Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Vulgate Text: Jude 1-25
1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James: to them that are beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. 2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and charity be fulfilled. 3 Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men are secretly entered in, (who were written of long ago unto this judgment,) ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness, and denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. 5 I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not: 6 And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, He hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. 7 As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. 8 In like manner these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty. 9 When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. 10 But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted. 11 Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the contradiction of Core. 12 These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. 14 Now of these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of His saints, 15 To execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. 16 These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons for gain's sake. 17 But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 Who told you, that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. 19 These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. 20 But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting. 22 And some indeed reprove, being judged: 23 But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal. 24 Now to Him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, 25 To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and magnificence, empire and power, before all ages, and now, and for all ages of ages. Amen.
Verse 1: Jude, the Servant of Jesus Christ
1. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James — namely of James the Less, who was an Apostle and the first Bishop of Jerusalem, and who likewise inscribes his own epistle thus: "James, the servant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ:" see what was said there. By this very fact Jude indicates that he is an Apostle: for it is established that Jude the brother of James was an Apostle. The Arabic renders, "Jude, the son of Joseph the carpenter"; and Clement of Alexandria: "Jude," he says, "who wrote the Catholic Epistle, the brother of the sons of Joseph, being very religious, although He knew his kinship with the Lord, did not however say he was His brother; but what did he say? Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ." Yet in the Preface I showed that Jude was not the son of Joseph. He calls himself "the servant of Christ," as if to say: I know not the angels of Simon, the aeons of Valentinus, the genii of the Gnostics; I profess and glory in being the servant of Christ alone, just as David in Psalm CXV, 6: "O Lord, for I am Thy servant, and the son of Thy handmaid; Thou hast broken my bonds," by which I was bound to sin, to death, and to gehenna, and Thou hast bound me to Thy glorious servitude — nay rather to the apostolate: "therefore I will sacrifice to Thee the sacrifice of praise." "It is more desirable," says Philo in On Monarchy, "to serve God than to reign." Hence Moses, the leader of the Hebrews, is called the servant of the Lord (Deut. xxxiv, 5): see what was said there. Truly Saint Augustine, in tract 41 on that passage of John VIII, "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed": "This," he says, "is our hope, brethren, that we be freed by Him who is free, and that by freeing us He may make us His servants; for we were servants of cupidity, and once freed we are made servants of charity."
Moreover Jude calls himself the brother of James, both to distinguish himself from Judas Iscariot, and to win for himself goodwill and authority from his holy and celebrated brother: "For James's celebrated reputation for virtue, in everyone's eyes, would secure that the doctrine of this Apostle would have greater authority and be more readily received," says Oecumenius.
Orators teach that, in the exordium of a speech or epistle, one must win from the hearers or readers, first, goodwill; second, attention; third, docility. So Saint Jude here renders his readers first, well-disposed, by calling them "beloved" and "dearly beloved," and by showing all his love and care toward them; second, attentive, when he says he is writing about the common salvation of all — namely the eternal one; third, docile, when he says he is doing nothing other than to inculcate and defend the faith once delivered to them, and that this is the argument of the whole epistle.
To them that are beloved in God the Father. — The Translator reads in the Greek ἠγαπημένοις, that is, "beloved." But many read ἠγιασμένοις, that is, "sanctified." So Cajetan, Clarius, Vatablus, Pagninus, and others. Both are true, and fit this passage. For Christians "in God," that is, by God, or properly "in God," that is, in God's faith, grace, and charity are united; and therefore lovable and beloved by Jude and by one another. So Lyranus, Dionysius, and others. Likewise "in God," that is, through God and by God are they sanctified; supply: "says greeting," as if to say: Jude says greeting to Christians beloved in God the Father, and writes this epistle.
And in Jesus Christ, — that is, through Jesus Christ and His grace. Again, "in Jesus," that is, in the faith, worship, religion, love of Jesus, namely "preserved" in the Christian faith, charity, and life — as if to say: Jude says greeting and prays for Christians who are beloved by God, and who in this love of His are preserved and persevere through the grace of Jesus Christ. For perseverance is a great gift of God and of Christ, as the Council of Trent teaches, sess. VI, ch. XIII, and Saint Augustine in his book On the Gift of Perseverance. This is what Christ says (John xvii, v. 12): "While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou gavest Me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition;" and ch. XVIII, v. 9: "Of them whom Thou hast given Me, I have not lost any one;" and ch. x, v. 28: "They shall not perish forever, and no one shall pluck them out of My hand;" and Abigail and David in 1 Kings ch. XXV, v. 29: "The soul of my lord shall be kept as it were in the bundle of the living, with the Lord thy God."
