AUTHORSHIP

Long ago the authenticity of Colossians and Philemon as Pauline letters was questioned, and there are still notable scholars to-day who entertain such doubts. But it seems to me impossible to doubt that Philemon was written by St Paul, or to doubt the close connexion between Philemon and Colossians. At most, then, an original Pauline Colossians may have been interpolated by some writer other than St Paul: this is the only real question. And since the main criteria in this matter are contents and vocabulary, a decision turns largely (see Dibelius, p. 53) on whether or not one can imagine the type of error implied by Colossians having appeared already in St Paul's lifetime, and can conceive of St Paul dealing with it in this way and in these words. For my part, I find no serious difficulty in doing so. Contents, vocabulary, and elevated style are all explainable by the circumstances: the Colossian error is, as will soon be shown, easily imaginable as early as St Paul's lifetime; and Paul, the martyr-apostle, is addressing unknown Christians in solemn tone about this menace. It must be added that, if Ephesians is shown to be unpauline, this in itself will not carry the same conclusion for Colossians, since the relation between Ephesians and Colossians, although close, is by no means circumstantially the same as that between Colossians and Philemon.