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Epistle of Lentulus

The Epistle of Lentulus is a letter of unknown, likely pseudepigraphic origin, purporting to be written by a Roman official in Judea to the Roman Senate. The author describes the appearance of Christ in great detail. It was translated into Latin from a Greek original in the 13th or 14th century, but the antiquity of the Greek is much debated. Scholar Friedrich Münter thought the description might have first been penned in the very late 3rd century.




Traditions of Matthias

Likely written in the 2nd century, the Traditions of Matthias, possibly identical with a lost Gospel of Matthias, is a text ascribed to the apostle Matthias. It is almost entirely missing except for a few brief snippets. It was quoted by Clement of Alexandria.




Correspondence of Paul and Seneca

The Correspondence of Paul and Seneca, otherwise known as the Letters of Paul and Seneca, is a collection of 14 letters purporting to be between Paul the Apostle and Seneca the Younger. They were allegedly authored from AD 58–64 during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero, but were most likely written in the middle of the fourth century. Until the Renaissance, the epistles were seen as genuine, but scholars began to critically examine them in the 15th century, and today they are widely regarded as forgeries.




Epistle to the Laodiceans

A purported epistle from the apostle Paul to the Laodiceans is mentioned in Colossians 4:16, although the original document has never been found. Some scholars argue that the apostle was not referencing a lost epistle, but rather a generally-circulated one, such as his epistle to the Ephesians. In any case, the pseudepigraphic letter here presented is from a 4th-century Latin text, which possibly stemmed from a Greek original. This Latin text is first witnessed in Codex Fuldensis, and it was included in Latin Bibles in the medieval period.




Epistle of Barnabas

The Epistle of Barnabas, in reality more a treatise than a letter, is preserved completely in the Codex Sinaiticus, where it is located at the end of the New Testament. It is traditionally thought Barnabas from the Acts of the Apostles penned the document, while others ascribe it to a “Barnabas of Alexandria,” or some other unidentified early writer.




Apostolic Church Order

Not to be confused with the Apostolic Constitutions or their appended Apostolic Canons, the Apostolic Church Order is a 3rd century pseudo-Apostolic collection of moral and hierarchical rules and instructions that served as a law-code for the Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Arabian churches, and rivaled in authority the Didache, under which name it sometimes went.




Epistle of the Apostles

The Epistula Apostolorum (“Epistle of the Apostles”) is presented as a letter from the eleven remaining apostles describing events, dialogue, and predictions from the life of Jesus. It is widely regarded as pseudepigraphal and was likely composed in the early- or mid-2nd century AD.




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