Preserved and called. — You will ask: Why does Jude put "called" after "preserved," when being called to faith and love comes first, and being preserved in it comes later? First, the interlinear Gloss judges that this is hysteron proteron (a reversal): for being called precedes being preserved. Second, others reply that by "preserved" is meant preserved in grace; by "called," called to glory: glory being later than grace. But there is the objection that, although glory is later than grace, nevertheless the calling to grace includes the calling to glory, as its consummation and term. Hence Hugo replies that this is true in intention, not in execution; for in execution to be preserved in grace comes first, to be called to glory comes later — as if to say: Jude writes to the faithful who are preserved in the faith and grace of Christ and persevere, and by this perseverance are next called and directed to glory, which they will certainly attain if, as they have begun, they so persevere in the faith and grace of Christ to the end of life. But these reflections are more subtle than solid.
I say therefore that "called" (vocatis), in Greek κλητοῖς (not κεκλημένοις), is a noun, but "preserved" (conservatis), in Greek τετηρημένοις, is a participle. For the Greek so reads, τοῖς τετηρημένοις κλητοῖς, that is, "to the preserved called ones"; and the Arabic, "to the preserved called ones in the name of Jesus Christ": for Christians are called "called ones," and this is as it were their proper designation, that they be styled "called," in Greek κλητοί, that is "called-out," as if summoned by God into His family, friendship, sonship, inheritance. So therefore "called" is the title of the highest dignity, to which Christians have been raised by God. Whence Hesychius: "κλητοί," he says, "are called the noble"; for God has called us out of darkness "into His admirable light" (1 Peter II, 9), and from the most wretched servitude of sin "hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love" (Col. 1, 13) — namely, from death to life, from ignominy to glory, from gehenna to heaven, that He might make of men angels. See what was said on Rom. 1, 1, on the words: "Paul called to be an Apostle"; and 1 Cor. 1, on the words: "To the called saints," where the Syriac translates, "to the called and saints," equally as our author here translates from preserved and called; because the word called adds a special dignity and title, and likewise a gift to Christians, namely that they are endowed by God with faith, grace, and love, and are preserved in it, not from themselves and their own choice and virtue, but from the calling and grace of God, who, just as He first called them to faith and grace, so likewise daily calls and promotes them to its preservation and increase.
Therefore the word called here is, as it were, the subject, whose epithets are the words beloved and preserved. The subject, with its epithets, is sometimes placed before, sometimes after. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Jude writes this epistle to the "called," that is, to Christians, who are God's called ones, summoned by Him, and bound to His service, worship, faith, grace and kingdom, and therefore beloved and preserved by Him. For God called and calls them not only to His love, but also to the preservation, increase and perfection of that love, that namely through it He may lead them to the inheritance and glory of the heavenly kingdom. Whence Jude, expounding this, adds: "May mercy be unto you, and peace, and love be fulfilled."
Note: For preserved the Greek does not have the word φυλάττω, but more significantly φρουρέω, that is, I hold a city or citadel walled around and fortified on all sides with bulwarks, garrisons and watches, so that there is no access for the snares or invasions of enemies. For thus God walls about, protects and preserves His faithful against all the assaults of the devil, the world and the flesh, according to that of Prov. 18:10: "The name of the Lord is a most strong tower."
Verse 2: Mercy, Peace, and Charity
2. Mercy unto you, and peace, and charity be fulfilled.
Jude after his manner imitates St. Peter, who begins his second epistle with a like salutation, saying: "Grace unto you, and peace be fulfilled." Understand mercy as a virtue, not of the faithful, nor inhering in the faithful, but of God, by which He mercifully imparts His gifts, especially peace and charity, to the faithful. As if to say: May God's mercy be fulfilled in you and toward you, and may He pour His peace and charity and other gifts upon you, or rather may He increase and heap up with great increases those things already poured forth in baptism and afterwards. Understand "peace" as both with God, with neighbors, and with one's own conscience; and this peace is the companion and daughter of charity. Whence the Syriac translates, "and peace in love," according to that: "Much peace have they that love Thy law, and to them there is no stumbling-block," Psalm 118:165. This is what Zacharias sings: "Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us," Luke 1:78. For be fulfilled the Greek is πληθυνθείη, that is, may it be multiplied. Whence some think our Interpreter read mango-tin, that is, may it be fulfilled. But they do not see that the Interpreter has skilfully expressed the word not by a word, but by a fuller sense. For mercy, charity, etc. to be fulfilled is nothing other than for them to be multiplied both in number and in degree and perfection. Whence II Pet. 1:2, πληθυνθείη, just as here, is rendered may it be multiplied. Excellently St. Augustine, tract 2 on the epistle of St. John: "Such," he says, "is each one as is his love. Dost thou love the earth? Thou shalt be earth. Dost thou love God? What shall I say? Thou shalt be God."
