Catholic epistles

The catholic epistles are the following books of the New Testament:

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• James
• 1 Peter
• 2 Peter
• 1 John
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Jude

They are so named because they are addressed to the whole church (i.e. catholic), not to a particular local church. ("Catholic" in this sense means "the whole church", not just the "Roman Catholic Church".) They are sometimes also called "general epistles."

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Unlike the other epistles, which are addressed to individual churches or individual persons, and all of which (with the exception of the Letter to the Hebrews) are either written by, or attributed to, Paul of Tarsus, none of these letters are written by Paul. Authorship of Hebrews was assigned to Paul by some manuscripts, but this is largely rejected by modern scholarship.

Related Topics:
Epistle - Letter to the Hebrews - Paul of Tarsus

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"St. James' Epistle," says Luther, "is truly an epistle of straw" (Preface to Luther's New Testament, ed. I524). Jude, he says, "is an abstract or copy of St. Peter's Second, and allegeth stories and sayings which have no place in Scripture" (Standing Preface).

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