Introduction

On the Catholic Epistle of the Apostle Jude

The author of the last epistle in the biblical canon was Jude, “a servant of Jesus Christ, brother of James” (Jude 1:1). Contrary to the opinion of some Western scholars (shared among us by Bishop Michael), this Jude cannot be identified with the apostle from among the twelve—Jude Thaddeus or Lebbeus (Matt 10:3), otherwise called Jude the son of James (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13): the Apostle Jude would rather have called himself the son of James, not the brother of James. Therefore it is far more reasonable to conclude that the author of the final Catholic Epistle was Jude, the brother of the Lord in the flesh, son of Joseph the Betrothed from his first wife, and brother of James, the first bishop of Jerusalem and author of the first epistle (see Matt 13:55). According to the testimony of Clement of Alexandria, Jude, who wrote the Catholic Epistle, was the brother of the sons of Joseph (the Betrothed); he could have pointed to his kinship in the flesh with the Lord, but he preferred to call himself His servant, indicating only his relationship to James: he was the brother of James, the son of Joseph (Ad umbr. Megne. gr. IX:731).

Like his other brothers in the Lord, Jude during the earthly life of the Lord did not yet believe in his divine dignity (John 7:5), but after the Lord’s resurrection he, along with his brothers, joined the company of the apostles and the first believers in Christ (Acts 1:14) and, holding a certain position in the early Church, together with his other brothers and with the apostles bore missionary labors for the spread of the Gospel (1 Cor 9:5). According to the testimony of the Apostolic Constitutions, Jude was the successor of his brother James in the episcopate of the Jerusalem church (Const. apost. VII, 46). According to Eusebius’s account (Eccl. Hist. III, 19–20), at the end of the reign of Domitian (around 95 AD), two grandsons of Jude, who were farmers, were brought, at the instigation of heretics, before Caesar as descendants of David and relatives of the Lord, and when the emperor became convinced that they posed no danger to his power, he released them and ended the persecution of the Church; the released men became leaders of churches, as confessors and kinsmen of the Lord, and, enjoying peace, lived until the reign of Trajan. The tradition and Church history have not preserved any other information about the life and death of St. Jude.

The authenticity of the Epistle of the Apostle Jude is beyond question. Although the earliest Church father testimonies about it are not free from some hesitation, as can be seen in Origen (Comment. in Matth. XXII, 23), in Eusebius, who lists this epistle among the disputed ones (Eccl. Hist. II, 23), and in Jerome (De vir. illustr. 4)—and likewise this epistle is absent from the Peshitta—yet Clement of Alexandria, according to Eusebius’s testimony (Eccl. Hist. VI, 14), already considered the epistle to be indisputably authentic and wrote a commentary on it, as he did on the other Catholic Epistles.

In Origen, with some hesitation, we also find clear testimony in favor of the epistle’s authenticity: “Jude wrote an epistle consisting of a few verses, yet full of powerful words of heavenly grace” (Comm. in Matth. t. X, 17, Migne XIII, 877). Tertullian directly calls the epistle apostolic (De half. mulieh., cap. III). The entire Church received the epistle into the canon in the fourth century (Euseb. Eccl. Hist. III, 25), though it is mentioned even as a catholic epistle in the Muratorian Canon.

The relatively late appearance of the epistle in general Church use is explained partly by its specialized content, determined by the occasion for its writing, and partly by the fact that many were disturbed by the presumed use by the epistle’s author of apocrypha—the “Book of Enoch” (Jude 1:14-15); the “Assumption of Moses” (Jude 1:9). But such use of apocrypha by an inspired writer, in which alongside fictions there were also true accounts preserved by Jewish tradition, is permissible and cannot speak against the canonical epistle. In general, given the brevity and unpretentiousness of the epistle’s content, there can be no serious reason to suspect the epistle’s authenticity.

