20gκαὶ ποιήϲατε ἵνα τοῖϲ Κολαϲϲαεῦϲιν αναγνωϲθῇ, καὶ η τῶν Κολαϲϲαέων ἵνα καὶ ὑμῖν.
Scanty circulation in the East,
But, though written originally in Greek, it was not among Greek Christians that this epistle attained its widest circulation. In the latter part of the 8th century indeed, when the Second Council of Nicæa met, it had found its way into some copies of St Paul’s Epistles[[639]]. But the denunciation of this Council seems to have been effective in securing its ultimate exclusion. We discover no traces of it in any extant Greek MS, with the very doubtful exception which has already been considered[[640]]. |but wide diffusion in the West.|But in the Latin Church the case was different. St Jerome, as we saw, had pronounced very decidedly against it. Yet even his authority was not sufficient to stamp it out. At least as early as the sixth century it found a place in some copies of the Latin Bibles: and before the close of that century its genuineness was affirmed by perhaps the most influential theologian whom the Latin Church produced during the eleven centuries which elapsed between the age of Jerome and Augustine and the era of the Reformation. |Gregory the Great.|Gregory the Great did not indeed affirm its canonicity. He pronounced that the Church had restricted the canonical Epistles of St Paul to fourteen, and he found a mystical explanation of this limitation in the number itself, which was attained by adding the number of the Commandments to the number of the Gospels and thus fitly represented the teaching of the Apostle which combines the two[[641]]. But at the same time he states that the Apostle wrote fifteen; and, though he does not mention the Epistle to the Laodiceans by name, there can be little doubt that he intended to include this as his fifteenth epistle, and that his words were rightly understood by subsequent writers as affirming its Pauline authorship. The influence of this great name is perceptible in the statements of later writers. |Haymo of Halberstadt.|Haymo of Halberstadt, who died A.D. 853, commenting on Col. iv. 16, says, The Apostle ‘enjoins the Laodicean Epistle to be read to the Colossians, because though it is very short and is not reckoned in the Canon, yet still it has some use[[642]]’.|Hervey of Dole.| And between two or three centuries later Hervey of Dole (c. A.D. 1130), if it be not Anselm of Laon[[643]], commenting on this same passage, says: ‘Although the Apostle wrote this epistle also as his fifteenth or sixteenth[[644]], and it is established by Apostolic authority like the rest, yet holy Church does not reckon more than fourteen,’ and he proceeds to justify this limitation of the Canon with the arguments and in the language of Gregory[[645]]. Others however did not confine themselves to the qualified recognition given to the epistle by the great Bishop of Rome. Gregory had carefully distinguished between genuineness and canonicity; but this important distinction was not seldom disregarded by later writers. |English Church. Aelfric.|In the English Church more especially it was forgotten. Thus Aelfric abbot of Cerne, who wrote during the closing years of the tenth century, speaks as follows of St Paul: ‘Fifteen epistles wrote this one Apostle to the nations by him converted unto the faith: which are large books in the Bible and make much for our amendment, if we follow his doctrine that was teacher of the Gentiles’. He then gives a list of the Apostle’s writings, which closes with ‘one to Philemon and one to the Laodiceans; fifteen in all as loud as thunder to faithful people[[646]]’. |John of Salisbury.|Again, nearly two centuries later John of Salisbury, likewise writing on the Canon, reckons ‘Fifteen epistles of Paul included in one volume, though it be the wide-spread and common opinion of nearly all that there are only fourteen; ten to churches and four to individuals: supposing that the one addressed to the Hebrews is to be reckoned among the Epistles of Paul, as Jerome the doctor of doctors seems to lay down in his preface, where he refuteth the cavils of those who contended that it was not Paul’s. But the fifteenth is that which is addressed to the Church of the Laodiceans; and though, as Jerome saith, it be rejected by all, nevertheless was it written by the Apostle. Nor is this opinion assumed on the conjecture of others, but it is confirmed by the testimony of the Apostle himself: for he maketh mention of it in the Epistle to the Colossians in these words, When this epistle shall have been read among you, etc. (Col. iv. 16)[[647]]’. Aelfric and John are the typical theologians of the Church in this country in their respective ages. The Conquest effected a revolution in ecclesiastical and theological matters. The Old English Church was separated from the Anglo-Norman Church in not a few points both of doctrine and of discipline. Yet here we find the representative men of learning in both agreed on this one point—the authorship and canonicity of the Epistle to the Laodiceans. From the language of John of Salisbury however it appears that such was not the common verdict at least in his age, and that on this point the instinct of the many was more sound than the learning of the few. Nor indeed was it the undisputed opinion even of the learned in this country during this interval. |The epistle repudiated by Lanfranc.|The first Norman Archbishop, Lanfranc, an Italian by birth and education, explains the passage in the Colossian Epistle as referring to a letter written by the Laodiceans to the Apostle, and adds that otherwise ‘there would be more than thirteen Epistles of Paul[[648]]’. Thus he tacitly ignores the Epistle to the Laodiceans, with which he can hardly have been unacquainted.
Occurrence in MSS of all ages and countries.
Indeed the safest criterion of the extent to which this opinion prevailed, is to be found in the manuscripts. At all ages from the sixth to the fifteenth century we have examples of its occurrence among the Pauline Epistles and most frequently without any marks which imply doubt respecting its canonicity. These instances are more common in proportion to the number of extant MSS in the earlier epoch than in the later[[649]]. In one of the three or four extant authorities for the Old Latin Version of the Pauline Epistles it has a place[[650]]. In one of the two most ancient copies of Jerome’s revised Vulgate it is found[[651]]. Among the first class MSS of this latter Version its insertion is almost as common as its omission. This phenomenon moreover is not confined to any one country. Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, England, Germany, Switzerland—all the great nations of Latin Christendom—contribute examples of early manuscripts in which this epistle has a place[[652]].
Versions.
And, when the Scriptures came to be translated into the vernacular languages of modern Europe, this epistle was not uncommonly included. |Albigensian.|Thus we meet with an Albigensian version, which is said to belong to the thirteenth century[[653]]. |Bohemian.|Thus too it is found in the Bohemian language, both in manuscript and in the early printed Bibles, in various recensions[[654]]. |German.|And again an old German translation is extant, which, judging from linguistic peculiarities, cannot be assigned to a later date than about the fourteenth century, and was printed in not less than fourteen editions of the German Bible at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, before Luther’s version appeared[[655]]. |English.|In the early English Bibles too it has a place. Though it was excluded by both Wycliffe and Purvey, yet it did not long remain untranslated and appears in two different and quite independent versions, in MSS written before the middle of the fifteenth century[[656]]. The prologue prefixed to the commoner of the two forms runs as follows:
English prologue.
‘Laodicensis ben also Colocenses, as tweye townes and oo peple in maners. These ben of Asie, and among hem hadden be false apostlis, and disceyuede manye. Therfore the postle bringith hem to mynde of his conuersacion and trewe preching of the gospel, and excitith hem to be stidfast in the trewe witt and loue of Crist, and to be of oo wil. But this pistil is not in comyn Latyn bookis, and therfor it was but late translatid into Englisch tunge[[657]].’