Jude, EPISTLE OF, one of the smallest and least important books in the New Testament canon, which purports to be by 'Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James.' This Jude is most probably the Judas who was one of the 'brethren of the Lord' (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark, vi. 3). There is a Judas in the list of the apostles, as given by St Luke (vi. 16; Acts, i. 13) and recognised by St John (xiv. 22), occupying the place of one who in the lists of Matthew (x. 3) and Mark (iii. 18) is called Lebæus or Thaddeus, the traditional evangelist of Edessa. The absence of the epistle in the Peshito is of itself proof, according to Canon Venables (Smith's Dict. of Bible), that it is not the work of the last. St Luke describes the apostle Judas as 'Τούδας Τακῆβον, which would naturally mean 'Jude, the son of James,' but has been, without sufficient grounds, rendered in the Authorised Version 'Jude, the brother of James.' But the author of our epistle rather seems to distinguish himself from the apostles (verse 17), and on other grounds there seems conclusive proof that he did not belong to the Twelve.
The epistle is recognised by many who are silent about James, as Clement of Alexandria, the Muratorian Fragment, Tertullian, and Origen; although indeed it is not mentioned by Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Hermas, Polycarp, Papias, or Irenæus. As has been said, it is wanting in the Peshito or Syriac version, and it is classed by Eusebius with James among the Antilegomena, or disputed books. Fifty years later St Jerome mentions that, though then received, it had been rejected by many as quoting the apocryphal Book of Enoch (verses 14, 15). Origen tells us that in verse 9 again Jude quotes from another apocryphal book, the lost Assumption of Moses. A more serious objection to Jude's authenticity is the question whether the particular immoral perversions of Christian truth against which it seems to be directed existed in the time of the brother of James, who appears to have been dead before the accession of Domitian (81 A.D.). Davidson, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Schenkel, Mangold, Lipsius, Holtzmann, Weizsäcker, and Pfeiderer identify these with the Antinomian Gnosticism of the 2d century, which repudiated God and the angels of the Old Testament as subordinate powers (verses 8-10), Jesus as the merely human organ of the higher Christ (verse 4), and ordinary Christians as people psychically inferior to themselves (verse 19), while it afforded a cloak to libertine tendencies (verses 8, 10, 16). But it may be questioned if the epistle specially applies to Gnosticism proper, as there is no distinct hint at the doctrinal basis of the errors denounced, and the whole may reasonably be interpreted as rebuke to private members of the church who led ungodly lives, misinterpreting the doctrine of grace as a charter for a licentious life, and were disobedient to spiritual authority, not necessarily applicable to special organised forms of immorality and error yet to be developed. At the same time it should be remembered that other apostles had already had cause to denounce impurity which had crept into the church (2 Cor. xii. 21; Phil. iii. 19; Rev. ii. 20-22). Clement of Alexandria reads into the epistle a prophetic denunciation of the immoral teaching of Carpocrates, and Renan boldly claims it as a diatribe against Paul.
No reader can overlook the striking parallelism at once in thought and language between Jude and 2 Peter, ii., from which we may feel certain that the one writer had the work of the other before him. It is a difficult matter, however, to determine which of the two was the earlier. Most critics conclude in favour of Jude, although to this there are several serious objections on which a strong case has been constructed by Professor Lumby in The Speaker's Commentary.
See the Introductions of S. Davidson, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, Salmon, Weiss, and Dods; the works on the New Testament canon by Westcott and Zahn; and the special commentaries in the Kurtzgef. Exet. Handbuch (3d ed. Brückner, 1865), Meyer (5th ed. Kühl, 1887), Stier (1850), Arnaud (1851), Rampf (1854), Fronmüller (1859), Hoffmann (1875), Reuss (1878), and E. H. Plumptre (1886). See also Ritschl in Theolog. Stud. u. Krit. (1861).