It is commonly thought that the apocryphal Letter to the Laodiceans was composed by an author who was little more than an editor, piecing together phrases from Pauline texts in a mediocre fashion. Not only does the text seem devoid of conceptual rigour and theological merit, but it is also thought to lack a coherent structure. This essay proposes that, to the contrary of most estimates, the Letter to the Laodiceans exhibits a discernible structural coherence from which a rhetorical strategy is evident.
