In what follows St. Jude piles metaphor on metaphor and epithet on epithet, in the effort to express his indignation and abhorrence. But we cannot say that "no doubt also in the comparisons which he employs he has an eye to the original intention of the love-feast." It is somewhat forced to say that the love-feast "was to have the blessing of the rain from heaven; it was meant to be a cause of much fruit in the whole Christian community." But assuming that "waterless clouds" and "fruitless trees" may be made to refer to the love-feasts, what are we to make of "wild waves" and "wandering stars" in that connexion? It is better to regard the subject of the love-feasts as ended, and to take the similes which follow as quite independent. These men are ostentatious, but they do no good. It was perhaps expected that their admission to the Church would be a great gain to Christendom; but they are as disappointing as clouds that are carried _past_ (παραφερόμεναι) by winds without giving any rain; and in the East that is one of the most grievous among common disappointments.
How the framers of the Authorized Version came to perpetrate such a contradiction in terms as "trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit," it is not easy to see. No earlier English version is guilty of it; nor the Vulgate (_arbores autumnales, infructuosæ_); nor Beza, with whom Calvin agrees (_arbores emarcidæ, infrugiferæ_); nor Luther (_kahle unfruchtbare Bäume_). The Greek (δένδρα φθινοπωρινά) means literally "autumn-withering trees;" _i.e._ just at the time when fruit is expected they wither and are without fruit. The parable of the barren fig-tree (Luke xiii. 6-9) is perhaps in St. Jude's mind. The epithets form a natural climax--withering in autumn, fruitless, twice dead, rooted up. These profligates were twice dead, because they had returned after baptism to the death of sin: the end of such men is that they shall be rooted out at the last (Ps. xxx. 28; lii. 5; Prov. ii. 22). When he calls them "wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shames," St. Jude is perhaps thinking of the words of Isaiah: "The wicked are like the troubled sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt" (lvii. 20). But the wording of the Septuagint is utterly different from that which we have here; it is the thought that is similar.
What are we to understand by "wandering stars"? Not planets, nor comets, neither of which either _seem_ to wander while one looks at them, or _do_ wander, in St. Jude's sense, as a matter of fact. Both have their orbits, to which they keep with such regularity that their movements can be accurately predicted; so that they are symbols rather of Christian lives than of the course of the ungodly. Much more probably St. Jude means "falling stars," or "shooting stars," which seem to leave their place in the heavens, where they are beautiful and useful, and to wander away into the darkness, to the confusion and dismay of those who observe them. Thus understood, the simile forms a natural transition to the prophecy of Enoch which follows. St. Jude's thoughts have once more gone back to the fallen angels in the _Book of Enoch_. Angels, like stars, have a path to keep, and those who keep it not are punished. "I saw the winds which cause the orb of the sun and of all the stars to set.... I saw the path of the angels.... I perceived a place which had neither the firmament of heaven above it, nor the solid ground underneath it; neither was there water above it, nor anything on wing; but the spot was desolate. And there I saw seven stars, like great blazing mountains, and like spirits entreating me. Then the angel [Enoch's guide] said, This place, until the consummation of heaven and earth, will be the prison of the stars and the host of heaven. The stars which roll over fire are those which transgressed the commandment of God" (xviii. 6, 7, 13-16). In another terrible place he sees stars bound together, and is told that these are "the stars which have transgressed," and that "this is the prison of the angels," in which "they are kept for ever" (xxi. 2, 3, 5, 6). These extracts make it highly probable that when St. Jude compares the ungodly to "wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever," he is thinking once more of the "angels which left their proper habitation," who are "kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day" (ver. 6). After this return to the ideas contained in the _Book of Enoch_, the quotation of the prophecy comes quite naturally; and all the more so because, as Irenæus indicates, Enoch forms a splendid contrast to the fallen angels: they lost their heavenly habitation by displeasing God, whereas he was taken up to heaven for pleasing Him. His words show that he was acquainted with the _Book of Enoch_, and accepted it as trustworthy: "But Enoch also without circumcision, by pleasing God, although he was a man, discharged the office of ambassador to angels, and was translated, and is preserved even until now as a witness of the just judgment of God: while angels by transgression fell to earth for judgment; but a man by pleasing Him was translated for salvation" (_Hær._ IV. xvi. 2). Having compared the profligates to the stars, or angels, who fell from heaven to earth, St. Jude passes on readily to quote the warning of one who was taken up from earth to heaven.