The Disputed Letters and the Corpus

Beyond the seven undisputed letters, six others bearing Paul’s name are contested in modern scholarship to varying degrees: Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians (debated), and the three Pastoral Epistles — 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus (most widely doubted). This file lays out the arguments for and against their authenticity, the much-debated phenomenon of ancient pseudepigraphy, and how the thirteen-letter Pauline corpus was gathered and received in the early Church — all within the Orthodox affirmation of these letters as canonical Scripture.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Spectrum of Doubt

Modern critical scholarship arranges the contested letters on a spectrum. 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians are “deutero-Pauline” in many treatments — doubted by a substantial number of scholars but defended by many — while the three Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus) are the most widely regarded as post-Pauline (Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, 1997; Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery, 2013). It is essential to be clear about what is and is not at stake: the Orthodox Church receives all thirteen as canonical and apostolic Scripture, and the question of literary authorship is distinct from the question of canonical authority and inspiration. The scholarly arguments are presented here honestly, as METHODOLOGY requires, but they do not touch the Church’s reception of these books as the word of God read in her assemblies.

The Arguments Against Authenticity

The case for non-Pauline authorship rests on several converging arguments, which vary in force from letter to letter:

Vocabulary and style. The Pastorals in particular contain a high proportion of words not found in the undisputed letters and a different, smoother sentence-style; Ephesians has long, accumulating periods unlike Paul’s usual terseness (the classic statement of the linguistic case for the Pastorals is P. N. Harrison, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, 1921).
Theology and church order. Critics argue the Pastorals reflect a more developed, settled church structure (bishops, elders, deacons, with fixed qualifications, 1 Tim. 3; Titus 1) and a more institutional ethos than the charismatic communities of the undisputed letters; Ephesians and Colossians are said to show a “realized” eschatology and a cosmic, churchly Christology somewhat developed beyond Romans and Galatians.
Historical setting. The situations presupposed by the Pastorals — Paul’s movements, the named opponents — are difficult to fit into the career known from Acts and the letters, which some resolve by positing a release from the Roman imprisonment and further travels, others by post-Pauline composition.

The Arguments For Authenticity

The defense of Pauline authorship is also substantial and is held by serious scholars:

Style varies with subject, secretary, and circumstance. Paul used secretaries (Rom. 16:22 names Tertius), and a different amanuensis, a different topic (church order rather than controversy), and the advance of years can account for differences of vocabulary and tone without different authorship. The statistical arguments from vocabulary are vulnerable to the small size of the samples.
Personal detail. The Pastorals, especially 2 Timothy, contain vivid personal notes (2 Tim. 4:9–21) hard to explain as fiction.
Early and universal attestation. All thirteen letters are attributed to Paul in the manuscript tradition and were received as his without recorded dispute in the early centuries (in contrast to Hebrews, whose Pauline authorship was questioned in antiquity).

The honest summary is that authenticity is genuinely contested and the verdict differs by letter [Disputed: of the contested letters, 2 Thessalonians and Colossians are defended by many as authentic and doubted by many; Ephesians is more widely judged deutero-Pauline; the Pastorals (1–2 Timothy, Titus) are the most widely regarded as post-Pauline pseudepigrapha — yet each position has able defenders, and conservative scholarship defends all thirteen as Pauline (contrast Ehrman 2013, who argues for pseudepigraphy, with Murphy-O’Connor 1996 and conservative introductions that defend or partly defend authenticity)].

The Question of Pseudepigraphy

If some of these letters were not written by Paul, what does that mean morally and canonically? Here scholarship itself divides. An older, gentler view held that pseudonymous writing in the name of a revered teacher was an accepted convention in the ancient world — a disciple writing “in the spirit of Paul” without intent to deceive, and without dishonor. A more recent and forceful position (notably Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery, 2013) argues that ancient readers did in fact regard falsely-attributed writings as forgeries and condemned them, so that pseudepigraphy cannot be so easily neutralized [Disputed: whether ancient pseudepigraphy was an accepted, non-deceptive literary convention (the older view) or was understood as deceptive “forgery” and condemned (Ehrman 2013) is itself debated; the question bears directly on how a non-authentic Pauline letter would have to be evaluated]. For the Orthodox reader, the decisive fact is the Church’s reception: whatever the human process of composition, the Church discerned in these books the apostolic faith and received them into the canon under Paul’s name, and reads them as Scripture (see Holy Scripture).

The Formation of the Corpus

The Pauline letters were occasional writings — sent to particular churches and persons — that were collected, copied, and circulated as a body remarkably early. By the time of Clement of Rome (c. 96), Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107–117), and Polycarp of Smyrna (early-mid second century), Paul’s letters were already being quoted and treated as authoritative; Polycarp’s own Epistle to the Philippians is saturated with Pauline language and explicitly invokes “the blessed and glorious Paul” and his letters (Polycarp, Philippians 3, 11; see St. Polycarp of Smyrna and St. Ignatius of Antioch). By the mid-second century a collection of Paul’s letters circulated, and 2 Peter 3:15–16 already refers to Paul’s letters as a known body, grouped with “the other scriptures.” The number and order of the letters in early collections varied, and the heretic Marcion (c. 140) made a truncated ten-letter Pauline collection (excluding the Pastorals) the center of his canon — a provocation that helped spur the Church’s own articulation of its canon (see Reception and Legacy).

Hebrews and the Thirteen

The Epistle to the Hebrews, traditionally counted with the Pauline letters to make fourteen, stands apart: its Greek style and anonymous form led to doubts about Pauline authorship already in the early Church (Origen famously said “who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows,” as reported by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.25). The Eastern Church received Hebrews as canonical and read it in the Pauline corpus, while remaining aware that its authorship was uncertain; the West was slower to accept it. The thirteen letters bearing Paul’s name, plus Hebrews, make up the corpus the Church reads as Pauline, with the authorship of Hebrews acknowledged as an open question from antiquity onward.

References

The Holy Bible, King James Version. The Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, Hebrews; the Second Epistle of Peter.
Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History 6.25 (Origen on Hebrews). Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1.
Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Ehrman, Bart D. Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Harrison, P. N. The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. Paul: A Critical Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.