Adam negare non possumus, cum hoc in epistola canonica Judas apostolus dicat” (although the book as a whole has been justly excluded from the Canon).
Some modern writers have endeavoured to avoid the necessity of allowing that an apocryphal writing is quoted as authoritative in the Bible, by the supposition that the words quoted may have come down by tradition and have been made use of by the inspired writer, in- dependently of the book from which he is supposed to quote, or that they were uttered by immediate inspiration without any human as- sistance, or again, that the book of Enoch may be subsequent to that of Jude, and have borrowed from it. But the careful investigation of many scholars, as summed up by Charles, can leave little doubt in any candid mind as to the proximate dates, both of Enoch and of the Assumption. St. Jude does not put forward his account of the burial of Moses or the preaching of Enoch, as though it were something unheard of before. As regards the libertines described in the latter book, he uses the phrase προγεγραµµένοι, implying that he refers toa written prophecy. None of the early Fathers find a difficulty in supposing him to refer to a book which was not included in the Canon. Jews of that time were accustomed to accept rabbinical explanations or additions to Scripture as having authority. Thus St. Paul accepts the story of the Rock which followed the Israelites in their wanderings (1 Cor. x. 4), gives the names of the magicians who withstood Moses before Pharaoh (2 Tim. iii. 8), recognises the instrumentality of angels in the giving of the Law (Gal. iii. 19, cf. Heb. ii. 2, Acts vii. 53). So, too, Stephen speaks of Moses as learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts vii. 2); the author of the epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 37) alludes to the tradition as to the death of Isaiah (see Charles’ Ascension of Isaiah, pp. xlv. foll.), and James (ν. 17) limits the drought predicted by Elijah to 34 years.