are Paul's lost letters implicitly a part of canon

DamianWarS said:

Was not the early letters to the Corinthians used within their context? Was not the letter to the laodeicians considered scripture to them?

Paul identifies the letter to the Laodecians as on the same level as the letter to the colossians which they were told to exchange amongst each other. We have colossians today but we don't have Laodecians but is not the missing letter inherently absorbed into canon?

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For reasons we can only speculate upon, some of Paul's letters were not preserved and circulated. The two I am aware of was a previous letter to the Corinthian church (prior to 1 Corinthians) and a letter to the Laodicean church. We don't have them, which means they were not preserved, circulated, and copied. Why that is so is pure guesswork.

When the Church began to incorporate the letters of Paul into their liturgical reading cycles is also speculative. By the time anyone is talking about these things, the thirteen Pauline epistles we know were already established as canonical Scripture, firmly included in the cycle of Scripture readings.

I would argue that had the lost letters of Paul been perceived as important enough to include in the canonical Pauline corpus then we would have them. This, of course, is me placing a great deal of weight on the judgment of the ancient community of faith. I am somewhat confident that had those lost Pauline works been seen as valuable enough for circulation, preserving, and liturgical use we would have them. If we found them today, tucked away in some jar out in the desert, they would not be Holy Scripture, they would not be Canon, they would be incredibly fascinating and important for their historical value, and I would even think they would be highly valuable in the same way that the writings of the most ancient fathers are valuable--but they would not be Canonical Scripture.

It's okay to have writings which are valuable to the informing of our faith without them being Holy Scripture, I think works such as the Didache, the letters of Ignatius, and Clement's epistle (as examples) are immensely important. But they aren't Scripture. And the Didache and Clement were actually treated as Scripture by some in antiquity, which is more than can be said about the lost letters of St. Paul.

-CrytpoLutheran

DamianWarS said:

I use the term loosely hence the double quotation marks and it is based on the Peter's remark in 2 Peter 3:16 reffering collectively to Paul's letters and calling them scripture. Paul tells us he wrote a letter to the Laodecians and he tells the church of colossians to read it and also pass along their own letter. Paul puts both letters on the same level and we consider colossians scripture so I don't see it unreasonably to assume this letter was also considered scripture

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In the case of 2 Peter, we need to take seriously the fact that it was among the works called Antilegomena in antiquity, and prevailing scholarly opinion is that it likely wasn't written by St. Peter, but dates from a later period (2nd century). 2 Peter, thus, in this instance very likely points us toward the fact that Paul's letters had received widespread acceptance in the 2nd century.

As such I think some caution should be used with this use of 2 Peter, since it is quite probable that it is a later work. That isn't to say it isn't Scripture (its acceptance is well established today), only that for this sort of historical purpose it may not be the most helpful.

-CryptoLutheran

DamianWarS said:

there are some letters that are unknown but referenced in scripture like a letter to the Laodiceans or a letter that preceded 1 Corinthians. If found, would these letters be added to the canon? Or even though they are unknown is there still somewhat a concept that they are implicitly a part of canon.

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No. It is the Church, via the union of Bishops, which has the authority to declare canon. Canon was already declared. It is closed.

It's possible that the letter to Laocideans is Ephesians as some early manuscripts lacks the term "...in Ephesus"