[1] Other forms make him a Danite, and consider the passage in
Genesis (xlix. 17) a prophecy of the traitor.
JUDAS-TREE, the _Cercis siliquastrum_ of botanists, belonging to the
section _Caesalpineae_ of the natural order Leguminosae. It is a native
of the south of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Asia Minor,
and forms a handsome low tree with a flat spreading head. In Spring it
is covered with a profusion of purplish-pink flowers, which appear
before the leaves. The flowers have an agreeable acid taste, and are
eaten mixed with salad or made into fritters. The tree was frequently
figured by the older herbalists. One woodcut by Castor Durante has the
figure of Judas Iscariot suspended from one of the branches,
illustrating the popular tradition regarding this tree. A second
species, _C. canadensis_, is common in North America from Canada to
Alabama and eastern Texas, and differs from the European species in its
smaller size and pointed leaves. The flowers are also used in salads and
for making pickles, while the branches are used to dye wool a nankeen
colour.
JUDD, SYLVESTER (1813-1853) American Unitarian clergyman and author, was
born in Westhampton, Massachusetts, on the 23rd of July 1813. He bore
the same name as his father and grandfather; the former (1789-1860) made
an especial study of local history of the towns of the Connecticut
valley, and wrote a _History of Hadley_ (1863). The son lived in
Northampton after his tenth year, was converted in a revival there in
1826, graduated from Yale in 1836, and taught in 1836 at Templeton,
Mass., where he first met Unitarians and soon found the solution of his
theological difficulties in their views. He entered the Harvard divinity
school, from which he graduated in 1840. In the same year he was
ordained pastor of the Unitarian church of Augusta, Maine, where he died
on the 26th of January 1853. His widest reputation was as the author of
_Margaret, a Tale of the Real and the Ideal, including Sketches of a
place not before described, called Mons Christi_ (1845; revised 1851),
written to exhibit the errors of Calvinistic and all trinitarian
theology, and the evils of war, intemperance, capital punishment, the
prison system of the time, and the national treatment of the Indians.
This story, published anonymously, attracted much attention by its true
descriptions of New England life and scenery as well as by its author's
earnest purpose. _Richard Edney and the Governor's Family_ (1850) is in
much the same vein as _Margaret_. A poem entitled _Philo, an Evangeliad_
(1850) is a versified defence of Unitarianism. He published, besides,
_The Church, in a Series of Discourses_ (1854). As a preacher and pastor
he urged the desirability of infant baptism. He lectured frequently on
international peace and opposed slavery.
See Arethusa Hall, _Life and Character of the Rev. Sylvester Judd_
(Boston, 1857) published anonymously.
JUDE, THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF, a book of the New Testament. As with the
epistle of James, the problems of the writing centre upon the
superscription, which addresses in Pauline phraseology (1 Thess. i. 4; 2
Thess. ii. 13; Rom. i. 7; 1 Cor. 1. 2) the Christian world in general in
the name of "Jude, the brother of James" (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3).
The historical situation depicted must then fall within the lifetime of
this Judas, whose two grandchildren Zoker and James (Hegesippus _ap._
Phil. Sidetes) by their testimony before the authorities brought to an
end the (Palestinian) persecution of Domitian (Hegesippus _ap._ Eus. _H.
E._ iii. 20, 7). These two grandsons of Judas thereafter "lived until
the time of Trajan," ruling the churches "because they had (thus) been
witnesses (martyrs) and were also relatives of the Lord." But in that
case we must either reject the testimony of the same Hegesippus that up
to their death, and that of Symeon son of Clopas, successor in the
Jerusalem see of James the Lord's brother, "who suffered martyrdom at
the age of one hundred and twenty years while Trajan was emperor and
Atticus governor," "the church (universal) had remained a pure and
uncorrupted virgin" free from "the folly of heretical teachers"; or else
we must reject the superscription, which presents the grandfather in
vehement conflict with the very heresies in question. For the testimony
of Hegesippus is explicit that at the time of the arrest of Zoker and
James they were all who survived of the kindred of the Lord. True, there
is confusion in the narrative of Hegesippus, and even a probability that
the martyrdom of Symeon dated under Trajan really took place in the
persecution of Domitian, before the arrest of the grandsons of Jude, for
apart from the alleged age of Symeon (the traditional Jewish limit of
human life, Gen. vi. 3, Deut. xxxiv. 7), the cause of his apprehension
"on the ground that he was _a descendant of David_ and a Christian"
(Hegesippus _ap._ Eus. _H. E._ iii. 32, 3) is inconsistent with both the
previous statements regarding the "martyrdom" of Zoker and James, that
they were cited as the only surviving Christian Davididae, and that the
persecution on this ground collapsed through the manifest absurdity of
the accusation. But even if we date the rise of heresies in the reign of
Domitian instead of Trajan,[1] the attributing of this epistle against
corrupting heresy to "Jude the brother of James" will still be
incompatible with the statements of Hegesippus, our only informant
regarding his later history.