Symbolically our Salmeron and others attribute "mercy" to God the Father: for He is "the father of mercies," II Cor. 1:3; "peace" to the Son: "for He is our peace," Ephes. 2:14; "charity" to the Holy Spirit: "for the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us," Rom. 5:5. Through "mercy" the miseries of sins are abolished, namely the guilt and penalty; through "peace," the remorses and disturbances of conscience are stilled and composed: for, as Tertullian says, book V Against Marcion, chap. 5: "Nor is there grace except for offense, nor peace except for war, etc.: what grace from one not offended, what peace from one not warred against?" The same in To the Martyrs: "Our peace is war against the devil." Through "charity" strength and vigor are conferred for the accomplishing of all good and heroic works, for fulfilling the law of Christ, and for strongly resisting the world, the flesh and the demon, for conquering all tribulations, persecutions, torments and martyrdoms.
But St. Augustine in the epistle to the Romans judges that St. Jude here represents the mystery of the Holy Trinity: for he names the Father and the Son, but represents the Holy Spirit by these three, namely mercy, peace and charity; for these are appropriated to the Holy Spirit: for He proceeds by the force of His procession as the love of the Father and the Son: thence therefore He has it that He is uncreated love and charity, from whom proceeds created mercy, charity and peace, and every good and gift.
Morally St. Augustine on that of Psalm 58, My God my mercy: "O name," he says, "under which none is to despair! My God," he says, "my mercy. What is my mercy? If thou shouldst say, my salvation, I understand because He gives salvation. If thou shouldst say, my refuge, I understand because thou dost flee to Him. If thou shouldst say my strength, I understand because He gives thee strength. My mercy, what is it? All whatsoever I am is from Thy mercy; if Thou hast given me to be, and another has given me to be good, better is He who has given me to be good than he who has given me to be."
Verse 3: Contending for the Faith Once Delivered
3. Taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I had it necessary to write to you.
As if to say: Since I was very solicitous and earnestly desired to write to you the things which pertain to your common salvation, I judged it necessary to write to you those things which I subjoin, concerning constantly holding the faith, and concerning fleeing with all contention, nay rather routing the heresies springing up. For these heresies are so dangerous that they impose upon me not only solicitude but also the necessity of writing. Whence the Arabic translates, "I was compelled by necessity"; and Thomas the Englishman: "With my solicitude pressing within," he says, "and the danger to you outwardly, I had it necessary to write to you." Briefly and clearly Pagninus and the Tigurine translate: "So great was my zeal in writing to you concerning the common salvation, that I could not but write to you."
Morally, let Prelates learn from St. Jude how great a care they ought to have for the sheep entrusted to them, namely a solicitous one, and indeed, as he himself says, "all solicitude." So also St. Paul II Cor. 11:28: "My daily instance," he says, "the solicitude for all the Churches." And Rom. 12:8: "He that ruleth, in solicitude." And Heb. 13:17: "For they themselves watch, as being to render account for your souls." Where St. Chrysostom: "Of all," he says, "whom thou rulest, thou shalt render account; with so great a fire dost thou subject thy head. I wonder if any of the Rectors can be saved." And homily 2 on II Tim.: "However much honor thou bestow upon him, however much obeisance thou show, thou wilt be able to render nothing equal to these dangers. For even if thou lay down thy soul, he does more for thee: for he exposes his soul to the danger of eternal death."
Beseeching (παρακαλῶν, that is exhorting, or beseeching) that ye should contend for the faith once delivered to the saints — Syriac, "asking that ye make a struggle"; Arabic, "I ask you to contend with me at one time" (that is continually and constantly) "in the faith which the Saints have delivered to us," namely that ye contend for the faith once, that is firmly altogether and irrevocably, as I shall say in verse 5, delivered to the saints, that is, to Christians, and that ye defend it and fight for it according to your strength, both by word and by the example of an honest and Christian life; so that ye admit no other, but explode every one different from this.
