• Ориенталистика
• 2023 год
• Vol 6, № 3-4

The article deals with the “Catholic Epistles” from the New Testament and other texts written by Christian authors in the epistolary genre supposedly before the year 130 CE from the point of view of the polemical criticism, its main principles have been discussed in the previous article of this series. The aim is to define the theses which the early Christian authors argued with and to reconstruct as much as possible the currents within the early Christianity which left no texts of their own. In addition, it discusses the questions of the break between Christianity and Judaism.

• Apocrypha
• Bible
• Catholic Epistles
• early Christianity
• New Testament
• polemics
• reconstruction

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2. Desnitsky A. S. Polemical Criticism of Pauline Epistles. Orientalistica. 2022;5(3):522–542 (in Russian).
3. Pavlov I. How the First Christian Lived and What They Believed in: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Moscow: EKSMO, 2018. (in Russian).
4. Skarsaune O. In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002.
5. Smallwood M. E. The Legislation of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius against Circumcision. Latomus. 1959;18(2):334–347.
6. Winter B. W. Divine Honours for the Caesars: The First Christians’ Responses. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.
7. Zetterholm M. The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social-Scientific Approach to the Separation between Judaism and Christianity. London – New York: Routledge, 2003.