Dating of Book of Jude

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Till recently it was held by many scholars that the Book of Enoch did not exist before the time of Barochba. This opinion has now been generally abandoned, and with it disappears one strong argument for the late date of the Epistle.

Pfleiderer and others maintained that the false teachers denounced in Jude were the Carpocratians. If this were true, we should be obliged to place the Epistle somewhere about the middle of the second century. But it is not really a tenable view.

As to the date of Carpocratianism we only know that the sect was in existence before the time of Hegesippus (Eus. H.E. iv. 22. 5) and of Irenaeus (i. 25, ii. 31-34). Carpocrates is said to have insisted on the unity of God, but to have taught that the world was made by evil angels. According to this statement of Irenaeus he was therefore a dualist, like all Gnostics. It is possible, however, that Irenaeus did not rightly apprehend the precise form of his teaching on this point. At any rate the doctrine of his son, Epiphanes, was quite different. Epiphanes based his moral system on the state of nature, which is divine, yet neither chaste nor honest. “God,” he said, “made the vines in common for all men; they reject neither the sparrow nor the thief.” The same rule applies to difference of sex. In all things the divine justice is koinonia met isotetos. Human law violates this natural equality of right, makes the thief, and makes the adulterer. Nature is divine, but law is devilish. In the fragments from the work of Epiphanes on Justice, preserved by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iii. 2), we are not told expressly who was supposed to be the author of law, but it was probably the adversary, the Devil. Jesus taught that we are to “free ourselves from the adversary” Lk 12:58. This is to be done by breaking all his rules, and completing the cycle of experience which he forbids. Those who have not attained in this way to perfect emancipation must return again to life in other bodies till they have found freedom (Iren. i. 25. 4).

It is not difficult to reconcile Epiphanes and Carpocrates, and it may probably be true that the Carpocratian dualism opposed not God and Nature, but Nature and Law. But Irenaeus tells us that according to Carpocrates the world itself was created by evil beings; and, though this may be a misconception, it is the view current among the Christian writers against Gnosticism, and would be that of Jude himself, if he lived at the time when this heresy was at work.

Some of the Gnostics did not desire to separate wholly from the Church, but this can hardly have been the case with the Carpocratians.

Whatever view we take of this extravagant sect, it is impossible to suppose that Jude had actually seen or heard of them. Carpocratianism was built on Stoicism and on the Republic of Plato, but Jude says not one word about philosophy. The sect practiced magic to show that they were masters over the evil spirits, believed in the transmigration of souls, possessed pictures or statues of Christ and the philosophers, which they crowned, or, in other words, worshipped, with equal honour. Some of them marked themselves with a brand on the right ear. They have nothing whatever in common with the men denounced by Jude except Antinomianism, and to find this error at work we have no need to look beyond the apostolic times.

Jülicher, however, is unwilling to admit this. The opponents denounced by Jude, he says (Einleitung, i. 180) “are not simply vicious and characterless Christians, who had perhaps fallen away in the persecution Jude 1:4, Jude 1:16, or even Jewish revolutionaries, but Antinomian Gnostics.” They are Gnostics because they call the catholics “psychic” Jude 1:19, regard the God of the Old Testament and His angels either as evil or as far inferior to the true God Jude 1:8ff, treat the violation of the Decalogue as a duty, and even practice unnatural vices Jude 1:8, Jude 1:23. Hence we must regard them as Carpocratians, or as Archontics, or as “a school of Gnostics which afterwards disappeared.”

Every word of this reasoning is disputable in the highest degree. But there is a sense in which we may accept the last of Jülicher alternative conclusions. These people may be called Gnostics, at the cost of a slight anachronism, in so far as they set reason (or the inner light) against Scripture, and “they afterwards disappeared” in this sense, that these early Antinomian movements, which had in themselves no principle except a gross misconception of Pauline freedom, were finally lost in the developed Gnosticism of the second century.