Note the word supercertari, that is supercertare, as some codices here read. For our Interpreter sometimes takes the word certor not as passive, but as deponent, and the same as certo, as is clear from Ecclus. ch. 11:9, and 38:29; and Wisd. 15:9. Indeed Pacuvius in Nonius, ch. 8, uses certatur for certat.
Again the prefix super is the same as for; for this in Greek is ὑπέρ. Wherefore "to contend over for the faith" is the same as to contend for the faith. So Gagneius. Secondly, the super denotes a vast, sharp, and continuous zeal of contending and resisting the enemies of the faith, and as it were an ἄσπονδος πόλεμος, that is an irreconcilable war: for the super signifies a strenuous and as it were a beyond-strength struggle, that by contending they may, as it were, overcome themselves like athletes, who in the contest transcend their own strengths and themselves, when the chief matter, namely victory and life, is at stake. Thirdly, the super denotes another and as it were a second contest, as if to say: I first contended with you against idolatry and idolaters, do you now secondly contend with me against heresy and heretics: for this is ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι; thus Nazianzen, in the oration On the Maccabees, says: προηγωνίσαντο πατέρες, ἐπηγωνίζοντο παῖδες, that is, first the fathers contended, afterward the sons contended. This is what Paul admonishes Timothy, epistle I, ch. 6, verse 12: "Fight the good fight of faith" (Vatablus, render thyself the keenest defender of the faith), "lay hold on eternal life," as if to say: If thou shalt have well contended, thou shalt lay hold on eternal life. Terrible is the saying of Innocent III, dist. 83, chap. error: "Error," he says, "which is not resisted, is approved; and truth, when it is least defended, is oppressed: indeed to neglect, when thou canst put down the perverse, is nothing other than to foster." He speaks chiefly to Prelates, but also to others in their order. Wherefore the exposition of Hugh is mystical, not literal: "To contend for the faith," he says, is to erect and add the contest of sufferings upon the foundation of faith and good works; or to contend for heavenly things, that we may strive for the soul and justice unto death, as the Wise Man admonishes in Ecclus. 4. Similar is that of Thomas the Englishman: "To contend for the faith," he says, is to add to the inner contest, by which the intellect is captivated, the outer contest, by which the heretic is confounded. "For with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation," Rom. 10:10.
Morally, learn here how great and how sharp ought to be the contest of Christians for faith and piety. Hear Christ writing to the angel, that is the Bishop, of Smyrna in Apoc. 2:10: "Be thou faithful" (by contending) "unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life." Excellently St. Cyprian, book II, epistle 6 to the Martyrs: "If," he says, "the battle line shall call you, if the day of your contest shall come, fight valiantly, struggle constantly, knowing that ye fight under the eyes of the Lord present, and that by the confession of His name ye come to His own glory; who is not such as merely to look upon His servants, but He Himself wrestles in us, He Himself joins battle, He Himself in the contest of our agony both crowns and is crowned." And soon: "O blessed Church of ours, etc. To her flowers neither lilies nor roses are lacking. Let each one now contend for the most ample dignity of either honor; let them receive crowns either white from work, or purple from passion. In the heavenly camps both peace and the battle line have their flowers, by which the soldier of Christ may be crowned for glory." The same, in book On Mortality, says that nothing else is daily waged in the world than a battle against the devil, and that the wrestling with vices and allurements is troublesome and continuous. And Clement of Alexandria, book VII of the Stromata: "The true," he says, "athlete is he who is crowned in this great stadium of the world, having attained true victory against all the disturbances of the soul, since the umpire is Almighty God." Tertullian to the Martyrs, ch. III: "A good," he says, "contest are ye about to undertake, in which the Umpire is the living God, the Master of the Games is the Holy Spirit, the prize the crown of eternity, the citizenship of angelic substance, in the heavens glory unto ages of ages."
From what has been said it is clear that the supercertari is referred to of the faith: wherefore less rightly do some refer it to to the saints, as if to say: I beseech you to contend over for the saints, that is to contend for the saints, says Catharinus, or with the saints, says Erasmus: of the saints, I say, of the faith, that is the faithful, namely Christians; for at first all the faithful were called and truly were saints, as if to say: I beseech you to contend with the saints, by emulating the saints, by adding your contest to their contest, and as it were filling up those things which are wanting to the sufferings of Christ and the Saints, as Paul says in Col. 1:24.
