Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - Re: Date of collection(s) of Paul's letters

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "David Inglis" <david AT colonialcommerce.com>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Date of collection(s) of Paul's letters
  • Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 00:16:28 -0400


Kym Smith wrote:

> Dear Perry,
>
> It would be worth your looking at David Trobisch's work, the essence of
> which is not hard to find on the www. In particular 'The First Edition of
> the New Testament', and an article 'The Oldest Extant Editions of the
> Letters of Paul'.
>
> I think that Paul kept a collection of his own writings which, at the
> stage he left it, would have included everything bar the pastorals. It was
> the 'parchments' he asked Timothy to retrieve from Troas (1 Tim 4:13). If
> I am right, then it is quite likely that others copied the whole
> collection quite early, even while Paul was still alive.

Dear Kym,

I'm very much in agreement with you here, and I believe the evidence
points in this direction. Below are my thoughts (a slightly edited
extract from a book I'm writing). It's rather long for this list, but
hopefully of interest. Please note that the viewpoint will probably be
considered both 'conservative' and 'far-fetched' by many on this list, but
nevertheless I believe it explains much of the evidence.

Dave Inglis
david AT colonialcommerce.com
3538 O'Connor Drive
Lafayette, CA, USA

How did Marcion select his canon?

A canon is simply a list of books, and our New Testament canon consists of
27 books. This particular canon evolved over several centuries, starting
(it is generally thought) with a collection of books put together by
Marcion in Rome around 130 AD. Marcion’s collection consisted of edited
variants of the following: Galatians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 & 2
Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians; plus an
unnamed gospel that is usually considered to be based on Luke. However,
there is evidence to suggest that Marcion actually based his canon on a
collection that already existed.

Evidence of other collections

As just suggested an early collection of Paul’s letters may have been put
together before Marcion, but the problem is the lack of evidence to
support this. For example, if such a collection existed anywhere, why did
Tertullian not refer to it around 200 AD when he wrote the following in
The Prescription against Heretics?

“Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it
to the business of your salvation, run over the apostolic churches, in
which the very thrones of the apostles are still pre-eminent in their
places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice
and representing the face of each of them severally. Achaia is very near
you, in which you find Corinth. Since you are not far from Macedonia, you
have Philippi; and there too you have the Thessalonians. Since you are
able to cross to Asia, you get Ephesus. Since, moreover, you are close
upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands
the very authority of apostles themselves.”

Tertullian is here suggesting that his readers should go to Corinth,
Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus, and Rome to read original works from the
apostles (or at least faithful copies created by the churches there). We
can reasonably assume that Tertullian is referring to at least some of
Paul’s letters, and some or all of the Gospels. Note that Tertuliian does
not refer to Colosse, or any other places in Galatia which also received
letters from Paul. However, we know that Colosse, Laodicea and Hieropolis
(Col 3:13) were all destroyed by an earthquake in 63 AD, and this
destruction may be the reason that Tertullian does not here refer to
letters in churches in these areas.

The fact that Tertullian specifically mentions five different places
indicates that none of them contained an ‘official’ collection of both the
Gospels and Paul’s letters, since if they did then Tertullian’s readers
could have achieved everything in one trip, and there would have been no
point in suggesting the visits to the other churches. Is there other
evidence that might suggest that an official collection existed anywhere?

Paul’s Churches

Many people have suggested that Paul’s letters became collected together
as part of a gradual process. As the churches to whom Paul wrote became
aware of other letters, they would, it is thought, try to obtain copies of
these letters in order to build up a collection of his work. As a result,
collections containing various different combinations of Paul’s letters
would have accumulated in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse,
Thessalonica, and other places in Galatia and perhaps elsewhere. We know
from Acts 13 & 14 that Paul preached across the whole of Cyprus, and then
in Psidian Antoich, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and maybe also Perga and
Attalia, and hence Galatians was probably sent to many of these places.
We also know that the Jesusalem Council asked Paul and Barnabus to help
deliver a letter to “the Gentile brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria,
and Cilicia” (Acts 15:23). We would therefore expect to see evidence of
several collections containing various combinations of letters from
different churches, either in the writings of the early church fathers, or
in MS form.

