3. Others suppose that the term refers to the character of the contents of the.se Epp., the catho- licity of their doctrine, distinguishing them from others which were heretical as orthodox or authori- tative Epp., — Epp. whose teaching was in harmony with Christian truth, or the Church's faith. .So Salmeron held it to define them as giving the one true catholic doctrine which the whole Church might prolilably receive. Similar is the explana- tion of Cornelius il Lapide and others. This view, too, is supposed to be favoured by the pas.sage in which Eusebius speaks of the Acts, the Gospel, and other alleged writings of Peter. But the supposi- tion has OS little to support it in this ca-se as in (2). The term so interpreted would equally fail to servo as a distinctive title of the group ; for in this sense Paul's Epp. were as catholic as these. Further, it overlooks the fact that the title is used of the /lerctiral Epistle of Themison.
i. ConHcuuenlly, it is held that the term refers to the dcitmnlion of the Ej)p., designating them as Encyclital letters, difl'enng from the Pauline Epp. OS being addressed, not to individuals or to sin;;le Churches, but to the Church univer.sal, to circles of Churches, or to readers sialtereil over wide territories. This is the explanation given by Occumenius (S(rc, x.) in the Preface to his Com mentary on the Epistle of James : KaffoXiitol Xtyot'Tai airrai uMtl ^kvkXioi. Ui) Tdp a^upiaiUyuit I8ftt tft jj
362
CATHOLIC EPISTLES
CATTLE
ir6Xei (In A $eios IlaCXos, olov 'Pw/taiocj ^ Kopifdloi^j irptxffpijM'ti Tainan ras iiritTToXas 6 Tuiv Totourotv rod Kvpiov fjutdip-uiv 6ia(ro^, dXXd Ka.06\ov toU TiaToU, i^rei 'lovSaiois ToU iv t^ diaairop^, ws Kal 6 H^Tpos, ij koX iraffi ToU inr6 t^v avT7]v TrlixTtv Xptcrrtapoiy reXoOfftv. It is the explanation given also by Leontius (c. A.D. 590) : KaOoKkKal di ^KXridrjaav iTeiSij oil vphi tv idvot iypdcpdrjaav (is al rod Ilai^Xou ^trtaToXai {De Sectis Act. ii.). Suidas also treats (taSoXixit and tyKvKXios as synonymous when used of letters. This is the explanation which is preferred by most. It retains for the adjective the sense which it has in ancient, non-ecclesiastical Greek ; the sense which it also has when it is used of the Church ; the sense which can be traced back, in the applica- tion of the term, to particular writings, at least to the close of the 2nd cent. It is the sense that best suits Clement's statement on the letter addressed by the ' apostles and elders and brethren ' at Jerusalem to the ' brethren which are of the GentUes in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia ' (Ac 15^, etc., especially in view of the extent of its publica- tion, Ac 16*). It is the most natural sense for the term as used by Origen, in the passages cited above, of 1 Jn, 1 P, Jude, and Barnabas ; by Clement, of Jude in his Hypotyposes ; and by Dionysius of Alexandria, of 1 Jn (Euseb. HE vii. 25). It fits the tenor of 1 Jn, and is sufficiently consistent with the expressed destination of other members of the group of seven. Ja, 1 P, 2 P, and Jude are addressed, it is true, to definite circles of readers. But tliese are large circles, embracing the Chris- tians and Churches of many lands, and difl'ering widely from those which the Pauline Epp. have in view. James is meant for the brethren in the ex- t«nsive Jewish Dispersion ; 1 Pet. for the Churches of five provinces of the East ; 2 Pet. and Jude, for circles still less particular or defined. The remain- ing two have inscriptions referring to individuals, and are in no proper sense general Epistles. Their position is explained either by the fact that they were interpreted a,t &a early period as general Epp., the Church being taken to be addressed under the personal designation of the iKXexTii Kvpla of 2 Jn and the Gains of 3 Jn (Clem. Alex. Hypotyposes) ; or by the circumstance that, being accepted as genuine letters of the Apostle John, they were naturally associated with liis first Epistle, and so came to De included in the group of which it formed apart, and to share in the title uorne by the group. It would appear most probable, therefore, that the title ' catholic ' had from the beginning its proper sense of ' general ' ; that it was used to designate letters of the nature of circular or ency- clical Epistles ; that in this sense it was applied at least from the end of the 2nd cent, to particular writings both within and without the NT literature proper ; that in this sense it was applied first to individual members of the group, and by the time of Eusebius to the seven as a class distinguishable in this respect from the Pauline Epp. ; that in course of time other ideas became connected with it, and its use became less constant ; that by the 6th cent, it became identical with canonical in the Western Church, and assumed a more dogmatic character. There are things at the same time which indicate that its use was not quite fixed or uniform even at the close of the 4th cent, or the beginning of the 5th. Some, indeed, contend that when Origen speaks of I Peter as a Catholic Epistle he means to distinguish it as a genuine or accredited Epistle from 2 Peter as a disputed Epistle. It is muct more reasonable to understand it there in the sense of general or encyclical. But there are passages in Eusebius which are of another kind. We have one such, e.g., that in HE iii. 3, where, speaking of acknowledged and diapuiid books, he says of certain writings alleged