This course introduces the seven letters in the New Testament known since ancient times as the“Catholic Epistles”: James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, and Jude. Although these are some of the shortest documents in the New Testament, they provide us with an essential window into the life and teaching of several “pillars” of the early Church: Peter, James, John, and Jude (although the identity of these is disputed). Moreover, as we will see, they are also some of the most controversial documents in the New Testament. For example, Martin Luther famously referred to James as an “epistle of straw” and regarded it as virtually (if not actually) non-canonical. Likewise, in modern times, the apostolic authorship of every one of these documents has been disputed, and some of them—such as 2 Peter, 2-3 John, and Jude—were even disputed during the patristic period. And yet the Church regards all of these books as inspired and canonical writings of the New Testament. Indeed, as we will see, in terms of their theological content, they are extremely consequential, providing essential New Testament teaching on such topics as faith and works, justification, sins of the tongue, anointing of the sick, the priesthood of the laity, Jesus’ descent into hell, redemptive suffering, divinization (Greek theōsis), sola scriptura, the end of the world, the new creation, the distinction between mortal and venial sin, the antichrist, the existence of hell, and the deposit of faith. Hence, the goal of this course is to familiarize the students with the contents of the Catholic epistles, the controversies surrounding their origins and meaning, as well as major commentators on these texts.
