and Enemies’, 108) points out, Seneca’s friendship letters, too, were written to individuals rather than communities. As we have already noted, even though 2 Timothy is a very personal letter and clearly written as a private correspondence between Paul and Timothy, a larger audience is in view.
Timothy and Philippians present interesting theological images for the church and the faithful person’s place in the world. In 1 Tim 3:15, the household of God is identified as the `church of the living God’, and in 1:4 the author appeals to Timothy to conform to the `divine order in faith’. Paul writes in Phil 3:20 that `our place of citizenship (noXite a) is in heaven’, and in 1:27 he urges the Philippians to `live as citizens (rtoXtitsysa0s) in a way that is worthy of the gospel’. In each of these examples, a cultural or social image is projected onto the church and the people in the church. At their root, 1 Timothy and Philippians represent quite different images. In the narrative of 1 Timothy, the structural images are the household and the social order based on the pattern of the Greco-Roman household, whereas in Philippians, the place of one’s citizenship is projected into heaven.
J. Murphy-O’Connor (Paul: A Critical Life [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997], 356–59) concludes that 2 Timothy is written by Paul.
Towner summarizes four themes or benchmarks for assessing continuity and discontinuity between the Pastoral Epistles and Paul as: local community; salvation-historical, eschatological context of ecclesiology; relation of the church to the gospel; and place and nature of church office/ministry/leadership.
It should be observed that the points of structural theological similarity between 1 Timothy/Titus—especially 1 Timothy—and Galatians are real but very limited. What drives the narrative in Galatians theologically is substantially different from what drives the narratives in 1 Timothy and Titus. The points of narrative contact are more likely to be incidental, drawing on some deep structural similarities regarding the law in the churches in the Gentile lands of the first century, than they are evidence of an authorial connection between the two sets of texts. If 1 Timothy and Titus were consciously patterned after aspects of Galatians, the resultant overlap between them is in the end not very extensive. In the case of 1 Corinthians, there is no counterpart to the concern for qualities and qualifications of leadership so conspicuous in the narrative worlds of 1 Timothy and Titus. Groups of people are sometimes identified in 1 Corinthians but not in terms of the qualities necessary for leadership or particular roles in the community. In that regard, 1 Corinthians comes out of a different narrative world, and certainly draws on different metaphors to understand and describe the church. The `household of God’ metaphor is structurally different than the `body of Christ’ metaphor. Where the Pastorals and 1 Corinthians do overlap structurally and conceptually, they do so at a very general level. The narrative and theological affinity between them is neither marked nor extensive.
The goal of this immediate discussion is not to argue for or against Pauline authorship as such but to illustrate that the presupposition of common authorship for the three Pastoral Epistles is not necessarily well-founded and that thus the formation of Scripture, or even canon, may not be identical in all three epistles. See the claim by M. Prior, Paul the Letter-Writer and the Second Letter to Timothy (JSNTSup 23; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989 ), 169.
Dibelius and Conzelmann (The Pastoral Epistles,98) emphasize that the exhortation to suffer is based on the bond between teacher and disciple. This clearly forms the immediate circumstance for the plea to suffer.
Beker, Heirs of Paul,37. Fiore (Personal Example,36–37) argues that the function of example is not simply for better comprehension but for action. The example is a demonstration of what is being taught. See also Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument,93, 105–106.
Johnson (Delegates,122 and 212) says that in 2 Timothy Paul’s behaviour is exemplary whereas in 1 Timothy it is God’s mercy. In the case of Titus, he says that the epistle takes the form of a mandata principis letter where Titus is to show himself as a model of good deeds.
Donelson (Pseudepigrapha and Ethical Argument,151) asserts: `In order for the cosmological-ethical connections believed in by our author to gain a hearing in his church and thus acquire power and influence, this theology must be anchored in reliable roots. The ability of these teachings to persuade and thus to save reside in the believability of the fiction of Pauline origins.’
In a concise summary, Brevard Childs (The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984], 381) sets forth the proposals regarding the function of these epistles made by those who hold these epistles to be pseudepigraphic: written 50 years after Paul by a follower who tries to apply Paul’s teaching to a new situation in the church; a personalizing of the tradition; development of a commissioning office that would project Pauline authority into the next generation of the church; and the projection of an apostolic presence into the period after the death of Paul. The problem, as Childs points out, is that clear exegetical support for these claims is difficult to find.
Childs, New Testament as Canon,382–83.
See, e.g., the `in Christ’ language in 1 Tim 1:14; 3:13; 2 Tim 1:1, 9, 13; 2:1, 10; 3:12, 15.
As candidates for pre-formed traditions, see 1 Tim 2:5–6; 3:16; 2 Tim 2:11–13; Titus 2:14; 3:5–7.
