Why Aren’t St. Paul’s Letters Chronological?
Q. Why aren’t the epistles of St. Paul arranged chronologically? D.A., via email A. A few pairs of St. Paul’s epistles show chronological ordering, in the sense that 1 Corinthians apparently was written before 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians before 2 Thessalonians, and 1 Timothy before 2 Timothy. But otherwise, as you note, they weren’t arranged chronologically. This is in fact the case with most books of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. Chronological ordering doesn’t seem to have been a concern for the ancient churches whose circulated collections of inspired texts eventually gave shape to the established canon of Scripture. (The canon is the Church’s official list of inspired books of Scripture; it comes from a Greek word meaning the rule by which other things are measured.) The ancient kernel of the New Testament canon contained two groupings of the sacred books, the four Gospels and the Pauline epistles. Both Pope St. Clement (who died about the year 96) and the Muratorian Ca