The Greek of Jude is also such as to exclude the idea of authorship in
Palestine by an unschooled Galilean, at an early date in church history.
As F. H. Chase has pointed out: (1) the terms [Greek: klêtoi, sôtêria,
pistis], have attained their later technical sense; (2) "the writer is
steeped in the language of the LXX.," employing its phraseology
independently of other N.T. writers, and not that of the canonical books
alone, but of the broader non-Palestinian canon; (3) "he has at his
command a large stock of stately, sonorous, sometimes poetical words,"
proving him a "man of some culture, and, as it would seem, not without
acquaintance with Greek writers."
If the superscription be not from the hand of the actual brother of
Jesus, the question may well be asked why some apostolic name was not
chosen which might convey greater authority? The answer is to be found
in the direction toward which the principal defenders of orthodoxy in
100-150 turned for "the deposit of the faith" (Jude 3) in its purity.
The Pastoral Epistles point to "the pattern of sound words, even the
sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Tim. vi. 3, &c.), as the arsenal
of orthodoxy against the same foe (with 1 Tim. vi. 3-10; cf. Jude 4, 11,
16, 18 seq.). Ignatius's motto is to "be inseparable from Jesus Christ
and from your bishop" (_ad Trall._ vii.), Polycarp's, to "turn unto the
word delivered unto us from the beginning" (cf. Jude 3; 1 John ii. 7,
iii. 23, iv. 21), "the oracles of the Lord," which the false teachers
"pervert to their own lusts." Papias, his [Greek: hetairos] (Irenaeus),
turns in fact from "the vain talk of the many," and from the "alien
commandments" to such as were "delivered by the Lord to the faith,"
offering to the Christian world his _Interpretation of the Lord's
Oracles_ based upon personal inquiry from those who "came his way," who
could testify as to apostolic tradition. Hegesippus, after a journey to
all the principal seats of Christian tradition, testifies that all are
holding to the true doctrine as transmitted at the original seat, where
it was witnessed first by the apostles and afterwards by the kindred of
the Lord and "witnesses" of the first generation. All these writers in
one form or other revert to the historic tradition against the licence
of innovators. Hegesippus indicates plainly the seat of its authority.
For the period before the adoption of a written standard the resort was
not so much to "apostles" as to "disciples" and "witnesses." The appeal
was to "those who from the beginning had been eyewitnesses and ministers
of the word" (Luke i. 2); and these were to be found primarily (until
the complete destruction of that church during the revolt of Barcochebas
and its suppression by Hadrian) in the mother community in Jerusalem
(cf. Acts xv. 2). Its life is the measure of the period of oral
tradition, whose requiem is sung by Papias. Hegesippus (_ap._ Eus. _H.
E._ iii. 32, 7 seq.) looks back to it as the safe guardian of the
deposit "of the faith" against all the depredations of heresy which
"when the sacred college of apostles had suffered death in various
forms, and the generation of those that had been deemed worthy to hear
the inspired wisdom with their own ears had passed away ... attempted
thenceforth with a bold face, to proclaim, in opposition to the
preaching of the truth, 'the knowledge which is falsely so-called
([Greek: pseudônymos gnôsis]).'" For an appeal like that of our epistle
to the authority of the past against the moral laxity and antinomian
teaching of degenerate Pauline churches in the Greek world, the natural
resort after Paul himself (Pastoral Epp.) would be the "kindred of the
Lord" who were the "leaders and witnesses in every church" in Palestine.
Doubtless the framer of Jude 1 would have preferred the aegis of "James
the Lord's brother," if this, like that of Paul, had not been already
appropriated. Failing this, the next most imposing was "Judas, the
brother of James."
The superscription in the case of Jude, unlike that of James, takes hold
of the substance of the book. Verse 3 and the farewell (v. 24 seq.) show
that Jude was composed from the start as an "epistle." If this
appearance be not fallacious, the obvious relation between the two
superscriptions will be best explained by the supposition that the
author of Jude gave currency to the existing homily (James) before
composing under the pseudonym of Jude. On the interconnexion of the two
see Sieffert, _s.v._ "Judasbrief" in Hauck, _Realencykl._ vol. ix.
Judas is conceived as cherishing the intention of discussing for the
benefit of the Christian world (for no mere local church is addressed)
the subject of "our common salvation" (the much desiderated
authoritative definition of the orthodox faith), but diverted from this
purpose by the growth of heresy.
