THE EPISTLE OF JUDE.

SECTION FIRST.

364, THE canonicity of the Epistle of Jude is very strongly attested. And it may excite our wonder that a scripture so short, consisting only of a single chapter, of twenty-five verses, could furnish the ancient fathers with such frequent quotations. We shall point out the principal ones further on.

SECTION SECOND.

THE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE.

365. All antiquity is unanimous in recognising the author as the apostle Jude, (Luke vi. 16) — Jude, the brother, or half brother, or cousin, of Jesus Christ, and the brother also of that James the Less (ὁ μικρός) who was the son of Alpheus, and whose relationship to the Son of man has already been discussed in a preceding chapter. Not one voice has been raised among the ancients to attribute this epistle to any other Jude than the apostle; this is altogether a modern attempt. Tertullian,¹ Origen,² Athanasius, (Epist. Festal,) Epiphanius, (Haeres., xxvi.,) Jerome,³ and others, unanimously give the title of apostle to its author.

366. This Jude, the brother of James, who is called Jude of James by St Luke, (vi 16; Acts i. 13,) Thaddeus by St Mark, Lebbeus by St Matthew, and who is not spoken of again but once (John xiv. 22) in the Gospels, was married, if we may believe Eusebius, like the other brothers of the Lord, (1 Cor. ix. 5,) and his two grandsons, resident in Palestine, were, in the year 95, brought before the Emperor Domitian, who intended to put them to death on account of their relationship to the Messiah. This prince, however, seeing them to be nothing more than common men, soon dismissed them with contempt. They were afterwards greatly honoured in the Church, either as the relations of Jesus Christ, or as the nephews of James and Simeon, or as witnesses of the truth, and they lived till after the death of their uncle Simeon, who was made bishop of Jerusalem in the place of St James. “The relations and disciples of the Lord,” says Eusebius, (iii. 11, and iv. 22,) took part in this election, and it was done by common consent.

367. Notwithstanding all the testimonies of antiquity on this subject, we have seen in our day the same authors who, to weaken the authority of the Epistle of James, have exerted themselves to propagate doubts of its apostolicity, have made similar efforts to impugn that of our epistle. This opinion, which is altogether modern, appears to us, as we have already said in reference to James, to have no argumentative force as to the canonicity of this book, and we refer our readers to what we have said elsewhere, (Propp. 338, 359.) Were it established, which it cannot be, on the data of modern criticism, that our Jude was not one of the twelve apostles, (Luke vi. 16,) the important questions which relate to his epistle would be in no degree affected.

SECTION THIRD.

ITS DATE,

368. The Second Epistle of Peter, especially in the second chapter, presenting most striking resemblances of ideas, sentiments, and even expressions, to that of Jude, it is of importance to ascertain which of these two authors has borrowed from the other. To us it appears very evident that it is Jude. “It is not doubtful,” observes also Michaelis,⁴ “that, in relation to this epistle, that of Peter is the original.” We can soon satisfy ourselves, for the following reasons: —

369. (1.) Peter wrote his second epistle not long before his death, in 64 or 65; while Jude survived the martyrdom of Paul and Peter, as well as that of the two Jameses. Luke, in fact,; narrates that of James the Greater, (Acts xii. 2,) and Josephus the historian that of James the Less, (Antiq., xx.,8;) but neither the one nor the other has mentioned the death of Jude, which antiquity places much later.

(2.) Jude employs the words of Peter with amplifications, because a writer who quotes is naturally more prolix than his original, (see, for example, Jude 9 and 2 Pet. ii. 11; Jude 14, 15, and 2 Pet. ii. 9.)

(3.) Jude, when he speaks of scoffers who “walked” in his time “after their own ungodly lusts,’ does not content himself with citing textually the sentence from Peter containing that remarkable term, ἐμπαῖκται, which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament; but yet he takes care to say that, in quoting it, he adduces the words spoken before by the other apostles of the Lord, (18.) He, therefore, is the writer who quotes, and Peter the writer whom he quotes.

(4.) When Peter wrote this sentence, he gave it in the form of a prediction, making use of the future tense. “There shall be false teachers among you,” he said, (2 Pet. ii. 1;) “many shall follow them.” “There shall come scoffers, walking after their own lusts.” But, on the contrary, what does Jude do? Speaking long after, and seeing with his own eyes the fatal accomplishment of this prophecy of Peter, he cites it as realised in his time, and, in speaking of it, makes use, not, like Peter, of the future tense, but of the present and the past. “There are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,” (ver. 4;) and, (ver. 17,) “Beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time;” and (ver. 19,) “These be they who separate themselves, (sensual,) who have only the soul, not having the spirit.” The one predicted the evil, the other saw it with his own eyes; the one preceded, the other followed.

