The Letter to the Laodiceans

Cited in Colossians 4:16 as a letter from Paul that the Colossians are instructed to share with the church at Laodicea. We have a text claiming to be this letter — a Latin composition, probably 4th century — that most scholars consider a later forgery attempting to fill the gap. The canonical reference is real. Whether we have the actual letter is disputed.

Aspect	Detail
Written	The canonical reference points to a genuine Pauline letter written ~60-62 AD, contemporary with Colossians and Philemon. The surviving Latin text claiming to be that letter is dated by most scholars to the 4th century AD — almost three centuries later
Language	The surviving text is Latin. The original Pauline letter (if it ever existed) would have been Greek. No Greek manuscript of any “Letter to the Laodiceans” has ever been found
Discovered	The Latin Letter to the Laodiceans appears in Latin manuscripts from the 6th century onward. It was widely copied throughout the Middle Ages — included in over 100 Vulgate manuscripts — but rejected from the official Vulgate canon
Attributed to	Paul the Apostle. The text is written in Paul’s voice and signs off with his name
Canon status	NEVER canonical in the modern sense. Included in some medieval Vulgate manuscripts as a Pauline epistle. Officially rejected by the Council of Trent (1546) and excluded from the modern Catholic canon

Colossians 4:16 — Paul’s instruction:

“After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.”

This single verse establishes that:

1. Paul wrote a letter to the Laodiceans (or one was sent there from another church)
2. The letter was meant to be circulated
3. By the time the Pauline corpus was being collected (late 1st / early 2nd century), this letter was missing — or had been combined with another, or was renamed

The Latin text is only 20 verses long — much shorter than any genuine Pauline letter. It is a pastiche, almost entirely composed of phrases and themes lifted from Philippians and Galatians. Sample passages:

“Paul, an apostle not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, to the brethren that are at Laodicea: grace be unto you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. I thank Christ in all my prayer that you continue in him and persevere in his works…”

“And what you have heard and received, hold fast in your hearts, and you shall have peace. Salute all the brethren with a holy kiss. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

The letter contains no specific information about the Laodicean church. It does not address any local situation, refute any local heresy, or mention any specific people. This is one of the strongest arguments against authenticity — genuine Pauline letters are deeply rooted in specific church contexts.

Possibility	Argument	Status
The genuine letter is lost	Paul wrote to Laodicea. The letter was lost early — possibly in the great earthquake that destroyed Laodicea around 60 AD, possibly through routine attrition of copies	The mainstream scholarly position
The “letter” is Ephesians	Some scholars (and the Marcionite canon) identified Paul’s “letter from Laodicea” with what we call Ephesians. Ephesians lacks the personal greetings of Paul’s other letters and may have been a circular letter that reached Laodicea	Defended by some 19th and 20th-century scholars; not majority view today
The Latin text is the genuine letter	A handful of medieval defenders argued the Latin text is a translation of the lost Greek original. This is overwhelmingly rejected by modern scholarship	Effectively no academic defenders today

1. The text is doctrinally innocuous but textually empty — The lack of specific content is suspicious. A genuine Pauline letter would address specific issues
2. Likely composed in Latin, not translated from Greek — Internal evidence (Latin idioms, no Greek substrate) suggests original composition in Latin, dating it to the 4th century at earliest
3. The Muratorian Fragment (~170 AD) explicitly mentions a “Letter to the Laodiceans” as a forgery circulated by Marcionites: “There is current also one to the Laodiceans, another to the Alexandrians, both forged in Paul’s name to suit the heresy of Marcion.” This may or may not be the same text we have, but it shows that fake Laodicean letters were circulating very early
4. Jerome rejected it — “It is rejected by all” (De Viris Illustribus 5)
5. Council of Trent (1546) — Definitively excluded from the Catholic canon when the canon was dogmatically defined

The Letter to the Laodiceans was widely copied in medieval Latin Bibles for over a thousand years — included in approximately one hundred Vulgate manuscripts from the 6th to the 15th century. It was translated into Old English (a version is included in Aelfric’s homilies) and was printed in the first English Bibles. Tyndale and Coverdale included it in early English New Testaments. The Reformers eventually rejected it, and Trent’s definition closed the case for Catholics.

Tradition	Significance
Christian (Protestant)	Rejected. Protestant scholarship is unanimous that the Latin text is not Pauline. The genuine letter is presumed lost
Catholic	Rejected at Trent (1546). The genuine letter is acknowledged to have existed (Colossians 4:16 is canonical, after all) but its content is unknown
Marcionite (historical)	The Marcionite canon (~140 AD) included a “Letter to the Laodiceans” — which most scholars identify with what we call Ephesians. The Marcionite version has not survived independently
Eastern Orthodox	Not part of the Eastern manuscript tradition. The Greek-speaking East never received the Latin Laodiceans
Masonic	The theme of a “lost letter” containing the true teaching, suppressed or destroyed, parallels Masonic legends of the lost Word. The “what was Paul’s actual message to Laodicea” question is a recurring esoteric speculation
Esoteric	Cited in some occult and esoteric literature as evidence that the canonical New Testament is incomplete by its own admission. The “real” Letter to the Laodiceans — if it ever existed — joins the Wars of the LORD, Jashar, and the books of Nathan and Gad in the lost Pauline / biblical library
Ethiopian Orthodox	Not part of the Ethiopian tradition

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