| 2 Peter ii. | Jude. |
| 1 ... There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 3. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. | 4. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. |
| 4. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment: | 6. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. |
| 6. And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly: | 7. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. |
| 10. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. | 8. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. |
| 11. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. | 9. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the Devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. |
| 12. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption. | 10. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. |
| 13 ... Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you. | 12. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. |
| 17. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. | 12. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds;... 13. ... Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. |
| 18. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. | 16. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage. |
Very few readers, it is probable, will rise from the examination of this parallelism, without the persuasion, that the writings betraying it cannot be independent productions; and without amazement at the opinion of Lardner, that “the similitude of the subject might produce,” to such extent, “a resemblance of style. The design,” he continues, “of St. Peter and St. Jude was to condemn some loose and erroneous Christians, and to caution others against them. When speaking of the same sort of persons, their style and figures of speech would have a great agreement.”[[585]] Lardner appears to shrink from attributing to the inspired St. Jude (supposing him to be the later writer) either plagiarism or a needless repetition of instruction.[[586]] But why should his inspiration deter him from such an act? It rather affords, as Michaelis observes, a conclusive reason for ascribing it to him. “For the Holy Ghost,” this author suggests, “certainly knew, while he was dictating the Epistle to St. Jude, that an Epistle of St. Peter, of a like import, already existed. And if the Holy Ghost, notwithstanding this knowledge, still thought that an Epistle of St. Jude was not unnecessary, why shall we suppose that St. Jude himself would have been prevented from writing by the same knowledge?”[[587]] This argument of the learned German certainly renders it unnecessary to doubt, with the scrupulous Lardner, whether St. Jude would copy from a fellow-labourer’s letter: but then, it also renders it unnecessary to believe this: for with the perfect familiarity which the Holy Ghost possessed (“while dictating”) with the previous epistle of Peter, there was no occasion whatever for St. Jude to have the knowledge too. Indeed so completely might any degree of parallelism be explained in this way, that no conceivable phenomena of agreement would furnish the slightest proof that the one writer had seen the production of the other.
For some inscrutable reasons, however, all the ablest theologians seem to have declined this easy solution, by appeal to the memory of the Holy Ghost; and to have been convinced that some method, simply human, must be sought, to account for the accordance between these two epistles. Some have supposed, with Bishop Sherlock, that both authors drew their materials from a common source, the imagery and phraseology of which they freely used. But as Eichhorn has well observed, “Bare conjecture is an insufficient support for this supposition; in the absence of all trace of any document giving plausibility to the suggestion, by disclosing a source in common relation with the corresponding passages of the two epistles.”[[588]] If this explanation be untenable, nothing remains but to conclude that one of the writers copied from the other; and this, accordingly, has been the general opinion of theologians. This, however, is the only point on which critics are agreed: for when the question is proposed, whether St. Peter or St. Jude were the original writer, it is curious to observe the confidence with which each of the two answers may be returned, and the opposite views which may be taken of the considerations affecting the decision. In the absence of all external evidence, the intrinsic character of the two compositions must determine our reply: and the chief impression which results from a comparison of them is, that St. Jude has expressed his ideas with more succinctness and unity; St. Peter with more vagueness and amplification. Appealing to this circumstance, Dr. Hug says, “the critic cannot fail to perceive which was the original;” “it is evident that the passages of Peter are periphrases and amplifications;” “the originality of Jude is clear from the comparison of both authors, and especially from the language;” “Peter had, therefore, the Epistle of Jude before him, and in his own manner applied it to his purposes.”[[589]] Michaelis, however,—who rejects the Epistle of Jude, and says that, “judging by its contents,” we “have no inducement to believe it a sacred and divine work,”—ventures on the following confident statements: “No doubt can be made, that the second Epistle of St. Peter was, in respect to the Epistle of St. Jude, the original and not the copy:” “with respect to the date of this (Jude’s) Epistle, all that I am able to assert is, that it was written after the second Epistle of St. Peter;” “this appears from a comparison of the two, which are so similar to each other both in sentiments and in expressions, as no two epistles could well be, unless the author of the one had read the epistle of the other. It is evident therefore that St. Jude borrowed from St. Peter both expressions and arguments, to which he himself has made some few additions.”[[590]]
After reading these positive statements on either side, we are struck with the justice of the following remark of Eichhorn’s: referring to the differences between the two epistles in respect to their style, he says: “These phenomena admit of a twofold explanation. Peter might be regarded as the original and Jude as the copy; inasmuch as, in the process of revision, a writing may become more perfect in the expression and disposition of the ideas: the superfluities will naturally be retrenched, the march of the thoughts become quicker, the diction more choice; the copyist having the matter all before him, and being able to direct his attention exclusively to the form which it shall assume. But with just as much truth we might turn round and say,—Jude was the original, whom Peter illustrated, amplified, and paraphrased. In the process, the style lost its unity, its compactness, its clear outline: the paraphrast interrupted the succession of thoughts with several foreign ideas; and the exposition of the subject thus became more obscure, prolix, and disorderly. Who can decide between these two possibilities?”
