St. Jude
In
the address of the Epistle the author styles himself “Jude, the servant of
Jesus Christ and brother of James.” “Servant of Jesus Christ“ means “apostolic
minister or labourer.” “Brother of James” denotes him as the brother of James kat
exochen who was well-known to the Hebrew Christians to whom the Epistle of
St. Jude was written. This James is to be identified with the Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem
(Acts 15:13; 21:18), spoken of by St.
Paul as “the brother of the Lord” (Gal. 1:19), who was
the author of the Catholic Epistle of St. James. and is regarded amongst
Catholic interpreters as the Apostle James the son of Alpheus
(St. James the Less). This last identification, however, is not evident, nor,
from a critical point of view, does it seem beyond all doubt. Most Catholic
commentators identify Jude with the “Judas Jacobi” (“Jude, the brother of
James” in the D.V.) of Luke 6:16, and Acts 1:13 — also called Thaddeus (Matt.
x, 3: Mark 3:18) — referring the expression to the fact that his brother James
was better known than himself in the primitive Church. This view is strongly
confirmed by the title “the brother of James,” by which Jude designates himself
in the address of his Epistle. If this identification is proved, it is clear
that Jude, the author of the Epistle, was reckoned among the Twelve Apostles.
This opinion is most highly probable. Beyond this we find no further
information concerning Jude in the New Testament, except that the “brethren of
the Lord,” among whom Jude was included, were known to the Galatians and the
Corinthians; also that several of them were married, and that they did not
fully believe in Christ till after the Resurrection (I Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:10; John
7:3-5; Acts 1:14). From a fact of Hegesippus told by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. III,
19:xx, xxii) we learn that Jude was “said to have been the brother of the Lord
according to the flesh,” and that two of his grandsons lived till the reign of
Trajan.
Tradition as to the Genuineness and the Canonicity of his Epistle
The Epistle of Jude is one of the
so-called antilegomena; but, although its canonicity has been questioned
in several Churches, its genuineness has never been denied. The brevity of the
Epistle, the coincidences between it and II Peter, and the supposed quotation
from apocryphal books, created a prejudice against it which was gradually
overcome. The history of its acceptance by the Church is briefly as follows:
Some coincidences or analogies exist
between Jude and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers — between Barnabas, 2:10,
and Jude, 3, 4; Clemens Romanus, Ep. 20, 12; 65:2, and Jude, 25; Ep. ad Polyc.
iii 2; 4:2, and Jude, 3. 20, Mart. Polyc. xx, and Jude, 24 sq. It is possible,
though not certain, that the passages here noted were suggested by the text of
Jude. The similarity between “Didache” 2:7 and Jude, 22 sq. does not seem to be
accidental, whilst in Athenagoras (about A.D. 177), “Leg.” 24, and in
Theophilus of Antioch
(d. about 183), “Ad Autol.” II, 15, there is a clear reference to Jude, 6 and
13 respectively.
The earliest positive reference to
the Epistle occurs in the Muratorian Fragment, “Epistola sane Judæ et
superscriptæ Joannis duae in catholica [scil. Ecclesia] habentur.” The Epistle
was thus recognized as canonical and Apostolic (for it is Jude the Apostle who is
here meant) in the Roman Church about 170. At the end of the second century it
was also accepted as canonical and Apostolic by the Church of Alexandria African Church
of Carthage
(Tertullian). At the beginning of the third century the Epistle was universally
accepted except in the primitive East
Syrian Church
This remarkably wide acceptance,
representing as it does the voice of ancient tradition, testifies to the
canonicity and the genuineness of Jude. During the third and fourth centuries
doubt and suspicion, based on internal evidence (especially on the supposed
quotation from the Book of Henoch and the “Assumption of Moses”), arose in
several Churches. However the prejudice created against the deuterocanonical
Jude was soon overcome, so that the Epistle was universally accepted in the Western Church
In the Eastern Church Eusebius of
Cæsarea (260-340) placed Jude among the antilegomena or the “disputed
books, which are nevertheless known and accepted by the greater number” (Hist.
Eccl. II xxiii; III, xxv); he incorporated all the Catholic Epistles in the
fifty copies of the Bible which at the command of Constantine, he wrote for the
Church of Constantinople. St. Athanasius (d. 387) and St. Epiphanius (d. 403)
placed Jude among the canonical and Apostolic writings. Junilius and Paul of
Nisibis in Constantinople (513) held it as mediæ
auctoritatis. However, in the sixth century the Greek Church everywhere
considered Jude as canonical.
The recognition of Jude in the Syriac Church Western Syria we find no
trace of Jude in the fifth century. In Eastern Syria
the Epistle is wanting in the oldest Syriac version, the Peshito, but it is
accepted in the Philoxenian (508) and Heracleon (616) versions. Except among
the Syriac Nestorians, there is no trace of any ecclesiastical contradiction
from the beginning of the sixth century till the Council of Trent, which
defined the canonicity of both the proto- and deutero-canonical books of the
New Testament.
Orthodox Church Pakistan
www.ocpak.com
by: Fr. Cyril Amer
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