Oecumenius

In his own words on Jude

• Jude 1:1

  Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and called for Jesus Christ: may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. It was satisfactory for this present apostle, I say, to the splendor of glory, that Jude was celebrated as a servant of Christ even by James. Indeed, since James was extolled by all for his great virtue, it resulted that he was more easily received by the listeners into the doctrine of the discourse, because the relationship of birth and blood did not seem at all foreign to the morals of the one with whom he shared kinship: and especially if, living under one Lord Christ, Jude proposed to bear the yoke of servitude equally with his brother.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:2

  "Those who are beloved in God the Father, and who are called, are saved by Jesus Christ." The Lord's word, in which He said, "No one comes to me unless the Father draws him," (Jn. 6:44) this blessed man now shows to be true. For those who are beloved by the Father, Jude says, have been saved by Jesus Christ. Therefore, he also calls them the called: for they do not have it from themselves, but from the Father, in that they are drawn, so that they may also be called. He truly prays for them that mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Indeed mercy, for we have been recalled and taken by Him into ministry because of the bowels of the mercy of God: peace, however, because God the Father Himself has granted this to us, bringing us who had sinned back to His friendship through His Son Jesus Christ: and love, indeed, because of the love He had for us, His only-begotten Son was exposed to death for us. Therefore, he prays that these may be abundantly granted to them, saying in harmony with blessed David, who says: "Extend your mercy to those who know you." (Ps. 36:10)

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:3-4

  My dearest, I have had such a strong desire to write to you about our common salvation that I could not cease from writing to you: urging you to contend again for the faith once delivered to the saints. For certain ungodly men have secretly entered in, who were long ago marked out for this condemnation: who turn the grace of our God into vileness and deny the only Master God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Through this, the argument of the epistle is hinted at, which, for the providence of their salvation, is now presented to prevent them from being ensnared by the most wicked heretics due to simplicity: it renders their speeches as if marking and making them obvious to the ignorant through the exposure of their lustful lives. Peter also spoke about these matters, but here it is stated more openly and extensively. Jude describes them as abandoned: because both Peter and Paul spoke of those who will be such seducers in the last times. And before these, Christ himself said: "Many will come in my name and will deceive many: therefore do not follow them." (Matt. 24:5) For claiming to be Christians, they deceive many in this name. He mentions Nicholas, Valentinus, and Simon, and those who followed them, the most wicked and impure. For being gluttons and lustful, they pretended to teach, so that under this pretext they might gain a hidden entrance into homes and lead captive women burdened with sins. (2 Tim. 3:6) For they have given themselves over to nighttime mysteries in their beds and lasciviousness (Rom. 13:13). What he says, "They turn to lasciviousness," means that they corrupt themselves, twisting away from abstinence to lasciviousness; therefore they even deny our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, how do they not deny Him, who, through the impurity of life, reject the Teacher of all temperance with a vulgar and loud voice? For what unity is there between light and darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14) "urging you to contend again." Jude urges those who have once received Christ the Savior and believed in Him, to continue striving or to endeavor, that is, not to be affected with a disheartened mind, but to contain themselves and embrace even greater zeal regarding this. For we have received the incarnate Word; if we were to say that there is another who was with the Father before the ages, and another who was born in His own hypostasis (ὑπόστασιν) from the Mother in the last times, would we not deny that there is one Lord and Master? For there is one Lord Jesus according to a certain privilege of union. For the Word and God before the ages, having assumed flesh for the glory of divinity, which He received from the divine Virgin from the moment of conception, is one and the same Lord of all. "turn the grace:" that is, they transform, corrupt.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:5-7

