Throughout both the disputed and undisputed Pauline letters, we have the author declaring that he is writing to his congregations, and today we imagine him sitting quietly at his desk, pen in hand etching strange Greek characters on papyrus scrolls. In the ancient world, however, most people did not write down their own letters but used the services of a scribe. In some cases it was a personal slave or employee, in others it was a hired service. In our particular situation, this means that Paul did not actually write any of his letters, if by that one means that he put pen to papyrus. Rather, Paul used the services of others, a scribe or amanuensis, to take down his letter. Thus when Paul declares to the Galatians or the Thessalonians that he is writing to them, he is describing his personal signature and closing remarks (Gal 6:11; 2 Thess 3:17). How much of the scribe’s own personal style infused the letter? This is difficult to determine, but the range of scribal activity extends from taking dictation syllable by syllable, to composing a letter based on general instructions. In almost all cases, the author would review the letter draft before a final copy was made and sent. We also do not know if Paul used the same scribe several times. One scribe identifies himself as Tertius (Rom 16:22; see also 1 Pet 5:12), but we do not know if he wrote any of Paul’s other letters. Romans was likely written from Corinth during Paul’s third missionary journey, and we would have to postulate that Tertius was with Paul in other cities or over the course of his journeys to suppose that he wrote other letters, which is not an impossible scenario, but one for which we have no information. We should not forget that for several letters Paul is imprisoned (Philippians, Colossians, Philemon), which further complicates his options. We should pause for a moment to observe that Paul coauthors most of his letters; this fact has not usually penetrated discussions about authenticity. This is a rare, almost unique innovation, for we have no evidence that Cicero, Seneca, or Pliny the Younger, for example, ever coauthored a letter. It seems that Cicero’s friend Atticus did write one letter with a group of people,9 and Richards identified six coauthored letters out of the 645 private letters from the Oxyrhynchus corpus, but these are not at all similar to Paul’s letters.10 Only Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles are authored by Paul alone (with the aid of a scribe). How involved were Titus, Timothy, and Sosthenes in the content and style of Paul’s other letters? Was it merely courteous of Paul to note his coworkers, or did they have significant input with content and style? Anthony Kenny explores this question with a stylometric analysis, focused not on key terms or unusual vocabulary, but on stylistic quirks and traits that an author expresses unconsciously. For example, those from Pittsburgh drink “pop” but in Philadelphia they drink “soda”; both use these synonyms unconsciously and thus reveal their backgrounds. Kenny observed the frequency of subordinate clauses and conjunctions (and, but), and discovered both great diversity and strong commonality between all of the Pauline letters.11 Interestingly, letters closest to what is understood as the center of Paul’s thought were those he wrote alone (with a secretary), namely Romans, Philippians, and 2 Timothy. Ephesians, heavily indebted to Colossians (coauthored by Timothy) is farther down the list, but still closer to the center than 1 Corinthians, the only letter coauthored with Sosthenes. This evidence suggests that Paul’s coauthors might have played a larger role in the finished product than has been previously thought.
One final note about letters: in the ancient world, as today, they frequently substitute for the personal presence of the writer. Often Paul will declare that he longs to see his congregation, but must be satisfied with sending them a letter. The implication of this is that we expect that the author knows his audience well. For the most part this holds true for Paul’s letters, with a few important exceptions. In the case of Romans, Paul is introducing himself to the Christian community in the imperial capital in hopes of soon visiting them. Similarly, Paul (with Timothy) writes to the Colossians with authority, although it is one of his coworkers, Epaphras, who founded the church. Yet in both cases, mutual friends are listed at the end of the letters. In fact, Romans has the longest list of personal friends, which might not be surprising if Paul is trying to form a relationship with the Roman church. What would be more natural than to cite common acquaintances? Ephesians lacks both a sense of intimacy with the congregation, as well as names of specific church members, which are unexpected, given that he spent over two years there according to Acts. However, Paul’s communications to the Thessalonians has no personal references, even though Paul founded that church only a few months before writing his letters from Corinth (Acts 18:5; 1 Thess 3:6). Any explanation about Pauline authorship of Ephesians must take into account the relative lack of statements of personal knowledge about the addressees. Most explain this as indicating either that the letter was not written by Paul, or that the letter was intended as an encyclical letter to be read by various churches in the vicinity of Ephesus.
External Evidence for Authorship
The latter possibility is reinforced by a particular textual variant. In some of the most reliable manuscripts, the words “in Ephesus” are not found in 1:1 as one would expect. Several questions immediately come to mind, such as whether Paul would write a letter that would be read to various churches. In Col 4:15–16, Paul requests that his letter to them be shared with the nearby city of Laodicea, and the letter he sent to the latter city (not extant) be read by the Colossians. Again, Galatians is also written to the churches in that province. From these examples we could at least conclude that Paul is not opposed to having several churches read each other’s letters. Interestingly, an ancient writer, Marcion (declared a heretic for his views on the Jewish Bible/Old Testament and the person of Jesus) is reported by Tertullian to have identified Ephesians as Paul’s letter to the Laodiceans, but it is unclear, however, whether Tertullian is speaking of the letter itself or the superscription (title page, if you will), and whether Marcion is supplying a missing text or changing an existing text.12
Further questions include whether the manuscripts without “in Ephesus” are accurate in their rendering, or whether there is some corruption whereby the relevant locale was omitted. The oldest sources, including P46 (third century CE), Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (both fourth century CE), omit “in Ephesus” in the actual letter, but do include “to the Ephesians” in the superscription. These three manuscripts are of the Alexandrian text type, which suggests a local variant. The rest of the reliable manuscripts, from a variety of regions, including the early Coptic (Egyptian language) translation, incorporate the phrase “in Ephesus.” This list includes the earliest editorial changes in both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Thus we have excellent external evidence for both readings. Finally, Origen, who lived both in Alexandria and in Caesarea Maritima, in his commentary on Ephesians seems not to have used a manuscript that had the words “in Ephesus.” However, he makes it clear in the text that he believes Paul is writing to the Ephesians, as his opening line in the discussion of Eph 1:1 reads “In the case of Ephesians alone we find the phrase ‘to the saints who are.’”13 He has a remarkable interpretation of the awkward Greek, namely that Paul is describing the Ephesians as those who once were not, but now are, through God. He takes his cue from Moses’ encounter with God in the desert, when God reveals who he is by saying “I AM.” In both cases, the verb for “to be” is used. Although we have only fragments of Origen’s commentary on Ephesians preserved, Jerome clearly used it in composing his own commentary.14 And he probably also used Origen’s prologue as well, wherein Origen makes clear that the letter in question is addressed to the Ephesian church, suffering