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may infer that St. Peter and not Jude was the borrower.1 It is quite possible, however, that the Epistle of Jude may itself be the translation of an Aramaic original—judging, for example, from its fondness for threefold expressions.2

The Epistle is remarkable for several allusions to matters of ancient history that are not recorded in the Old Testament. It contains a quotation from an apocryphal book of Enoch, and one of its illustrations, Origen tells us, was derived from a book called "The Assumption of Moses," only about a third part of which, in the form of a Latin version, has been preserved to us.3

stroyed"; 11=ii. 13, 15: "Woe unto them! for they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah," "Suffering wrong as the hire of wrong-doing, . . . forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the hire of wrong-doing"; 12 ii. 13: "These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves"; "Men that count it pleasure to revel in the day-time, spots and blemishes, revelling in their love-feasts while they feast with you"; 12, 13-ii. 17: "Clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever," "These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved"; 16=ii. 18: "These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their lusts (and their mouth speaketh great swelling words), shewing respect of persons for the sake of advantage," For, uttering great swelling words of vanity, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by lasciviousness, those who are just escaping from them that live in error "; 17-iii. 2: "But ye, beloved, remember ye the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ," "That ye should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles "; 18=iii. 3:

"

These allusions are

How that they said to you, In the last time there shall be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts," Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts.”

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1 E.g. Jude 9 (quoted above); cf. 2 Peter ii. 11 (quoted above), which would be unintelligible to us but for the light afforded by the more definite statement of Jude. Similarly the sin of "angels which kept not their own principality" is brought out in Jude 6, 7, in connection with the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, as it is not in 2 Peter ii. 4-6. The incorporation of the shorter epistle in the longer is also more natural than the republication of an extract from 2 Peter (with a few additional verses) by one whose name would give it far less weight than that which it had hitherto borne. The freshness and vigour of style of the Epistle of Jude, as compared with the occasional amplification and attempted improvement (in the way of softening strong features and modifying unusual expressions) which can be traced in 2 Peter, lead to the same conclusion. On the ethics of Apostolic borrowing, see Salmon's Introduction, 5th edition,

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not more at variance with the doctrine of Inspiration than the quotations in the Old Testament from the "Book of Jasher," and other such documents, or Paul's allusions to "Jannes and Jambres," or his quotations from heathen writers.1 In 2 Peter, however, these quotations almost disappear, and there is also an omission of one or two seeming references to Levitical uncleanness, as if the writer desired to adapt his epistle as far as possible for general use.2

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This epistle is full of sharp and stern denunciation, aimed at practical evils of a most heinous character, committed by men who were turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." 3 These evils were founded upon a gross abuse of Christian liberty, and were somewhat similar to the terrible excesses which broke out among the Anabaptists after the Protestant Reformation, resulting from the abuse of the doctrine of Justification by Faith, when professing Christians combined the guilt of Cain (bloodshed), of Balaam (seduction), and of Korah (insubordination). In view of the corruption both of faith and manners

vict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have ungodly wrought, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him"; ver. 9: "But Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing judgement, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. Jerome mentions that the quotation from the Book of Enoch had led many to reject the Epistle; but Tertullian thought the Book of Enoch itself should be received as canonical, although rejected by the Jews. Several copies of an Ethiopic version of this book were brought from Abyssinia by the traveller Bruce in 1773, of which an English translation was published in 1821, and a German translation in 1853, enabling us to identify the passage quoted by Jude; and recently a large part of it in Greek has been discovered in Egypt. Its original composition (possibly in Hebrew) is generally assigned to the century preceding the Christian era. It is largely a work of

imagination, of a desultory kind. The Assumption of Moses is cited by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others. The extant portion does not extend to the death of Moses, and therefore does not contain the incident referred to by Jude. 1 Joshua x. 13, &c.; 2 Tim. iii. 8; Titus i. 12; Acts xvii. 28.

2 Vers. 8 and 23.

3 Vers. 3, 4: Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old set forth unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."

4 Ver. II: "Woe unto them! for they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah." The persons whom St. Jude

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that was thus beginning to infect the Church, Jude exhorts his readers to" contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints," and appeals to the past history of God's judgments for proof of the punishment in store for the present offenders, whom he commends nevertheless to the compassion and care of their believing brethren.

