Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: JEE-JUN |
|
|
JUDE, THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF , a book of the New Testament. As with the epistle of James, the problems of the writing centre upon the superscription, which addresses in Pauline phraseology (1 Thess. i. 4; 2 Thess. ii. 13; Rom. i. 7; 1 Cor. 1. 2) the Christian world in general in the name of "Jude, the brother of James " (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3 ). The historical situation depicted must then fall within the lifetime of this Judas, whose two grandchildren Zoker and James (Hegesippus ap. Phil. Sidetes) by their testimony before the authorities brought to an end the (Palestinian) persecution of Domitian (Hegesippus ap. Eus. H. E. iii. 20, 7). These two grandsons of Judas thereafter " lived until the time of Trajan," ruling the churches " because they had (thus) been witnesses (martyrs) and were also relatives of the Lord." But in that case we must either reject the testimony of the same Hegesippus that up to their death, and that of Symeon son of Clopas, successor in the Jerusalem see of James the Lord's brother, " who suffered martyrdom at the age of one hundred and twenty years while Trajan was emperor and Atticus governor ," " the church (universal) had remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin " free from " the folly of heretical teachers "; or else we must reject the superscription, which presents the grandfather in vehement conflict with the very heresies in question. For the testimony of Hegesippus is explicit that at the time of the arrest of Zoker and James they were all who survived of the kindred of the Lord. True, there is confusion in the narrative of Hegesippus, and even a probability that the martyrdom of Symeon dated under Trajan really took place in the persecution of Domitian,before the arrest of the grandsons of Jude, for apart from the alleged age of Symeon (the traditional Jewish limit of human life, Gen. vi. 3, Deut. xxxiv. 7), the cause of his apprehension " on the ground that he was a descendant of David and a Christian " (Hegesippus ap. Eus. H. E. 111.32, 3) is inconsistent with both the previous statements regarding the " martyrdom " of Zoker and James, that they were cited as the only surviving Christian Davididae, and that the, persecution on this ground collapsed through the manifest absurdity of the accusation. But even if we date the rise of heresies in the reign of Domitian instead of Trajan,2 the attributing of this epistle against2 On this point (date of the outbreak of heresy) there is some inconsistency in the reported fragments of Hegesippus. In that quoted below from Eus. H.E. iii. 32. 7 seq., it is expressly dated after the martyrdom of Symeon and death of the grandsons of Jude under Trajan. In iii. 19 the " ancient tradition " attributing the denunciation of these to " some of the heretics " is perhaps not from Hegesippus; but in iv. 22 the beginning of heresy is traced to a certain Thebuthis, a candidate for the bishopric after the death ei James, as rival to Symeon. The same figure of the church as a pure virgin is also used as in iii. 32. But as it is only the envious feeling of Thebuthis which is traced to this early date, Hegesippus doubtless means to place the outbreak later. corrupting heresy to " Jude the brother of James " will still be incompatible with the statements of Hegesippus, our only informant regarding nis ._er history. The Greek of Jude is also such as to exclude the idea of authorship in Palestine by an unschooled Galilean, at an early date in church history. As F. H. Chase has pointed out: (I) the terms KAfroi, vcor'qpia, 7rLOTLS, have attained their later technical sense; (2) " the writer is steeped in the language of the LXX.," employing its phraseology independently of other N.T. writers, and not that of the canonical books alone, but of the broader non-Palestinian canon; (3) " he has at his command a large stock of stately, sonorous, sometimes poetical words," proving him a " man of some culture, and, as it would seem, not without acquaintance with Greek writers." If the superscription be not from the hand of the actual brother of Jesus, the question may well be asked why some apostolic name was not chosen which might convey greater authority ? The answer is to be found in the direction toward which the principal defenders of orthodoxy in 1oo15o turned for " the deposit of the faith " (Jude 3) in its purity. The Pastoral
Polycarp
original
Pastoral
The superscription in the case of Jude, unlike that of James, takes hold of the substance of the book. Verse 3 and the farewell (v. 24 seq.) show that Jude was composed from the start as an " epistle." If this appearance be not fallacious, the obvious relation between the two superscriptions will be best explainedby the supposition that the author of Jude gave currency to the existing homily (James) before composing under the pseudonym of Jude. On the interconnexion of the two see Sieffert, s.v. " Judasbrief " in Hauck, Realencykl. vol. ix. Judas is conceived as cherishing the intention of discussing for the benefit of the Christian world (for no mere local church is addressed) the subject of " our common salvation " (the much desiderated authoritative definition of the orthodox faith), but diverted from this purpose by the growth of heresy. Few writings of this compass afford more copious evidence of date in their literary affinities. The references to Enoch (principally ver. 14 seq. = Eth. En. i. 9, but cf. F. H. Chase, s.v. " Jude " in Hastings's Dict. Bible) and the Assumption of Moses (v. 9) have more a geographical than a chronological bearing, the stricter canon of Palestine excluding these apocryphal books of 90 B.C. to A.D. 40; but the Pauline writings are freely employed, especially 1 Cor. x. 113, Rom. xvi. 25 seq., and probably Eph. and Col. Moreover, the author explicitly refers to the apostolic age as already past, and to the fulfilment of the Pauline prediction (I Tim. iv. I sqq.) of the advent of heresy (v. 17 seq.). The Pauline doctrine of " grace " has been perverted to lasciviousness, as by the heretics whom Polycarp
On the other hand, practically the whole of Jude is taken up into 2 Pet., the author merely avoiding, so far as he discovers them, the quotations from apocryphal writings, and prefixing and affixing sections of his own to refute the heretical eschatology. On the priority of Jude see especially against Spitta Zur Gesch.u. Litt. d. Urchristenthums, ii. 409411, F. H. Chase, loc. cit. p. 803. (On 2 Pet. see PETER EPISTLES OF.) Unfortunately, the date of 2 Pet. cannot be determined as earlier than late
The treatment of the heresy as the anti-Christ who precedes " the last hour " (v. 18), reminds us of I John ii. 18, but it is indicative of conditions somewhat less advanced that the heretics have not yet " gone out from " the church. The treatment of the apostolic age as past, and the deposit of the faith as a regula
Sieffert, on account of the superscription, would date as early as 70-8o, but acknowledges the hyper-Pauline affinity of the heresy, its propagation as a doctrine, and close relation to the Nicolaitan of Rev. ii. 14. To these phenomena he gives accordingly a correspondingly early date. The nature of the heresy, opposed, however, and the resort to the authority of Jude " the brother of James " against it, favour rather the period of Polycarp and Papias (117150). The history of the reception of the epistle into church canons is similar to that of James, beginning with a quotation
may account for much of the critical disposition toward it of many subsequent writers. Eusebius classed it among the " disputed" books, declaring that as with James " not many of the ancients have mentioned it " (H. E. ii. 23, 25). The Introd. to the New Test. by Holtzmann, Pincher, Weiss, Zahn, Davidson, Salmon, Bacon and the standard Commentaries of Meyer and Holtzmann, the International (Bigg) and other series , contain discussions of authorship and date. The articles s.v. in Hastings's Dict. Bible (Chase) and the Ency. Bib. (Cone
End of Article: JUDE, THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/JEE_JUN/JUDE_THE_GENERAL_EPISTLE_OF.html"> JUDE, THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF </a> |
|
|
(Previous) JUDD, SYLVESTER (18131853) |
(Next) JUDGE (Lat. judex, Fr. juge) |
|
Sponsored Advertisements