branches of the Church were exposed. The inscription certainly is in the most general terms, and the errors are such as may ha.ve prevailed more or less in different parts oI the Church. But even when it is held to be a Oatholio Epistle in the broadest sense of the term, it is usually admitted that the writer, while he meant it for all Christians without distinction may have had some particular circle in his eye, and this is very large!; taken to be the Christian community in Palestine. The definiteness of the terms strongly favours the idea that a definite Church or group of Churches must hava•been in view. Bnt the question remains-Where are these to be found ? In Palestine, say Credner, Keil, and others, because the Epistle, abounding as it does in allusions to events in the history of Israel, presup- poses Jewish-Christian readers, and only in Palestine itself were distinctively Jewish-Christian Churches to be found at the period. In Syria, say others, or in the licentious Corinthian territory, or even in Egypt, in which land the physical phenomena are supposed to correspond remarkably with those appearing in the imagery of this letter. The question is really one between Jewish-Christian and Gentile-Christian readers. There is undoubtedly much to favour the idea that the former are in view, the books and con- ditions referred to, as well as the historical incidents, being all Jewish. Bat, on the other hand, it may be said that the Jewish colouring of the Epistle is sufficiently explained by the fact that the writer was originally a Jew, without making it necessary to suppose that the readers must have been the same. Further, the evils dealt with are of the kind to which converts from heathenism would be more liable than converts from Judaism. Hence there is some probability in the supposition that the Churches of Asia Minor are particularly in view. On these Churches Paul had expended much labour. In these he had set forth with great definiteness his doctrine of grace. In these he had had cause to defend the liberty of the gospel against gainsayers, and to meet a. variety of errors. And these were the Churches in which such immoral perversion of the Pauline doctrine of grace, and such perils alike to truth and to life, as are dealt with in this Epistle, might most naturally arise. In this case Jude's Epistle would be a companion, not to that of his brother James, bat to the Epistles of Peter, to the second of which it exhibits so many points of resemblance as at once to suggest that the same circle of readers and the same evils were in the view of both.
VII. THE ERRORISTS OF THl!I EPISTLE. It is a question of great interest who are meant by the men who "crept in una.wares." Their entrance into the Church is the occasion of Jude's writing, and it is against them that he hurls so many terms of terror. It is obvious, therefore, that the view taken of what these men were, whether doctrinal heretics, practical libertines, or what else, will affect our whole reading of the Epistle. Many, both in ancient and in modern times, have been of the opinion yjjj INTRODUCTION TO
that these insidions enemies of the Church were some kind of heretical teachers; but there ho.s been no unanimity in identifying tbo particular kind. For the most part they ha.ve been regarded a.s one a.nd the same with those referred to in 2 Peter. This was the view of Luther n.nd Melanchthon, and it is still the view of many competent schola.rs; but the ba~is on which it rests is by no means secure. Not to speak of a.rguments, e,idently of a very precarious kind, which are taken from one or two phrases (sach as the clause, "the words spoken before," in ver. 17, a.nd the "separate themselves" in ver. 19), that basis is the likeness between Jude and 2 Peter. This likeness, it is said, extends not only to the broad outlines of the descriptions, but to many remarkable figures and turns of expression ; and as Peter certs.inly speaks of false teachers, Jude must be undcrst-0od to do the same. But this is met by the contention that 11, more carcfol inspection of the two lines of description shows that they have distinctions at least as remarkable as their resemblances. It is pointed out, for example, that the outstanding feature of the statement in 2 Pet. ii. 1 is not found in Jude, and that in 2 Pet. iii. 2 we have something quite different from what appears in the smaller Epistle. .Hence some, frankly recognizing these differences, hold that the errorists of Jude are to be identified rather with those of the Pastora.I Epistles-the "false teachers" of l Tim. iv. l; 2 Tim. iii. 1, etc. Others would fain discover them in the men who are in view in the Epistle to the Colossians; while one influential school asserts that they are Gnostics of the second-century type. The absence, howe,er, of any definite indication of the doctrines supposed to be taught, the difficulty of identifying the teachers with any known class, and the doubtful construction put upon two or three sentences which seem to favour some such view, are serious objections to this theory in any of its forms. Hence a considerable number of interpreters have been driven to conclude frr the opposite view-that the errorist~ in question are men of a certain manner of life, not of a certain type of doctrinal belief and teaching. But here egain we have more than one form of the theory. Some take the men to have been libertines pure and simple-men who allowed themselves the utmost licence of an immoral life, despising rule and authority, and cor- rupting the Church by their evil example and seductive influence. Thus put, however, the theory is too absolute, aud it overlooks some notable features of the Epistle. For such statements as those in vers. 4, 10, 18, 19, appear to point to men of the kind referred to in Rom. vi. 15-men who made the doctrine of grace an excuse for lasciviousness, and a plea,for hold- ing themselves subject to no external law of life, whether that of the Old Testament or that of Christ. Hence the safest conclusion is probably the intermediate position adopted by Weiss. These insidious foes to the purity of the Church were not indeed doctrinal theorists or wild speculators like the Gnostice, or professed teachers. They were in the first instance libertines in conduct, but at the same time men whose libertinism in life Lad its root in perverted views of Divine grace and Christian liberty. '!'HE GENERAL :EPISTLE OF JUDE. Ix