The case is somewhat different with the question of date. While external testimony is lacking, there is a certain measure of internal evidence to fall back upon, But even that is unfortunately very indeterminate. Little or nothing can be made of the referenc~s to apocryphal writings, the date of these writings themselves being so far from certain. Neither can any reliance be placed upon forms of expression which have been supposed to indicate an acquaintance with some of the Pauline Epistles. We should be on surer ground if it were possible to pronounce decisively on the relation in which Jude stands to 2 Peter. The resemblances between these two Epistles, in matter and in style, are numerous and striking. They are also of the kind to suggest that the one Epistle is indebted to the other, rather than that both borrow from a common stock. But it is extrnmely difficult to say which is prior. In support of the priority of J,ude, for example, it is said that his style is so much more nervous, original, and concentrated than tha.t of 2 Peter, that the latter seems a. weakened amplification of the former; that it is more likely that a. short Epistle should be extended by a laMr writer than that a longer Epistle should be condensed, and so forth. But then, with at least equal reason, it is argued, on behalf of the priority of 2 Peter, that that Epistle presents, .i~ the· form of predictions, certain evils which appear in Jude as actualities; that the arrangement of the matter is less artificial than in Jude; that there is a. richness of imagery, antithesis, and the like in the latter which ~akes it strange that 2 Peter, if later and dependent, should borrow so ).ittle of it and pass by so many of the finest points. In these circumstances it is no wonder that very different dates have J~een accepted. Renan, who discovers anti-Pauline feeling in the Epistle, "'9't!nld carry it as far back as ~.D. 54. Lardner puts it between 64 and 66. Others. would place it somewhere between 70 and 80, and some take it to ha.ve been written after all the apostles, save John, had died. The most probable conclusion seems to be that it was composed before A.D. 70, but how long before that year it is impossible to say. This idea of the date is supported by the general view which it offers of the state of the Church, the nature of the· evils dealt with, and the allusion to the teaching of the apostles, but more especially by the absence of all reference to the destruc- tion of Jerusalem. For if an event of such moment and one so pertinent to the subject in hand had ta.ken place before this Epistle was written, it is bard to believe that the writer could have £ailed to notice the fact, or have missed the opportunity of adding it to the list of the warnings which he takes from the dread judgments of God,
V. GENUINENESS AND CANONICITY.
No doubt appears to have been entertained by the early Church as to the genuineness of the Epistle. Opinions might waver for a time as to the position assignable to it in the Church, and as to the particular Jude who vi INTRODUCTION TO
wrot,e it. But there we.s no dispute a.bout its being the work of a Jude, the genuine work of the man from whom it professed to proceed. Even in IRter times few have been found to pronounce it fictitious or spurious. It is true that some recent critics have e.ttcmpted to make it out to be a product of the post-apostolic e.ge, and the.t several schole.re of considerable authority have regarded it as a protest against the Gnosticism of the second century. But its direct and unaffected style, the witness which it bears to the life of the Church, the type of doctrine which it exhibits, and, above all, the improbability that any forger would have selected a name comparatively so obscure as that of Jude under which to shelter himself, or indeed would have thought of constructing an Epistle of this kind at all, have won for it general acceptance as genuine. "Whatever may be our opinion as to Seoond Peter," it is justly remarked by 1Dr. Plummer, "sober criticism 't'equires us to believe that Jude was written by the man whose name it bears. To suppose that Jude is an assumed name is gratuitous." It is otherwise with its canonicity. It won its way to ecclesiastical rank by slow and uncertain steps. Doubts overhung its claims in early antiquity, and these have been revived from time to time with an access of force, notably at the period of the Reformation and in our own day. On the one hand, it was not included in the Peshito Syriao Version. It was 1..-nown, indeed, to Ephrrem, the most distinguished name in the Syrian Church of the fourth century. But there is little or no evidence of its rue in the Asiatic Churches up to the beginning of the fourth century. Eusebius classes it with the books which, though well known to many, were disputed. In another connection he speaks of it thus: "Not many of the ancients have mentioned the Epistle of Jude, which is also one of the seven Catholic Epistles. Nevertheless, we know that these, with the rest, are publicly used in most of the Churches." On the other hand, it is found in the Muratorian Canon (about A.D. 170), and in the Old Latin Version. It is referred to as the work of an apostle, or as Scripture, by such early writers as Clement of .Alexandria (about A.D. 190), Tertullian of Carthage (about A.D. 200), Origen (about A.D. 230), and Malchion of Antioch (about A..D. 270). It also obtained a place in the Laodicean Canon (A.D. 364), the Carthaginian Canon (A.D. 397), and subsequent lists. Some of these witnesses, however, indicate that its position was not quite certain, and Jerome mentions the fact that it quotes the apocryphal Book of Enoch as a reason for its being rejected in some quarters. Its brevity, its peculiar contents, and the circumstance that it makes no claim to apostolic author- ship, would no doubt also stand in the way of a. rapid, extensive, and unhesitating acceptance.
VJ. THE p ARTIES ADDRESSED, It has been alleged that there is nothing in the Epistle to limit it to any particular Church or Churches, but that it deals with dangers to which all THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE. vii