Testimonia Veterum (Jude)
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Jerome
De uir. ill. iv., "Judas frater Jacobi paruam quae de septem catholicis est epistolam reliquit. Et quia le libro Enoch, qui apocryphus est, in ea assumit testimonia a plerisque reiicitur: tamen auctoritatem uetustate iam et usu meruit et inter sanctas computator."
Eusebius
H.E. ii. 23.25: Here Eusebius gives it as his own opinion that Jude was νοΦοσ, on the ground that few of the ancients mentioned it, that is to say, quoted it by name. But he admits that some of the ancients had done so, and that it was regarded as genuine by very many Churches.
H.E. iii. 25.3: Here Eusebius ranks Jude in the number of ton antilegomenon gnorimon d'oun omos tois pollois, and expressly distinguishes writing of this class from the notha.
H.E. vi. 13.6, 14.1: Clement quoted Jude and commented upon it in the Hypotyposes.
Didymus of Alexandria
Comments on Jude, and defends it against those who questioned the authority of the Epistle on the ground of the use therein made of apocryphal books. Mignes, xxxix. 1811-1818, Forschungen, iii. 97.
Synod of Antioch
Eus. H.E. vii. 30.4: The bishops speak of Paul of Samosata as ton kai ton theon ton eautou arnoumenou, kai ton pistin, en kai autos proteron eiche, me thulaxautos. Some MSS. insert kai Kurion before arnoumenou: and if this reading could be guaranteed (it is rejected by Heinichen), we might find here a reference to Jude 1:4 where KLP have ton monon despoten theon kai Kurion emon Iesoun Christon arnoumenoi. But this reading again is doubtful.
Origen
Origen treats Jude much as he treats 2 Peter. He acknowledges that there were doubts, but does not appear to have felt them himself. He was attracted to the Epsitle by that very feature which repelled others: it's angelology. The title apostle is given to Jude only in the Latin version of Origen.
Clement of Alexandria
Commented on Jude in his Hypotyposes. The substance of his commentary is still extant in the Latin Adumbrationes. Wescott, with justice, regards the latter part of this Adumbration, from immaculatos autem, as an interpolation due to Cassiodorus, and in the former part the words sic etiam peccato Adae subiacemus secundum peccati similtudinem can hardly be genuine, but the rest is not open to suspicion.
Tertullian
De cultu fem. i. 3. His words seem to imply that the Epsitle was known to his readers, and therefore current in a Latin translation. It should be added that it has no place among the books contained in the Latin antiqua translatio referred to by Cassiodorus. The Epistle is also omittedin the Canon Mommsenianus, and African catalogue of about 350AD, but is included in the list of canonical Scriptures set forth by the third Council of Carthage.
The Muratorianum
Accepts Jude, but mentions it in a manner which implies that it was doubted by some.
Theophilus of Antioch
Only in Jude (not in Enoch) are the planets a type of fallen man.
Athenagoras
There is a clear reference to Jude in Suppl. xxiv: The good angels emeinan eph ois autous epoiesen kai dietaxen o Theos, but others ton peri to troton stereoma (these are the planets whose place is the first heaven below the aplanes sphaira) fell through lust. They are the angels on doxai ou mikrai.
Barnabas
ii. 10 cf. Jude 1:3f. Pareisdusis does not occur in the Greek Bible; pareisdune is found only in Jude. It is just possible that Barnabas was thinking of Jude.
There can be little doubt that Athenagoras knew Jude, and the references to Polycarp will bear some weight. Above that time it must be allowed that the evidence is scanty and shadowy. There is less to produce than in the case of 2 Peter, but Jude is less interesting and much shorter. The testimony of Athenagoras is sufficient to carry back the date of Jude as high as the early years of the second century; if we accept the witness of Polycarp we must proceed still further, and there is nothing to prevent us from ascribing the Epistle even to the first century.
The most serious points in the case against Jude are the omission of the Epistle by the editors of the Peshito, and the fact that its authenticity was doubted in the time of Origen. It is possible that the omission and the doubt are connected, and that both may be accounted for by the same reason, namely, the use made in the Epistle of apocryphal writings. Certainly this was one reason for its rejection, as we learn from Jerome and Didymus, and it may very well have been the only one. We may consider this point in some little detail.
