Gerald L. Bray & Thomas C. Oden 
James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude [EPUB ebook] 
Volume 11

Christianity Today Award of Merit winner
Because the Catholic Epistles focus on orthodox faith and morals, the Fathers drew on them as a means of defense against the rising challenge of heretics. Many of the Fathers saw in these letters anticipatory attacks on Marcion and strong defenses against the Arians. They did so quite naturally because in their view truth was eternal and deviations from it had existed from the beginning.
Above all, the Fathers found in the Catholic Epistles a manual for spiritual warfare, counsel for the faithful in the cosmic struggle between good and evil. In them was sound instruction in the ways of self-sacrifice, generosity, and humility, through which the cosmic forces could be defeated.
Allusions to these letters go back as far as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, but the first commentary derives from Clement of Alexandria. Didymus the Blind was the next significant Greek-speaking commentator, though his commentary is fully extant only in Latin translation. Many of the comments from the early centuries have been passed on to us through Latin catenae, or chain commentaries, in which a later commentator collected comments from a variety of sources and chained them together in a fashion much like that of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture in English. Among Latin commentators on these letters, pride of place must be given to Bede the Venerable.
This volume opens up a treasure house of ancient wisdom that allows these faithful witnesses, some appearing here in English translation for the first time, to speak with eloquence and intellectual acumen to the church today.

Зміст

General Introduction
A Guide to Using This Commentary
Abbreviations
Introduction to the Catholic Epistles
Commentary on James
Commentary on 1 Peter
Commentary on 2 Peter
Commentary on 1 John
Commentary on 2 John
Commentary on 3 John
Commentary on Jude
Appendix: Early Christian Writers and the Documents Cited
Chronology
Biographical Sketches
Authors/Writings Index
Subject Index
Scripture Index

Про автора

Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016) was a pioneering theologian and served as the architect and general editor for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, the first full-scale early Christian commentary on Scripture in the last five hundred years. He was also the general editor of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series and the Ancient Christian devotionals, as well as a consulting editor for the Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity. Oden's self-described mission was ‘to begin to prepare the postmodern Christian community for its third millennium by returning again to the careful study and respectful following of the central tradition of classical Christianity.’ A prolific writer and seasoned teacher, Oden also served as the director of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, and was active in the Confessing Movement in America, particularly within the United Methodist Church.