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epistle
Sign in to savethumb|Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, by [[Valentin de Boulogne or Nicolas Tournier (c. 16th century, Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, TX).]]
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
18 sectionsContents
- Ancient Egyptian epistles
- Ancient Greece and Rome
- Form of Christian epistles
- Opening/greetings
- Content/body
- New Testament epistles
- Pauline epistles
- Catholic (i.e., "general") epistles
- Epistles of Revelation
- Non canonical epistles
- Lost epistles
- Epistles of Apostolic Fathers
- Western churches
- Eastern churches
- Medieval epistles
- See also
- Notes
- External links
thumb|Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, by [[Valentin de Boulogne or Nicolas Tournier (c. 16th century, Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, TX).]]
An epistle (; ) is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians are usually referred to as epistles. Those traditionally attributed to Paul are known as Pauline epistles and the others as catholic (i.e., "general") epistles.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “epistle” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.