OVERVIEW: Jude’s main purpose in writing was to combat false teaching in the church, and it is in this section that the parallels with 2 Peter are most obvious. No other foundation is laid than the common faith (BEDE) once for all delivered to the saints (HILARY OF ARLES), which must be contended for against determined opposition (OECUMENIUS, THEOPHYLACT). This comes from godless persons who twist Scripture wickedly, who have secretly come into the church (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA) pretending to preach the gospel (DIDYMUS). Their judgment was decreed long ago (ANDREAS), and they have condemned themselves by their actions (BEDE). They pervert grace into licentiousness (BEDE) and deny the one Lord (OECUMENIUS). Jude writes to remind those who have already been fully informed (BEDE). Those who sin nowadays cannot expect anything better than the fate that befell those who sinned long ago (OECUMENIUS). Those whom God delivered from Egypt he afterward destroyed if they did not believe (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, DIDYMUS, ANDREAS).
The fallen angels are evil not in their origin but in their failure to hold to their origin (PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS, HESYCHIUS). They are being kept until they are thrown into the ultimate fire and bound in those chains (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, BEDE) that cannot be seen because of the darkness (ANDREAS). The unnatural lust in which the Sodomites indulged was homosexuality, wrong because it cannot lead to procreation. If God destroyed them, regardless of their earlier state of blessedness, how will he spare us if we act in an ungodly and lustful way (OECUMENIUS)?
The collectors of these catenae were aware that Marcion and Arius and Nestorius were not the direct object of Jude’s admonitions. Rather the premise is that Jude was already aware of the tendency to certain heresies that would have correspondences with those that would emerge later (ANDREAS, OECUMENIUS, THEOPHYLACT).
The Fathers did not hesitate to expand as much as they were able on the various enemies of God’s truth who appear in the Old Testament and whom Jude mentions here. They were particularly fascinated by the story of Michael and also by the prophecy of Enoch. Jude’s allusion to Michael’s contention with the devil for the body of Moses (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, PETER CHRYSOLOGUS) may have had its source in Zechariah (BEDE). Anthony’s vision of this incident is recollected (ANDREAS).
The usual connection between false teaching and immoral living is brought out clearly throughout this section. The Fathers lost no opportunity to rub this correlation in with respect to the heretics of their own time. These deluded people imagine that their lusts and terrible desires are good (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA). They defile the flesh (AN-DREAS) and like sleepwalkers stumble from one thing to another (OECUMENIUS). Jude is not content to compare them with the sin of Adam (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA) and the fratricide of Cain but adds Balaam, who went out to curse God’s people for the sake of money. Korah is mentioned because he seized a teaching authority that God had not granted to him (ANDREAS). Grumblers are people who mutter against others under their breath, whereas malcontents are those who are always looking for ways in which they can attack and disparage everything and everybody (OECUMENIUS). Jude’s metaphors of stars, clouds, trees and waves point toward the animal-like behavior of people, their wickedness and corruption (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, DIDYMUS, AN-DREAS). Despite objections (AUGUSTINE), Enoch deserves to be included in the canon because of its author, its antiquity and the way in which it has been used (BEDE), and particularly because of this passage that Jude takes from Enoch (TERTULLIAN).
PRESERVE THE HARMONY OF SCRIPTURE. ORIGEN: If we wish woodenly to preserve unchanged the good things once given to the saints and will not adapt the events of the historical account, we will by such action appear to do something like what the heretics do, by not preserving the harmony of the narrative of the Scriptures from beginning to end. COMMENTARY ON JOHN 10.290.1
THE FAITH ONCE FOR ALL DELIVERED. HILARY OF ARLES: The faith was first delivered to these people by the apostle Paul, who said: “No other foundation can anyone lay, than the one which is already laid.”2 INTRODUCTORY COMMENTARY ON JUDE.3
OF OUR COMMON SALVATION. BEDE: All God’s chosen people share one common salvation, one faith and one love of Christ. ON JUDE.4
CONTEND FOR THE FAITH. OECUMENIUS: Jude exhorts those who have accepted Christ as their Savior and believed in him to go on struggling. They must not be corrupted by an ungodly mind, but rather they must discipline themselves and show greater dedication to this task. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.5
THE PURPOSE OF THE LETTER. THEOPHYLACT: Here Jude reveals what the purpose of his letter is. He is concerned for the salvation of those to whom he is writing and is afraid that in their naiveté they might be seduced by false teachers. In order to combat them, Jude will go on to expose their teachings. Peter had already done the same, but now Jude would give them a fuller exposition. Both Peter and Paul had predicted that such people would appear in the church, and even Christ himself had said: “Many will come in my name and will lead many astray.”6 COMMENTARY ON JUDE.7