Lastly, heretics wrongly conclude from this that it is lawful for rude and unlearned laymen to dispute about the faith: for to dispute is one thing, which belongs only to the skilled and learned, and to contend is another; for even simple and rude men contend, not by disputing, but by constantly asserting and defending the truth and the faith; whence the heretic Beza explains the ἐπαγωνίσασθαι, that is to contend over, by ἐπαμύνασθαι, that is to defend, to protect.
Verse 4: Certain Men Are Secretly Entered In
4. For certain men have crept in.
That is, they have stolen in furtively; the Royal version, they have crept in: for the sub, and the Greek παρά, signifies that they have entered secretly from ambush, by stealth, deceitfully, by stealth as it were like foxes, and have insinuated themselves among the faithful. For thus pseudo-prophets and heretics, as if they were true prophets and teachers, craftily pretending and boasting of new, rare and exquisite knowledge and doctrine, insinuate themselves among the faithful. See what is said at II Peter 2:1. Here he gives the reason why it is fitting that they should contend over for the faith, namely because heretics sharply and deceitfully attack it. The Syriac translates: "They have acquired entrance," namely by art, cunning, fraud; the Arabic: "They have mixed themselves in among us."
Who were of old prescribed unto this judgment.
Syriac: "Who from the beginning came, that they might be written for just condemnation"; Arabic: "Who are written for this very judgment."
Note the pronoun this: for it signifies that the judgment of the heretics is certain, known and public, as if to say: Into this judgment in which I, and all the orthodox with me, condemn them of heresy, and pronounce them guilty of Gehenna.
Now "prescribed," say Bede and Clement of Alexandria, that is foreseen and predestined: for because they have been foreseen by God from eternity to be impious, hence by the same they have been reprobated and predestined to judgment, to condemnation and Gehenna. Secondly, Didymus says "prescribed," that is judged by themselves, they have been delivered up to a reprobate sense, namely on account of their demerits. Impiously therefore the impious Beza judges that they have been delivered up to a reprobate sense by God without order to demerits. "For by the decree of God," he says, "I say nothing can be found prior either in time or in order, but that God is despoiled of His divinity." Is this not a Satanic voice? which makes a Satan out of God, that is, makes the author of good into the author of evil and a reprobate sense. Thirdly, Gagneius says, "prescribed," that is they were prefigured in the ancient pseudo-prophets. Fourthly and genuinely, Oecumenius, Dionysius and others say, "prescribed," in Greek προγεγραμμένοι, that is previously written, previously described, as if to say: Concerning such ones, both their impiety and judgment, that is condemnation, Peter and Paul wrote before me (Jude), nay Christ Himself depicted them, and forewarned that ye should beware of them as it were of wolves, Matt. 24:24; II Tim. 3:1; II Pet. 2. Indeed even the ancient Prophets before Christ depicted to the life, in their rivals the pseudo-prophets, the manners and contest of heretics with the orthodox, as Jeremiah, Lam. 2:14: "Thy prophets have seen for thee false and foolish things, nor did they lay open thy iniquity, that they might provoke thee to penance." Similar is Jer. 14:14; and Zech. ch. 13:4: "And it shall come to pass: In that day the Prophets shall be confounded, every one out of his own vision, when he shall have prophesied," etc. But most clearly Jeremiah in the whole of ch. 28 describes his contest with Hananias the pseudo-prophet, and at length intending against him God's judgment and vengeance, vs. 15: "Hear," he says, "Hananias, the Lord hath not sent thee, and thou hast made this people to trust in a lie. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will send thee away from the face of the earth; this year thou shalt die: for thou hast spoken against the Lord. And Hananias the prophet died in that year." Similar was the contest of Micaiah with Zedekiah the pseudo-prophet of king Ahab, and similar the judgment, III Kings 22:24 and following. St. Jude says this on account of the word crept in, that is they have stolen in furtively; for lest the faithful should say: How shall we know them and beware of them, if they insinuate themselves among us by stealth and unexpectedly? St. Jude anticipates, and says that for this reason they have already been forewarned about these men, and that their arts and manners have already been described by the Apostles and Prophets, so that from these they may be able to recognize and beware of the lurking wolves.