The epistle was written in general to Christians (Jude 1:1), but primarily to those church communities among which false teachers, denounced by the Apostle, had appeared (Jude 1:4 et seq.). Their false teaching by its character closely resembles the heresy denounced by the Apostle Peter in his second epistle. For this reason alone one should think that the epistle was directed to the same Asian churches founded by the Apostle Paul, to which the Apostle Peter also addressed his epistles. The indisputable fact of close similarity, not only in thought but often in expression, between the passage 2 Pet 2:1-3:3 and the Epistle of Jude gave rise in biblical and exegetical literature to numerous attempts to establish the fact of literary dependence of one epistle on the other, with recognition of one as original and the other as compilatory and derivative. And in modern times Western biblical-critical scholarship most often leaned toward recognizing the independence of Jude’s epistle and the borrowing in the Second Epistle of Peter. But in reality both epistles are fully independent, and from an Orthodox-Church perspective, there can be no question of slavish literary dependence of one epistle on the other. Still, the thought is more acceptable that Jude’s epistle was written after the Second Epistle of Peter, as it appears that the very prediction of the Apostle Peter in (2 Pet 3:3) about the appearance of “mockers” is reproduced in the Apostle Jude (Jude 1:17-18), precisely as a former word of the apostles. If Jude’s epistle was written after the Second Epistle of Peter, then it could have appeared no earlier than 66–67 AD, though not long after—certainly before the destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD), an event to which, as a striking manifestation of God’s judgment, the Apostle would certainly have pointed his readers (along with other manifestations of divine judgment he cites), had he lived through the Jerusalem catastrophe. The place of writing of Jude’s epistle cannot be determined due to the lack of necessary information.

In Russian literature, besides the translation of the commentaries of the blessed Theophylact and the commentary of Bishop Michael on the Epistle of the Apostle Jude (“Explanatory Apostle” II), there are two extensive and very thorough scholarly treatises of critical-biblical content by Professor Protopriest D. I. Bogdashevsky: one in the “Theological Encyclopedia” (St. Petersburg, 1906) vol. VII, col. 520–527: “Jude and His Epistle”; another in the “Essays on the Study of the New Testament Scripture,” issue I (Kyiv, 1909), pp. 241–269.

An exhortation to believers to contend for the faith and keep it pure and holy against the seduction of false teachers (Jude 1:1-4). Examples of God’s judgment (Jude 1:5-8). The Archangel Michael and further depiction of the false teachers (Jude 1:9-13). The coming judgment of God upon them (Jude 1:14-15). Beholding the false teachers, the readers, by apostolic instruction, should themselves stand in faith and love (Jude 1:16-20) and return those led astray by the false teachers back to the faith (Jude 1:21-23). Glory to God the Savior (Jude 1:24-25).

Jude 1:1–3. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, brother of James, to the called, who are sanctified by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved! having all zeal to write to you concerning the common salvation, I counted it necessary to write to you exhorting – to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Out of profound humility, St. Jude calls himself not a brother or kinsman of the Lord in the flesh, but his servant. At the same time, he names himself the brother of James the Righteous, the first bishop of Jerusalem, who was held in high regard in the Church of Christ and even by unbelieving Jews. “In my opinion,” remarks the blessed Theophylact, “for this Apostle it would have been sufficient as proof of his dignity, after he called himself a servant of Christ, to point also to his kinship with James, for all praised James for his virtue. This circumstance should have given great credence to this Apostle in the hearing of the word.” The Apostle addresses the readers of the epistle as “sanctified” (ηγιασμένος) or, by the more reliable reading (in the Sinai, Vatican, Paris, Syriac, Vulgate, and other manuscripts), “beloved” (ηγαπημένοις), “called” (κλητοΐς)—that is, by the usual apostolic greeting in addressing the communities of Christians (compare Jas 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1; 1 Cor 1:2). “He says that those beloved by the Father are kept by Jesus Christ, and therefore calls them called, since they did not come by themselves, but were drawn and called by the Father. He wishes that there be multiplied to them mercy, peace, and love: ‘mercy’ because we are called by God and received as his servants through the tenderness of his mercy; ‘peace’ because God and the Father himself has granted it to us: reconciling us to himself, whom we offended, through his Son Jesus Christ; ‘love’ because the Only-Begotten Son of God gave himself to death for us out of love for us. And so the Apostle prays that these gifts be with believers in abundance” (blessed Theophylact). The Apostle’s concern is the common salvation of people in Christ, and the particular task of the epistle is the exhortation to contend (επαγωνίζεσθαι) for the faith—that is, with all energy and effort to defend the preservation and integrity of the faith of Christ once for all delivered to people. Such a requirement, obligatory for Christians by the very nature of the teaching they profess (compare Gal 1:7; 2 Thess 2:15), is occasioned in this case by the great danger to the purity of Christians’ faith from the false teachers who have appeared among them (Jude 1:4).

