Carmen Saeculare Carmen Saeculare The Carmen Saeculare (Latin for "Secular Hymn" or "Song of the Ages") is a hymn in Sapphic meter written by the Roman poet Horace. It was commissioned by the Roman emperor Augustus in 17 BC. The hymn was sung by a chorus of twenty-seven maidens and the same number of youths on the occasion of the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games), which celebrated the end of one " saeculum" (typically 110 years in length) and the beginning of another. The mythological and religious song is in the form of a prayer addressed to Phoebus (Apollo) and Diana; it especially
Pastoral epistles responding to specific 2nd-century developments (Marcionism, gnosticism). That Marcion (ca. 140) betrays knowledge of a collection of Paul's letters that lack the Pastoral Epistles is another piece of evidence for which any model must account. (This is a separate question to Marcion's "canon", which included only edited versions of Luke and the Pauline epistles; according to Tertullian, Marcion "omitted" the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pastoral Epistles.) According to Raymond E. Brown ("An Introduction to the New Testament", 1997), the majority of scholars who accept a post-Pauline date of composition for the Pastorals favour the period 80–100. Scholars supporting