The passage from Irenaeus relating to this sect, (quoted on page [343],) contains a remarkable Latin word, “vulsio,” not found in any other author, and not explained at all, in the common dictionaries. That miserable, unsatisfactory mass of words, Ainsworth’s Thesaurus, does not contain it, and I was left to infer the meaning from the theme, vello, and it was therefore translated “fragment,”——a meaning not inconsistent with its true sense. Since that was printed, a learned friend, to whom the difficulty was mentioned, on searching for the word in better dictionaries, found it in Gesner’s Thesaurus, distinctly quoted from the very passage, with a very satisfactory explanation of its exact meaning. Gesner’s account of it is as follows: “Vulsio, Irenaeus, iii. 11. Nicolaitae sunt vulsio ejus. i. e. surculus inde enatus, et revulsus, stolo, ἀπὀρρώξ. Secta una ex altera velut pullulavit.” The meaning therefore is a “sucker,” “a shoot or scion, springing out of the root or side of the stock,” and the expression in this passage may therefore be translated, “The Nicolaitans are a slip or sprig of the old stock of the Gnosis.” And as Gesner happily explains it, “One sect, as it were, sprouted up from another.”
The word “scientia” in this wretched Latin translation, is quoted along with the adjacent words from Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, (vi. 20.) where he is warning him against the delusions of the Gnostics, and speaks of “the dogmas of the Gnosis,” (γνωσις,) translated “science,” but the word is evidently technical in this passage. Irenaeus no doubt quoted it in the Greek, but his ignorant translator, not perceiving the peculiar force of the word, translated it “scientia,” losing all the sense of the expression. The common translations of the Bible have done the same, in the passage in 2 Timothy vi. 20.
Another circumstance in this epistle which has attracted a critical notice, and which has occasioned its condemnation by some, is the remarkable coincidence both of sense and words between it and the second chapter of the second epistle of Peter. There are probably few diligent readers of the New Testament to whom this has not been a subject of curious remark, as several verses in one, seem a mere transcript of corresponding passages in the other. Various conjectures have been made to account for this resemblance in matter and in words,——some supposing Jude to have written first, and concluding that Peter, writing to the same persons, made references in this manner to the substance of what they had already learned from another apostle,——and others supposing that Peter wrote first, and that Jude followed, and amplified a portion of the epistle which had already lightly touched in some parts only upon the particular errors which the latter writer wished more especially to refute and condemn. This coincidence is nevertheless no more a ground for rejecting one or the other of the two writings, than the far more perfect parallelisms between the gospels are a reason for concluding that only one of them can be an authorized document. Both the apostles were evidently denouncing the same errors and condemning the same vices, and nothing was more natural than that this similarity of purpose should produce a proportional similarity of language. Either of the above suppositions is consistent with the character of the writings;——Peter may have written first, and Jude may have taken a portion of that epistle as furnishing hints for a more protracted view of these particular points; or, on the supposition that Jude wrote first, Peter may have thought it worth while only to refer generally, and not to dwell very particularly on those points which his fellow-apostle had already so fully and powerfully treated.
The particular churches to which this epistle was addressed, are utterly unknown; nor do modern writers pretend to find any means of detecting the places to which it was addressed in any peculiar passage, except so far as the chief seats of the heretics, against whom he wrote, are supposed to be known. Asia Minor, Syria and the East, were the regions to which the Gnostical errors were mostly confined; and in the former country more especially they were objects of attention, to the ministers of truth, during the apostolic age and in succeeding times. It was probably intended for the same persons to whom Peter wrote; and what has been said on the direction of his two epistles, will illustrate the immediate design of this also.
Its date is involved in the same uncertainty that covers all points in its own history and that of its author; the prominent difficulty being its great brevity, in consequence of which it offers but few characteristics of any kind, for the decision of doubtful points; and the life and works of Juda must therefore be set down among those matters, in which the indifference of those who could once have preserved historical truth for the eyes of posterity, has left even the research of modern criticism, not one hook to hang a guess upon.
JUDAS ISCARIOT.
This name doubtless strikes the eye of the Christian reader, as almost a stain to the fair page of apostolic history, and a dishonor to the noble list of the holy, with whom the traitor was associated. But he who knew the hearts of all men from the beginning, even before their actions had developed and displayed their characters, chose this man among those whom he first sent forth on the message of coming grace; and all the gospel records bear the name of the traitor along with those who were faithful even unto death; nor does it behove the unconsecrated historian to affect, about the arrangement of this name, a delicacy which the gospel writers did not manifest.
Of his birth, his home, his occupation, his call, and his previous character, the sacred writers bear no testimony; and all which the inventive genius of modern criticism has been able to present in respect to any of these circumstances, is drawn from no more certain source than the various proposed etymologies and significations of his name. But the plausibility which is worn by each one of these numerous derivations, is of itself a sufficient proof of the little dependence which can be placed upon any conclusion so lightly founded. The inquirer is therefore safest in following merely the reasonable conjecture, that his previous character had been respectable, not manifesting to the world at least, any baseness which would make him an infamous associate. For though the Savior in selecting the chief ministers of his gospel, did not take them from the wealthy, the high-born, the refined, or the learned; and though he did not scruple even to take those of a low and degraded occupation, his choice would nevertheless entirely exclude those who were in any way marked by previous character, as more immoral than the generality of the people among whom they lived. In short, it is very reasonable to suppose; that Judas Iscariot was a respectable man, probably with a character as good as most of his neighbors had, though he may have been considered by some of his acquaintance, as a close, sharp man in money matters; for this is a character most unquestionably fixed on him in those few and brief allusions which are made to him in the gospel narratives. Whatever may have been the business to which he had been devoted during his previous life, he had probably acquired a good reputation for honesty, as well as for careful management of property; for he is on two occasions distinctly specified as the treasurer and steward of the little company or family of Jesus;——an office for which he would not have been selected, unless he had maintained such a character as that above imputed to him. Even after his admission into the fraternity, he still betrayed his strong acquisitiveness, in a manner that will be fully exhibited in the history of the occurrence in which it was most remarkably developed.
Iscariot.——The present form of this word appears from the testimony of Beza, to be different from the original one, which, in his oldest copy of the New Testament, was given without the I in the beginning, simply; Σκαρίωτης; (Scariotes;) and this is confirmed by the very ancient Syriac version, which expresses it by