JUDE
543
JUDE
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 re- spectively.
The earliest positive reference to the Epistle occurs in the Muratorian Fragment, "Epistola sane Judfe et superscripta; Joannis duae in catholica [scil. Ecclesia] habentur. " The Epistle was thus recognized as ca- nonical 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 ca- nonical and Apostolic by the Church of Alexandria (Clement of Alexandria, "Paed.", Ill, viii, followed by Origen), and by the African Church of Carthage (Ter- tuUian). At the beginning of the third century the Epistle was universally accepted except in the primi- tive 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 can- onicity 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 "As- sumption of Moses"), arose in several Churches. However the prejudice created against the deutero- canonical Jude was soon overcome, so that the Epistle was universally accepted in the Western Church at the very beginning of the fifth century (see C.\non of THE Holy Scriptitkes).
In the Eastern Church Eusebius of Cssarea (260- 340) placed Jude among the anlilegomena or the "dis- puted books, which are nevertheless known and ac- cepted 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 Constanti- nople. St. Athanasius (d. 387) and St. Epiphanius (d. 403) placed Jude among the canonical and Apos- tolic writings. Junilius and Paul of Nisibis in Constan- tinople (545) held it as media: 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 Testa- ment.
(3) Difficulties Arising from the Text. — The wording of V. 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 tUp diroo-TiXMx 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 de- clares 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, Tuji' airoffTi^uy iiiiCiv (iii, 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 in-
spiration. Verse 9, which contains the roferenco con-
cerning the body of Moses, was supposed I ly 1 )i(lvmus
("Enarr. in Epist. Judas" in P. G., XXXIX, "iSU
sqq.), Clement of Alexandria (Adumbr. in Ep. Judse),
and Origen (De Princ, III, ii, 1), to have been taken
from the "Assumption of Moses", which is unques-
tionably 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 Cath- olic scholars admit it to be a loose and abbreviated ci- tation 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 ca- nonical book. There is nothing strange, as Phunptre 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 huminem. He fought them, as it were, with their own weapons." He merely intends to remind his reailers 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 con- veys, 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 diffi- culty 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 bor- rowed from a common document must be put aside, as having no support whatsoever. The question re- mains: Wliich 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 fol- lowing arguments, however, lead to the conclusion that the Epistle of Jude was the earlier of the two.
(a) 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.
(b) This may also be confirmed not only by II Peter, ii, 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.