While there certainly are quotes from (or at least allusions to) several
of Paul’s letters in the writings of some of the church fathers, there is
no way we can infer that any of these people actually saw any early letter
collections. Nor can we infer that the early fathers themselves created
collections for their own purposes. If either the churches or the fathers
created collections of Paul’s letters from multiple churches, we would
expect to find MSS containing collections in these forms. Instead, the
MSS that have been found (with a few exceptions noted below) either
contain just a single letter from Paul, or still include all of the
letters that he wrote to churches. The exceptions are these:

There are four defective MSS that almost certainly used to contain all of
Paul’s letters to churches:

· P46 from c. 150 AD contains Romans, Hebrews, 1 & 2 Corinthians,
Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and part of 1
Thessalonians;
· 048 from the 5th century is a palimpsest including small parts of Acts,
the catholic letters, and all of Paul’s letters except Galatians and 2
Thessalonians;
· Hp (015) from the 6th century consists of 41 leaves containing parts of
all of Paul’s letters except for Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, and 2
Thessalonians. The MS was disassembled at some point and then used to
bind other books, and these leaves are all that have been found;
· P61 from around 700 AD consists of parts of Romans, 1 Corinthians,
Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, Titus, and Philemon.

It is accepted that P46 originally included 2 Thessalonians, and that the
other three MSS used to include all of Paul’s letters. The remaining
exceptions are as follows:

· P30 from the 3rd century contains parts of 1 & 2 Thessalonians;
· P92 from around 300 AD contains one leaf of Ephesians and one leaf of 2
Thessalonians;
· P34 from the 7th century contains parts of 1 & 2 Corinthians.

Note that because P92 does not contain Eph 1:1 the words “in Ephesus” may
have not been present, and so ‘Ephesians’ in this MS could originate in a
copy of the letter sent to Thessalonica.

It can be reasonably argued that because many of the remaining MSS are
small fragments of codices we really have no way of knowing what they
originally contained, and each codex could have once held multiple
letters. For example, because of handwriting similarities it has been
suggested that P49 (part of Ephesians) and P65 (part of 1 Thessalonians)
may be from the same codex. Interestingly, because P49 (like P92) does
not have Eph 1:1 then this combined codex (if that is what it was) might
have been another copy of letters that were sent to Thessalonica. It is
also thought by some that P13 might have included Romans, but this is just
a possibility.

Even if some of the MSS were part of more extensive collections, we would
expect that later copies would preserve their traditions, and hence we
should find these collections in later MSS, whereas we actually find that
the opposite is true. There is no evidence of any partial multiple-church
collections of Paul’s letters. The only reasonable conclusion is that
these early collections simply didn’t exist!

Were there any other letters?

One thing I have not mentioned so far is the possibility of there being
other letters, letters that have not been preserved for some reason.
Might Paul have written other letters? This question has a simple answer:
Yes. We know this because Paul himself refers to other letters that he
has written:

· In 1 Cor 5:9, Paul writes “I wrote you in my letter not to associate
with sexually immoral people.”
· In 2 Cor 2:3-4,9 Paul refers to another letter to the church in
Corinth.

According to the above, 1 Corinthians is actually Paul’s second letter to
Corinth, and 2 Corinthians is his fourth, but other possibilities have
also been mentioned. For example, it has been suggested that 2
Corinthians includes either fragments of six letters, or alternatively
that it is two letters that have been combined. The six possible
‘fragments’ of 2 Corinthians are:

· vv 1:1-6:13, a friendly letter to Corinth;
· vv 6:14-7:1, on marriage with unbelievers;
· vv 7:2-16, rejoicing at word from Titus;
· Chapters 8 and 9, on the collection for the saints (but possibly two
separate discussions on the subject);
· vv 10:1-13, Paul's defense of his ministry.

