SAINT JUDE
I. The Author and the Authenticity of the Epistle:
(1) Jude in the Books of the New Testament;
(2) Tradition as to the Genuineness and the Canonicity of the Epistle;
(3) Difficulties Arising from the Text;
(4) The Relation of Jude to the Second Epistle of St. Peter;
(5) Vocabulary and Style;
II. Analysis of the Epistle;
III. Occasion and Object;
IV. To Whom Addressed;
V. Date and Place of Composition.
I. THE AUTHOR AND THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE EPISTLE
(1) Jude in the Books of the New Testament
In the address of the Epistle the author
styles himself “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James”. “Servant of Jesus Christ”
means “apostolic minister or labourer”. “Brother
of James” denotes him as the brother of James kat
exochen who was well-known to the Hebrew Christians
to whom the Epistle of St. Jude was written. This
James is to be identified with the Bishop of the
Church of Jerusalem (Acts, xv, 13; xxi, 18), spoken
of by St. Paul as “the brother of the Lord” (Gal. i,
19), who was the author of the Catholic Epistle of St.
James. and is regarded amongst Catholic interpreters
as the
Apostle James the son of Alpheus (St. James the Less).
This last identification, however, is not evident, nor, from a critical point of view,
does it seem beyond all doubt. Most Catholic commentators
identify Jude with the “Judas Jacobi” (“Jude, the brother of James” in the D.V.) of
Luke, vi, 16, and Acts, i, 13 — also called Thaddeus
(Matt. x, 3: Mark, iii, 18) — referring the expression
to the fact that his brother James was better known
than himself in the primitive Church. This view is
strongly confirmed by the title “the brother of
James”, by which Jude designates himself in the
address of his Epistle. If this identification is
proved, it is clear that Jude, the author of the Epistle,
was reckoned among the Twelve Apostles. This
opinion is most highly probable. Beyond this we
find no further information concerning Jude in the
New Testament, except that the “brethren of the
Lord”, among whom Jude was included, were known
to the Galatians and the Corinthians; also that several
of them were married, and that they did not
fully believe in Christ till after the Resurrection
(I Cor., ix, 5; Gal., i, 10; John, vii, 3-5; Acts, i, 14). From
a fact of Hegesippus told by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III,
xix, xx, xxii) we learn that Jude was “said to have
been the brother of the Lord according to the flesh”,
and that two of his grandsons lived till the reign
of Trajan (see, however,
BRETHREN OF THE LORD).
(2) Tradition as to the Genuineness and the Canonicity of the Epistle
The Epistle of Jude is one of the so-called
antilegomena; but, although its canonicity has
been questioned in several Churches, its genuineness
has never been denied. The brevity of the Epistle, the
coincidences between it and II Peter, and the
supposed quotation from apocryphal books, created
a prejudice against it which was gradually overcome.
The history of its acceptance by the Church is briefly
as follows:
Some coincidences or analogies exist between Jude
and the writings of the
Apostolic Fathers — between
Barnabas, ii, 10, and Jude, 3, 4; Clemens Romanus,
Ep. xx, 12; lxv, 2, and Jude, 25; Ep. ad Polyc.,
iii 2; iv, 2, and Jude, 3. 20, Mart. Polyc., xx, and
Jude, 24 sq. It is possible, though not certain, that
the passages here noted were suggested by the text of
Jude. The similarity between “Didache” ii, 7 and
Jude, 22 sq., does not seem to be accidental, whilst in
Athenagoras (about A.D., 177), “Leg.”, xxiv, and in
Theophilus of Antioch (d. about 183), “Ad Autol.”
II, xv, there is a clear reference to Jude, 6 and 13 respectively.
The earliest positive reference to the Epistle occurs in the
Muratorian Fragment, “Epistola sane Judæ et
superscriptæ Joannis duae in catholica [scil. Ecclesia]
habentur.” The Epistle was thus recognized as canonical
and Apostolic (for it is Jude the Apostle who is
here meant) in the Roman Church about 170. At the
end of the second century it was also accepted as canonical
and Apostolic by the Church of Alexandria
(Clement of Alexandria, “Pæd.”, III, viii, followed by
Origen), and by the African Church of Carthage (Tertullian).
At the beginning of the third century the
Epistle was universally accepted except in the primitive
East Syrian Church, where none of the Catholic Epistles
were recognized, nor the Apocalypse.
This remarkably wide acceptance, representing as it
does the voice of ancient tradition, testifies to the canonicity
and the genuineness of Jude. During the
third and fourth centuries doubt and suspicion, based
on internal evidence (especially on the supposed
quotation from the Book of Henoch
and the “Assumption of Moses”), arose in several Churches. However the
prejudice created against the deuterocanonical
Jude was soon overcome, so that the Epistle
was universally accepted in the Western Church at
the very beginning of the fifth century (see
CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT).
