This term was applied to all or a part of these seven epistles by the Alexandrian Clement, Origen, and Dionysius, and since the time of Eusebius has been the common designation. The word is used in the sense of “general,” to denote that the epistles are encyclical letters addressed to no particular persons or congregations, though this is not true of II. and III. John, which, however, are classed with the others on account of their supposed Johannine authorship, and consequent close connection with his first epistle. The word was not first used, as some have held, in the sense of “canonical,” to denote the catholic or general acceptance of the epistle,—a meaning which Eusebius contradicts in this very passage, and which the history of the epistles themselves (five of the seven being among the antilegomena) sufficiently refutes. See Holtzmann’s Einleitung, p. 472 sqq., and Weiss, ibid. p. 89 sqq.