Recently Philippians has also been seen as being originally two different
letters, with the split occurring in the middle of verse 3:1. The problem
with all of this is that we have no physical evidence of any of these
other possible letters. We know of two letters addressed to Corinth and
one addressed to Philippi, and that’s it.

We do not know why these other letters (assuming they existed) have not
been preserved, but the most likely reason is simply that Paul did not
want copies to be kept. It also adds evidence that the church in Corinth
did not make a collection of Paul’s letters, since if they did then we
should find evidence of at least four letters from Paul somewhere in the
MSS.

Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome

From the time that Paul returned from his first journey until he departed
on his third journey he had lived in Antioch for two periods of around two
years each. It is therefore possible that during this time a copy of
Galatians was created for use by the church there. However, because Paul
did not return to Antioch after his third journey, by the time that Paul
was arrested in Jerusalem in 58 AD the church would not have received
copies of 1 & 2 Corinthians, Romans, and 1 & 2 Thessalonians.

Of course, Paul’s two year imprisonment in Caesarea that followed would
have left plenty of time for Luke or someone else to have taken copies of
these other letters to Antioch. It is therefore at least logistically
possible that by the time Paul and Luke traveled to Rome around 60 AD the
church in Antioch could have had copies of all of the first six of Paul’s
letters. Against this idea is the point that it suggests a great deal of
foresight.

It is also possible that the early Christian church itself could have made
sure that copies were collected in important locations (such as Antioch
and Rome) even if Paul didn’t do this himself. Against this idea is the
point that it is very unlikely that any form of centralized church
organization existed to do this at this time. The most logical place to
have such a collection of Paul’s letters would have been Jerusalem, but
given what happened to Paul there, it seems unlikely to have taken place.

Incidentally, where were Tertullian’s readers? Not in Achaia, Macedonia,
Asia, or Italy, although they are “very near” to Achaia, “close upon”
Italy, “not far from” Macedonia, and “are able to cross to” Asia. Given
that Tertullian came from north Africa, Crete seems the most likely
location. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that his readers could
have made the trip to Antioch or Jerusalem to see an official collection
of letters there as well, and hence this also makes it unlikely that such
a collection existed in either of these places. Finally, there is no MS
evidence of any collection of just Paul’s first six letters, nor is there
MS evidence of any partial collections put together by the churches in
Achaia, Macedonia or Asia.

This is not to say that no collections at all existed, since Tertullian
would have been as aware as anyone else of the canon created by Marcion
around 130 AD. In fact, the whole point of the passage quoted earlier was
to refute what people such as Marcion had been doing. All this evidence
indicates is just that official church collections did not exist by this
time.

Paul’s own collection

It is very likely that Paul himself created the earliest collection of his
letters. It seems to have been standard practice for a writer to keep
copies of his own work, and hence Paul (or one of his traveling
companions) probably carried a growing collection with him on his various
journeys. As a result, Paul and Luke would have arrived in Rome around 60
AD with a collection of letters consisting of Galatians, 1 & 2
Corinthians, Romans, and 1 & 2 Thessalonians, to which was added
Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians by the time of Paul’s
trial two years later.

We can reasonably assume that after leaving Rome in 62 AD Paul added 1
Timothy and Titus to his personal collection, but then around 65 AD he was
arrested and taken to Rome again. There, writing from prison, Paul
requested that Timothy was to come to Rome and bring with him Mark and
“the scrolls, especially the parchment ones” (2 Tim 4:13) that he had left
behind. It is highly likely that this included Paul’s collection of his
own letters, which would therefore have ended up in the hands of Luke (who
was with Paul at the time), Timothy, or Mark after Paul’s death. Shortly
after that these letters were most likely seen in Rome by Peter, since
around 67 AD he wrote of Paul “speaking of these things in all his
letters” (2 Pet 3:16).

All the above suggests that the only early collection was that put
together by Paul and/or his traveling companions. However, if so, why did
Tertullian not appear to know about this collection around 130 years
later? Why did he urge his readers to travel to Corinth, Philippi, and
Thessalonica to (presumably) read Paul’s letters there instead of going to
wherever Paul’s own collection was located?