(5.) When Jude chose, at the beginning of his epistle, to style himself Jude, the brother of James, we see plainly it was to introduce himself to his readers, not by reminding them of a living person, but of one dead — a martyr whose memory was revered in all the churches of Christ, and whose name was dear even to the other Jews who, Josephus⁵ tell us, regarded his being put to death as one of the causes of their ruin, The churches had admired his faithful ministry for thirty years at Jerusalem. It is, then, sufficiently evident that Jude wrote his letter after the death of James his brother.

(6.) We may observe, that in classing the epistles of the New Testament, the churches, from the beginning, chose to range their authors in the order of the dates when they were written, (though, at the same time, the respective books of each of these authors were classed according to their importance, rather than their date.)

Thus Paul, who began so early by his epistles to the Thessalonians, is placed first.⁶ After him comes James, who died in 62; then Peter and his two epistles, of which the last was not written till on the approach of his death, about the year 65; then John, whose epistles follow those of Peter; then Jude, because he wrote last of all; then, finally, the Apocalypse, because it was not given till after all the epistles, at the end of the first century, or at the beginning of the second.

By this mark, then, Jude is posterior to Peter.

(7.) Neander, also, has thought that the expressions used by this apostle in verses 17 and 18 indicate a very late epoch, the end of the apostolic age — the time when all the apostles of Jesus, excepting John, must have ceased to live. “Remember!” exclaimed Jude, — “remember the words which were spoken by the apostles,” &c.

SECTION FOURTH.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE EPISTLE.

870 It has sometimes been objected, that the ancient Peshito version, which contains both the Epistle of James and that to the Hebrews, does not contain the Epistle of Jude. But the Peshito version, composed, as we have said, in the last half of the first century, or the earliest part of the second, could not contain either the Epistle of Jude, written, as Neander has said, at the close of the apostolic age, or the Apocalypse of John, otherwise so generally acknowledged in the early days which followed its first appearance. It is said that the Peshito is the only Syriac version in which the Epistle of Jude is not found, and that it is found in those that have been published since, and of which there are some very ancient.⁷ However that may be, St Ephrem, the illustrious father of the Syrian church in the fourth century, cites it as canonical, and attributes it to Jude.

371. In the second place, it is objected that the address of the epistle, while naming the author, does not give him the title of apostle. But Jude had no more reason to give it himself at the head of his epistle, than Paul at the head of his epistles to the Philippians, to Philemon, to the Hebrews, and to the Thessalonians, in which he names himself simply, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.’ He had even less reason, since, by naming himself Jude the brother of James, he would make himself recognised at once by all the churches as that Jude whom the Gospel of Luke had already designated by the same name of Jude (brother) of James, (Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου.) Would it not be abundantly evident that this title would suffice, especially at a time when all the Jewish people, as well as the Christians, were still so imbued with reverence for the memory of this “pillar of the Church,’ — for his long ministry, for his eminent sanctity, and for his illustrious martyrdom? “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and a brother of James,”’- — what more would he want? A proclamation to the French people in 1820, signed Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, — would it leave any doubt as to the identity of its author, because he had not added his title of King of Westphalia? James, bishop of Jerusalem, and brother of Jude, was as well known to all Christians in the year 100 as Napoleon to all Europeans in the year 1820.

372. In the third place, it is objected that the epistle borrows too largely from the Second Epistle of Peter to be inspired. But whether these borrowed passages are more or less numerous, we can shew, by examples taken from either Testament, that it was often allowed by the Holy Spirit for a sacred author to have recourse to some of the thoughts of a preceding book, in order to give them a new turn, and to make a new application of them.

Still, there is a final objection taken from the use of apocryphal books, on which greater stress is laid. Though it has not, in our eyes, more weight than the foregoing, yet it will require longer attention.

SECTION FIFTH,

ALLEGED CITATIONS OF APOCRYPHAL BOOKS,

373. It has been objected that on two occasions Jude has made mention of events not spoken of in the Bible, and of which he could have received information only through apocryphal books; the first time, (in ver. 9,) where he speaks of the dispute of the archangel Michael with Satan about the body of Moses; and the second time, (in ver. 14 and 15,) where he cites a prophecy of “Enoch, the seventh from Adam.” These citations, it has been said, render the epistle fallible, and, consequently, interdict us from regarding it as canonical.

We mention here only these two passages, and say nothing of verses 6 and 7, though some have been disposed to see an allusion to the fable of the angels defiling themselves with the daughters of men; but this strange notion can only be maintained by applying to the angels the pronoun τούτοις, in the 6th verse, which evidently refers to Sodom and Gomorrah, the names of which in the Greek (which immediately precedes) are neuter plurals, (Matt. x. 15.)

