EPISTLES, SPURIOUS (see APOCRYPHA). Of these many are lost, but there are several still extant ; the principal are: The Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans; The Third Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians; The Epistle of Peter to James; The Epistles of Paul and Seneca.
(1) Epistle to the Laodiceans. There was an Epistle to the Laodiceans extant in the beginning of the second century, which was received by Marcion; but whether this is the same with the one now extant in the Latin language is more than doubtful. The original Epistle was most probably a forgery founded on Coloss. iv :16.
'There are some,' says Jerome, 'who read the Epistle to the Laodiceans, but it is universally re jected.' The original Epistle was most probably a forgery founded on Coloss. iv :16. 'And when this Epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that ye likewise road the Epistle from Laodicea: The apparent ambiguity of these last words has induced some to understand St. Paul as speaking of an epistle written by him to the Laodiceans, which he advises the Colossians to procure from Laodicea, and read to their church. 'Some,' says Theodoret, 'imagine Paul to have written an Epistle to the Laodiceans, and accordingly produce a certain forged epistle; but the Apostle does not say, the Epistle to, but the Epistle from, the Laodiceans.' Bellarmine, among the Roman Catholics, and among the Protestants Le Clerc and others. suppose that the passage in Colossians refers to an epistle of St. Paul, now lost, and the Vulgate translation—eam qua' Loodicenstuns est—seems to favor this view. Grotius, how ever, conceives that the Epistle to the Ephe sians is here meant, and he is followed by Ham mond, Whitby, and Mill, and also by Arch bishop Wake (Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers). Theophylact, who is followed by Dr. Lightfoot, conceives that the epistle alluded to is I Timothy. Others hold it to be t John, Philemon, etc. Mr. Jones conjectures that the epistle now passing as that to the Laodiceans (which seems entirely compiled out of the Epistle to the Philippians) was the composition of some idle monk not long before the Reformation; but this opinion is scarcely compatible with the fact mentioned by Mr. Jones himself, that when Sixtus of Sienna published his Bibliotheca Sancta (A. D. 156o), there was a very old manuscript of this epistle in the library of the Sorbonne. This was first published by James Le Fevre of Esta ples in 1517. It was the opinion of Calvin,
Louis Capell, and many others, that St. Paul wrote several epistles besides those now extant. One of the chief grounds of this opinion is the passage in I Cor. v :9. There is still extant, in the Armenian language, an epistle from the Corin thians to St. Paul, together with the Apostle's reply. This is considered by Mr. La Croze to be a forgery of the tenth or eleventh century, and he asserts that it was never cited by any one of the early Christian writers. In this, however, he is mistaken, for this epistle is expressly quoted as Paul's by St. Gregory the Illuminator in the third century, Theodore Chrethenor in the sev enth, and St. Nierscs in the twelfth. Neither of them, however, is quoted by any ancient Greek or Latin writer (Henderson, On Inspiration, p. 497. The passages are cited at length in Father Paschal Aucher's Armenian and English Gram mar. Venice, 1819).
(2) The Epistle of Peter to James. Omitting the supposed epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, we notice the supposed epistle of Peter to James which is a very ancient forgery. It was first pub lished by Cotelerins, and is supposed to have been a preface to the Preaching of Peter, which was in great esteem among some of the early Christian writers, and is several times cited as a genuine work by Clement of Alexandria, Theodotus of Byzantium, and others. It was also made use of by the heretic Ileracleon, in the second century. Origen observes of it, that it is not to be reckoned among the ecclesiastical hooks, and that it is neither the writing of Peter nor of any other in spired person.
(3) The Epistles of Paul and Seneca consist of eight pretended Latin letters from the philoso pher Seneca to St. Paul. and six from the latter to Seneca. Their antiquity is undoubted. St Jerome had such an idea of the value of these letters that he was induced to say, '1 should not have ranked Seneca in my catalogue of saints, but that I was determined to it by those Epistles of Paul to Seneca and Seneca to Paul, which arc read by many. The letters do not appear to have been mentioned by any other ancient writer ; but it seems certain that those now extant arc the same which were known to Jerome and Augustine, The genuineness of these letters has been maintained by some learned men. but by far the greater num ber reject them as spurious. W. W.