The “message” which we believe to be from God remains the same—be it enclosed in a “pamphlet,” in a “treatise,” in a “study” (étude), or in a “letter” form.
Nothing like an analysis of the New Testament Epistles, some of which will be briefly referred to in the course of this study, will be attempted. Such an analysis would not, of course, enter into the scheme of the present work.
We would first indicate some at least of the New Testament Letters which certainly seem to be more than letters in the ordinary sense of the word—which, indeed, are “settings” to short theological treatises containing statements of the highest doctrinal import.
These “Letters” were evidently intended for a far more extended circle of readers than the congregations immediately addressed.
We have already in a previous section quoted the three Epistles of S. Paul written during his first imprisonment,[27] A.D. 61–3 (viz. the Epistles to the Colossians, Philippians, and Ephesians), as embodying some of the more weighty and important doctrinal teachings of the great apostle put out during the period in which S. Paul preached to the Christians of the capital, and thus and then earned his well-known and acknowledged claim to be one of the two “founders” of the Church of Rome—S. Peter being the other.
One of the reasons, no doubt, of the vast and long-enduring popularity of the “letter” form of literature was the introduction of quasi-confidential remarks, which gave a freshness, a breath of everyday life to the composition; or, to use another image, the “Letter” might even be termed a picturesque and attractive “setting” to the graver, the more serious thoughts contained in the writing.
This is well exemplified in the famous collection of the correspondence of Cicero, of whose Letters it has been happily written that the majority are “brief confidential outpourings of the moment.” The same purely human colouring is manifest in the Letters of Seneca, written from the year 57 and onwards; this is even more especially noticeable in the Letters of the younger Pliny.
There are, however, certain of the Pauline Epistles which partake more closely of the nature of private letters, and which scarcely seem intended for public circulation—notably the Second Epistle to the Corinthians and the little letter to Philemon.
Professor Deissmann, of Heidelberg, who has written at some length on the subject, differs somewhat from the general view taken here of S. Paul’s writings; but while expressing his doubts as to whether any of the Pauline Epistles were really written by the apostle with a view to publication, he unhesitatingly decides that amongst the New Testament writings the Epistle to the Hebrews, the First Epistle of John, the First Epistle of Peter, the Epistles of James and Jude, were most certainly written in “letter” form for general circulation.
As early certainly as the third century, the Christian Church placed the so-called Catholic Epistles as a group apart among the canonical writings and termed them “Catholic” or universal, as addressed to no one special congregation. This is absolutely true in the cases of the Epistles of 1 Peter, James, Jude, and 1 John, above referred to.