The Letters of John and James [antikvár]

THREE LETTERS OF JOHN how the church has used the letters Towards the end of the New Testament are three books, one of five chapters, two of one chapter, called respectively the first, second and third letters of John. For the last fifteen hundred years or so you would have found these three books included whenever a manuscript or book claimed to contain the complete New Testament. The famous Codex Sinaiticus (now in the British Museum), a manuscript dating from the fourth century, contains these three books. The Council of Carthage, held in a.d. 397 and at which Augustine was present, gave a list of canonical scriptures (i.e. scriptures accepted as authoritative by the Church) including i, 2 and 3 John almost in their present position in the New Testament. They are also clearly Usted in a 'Festal Letter' (an Easter greeting to fellow-bishops) of Athanasius, the great bishop of Alexandria, written in the year a.d. 367, in the course of which he gives a list of the canonical books as he and his church received them. By the end of the fourth century, then, we can state that all three books were well established as part of the New Testament and were regarded as coming from the pen of 'John who was commonly taken to be the writer of the Fourth Gospel and often also the writer of Revelation; and this writer was further taken to be that John, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, thought to be referred to in the Fourth Gospel as the Beloved Disciple—'the disciple whom Jesus loved'(John 21:20). Doubts, however, were widespread about the exact status of these letters, especially that of the two short ones. In the