In the Eastern Church Eusebius of Cæsarea (260-340)
placed Jude among the antilegomena or the “disputed
books, which are nevertheless known and accepted
by the greater number” (Hist. Eccl., II xxiii;
III, xxv); he incorporated all the Catholic Epistles in
the fifty copies of the Bible which at the command of
Constantine, he wrote for the Church of Constantinople.
St. Athanasius (d. 387) and St. Epiphanius
(d. 403) placed Jude among the canonical and Apostolic
writings. Junilius and Paul of Nisibis in Constantinople
(513) held it as mediæ auctoritatis. However,
in the sixth century the Greek Church
everywhere considered Jude as canonical.
The recognition of Jude in the Syriac Church is not clear. In
Western Syria we find no trace of Jude in the fifth century. In
Eastern Syria the Epistle is wanting in the oldest Syriac version, the Peshito, but
it is accepted in the Philoxenian (508) and Heracleon
(616) versions. Except among the Syriac Nestorians,
there is no trace of any ecclesiastical contradiction
from the beginning of the sixth century till the
Council of Trent, which defined the canonicity of both the
proto- and deutero-canonical books of the New Testament.
(3) Difficulties Arising from the Text
The wording
of verse 17 — which some critics have taken as an evidence
that the Epistle was written in the second century — does
not imply that the recipients of the Epistle
had, in a period that was past, received oral
instructions from all the Apostles, nor does it imply
that Jude himself was not an Apostle. The text ton apostolon
implies only that several of the Apostles had
predicted to the readers that such “mockers” as are
described by the writer would assail the Faith; it is
not separation in time, but distance of place, that leads
Jude to refer to the scattered Apostles as a body. Nor
does he exclude himself from this body, he only declares
that he was not one of those prophesying
Apostles. The author of II Peter, who often ranks
himself among the Apostles, uses a similar expression
ton apostolon humon (3:2), and certainly does not mean
to imply that he himself was not an Apostle.
Many
Protestant scholars have maintained that the false teachers denounced in Jude are
Gnostics of the second century. But, as Bigg rightly says: “It is not
really a tenable view” (op. cit. infra). St. Jude does
not give any details about the errors denounced in
this short letter any more than does St. Peter, and
there is no ground for identifying the false teachers
with any of the Gnostic sects known to us. There is
nothing in the references made to false doctrines that
obliges us to look beyond the Apostolic times.
The use made of apocryphal writings, even if proved, is not
an argument against the Apostolicity of the Epistle;
at most it could only invalidate its canonicity and inspiration.
Verse 9, which contains the reference concerning
the body of Moses, was supposed by
Didymus (“Enarr. in Epist. Judæ” in P. G., XXXIX, 1811 sqq.),
Clement of Alexandria (Adumbr. in Ep. Judæ), and
Origen
(De Princ., III, ii, 1), to have been taken
from the “Assumption of Moses”, which is unquestionably
anterior to the Epistle of Jude. Jude may
possibly have learned the story of the contest from
Jewish tradition. But, at any rate, it is evident that
Jude does not quote the “Assumption” as a written
authority, and still less as a canonical book.
As regards the prophecy of vv. 14 sq., many Catholic
scholars admit it to be a loose and abbreviated citation
from the apocryphal Book of Henoch, i, 1, 9,
which existed a century before St. Jude wrote. But
here again St. Jude does not quote Henoch as a canonical
book. There is nothing strange, as Plumptre
remarks (op. cit. infra, 88), in Jude making use of
books not included in the Hebrew Canon of the Old
Testament, “as furnishing illustrations that gave point
and force to his counsels. The false teachers, against
whom he wrote, were characterized largely by their
fondness for Jewish fables, and the allusive references
to books with which they were familiar, were therefore
of the nature of an argumentum ad hominem. He
fought them, as it were, with their own weapons.”
He merely intends to remind his readers of what they
know. He does not affirm or teach the literary origin
of the apocryphal book, such is not his intention.
He simply makes use of the general knowledge it conveys,
just as the mention of the dispute between
Michael and the Devil is but an allusion to what is
assumed as being known to the readers. By no means,
therefore, does either of the passages offer any difficulty
against the canonicity of the Epistle, or against
the Catholic doctrine of inspiration.
(4) The Relation of Jude to the Second Epistle of St. Peter
The resemblance as to thought and language
between Jude and II Peter, ii, is quite sufficient to
make it certain that one of the two writers borrowed
from the other: the hypothesis that both writers borrowed
from a common document must be put aside,
as having no support whatsoever. The question remains:
Which of the two Epistles was the earlier?
The priority of II Peter, as well as the priority of
Jude, has found strong advocates, and much has
been written about this intricate question. The following
arguments, however, lead to the conclusion
that the Epistle of Jude was the earlier of the two:
It is not uncommon for St. Peter to throw a
light on the more obscure passages of the Epistle of
Jude, or to interpret the more difficult passages. At
one time he puts them in a shorter form or uses
more general terms; at another, while adducing in
general the same arguments, he adds a new one or
omits one or another used in Jude. This shows that
St. Peter had probably read the Epistle of St. Jude.
