Epistle

EPISTLE, in its primary sense any letter addressed to an absent person. At the present day the term is used only for letters of an ancient time, or for elaborate literary productions which are, or affect to be, written to a person at a distance.

Epistles and Letters.

A broad distinction exists between the letter and the epistle. The letter is essentially a spontaneous, non literary production, personal and private, a substitute for a spoken conversation. The epistle, on the other hand, rather takes the place of a public speech, it is written with an audience in view, it is a literary form, a distinctly artistic effort aiming at permanence.

Both letters and epistles have come down to us in considerable variety and extent from the ancient world. Babylonia and Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome alike contribute to our inheritance of letters. Those of Aristotle are of questionable genuineness, but we can rely, at any rate in part, on those of Isocrates and Epicurus. Some of the letters of Cicero are rather epistles, since they were meant ultimately for the general eye. The epistles of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Seneca and the younger Pliny claim mention at this point. In the later Roman period and into the middle ages, formal epistles were almost a distinct branch of literature. The Io books of Symmachus's Epistolae, so highly esteemed in the cultured circles of the 4th century, may be con trasted with the less elegant but more forceful epistles of Jerome.

The distinction between letters and epistles has particular in terest for the student of early Christian literature. G. A. Deiss mann (Bible Studies) assigns to the category of letters all the Pauline writings as well as 2 and 3 John. The books bearing the names of James, Peter, and Jude, together with the Pastorals and the Apocalypse, he regards as epistles. The first epistle of John he calls less a letter or an epistle than a religious tract. It is doubtful, however, whether we can thus reduce all the letters of the New Testament to one or other of these categories. We have a particularly interesting form of epistle in the communications between churches (as distinct from individuals) known as the First Epistle of Clement (Rome to Corinth), the Martyrdom of Poly carp (Smyrna to Philomelium), and the Letters of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons (to the congregations of Asia Minor and Phrygia) describing the Gallican martyrdoms of A.D. 1 77. In the following centuries we have the valuable epistles of Cyprian, of Gregory Nazianzen (to Cledonius on the Apollinarian contro versy), of Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine and Jerome.

In the Renaissance one of the most common forms of literary production was that modelled upon Cicero's letters. From Pe trarch to the Epistolae obscurorum virorum there is a whole epis tolary literature. The Epistolae obscurorum virorum have to some extent a counterpart in the Epistles of Martin Marprelate. Later satires in an epistolary form are Pascal's Provincial Letters, Swift's Drapier Letters, and the Letters of Junius. The "open letter" of modern journalism is really an epistle.

Epistles in Poetry.

A branch of poetry bears the name of the Epistle, and is modelled on those pieces of Horace which are almost essays on moral or philosophical subjects, and are chiefly distinguished from other poems by being addressed to particular patrons or friends. Examples of the work in this direction of Ovid, Claudian, Ausonius and other late Latin poets have been preserved, but it is particularly those of Horace which have given this character to the epistles in verse which form so very charac teristic a section of French poetry. Clement Marot, in the 16th century, first made the epistle popular in France. Boileau's epis tles, 12 in number, are the classic examples of this form of verse in French literature; they were composed at different dates be tween 1668 and 1695. In the 18th century Voltaire enjoyed a supremacy in this graceful and sparkling species of writing; the Epitre d Uranie is perhaps the most famous of his verse-letters.

In England the verse-epistle was first prominently employed by Samuel Daniel in his "Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius" (1599), and later on, more legitimately, in his "Certain Epistles" (16oI–o3). His letter, in terza rima, to Lucy, Countess of Bristol, is one of the finest examples of this form in English literature. It was Daniel's deliberate intention to introduce the Epistle into English poetry, "after the manner of Horace." He was supported by Ben Jonson, who has some fine Horatian epistles in his Forests and his Underwoods. Letters to Several Persons of Hon our form an important section in the poetry of John Donne. At the close of the 17th century Dryden greatly excelled in this class of poetry, and his epistles to Congreve and to the duchess of Ormond (1700) are among the most graceful and eloquent that we possess. During the age of Anne various Augustan poets essayed the epistle with more or less success, and it was employed by Gay for several exercises in his elegant persiflage. But the great writer of epistles in English is Pope. The "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" has not been surpassed, if equalled, in Latin or French poetry, of the same class. After the day of Pope the epistle again fell into desuetude, or occasional use, in England. It revived in the charming naïveté of Cowper's lyrical letters in octosyllabics to his friends, such as William Bull and Lady Austin (1782) . At the close of the century Samuel Rogers endeavoured to resuscitate the neglected form in his "Epistle to a Friend" (1798). Shelley's "Letter to Maria Gisborne" (182o), Keats's "Epistle to Charles Clarke" (1816), and Landor's "To Julius Hare" (1836), in spite of their romantic colouring, are genuine Horatian epistles and of the pure Augustan type. This type, in English literature, is com monly, though not at all universally, cast in heroic verse. But Daniel employs rime royale and terra rima, while some modern epistles have been in iambic rhymed measures or in blank verse.

For St. Paul's Epistles see PAUL, for St. Peter's see PETER, for Apocryphal Epistles see APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE, for Plato's see PLATO, etc.