THOSE WHO TWIST SCRIPTURE. DIDYMUS THE BLIND: There are some godless men who twist Scripture wickedly and who have come into the church, pretending to preach the gospel. Their judgment was decreed long ago, and they have condemned themselves by their actions. As a result, they have been handed over to their impure lusts. By their great ungodliness they have turned the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ into wantonness, and by their wickedness even people who have been called by the gospel have denied the one Lord Jesus Christ. It is in order to win them back that Jude goes on to talk of what God did in the past to people who behaved in that way. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.8
ADMISSION SECRETLY GAINED. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: These words were written about those who, after attributing the glory of sonship only to the Word begotten of God the Father, say that another son of the seed of David and Jesse has been united with him and been given a share in the sonship and in the glory proper to God. LETTERS 55.41.9
DESIGNATED FOR THIS CONDEMNATION. ANDREAS: Jude means that their condemna-tion was predestined, for even the betrayal of Judas had been foretold. Here he is talking about the Simonians, for they are gluttonous and intemperate, pretending to teach godliness so that they can worm their way into people’s houses. CATENA.10
THEY PERVERT THE GRACE OF OUR GOD. BEDE: The grace of our Lord has softened the hard edges of the law, which prescribed such things as stoning and burning for various infractions. Our Lord, however, relaxed these rules and made it possible to purge sins by making reparations and by giving alms. But now, says Jude, these men have taken this relaxation to the point of license and sin all the more boldly when they think that they are not going to be punished for doing so. ON JUDE.11
THEY DENY OUR ONLY MASTER AND LORD. OECUMENIUS: If those of us who have received the incarnate Word say that he is someone other than the one who was with the Father from all eternity and in the last days was born of Mary, are we not denying that he is our one Lord and master? For there is but one Lord Jesus according to the union of divinity and humanity. He was the Word of God and God before all ages, and from the beginning of his conception in the womb of the holy virgin he added human flesh to the glory of his divinity. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.12
PUNISHMENT FOR THE SAKE OF CONVERSION. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: God wanted to teach these people by punishing them. Therefore in the present age they are punished and perish for the sake of those who are being saved until the time when they too are converted. ADUMBRATIONS.13
THOSE WHO DID NOT BELIEVE. DIDYMUS THE BLIND: When Moses delivered the people from Egypt, all those who did not believe perished. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.14
AFTERWARD DESTROYED. ANDREAS: Jude shows that although God led his people out of Egypt, they turned away from him, and for that reason he gave them over to destruction if they would not repent. CATENA.15
ONCE FULLY INFORMED. BEDE: The people to whom Jude is writing have already heard all the hidden mysteries of the faith and have no need to hear anything further from subsequent teachers, as if what they might teach is somehow holier than what they have already learned. ON JUDE.16
DISOBEDIENCE PUNISHED. OECUMENIUS: Jude writes this in order to counter the heresies of the Nicolaitans, the Valentinians and the Marcionites.17 He shows that the author of the Old and of the New Testaments is one and the same God. It is not, as those heretics claimed, that there was one God of the Old Testament, who was cruel and vindictive, and another God of the New Testament, who is mild and forgiving. At the same time he reminds us that those who sin nowadays cannot expect anything better than the fate which befell those who fled Egypt so long ago. For at that time God, in his great power and because of the oath which he had sworn to their ancestors, delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt. But those among them who disobeyed did not go unpunished. The fact that God had blessed their ancestors was of no benefit to them at that point. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.18
KEPT IN ETERNAL CHAINS. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Jude gives the name chains to the loss of that honor in which the angels had stood and the lust for worldly things which had overcome them and taken away any desire to be converted. ADUMBRATIONS.19
THEIR ORIGINAL SOURCE. PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS: If devils are called evil, it is not in respect of their created being, since they owe their origin to the Good and were recipients of a good being. Rather it is because being is lacking to them by virtue of their inability, as Scripture puts it, to hold on to their original source. ON THE DIVINE NAMES 4.23.20
IRONIC DESTINY. HESYCHIUS: Who can understand God’s love for his people or figure out the truth just by his own reasoning? For because of the truth he did not spare the angels who sinned, but on account of his kindness toward us he has allowed harlots and publicans into his kingdom. CATENA.21
FALLEN ANGELS KEPT IN CHAINS. ANDREAS: They are being kept until they are thrown into the ultimate fire and bound in those chains which cannot be seen because of the darkness. That he has kept them for the coming judgment can be seen from what Peter has written.22 CATENA.23
UNTIL THE JUDGMENT. BEDE: The Holy Spirit convicts the world of the judgment by which the ruler of this world has been judged, in these words of the apostle Jude. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 2.11.24