Compare especially II Peter, ii, 12, with Jude, 10.
This may also be confirmed not only by II Peter,
i, 17, compared with Jude, 13 — where
St. Peter doubles Jude’s comparison and puts more strength
into it, whilst Jude has more similitudes — but also
by comparing the style of both, for, whereas the
style of Jude is always the same, that of
St. Peter differs somewhat from his usual way of writing, and
the reasons for this change seem to be the matter he
writes about and the influence of the Epistle of St.
Jude.
Finally, is more probable that
St. Peter has embodied in his work the text of Jude’s Epistle
than that Jude should have included in his writing
only a part of St. Peter’s Epistle. If Jude wrote
later than
Peter and found the same state of things,
why did he omit the remaining questions, e.g. the
doubts about the parousiæ? Or why should he, in
order to combat the same heretics, give only a summary
of St. Peter’s Epistle, omitting entirely the
strongest arguments?
(5) Vocabulary and Style
The vocabulary of Jude
proves that the author was a Jew, saturated with
the Old Testament, using Hebraisms, yet acquainted
with the koine dialektos — the “common dialect”.
Thirteen words found in Jude do not occur elsewhere
in the New Testament. Some words of the
new Christian dialect appear in Jude as well as in
the Pauline Epistles, but literary affinity or direct
quotation cannot be proved. The style, although
sometimes poetical, always evinces the severe and
authoritative tone of a man of Apostolic rank, held
in high honour.
II. ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE
(a) Exordium. Address and good wishes (vv. 1-2), occasion and purpose of the Epistle (3-4).
(b) First Part.
He inveighs against the pseudo-teachers; describes their
life and errors (5-16). They will be severely punished,
as is evident from the severe punishment of the
unbelieving Israelites in the desert (5), of the
wicked angels (6), and of the inhabitants of Sodom
(7). He mentions their wicked teaching and life
(8), and opposes the modesty of
Michael the Archangel (9) to their pride (10). He foretells for the
heretics the punishment of Cain, Balaam, and the
sons of Core, for they have imitated their errors (11-3).
Enoch has already prophesied the judgment of
God upon them (14-6).
(c) Second Part. He exhorts the faithful (17-23). They must remember
the teaching of the Apostles, by whom they had
been warned of the coming of such heretics (17-19).
They must maintain the Faith, keep themselves in
the love of God, and wait for life everlasting (20-21).
What their behaviour should he towards Christians
that have in any way fallen away (22-23)
(d) Epilogue. A most beautiful doxology (24-25).
III. OCCASION AND OBJECT
Occasion.
The Epistle was occasioned by the spread of the dogmatico-moral
errors amongst the Hebrew Christians;
pseudo-doctors “are secretly entered in”, who abuse
Christian liberty to give themselves over to
intemperance; moreover “denying the only sovereign
Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (4).
Object.
Jude’s intention was to caution his readers,
the Hebrew Christians, against such depraved
teaching, and to exhort them to keep faithfully the
teaching of the Apostles.
IV. TO WHOM ADDRESSED
The dedicatory
address runs as follows: tois en Theo patri hegapemenois
kai Iesou Christo teteremenois kletois (to them that
are beloved in God the Father, and preserved
in Jesus Christ, and called). Which are the
kletoi, or “called”, becomes manifest from the
context. They are not all the Christians of the
whole Christian world, but those of a particular
Church (vv. 3, 4, 17, 22). Several commentators
think that St. Jude’s Epistle was addressed to the
same churches of Asia Minor to which St. Peter’s
Epistle was written. This opinion, according to
these commentators, is to be held because in both
Epistles the same errors are condemned, and also
because Jude (v. 17) appears to have known II
Peter, and shows that the prophecy of the Prince of
the Apostles has been verified. But we have already
proved that the second argument is of no
value (see above I, 4); as for the first, there are two
objections: the errors condemned in the Epistle
of St. Jude and in II Peter may have spread in
countries outside Asia Minor; we find in Jude
several reasons for believing that the Epistle was addressed,
not to the Gentile Christians of Asia Minor, but to the
Hebrew Christians of Palestine or of a
neighbouring country.
V. DATE AND PLACE OF COMPOSITION
Date.
It is difficult to state the exact time at which St. Jude
wrote his Epistle. But the doctrines against which
he inveighs, and the looseness of morals or the so-called
antinomismus, seem to indicate the end of the
Apostolic age. Jude seems on the other hand to
have written before A.D. 70; otherwise in vv. 5-7
he would have spoken of the destruction of Jerusalem.
In those verses St. Jude mentions the different
punishments of prevaricators, and therefore in
this exhortation to Hebrew Christians he could not
have passed over in silence so dire a calamity. Moreover
we have shown that the Epistle of St. Jude was
written before II Peter, which latter was probably
written A.D. 64 (65). Therefore St. Jude must have
written shortly before 64 (65).
Place of Composition.
Here we can only guess,
but we prefer the opinion that the Epistle was
written in Palestine, and probably in Jerusalem.
rosary.team
