A Brighter Day Begins with His Word.

Plummer, Alfred • SECTION 154

_The Authenticity Of The Epistle Of St. Jude._

← The Expositor's Bible: The General Epistles of St. James and St. Jude

[102] _A plerisque rejicitur._ Possibly this means "is rejected by _very many_;" it certainly ought not to be rendered "is rejected by _most_." "Most" is the classical meaning of _plerique_; but in Tacitus it means no more than "very many" (_Hist._ iv. 84, etc.), and in Jerome and his contemporaries it need mean no more than "some." Thus in Jerome's letter to Dardamus (_Ep._ cxxix.) we have _licet plerique eam vel Barnabæ vel Clementis arbitrentur_ (of the Epistle to the Hebrews), where _plerique_ = the τινές of Eusebius and Origen (_H. E._ VI. xx. 3; xxv. 14).

[103] See the _Academy_ of September 21st, 1889, where he shows how much of the Fragment can be turned quite literally into Greek verse, and suggests that the εἰς πάσας τὰς γράφας, "Odes referring to all the Scriptures," mentioned among the works of Hippolytus whose titles are inscribed on his chair (see Kraus, _Real. Encykl. der Chris. Alterthümer_, I., pp. 661-64), refers to metrical compositions on the contents of the Old and New Testaments. The Fragment says respecting this Epistle, "Epistola sane Iude et superscrictio (_sic_) Iohannis duas in catholica habentur", where _superscrictio_ is a clerical error for _superscripti_, "the John mentioned above."

[104] The Genevan Version introduced this rendering. Previous versions either leave the meaning doubtful, "Judas of James," as Wiclif, or translate "James' _sonne_," as Tyndale and Cranmer. Luther also is for "son."

[105] These words are quoted from a commentary which the writer of this volume wrote in 1879 for Messrs. Cassell, in the _New Testament Commentary for English Readers_, edited by Bishop Ellicott (p. 505), of which, through the courtesy of the publishers, he is allowed to make use for the present work.

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