Jude 1:4. For certain people have slipped in, long ago marked for this condemnation, impious, turning the grace of our God into occasion for licentiousness and denying the one Master God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Without giving a detailed characterization of the false teachers, the Apostle demonstrates the gravity and ruin of their errors by pointing out that their condemnation (κρίμα) has been decreed and foretold from ancient times by those who carried the divine revelation. Then, beginning to sketch the intellectual and moral character of the false teachers, the Apostle calls them ungodly, ασεβείς, godless people, and, explaining this concept, characterizes the false teachers in both essential respects: from the moral-practical side: “turning the grace of our God into sensuality,” and from the side of theoretical beliefs: “denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Such is the general definition of the character of the false doctrine of the appeared heresiarchs, closely resembling the depiction of false teachers in the Second Epistle of the Apostle Peter (2 Pet 2:1-2 et seq.). From Eusebius’s description of the heresy of Simon the Magician and other heresiarchs (Eccl. Hist. II, 13 et seq.), and equally from the direct testimony of St. Athanasius the Great and the blessed Theophylact, it plainly follows that the false teachers who appeared taught that sin was indifferent, and they denied Christ (Synopsis). They regarded Christ as nothing more than one of the aeons, and from Christian teaching about grace they drew the conclusion that licentiousness was permissible for the purpose of weakening the flesh (compare Rom 6:1).

