V. Object, Contents, and Errors inveirihed of/ainst. — The purpose which the writer had in view is stated by himself. After the inscription, he says that, intending to write "of the common salvation," he found himself, as it were, compelled to utter a solemn warning in de- fence of the faith, imperilled by the evil conduct of cor- rupt men (ver. 3). Possibly there was some observed outbreak which gave the occasion. The evil for a while had been worlving in secret — " certain men crept in un- awares" (ver. 4) — but now the canker showed itself. The crisis must be met promptly and resolutely. Therefore the writer denounces those who turned the grace of' (Jod " into lasciviousness," virtually denying God by dis- obeying his law. He alarms by holding out three ex- amples of such sin and its punishment^ — the Israelites that sinned in the wilderness; the angels that "kept not their first estate ;" and the foul cities of Sodom and Gomorrha (ver. 5-7). He next describes minutely the character of those whom he censures, and shows how of
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old they had been prophetically marked out as objects of deserved vengeance (ver. 8-lG). Then, turniiit^ to tlie faithful, he reminds them that tlie apostles had fore- warned them that evil men would rise in the Church (ver. 17-19); exhorts them to maintain their own stead- fastness (ver. 20, 21), and to do their utmost in rescuing others from contamination (ver. 22, 23) ; and concludes with an ascription of praise to him who alone could keep liis people from falling (ver. 24, 25). The whole was thoroughly applicable to a time when iniquity was abounding, and the love of many waxing cold (iMatt. xxiv, 12).
The design of such a tram of thought is obviously to put the believers to whom the epistle was addressed on their guard against the misleading efforts of certain per- sons to whose influence they were exposed. Who these persons were, or to what class of en'orists they belonged, can only be matter of conjecture. Some, indeed (De Wette, Scliwegler, Bleek), think the persons alluded to held no peculiar opinions, and were simply men of lax morals; but, from the manner in which the writer refers to them, it is evident that they were, to use the words of Dorner {Entnnckdungggesch. i, 104, E. T. i, 72), "not merelj'^ practically connipt, but teachers of error as well." Their opinions seem to have been of an antinomian character (vers. 4, 18, 19), but there is nothing to con- nect them, except in a very vague and distant way, with any of the later gnostic systems. The writer formally charges them with " denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ," language which De Wette ad- mits usually appUes to error of doctrine, but which here he, without any reason, would understand of feeling and conduct. The licentious courses in which they indulged led Clement of Alexandria to think that they were the prototypes of the Carpocratians and such like: "Of these, and such as these," he says," I think that Jude spoke prophetically in his epistle" {Strnm. iii,431, Sylb.) ; bat this does not imply that they had formed a system like that of the Carpocratians, but only that the notions and usages of the one adumbrated those of the other. Perhaps there have been in all r.gcs persons who have sought by pen-erted doctrine to gain a sanction for sen- sual indulgence, and such un('f>ubtedly were found dis- turbing the peace and corrupting the purity of the churches of Christ in different places as early as the second half of the 1st century. The persons against whom Jude writes were apparently of this class, but in their immorality the practical clement was more promi- nent than the speculative.
VI, Sti/le. — The main body of the epistle is well char- acterized by Alford {Gk. Test, iv, 147) as an impassioned invective, in the impetuous whirlwind of which the writer is hurried along, collecting example after exam- ple of divine vengeance on the ungodly ; heaping epi- thet upon epithet, and piling image upon image, and as it were, laboring for words and images strong enougl to depict the polluted character of the licentious apos- tates against whom he is warning the Church ; return- ing again and again to the sulrject, as though all Ian guage was insufficient to give an adequate idea of their profligacy, and to express his burning hatred of their perversion of the doctrines of the Gospel.
The epistle is said by De Wette {Einleit. ins N. T. p, 300) to be tolerably good Greek, though there are some peculiarities of diction which have led Schmid (Einleit. i, 314) and Bertholdt (vi, 3194) to imagine an Aramaic original.
VIL Belation bettreen the Epistle of Jude and 2 Peter. — The larger portion of this epistle (ver. 3-16) closely resembles in language and subject a part of the second Epistle of Peter (2 Pet. ii, 1-19). In both the heretical enemies of the (iospel are described in terms so similar as to preclude all idea of entire independence. Jude's known habit of quotation would seem to render the sup- position most probable that he has borrowed from Pe- ter, Dr. Davidson, however (fntrod. to the X. Test, iii, 507), maintains the priority of Jude. As Jude's Epistle