Letter of Lentulus

The Letter of Lentulus (/ˈlɛntjələs/) is an epistle of mysterious origin that was first widely published in Italy in the fifteenth century.

[1] The letter was first printed in Germany in the "Life of Christ" by Ludolph the Carthusian (Cologne, 1474),[2] and in the "Introduction to the works of St. Anselm" (Nuremberg, 1491).

According to the manuscript of Jena, a certain Giacomo of the Colonna family found the letter in 1421 in an ancient Roman document sent to Rome from Constantinople.

[5] In 1899, Ernst von Dobschütz listed over 75 historical manuscripts from Germany, France, and Italy, including the Letter of Lentulus in variant forms.

[7] The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia regards the letter as apocryphal[8] for several reasons: The first English translation of the text appears in 1680 and lists the author as “Publius Lentulus”, a Prefect in Judea at the time of Tiberius Caesar.

He is a man of medium size (statura procerus, mediocris et spectabilis); he has a venerable aspect, and his beholders can both fear and love him.

[4] Ernst von Dobschütz enumerates the different manuscripts which vary from the foregoing text in several details, and gives an apparatus criticus.