3 I found it necessary: Circumstances forced Jude to caution readers against the dangers of false teachers (4, 8). the faith: Not the personal faith of believers, but the deposit of faith that comes from the apostles and serves as the standard of orthodox teaching (Rom 6:17). The deposit is entrusted to the Church for safekeeping (1 Tim 6:20) (CCC 17075). once for all delivered: The final installment of God's revelation came through Christ and the Spirit in the apostolic age. See note on Heb 1:1-4. • Vatican II thus decrees that the Church expects to receive no new public revelation from Christ before his return in glory (Dei Verbum 4). Back to text.

4 admission . . . secretly gained: The false teachers were intruders who smuggled their errors into unsuspecting communities. designated: Literally, "written beforehand". Jude evokes the biblical image of heavenly books filled with the names and deeds of both saints and sinners (Ex 32:32; Ps 69:28; Phil 4:3; Rev 20:12). pervert the grace: The intruders misinterpret "freedom in Christ" as a license to do evil (8, 10, 16). The problem of shirking the moral responsibilities of the gospel, often called antinomianism, was the target of several apostolic warnings (Rom 6:15; Gal 5:13; 1 Pet 2:16). Perhaps the perpetrators radically distorted Paul's teaching on Christian freedom, or possibly they embraced proto-Gnostic ideas that sanctioned immoral behavior on the basis of a theoretical separation between matter (the body) and spirit (the soul). deny our only Master: They either denied the Lordship of Christ by their shameful behavior (Tit 1:16) or promoted a defective understanding of who Christ really is (1 Jn 2:22). Back to text.

5-19 Jude denounces heretical teachers in the strongest possible terms. The aim of this thunderous attack is to unmask them as the sinners of the last days whose demise is foreshadowed in Scripture (5-8, 11-13) and foretold in Jewish and apostolic tradition (9-10, 14-18). Back to text.

5 saved . . . destroyed: Refers to the rescue of Israel from Egypt (Ex 12-14) and its subsequent downfall in the wilderness (Num 13-14). • The death and disinheritance of the Exodus generation stand as a warning to all who receive God's mercy but later return to their evil ways (1 Cor 10:1-12). Back to text.

6 left their proper dwelling: Alludes to a Jewish tradition based on Gen 6:1-4 that rebel angels, called Watchers, came down from heaven to have sexual relations with women (1 Enoch 6-21; Jubilees 5, 1-11; Josephus, Antiquities 1, 73). Their wickedness brought swift punishment, as God imprisoned them in the dark chambers of the underworld to await their final doom. Jude reasons that if God punishes even angels, he will not hesitate to condemn godless men (CCC 391-95, 1033-39). Back to text.

7 Sodom and Gommorah: Cities destroyed by fire for their wickedness, especially homosexual perversion (Gen 19:1-11, 24-29). • This episode is a reversed image of that in the preceding verse: just as fallen angels once desired sexual intimacy with human women (see above commentary on Jude 6), so human men once desired sexual union with the angels who came to Sodom in disguise (Gen 19:5). Jewish tradition likewise noted the connection between these episodes (Testament of Naphtali 3, 4-5). Back to text.

8 in like manner: Because the sins of the heretics resemble those enumerated in 5-7, the punishments in store for them are comparable as well. dreamings: Suggests the errant teachers justified their behavior on the basis of alleged visions. revile the glorious ones: I.e., blaspheme the angels. Back to text.

9 archangel Michael: The guardian angel of the People of God (Dan 10:21; 12:1). He leads the angelic armies of heaven into war against Satan and his hosts (Rev 12:7-9). The Lord rebuke you: The dispute between Michael and the devil derives from a Jewish legend called The Assumption of Moses. The extant version of this work lacks a conclusion, stopping before the death of Moses, but several Church Fathers tell us that the story comes from this source. Note that when biblical writers quote from non-biblical works, they do not thereby endorse these writings as uniformly acceptable; nor are citations from them an implicit claim that such texts are on a par with inspired Scripture. Reference to noncanonical literature is sometimes used for the sake of illustration or to help communicate truth in terms that are familiar to the original readers (cf. Acts 17:28; 1 Cor 15:33; Tit 1:12). • A similar rebuke was uttered against Satan in Zech 3:2. Back to text.

11 Woe to them!: Often a preface to prophetic oracles of judgment (Is 5:8-23; Amos 6:1; Hab 2:6-20). Cain . . . Balaam's . . . Korah's: Three infamous sinners of the OT. • Cain was the first murderer in the Bible (Gen 4:1-16). Balaam tried to curse Israel (Num 22-24) and later counseled the women of Moab to seduce Israel into sin (Num 31:15-16). Korah headed a rebellion against the authority of the Israelite priesthood and was consumed in God's wrath (Num 16:1-40). Back to text.

12 your love feasts: In the ancient Church, the eucharistic liturgy was sometimes celebrated in the context of a fellowship meal, called an agape (Gk. "love feast"), which was an expression of Christian unity and charity between believers from every walk of life and social class. Another reference to this tradition in the NT appears in 1 Cor 11:17-22. Back to text.