UNNATURAL LUST. OECUMENIUS: The unnatural lust in which the Sodomites indulged was homosexuality, which is wrong because it cannot lead to procreation. Jude mentions them in order to point out that if God destroyed them, regardless of their earlier state of blessedness, how will he spare us if we act in an ungodly and lustful way? However well-disposed and kind he may be toward us, he is still the righteous God, and because of his righteousness he does not spare those who have sinned against him. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.25
IN THEIR DREAMINGS. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: These deluded people imagine that their lusts and terrible desires are good and pay no attention to what is truly good and beyond all good. ADUMBRATIONS.26
NOXIOUS TEACHINGS. ANDREAS: Jude calls them “dreamers” because they have no idea of the truth but fantasize as if they were dreaming and concoct doctrines full of impiety. They say that our flesh, that is to say, our body, is the work of the devil and blaspheme the lordship and glory of the Holy Trinity, accepting the Father as the eternal and uncreated One but reducing the Son and the Holy Spirit to the status of creatures made in time. These are the noxious teachings of Marcion and Arius, which explains why the apostle expresses himself so sharply against them.27 They do not confess that there is one God, Maker of both the visible and the invisible worlds, but they deify matter and darkness and detest the flesh. Jude condemns these people, even to the point of saying that they have polluted their mind and their entire being. CATENA.28
LIKE SLEEPWALKERS. OECUMENIUS: It is worth noting here that Jude does not spare us the details of these people’s sin, which he attributes to the fact that they are deluded by a kind of dreaming. Those who do such things have lost their powers of reason and act as if they were sleepwalkers, stumbling from one thing to another. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.29
MICHAEL CONTENDED WITH THE DEVIL. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: This proves that Moses was taken up into heaven. The one who fought with the devil as our guardian angel is here called Michael. ADUMBRATIONS.30
THE BURIAL OF MOSES. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS: The angels were present at the death of Moses, and God himself took care of his burial. SERMONS 83.31
ANTHONY’S VISION. ANDREAS: Here Jude shows that the Old Testament agrees with the New and that they were both given by the same God. For the devil objected, claiming that the body was his because he is the lord of matter. . . . But Michael would not accept this and brought on the devil a punishment worthy of his blasphemy, though he abandoned him to the discretion of his own master. For when God brought Moses to the mount of transfiguration, the devil said to Michael that God had broken his promise, because he had sworn not to do such a thing. Michael is said to have taken care of the burial of Moses, and the devil is supposed to have objected to this. God then came to the rescue and wanted to show those who at that time saw only a very little that eventually our souls would be changed and we would all ascend into heaven. But the devil and the evil spirits with him wanted to cut off the way to heaven and tried both to do their evil deeds and at the same time weaken the righteous by this angelic warfare. This is what the blessed Antony saw in his vision. CATENA.32
SEARCHING FOR JUDE’S SOURCES. BEDE: It is not easy to see what part of Scripture Jude got this tale from, though we do find something like it in Zechariah, who says: “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.”33 However, it is easy enough to see that in the Zechariah passage, Joshua wanted the people of Israel to be set free from their captivity in Babylon, and Satan resisted this. But when it was that Michael fought with the devil over the body of Moses is unknown. There are, however, some people who say that God’s people were called the “body of Moses,” because Moses was a part of that people, and if this is the case, it may be that in saying this Jude is referring to the whole nation. But whatever the case may be, here is what we have to learn from this incident: if the archangel Michael refrained from cursing the devil and dealt gently with him, how much more should we mere mortals avoid blaspheming, especially as we might offend the majesty of the Creator by an incautious word. ON JUDE.34
THEY ACT BY INSTINCT. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Jude here refers to those who eat, drink, indulge in sexual activity and do other things which are common to animals who lack the faculty of reason. ADUMBRATIONS.35
CONCOCTING BLASPHEMIES. ANDREAS: Not knowing the true doctrine, these people concoct blasphemies for themselves. They are so caught up in lust that they are no different from dumb animals. CATENA.36
THEY ABANDON THEMSELVES. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Because we have sinned according to the likeness of Adam, we share in the burden of Adam’s sin. ADUMBRATIONS.37
THEY DESERTED THE TRUTH. DIDYMUS THE BLIND: Since it has been declared that heretics have completely deserted the word of truth, Jude shows how they are subjected to different kinds of evil.38 COMMENTARY ON JUDE.39
OUTRAGEOUS UNGODLINESS. ANDREAS: These people are even fratricides, because what they teach kills the souls of those who are deceived by them. Look how he describes their outrageous ungodliness. He is not content to compare them with Cain but adds Ba-laam and Korah as well. Cain we understand from the above. Balaam he adds because Ba-laam went out to curse God’s people for the sake of money, even if God later turned his tongue around to the point where he blessed them instead. Korah is mentioned because he seized a teaching authority which God had not granted to him. CATENA.40