But whatever may be the meaning of this last passage signifies little. It is said the other two are enough; and it is sufficiently evident, according to Origen and Clement of Alexandria, that Jude made use, in the first passage, of an apocryphal Jewish work, known to these two fathers, and entitled The Ascension or Assumption of Moses, (Ἀυάβασις or Ἀνάληψις Μωυσέως;) and. for the second passage another apocryphal work, also known to these fathers, and having for its title, “The Book of Enoch.” “Is it possible for us to admit as canonical,” says Michaelis, “a writing which contains apocryphal recitals?” “Et quia de libro Enoch, qui apocryphus est.” Jerome had said before him, “In eâ asswmtt testimonium, a plerisque rejicitur.” Neither Joshua nor Moses, say the opponents of the epistle, have ever spoken of the facts stated by St Jude; these facts, then, must be supposititious, and. the epistle must be regarded as altogether human.

But this objection, we reply, absolutely wants a foundation; for it is made to rest on six suppositions, not less erroneous than arbitrary.

374, First of all, it is assumed that an inspired man cannot adduce a past event without having heard of it from some tradition, or having read it in some book. That is to say, the sacred historians of the New Testament are regarded simply as compilers or memorialists; and we are to suppose that Jude, in order to be able to speak to us of the dispute of the Archangel with Satan, or of the prophecy of Enoch, must necessarily have copied an uninspired book, As if the whole series of the scriptures of the Old and the New Testament did not shew us the sacred writers discoursing of past facts and of future events, of which they received the knowledge from God alone. It is forgotten that the apostles profess to be men endowed with miraculous powers, guided by the Holy Spirit, and assisted by Jesus Christ, who “worked with them,” as St Mark has said, “and confirmed the word with signs following,” (Mark xvi. 20.)

We ask, for example, in what apocryphal book did Moses read the creation of the heavens and the earth. In what book did he read the creation of light, of the continents, of the sun and stars, of plants and animals, and, lastly, of man, formed of the dust of the earth, and made in the image of God? In what book, again,

did he read the words of God to Satan after the fall? or the genealogies of the elect humanity from Adam to Noah, with all their proper names for two thousand years? In what book did he read the successive scenes of the deluge during the twelve months when, preserved alone of all the earth, Noah floated over the deep, all on earth having perished, from man to the beasts? In what apocryphal book did the sacred author of the Book of Kings learn what passed secretly in the royal chambers of the palace at Bethel between an unknown prince and his queen, when, on account of their sick child, they planned her going in disguise to Shiloh, (1 Kings xiv. 1-5;) or, again, between a queen and her husband, when she secretly promised him the vineyard of Naboth? (xxi. 4-7.) By what book was the author of the Book of Job made acquainted with the transactions of that day, when Satan came to present himself before Jehovah in the midst of the sons of God, and ask permission to touch that righteous man in his bone and his flesh? (Job i. 6-12, ii. 1-7.) And in what other book did Isaiah find the name of king Cyrus, and his whole career, two hundred years before his birth? (Isaiah xliv. 28, xlv. 1-7, xlvi. 8-11.),

But again, to leave the Old Testament where these examples abound, and to come to the New; how did Matthew, speaking of events that happened fifty years before, become apprised of the dream sent to the Magi on the night of their flight and return to the East? (Matt. ii, 12, 13.) How did he learn the three temptations of the Lord — the act of the Holy Spirit driving Him into the wilderness, the words of Jesus to Satan, and the coming of the angels who ministered to Jesus? (iv. 1-11.) How was he informed of the solitary prayers offered by Jesus in the night of Gethsemane, when, withdrawing from His three sleeping disciples, he “kneeled down,” and “fell on His face,” in an agony? (xxvi. 36-44.) How did he know that an angel, on the morning of the resurrection, before the arrival of the women, had rolled back the stone, and sat upon it? (xxviii. 2,8.) How did he know the secret transaction between the high priest and the Roman soldiers? (xxviii. 11-13.)