Jude 1:5–8. I want to remind you, already knowing this, that the Lord, having delivered the people from the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe, and the angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling, He keeps in eternal bonds, under darkness, for the judgment of the great day. As Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, committing sexual immorality in like manner and going after different flesh, are set forth as an example, undergoing punishment of eternal fire, – so also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious beings. Refuting this theoretical and moral-practical falsehood of the newly appeared teachers, their dualistic division of the two covenants, and their moral antinomianism, the Apostle shows that Christ the Son of God also acted in the Old Testament as the almighty righteous Judge, and for this purpose brings three well-known examples from Scripture of the terrifying judgment of God upon those who break the eternally binding law of God. The first striking example of God’s judgment, particularly compelling for Christian Jews, is the condemnation to destruction in the Arabian desert of the people of Israel, just saved by God from Egyptian slavery but then condemned to ruin because of their disbelief (Num 14:11; Deut 1:32; 1 Cor 10:5). “Although God with exceeding power and according to his oath to the fathers freed them from Egyptian slavery, yet when they transgressed the law, he did not leave them unpunished, but gave them the due recompense... and those who crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, afterward perished on account of their apostasy from faith” (blessed Theophylact). From this terrible example the readers of the epistle and all Christians should be convinced that the grace granted to them not only does not free them from the obligation to live holily and contend in faith and godliness—as the false teachers asserted—but rather, on the contrary, it absolutely requires these virtues of them, otherwise (Jude 1:6), from the life of the world of Angels, specifically from the fact of the fall of a certain part of the angelic realm (compare 2 Pet 2:4): the fallen angels, “who, having received the honor of angelic dignity, through negligence did not remain in their original state, but cast aside the blessed heavenly life given to them” (blessed Theophylact), God keeps in eternal chains, under darkness, for the judgment of the great day. The sin of the angels consisted in that they did not keep their own domain (αρχήν)—that is, they did not remain faithful to the purpose assigned them by God at their creation—and they abandoned their proper dwelling (οίκητήριον)—namely heaven, the highest luminous region of the world. Contrary to the opinion of many Western commentators, it is hardly possible to see in the wording of verse 6 an indication of the teaching about the fall of angels through union with the daughters of humans (compare Gen 6:2 according to the LXX), which exists in the Book of Enoch and other Jewish apocrypha. The third example of God’s judgment upon the ungodly, similar to the false teachers in question, is the judgment upon the inhabitants of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding cities (Jude 1:7; see 2 Pet 2:6; Gen 19:24-25; Deut 29:23). By bringing forward these examples, the Apostle “shows that the author of the Old Testament and the New Testament is one and the same God, not as these vile ones claim, that one God, angry and cruel, gave the Old Law, while another God, without anger and merciful, gave the New Testament... Having set forth the examples just mentioned, the Apostle left it to the listener himself to draw the conclusion. What is it? This: if God dealt this way with these, not sparing them despite their former good fortune, then will not the present ungodly escape because the Son of God came into the world for people, endured insult for them, and suffered? No one can say so. For though he is merciful, he is truly also righteous, and by true justice did not spare the sinners, but by mercy brought publicans and harlots into his kingdom (Matt 21:31). Such is the consequence that follows, but the apostle omitted it” (blessed Theophylact). In Jude 1:8 the characterization of the false teachers, begun in Jude 1:4, continues. Here to these “dreamers,” in addition to defiling the flesh (compare 2 Pet 2:10), another sin is attributed: “they reject authority and slander the glorious ones” (κυριότητα δέ αθετοϋσι, δόξας δέ βλασφημοΰσι). Under these “authorities and glorious ones” most modern commentators rightly see angels of two different ranks (compare Eph 1:21; Col 1:16). It is possible that the false teachers, rejecting the law given through angels (Acts 7:53; Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2), also slandered the angels through whom it was received by Moses—in contrast to the Colossian “philosophers” who regarded the Old Testament law as binding and contained the worship of angels (Col 2:18) (Prof. Protopriest D. I. Bogdashevsky, pp. 261–262).