  I want to remind you, when we know once that the Lord, after He had saved the people from Egypt, again destroyed those who did not believe: and that He kept the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their own dwelling, in eternal chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities, which were similarly defiled with them through sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. After Jude spoke of the corruption of the impure Nicolaitans, Valentinians, and Marcionites, and as if by a certain branding he marked them out from their own foul filth, he also adds this: "after He had saved the people from Egypt," etc., indeed showing through these things that the same God is the author of both the Old and the New Testament: and not, as these wicked ones say, that there was one God of the Old Testament, vengeful and cruel, and another of the New, gentle and humane: and Jude also states that neither those who now sin will remain unpunished, just as neither did those who were brought out of Egypt. For indeed, by the enormous power of God, and because of the oath made to their ancestors, God had freed them from the slavery and tyranny of Egypt: yet those who acted immorally did not remain unpunished, but they received deserving penalties; and it did them no good that God had been generous towards their ancestors: nor did the enormous evidence of signs presented for them have any effect: just as neither did the angels who had fallen, although they were formed by God and endowed with intellectual nature; nor did the Sodomites, because they dwelt with Lot. But those who first crossed the Red Sea as if it were dry land, later became unbelievers and perished. Those who had indeed received the honor of angelic position, since they did not remain in their origin, but corrupted the gift given to them from the goodness of celestial life, were reserved and kept for judgment or condemnation on the day of great and intolerable punishment. For this also now signifies kept (τετήρηνε). According to what Christ said: "Who is prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt. 25:41) And certainly, the Sodomites are presented as a sign of the eternal fire that will receive them. "and pursued strange flesh," and committed fornication, that is, turning aside, which means to engage in prostitution (πορνεύειν). But strange flesh refers to male flesh, which does not benefit the union that is for the sake of generation. For the flesh that engages in union is the flesh of a woman, according to what was said by the first parent: "Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." (Gen. 2:23) The flesh of men, however, is strange, I say, from sexual intercourse. Although in a woman, indeed joined by the laws to one man, her flesh is her own and moral: but that which is poured out and public is foreign and strange, and left almost to the atonement of male wickedness. But when Jude had set forth these examples, he left it to the listener to understand what followed from them. What is that? To bear what follows from it. If, therefore, he has so destroyed these, not satisfied by their previous happiness, does he now allow these to act immorally and lustfully, when the Son of God came into the world for men and suffered injuries and afflictions for them? No one would ever say this. For although he is kind and compassionate, yet he is also truly just: and for the sake of true justice, he did not spare those who have sinned (2 Peter 2:4): but for the sake of kindness, he introduced harlots and tax collectors into the kingdom (Matt. 21:31). Since it was thus necessary that the discourse should promise, he himself omitted it, for the reason we have mentioned. Or also speaking in a similar manner with blessed Peter, when he said: "For if God did not spare the angels who sinned," etc. (2 Peter 2:4) And indeed it has been said of these things.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:8

  Likewise, these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme glorious beings. Furthermore, what he says: "Likewise, these dreamers defile the flesh," it is worthy of admiration that Jude has expressed the speech so modestly. For he indeed testifies much filthiness and nerve about them, saying that their life is impure, and their tongue is especially lustful: however, he rightly comprehends the fervent immorality of their actions through this word ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι (that is, dreaming or agitated by sleeplessness), which we will briefly and appropriately reveal, taking understanding from the work that blessed Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, published about these, which he called the Panarion (26). For he says here that those wicked Borborites (that is, those filled with filth and sludge) when they mixed with foul women, did not dispense semen into the womb, but with an imperfect abomination, they received it with their own hands, and immediately inserted it into the mouths of the women with whom they had been corrupted: and thus they departed from each other impure, thinking they had accomplished something great. This unclean drama is called a dream because such things are also found in dreams. Therefore, by this filthy assumption, they further rage against the divine nature, Jude says, despising its dominion and the authority it has over the universe. Moreover, blessed Irenaeus of Lyons spoke more broadly about these things in his Refutation of the So-called Knowledge, from which anyone who wishes may gain understanding. They reject authority, that is, the perfection of the mystery that is according to Christ: in order and in turn, fulfilling their shamelessness through the mysteries of angels. However, the term "glorious " (Δόξας) that is, splendors, is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments: as Paul says, "For if what was brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory." (2 Cor. 3:11) And again: "For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, much more will the ministry of righteousness abound in glory." (2 Cor. 3:9) Or it also refers to the ecclesiastical authorities, upon which they heap blasphemies: as can be learned even from the third Epistle of John the beloved, among whom he mentions Diotrephes, who gossiped against them with malicious words. (3 Jn. 10)

