the Week of Proper 27 / Ordinary 32
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Bible Dictionaries
Jude Epistle of
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or 1. Relation to 2 Peter.-The striking coincidences between this Epistle and the Second Epistle of Peter, covering the greater part of the shorter writing, raise in an acute form the question of relative priority. It is best, however, to investigate each Epistle independently before approaching the problem of their mutual relations. Since, however, the present writer, in spite of the attempts made by Spitta, Zahn, and Bigg to prove the dependence of Jude on 2 Peter, is convinced, with the great majority of critics, that 2 Peter is based on Jude, the discussion of this question is not raised in this article but postponed to that on Peter, Epistles of.
2. Contents.-The writer of the Epistle seems to have been diverted from the project of a more extensive composition by the urgent necessity of exhorting his readers ‘to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints’ (Judges 1:3). Whether he had made any progress with his work on ‘our common salvation,’ or, if so, whether he subsequently completed his interrupted enterprise, we do not know. In any case, we possess no other work from his hand than this brief Epistle. The urgency of the crisis completely absorbs him. His letter is wholly occupied with the false teachers and their propaganda, which is imperilling the soundness of doctrine, the purity of morals, and the sanctities of religion. He does not refute them; he denounces and threatens them. Hot indignation at their corruption of the true doctrine and loathing for the vileness of their perverted morals inspire his fierce invective. The situation did not seem to him appropriate for academic discussion; the unsophisticated moral instinct was enough to guide all who possessed it to a right judgment of such abominations. History shows us their predecessors, and from the fate which overtook them the doom of these reprobates of the last time can be plainly foreseen (Judges 1:5-7; Judges 1:11). Indeed, it had been announced by Enoch, who in that far-off age had prophesied directly of the Divine judgment that would overtake them (Judges 1:14 f.).
But, while nothing is wanting to the vehemence of attack, we can form only a very vague impression as to the tenets of the false teachers. The writer assumes that his readers are familiar with their doctrines, and his method does not require any exposition of their errors such as would have been involved in any attempt to refute them. It is, accordingly, not strange that very divergent views have been held as to their identity. Our earliest suggestion on this point comes from Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iii. 2), who taught that Jude was describing prophetically the Gnostic sect known as the Carpocratians. Grotius (Praep. in Ep. Judae) also thought that this sect was the object of the writer’s denunciation; but, since he held that Jude was attacking contemporary heretics, he assigned the Epistle to Jude the last Bishop of Jerusalem, in the reign of Hadrian. This view has found little, if any, acceptance; but the identification of the false teachers with the Carpocratians has been widely accepted by modern scholars. There are certainly striking points of contact.
Carpocrates, who lived at Alexandria in the first half of the 2nd cent. (perhaps about a.d. 130-150), taught that the world was made by angels who had revolted from God. The soul of Jesus through its superior vigour remembered what it had seen when with God. He was, however, an ordinary man, but endowed with powers which enabled Him to outwit the world-angels. Similarly, any soul which could despise them would triumph over them and thus become the equal of Jesus. Great stress was laid on magic as a means of salvation. The immorality of the sect rivalled that of the Cainites. It was defended by a curious doctrine of transmigration, according to which it was necessary for the soul to go through various human bodies till it completed the circle of human experience; but if all of this-including, of course, the full range of immoral conduct-could be crowded into one lifetime, the necessity for such transmigration was obviated.
The language of the Epistle would quite well suit the Carpocratians, especially in its reference to the combination of error in teaching with lasciviousness in conduct. The railing at dignitaries with which the writer charges the false teachers (Judges 1:8) would answer very well to the attitude of Carpocrates towards the angels. But we should probably reject any identification so definite. The characteristics mentioned by Jude were the monopoly of no sect. The indications point to teaching of a much less developed type. It is not even certain that it was Gnostic in character, though the signs point strongly in that direction. The Gnostics were wont to describe themselves as ‘spiritual,’ and the ordinary members of the Church as ‘psychics.’ If the false teachers were Gnostics, we understand who Jude should retort upon them the accusation that they were ‘sensual’ (lit. [Note: literally, literature.] ‘psychics’), ‘not having the Spirit’ (Judges 1:19). They blaspheme that of which they are ignorant. The charge that they deny the only Master (Judges 1:4) may be an allusion to the dualism of the Gnostics, which drew a distinction between the supreme God and the Creator. They are dreamers (Judges 1:8), i.e. false prophets, who speak swelling words (Judges 1:16). The statement that they have gone in the way of Cain (Judges 1:11) reminds us very forcibly of the Ophite sect known as the Cainites (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ). But, while all these indications point to some rudimentary form of Gnosticism, it cannot be said that they definitely demand such a reference. Not only are they very vague and general; they could be accounted for without recourse to Gnosticism at all. The problem in some respects hangs together with that presented by other descriptions of false teaching which we find in the NT, especially in the Epistle to the Colossians, the Pastoral Epistles, the Letters to the Seven Churches, and the Epistles of John (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ). In the judgment of the present writer, the identification with a Gnostic tendency seems on the whole to be probable, but by no means so secure as to determine without more ado the question of date.