It has been maintained by Hoffman, Weisse, Volkmar, and others that Enoch did not exist, at any rate in its complete form, before the beginning of the second century AD, and this contention has formed one of the main grounds for ascribing a still later date to the Epistle of Jude. Charles, however, explains and justifies the conclusion that of the six elements which may be distinguished in Enoch, not one is later than the Christian era.
Enoch was used by the author of the Assumption of Moses, writing about the time of the Christian era, in the Book of Jubilees (before 70 AD), in the Apocrypha of Baruch (not longer after 70 AD), in 4 Ezra (between 81 and 96 AD), and also in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. It was known also to many of the writers of the New Testament. Charles gives a list of passages which attest to this fact. They abound in the Apocalypse, but they are to be discovered also in the Pauline Epistles, 1 and 2 Peter, Hebrews, Acts, and even the Gospels.
Barnabas cites Enoch three times, twice as scripture; and the book was also used by Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tertullian, and Clement. Irenaeus also knew Enoch, but it is to be noticed that on the crucial point he refuses to follow its teaching. The reason why the angels sinned, he tells us, must be left to God (ii. 28. 7). They sinned before they fell to earth (iv. 16. 2); hence lust was the consequence and punishment, not the cause of their fall. Origen doubted the inspiration of the book, but does not absolutely reject it; he was attracted to it by its promise of mysteries, but he believed that the angels fell through pride.
Somewhat later Anatolius of Laodicea (bishop in 269) refers to Enoch for an astronomical point. From this time the book fell into disrepute. Chrysostom treated the account therein given of the fall of the angels as blasphemy (Hom. In Gen. vi. 1). Jerome called Enoch apocryphal. Augustine pronounced strongly against it on the ground of its angelology (de Ciu. dei xv. 23. 4) and Photius blames Clement of Alexandria in very severe terms for adopting its account of the angelic sin (Cod. cix).
In short, at the time when Barnabas wrote, Enoch was held to be an inspired book; it retained this reputation more or less throughout the second century, and from that date onwards was more or less emphatically condemned. And the ground of condemnation was the attribution of carnal lust to heavenly beings.
More than one inference may be drawn from these facts. It is certain that the authors of 2 Peter and Jude would hold much the same opinion of Enoch; both would regard the book with high respect. Hence it is impossible to fix the relative dates of the two Epistles by that Apokryphenscheu, or the comparative reserve in the use of Apocrypha, which some German scholars detect in 2 Peter. Indeed, if it could be admitted that the later of the two was likely to be more discreet in his use of Enoch, the fact would tell in favour of the priority of 2 Peter, who may be thought to adopt the objectionable interpretation of Genesis 6, while Jude rather avoids it.
Again, the offence of Jude was not so much that he made use of Enoch, as that he actually quoted the book by name. Some, like Tertullian, would regard this fact as canonising Enoch; others, again, would regard it as condemning Jude. There must have been many men of authority even in the second century who took the latter view. For the Enochian account of the fall of the angels was not only repulsive to devout minds, but lent itself with great facility to more than one of the Gnostic systems.
Here we may find a very probable reason for the rejection of Jude by the editors of the Peshito. It is precisely in Syria, where the extravagances of Jewish angelology were most familiar, that we should expect to find the strongest reaction against them.
Jude’s use of the Assumption of Moses also gave great offence, as we see from Didymus, not because of the source of what he says about the archangel, but because of its nature.
Finally, it may be said that the use of Jewish apocalypses form a bond of relationship between 1 and 2 Peter and Jude. All three employ them in much the same way, a way that is different from that in which they are employed in other books of the New Testament, in order to give concrete details of Jesus’ ministrations in the world of spirits, or of the history of the angels. If we compare their utterances with what we know from other sources of Jewish speculations on topics of this nature, we shall see that all three exercise great reserve. Jude goes slightly further than the other two, but there is no comparable difference. This feature may be taken as an indication that all three documents belong to nearly the same date, that the authors of all three were Jews who still bore legible traits of their Jewish education, yet at the same time exhibited that delicacy of spiritual perception which distinguishes the Church from the sectarians.
