seneca and paul 335
i have mentioned, only quotes Paul’s authentic letters, and the earliest
among these, one might be tempted to conclude that, as a consequence,
it was composed before 180 ce. however, it is not extant in greek, but
in Latin, and was probably composed in Latin in the western roman
empire, albeit with both syntactical and lexical graecisms concentrated
in Paul’s letters, as i have pointed out. The Latin of Paul’s letters in this
pseudepigraphon somehow reminds one of the language of the muratori
Fragment, which is traditionally dated toward 170–80 ce49 and is probably
a translation from the greek. on the other hand, the Latin of the muratori
Fragment seems much worse, and it is rather homogeneous throughout
the fragment itself, whereas in our Pauline pseudepigraphon, both syn-
tactical and lexical graecisms concentrate in Paul’s letters. moreover, the
seneca-Paul correspondence would seem to be earlier than the muratori
Fragment, because the latter includes all the Pauline letters that entered
the canon—the authentic letters, the “disputed Paulines,” and the “Pasto-
rals epistles”—whereas the seneca-Paul correspondence, as i have pointed
out, knows neither the “disputed Paulines” nor the “Pastoral epistles,” but
only refers to Paul’s authentic and early letters. This would point, again, to
a possible date between the late first and the second century.
if the correspondence was composed in Latin, with all its graecisms,
during the second century or at any rate within the third century ce,
this would locate it among the earliest Latin christian documents. in
this case, our pseudepigraphon might be contemporary with the earliest
Latin translations of the bible, about which little is known, but which cer-
tainly go back to the second century ce. The scillitan martyrs were put to
death in 180 ce in Latin africa; their names reveal indigenous origins. at
that time they had a collection of Paul’s letters, which they kept as their
sacred books and in which the proconsul of africa showed interest during
their trial.50 Their collection of Pauline letters anterior to 180 ce is likely
to be a very early Latin version of Paul’s letters or some of them. The
record of their trial unfortunately does not detail the contents of this Latin
49 bruce m. metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (oxford: clarendon, 1987),
191–201, advocates the traditional dating; a fourth-century dating has been advocated by
a. c. sundberg (“canon muratori: a Fourth-century List,” HTR 66 [1973]: 1–41), refuted by
everett Ferguson (“canon muratori: date and Provenance,” Studia Patristica 17.2 [1982]:
677–83); by g. m. hahneman (The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon
[oxford: clarendon, 1992]), refuted by everett Ferguson (“The muratorian Fragment and
the development of the canon,” JTS 44 [1993]: 696); and J. J. armstrong (“Victorinus of
Pettau as the author of the canon muratori,” Vigiliae Christianae 62 [2008]: 1–34).
50 see Acta martyrum Scillitanorum, in a. a. r. bastiaensen (ed.), Atti e Passiono dei
Martiri (milan: mondarori, 1987), 97–105.