1° Their name and their number. — The seven letters of the New Testament that were not composed by Saint Paul are called (Έπιστολαὶ ϰαθολιϰαί): namely, the Letter of Saint James, the two letters of Saint Peter, the three of Saint John and that of Saint JudeOrigen (In Matth., t. 17, n. 9; ; in John, vol. 1, no. 23. See also Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History( , 6, 25) already used this expression to refer to the First Letter of Saint Peter, the first of Saint John and the letter of Saint JudeIt soon spread to the other four as well, and became in general use (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2, 23, speaks explicitly of the "seven Catholic letters". See also Saint Jerome, of Vir. ill., 2, 4 ).
It is rather difficult to define its meaning with certainty. According to some authors, in this name, the epithet "catholic" is synonymous with "canonical." But their interpretation cannot be accepted. It is true that, sometimes, our seven letters were called canonical letters in antiquity (notably by Cassiodorus, Inst. div. litt., 8, by Bede the Venerable, etc.); but not originally, and they were already called Catholics at a time when agreement was far from being reached regarding their canonicity (see Origen, Against Celsus, 1, 63; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6, 14).
Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, 4, 15) puts us on the path to a much more plausible explanation, when he says that the decree of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts of the Apostles 15, 23-29) was a Catholic letter. Oecumenius, in his Prolegomena in Jacobi's letter employs the adjective ἀαθολιϰός in the sense of encyclical, because our seven letters were not addressed, like those of Saint Paul, to particular churches or individuals, but to groups of churches and a large part of Christendom. It is true that this explanation cannot apply to the last two letters of Saint John; but, here as in many other circumstances, one must consider the principle "The name was given afterward." In fact, the letters of Saint Peter, of Saint James, of Saint Jude and the first of Saint John are addressed to a very large number of Christian readers.
In any case, the so-called Catholic letters, like the pastoral letters, very much form a separate group, despite the differences in authors, subjects, style, etc.
2° The place they were given in the New Testament has not always been the same in the various Churches. In the East, they occupied the rank assigned to them in the Vulgate since the time of Saint Jerome. Elsewhere, they were placed between the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Saint Paul. In several ancient Latin lists, such as that of the Council of Trent, the letters of Saint Peter and Saint John are cited before the others, because of the greater dignity of their authors.