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:9-10

  Yet Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the Devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not think to pronounce a condemning judgment against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" But these people blaspheme what they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that they, like irrational animals, understand instinctively. Since he remembers the blasphemy, he restrains not only them alone, but also all men, so that they may have pure tongues from such evil, and do not use it against those who are worthy of blasphemy, saying: "Michael the archangel," etc. But what does this mean? That these indeed rashly and intemperately use blasphemies against all. However, this should not happen, since it is not even fair to attack those who are worthy of blasphemy with curses, as is evident from the archangel Michael. For when there was a dispute between him and the Devil about the body of Moses, an opportunity was given to him to attack him with a blasphemy because of his boldness, But the archangel did not dare to bring a railing accusation against the Devil, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" How do these men dare to blaspheme the glorious beings? It is written in another way: If the archangel was in this condition, we should not heap up blasphemies and curses against the brother of a man of the same condition as us. And indeed, these things have been said about them. Furthermore, this is the judgment concerning the body of Moses. It is said that Michael the archangel provided ministry in burying Moses: the Devil could not bear this but brought an accusation because of the killing of the Egyptian (Ex. 2), as if it were Moses' own, and therefore did not allow him to obtain an honorable burial. But also wishing to signify through this, the Apostle presents in the open that the law is prescribed to all men after their departure from the body, and that the same God is of the Old and New Testament. For when God wished to reveal the hidden things to men who were then more grossly affected, namely that the Devil, with his wicked demons, rises against our souls after they have been freed from here, wanting to hinder their journey to the heavens (and indeed he resists, but the good angels of God are there to assist them: as blessed Anthony also saw): He permitted these things to happen at that time. Nevertheless, Michael then dared to repel the Devil, not with the authority to rebuke, but he granted judgment to the Lord of all, and said: "May God rebuke you, O Devil." But these do not know what they speak. Michael indeed acted so, nor did he bring any accusation against a man or Moses: but these compose slanderous speeches about doctrines they do not understand; those who, by natural motion or judgment, as beings experienced in reason, pursue these things like maddened horses towards mares, or like swine.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:11

  Woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain, and for profit they have abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam, and in the contradiction of Korah they perished. "The way of Cain": this is, through the murder of a brother: for those teaching such things also kill their brothers, or men of the same sort, with wicked doctrines. Or even by absorbing the seed, they kill the brother in virtue, whom the fruitfulness of the seed would bring forth to life. "the error of Balaam", because they, like him, do these things for the sake of gain. Furthermore, the way of Korah, because they, like him, seized the office of teacher, being unworthy.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:12-13

  These are the blemishes who are in your love feasts, feasting without fear, shepherding themselves; they are clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead and uprooted; wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. "These are the blemishes who are in your love feasts (ἀγάπαις)." There were still at that time, tables that were prepared in the churches, of which Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Corinthians (11): which were also called ἀγάπας, that is, "loves). Jude says, "They come together not for the purpose that is in them, but to find an opportunity "enticing unstable souls": as Peter also says in the second Epistle (2:14). And what he says: without fear, or with the preceding, it should be arranged that there is this sense: "Like the stones of the sea living together," that is, when they expect nothing to fear, they suddenly take on one form, like the stones of the sea leading to the punishment of souls. But, fearlessly shepherding themselves, or rather to be arranged towards the blemishes, so that the meaning may be this: Fearlessly feasting like blemished ones, that is, not anticipating any fear from the fellow diners, suddenly, like blemished ones, bringing upon them the destruction of souls. As for the shepherding, feeding themselves without fear. Without fear, he says, the judgment from not knowing how to shepherd, but blind, leading the blind, and into the abyss, as the Lord will say, falling in with those being shepherded. And he likens them to cliffs, and to clouds without water, and to autumn trees, and to wild waves, and to wandering stars. For they have that which exists by nature, these things by choice. For if the whirlpools are deadly to those sailing, unexpectedly arising, they also present a trustworthy evil to those dining together. And the waterless clouds, driven by the winds, wherever they may be carried, do not refresh with rain, for they do not have it; rather, they work out darkness for them. Likewise, these also do not save the souls of those who encounter them with a saving word, but they darken them with their most polluted teachings, being driven by the wicked practices of the demons. But even the autumn trees, dying twice, both in the shedding of their fruit and in the falling of their leaves (for they seem then to be deprived of beauty, both from the splendor of the fruit and from the flowery elegance of the leaves), suffer something appropriate to them. For they are twice cast out due to the eating of the seed, and they are deprived of the good behavior that comes from a temperate state. Therefore, they are also uprooted from the paradise of the Lord of the Church. And being cast out from this, they are gathered to the eternal fire. For what standing or root will he have, who is being thrown by all into the heap of pleasure? The stars also wander and engage in business, not because they are transforming to the firmament of our faith, having the sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2), Christ, arising through them, and producing the hours of virtues, and giving life to the faithful arranged according to these, but because they seem to be transformed into an angel of light, as the wicked demon who is their precursor, on the contrary, only bear the doctrines of the Lord, by which they also darken those approaching, and acquire for themselves eternal darkness. But even when compared to wild waves, they do not deny their similarity to them. For they themselves, driven by the spirits of wickedness, blaspheme against God without restraint, foaming up their own shame, ultimately coming to a foam with the height of blasphemy, from the weak and easily broken filth of their lives. Such is the foam of the waves to which they have been compared.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:14-15

