EPISTLES, SPURIOUS [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 Pau{ to the Corinthians. The Epistle of Peter to James.
The Epistles of Paul and Seneca.
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. `There are some,' says Je rome, ' who read the Epistle to the Laodiceans, but it is universally rejected.' The original epistle was most probably a forgery founded on Col. iv. 16, ' And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodi ceans, and that ye likewise read 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 Laodi ceans, 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 pro duce a certain forged epistle ; but the Apostle does not say the Epistle to, but the Epistle from, the Laodiceans.' Bellarmine, among the Roman Ca tholics, and among the Protestants Le Clerc and others, suppose that the passage in Colossians re fers to an epistle of St. Paul, now lost, and the Vulg. translation—cam qua Laodicensizim est seems to favour this view. Grotius, however, con ceives that the Epistle to the Ephesians is here meant, and he is followed by Hammond, Whitby, and Mill, and also by Archbishop Wake (Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers). Theophylact, who is followed by Dr. Lightfoot, conceives that the epistle alluded to is r Timothy. Others hold it to he I John, Philemon, etc. Mr. Jones conjectures that the epistle now passing as that to the Laodi ceans (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. 1560), there was a very old manuscript of this epistle in the library of the Sorbonne. This epistle was first published by James Le Fevre of Estaples 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 1 Cor. v. 9. There is still extant, in the Armenian lan guage, an epistle from the Corinthians to St. Paul, together with the Apostle's reply. This is con sidered 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 seventh, and St. Nierses 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 Anchor's Armenian and English Grammar, Venice, iS19).
The Epistle of Peter to lames is a very ancient forgery. It was first published by Cotelerius, and is supposed to have been a preface to the Preach ing 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 Alex andria, Theodotus of Byzantium, and others. It was also made use of by the heretic Heracleon, in the second century. Origen observes of it, that it is not to be reckoned among the ecclesiastical books, and that it is neither the writing of Peter nor of any other inspired person. Mr. Jones con ceives it to be a forgery of some of the Ebionites in the beginning of the second century.