The Epistle of Jude claims to be written by "Jude the Brother of James". Many take this is a reference to the apostle Jude, brother of James, and thus of Jesus. Others assume that the letter is pseudepigraphic, others point out that there may have been more than one pair of brothers with those names. The author does not explicitly claim to be an apostle; indeed the apostles seem to be referred to as figures of the past.

We looked at an interesting fragment in which Eusebius quotes from Hegesippus about the persecution of Christians by the Empereor Domitian. Two grandsons of Jude are caught up in the dragnet, but under interrogation prove to be ignorant peasants who pose little threat to Rome. So umimpressed is the emperor that the progrom is called off, and prisoners released. This seems to suppport the theory of the apostles as "unlettered laymen", as described by the High Priest in Acts.

Jude seems to contain much "boilerplate" material common to the Second Letter of Peter, attacking rival church members but giving tantalisingly little concrete information about them. The writer quotes from the Assumption of Moses, a contemporary document, and it is frustrating that no copies of this document have survived. He also quoted from the Book of Enoch, treating both these works as authoritative, though today the Book of Enoch is only recognised by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The letter concludes with a stunning doxology, which almost amounts to a definitive definition of Christianity.

II and III John form part of the collection known as the "Catholic Epistles" though each has a named addressee.

II John is addressed to "The elect lady", which may be a nickname for a particular church, or may refer to a particular person. Indeed, it had been argued the "Eklekta Kuria" may actually be the name of a person.

The context appears to be one in which congregations met in members' homes and were visited by missionaries from outside the city. John warns against untrustworthy visitors, and says that they should not be given (official?) hospitality.

III John is even shorter, and is mainly taken up with a quarrel between the writer and "Diotrophes", who has been blocking correspondence and refusing hospitality visitors, including the writer's friend, Demetrius.

III John is not mentioned in early church literature, and Knox considers that it may have been considered of no great importance until a canon of scripture was being defined, and III John was produced from some church's archives.

The Catholic Epistles are those which appear to be addressed to no particular church, but were written as general guides for Christian behavior.  I John is the fourth of the Catholic Epistles.

As far back as the early church fathers, there has been discussion of the probable authorship of the three Epistles of John.  Stylistically they are similar to each other, and to the Gospel of John, but not to the Book of Revelation, which is written in a very primitive Greek.    Suggestions as to the author include the apostle – brother of James and one of the sons of Zebedee  -- and the elusive John the Elder who may have lived in Ephesus up to around 140 AD.

We looked at the extraordinary story of  the Comma Johanneum, contained in the King James version of I John 5: 7-8.  This passage, which would be the only one in scripture explicitly describing the Trinity, is found in no ancient Greek text, but found its way into the Latin Vulgate some time in the tenth century.  When Erasmus omitted it from his pioneering  publication of the Greek text, he met with many protests that he was tampering with scripture.  The story goes that he offered to replace the section if one Greek document could be produced that included the quoted passage.  Apparently one was then produced (invented?) to order.  All modern translations omit the section, as does the latest version of the Vulgate itself.

Much of I John seems occupied with current heresies – some that denied that Jesus has come in the flesh (Docetism?  Adoptionism) and the libertine heresies such as Antinomianism.  However, I John is memorable for its beautiful poetry – I John 4:16 (and for that matter I John 3:16) has a lasting impact.