Editing Letter to Flora (section)

==Literary form==
Such a publicly circulated [[Epistle]] may have been a literary form, rather than an actual missive sent by a "Ptolemy" to a "Flora.” The Letter was the classical equivalent of the Renaissance and modern [[Essay]] format. The attack on Ptolemy by Irenaeus does not eliminate the possibility that the present letter ascribed to him was composed by Epiphanius, in the manner of composed speeches that ancient historians put into the mouths of their protagonists, as a succinct way to sum up the Gnostic views he was intent on demolishing.