We shall have to put questions exactly similar, and still more pressing, respecting St Mark. We shall ask how, not being an apostle, nor personally cognisant of the facts he narrates, it came to pass that he is more copious and exact in details than any other evangelist? How did all these little circumstances come to his knowledge, which he is the only one to give — he who wrote so late, and as distant in place as in time?”⁸ How is it that he seems to have had the events still under his eyes, with an interest, a colouring, a freshness of memory which even an eyewitness could scarcely attain, if he were only an ordinary man.⁹ In what document, moreover, could he have learnt that Jesus, after His ascension, sat down at the right hand of God? (Mark xvi. 29.) And as to Luke, who was not an apostle — would it be from Paul, as some have said, that he received the knowledge of so many facts narrated by himself alone? — from Paul, who had no more than himself been a witness of the Saviour’s life, and who had not taken Luke as his companion till the twentieth year of his ministry, (Acts xvi. 10,) — that is to say, at least forty-eight years after the events of the nativity recounted in his Gospel with so many details? In what document did Luke (or Paul, if you please) find the two poetical prophecies which Elizabeth had uttered, sixty years before, in her humble dwelling “in the hill country,” and which no other evangelist has reported? In what document did he find the address of the angel to Zacharias; or that of the archangel to Mary; or the words of Simeon in the Temple; or those of the heavenly host at Bethlehem? And this unknown document, who had taken the pains to write it, and to preserve it in secret so long, during the infancy of Jesus, and the thirty-five years of his retirement in Nazareth, and the twenty-five first years of Paul’s ministry? Who guarantees us the correctness of the words that Luke puts into the mouth of these holy persons and of these angels? Who guarantees it, unless the God of the Scriptures — unless Jesus Christ, “the God of the holy prophets,” as St John calls Him, (Apoc. xxii. 6,) — Jesus Christ, who had caused those of the New Testament to speak, as well as those of the Old; and who had said to the Jewish people, “Behold, I send unto you prophets, . . . . and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city,’ (Matt. xxiii, 34,) — Jesus Christ, who “worked with them,” as it is said in the last verse of Mark’s Gospel? And if it be asked in what document was Luke informed of that invisible angel who came from heaven to Jesus to strengthen Him, and appeared to Him alone, or that other angel of the Lord, alike invisible, who smote Herod Agrippa, in the year 44, when, seated on his throne, before all the people of Caesarea, he felt himself suddenly struck with excruciating pains,¹⁰ — if it be asked who saw this angel, or what document informed. Luke respecting him, it must be replied, the same document which told Peter of the secret lie of Ananias and Sapphira, and Agabus of the future famine in the reign of Claudius, (Acts v. 3, xi. 28,) — which told St John the origin of the eternal Word, and His presence with God before the world was — which told of the coming of the great apostasy, and of the man of sin — which told the author of the Apocalypse of the most distant future of the Church and of the world — which also told Jude of the dispute of the archangel, and the prophecy of Enoch, As Rudolph Stier has well said, in his Commentary on the Epistle of Jude, “The two objected passages are explained by the apocalyptical contents of this epistle.”

It is, then, sufficiently manifest, that nothing can be conceived at once more antiscriptural and more illogical than to impugn the canonicity of a book for the sole reason that it narrates facts, the knowledge of which the author could only have received from God himself. This would be at once to ignore the inspiration which the Bible claims, and to take for granted the very point in question. If the book calls itself canonical, it calls itself inspired; and to deny its canonicity, solely on account of the revelations it professes to give us, is, in other words, to say, this book is not canonical because it is not canonical. This first supposition is, then, inadmissible; and, on this ground, the objection drawn from it loses all its value. But it rests, we have said, on other suppositions not less gratuitous, and not less erroneous. Here is the second: —

375. It supposes that an inspired author cannot bring forward a fact mentioned in any uninspired book, without thereby guaranteeing the whole book. This assumption is extravagant. The books of the New Testament report many facts already contained in the book of Maccabees, without professing on that account to bear testimony to it. St Paul quotes verses from Menander, Aratus, and Epimenides,¹¹ without designing to give any moral sanction to these pagan authors. And the same apostle, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, (iii. 8,) without professing to guarantee in so doing the Chaldee paraphrases, speaks of the magicians Jannes and Jambres, whose names, omitted by Moses, but preserved in the national histories or traditions, are found in Pliny,¹² only forty years after Paul, and are read in the Targum of Jonathan in his paraphrase of the first and seventh chapters of Exodus.¹³ If, then, we admit for a moment that the book of The Ascension of Moses, and the pretended Book of Enoch had already mentioned before Jude the two facts of which the apostle speaks, it will not follow that he borrowed them from these books, nor that, in reporting them, he intended to give the least moral sanction to these two rhapsodies.

Those even of the fathers who believed these books to be anterior to Jude were very far from regarding them as on this account worthy of belief in every part. “It was possible,” said Origen,¹⁴ “that the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, knew what they could take in such writings, and what they ought to reject.”

The objection, then, wants support on this second ground.

