Catholic Epistles

VIEW:48 DATA:01-04-2020

CATHOLIC EPISTLES.?The title of ?Catholic? was given by the early Church to the seven Epistles which bear the names of James, Peter, Jude, and John. There is much uncertainty as to the meaning of the title. Perhaps the most probable explanation is that this group of Epistles was looked upon as addressed to the Church generally, while the Pauline Epistles were written to particular churches and were called forth by local circumstances.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Catholic Epistles
The canonical epistles of James, Peter, and Jude, and the first of John, are so called because they are not addressed to any particular individual or church, but to Christians in general (Suicer, Thes. Ecc_2:15).
Hug gives the following view: "When the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles constituted one peculiar division, the works of Paul also another, there still remained writings of different authors which might likewise form a collection of themselves, to which a name must be given. It might most aptly be called the common collection, καθολικὸν σύνταγμα, of the apostles, and the treatises contained in it κοιναί and καθολικαί, which are commonly used by the Greeks as synonyms. For this we find a proof even in the most ancient ecclesiastical language. Clemens Alexandrinus calls the epistle which was dispatched by the assembly of the apostles (Act_15:23) the 'catholic epistle,' as that in which all the apostles had a share, τὴν ἐπιστολὴν καθολικὴν τῶν Α᾿ποστόλων ἃπαντων. Hence our seven epistles are catholic, or epistles of all the apostles who are authors" (Introd. to N.T. § 151). So, also, Eichhorn. See Horne, Introduction, pt. 6, ch. 4, § 1. SEE EPISTLES, APOSTOLICAL.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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