The Catholic Epistle Collection and the Dynamic New Testament

Abstract

The suspicion of pseudonymity was the overwhelming factor that prevented the unhesitating inclusion of all seven now-canonical Catholic Epistles in the developing New Testament collection, as we learn especially from Patristic writings from the third through the fifth century. Well beyond Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter, the shape of the New Testament canon remained in flux, as evidenced by the major fourth-century Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, Syriac scriptural tradition from the fifth century and beyond, and the stichometric list added to the sixth-century Codex Claromontanus—and the Catholic Epistles played a decisive role. The Catholic Epistles are collectively more of a wrench in the gears than the crowning feature of the New Testament.