376. But this is not all; for it assumes, in the third place, that the apostle (or, if you please, the Jew who professes to be Jude) would have admitted the apocryphal books as canonical. But this is what the Jews have never done, as we shall shew elsewhere in speaking of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament.¹⁵

377. Again, the objection assumes that Jude, the brother of James, (or, if you please, some Jew announcing himself to the churches as Jude,) would undertake to offer a Greek book to the faith of the Jewish Christians, relating to the mysteries of a time contemporaneous with Moses, or even with Enoch. Certainly, to admit such suppositions, a person must know very little of the opinions of the Jews of this period respecting the Greek historians, and, in particular, of what Josephus says about them. All the first and second chapters of his book against Apion is designed to shew that, of all writers, the Greeks are the least worthy of credence in what relates to the knowledge of antiquity. But the two apocryphal books which we are urged to regard as the authorities from which Jude has taken what he says of Enoch and Moses were Greek, and unknown to the Jews. No author that has come down to us ever speaks of them.¹⁶

378. But, in the fifth place, that which is most strange in the objection is that it assumes that Jude (or the contemporary Jew who gave himself out to the churches as Jude) could have publicly placed his confidence in two writings so contemptible as The Ascension of Moses and the pretended Book of Enoch, in order to impose the quotations from them on the faith of Christian churches.

As to The Ascension of Moses, it was a Greek book known to the ancient fathers, but now completely lost, and no one insists upon it.

But as to The Book of Enoch — another work also known to the ancient fathers¹⁷ — (and long since lost as to its Greek text) — it is one of the most despicable relics of apocryphal antiquity. It had come down to us only in short fragments preserved’ by George Syncellus,¹⁸ (a Byzantine author of the eighth century,) when the celebrated traveller Bruce, at the end of the last century, brought from Abyssinia three copies which he had found there, translated into an Ethiopic dialect.¹⁹

“This work,” says Sylvestre de Sacy, “is not worth the trouble of translating.²⁰ Such a confusion of ideas prevails that the editor has felt himself compelled to transpose whole paragraphs and chapters,²¹ which does not make it any better. He was not obliged to give good sense to that which had it not, and ought not to have altered them.

“One finds in it,” he adds, “absurd repetitions, a wearisome monotony, monstrous anachronisms, a striking incoherence, without speaking of a ridiculous system respecting the years and months, which imply the grossest ignorance on the part of the author, even for the times in which his book appeared.”

“In a word,’ de Sacy says again, “it is difficult to find anything more ridiculous or wearisome than this Book of Enoch; — a singular book, full of fables and fictions. If sometimes we frown, we are more frequently tempted to smile, and we may well be astonished that this strange composition could obtain any credit in antiquity. This impression, which will be made on all who, like me, may have the courage to read the whole book, may suggest the inquiry whether additions made to the primitive text since the first ages of the Church have not rendered it more absurd than it was originally.”

Such, then, is the book from which Jude, as some dare to affirm, has taken his citations!

379. But, more than this, and we hasten to say it, the whole objection falls to the ground, inasmuch as it rests entirely on a sixth supposition, still more worthless — on the pretended priority of these two writings to the Epistle of Jude, while this priority has for it only the opinion of some ancient fathers who were very often deceived on the question of forged books; while we have, on the contrary, the strongest reasons for holding both of these writings to be not only posterior to the epistle of the apostle, but fabricated with the express design of fraudulently corresponding with the words of Jude.

We know with what a multitude of forged writings, calling themselves apostolic or prophetic, the first ages of the Church were deluged. These awkward productions, these lying books, were imagined by a dishonest zeal among the degenerate Christians of Egypt and Asia to answer to some intimations of the sacred writers in their Gospels or epistles, and to represent certain books which were supposed to have been made or quoted by them.

Thus, for example, because Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, appeared²² to refer to a former letter which he had written to the same church, an epistle was composed by some one, designed to pass for the lost one, but abundantly betraying its counterfeit quality.²³

Because the same apostle recommends the Colossians (iv. 16) to read the epistle which “came to them from Laodicea,” and which, according to all appearance, was no other than the Epistle to the Ephesians, (written at the same time, and intended to serve rather as a circular letter for the churches of Asia,) a writer has not been wanting to compose one, addressed to the Laodiceans, known in the, days of Jerome, and of which this father says, “But it is rejected by all,” (Sed ab omnibus exploditur.)²⁴ Because Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, (iii. 8,) gives the names Jannes and Jambres to the magicians who opposed Moses, some one has been found to compose a book entitled, Jannes and Jambres, mentioned by Origen,²⁵ and put in the class of apocryphal books by Pope Gelasius.²⁶

Because Paul has said to the Galatians, (v. 6, vi. 15,) “In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation,” some one had composed an Apocalypse of Moses, from which, George Syncellus tells us, the passage of Paul had been taken.²⁷ Because the same apostle had said to the Corinthians, “Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,” &c., (1 Cor. ii. 9,) some one forged an apocalypse of Elias, from which the heretics, in the time of Jerome,²⁸ pretended that Paul had borrowed his language. “These words,” Origen²⁹ had said, “are found only in the secret books of Elias.”

