1. The author was "Judas, the brother of James" the
Less #Jude 1:1 called also Lebbaeus #Mt
10:3 and Thaddaeus #Mr 3:18
2. The genuineness of this epistle was early questioned, and
doubts regarding it were revived at the time of the Reformation; but
the evidences in support of its claims are complete. It has all the
marks of having proceeded from the writer whose name it bears.
3. There is nothing very definite to determine the time and
place at which it was written. It was apparently written in the later
period of the apostolic age, for when it was written there were
persons still alive who had heard the apostles preach #Jude
1:17 It may thus have been written about A.D. 66 or 70 and
apparently in Palestine. The epistle is addressed to Christians in
general #Jude 1:1 and its design is to
put them on their guard against the misleading efforts of a certain
class of errorists to which they were exposed.
4. The style of the epistle is that of an "impassioned
invective, in the impetuous whirlwind of which the writer is hurried
along, collecting example after example of divine vengeance on the
ungodly; heaping epithet upon epithet, and piling image upon image,
and, as it were, labouring for words and images strong enough to
depict the polluted character of the licentious apostates against whom
he is warning the Church; returning again and again to the subject, as
though all language was insufficient to give an adequate idea of their
profligacy, and to express his burning hatred of their perversion of
the doctrines of the gospel." The striking resemblance this
epistle bears to 2 Peter suggests the idea that the author of the one
had seen the epistle of the other. The doxology with which the epistle
concludes is regarded as the finest in the New Testament.