Jülicher maintains, further, that the author of Jude is shown to be a man of late date by his stiff orthodoxy verses (Jude 1:3, Jude 1:20), by his allusion to the time of the apostles as quite past (Jude 1:17), by his quotation of a Christian saying as written long ago (Jude 1:4), by his use of apocrypha, which is not in the apostolic manner. The general conclusion at which he arrives is that Jude must have written before 180 (on the ground of the external attestation), that we cannot fix the exact date between 100 and 180, but that it must have been rather early than late between these two limits, because the author evidently regards this outbreak of Gnostic godlessness as a new thing.

Here again every point is highly disputable. Jude’s use of apocrypha is certainly not later than that of Barnabas, and one of the reasons for which Harnack and others place 2 Peter after Jude is that the latter employs apocrypha more courageously, that is to say, more in the primitive manner, than the former. Again, Jude 1:17 need not be understood to imply that the apostolic age was quite past. Jude tells us that he himself was not an apostle; and this counts in his favour, for Tertullian gives him the title, and a second century forger would probably have done the same. The writer of this Epistle knew that the brother of James was not one of the Twelve. For the rest he bids his disciples “remember the words spoken before by the apostles” Jude 1:17. In 2 Peter the apostles appear as still active. From the words of Jude we may infer one of two things, either that they (or some of them) were dead, or that they were dispersed in such a way that their voice could not at the time be heard by those to whom the Epistle was directed. The latter supposition, as Dr. Chase thinks, will quite satisfy the requirements of the expression. Indeed it is hard to believe that a writer, who claimed to be the brother of James, yet was clever enough not to pretend to be an apostle, would betray himself by any very gross anachronism. Again, there is no reason for thinking that they words oi palai progegrammenoi in verse 4, refer to a Christian document; if there were, there would be strong grounds for holding, with Spitta and Zahn, that 2 Peter is the document in question. This Jülicher would not allow, and his Christian document is a mere fiction of the imagination. As to Jude’s orthodoxy, the same objective conception of “the faith” is found elsewhere in the New Testament, even in the Pauline Epistles (Gal 1:23, Gal 6:10, Rom 10:8); and, though Jude’s language is stern, his belief in the exclusiveness of the Christian creed is readily illustrated (Acts 4:12, Jn 3:18, Mt 3:12, Rev 21:8, Rom 10:9, 1Cor 16:22, Eph 2:3, Heb 10:29.

Dr. Zahn (Einleitung, ii. 83) infers from ver. 5 that Jerusalem had been destroyed at the time when Jude wrote; but this meaning can hardly be extracted from the passage. There is no allusion to persecution; at the time when the Epistle was written it is probable that none had occurred. Very little can be gathered as to the organisation of the Church. The writer clearly regards himself as responsible for the oversight of a group of communities ; and as in 2 Peter, the doxai are probably the presbyters who have the same officials seem to be alluded to in the phrase poimainontes eautous. This is the same state of things that we find in the Petrine Epistles, and it may be said with great confidence that, if Jude had been writing in the midst of the Gnostic controversy, he would certainly have said more about the position of the clergy. The adversaries whom he denounces are the same who appear in 2 Peter, and enough has been said about them in the Introduction to that Epistle.

Some help towards fixing the date would be gained, if we could settle the precise relationship of Jude to Jesus. Clement of Alexandria, following the very ancient tradition embodied in the Protevangelium of James, regarded him as the son of Joseph by a previous marriage (Adumb. in Ep. Judae ad initium). If we accept this view Jude was older than Jesus, though possibly not by many years, as he is named last or last but one of the brethren. And this view is commended not only by the peculiar form of Jude's address,—he seems to shrink from calling himself the Lord's brother, —but by the fact that the brethren on more than one occasion appear to have claimed a certain right to interfere with our Lord's freedom of action (Mt 12:46; Jn 7:3; indeed all the passages where Jesus' brethren are mentioned in the Gospels are most readily understood in the same way). But if this is so, and if Jude was born some six or seven years at least before the Christian era, we could not safely date the Epistle after 65 A.D. or thereabouts. Those who, while accepting the Epistle as authentic, would yet place it about So or 90 A.D., must face this as well as other difficulties.