It was in the same profane and lying spirit of the Greeks that about the same time were composed the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, of which Origen³⁰ speaks, and of which Grabe, his editor, thinks that Tertullian has also spoken;³¹ and the Ascension of Isaiah, which Dr Lawrence, in 1819, published in Ethiopic, with the Book of Enoch; and the Acts of Peter and Paul, of Andrew, and of John, and of the other Apostles; and the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of Paul, the Apocalypse of Thomas, the Preaching of Peter, the Apostolic Constitutions, the Gospel of Peter or of Matthew, the Homilies of Clement, the Doctrine of the Apostles, &c.³²

It was, let us say, in the same spirit, and almost at the same time, that the Book of the Ascension of Moses and the Book of Enoch were fabricated, or, at least, the tenth chapter of the latter, the whole of which consists only of the short words cited by Jude.

380. But there are other reasons which equally shew us in this book, or, at least, in its second chapter, a pious fraud, contrived to correspond with Jude.

(1.) First of all, we notice its extreme incoherence and evident marks of innumerable interpolations; so that all critics who have studied it, not excepting Dr Lawrence, (who, having edited it, would naturally speak with most favour of it,) are obliged to declare that it was written at different times, and by different persons.

(2.) The place so awkwardly given to the passage of Jude in a book which has 105 chapters. This passage, as we have said, forms by itself alone the second chapter; a fact which clearly enough betrays its late origin and intention.

(3.) There is the prophecy of the seventy shepherds,³³ where the author alludes to the rulers of the Jewish nation, down to Herod the Great. The book could not be more ancient than that reign, but it might be much later. And since it has manifestly received numerous interpolations, these must be still more recent; and the second chapter may be regarded as posterior to Jude.

(4.) There are various passages which, according to Silvestre de Sacy, betray “a Christian hand,” particularly in the 19th and last section, (chap. 92.) Tertullian also tells us that the contemporary Jews rejected this book because it spoke too much in favour of Jesus Christ.³⁴

(5.) Lastly, by the concurrent tone of a great number of passages, we may be assured that the forger was acquainted with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.³⁵

SECTION SIXTH.

TESTIMONIES OF THE SECOND CENTURY.

881. The Epistle of Jude is abundantly recommended to us by the most respectable witnesses of Christian antiquity.

Though it contains only twenty-five verses, and was not written till towards the end of the first century, or the beginning of the second, yet we find it frequently cited in the same century, both in the East and West.

It is recommended not only by allusions to its text which are disputable, such as are pointed out by Kirchhofer,³⁶ and by Lardner in Hermas, (Vis., iv., 3,) in Clement of Rome, (1 Cor. xi.,) in Polycarp, (ad Phil. ii. and iii.) in the salutation which precedes the narrative of the martyrdom of Polycarp, in Theophilus of Antioch, and in Irenæus³⁷ But it is especially recommended by the most precise quotations of the two fathers, whose testimony is the most valued in sacred criticism — Clement of Alexandria in the East, and Tertullian in the West. It is also in the canon of Muratori.

382. As for Clement of Alexandria, he not only mentions him by name, but quotes entire the 5th, 6th, and 11th verses in his Paedagogue, (iii. 8,) and gives the intermediate verses (7, 8, 9, and 10) in an abridged form. He names him also when he quotes the 22d and 23d verses, in the sixth book of his Stromata, (vi, 8,) and the 1st verse in his Adumbrationes on the Catholic Epistles.³⁸

383. As to Tertullian, we find him speaking thus in his book, De Cultu Faeminarwm, (i. 8,) “Et accidit quod Enoch apud Judam apostolum testimonium possidet,” — « And it happens that Enoch receives a testimony from the apostle Jude.” This citation, made by the most ancient of the Latin fathers, is of great importance; for it is most worthy of notice, that our epistle, notwithstanding its great brevity and comparatively late epoch, had already reached the distant churches of Western Africa, so as to be generally known and publicly cited as an epistle of the apostle Jude.

As to the canon of Muratori, we have already quoted these words, (Prop. 197:) — “Epistola sane Judae et (superscripti) Johannis duae in catholica habentur,’ — “The Epistle of Jude and the two Epistles of John, which we have already mentioned, are numbered among the catholic scriptures.”

384. We shall understand the full value of these testimonies, if we call to mind what we have said (Propp. 337-340, 354-359) of James, the brother of Jude, and of Simon, his other brother, who succeeded him, and did not suffer martyrdom till the year 107. If the Epistle of Jude was so well known to the fathers of the same second century, both in the East and in the extreme parts of the West, it must have circulated from church to church during the lifetime of Simeon. How, in fact, could a letter, bearing the name of Jude, brother of James, have obtained such credit, if it had not had the assent of that apostle and of Simeon, and if it had not been really written by their brother?

