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Its Character and Contents.-This epistle, unlike the first, is full of denunciation and warning. It was designed to put its readers on their guard against false teachers, who were enticing unsteadfast souls, "promising them liberty while they themselves are bondservants of corruption." In opposition to their immoral doctrines this epistle inculcates a steady and persevering endeavour after holiness as the only way to advance in true knowledge and secure an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In particular, the writer seeks to confute the arguments and counteract the influence of certain scoffers who made light of the Second Coming, as if it were a vain delusion, and appealed to the constancy of Nature as a warrant for their unbelief. The delay of the divine judgment the writer attributes to the fact that "one day with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," alleging the delay to be a proof of God's mercy and longsuffering. The destruction of the world in the days of Noah is cited as an act of divine judgment analogous to that which is to take place at the end of the world, when the destroying element, however, shall be not water but fire. From the dread catastrophe there shall arise 66 new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness," for which Christians ought to be preparing; and the epistle concludes much in the same way as it commenced, by a call to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

The intrinsic worth of the epistle is well expressed by Calvin when he says, "the majesty of the Spirit of Christ exhibits itself in every part of the epistle."

"" THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE"

Who wrote it.—“Judas, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James." It may be regarded as certain that the James here referred to was the well-known head of the Church at Jerusalem, one of our Lord's brethren, and the writer of the epistle that bears his name cf.)

Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3). Jude is therefore not to be identified with any of the apostles of the same name mentioned in the Gospels. Had he been an apostle he would doubtless have claimed the title, instead of being content to call himself "the brother of James." Regarding Jude personally we know little or nothing, but an interesting tradition concerning two of his grandsons has been preserved by Hegesippus. That historian (as quoted by Eusebius) tells how the Emperor Domitian, being moved with jealousy, sent for these two kinsmen of our Lord to inquire of them regarding the kingdom to which they aspired. When he learned from them that they were merely peasant proprietors farming a few acres of land in Palestine, and saw their hands horny with constant labour, and when they told him further that the kingdom to which they looked forward was not of this world, but to be revealed when Christ came to judge the quick and the dead, his alarm was removed, and he allowed them to depart in peace. Tradition tells that they lived to the reign of Trajan, honoured by the Church for their confession and for their relation to the Lord.

The obscurity of Jude himself is a strong argument for the genuineness of the epistle, as a forger would have chosen some more distinguished name to associate with his work. Although it is reckoned by Eusebius among the disputed books, we find it quoted by Clement of Alexandria in the end of the second century; and it has also a place in the Muratorian Canon.

To whom written.-On this subject we are left to conjecture. Considering the Jewish features of the book and the Jewish character of its author, it would seem probable that it was written to Christians in Palestine, but not to any particular Church, as it contains no special salutations or messages.

Regarding the

Where and when written. place of writing we have no direct information, but all the circumstances point to Palestine as its source. From the absence of any allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem

we may infer that it was written prior to that event; but here, as in 2 Peter, the evils with which the epistle deals preclude us from giving it a much earlier date, say 65-68 A.D.

Its Character and Contents.-This epistle, consisting of a single chapter, bears a very striking likeness to the second chapter of 2 Peter, so much so that we may conclude with confidence that the one was borrowed from the other. As this epistle has certain features of originality about it which the other lacks, we may infer that St. Peter and not Jude was the borrower. 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.

The epistle is remarkable for several allusions to matters of ancient history that are not recorded in the Old Testament. In ver. 14 we have a quotation from an apocryphal book of Enoch (of which several copies of an Ethiopic version were brought from Abyssinia by the traveller Bruce in 1773); and ver. 9 seems to have been derived from a book called "The Assumption of Moses," only a small part of which has been preserved to us. These allusions are no more at variance with the doctrine of Inspiration than the quotations in the Old Testament from the "Book of Jasher," etc, or Paul's allusions to "Jannes and Jambres” (2 Tim. iii. 8), or his quotations from heathen writers. In 2 Peter, however, these quotations are so modified as to lose their apocryphal character, and there is also an omission of one or two references to Levitical uncleanness, as if the writer desired to adapt his epistle as far as possible for general

use.

The 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.” 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) ver. II. In view of the corruption both of faith and manners 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.

CHAPTER XXIII

I, 2, AND 3 JOHN

"THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN "

WHO

HO wrote it.-This epistle is quoted by two of the Fathers who had been disciples of the Apostle John, viz. Polycarp and Papias. It is also recognised, and quoted, as John's by Irenæus, who had been a disciple of Polycarp. It is freely quoted by Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian; it is referred to in the Mura. torian Fragment, and it is one of the books contained in the old Syriac 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 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 as forming a postscript to the Gospel.

To whom written.—In all probability it was addressed in the first instance to the Churches of Asia,

1 E.g. cf. i. 1, John i. 1, 14, xx. 27; i. 2, John iii. 11; i. 3, John xvii. 21; i. 4, John xvi. 24; i. 5, 6, John i. 5, iii. 21, viii. 12; ii. 11, John xii. 35; iii. 14, John v. 24; iv. 9, John i. 14, iii. 16; iv. 14, John iv. 42; v. 6, John xix. 34.

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