The Catholic Epistles and Apostolic Tradition: A New Perspective on James to Jude

Chapter 2 - A Unifying Theology of the Catholic Epistles: A Canonical Approach

13 Chapter 2 A UNIFyINg THEOLOgy OF THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES A Canonical Approach Robert W. Wall Introduction This paper proposes an interpretive strategy by which the Catholic Epistles (CE) should be read together as a collection whose seven books are integral parts of a coherent theological whole. The perceived theological coherence of the CE is at odds with the modern critical assessment that underscores their literary, rhetorical, and theological diversity, and therefore their independence from each other, no matter what interpretive strategy is employed. Those who chase down the sources of theological beliefs submit theological definitions retrieved from different points of origin, where different authors respond to the spiritual crises of their different recipients, who are shaped within different social and religious worlds. On the exegetical landscape of modern biblical criticism, then, the theological diversity found within the CE corpus has been explained as the by-product of differing moments/places of origin and their respective trajectories/tradition histories. Those who treat the CE as literary media do not disagree with this conclusion. Their own explanatory constructions, however, explicate the same theological diversity as the by-product of different genres, textual structures, or rhetorical patterns—regardless of who wrote these texts, 14 ROBERT W. WALL for whom, when, or where. In this light, then, the critical consensus is that the CE are no real collection at all, but an arbitrary grouping of literary miscellanea gathered together and arranged during the canonical process at a non-Pauline address, without any thought of their theological coherence or canonical function as a per se collection. In fact, the theological incoherence of the CE, and their independence from each other, has become a matter of critical dogma.1 The present paper will incline the angle of approach toward the CE collection differently, thereby admitting into evidence new findings from the canonical period, when these seven books were formed into a second collection of letters “to provide a broader and more balanced literary representation of the apostolic witness than the letters of Paul furnished by themselves.”2 In doing so, I intend to challenge the critical consensus regarding the theological incoherence of the CE collection; in fact, my thesis is that when this epistolary collection is rendered by the hermeneutics of the canonical process, both its theological coherence and its canonical role will be more clearly discerned. At the center of this study are two related observations about the final redaction of the CE collection that are laden with hermeneutical promise . First, when the CE became a collection, the Letter of James became its frontispiece to introduce the deep logic—or what I call the grammar— of the collection’s unifying theology and its anticipated role within the biblical canon. Second, when the CE became a collection, it did so with Acts, which supplied a narrative context that not only vested the entire collection with religious authority but cued the priority of James within it. At that canonical moment, when the final redaction of this collection evoked a recognition of its theological wholeness, the one (James as its surprising frontispiece) was made explicable by the other (Acts as its narrative context). A Canonical Approach to the Catholic Epistles as a Collection The question is reasonably asked whether interpreters should elevate the importance of the canonizing community’s intentions when mining these texts for their theological material, especially when the modern bias is to define the theological goods of a biblical writing by those meanings retrieved from original locations or as envisaged by a composition’s rhetorical design and literary genre. I think so. In fact, if the angle of one’s approach to the theology of the CE is inclined by the relevant properties of the canonical process, then what should be assumed about these books are their theological coherence as a canonical collection and the importance of their collective role whenever the interpreter seeks to render a fully biblical witness to the word of god. In this portion of the paper, A UNIFyINg THEOLOgy OF THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES 15 let me simply catalogue those findings that are suggestive of a unifying theology and role of the CE collection. 1. I begin with the most basic of observations: the final redaction of the CE collection stabilizes a fluid movement within the bounds of the canonical process. This may be deduced from Eusebius’ initial statements about the CE in Ecclesiastical History, and what he...