3. Date and authorship.-The determination of the date is closely connected with the problem of authorship. There can be no reasonable doubt that the clause ‘the brother of James’ (Judges 1:1) is meant to identify the author as Jude, the Lord’s brother. If the conclusions reached in the preceding article are correct, this Jude was probably dead at the latest by a.d. 80. The question whether the Epistle can have been written so early is not easy to decide. The author not only distinguishes himself from the apostles, which the Lord’s brother would naturally have done, but he looks back on their age as one which has already passed away (Judges 1:17), and is conscious that he is living in ‘the last time,’ when their prophecy of the corning of ‘mockers’ is being fulfilled (Judges 1:18). The language has a striking parallel in 1 John 2:18, and it would be easier to understand in the closing decade of the 1st cent. than twenty years earlier. Such phrases as ‘the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints’ (1 John 2:3), or ‘your most holy faith’ (1 John 2:20), are also more easily intelligible when the fluid theology of the primitive age was hardening into a definite creed. The external evidence can be reconciled with either view. It is true that the earliest attestation of the Epistle is late. If the usual view is correct, Jude was employed by the author of 2 Peter; but, since that work itself belongs in all probability to a date well on in the 2nd cent., its evidence is of little value on this point. Jude is reckoned as canonical in the Muratorian Canon; it is quoted by Tertullian (de Cultu Fem. i. 3), Clement of Alexandria (Paed. iii. 8. 44, Strom. iii. 2), and Origen (in Matth. x. 17, xv. 27, xvii. 30); not, however, by Irenaeus. Eusebius (HE [Note: E Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.).] iii. 25, 31; cf. ii. 23, 25) regards it as one of the disputed books, and Jerome (de Vir. illustr. iv.) tells us that in his time it was rejected by many. But the lateness of any quotation of it and the suspicion entertained of it are of little moment. Its brevity would sufficiently account for the silence of earlier writers; the fact that it was not written by an apostle, or its reference (vv. 9, 14f.) to Jewish Apocalypses (The Assumption of Moses and The Book of Enoch), would explain its rejection by those to whom Eusebius and Jerome refer. These objections simply rest on a theoretical assumption of what a canonical work ought to be; no historical evidence lies behind them.
The opening words of the Epistle, ‘Judas, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,’ constitute a weighty argument in favour of the traditional view that it was written by Jude the Lord’s brother. The attempt to treat this as embodying a false claim deliberately made by the author is open to grave objections. Apparently we have to reckon with the deliberate adoption of a pseudonym by the author of 2 Peter. But this case is probably solitary in the NT; and, unless we are driven to adopt such suggestions, it is desirable to avoid them as far as possible. Apart from this, however, it is not easy to see why the author should have hit upon a personality so obscure as Jude. If he did so because the relationship to James gave his name prestige, it might be asked why he should not have attributed it to James himself. The suggestion that it was sent to districts where Jude had laboured and was held in high regard is exposed to the difficulty that the recipients would naturally ask, How is it that we hear of this letter for the first time now that Jude has been some years dead? We are then reduced to the alternatives of admitting the authenticity, or of supposing that the identification with the Lord’s brother was no original part of the Epistle. If the preceding discussion has pointed to the probability that the false teaching assailed was Gnostic in character, and that other phenomena in the Epistle make it unlikely that it was earlier than the closing decade of the 1st cent., the second alternative must be preferred. In that case the most probable explanation of the opening words is that the author’s name was really Jude, and that the phrase ‘and brother of James’ was inserted by a scribe who wished to make it clear which Jude was intended. The precise date must of course remain very uncertain. Nothing compels us to go below the year a.d. 100. Moreover, the author has apparently a new situation to deal with. It ought, however, to be frankly recognized that the Epistle is quite conceivable as the work of Jude the Lord’s brother in the decade a.d. 70-80.
4. Destination.-Nothing is known as to the destination of the Epistle, nor can anything be inferred with confidence. It is not clear whether the Epistle is catholic or is addressed to readers in a definite locality, though the former is perhaps the more likely view.
Literature.-Commentaries by Huther in Meyer (1852, Eng. translation from 4th ed., 1881), Meyer-Kühl (1897), Meyer-Knopf (1912), H. von Soden (1890, 31899), E. H. Plumptre (Cambridge Bible, 1880), C. Bigg (International Critical Commentary , 1901), W. H. Bennett (Century Bible, 1901), J. B. Mayor (1907), who also contributes the Commentary to Expositor’s Greek Testament (1910), Hollmann (1907), Windisch (1911); F. Spitta, Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief des Judas, 1885; the relevant sections in NT Introductions, especially these by H. J. Holtzmann (31892); A. Jülicher (51906, Eng. translation , 1904); T. Zahn (Eng. translation , 1909, ii.); W. F. Adeney (1899), and J. Moffatt (1911); articles by F. H. Chase in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , Sieffert in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 3, O. Cone in Encyclopaedia Biblica , R. A. Falconer in Hastings’ Single-vol. Dictionary of the Bible .
A. S. Peake.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Jude Epistle of'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/j/jude-epistle-of.html. 1906-1918.