  But the seventh from Adam, Enoch, also prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord comes with thousands of His saints to execute judgment on all and to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly works which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. Jude adds to these things Enoch, who previously prophesied the punishment reserved for them by God, in the final judgment of God. "all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly works." The ungodly differs from the sinner in that the ungodly has sin against God, while the sinner deviates from the goal of righteousness in the actions of life.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:16

  These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. After this, however, having been freed from the accommodation of these ungodly ones, Jude now also addresses the matter itself, accusing their vices, calling them grumblers and complainers. There is indeed a grumbler, one who, under his breath and without speaking out, complains to the one who is displeased. The complainer, on the other hand, always and constantly engages in contempt. These wretched ones are murmurers and complainers, Jude says. For they do not have the boldness to engage in their teaching through shameful means. For it is not without danger to publicly proclaim recklessness with wickedness and blasphemy. And they are complainers, slandering both other people and the truth, in order to set up their own evils and obscenity as if they were something good. As he has said concerning Balaam, that they have poured themselves out for profit just like him, he now states more clearly that they flattering people to gain advantage, admiring indeed, by flattering those in authority, but the profit is actually the gain.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:17-18

  "remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles," those by Peter in the second Epistle, and by Paul in almost every epistle. From this, it is clear that this was written last after the apostles had passed away.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:19

  "These are the ones who are causing divisions." Behold, another accusation against these very small men. For they are not the only ones, Jude says, who perish, but they also rob the nourishments of those of the Church, (for this is what the term "cause division" intends to signify), that is, making them outside the ecclesiastical boundaries, either of the faith or even of the very holy tabernacle of the Church. For having shown their gatherings to be a den of thieves, they lead away from the Church, but bring to themselves. And they do this, being worldly people, that is, living according to the behavior of the world. For we have already said that the divine Scripture often calls the soul and life, as in Job; "All that a man has, he will give for his soul," (Job 2:4) that is, for his life. Of these, Paul says that they are natural men, unable to accept the things of the Spirit of God. (1 Cor. 2:14) Being worldly, they are taught by natural means, concerning which it has been said: This wisdom is not from above, descending from the Father of lights (James 1:17), but is earthly, demonic, not having the Spirit of God speaking.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:20-21

  "But you, beloved." Therefore, Jude says, but you building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, that is, making your own gatherings according to the teaching of the Holy Spirit in your prayers. "keep yourselves in the love of God," that is, safeguard yourselves, waiting for the mercy of our Lord that leads to eternal life.

  Commentary on Jude

• Jude 1:22-23

  And those, if they separate from you (for this is what "to distinguish" means), rebuke them, that is, make their wickedness evident to all. If they are aimed at healing, do not reject them, but receive them with your love, snatching them out of the fire that threatens them. But receive them with caution and with fear, considering that the reception of these may become a cause of distress for you if you are careless in your dealings with them, leading to the theft of those already established into the same overflow of their wickedness. For wickedness is very zealous. Therefore, let their reception be, Jude says. But approach them with fear, either with careful consideration, and let the hatred towards their small deeds be accompanied by mercy, hating and detesting them, and the garment stained by their flesh, or their defiled garment, as it touches their flesh and becomes disgusting. Those who receive them with the fear of the coming punishment, Jude says, should see mercy granted to them, preparing for repentance.

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• Jude 1:24-25

  Having said these things, he seals the letter with a prayer.

  Commentary on Jude