red contempt when they described the
kingdom of Christ as heavenly. Philip of Side, about 425, says {266}
that Hegesippus gave the names of these two men as Zocer and James.

The Epistle was known to Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, and is
in the _Muratorian Fragment_.

The chief objections to the authenticity of this Epistle fall under
three heads. It is said that (a) a late date is indicated by the
allusion to the teaching of the apostles in ver. 17. But the allusion
seems to correspond exactly with a late date in the apostolic age, for
vers. 17 and 18 assume that the readers remember what the apostles had
said. It is said that (b) the phrase in ver. 3, "the faith which was
once for all delivered unto the saints," indicates that a definite body
of doctrine was recognized by the Christians of the period, and that
the Christians of the apostolic age did not use the word "faith" in
this sense. But it is not difficult to suppose that the word would be
soon extended from the act of believing to the facts believed. And in
such early passages as Gal. i. 23 and Rom. x. 8 we find the word
closely approximating to the latter sense. It is said that (c) the
heresy which is described is a heresy of the 2nd century, and implies a
definite Gnostic system. But the fact that the Epistle does not
describe such a definite system is convincingly shown by the inability
of certain critics to determine who the heretics are. The Balaamites
of Asia Minor, the Carpocratians of Egypt, and some obscure sects of
Syria, are all suggested. There is no evidence to show that the errors
here described could not have grown up in apostolic times, and the
Epistles of St. Paul contain several passages which point to similar
perversions of Christianity. The word "sensual" in ver. 19 was an
insulting term applied to ordinary Christians by the Gnostics of the
2nd century, but St. Jude's use of it betrays no consciousness of this
later application.

The style of the letter makes it practically certain that it was
written by some one who had been a Jew. The Greek is forcible. It
shows a considerable knowledge of Greek words, {267} including various
poetical and archaic expressions. But the manner is stiff, and the
sentences are linked together with difficulty. Several phrases come
from the Septuagint, some of them being taken from the Book of Wisdom.
It is probable that the author was acquainted with the Hebrew Old
Testament, as ver. 12