What happened to Paul’s own collection?

As mentioned earlier there is no evidence of any six-letter collection of
Paul’s letters. However, we do have MSS containing the first ten letters,
i.e. all the known letters written by Paul prior to his trial in Rome in
62 AD.

For reasons not discussed here I believe it is very likely that both
Luke’s Gospel and Acts were used in some way to help defend Paul at his
trial in Rome, and some significant gaps in Luke’s narrative in Acts
indicate that Paul’s own letters were also used. Although Italy was
heavily influenced by Greece at this time, and (for example) many Roman
Christians spoke Greek, it is unlikely that Paul’s trial would have been
conducted entirely in Greek. It is therefore more than possible that both
Greek and Latin copies of all these documents (Luke, Acts, and the first
ten of Paul’s letters) were created prior to or during the trial, and
would as a result have existed in Rome from around 62 AD. Tertullian may
possibly have known that these copies existed, but he didn’t refer to them
as they were just that – copies.

When Paul left Rome his personal collection would have been taken with
him, but the copies mentioned above were left behind. After that we have
no direct evidence of where the collection ended up, but (for example) it
is unlikely that any of Paul’s companions would have had any reason to
leave his letters (or even just extra copies) in Rome following his death.
As a result, it is very unlikely that copies of the last three letters
(the Pastorals) were at that time added to the copies of the first ten
that had previously been left in Rome in 62 AD.

This view is strengthened by negative evidence from Clement of Rome.
Around 96 AD he wrote a letter to the Corinthians in which he alluded to
the synoptic Gospels, Romans, Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians, Hebrews
(which is a major influence on the letter), and possibly Acts, James and 1
Peter. As Clement does not appear to refer to the Pastorals, it is quite
possible that he did not know of them. Clement may therefore have had
access to a collection of copies of Paul’s letters, but if so it is
unlikely that it included the Pastorals.

We know that Peter saw some or all of Paul’s letters (2 Pet 3:16), and we
also know that Peter’s own letters are influenced by them. Many people
think that Peter could not have been the author of 1 Peter, because the
Greek of this letter is so much better than that of 2 Peter. However,
this could be easily be because someone helped Peter write his first
letter, and Silvanus is most often suggested (1 Peter 5:12).
Nevertheless, this reference to Silvanus is more likely to mean that he
carried the letter to it’s destination rather than that he helped with the
actual writing.

It is almost certain that Peter, Luke and Mark were all in Rome after
Paul’s death, and so it is likely that they would have spent time
together. This makes it possible that Luke was the one who helped Peter,
especially as the Greek of 1 Peter is considered to be of a similar high
quality to that in Luke and Acts. As the most likely suggestion for the
whereabouts of Paul’s own collection of letters after his death is that
Mark or Luke had them, then this would easily explain how Peter could have
read them, and would consequently explain the Pauline influence in Peter’s
own letters.

To the best of our knowledge Mark went back to Alexandria after Peter’s
death, and so Paul’s letter collection may have gone there as well,
leading to the letters being copied onto the papyrus codex known as P46
sometime later. Whatever happened to the letters after that we just don’t
know, and it appears that Tertullian didn’t know either. However, one
thing is fairly certain. If Mark did take Paul’s own letter collection to
Alexandria, and even if they were preserved by the Alexandrian Church
after Mark’s death, they were most likely lost before or during the Moslem
conquest of 642 AD when the great library of Alexandria was destroyed.

Conclusion

It seems very unlikely that official church copies of Paul’s collection of
letters were made prior to his death, or even that any churches made any
informal collections of some of them. However, because of Paul being
taken to Rome copies of the first ten of his known letters (plus Luke and
Acts) did exist in Rome after 62 AD, even if we don’t know specifically
where they were located. This was almost certainly the first canon, and
around 70 years later these MSS (or descendents of them) were found by
Marcion. This means that Marcion didn’t create a canon, he just found one
already waiting for him in Rome.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page