Jude 1:9–13. Michael the Archangel, when disputing with the devil concerning the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” But these revile what they do not understand; what indeed they know by nature, like irrational animals, by these things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, have given themselves to the deceit of Balaam for a reward, and have perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are spots on your feasts of love; feasting with you without fear, they fatten themselves. These are waterless clouds, carried along by wind; autumn trees without fruit, having died twice, uprooted; wild sea waves, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of darkness is kept forever. If the Apostle Peter says (2 Pet 2:10-11) of angels in general that they, for all their superiority over humans, do not dare to pronounce a railing judgment upon authorities and dominions, then the Apostle Jude asserts the same thing more specifically of one Archangel Michael (compare Dan 12:1), pointing to one specific instance—the dispute of the Archangel with the devil over the body of Moses, when the Archangel displayed a meekness worthy of imitation by people (compare Zech 3:1-4). The account of the dispute of the Archangel Michael with the devil over the body of Moses (in which, according to the account, the devil tried to prove his power over Moses’s body because of his murder of an Egyptian), according to the testimony of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and St. Athanasius the Great, was found in the apocryphal book “Assumption” or “Ascension of Moses” (A νάβασις or A νάληψς Μωυσέως). But in general the tradition about the extraordinary death and burial of the great leader and lawgiver of Israel was widely distributed in Jewish tradition, both oral and written (midrashim). Therefore one can think that the Apostle Jude took the cited account from oral tradition. He cites it for the purpose of showing—by contrast—the boldness of the false teachers in their views and judgments. Furthermore, from verse 11 onward (Jude 1:11), the false teachers are depicted mainly from the practical side. In verse 11 the Apostle compares them to Cain, the first murderer in the world (Gen 4:8), because they, teaching ungodly doctrine to their brothers—that is, to people of the same kind—kill them by their wicked teachings; with Balaam (Num 22:5; 2 Pet 2:15; Rev 2:14), because they make their teaching work for profit, avarice, and personal gain; with Korah (Num 16:1)—because, like him, being unworthy, they seized for themselves the dignity of teachers (blessed Theophylact). In Jude 1:12 the Apostle first speaks of the unworthy conduct of the false teachers at the sacred early Christian love feasts, the agapes (έν ταίς αγάπαις), established by Christians of the early Church in connection with the sacrament of the Eucharist (compare 1 Cor 11:21-22). To these sacred meals the false teachers, it seems, conducted themselves reprehensibly, without any reverence indulging in gluttony and drunkenness (compare 2 Pet 2:21; see 1 Cor 11:21), and generally misbehaved, defiling the sacred meals of the Christians. In the second half of verse 12 (Jude 1:12) and in verse 13 (Jude 1:13), the Apostle uses a series of comparisons to characterize the false teachers: “These are clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.” The first image “clouds without water” means the inner spiritual emptiness of the false teachers, incapable of any good work; just as from waterless clouds driven by wind, people would vainly await life-giving moisture, so useless is the inflated empty talk of the false teachers, without power and grace (compare 2 Pet 1:17). The second image (“autumn trees without fruit, twice dead”) points to the spiritual death of the false teachers. They are like autumn fruitless trees, their fruit rotted and decayed by autumn—and specifically trees twice dead, such dry trees that, frozen in winter, devoid of any seed of life, will not come alive in spring and will bear neither flowers nor fruit, and therefore are subject to complete removal (compare John 15:6). The further images express the entire moral shame of the conduct of the false teachers. They are compared to wild sea waves because their restless heart fiercely churns with every carnal passion and, like the waves of a turbulent sea, casts forth all manner of moral impurity, which may result in “shipwreck with regard to faith” for some (1 Tim 1:19). As people without any moral stability and order, the false teachers are finally compared to wandering stars (αστέρες πλανηται). “Heretics are similar to them not in that they shine on the firmament of our faith and the Sun of righteousness, Christ, passes through them, leading virtues to ripeness and giving life to those faithful to them—but in that, appearing to have assumed the appearance of an angel of light, like their originator the evil devil (2 Cor 11:13-14), they move only against the teaching of the Lord, thereby darkening those approaching them and preparing eternal darkness for themselves” (blessed Theophylact).

Jude 1:14–15. Concerning them Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His holy angels – to execute judgment on all and to convict all of them concerning all the ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and concerning all the harsh words which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. The brief condemnation of the false teachers to eternal ruin, stated earlier in Jude 1:4, the Apostle now confirms by the prophecy about God’s judgment upon the ungodly, spoken by the antediluvian (seventh) patriarch Enoch. The Bible has not preserved the prophecy of Enoch, only a brief mention of his righteous life and sudden end (Gen 5:21-24). But in the tradition of the Old Testament Church this prophetic utterance of Enoch was preserved and found its echo, and perhaps also exact expression in the apocryphal Jewish book “Book of Enoch.” This book, long known only through fragments in Church Fathers, has been preserved to our time in an Ethiopic translation and was used by Abyssinian Christians. In 1853 it appeared in a complete German translation with explanations by A. Dillmann (Leipzig), and in 1888 in a Russian translation with explanations by Prof. A. V. Smirnov (Kazan). In one of the speeches of the Angel to Enoch (1:9) during a vision when the future judgment was revealed to him, these very words are found, which are cited in the Epistle of the Apostle Jude and which perhaps had the closest relation to the ungodly Cainites (compare Jude 1:11; see Gen 4). According to the testimony of Jerome (Catal. cap. IV), precisely the borrowing of one testimony from the apocryphal Book of Enoch served as the basis for doubt about the canonical dignity of the Epistle of the Apostle Jude. But, regardless of the possibility of the Apostle borrowing the prophecy of Enoch directly from oral tradition, the very citation of an apocryphal work does not at all harm the truth and dignity of the epistle (compare 2 Tim 3:8; Titus 1:12, etc.). This prophecy is completely consistent with the biblical representation of God’s universal judgment (compare Dan 7:10; Matt 24:31; 2 Thess 1:10 et seq.).

