The Expositor's Bible: The General Epistles of St. James and St. Jude. Alfred Plummer
rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_3ae83ee0-d431-5f1b-b193-4abc3bff5993">CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DESCRIPTION CORRESPONDING TO BALAAM: IMPIOUS DISCONTENT AND GREED OF THE LIBERTINES. THE APOSTOLIC WARNING RESPECTING THEM.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE FINAL DOXOLOGY: PRAISE TO GOD, THE PROTECTOR OF HIS SERVANTS.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES.
WORKS BY THE RIGHT REV. HANDLEY C. G. MOULE, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
OUTLINES OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
DR. MOULE'S COMMENTARIES ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.
OTHER WORKS FROM HODDER & STOUGHTON.
OUTLINES OF A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
THE PROVIDENTIAL ORDER OF THE WORLD.
THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY GHOST.
INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTER I.
THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES.
THIS volume is to treat of the General Epistle of St. James and the General Epistle of St. Jude. According to the most common, but not invariable arrangement, they form the first and the last letters in the collection which for fifteen centuries has been known as the Catholic Epistles. The epithet "General," which appears in the titles of these Epistles in the English versions, is simply the equivalent of the epithet "Catholic," the one word being of Latin (generalis), the other of Greek (καθολικός) origin. In Latin, however, e.g. in the Vulgate, these letters are not called Generales, but Catholicæ.
The meaning of the term Catholic Epistles (καθολικαὶ ἐπιστολαι) has been disputed, and more than one explanation may be found in commentaries; but the true signification is not really doubtful. It certainly does not mean orthodox or canonical; although from the sixth century, and possibly earlier, we find these Epistles sometimes called the Canonical Epistles (Epistolæ Canonicæ), an expression in which "canonical" is evidently meant to be an equivalent for "catholic." This use is said to occur first in the Prologus in Canonicas Epistolas of the Pseudo-Jerome given by Cassiodorus (De Justit. Divin. Litt., viii.); and the expression is used by Cassiodorus himself, whose writings may be placed between A.D. 540 and 570, the period spent in his monastery at Viviers, after he had retired from the conduct of public affairs. The term "catholic" is used in the sense of "orthodox" before this date, but not in connexion with these letters. There seems to be no earlier evidence of the opinion, certainly erroneous, that this collection of seven Epistles was called "Catholic" in order to mark them as Apostolic and authoritative, in distinction from other letters which were heterodox, or at any rate of inferior authority. Five out of the seven letters, viz. all but the First Epistle of St. Peter and the First Epistle of St. John, belong to that class of New Testament books which from the time of Eusebius (H. E. III. xxv. 4) have been spoken of as "disputed" (ἀντιλεγόμενα), i.e. as being up to the beginning of the fourth century not universally admitted to be canonical.[1] And it would have been almost a contradiction in terms if Eusebius had first called these Epistles "catholic" (H. E. II. xxiii. 25; VI. xiv. 1) in the sense of being universally accepted as authoritative, and had then classed them among the "disputed" books.
Nor is it accurate to say that these letters are called "catholic" because they are addressed to both Jewish and Gentile Christians alike, a statement which is not true of all of them, and least of all of the Epistle which generally stands first in the series; for the Epistle of St. James takes no account of Gentile Christians. Moreover, there are Epistles of St. Paul which are addressed to both Jews and Gentiles in the Churches to which he writes. So that this explanation of the term makes it thoroughly unsuitable for the purpose for which it is used, viz. to mark off these seven Epistles from the Epistles of St. Paul. Nevertheless, this interpretation is nearer to the truth than the former one.
The Epistles are called "Catholic" because they are not addressed to any particular Church, whether of Thessalonica, or Corinth, or Rome, or Galatia, but to the Church universal, or at any rate to a wide circle of readers. This is the earliest Christian use of the term "catholic," which was applied to the Church itself before it was applied to these or any other writings. "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be," says Ignatius to the Church of Smyrna (viii.), "just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church"—the earliest passage in Christian literature in which the phrase "Catholic Church" occurs. And there can be no doubt as to the meaning of the epithet in this expression. In later times, when Christians were oppressed by a consciousness of the slow progress of the Gospel, and by the knowledge that as yet only a fraction of the human race had accepted it, it became customary to explain "catholic" as meaning that which embraces and teaches the whole truth, rather than as that which spreads everywhere and covers the whole earth. But in the first two or three centuries the feeling was rather one of jubilation and triumph at the rapidity with which the "good news" was spreading, and of confidence that "there is not one single race of men, whether barbarians or Greeks, or whatever they may be called, nomads or vagrants, or herdsmen living in tents, among whom prayers and giving of thanks are not offered, through the name of the crucified Jesus, to the Father and Creator of all things"