We must now return to other apostles, and, for a reason to be explained, take up the Apostle Jude before we notice the Apostle Peter. Peter appears conspicuously in the synoptical gospels; he also stands out prominently in the earlier part of the Acts of the Apostles; then he almost disappears during the period of Paul's recorded ministry, until he comes before us in two epistles. There is much difficulty in determining their date, but it seems most probable that the first was not written until about the year A.D. 63,1 that is, at the time when St. Paul was undergoing his first imprisonment at Rome, and when the cycle of his doctrinal epistles was complete. But the Epistle of Jude probably takes precedence of the Epistles of Peter in point of time, and, therefore, had better be noticed before we proceed to consider the discourses and letters of the latter apostle. 1 See Alford, iv. 126. 409 CHAPTER VIII. THE APOSTLE JUDE. HE Jude, or Judas, who wrote the epistle bearing THE his name is, probably, the same person as Lebbæus, or Thaddæus, in the lists of the apostles by Matthew and Luke.1 Jude or Judas is referred to by this name only twice in the Gospels: once when his relationship to his Master, in common with James, Joses, and Simon, is noticed; and again, in the report of the conversation between our Lord and His apostles on the night before His crucifixion.2 Jude then asked with wonder, “ Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us, and not unto the world?" He, no doubt, at the moment thought of the manifestation of Jesus as a secular potentate, who would bring back the long-faded glories of David and Solomon; and he could not understand how such a manifestation could be hidden from the world. But Jude was delivered from these misconceptions after his Master's death and resurrection. He saw that the kingdom of Christ was not of this world, that its weapons were "not carnal, but mighty through God." 3 1 The place occupied by Jude on the apostolic list, as given in the Gospel of Luke, is occupied by Lebbæus in Matthew, and by Thaddeus in Mark. They are considered to have been three names belonging to the same person. Jerome calls Jude Trionymus. See good note in the Student's New Test. Hist., p. 571. The subject is not free from difficulty. 2 Matt. xiii. 55; John xiv. 22. 3 2 Cor. x. 4. The time when the epistle ascribed to him was written is open to much conjecture. Some place it as late as the year A.D. 90, but without any good reason. Lardner, with much more force, observes that the agreement between the Epistle of Jude and the Second Epistle of Peter is so great as to render it probable that they were written about the same time. "There was exactly the same state of things in the Christian Church, or in some part of it, when both these epistles were written." Lardner thinks it belongs to the years 864, 65, or 66.1 Jude, no doubt, sympathized with his brother James in his practical views of religion, fully convinced that faith without works is dead, being alone; 2 but he did not forget how he and all the Church stood upon a foundation not of merit, but of grace, being sharers of a common salvation. He addresses the persons to whom he wrote as sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called; as needing mercy, peace, and love; and as warranted to expect that “ mercy, and peace, and love" would be "multiplied." Emphatically did he pronounce his own safety and privileges, and those of all believers, to be a salvation-not the original condition in which they were, but one into which they had been brought—not like the condition of angels, or of Adam at first-salvation being an incongruous idea in connection with those who never fell. The epithet of "common," which he applies to this salvation, gathers into itself, and concentrates in one stream of light, such thoughts as we find scattered over the pages of the New Testament respecting the universal provision for the spiritual needs of men. Valuing the common salvation as the richest of blessings, Jude exhorted believers to contend earnestly for the faith delivered to the saints. He declared that it had been delivered "once for all," not requiring nor accepting human additions, nor waiting for the wisdom of ages to improve upon it, but being sufficient and complete in itself. There were men in the days of Jude who with serpentine art glided into the Church of God, who were of old, as Doddridge phrases it, "described and registered to this condemnation by God's righteous sentence, denounced against crimes like theirs long before they appeared in the world."1 In the miserable Israelites, who after the deliverance from Egypt longed for its flesh-pots again, Jude detected types of such persons; and he taught that at the root of all the misconduct and apostasy of both classes was their "not believing." Moreover, he revealed what had been revealed in part before-that there are other responsible beings in the universe besides men, and that some of these have fallen, even as men have done. He carries his readers back to the times of Abraham and Lot, and to the well-watered plains of Jordan, to see their beauty blighted and their fruitfulness turned into barrenness by the sinfulness of the people dwelling therein. The writer then touches upon mysterious themes, for the purpose of suggesting a moral application of what he said, not that he might gratify an idle curiosity. The light he holds up amidst the darkness of the spirit world is like all the lights of revelation, not to look at, but to walk by.2 He intimates that evil men in this world may be even worse than evil spirits in the other: an idea the most terrible, humiliating, and at the same time 'Jude 8-11. 1 See his Expositor, in loco. cautionary, which it is possible for us to conceive. Then, returning from realms of angelic conflict, Jude touches on better understood branches of sacred history. There follows a tremendous accumulation of dark imagery, which indicates that the writer's mind was of the pictorial cast. Like old Hebrew prophets, he thought in figures, and had the art of painting moral pictures with strong effect.1 Jude recognized the final judgment, and spoke of it as predicted by Enoch. This is not the place to enter into any disquisition respecting the origin and history of what is called the Book of Enoch.2 Such a book exists, and in it may be found some such a prophecy as that to which Jude refers. It does not follow from this coincidence that Jude made any quotation from that curious production. Dr. Lardner remarks, “It is not certain that St. Jude cites any book. He only says that Enoch prophesied, saying, 'The Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints;' which might be words of a prophecy preserved by tradition, and inserted occasionally in divers writings. Nor is there good evidence that in Jude's time there was extant any book entitled Enoch, or Enoch's Prophecies, though there was such a book in the hands of Christians in the second and third centuries. Moreover, St. Jude might ascribe to Enoch what it is reasonable to believe was the import of his prophecy." Probably the book, as we have it, contains what had been written by earlier authors, and brought together by some compiler. 1 Jude 12, 13. 2 An interesting account of it is given by Westcott in his Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, p. 92, et seq. Laurence published the Book of Enoch, Oxford. That is superseded by Dillmann's Liber Henoch and Das Buch Henoch. 3 Lardner's Works, vi. 309. |