Impious (piety is the worship of God: impious therefore are the heretics, who strive to abolish or violate the true faith, worship and religion of God. Whence Jude, expounding and giving the cause why he has called them impious, adds, saying) transferring the grace of our God (Serarius reads, "glory") into luxury. — Syriac, perverting it into uncleanness; Arabic, turning aside, or converting into shamelessness. He calls the Evangelical law, or Christianity, "grace": for this is a vast grace, indeed a heap of graces, as if to say: They abuse Christianity unto luxury, they convert Christianity into Priapism, they turn the law of grace, purity and virtue into the licence of disgraces, of all turpitudes and crimes, teaching that Christianity is a law of liberty, and that therefore it is lawful for Christians freely to indulge in concupiscence, gluttony and Venus. This is what St. Peter says, epistle II, ch. 2:19: "Promising them liberty, whereas they themselves are slaves of corruption." Adding that there is in the new law an easy expiation of sin, through baptism, absolution and the other Sacraments. He notes the Nicolaitans, Simonians, Gnostics, who, although they were most impure, feigned themselves to be teachers of the pure Gospel, and on that pretext, as he says, led away little women laden with sins, instituting nocturnal rites in which they perpetrated every obscenity promiscuously. So Oecumenius. So obscene indeed were the Gnostics that they were called Borborites, that is muddy ones, because they even drew the sacred Histories and Scriptures to their own lusts by their explanations, as St. Epiphanius narrates at length, heresy 26, St. Irenaeus, book I, ch. 20, Clement, book VII of the Stromata. In a similar way Luther, Calvin and the rest of the modern heretics transfer the grace and beauty of Christianity into the licence and luxury of the flesh. Wherefore St. Gregory, XVI Morals, XXII, compares heretics to wild asses, that is to wild and woodland asses, both for their fierceness and for their lust (for the wild ass is most salacious), and because they shake off every yoke. "Rightly," he says, "are heretics compared to wild asses, because in their pleasures they have been let loose from the chains both of faith and of reason," according to that which Job says at ch. 24:5: "Others as wild asses in the desert go forth to their work, watching for the prey." Indeed concerning Simon Magus the first heresiarch Tertullian thus writes, book On the Soul, ch. 34: "He redeemed a certain Helen, a Tyrian woman, from a place of public lust, with the same money" (with which namely he had wished to buy from St. Peter the gift of the Holy Spirit), "as a fitting recompense to himself for the Holy Spirit."
Secondly, some by χάριν, that is grace, understand the Eucharist; for this is the grace of graces. Whence by Cyril of Jerusalem it is called οὐράνιος χάρις, that is heavenly grace; by others, θεία καὶ ζωοποιός χάρις, that is, divine and deifying grace; by others everywhere, μυστικὴ χάρις, that is mystical grace, or the secret of grace. Indeed that of St. Paul, Heb. ch. 12, vs. 28: "We have grace through which we may serve, pleasing to God with fear and reverence"; St. Clement, book II of the Constitutions, 27, thus explains: "That all," he says, "may approach the mystical worship with fear and reverence, as approaching the body of the king." This grace, namely the Eucharist, the heretics were converting into luxury. For St. Augustine reports, heresy 46, that the Manichaeans took the Eucharist sprinkled with human semen, which he himself rightly says is no sacrament, but a sacrilege. The same the Gnostics did more shamefully, saying: "This is the body of Christ, and this is the Pasch," says St. Epiphanius, heresy 26.
And denying the only Sovereign... and our Lord Jesus Christ.
(The Greek has Δεσπότην Θεόν, that is Lord God, or master God: for δεσπότης is called the master who has lordly right over slaves. "Sovereign" therefore is the same as Lord God, or the master God of all). For the Simonians denied that Christ was God; for they denied that God had been born, suffered, raised. Oecumenius adds: "In what way," he says, "do they not deny Christ, who by an impure and unclean life, as if by a clamorous proclamation, abdicate and alienate the master of all temperance? For there is no fellowship of darkness with light." St. Peter, epistle II, ch. 2, vs. 1, says: "And they deny the Lord that bought them." See what is said there. Moreover, when he says that Christ is the "only Sovereign and Lord," he does not exclude the Father and the Holy Spirit, but any other who may be of a different essence. "Only" therefore, namely with the Father and the Holy Spirit, since Christ is to them ὁμοούσιος and consubstantial, and therefore has the same dominion and domination with them. Wherefore, as Bede rightly says: "Whatever person you may name in the same holy and individual Trinity, He is the one God; and when you name the whole Trinity together, you name the one true God." An exclusive expression therefore, added to one divine person with respect to an essential predicate, does not exclude the other persons, says Lyranus, but excludes them in notional predicates, as if I should say: Only the Father generates, only the Son is generated, only the Holy Spirit is spirated.