12-13 Epithets aimed at false teachers. Like shepherds looking after themselves, they leave the Lord's sheep hungry and unprotected. Like waterless clouds, they promise refreshment but leave their victims parched. Like fruitless trees, they are barren and lack every sign of life. Like wild waves that cough up debris on the beach, they pollute their listeners with falsehoods and filthy behavior. Like wandering stars, they lead others astray in the darkness. • Several images in these verses are drawn from the OT (Prov 25:14; Is 57:20; Ezek 34:2). Back to text.

13 deepest darkness: I.e., in the deepest, gloomy prisons of the underworld where Jewish tradition assigned the rebel angels (6). The point is that false teachers will share in the condemnation of the fallen angels. Back to text.

14-15 An excerpt from the Jewish apocryphal work 1 Enoch 1, 9. Many traditions grew up around the figure of Enoch (Gen 5:18-24) that described him as a visionary and recipient of divine secrets. His warning here is that the ungodly will meet certain destruction. • The canonical status of Jude was often disputed in the early Church because of this non-biblical quotation. Misgivings were finally laid to rest in the fourth and fifth centuries, when the canon of the NT was established in a series of North African synods. Since then, Jude has been formally accepted as an inspired book of the Bible, although doubts about its canonicity lingered on in Syriac Christianity until the early Middle Ages (CCC 120). See note on Jude 9. Back to text.

16 grumblers . . . boasters: The intruders are a band of arrogant, immoral, and irreverent leaders who were taking advantage of believers for their own selfish ends. Back to text.

17 predictions of the apostles: Disruptions caused by deceivers were already foreseen by the apostles (Acts 20:29-30; 1 Tim 4:1-3; 2 Pet 3:3). Back to text.

18 they said to you: Implies that Jude's readers were evangelized and catechized by one or more of the Twelve. Back to text.

20 build yourselves up: Believers must build their lives on the foundation of apostolic faith in order to stand firm against error. The Spirit will then strengthen them through prayer to steady the doubters (22) and recover the deceived (23). Back to text.

23 out of the fire . . . garment spotted: Allusions to Zech 3:2-5. • Zechariah sees the high priest Joshua indicted by Satan. Despite accusations of guilt, the Lord delivered Joshua from the fire of judgment and disrobed him of the filthy garment of his iniquity. With this example of God's mercy in mind, Jude urges readers to extend mercy to the victims of false teachers, who had placed themselves under judgment by staining their innocence with transgression. • The spotted garment is the flesh. We hate, not our flesh as such, but the fact that sin has stained it, and so we work to make what is carnal into something spiritual. This cannot be done on our own, however, but only by the power of God, as Jude says in his final blessing (St. Bede, On the Seven Catholic Epistles at Jude 23). Back to text.

Word Study

Blemishes (Jude 12)

Spilas (Gk.): A noun used to mean "stain" or "submerged rock". It appears only here in the NT. Some hold that 2 Pet 2:13, which employs a similar word, is dependent upon Jude 12 and takes it to mean "stain". However, it is also possible that Jude is comparing his opponents to an offshore reef that was hazardous to ships coming into port because it was hidden just below the surface of the sea. Understood in this way, the heretical teachers infiltrating Christian communities were an unseen danger to the faith of unsuspecting believers.

24-25 For a similar doxology, see Rom 16:25-27 (CCC 2641). Back to text.

||    The Orthodox Faith (Dogma)    ||    Family and Youth    ||    Sermons    ||    Bible Study    ||    Devotional    ||    Spirituals    ||    Fasts & Feasts    ||    Coptics    ||    Religious Education    ||    Monasticism    ||    Seasons    ||    Missiology    ||    Ethics    ||    Ecumenical Relations    ||    Church Music    ||    Pentecost    ||    Miscellaneous    ||    Saints    ||    Church History    ||    Pope Shenouda    ||    Patrology    ||    Canon Law    ||    Lent    ||    Pastoral Theology    ||    Father Matta    ||    Bibles    ||    Iconography    ||    Liturgics    ||    Orthodox Biblical topics     ||    Orthodox articles    ||    St Chrysostom    ||   

||    Pope Shenouda    ||    Father Matta    ||    Bishop Mattaous    ||    Fr. Tadros Malaty    ||    Bishop Moussa    ||    Bishop Alexander    ||    Habib Gerguis    ||    Bishop Angealos    ||    Metropolitan Bishoy    ||

||    Prayer of the First Hour    ||    Third Hour    ||    Sixth Hour    ||    Ninth Hour    ||    Vespers (Eleventh Hour)    ||    Compline (Twelfth Hour)    ||    The First Watch of the midnight prayers    ||    The Second Watch of the midnight prayers    ||    The Third Watch of the midnight prayers    ||    The Prayer of the Veil    ||    Various Prayers from the Agbia    ||    Synaxarium