PASTORAL EPISTLES, THE. Three Epistles in the New Testament are commonly called the Pastoral Epistles because they deal with the ministry and are addressed to two pastors in the early Church. Timothy and Titus. The Epistles are First Epistle to Timothy, Second Epistle to Timothy, and the Epistle to Titus (qq.v.). The Epistles are attributed to Paul, but their genuineness is open to grave doubt. A. S. Peake summarises the arguments against the genuineness as follows : " It is strange that Paul should have written letters of this kind to such companions and disciples as Timothy and Titus, and that he should have felt it neces sary to assert to them his apostleship and warn them to keep clear of heretical teaching. If the letters fall outside the period covered by the Acts they are probably not genuine, since Paul's imprisonment, there recorded, seems to have ended, not in release, but in death. As to organisation, we find much stress on ecclesiastical appointment, little on the spiritual gifts, and it is not quite like Paul to be occupied so much with details of this kind. The general emphasis on the importance of sound doctrine and the use of faith as almost equivalent to orthodoxy are strange in Paul. So too the tone of
the letters is moralistic rather than evangelical, though the latter element is not absent. And finally the style is quite unique and unlike that of the other Epistles, and the ring of the letters does not remind us of Paul." Peake thinks that the Epistles contain not a little Pauline material, but that in their present form they cannot have come from Paul's hand. Currie Martin points out that in ancient writings it is not always a question only of authenticity or forgery. The question also of pseudonym ity comes in. It was a practice among Jewish writers to produce a book under the name of some famous person (e.g., Moses, Isaiah, Enoch) of an earlier day. " It is quite possible, therefore, that with no evil intention or purpose of leading readers astray, the name of the great Apostle may have been used by some of his friends and followers who were anxious to further his work, promul gate his ideas, and, in all probability, find a hearing for teaching that they knew was derived from himself in letters that, in their present form at least, do not emanate from him at all." See J. A. APClymont; G. Currie Martin; Arthur S. Peake, Intr.