Ness

In the vocabulary of Jude there are three elements, (a) There is the obvious Christian ele- ment. A Christian dialect has arisen. Certain words, e.g. K\rp-oL, aorr-qpla, irlans, have attained, largely through the teaching and the writings of St. Paul (see below), a fixed and recognized meaning among Greek-speaking Christians, (b) The writer is steeped in the language of the LXX. In this short Ep.

occur several words and phrases derived from the LXX which are not used independently by other NT writers — iKiropveieiv, ipiiraiKTris (2 P), ivi'TTvici^effdaiy 6avfj.d^€iv 7rp6<rw7ra, XaXetc vir^poyKa, Moreover, it should be noted that he uses words wliich do not occur in the canonical books, but are found in the Book of Wisdom, afJios (Wis 7"", cf. 4 Mac 10" var. lee. ), dXo7a fya (Wis 11", cf. 4 Mac 14"- '8), ffTTiXoOi' (Wis 15*). Further, with Jude "• compare 3 Mac 2"-.

(c) He has at his command a large stock of stately, sonorous, sometimes poetical words, e.g. airoSiopl^eiv (Aristoi.), dxranrTos (Xen., adverb Plat.), iKxvSfivai (Aristoph., Polyb. ), i-rra- 0/)(s'eii'(Moschus), f(50os(Hom., Hes., Pind., Polyb.), TrapeiaSvajdai (Hippocr. , Plut. , Philo), airiKaSit (Horn., Anthol., Joseph.), avvevuixe'i(TSai. (Aristot.. Joseph., Lucian), (pBimriipLvo^ (Aristot., Polyb., Plut.) Moreover, such phrases as iracav airovdi,, Trot£ia$at (Herod.)

, irpoKeiffdai SelypLa, SlK-qv i/T^etv (Herod., Soph., Eur.), Kpl<nv iTn<pipei.v, have a true Greek ring about them. It is interesting to note that more than once he adopts and presses into the service of Christian thought a recognized Greek phrase — ^ koiv^ uurripla ('the safety of the JUDE, EPISTLE OF JUDE, El'ISTLE OF 801 •tate,' see Wetstein's note), o! rfxryeypa/iiUyM (' the proscribed,' I'olyb.) Tlie vocabulary then of the Ep.

proves that the author, thougli a Jew, was yet a man of some culture and, as it would seem, not without ac- quaintance with Greek writers. Writers, how- ever, of the ' common ' dialect, embodying older strata of the lanjjuaye, would suffice to supply him with his vocabulary. From vocabulary we turn to style. Here we mark an entire lack of flexibility. There is in- deed in the Ep. a strong rhetorical element. 15ut the writer is never carried away. There are no rugged, broken sentences (v."

is no exception to this statement) as in St. Paul's Epitstles. We miss entirely the power of epigram which is so strong a weapon with St. James, and the oratorical persuasiveness of the Ep. to the Hebrews. The powerful eirect of the Epistle is due entirely (on the literary side) to the writer's ability vvpy^ai i^fiara aeiu'd. The richness of the writer's vocabu- lary stands in marked contrast to his poverty in ways of connecting and manipulating sentences.

The general structure is characterized by a certain formality and stitJ'ness. His fondness for triplets (vv.»- »•'• 9- !'• " "»• "• ») has often been noticed. The reiteration of ourol elfftv (o!) at the beginning of sentences (vv.'^'"-", cf. '• "• ') is especially marked. As the Ep. draws towards its close, there is a twice-repeated contrast between the false and the true members of the Church ; in either case over against a oh-oi is set a vneU Si (vv.""

- '"■), an arrangement unfortunately obscured in WH. Thus the writer's Greek is a strong and weighty weapon over which, however, he has not a ready command. The elaborate and balanced doxology (cf. also v.* <toi /liyof . . Xpiardv) recalls passages in the Epistle of the Roman Clement, and sugL;ests that the writer's words took tliat liturgical form which was familiar to him in his ministrations in the Christian assembly.

Indeed, the impression produced by the carefully-compacted arrangement of the whole Epistle is tnat in it we not improbably have a r6sum6 of words spoken by an elder in the assembly which, often repeated and pondered over, gradually formed themselves into tlie elaborate denunciation and exhortation of this Epistle. The literary affinities of the Ep. are important both for the light which they throw on its nistory and also for purposes of interpretation. (i.)

We have seen that the writer was familiar with the LXX. There are one or two indications, hardly perhaps decisive, that he was acquainted with the Ueorew OT. In v.'-' iavrov^ Toinalyoyrtt proijably comes from Ezk 34' cf. ', but it is closer to the lleb. (C'V'^C • ■ • ^t^'K o-;i) than to the LXX lit) fii(TKOv<rty ol TroifUrtt eavroOt.f In v." veipiXat ii/vdpoi iri aviiiuy vapaiptpd^uyai may be a reminis- cence of Pr 2.J'* (pi; cy;i rnj c'n-;}), but the LXX has no resemblance to Jude. In v.'

-'- it is not im- probable that the two phrases in rvpis dpirdfoiTfi and rdy o'lrJ tjjs aoonis ^a-ri\uitijtyoy xirii'o are derived from Zee 3-'-, from which pa-ssage the phrase ^iti^i)«-o< <roi KOptot (v.") is clearly taken (i>erliaps through the medium of the Assumptio aluijsi). But there are no points of contact be- tween Jude and the LX.K rendering. On the other hand, the Holirew wonl (c'xi;) used here, meaning ' filthy,' is connected w illi the words .

iks, rnt^-i, both mejining 'excrements,' and thus Jude's phrase • In apocalyptic literature this la a rdfiilar tomiula. often In- troducing an anlwiT to the ■cvr'a queittion ; see e.g. Zee li-, Rev 71< 11 14«, Ktwcli \lfi. SferrU <i,l Kiuvh 7> 1S> IIP, Apoe. Petfr \. ^. It is proliablr that Jude Ir.-xnicd the use of the plinue frora such writinpi, for which he clearly hati a special liking. ♦ Synimachus has the same close rendorlu(f (•«' wui»m*tawrii iavraw) whii'h St.

Jude sceins to have here.