Friday, May 27, 2022

The Sacrae Theologiae Summa and the Biblical Commission on the Pauline Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles

  

doubts have been raised whether they would be attributed to St. Paul, and whether completely or partially. Some authors have denied this a) because of difference of vocabulary and style from the other letters of St. Paul: not new words and a new way of writing can easily be attributed to the new circumstances of the author or to the material. In a similar way the difficulty can be solved b) because the pastoral letters are not now dealing with the advancement of the faith in new conversions, but with preserving the faith already embraced; for that can be explained by the different circumstances of times and place. Likewise c) they say that these letters suppose churches already monarchially constituted: but this is also an argument for the fact that the churches are not being ruled in a democratic way, but in a monarchic way, very much in agreement with the usual practice of St. Paul; and this way of denying authenticity to these letters of St. Paul can be conceived only in an a priori way. Similarly, a difficulty is proposed d) especially from the errors of the Gnostics, who are described in these letters as already now creeping in like serpents (1 Tim. 1:4.8; 4:7; 5:20; 2 Tim. 2:17; Tit. 3:9) but the errors of the Gnostics, which are mentioned here and corrected are at their beginning stage and have not yet obtained the force that they had in the 2nd century; hence these letters are much more ancient . . . (Joachim Salaverri and Michaele Nicolau, Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 4 vols. [trans. Kenneth Baker; Keep the Faith, Inc., 2015], 1B-567 n. 15)

 

The following is from the Biblical Commission on the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles:

 

The Author, Integrity, and Time of Composition of the Pastoral Letters of Paul the Apostle

 

[Response of the Biblical Commission, June 12, 1913]

 

2172 [DS 3587] I. Whether, keeping in mind the tradition of the Church which continues universally and steadily from the earliest times, just as the ancient ecclesiastical records testify in many ways, it should be held with certainty that the so-called pastoral letters, that is, the two to Timothy and another to Titus, notwithstanding the rashness of certain heretics who have eliminated them as being contrary to their dogma from the number of Pauline epistles, without giving any reason, were composed by the Apostle Paul himself, and have always been reckoned among the genuine and canonical?—Reply: In the affirmative.

 

2173 [DS 3588] II. Whether the so-called fragmentary hypothesis introduced by certain more recent critics and variously set forth, who for no otherwise probable reason, rather while quarreling among themselves, contend that the pastoral letters were constructed at a later time from fragments of letters, or from corrupt Pauline letters by unknown authors, and notably increased, can bring some slight prejudice upon the clear and very strong testimony of tradition?—Reply: In the negative.

 

2174 [DS 3589] III. Whether the difficulties which are brought up in many places whether from the style and language of the author, or from the errors especially of the Gnostics, who already at that time are described as serpents; or from the state of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is supposed to have been already evolved, and other such reasons in opposition in some way, weaken the opinion which holds the authenticity of the pastoral letters as valid and certain?—Reply: In the negative.

 

2175 [DS 3590] IV. Whether, since no less from historical reasons as from ecclesiastical tradition, in harmony with the testimonies of the oriental and occidental most holy Fathers; also from the indications themselves which are easily drawn from the abrupt conclusion of the Book of the Acts and from the Pauline letters written at Rome, and especially from the second letter to Timothy, the opinion of a twofold Roman captivity of the Apostle Paul should be held as certain, it can be safely affirmed that the pastoral letters were written in that period of time which intervenes between the liberation from the first captivity and the death of the Apostle?—Reply: In the affirmitive. (The Sources of Catholic Dogma, ed. Henry Denzinger and Karl Rahner [trans. Roy J. Deferrari; St. Louis, Miss.: B. Herder Book Co., 1954], 558)