and foundations, applying original Pauline language into contexts that are not fully suitable to the original wording, and communicating ideas that may be situated at a later point on the trajectory of developing Christian thought and expression. In contrast, the picture found in Colossians and Ephesians exhibits continuity with the complex presentation of Paul found in Paul’s earlier letters, aligns well within the earliest period of Christianity in which Paul is located, and is fully appropriate to the distinct contexts of Colossians and Ephesians.
The projected significance of this investigation lies in two areas: historical and theological. First, it is expected that the book will make a contribution to the question of authorship in Colossians and Ephesians, though there are still many other factors that must be considered when assessing the character of these letters.9 Second, the book is designed to shed light on Paul’s rich comprehension of his apostolic calling, which entails ministry primarily to the Gentiles, by means of proclaiming the revealed mystery of the gospel and embodying the power of the gospel through sacrificial suffering. Many scholars exclude Colossians and Ephesians when determining the essentials of Paul’s theology or treat the letters as no more than an afterthought. The undisputed letters of Paul set the foundations of Paul’s self-understanding, but Colossians and Ephesians supplement this picture in significant ways.
A Survey of Works Relevant to this Study
In this section important past research will be surveyed in several general areas, followed by special consideration given to the emergence of the Exalted Apostle Theory. The general areas include the authorship of Colossians and Ephesians, the development of a Pauline school, and the motivations behind pseudepigraphy in the early centuries of Christianity.
Challenges to the Authorship of Colossians and Ephesians
The authorship question for these two captivity epistles has usually been approached by exploring the vocabulary, style, literary parallels, and theology of the letters. As early as 1838, Ernst Mayerhoff challenged the authenticity of Colossians, seeing it as dependent on the authentic Ephesians.10 Comprehensive treatments of the early evolution of positions on authorship for these epistles may be found elsewhere.11 The arguments in these studies were often characterized by appeals to theological or stylistic discrepancies between the recognized works of Paul and the letter in dispute. Works that have had an enduring place in the discussion in the question of the authorship will now be surveyed.
Edgar Goodspeed, having accepted the verdict that Ephesians was not written by Paul, offers what he believes to be a plausible historical scenario for the circumstances that gave rise to the letter. His suggestion is that Ephesians, written by a later admirer of Paul, served as an introductory work to the rest of the Pauline corpus. Ephesians was penned to help reorient people to Paul’s theology and authority after a generation of Christians had neglected his works.12 Goodspeed’s explanation has acted as a catalyst for others to further examine the motives and intents of the writers of Ephesians and Colossians and thus constituted a key step in the emergence of the Exalted Apostle Theory.
Ernst Percy’s book presents thorough support for Paul’s authorship of Colossians and Ephesians, resisting the theories of Goodspeed and others.13 In particular, Percy provides a response to arguments that in Eph 3:1–13 the imitator’s hand is revealed. He gives alternate explanations for why Paul described his apostleship, revelation, humility, and suffering as he did.14 With respect to Colossians, Percy devotes extensive discussion to Paul’s theology of suffering in 1:24 and contends for the Pauline origin of this verse as well as for the letter as a whole.15
C. L. Mitton’s pivotal work on the authorship of Ephesians concludes that Paul did not write Ephesians. Mitton, envisioning a scenario similar to Goodspeed’s, proposes that Ephesians was penned shortly after the author, who already had access to Colossians and Philemon, came into possession of Paul’s other surviving letters.16 Mitton’s argument is that the author assimilated Pauline material, most notably Colossians, in a way that is best explained by positing a post-Pauline writer. Mitton is skeptical for two major reasons of the alternative theory that Paul himself wrote Ephesians shortly after Colossians.17 First, sentences in Ephesians sometimes appear to be composed of fragments that occur in detached sections of Colossians (“conflation”).18 Second, Ephesians adopts terms from Colossians without carrying over the original meaning of the words.19
Goodspeed’s and Mitton’s books on Ephesians also stand out in the way they seek to identify literary affinities between Ephesians and the letters that preceded them by looking at potential parallels for every verse.20 E. P. Sanders adopts a similar approach in his seminal article on Colossians.21 Working within space constraints, however, Sanders limits himself to representative passages in Colossians instead of looking at every passage in the epistle. In his definition of “literary dependence” Sanders allows for “quotation from memory” as well as actual incorporation of material from a written document in the writer’s possession.22 He focuses on the use of language from the earlier writings and asks whether the language in Colossians betrays the marks of someone writing in Paul’s name. His conclusion is that the passages under investigation do indeed suggest the work of a well-meaning pseudepigrapher.23
Unlike Sanders’s article, A. van Roon’s book The Authenticity of Ephesians challenges the paradigm forged by Goodspeed and Mitton.24 Van Roon concludes that both Ephesians and Colossians were constructed using an earlier “blueprint” written by Paul.25 Van Roon does not suppose, however, that a later imitator was responsible for Ephesians in its final form, preferring to credit Paul with the authorship, since the letter emerged from his sphere of influence.26 For van Roon’s argument, the portrait of Paul in the epistle plays an insignificant role. He mentions only briefly the “idealized picture of Paul” of Eph 3:5 that is appealed to in unnamed studies. He does not proceed to delve into this topic in any detail.27
In recent years there has been a call for greater objectivity in the evaluation of the authorship of Colossians and Ephesians. The use of statistically-refined models has signaled an important trend in the quest for more controlled results in the area, but it is recognized that even these studies have their limitations.28
In the end, research involving theological discrepancies, style variances, and literary dependence has proved persuasive to many for rejecting Pauline authorship for both Colossians and Ephesians. Today, some studies even begin with the presupposition of non-Pauline authorship for these letters. Because of the focused nature of this book and the correspondingly small sample size of the data, statistically valid measurements of linguistic style are unattainable. On the other hand, theological or literary analysis is often pertinent to the discussion. Such analysis of the material is restricted in scope to passages related to the apostolic calling and ministry of Paul.
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