Moreover Oecumenius refers the Sovereign to the Father, and our Lord to the Son Jesus Christ; but far truer is it that both are referred to Christ, as Didymus, Bede, Lyranus, Hugh, Dionysius, Gagneius, Salmeron, Serarius and others everywhere report. And this is proved first, because the Greek denotes and precedes both with the one article τὸν, although some Greek codices double this article, but they are few and of less note. Secondly, because St. Jude says the same as St. Peter, who says: "And they deny the Lord (Christ) that bought them." Thirdly, because the Simonians and Ebionites against whom Jude here writes did not deny that there is one Sovereign, that is the supreme Lord and God of the Universe, but denied that He is Jesus Christ: for they said that Jesus was a mere man, not God. The genuine sense and mind of St. Jude therefore is, against the Simonians, Ebionites and the Arians who were to come afterwards, to teach that Jesus Christ is true God. Similarly the Nicolaitans, against whom St. Jude writes, denied Christ to be God: for they said that God had only dwelt in Christ, as St. Ignatius reports, epistle 9, and Irenaeus, book III, ch. 11. Lastly, the Arabic version persuades the same, which has: "And denying Him who is the only Lord God, our Lord Jesus Christ." Moreover Christ is our "Sovereign," in Greek Δεσπότης Θεός, that is the Lord and master God, because He has redeemed and bought us from the slavery of the devil with His blood. Whence He is the same Κύριος, that is our Lord, both by the title of creation, and so also of redemption. Wherefore Augustus Caesar "did not endure to be called lord, nay he did not dare, at the time when the true Lord of the whole human race was born among men," says Orosius book VI, ch. 22.
Thou wilt ask how Sovereign and Lord differ? I respond first, that the Sovereign signifies dominion over all things, but our Lord merely toward the faithful and Christians, who acknowledge and venerate Him as Lord. So the Gloss. Whence the Syriac translates, "in Him who alone is the Lord God, denying our Lord Jesus Christ"; and the Arabic, "denying the only King, our Lord Jesus Christ." Secondly, Fevardentius says that God the Father is called "Sovereign" by reason of creation, but Christ is called "our Lord" by reason of redemption, by which He purchased us as it were as slaves to Himself. Thirdly, Thomas the Englishman judges that by the word "Sovereign" is signified the power of ruling, or natural domination; but by "Lord," the act of ruling, or gratuitous dominion. The first answer, with which the second coheres, seems genuine: for the Sovereign is set absolutely and indeterminately so that it regards all things, but Lord is determined by "our," namely of the faithful and Christians. Add: God is called "Sovereign Lord," to magnify His dominion, as if to say: Most amply and most fully ruling everywhere and through all things; or, as St. Paul says: "King of kings, and Lord of lords," I Tim. 6:15. Whence the Church at the introit of the Mass on the feast of Epiphany begins thus: "Behold the Sovereign Lord cometh, and the kingdom is in His hand, and power and dominion"; and in the Angelic hymn: "Thou alone art Holy, Thou alone art Lord, Thou alone art the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father." He alludes to Isaiah ch. 3, vs. 1, and ch. 10, vs. 16, where God is called "Sovereign Lord." Adamus adds that God is called Δεσπότης, that is Sovereign, as it were δεσμώτης, that is binder, who namely is able to bind and cast bonds upon us as it were a Judge upon the accused; but Κύριος, that is Lord, from κυρῶσαι, that is to decree, because He bears laws to us, and binds us by them. But these things are said allusively rather than genuinely. The former reason therefore is genuine, and this is clear from the fact that God first gave Himself this name "Sovereign Lord," Exod. 34:6, and ordered Himself to be invoked thereby by Moses, where in the Hebrew the same name is repeated, namely "Jehovah Jehovah"; and Is. 10:16, He is again called "Sovereign Lord," for which in the Hebrew is repeated the name Adon Adonai. There again at vs. 33, and ch. 3, vs. 1, He is called Haadon Jehovah Sabaoth, which Our author renders, Sovereign Lord. Hence the Wise Man, ch. 12:18: "But Thou," he says, "Sovereign of strength, judgest with tranquillity"; and Amos, ch. 5, vs. 16: "Thus saith the Lord God of hosts the Sovereign"; and Zechariah, 4:14: "These are the two sons of oil, who attend upon the Sovereign of the whole earth." The true reason therefore, and the true origin why God is called "Sovereign Lord," is, that frequently in the Old Testament two names are given to God, or the same is doubled to represent His majesty and glory. For He is called Jehovah Adonai, which our author renders, Sovereign Lord; and to this St. Jude here alludes. Jehovah properly signifies the very being of God, in every direction immense and infinite, that is, the ocean of essence, from which every being and existence proceeds as a ray from the sun; Adonai signifies Lord, as I have shown at Exod. ch. 6, vs. 3.