The Epistle concludes with one of the most beautiful doxologies to be found in the New Testament.1

so vehemently denounces find their exact analogue in the days of the Reformation. They are the invariable product of an epoch of religious ferment and excitement. Their abuse of the preaching of St. Paul exactly resembles the abuse of Luther's preaching by men like Storch and Matthys and Rothman and even Carlstadt. Such men would have been denounced equally by JudæoChristians like James and Jude, or by St. Peter, or by St. Paul himself, just as the Anabaptists were by men like Cardinal Cajetan, or like Erasmus, or like Luther. The Epistle of St. Jude draws a picture which might be applied line by line, and word by word, the obscure wretches (ἄνθρωποί

to

...

TIES)-the Bochelsons, and Knipper-
dollings, the Krechtings and Hoffmans,
the Stübners, and Münzers-of the
years 1521 to 1535; and something of
Jude's own tone rings through the eight
sermons which Luther preached at
Wittemberg on the days after his re-
turn to that city in 1522." — Farrar,
Messages of the Books, p. 456.
2 Vers. 24, 25:
"Now unto him that
is able to keep you from falling, and
to present you faultless before the pre-
sence of his glory with exceeding joy,
to the only wise God our Saviour,
be glory and majesty, dominion and
power, both now and for ever. Amen."
-A.V. Cf. Rom. xvi. 25-27.

CHAPTER XXIII.

I, 2, AND 3 JOHN.

“THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN."

1. Authorship.

THIS epistle was used by two of the Fathers who had been disciples of the Apostle John, viz., Polycarp and Papias. It was recognised and quoted as John's by Irenæus, who had been a disciple of Polycarp, and it was evidently known by the writer of the Letter to Diognetus. It is freely quoted by Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, is referred to in the Muratorian Fragment, and is one of the books contained in the Syriac, as well as in the Old Latin Version.

Its internal character is such as to confirm us in the belief that it was written by the author of the Fourth Gospel. Not only has it many verbal similarities,1 but it

...

1 E.g. i. 1: "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life"; cf. John i. 1, 14: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth"; xx. 27: "Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side and be not faithless, but believing." i. 2: "(and the life was maniested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life,

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the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us)"; cf. John iii. 11: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and bear witness of that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.' i. 3: "that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ"; cf. John xvii. 21: "that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me.' i. 4: "and these things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled"; cf. John xvi. 24: Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and

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is dominated by the same Christian idealism which refers all things in human life to the ultimate principles of light and darkness, truth and error, good and evil, love and hatred, life and death, God and the devil. So intimate is the connection between the two books that the epistle was regarded by the late Bishop Lightfoot and others as forming a postscript to the Gospel.1

II:

2. The Readers.2

In all probability it was addressed in the first instance

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;

ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled." i. 5, 6: "And this is the message which we have heard from him, and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth"; cf. John i. 5: "And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not iii. 21: "But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God"; viii. 12: Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." ii. "But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes"; cf. John xii. 35: "Jesus therefore said unto them, Yet a little while is the light among you. Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth." iii. 14: "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death"; cf. John v. 24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgement, but hath passed out of death into life." iv. 9: Herein was

the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him"; cf. John i. 14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth"; iii. 16: "For God so loved the world,

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that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." iv. 14: "And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world"; cf. John iv. and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy speaking for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." v. 6: "This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not with the' water only, but with the water and with the blood cf. John xix. 34: "howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water.'

1 Prof. Ramsay says: "No two works in the whole range of literature show clearer signs of the genius of one writer, and no other pair of works are so completely in a class by themselves, apart from the work of their own and every other time. One work alone stands near them, the Apocalypse; and while identity of authorship is very far from being so clear, as in the case of the Gospel and Epistle, yet there is a closer relation between the three works than exists between any of them and any fourth work. We must expect to find a close connection in time and circumstances of origin between the First Epistle and the Apocalypse" (Church in the Roman Empire, p. 303).

2 Augustine and other Latin writers speak of the epistle as addressed to the Parthians, but this was probably a mistake occasioned by the Greek term Taρlévos ("virgin"), which was frequently applied to the Apostle John, in allusion to his supposed lifelong celibacy, or it may have arisen from the Second Epistle being addressed in some MSS. πρὸς παρθένους.

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