We recollect what Hegesippus, a Jewish historian of the second century,³⁹ has told us of the grandsons of Jude. This holy family, devoted for three generations to the public service of the primitive churches of the central East, ought then to serve as confirmatory of the testimony of Jude.

SECTION SEVENTH.

TESTIMONIES OF THE THIRD CENTURY.

385. The third century equally renders full homage to this epistle in the writings of the most learned of its teachers. Origen cites it very often. He calls it a divine writing, and its author an apostle. He quotes the 8th and 9th verses in his epistles; the 6th verse once, at least, in his Fourth Homily on Ezekiel, and three times in his Commentary on Matthew, and again in his Commentary on John, and on the Epistle to the Romans; the 1st verse in his Commentary on Matthew. “Petrus duabus epistolurum suarum personat tubis, (he says in his Sixth Homily on Joshua,) Jacobus quoque et Judas,” — “Peter sounds the trumpet in his two epistles, as well as James and Jude,”⁴⁰

“Jude,” he says again, in his Commentary on Matthew,⁴¹ “has written an epistle, of a small number of verses, (ὀλινγόςτιχου μέν,) indeed, but full of powerful words of heavenly grace, (ἐῤῥωμένωυ λόγων.)

And, in the third book of his Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans, he says, quoting at length the 6th verse of Jude, Et nisi hac lege tenerentur nunquam, de eis diceret, SCRIPTURA DIVINA; “Angelos quoque qui,” &c.

It is painful that Eusebius, after so many and such striking testimonies, should have given us the canon of this father (in, his 6th book, chap. 25) without making any mention of the Epistle of Jude, This courtly bishop, whose history has otherwise so much value, must be read on certain points with some caution. Lax as he was on points of holy doctrine, he was so sometimes in his estimates of the Scriptures.

We find, in the same third century, the 6th verse of our epistle cited as to the sense, if not as to the precise terms, by Pamphilus of Berytus, in his Apology for Origen.⁴²

We also find the 14th and 15th verses cited by Cyprian, or rather by one of his contemporaries, in a treatise to Novatian,⁴³ which is included in the collection of his works.

SECTION EIGHTH,

TESTIMONIES OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

386. The testimonies of the fourth century are remarkably abundant both in the East and West.

In the Hast, Athanasius, in his Festive Epistle, and in his Synopsis Sacrae Scripturae; Ephrem, the Syrian, in his Commentary on the 3d Chapter of Genesis, and in his Treatise on Unchastity, where he quotes our epistle at length;⁴⁴ Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catecheses; Chrysostom, in his discourse on the False Prophets; Epiphanius, in his book against Heresies; Gregory of Nazianzus; Didymus of Alexandria; the false Dionysius, the Areopagite; and the Council of Laodicea, (in its 60th canon.) In the West, Lucifer of Cagliari, Philastrius of Brescia, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome, (who cites our epistle in more than a dozen of his works;) the same Council of Carthage which was held, it is asserted, under the eyes of Augustin, in 397.

Eusebius places it in the rank of the antilegomena; but takes care to add, twice, that the epistle was acknowledged by many, and that it was customary to read it publicly with the other epistles in most of the churches.⁴⁵

It must be carefully noticed that he is the first of the fathers who speaks of doubts entertained relative to this epistle; and we have just seen, in the case of Origen, his unjust partiality on this point. These doubts of which he speaks had no historical foundation; and we learn, at a later period, from Didymus and Jerome, that they were owing to the pretended apocryphal citations of Jude about Moses and Enoch.

1) De Cultu Faeminar., lib, i., cap. iv.

2) Comm. in Ep. ad Rom., lib. iii., tom. iv., p. 510, (ed. Paris, 1733.)

3) Comm. in Tit., 1; Ep. 2 ad Paulin.

4) Tom. iv., p. 387, (French translation.)

5) Antiq., xx., 8; and Eusebius, Hist. Kccl., xxiii., xxv.

6) The three Uncial Manuscripts, A, B, C, and most of the cursive manuscripts, place the catholic epistles in the first rank. “Epistolae catholicae,” says Tischendorf, (prolegomena to his edition of the Greek Testament, 1849,) “magno veterum testium consensu, eo exhibentur ordine quo Jacobus primus est, alter Petrus, Johannis tertius, quarto Judas.”

7) We have not examined them ourselves. See the Syriac versions edited by Edward Pocock, (Vers. et Notae ad 4 Hpist. Syriacos, Petri 2, Johann. 2 et 3, Judes unam. Leiden, 1670.) Reuss (Gesch. der Heil. Schr., 429) thinks that the four catholic epistles published by Pocock belong to the Philoxenian version.