Jude 1:16. These are grumblers, complaining of their lot, proceeding according to their desires (impiously and lawlessly); their mouths utter arrogant words; they show partiality for the sake of gain. In verse 16, the Apostle, “leaving aside the comparison of the ungodly, now proceeds to condemn them outright, calling them ‘grumblers’ and ‘faultfinders.’ A grumbler is one who quietly and timidly criticizes what displeases him, while a faultfinder is one who constantly mocks everyone. These vile ones are both grumblers and faultfinders. They are grumblers because they do not dare openly to use their teaching because of its vileness, since it is unsafe to reveal their ungodliness, combined with licentiousness and blasphemy. They are faultfinders because they slander everything foreign and truth itself, so as to establish their own evil and depravity more firmly. What was said before, that heretics, like Balaam, were led away by greed, is now explained by the words: they admire faces for profit. To admire means to address flatteringly those in power, while profit means gain” (blessed Theophylact).

Jude 1:17–19. But you, beloved, remember what was foretold by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you that in the last time there will be scoffers, proceeding according to their own ungodly desires. These are people who separate themselves (from the unity of faith), soulish, not having the Spirit. Reinforcing what has been said above about the great danger to Christian society from false teachers, the Apostle now reminds (Jude 1:17-18) his readers of similar warnings and predictions by the Apostles—Peter (2 Pet 2:10) and Paul (1 Tim 4:1; 2 Tim 3:1-5)—about the appearance in the last times of “mockers,” following their own ungodly passions. Concluding his characterization of the ungodly, the Apostle calls them (Jude 1:19) people “who cause divisions, worldly, devoid of the Spirit.” “They,” he says, “not only perish themselves, but also steal from the Church’s nurslings (this is what ‘cause divisions’ means), that is, they draw them out beyond the Church’s borders, the boundaries of faith or the very fence of the Church. For they have shown their assemblies to be robbers’ dens, and they will draw others away from the Church and bring them to themselves. They do this because they are worldly people, that is, living according to the manner of the world. Compare 1 Cor 2:14-15; Jas 3:15” (blessed Theophylact).

Jude 1:20–21. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Having protected his readers from the danger posed by false teachers, the Apostle now directs the minds of the readers to the positive side of Christian calling, as the gracious powers for believers to build within themselves temples of the Holy Spirit. On a firm foundation—Christ (Eph 2:20; 1 Cor 3:11)—the spiritual temple in each Christian is to be built by their most holy faith, prayer in the Holy Spirit (compare Rom 8:26-27), the love of God, and living hope in the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ and eternal life.

Jude 1:22–23. And have mercy on some, with discernment, and others save, snatching them out of the fire, while hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. After pastoral instructions to all believers (Jude 1:20-21), the Apostle in his final instruction remembers those who have to a greater or lesser degree succumbed to the seduction of the false teachers. Accordingly, depending on the varying degree of the seduction of those misled, the Apostle indicates to his readers different means of influence on them. The reading of verses 22–23 is very disputed. Following the authoritative Sinai Codex, it should be rendered thus: “have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; show mercy with fear to still others...”—that is, show mercy to those who doubt; those in whom the infection from the false teachers has already significantly spread, save them by your Christian love—save them quickly, as if out of fire, while there is still opportunity; show mercy even to the stubborn, but “with fear”—be afraid lest you yourself, in this mercy, be subjected to moral ruin or the danger of moral infection (Prof. Protopriest D. I. Bogdashevsky, p. 259). This caution should extend so far that a believer should avoid even touching the garment of the false teachers, as a symbol of sinful infection.

Jude 1:24–25. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you before His glory blameless in joy, to the only wise God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and majesty, might and authority before all ages, now and forever. Amen. The epistle ends with a magnificent apostolic doxology to God the Father through our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This doxology closely resembles the doxology of the Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Romans (Rom 14:24-26).