CATHOLIC EPISTLES. A group of seven letters in the New Testament (James, 1., 11. l'eter, Jude, 1., It.. I11. John) which have been designated by this name, as denoting the com prehensive circle of the readers addressed in distinetion from the individual churches and persons addressed in the letters by Paul. The term was first used in the Eastern Church, about the Second Century, and then only with refer ence to 1. John. which was so named in contrast with II. and 111. John, as private letters. Later it was applied to Il. Peter and Jude, as relative ly general in their addresses; then to James and 1. Peter, as addressed to large portions of the Church; and finally 11. and 11I. John were in cluded. either on the supposition that the names given in their addresses (I L John ''the elect lady and her children," Ill. John "Gains, the be loved") were figurative designations of the Church, or under the impulse to gather all of John's letters in the same group. The term was also used of writings outside the canon (e.g. by Grigen of the Epistle of Barnabas) and even of heretical writings (e.g. by Apollonius [in
Eusehins. 11. E. vii, 25] of the Epistle of the .1\ 1ontanist Themist on). Cyril of Alexandria ap plies it to the letter of the Church of Jerusalem, given in Acts XV. By the Fourth Century it had come to designate in the East the present group of seven letters. In the West these writ ings were not known by any group name until the Fifth or Sixth Century, and then the name which was given them was Canonical.
Bruun10o RA Pll Y. Introductions: A. Jfilieher (Leipzig, 1901) Commentaries: B. F. Westeott. Commentary to •pistles of John (Cambridge, ISSG); C. Bigg. Commentary on Epist/cs of Saint Peter alai Jude, International Critical Series (New York, 1902). General works on the New Testament Canon: B. F. Westeott, A General Surrey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament (60 ed.. Cambridge, 1889) ; A. II. Charteris, The Yew Testament Scriptures, Croall Lectures for 1882 (New York, 1882). See JAMES,