WATERLESS CLOUDS, TWICE DEAD. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: “Clouds without water” are those who do not have the divine and fruit-bearing Word in them. They are twice dead: Once, because they sinned by transgressing, and again when they were handed over to the punishments foreordained by God for them. A person may be said to be dead even when he is alive but not enjoying his inheritance. ADUMBRATIONS.41
FRUITLESS TREES. DIDYMUS THE BLIND: These people may say that they will bear fruit, but they are lying because they are incapable of doing that. The reason is that they are thorns and weeds, and trees without any fruit at all. They are fit for nothing except to be thrown into the fire. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.42
THE METAPHORS OF STARS, CLOUDS, WAVES AND TREES. ANDREAS: The apostle’s words about these men who will not be pardoned have to be understood metaphorically. For he is not talking about stars and clouds, waves and trees, though he uses them as ex-amples, because what they have they have by nature, whereas these men have the same things by deliberate choice. For waterless clouds which are blown about by the winds are not punished, nor are fruitless trees which just die. Wild waves have nothing to be ashamed of either, because they are mindless and devoid of sense. Likewise, the stars we call planets do not inherit the darkness—sinful people do! The ones whom Jude is talking about are like wandering planets which are going along the pathway which is diametrically opposed to virtue. The darkness is reserved for them, not as stars but as men. For Jude’s point has nothing to do with stars or clouds or waves, but rather it is concerned with the animal-like behavior of men, their wickedness and corruption. CATENA.43
BLEMISHES ON YOUR LOVE FEASTS. BEDE: Those who sin are blemished, because the crime itself is the blemish which contaminates the one who commits it. Likewise Jude calls heretics blemishes because not only do they eat and drink their way to damnation but they also lead others along the same path. ON JUDE.44
A MISERABLE LIFE. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: In these words Jude describes the life of worldly people, who will come to an unhappy end. ADUMBRATIONS.45
WANDERING STARS. HILARY OF ARLES: These people are called wandering stars because they do not follow the sun of truth. INTRODUCTORY COMMENTARY ON JUDE.46
KILLING THEMSELVES A SECOND TIME. ANDREAS: These are people who by their wicked life and ungodliness have killed their souls with false doctrines. Before they believed, they were dead in their ungodliness, but when they turned to the gospel they found life. However, they gave themselves up again to ungodliness and lust, thereby killing themselves a second time. How can someone who is this guilty, doing evil and living in ungodliness and lust, ever find stability or roots in such a topsy-turvy life? CATENA.47
THE STATUS OF ENOCH’S WRITINGS. TERTULLIAN: Since Enoch in the same book tells us of our Lord, we must not reject anything at all which genuinely pertains to us. Do we not read that every word of Scripture useful for edification is divinely inspired48? As you very well know, Enoch was later rejected by the Jews for the same reason that prompted them to reject almost everything which prophesied about Christ. It is not at all surprising that they rejected certain Scriptures which spoke of him, considering that they were destined not to receive him when he spoke to them himself.49 But we have a witness to Enoch in the epistle of Jude the apostle. ON THE DRESS OF WOMEN 3.3.50
WHETHER ENOCH IS A PROPHET. AUGUS-TINE: Does not the canonical epistle of Jude the apostle openly declare that Enoch spoke as a prophet? It is true that his alleged writings have never been accepted as authoritative, either by Jews or Christians, but that is because their extreme antiquity makes us afraid of handing out as authentic works those which may be forgeries. THE CITY OF GOD 18.38.51
WHETHER ENOCH IS APOCRYPHAL. BEDE: The book of Enoch, from which this quotation is taken, belongs to the Apocrypha, not because the sayings of that prophet are of no value or because they are false but because the book which circulates under his name was not really written by him but was put out by someone else who used his name. For if it were genuine, it would not contain anything contrary to sound doctrine. But as a matter of fact it contains any number of incredible things about giants, who had angels instead of men as fathers, and which are clearly lies. Indeed, it was precisely because Jude quotes him that for a long time his letter was rejected by many as being uncanonical. Nevertheless it deserves to be included in the canon because of its author, its antiquity and the way in which it has been used, and particularly because this passage which Jude takes from Enoch is not in itself apocryphal or dubious but is rather notable for the clarity with which it testifies to the true light. ON JUDE.52
UNGODLY DEEDS, AN UNGODLY WAY. OECUMENIUS: The ungodly differ from sinners in that an ungodly person is someone who has sinned against God, whereas a sinner is someone who departs from the path of righteousness in matters to do with his behavior in this life. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.53
LOUD BOASTERS. ANDREAS: These people have no confidence in their own teaching. For how can it not be dangerous to spread it with such wickedness and blasphemy? CATENA.54
GRUMBLERS AND MALCONTENTS. OECUMENIUS: Grumblers are people who mutter against others under their breath, whereas malcontents are those who are always looking for ways in which they can attack and disparage everything and everybody. COMMENTARY ON JUDE.55