The Epistles of Paul and Seneca consist of eight pretended Latin letters from the philosopher 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 in duced to say, I 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 are read by many. . . He was slain by Nero, two years before Peter and Paul were honoured with martyrdom.' St. Augus tine also observes (Epistle to Afacedonius) that Seneca wrote certain epistles to St. Paul, which are now read.' The epistles are also referred to in the spurious Acts' of Linus, the first bishop of Rome after the Apostles. But these Acts are a manifest forgery, and were first alluded to by a monk of the eleventh century. The letters do not appear to have been mentioned by any other an cient writer ; but it seems certain that those now extant are 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 number reject them as spurious. Mr. Jones conceives them to be a forgery of the fourth century, founded on Philip. iv, 22. Indeed, there are few persons mentioned in the N. T., as companions of the Apostle, who have not had some spurious piece or other fathered on them.
These are the principal of the ancient forged epistles. Among those now universally rejected
are the well-known Epistle of Lentzzlus to the Roman Senate, giving a description of the person of Christ (Orthodoxographia, p. 2, Basil, 1555 ; Fabrici Cod. Epig., 1719), and some pretended epistles of the Virgin Mary. One of these is said to be written in Hebrew, and addressed to the Christians of Messina in Sicily, of which a Latin translation has been published, and its genuineness gravely vindicated (Veritas Vindicata, 1692, fol.) It is dated from Jerusalem, in the 42d year of our Son,' nones of July, Luna 17, Pena guinea. The metropolitan church of our Lady of the Letter, at Messina, takes its name from the possession of this celebrated epistle, of which some have pre tended that even the autograph still exists. An epistle of the Virgin to the Florentines has been also celebrated, and there is extant a pretended letter from the same to St. Ignatius, together with his reply.—W. W.
ER (ng ; Sept. 'Hp). 1. The eldest son of Judah by the daughter of Shuah, a Canaanite (Gen. xxxviii. 3 ; Num. xxvi. 19). It is said Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord,'* which pro bably intimates his having followed the abominable idolatries of his mother's race, and the Lord slew him' (Gen. xxxviii. 7). 2. The nephew of the preceding, son of his brother Shilah Chron. iv. 21). 3. The son of Jose and father of Elmodad in our Lord's genealogy (Luke iii. 28).—W. L. A.