The author was "Judas, the brother of James" the Less (Jude
1:1), called also Lebbaeus (Matt. 10:3) and Thaddaeus (Mark
3:18). The genuineness of this epistle was early questioned, and
doubts regarding it were revived at the time of the Reformation;
but the evidences in support of its claims are complete. It has
all the marks of having proceeded from the writer whose name it
bears.
There is nothing very definite to determine the time and place
at which it was written. It was apparently written in the later
period of the apostolic age, for when it was written there were
persons still alive who had heard the apostles preach (ver. 17).
It may thus have been written about A.D. 66 or 70, and
apparently in Israel.
The epistle is addressed to Christians in general (ver. 1),
and its design is to put them on their guard against the
misleading efforts of a certain class of errorists to which they
were exposed. The style of the epistle is that of an
"impassioned invective, in the impetuous whirlwind of which the
writer is hurried along, collecting example after example of
divine vengeance on the ungodly; heaping epithet upon epithet,
and piling image upon image, and, as it were, labouring for
words and images strong enough to depict the polluted character
of the licentious apostates against whom he is warning the
Church; returning again and again to the subject, as though all
language was insufficient to give an adequate idea of their
profligacy, and to express his burning hatred of their
perversion of the doctrines of the gospel."
The striking resemblance this epistle bears to 2 Peter
suggests the idea that the author of the one had seen the
epistle of the other.
The doxology with which the epistle concludes is regarded as
the finest in the New Testament.
Jude, Epistle of
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