See apparent echoes and quotations in 1 Tim 2:2, 8, 13–14; 5:5, 18–19; 6:7; 2 Tim 2:19; 3:8; 4:17; Titus 2:11, 14.
See, e.g., 1 Tim 1:3, 20; 3:14; 4:13; 2 Tim 1:3–7, 15–18; 3:10–11; 4:6–22; Titus 1:5; 3:12–15.
E.E. Ellis, `Traditions in the Pastoral Epistles’, in C.A. Evans and W.F. Stinespring (eds.), Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 237–53, has addressed this, as has P. Trummer, Die Paulustradition der Pastoralbriefe (BBET 8; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1978 ).
In some measure, this issue turns on the dating of the Pastorals. If the Pastorals were written pseudepigraphically shortly after Paul’s death, the early collection of the community letters would have had less time to develop a substantive shape and form than if they were written many decades following his death. Undoubtedly, the early selection and ordering of the community letters would have involved a process of shaping and framing. We might think that the result of this process was more malleable in the early period than it would become later. I think it is most plausible that the Pastorals were written before the end of the first century and probably within 20–25 years of Paul’s death. If 2 Timothy was written by Paul, it, of course, would be an exception to this. To be sure, with this dating range it is likely there would have already been a process of compiling and ordering Paul’s letters before the Pastorals were written. I presume, however, that whatever collection there was by this time it was still fairly fluid and subject to considerable refinement and reinterpretation. See also the proposal by B.P. Wolfe, `Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles: Premarcion Marcionism’, PRSt 16 (1989), 13–16.
See the discussions by Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus,133–34, and Johnson, Delegates,55. We also note the distinction between napdSoßtç, which appears in the undisputed Paulines but not in the Pastorals, and napa0rlxri, which appears only in 1 and 2 Timothy.
Compare Childs, New Testament as Canon,389, and Johnson, Delegates,55.
Donelson, Pseudepigrapha and Ethical Argument,164.
See below, section 4.
Childs, New Testament as Canon,389–90.
Cf. Johnson, Delegates,55.
See above, section 3.
Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument,163, 166.
See above, n. 33.
The only other New Testament document outside the Pastorals where `saviour’ occurs with some regularity is 2 Peter (5 times) and in that epistle the term is used consistently of Christ. In that series of occurrences the only ambiguous reference is 3:2, but even here it is most assuredly a reference to Christ as well.
Timothy 6:14; 2 Tim 1:10; 4:1, 8; Titus 2:13; cf. Titus 2:11; 3:4. This term also occurs in 2 Thess 2:8.
See Bassler, `A Plethora of Epiphanies’, 310–25, and Oberlinner, `Die Epiphaneia des Heilswillens’, 192–213.
Bassler, `A Plethora of Epiphanies’, 313.
Oberlinner, `Die Epiphaneia des Heilswillens’, 192–313.
Cf. Rom 4:1–24; 9:30–10:4; Eph 2:8–11.
See the discussion regarding the interpretation of Gal 3:19 by D.J. Lull, —The Law Was Our Pedagogue“: A Study in Galatians 3:19–25’, JBL 105 (1986), 482–86.
For a brief discusssion of the translation issue relating to `all’ Scripture being God-breathed or `each’ Scripture that is God-breathed, see Bassler, 1 Timothy 2 Timothy, Titus,167.
Bassler, 1 Timothy 2 Timothy, Titus,166–67. Wolfe (`Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles’, 13–15) argues that the language of 2 Tim 3:15–17 points to a broader authoritative tradition than simply the Old Testament. We cannot know for sure whether or not the Pauline community letters were thought of as Scripture by the time 2 Timothy was written (cf. 2 Pet 3:15–16), but it is tantalizing to consider this possibility. In any case, they were considered to have authority, and the writer(s) of the Pastorals intended to frame an understanding of Paul’s teaching and legacy. In that sense, I am sure the writer(s) thought of themselves as framing and extending an authoritative Pauline tradition, but I doubt they thought of themselves as writing Scripture in any strict definition of the term. This may have some similarity to the way certain Jewish and perhaps even New Testament writers saw themselves as extending Hebrew biblical tradition in light of new circumstances and revelation. In light of the two-source hypothesis, it may also have some similarity to the way Matthew and Luke reframed, reinterpreted, and extended the Jesus tradition of Mark.
Cf. 1 Tim 4:13.
For a brief discussion of the attestation to the Pastoral Epistles in the early church and by implication the complexity of the formation of the Pauline canon, see Knight, The Pastoral Epistles,13–14. Cf. also 2 Pet 3:15–16.
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Aageson, J.W. (2004). The Pastoral Epistles, Apostolic Authority, and the Development of The Pauline Scriptures. In: Porter, S.E. (eds) The Pauline Canon. Pauline Studies, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-41228-2_2
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