8) As Lardner has already shewn, and as may be collected from various passages, among others, Mark xvi. 20.

9) Any one will be struck with our remarks on the Gospel of Mark, if he will take the pains to read, with this view, the details which this evangelist alone has given us — among others, i. 20, 29, 38, 35, 87, 45; ii. 2; iii 5-9, 11, 17, 20, 21; iv. 13, 23, 24, 26, 29, 34, 36, 38; v. 29, 30, 32, 40, 41, 42; vi. 18, 38, 40, 50, 52, 54, 56; vii. 2-4, 8, 18, 22, 24, 26-29, 34, 36, 38; viii. 7, 10, 14, 19, 22, 26; ix. 20, 21, 22-25, 33, 35, 37-49; x. 46-52; xi. 13, 16, 18, 20; xii, 34, 41; xiii. 3, 37; xiv. 40, 44, 51, 52, 58; 59, 68; xv. 7, 8, 21, 28, 29, 41, 44; xvi. 1, 3, 7-11, 14, 19.

10) Acts xii. 23; Josephus, Antiq, Jud., xix., 7.

11) 1 Cor. xv. 33; Acts xvii 28; Titus ii. 12.

12) Lib. xxx. cap. i. He names only Jannes and Jotape. See Winer, Realwérterbuch, art. Jambres.:

13) And on Num. xxii. 22, (Calmet’s Dictionary, art. Jannes.) This learned man places Jonathan under Herod the Great, but Carpzov and Prideaux think that the author of this work was much later. See Keil, Einleitung ins A. Test, pp. 191, 192.

14) Prologue of his Two Homilies on the Song of Songs. “Quid assumendum ex illis esset scripturis, quidoe refutandum.”

15) Part II., Book II., Chap. II, 4, 5.

16) Dr Lawrence believes that the Book of Enoch was composed by a Jew, but gives no proof of it. See Liicke, Einleitug in die Offenb., p. 11.

17) Particularly Clement of Alexandria, (Adumbrat. in Ep. Jud.;) and Origen, (περὶ ἀρχῶν) iii, 2; and Didymus, (Enarrat. in Ep. Jud.)

18) In his Chronogr. Scaliger was the first to make them known.

19) One of the three is in the National Library of Paris.

20) Dr Lawrence has translated it in England, (Oxford, 1821,) and Sylvestre de Sacy has given an account of the book in two articles in the Journal des Savants, (September and October 1822,) from which we have extracted his judgment.

21) For example, six verses of the ninetieth chapter in the ninety-second; chaps. lx. and lxx. transferred to the end of the volume, on account of their gross anachronisms; the twentieth chapter placed between the sixteenth and the seventeenth of the original.

22) We shall explain these facts in our Second Part, Propp. 427-482.

23) Olshausen, Authenticity of the New Testament, chap. iv.

24) In Catal., Erasmus calls it an epistle “quae nibil habet Pauli praeter voculas aliquot ex caeteris ejus epistolis mendicatas.”

25) Tract, xxxv. in Matt.

26) Yet this decree itself is held to be a forgery by the bishops. Cosin on the Canon, 123, 130; Pearson, Vind. Ignat., i., cap. iv.

27) Page 27, edit. of Paris, fol. 1652.

28) Calmet (Dictionary) on the word Apocalypse.

29) Homil. ultim. in Matt. xxvii. 9.

30) In Jos., i, homil. 15.

31) Spicilegium, i, 133.

32) A catalogue raisonné of all these spurious writings is to be found in the two works of John Albert Fabricius, entitled, “Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteus Testa- menti,” and “Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti.”

33) In chaps. lxxxviii-xc. (Journal des Savants, p. 549.)

34) See Calmet’s Dictionary, art. Enoch.

35) See especially chap. xlviii., ver. 2, 8,5. (Journal des Savants, Sept. 1822 p. 551.)

36) Quellensammlung, &c., 1842.

37) Haeres., iv., 70, p. 871. Oxon., 1702.

38) Believed to be a translation by Cassiodorus.

39) Quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iii, 19, 20. See Prop. 366.

40) Translated, as we have said, by Rufinus, and come down to us only in this translation,

41) Opp., tom. iii., p. 468, ed. Delarue, Paris, 1733; Huet, tom. i, p. 233.

42) Origen, Opp., tom. iv., p. 23.

43) Quod lapsis spes veniae non sit deneganda, ed. Maur. Paris, 1725, p. 17.

44) Opp. Graec., tom. iii, p. 62, See Eichhorn, iv., p. 441.

45) Hist. Eccl., iii., 25, vi., 18, 14, ii., 38. See Prop. 46.