This acute author does not, however, consider the problem of impossible solution. The suspense in which its difficulty holds us, continues, he observes, “only so long as we confine ourselves merely to a mutual comparison of the parallel passages. If we look at them in their relation to the whole of St. Peter’s second epistle, we find a reason for concluding that Jude is original, Peter the copyist. The author of the second chapter of Peter does not stand, as a writer, on his own ground: if he did, his mode of writing would be the same as in the first and third chapters, which, however, is not the case. It is clear that we cannot apply to Jude this test of originality, derived from consistency of style; for we possess no other composition of his, with which to compare his epistle. Yet there is a compactness and unity in his writing, from which its independent character may be inferred. Whoever is content to take up the thoughts of others, yet not without introducing something of his own, is easily drawn aside by accessory ideas; by which the definite outline of a composition is lost. This is by no means the case in the epistle of Jude.”[[591]]
It is generally admitted, then, that these two productions, as far as their topics coincide, constitute but one authority: and we shall follow, I think, the most judicious criticism, if we assign that authority, whatever it may be, to the epistle of Jude. Whence, then, did he derive his knowledge of such circumstances as those which are mentioned in the sixth and ninth verses, respecting “the angels which kept not their first estate,” and “Michael the archangel contending with the Devil” “about the body of Moses?” There are but three supposable sources; immediate personal inspiration; the Hebrew Scriptures; or some non-canonical and unauthoritative work.
The first of these suppositions I do not find to be maintained by any creditable theological writer; and it may be dismissed with the following remarks of Michaelis:—“The dispute between Michael and the Devil about the body of Moses, has by no means the appearance of a true history: and the author of our epistle has not even hinted that he knew it to be true by the aid of Divine inspiration, or that he distinguished it from other Jewish traditions. On the contrary, he has introduced it as part of a story, with which his readers were already acquainted: he does not appear to have had any other authority for it, than they themselves had: nor does the part which he has quoted at all imply, either that he himself doubted, or that he wished his readers should doubt, of the other parts of it.”[[592]]
The second supposition, that the writer makes no allusion, on these points of celestial history, to any thing beyond the Old Testament, is so universally regarded as untenable, that even Lardner’s great authority will hardly avail to procure it any further attention. In what part of the Hebrew Scriptures St. Jude obtained his information respecting the fallen angels, Lardner, while deploring a like omission on the part of his predecessors, has neglected to explain. And when, in order to connect the story of Michael and the Devil with Zach. iii. 1-3, he is obliged to construe “the body of Moses,” into the Israelitish people, it surely becomes evident that the consideration of this passage never fully engaged his incomparable judgment.[[593]] Happily, Lardner’s is a reputation of which there is no need to be economical: and even theological opponents cannot apply to him the description which, with some truth and more severity, they have given of Mr. Wakefield, as a “scholar, who was great among Unitarians, but not among scholars:”—
“Quem bis terque bonum cum risu miror; et idem
Indignor, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus?”