Dismissing the theory that the Epistle is the work of a forger, we find the posterior limit of time in the probable duration of Jude's active powers. The anterior limit is given by 2 Peter. But there still remains a question as to the interval of time that may be supposed to have elapsed between the two Epistles.

It is not at all likely that this interval was considerable. In the first place, the circumstances which called forth the two Epistles are in all substantial features identical. But Antinomianism, or anarchism, is perpetually changing its shape. Even in its embryonic stage it is never the same for two moments together. We need only turn to the life of Luther, and read again the well-known history of his dealings with Carlstadt and Miinzer for an illustration. Before very long this void and formless anarchy takes shape, enunciates definite propositions, forms a school or conventicle. But neither St. Peter nor St. Jude mentions any distinct persons, or facts, or doctrines. They do not give so many details about the errors which they denounce as Colossians, or the Pastoral Epistles, or the Apocalypse. It is quite certain that they would have done so, if it had been in their power. If they are vague, it is for the obvious reason that they are obliged to be vague. They deal with this new heresy just as 1 Peter deals with persecution. There is as yet nothing very definite to lay hold of; the peril is inchoate, and their warning is like an alarm in the night; it is only known that there is an enemy. In five or ten years' time this state of things must have undergone a material change. Again, it is exceedingly difficult to believe that these moral disorders endured after the outbreak of the Neronian persecution :

"Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta Sanguinis exigni iactu compressa quiescunt."

Nor, again, is it easy to understand how St. Jude came to make so free and yet unacknowledged a use of 2 Peter after a lapse of time. Can we think that the previous Epistle had been forgotten, that by some miracle precisely the same state of things had recurred, that Jude happened to possess a copy of 2 Peter, and adapted it to his purpose without saying what he had done? This is not a plausible hypothesis.

The same difficulty recurs whichever Epistle we put first, and it is greatly aggravated if we regard both as forgeries. Between such forgeries we could hardly allow a smaller interval than thirty years. But if we are to date Jude about 125-130 and 2 Peter about 155-160, how did the latter succeed in imposing upon the learned Clement?

By far the easiest and most probable explanation of the facts is that which has already been propounded, that the errors denounced in both Epistles took their origin from Corinth, that the disorder was spreading, that St. Peter took alarm and wrote his Second Epistle, sending a copy to St. Jude with a warning of the urgency of the danger, and that St. Jude at once issued a similar letter to the Churches in which he was personally interested. In fact, both Epistles may be samples of a circular that was addressed to many groups of Churches at the same time. In this way we get a perfectly natural explanation of Jude 1:3, a most significant verse. The writer had evidently received a sudden alarm, which had obliged him to write one thing when he was purposing to writo quite another. The αναγκη arose from the arrival of 2 Peter.

Thus also we find an intelligible explanation of the resemblance-and of the difference between the two Epistles. In the second century a number of bishops sent round a circular against Montanism (Eus. H. E. v. 19), signed with their names. So the apostles in the early years of the Church sent round a circular in the matter of the circumcision dispute. Why should not the Corinthian disorders have called forth a similar manifesto? There may have been an apostolic meeting on the subject, or, if for any reason a meeting was not possible, a model epistle might be circulated, which each apostle or apostolic man would be at liberty to modify, within reasonable limits, according to his personal inclination. This is certainly what would be done now, and common sense would dictate a very similar course at all times.

Thus we may conclude that Jude is practically contemporaneous with 2 Peter. Nor can the difference of tense between the pareisedusan of the one and the esontai pseudodidaskaloi of the other be taken as a serious objection to this view. It is the nature of Jude to put things more forcibly. But the two Epistles were addressed to different Churches, and the danger which was imminent in one place may have been present in another.