Unzertrennliche Drillinge?

Ever since the work of Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, the pastoral epistles have been regarded as “inseparable triplets”. And yet, if one analyzes these letters as a corpus of literary works, it is hard to find a plausible explanation for the substantive differences between them. Therefore, this study returns to the question of the specific nature of the individual epistles and their literary relationships. In the end, it can be shown that the first Letter to Timothy is the most recent text. Its author had already received the two other pastoral epistles as part of the Pauline tradition.