Few writings of this compass afford more copious evidence of date in
their literary affinities. The references to Enoch (principally ver. 14
seq. = _Eth. En._ i. 9, but cf. F. H. Chase, _s.v._ "Jude" in Hastings's
_Dict. Bible_) and the _Assumption of Moses_ (v. 9) have more a
geographical than a chronological bearing, the stricter canon of
Palestine excluding these apocryphal books of 90 B.C. to A.D. 40; but
the Pauline writings are freely employed, especially 1 Cor. x. 1-13,
Rom. xvi. 25 seq., and probably Eph. and Col. Moreover, the author
explicitly refers to the apostolic age as already past, and to the
fulfilment of the Pauline prediction (1 Tim. iv. 1 sqq.) of the advent
of heresy (v. 17 seq.). The Pauline doctrine of "grace" has been
perverted to lasciviousness, as by the heretics whom Polycarp opposes
(_Ep. Polyc._ vii.), and this doctrine is taught for "hire" (vv. 11, 12,
16; cf. 1 Tim. vi. 5). The unworthy "shepherds" (v. 12; cf. Ezek. xxxiv.
8; John x. 12 seq.) live at the expense of their flocks, polluting the
"love-feasts," corrupting the true disciples. According to Clement of
Alexandria this was written prophetically to apply to the Carpocratians,
an antinomian Gnostic sect of _c._ 150; but hyper-Paulinists had given
occasion to similar complaints already in Rev. ii. 14, 20 (95). Thus
Paulinism and its perversion alike are in the past. As regards the
undeniable contact of _Didache_ ii. 7 with Jude 22 seq. (cf. _Didache_,
iv. 1, Jude 8) priority cannot be determined; and the use of 1 John iii.
12 in Jude 11 is doubtful.
On the other hand, practically the whole of Jude is taken up into 2
Pet., the author merely avoiding, so far as he discovers them, the
quotations from apocryphal writings, and prefixing and affixing sections
of his own to refute the heretical eschatology. On the priority of Jude
see especially against Spitta _Zur Gesch. u. Litt. d. Urchristenthums_,
ii. 409-411, F. H. Chase, _loc. cit._ p. 803. (On 2 Pet. see PETER
EPISTLES OF.) Unfortunately, the date of 2 Pet. cannot be determined as
earlier than late in the second century, so that we are thrown back upon
internal evidence for the inferior limit.
The treatment of the heresy as the anti-Christ who precedes "the last
hour" (v. 18), reminds us of 1 John ii. 18, but it is indicative of
conditions somewhat less advanced that the heretics have not yet "gone
out from" the church. The treatment of the apostolic age as past, and
the deposit of the faith as a _regula fidei_ (cf. Ign. _ad Trall._ ix.),
the presence of antinomian Gnosticism, denying the doctrine of lordship
and "glories" (v. 8), with "discriminations" between "psychic" and
"pneumatic" (v. 19), strongly oppose a date earlier than 100.
Sieffert, on account of the superscription, would date as early as
70-80, but acknowledges the hyper-Pauline affinity of the heresy, its
propagation as a doctrine, and close relation to the Nicolaitan of Rev.
ii. 14. To these phenomena he gives accordingly a correspondingly early
date. The nature of the heresy, opposed, however, and the resort to the
authority of Jude "the brother of James" against it, favour rather the
period of Polycarp and Papias (117-150).
The history of the reception of the epistle into church canons is
similar to that of James, beginning with a quotation of it as the work
of Jude by Clement of Alexandria (_Paed._ iii. 8), a reference by
Tertullian (_De cult. fem._ i. 3), and a more or less hesitant
endorsement by Origen ("if one might adduce the epistle of Jude," _In
Matt._ tom. xvii. 30) and by the _Muratorianum_ (_c._ 200), which
excepts Jude and 2 and 3 John from its condemnation of apocryphal
literature, placing it on a par with the Wisdom of Solomon "which was
written by friends of his in his honour." The use of apocryphal
literature in Jude itself may account for much of the critical
disposition toward it of many subsequent writers. Eusebius classed it
among the "disputed" books, declaring that as with James "not many of
the ancients have mentioned it" (_H. E._ ii. 23, 25).
The _Introd. to the New Test._ by Holtzmann, Jülicher, Weiss, Zahn,
Davidson, Salmon, Bacon and the standard _Commentaries_ of Meyer and
Holtzmann, the _International_ (Bigg) and other series, contain
discussions of authorship and date. The articles s.v. in Hastings's
_Dict. Bible_ (Chase) and the _Ency. Bib._ (Cone) are full and
scholarly. In addition the _Histories of the Apostolic Age_, by
Hausrath, Weizsäcker, McGiffert, Bartlet, Ropes and others, and the
kindred works of Baur, Schwegler and Pfleiderer should be consulted.
Moffat's _Historical New Testament_, 2nd ed., p. 589, contains a
convenient summary of the evidence with copious bibliography. One of
the most thorough of conservative treatments is the _Commentary on
Jude and Second Peter_ by J. B. Mayor (1907). (B. W. B.)