But, because men cannot conceive the very being of God, which Jehovah signifies, as it is in itself, hence Our author renders it Sovereign; for nothing represents to us the divinity and the supreme majesty of God so much as the name Sovereign, that is, the supreme of the whole Universe, namely because He has full dominion, kingdom and empire over all the creatures of the Universe, according to that of Cicero, book II On the Nature of the Gods: "Dominator God of things." And: "Let this therefore be already persuaded to citizens from the beginning, that the gods are masters of all things and moderators"; and that of Seneca, Hippolytus: "Neptune the savage sovereign of the strait"; and Virgil, book II of the Aeneid, calls Priam: "Once proud over so many peoples and lands, Ruler of Asia."
Thus the Hebrews call God "Lord of sabaoth," that is of hosts, according to that: "The Lord of hosts is His name," Jer. 31:35. "For the Deity, because it is incomparable, is named variously, namely the glory of wisdom, the glory or height of deity, or domination, or dignity, or charity, or majesty, or empire, or power, or sempiternity," says St. Athanasius, book I On the Unity of the Holy Trinity.
Moreover Christ is "Sovereign Lord," both as God and as man: for as man through the hypostatic union He has supreme right and dominion over all created things, even the Angels, Cherubim and Seraphim, according to that of Christ, Matt. 28:18: "All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth"; and Apoc. ch. 19, 16: "He hath on His garment and on His thigh written: King of kings, and Lord of lords"; and Heb. ch. 1, vs. 2: "Whom He has constituted heir of all things." With what affection therefore must we worship Christ as man, revere Him, and with all our strength obey and serve Him, before whose feet all the angels prostrating themselves most humbly cast themselves down, obey and serve?
Verse 5: Jesus Saved the People and Destroyed the Unbelieving
5. But I will admonish you.
In Greek ὑπομνῆσαι, that is, I desire to bring back unto your memory; the Arabic, "I love (desire) to recall to your memory." Hence ὑπομνήματα are called memorials.
Knowing once all things.
As if to say: I do not wish to teach you, because ye have already learned and know those things; but only to suggest them, and as it were as an admonisher to recall them to memory. He says this for modesty's sake, lest he should seem to charge them with ignorance, but rather to praise them for knowledge. So St. John says, epistle I, ch. 2, vs. 21: "I have not written to you as to those who are ignorant of the truth, but as to those who know it," as if to say: I persuade myself that ye know these things which I write, whence I do not teach, but rub them in and confirm them, that the things which ye have well begun to believe, ye may by persevering more perfectly bring to completion. For though some might be ignorant of them, many however knew them. Whence thou mayest gather that the first Christians were very well instructed and learned in the faith. For at that time the catechesis of neophytes flourished, and indeed the Apostles themselves were perpetual catechists. Let Pastors now imitate these, because there is great ignorance among the faithful of the things of faith and salvation, and many for that cause perish and are damned, whose souls God will require at the hands of the Pastors.
The word once either refers to their first instruction in the faith and Scripture, as if to say: Long ago in your first instruction and catechesis, ye both at one time and once heard and learned the history of Joshua and the Hebrews. But in the first catechesis the articles of the faith are handed down, and not the histories of Holy Scripture, unless you say that St. Jude is speaking chiefly to Jews converted to Christ: for these in Judaism had heard many things about Moses and Joshua. Secondly, more aptly thou mayest refer the once by Hebrew transposition to saving; for it is opposed to the secondly which follows, so that the sentence should be ordered thus: knowing that "Jesus, once saving the people from the land of Egypt, secondly destroyed those who did not believe"; and so some Greek codices read: for then the sense is plain, connected and forceful. The Syriac agrees, which translates, that God according to one time delivered the people out of Egypt; and the Arabic, that Jesus on the first occasion, or first, delivered His people out of Egypt. Thirdly and most plainly, knowing "once" is altogether and outright "all things," universally "all things," wholly "all things," at the same time "all things," so that it is not necessary for me to teach them again, and for you to hear and learn them again. So Cicero on behalf of Dejotarus: "As thou art easy, Caesar, to be entreated, so thou art wont to be entreated once"; once, that is altogether and outright, so that it is not necessary to entreat thee further. Again, "once," that is in sum, or in the sum, as if to say: "Knowing once," that is summarily, "all things." So Quintilian, book XI, ch. 1: "And that I may," he says, "comprise all things at once"; and book X, ch. III: "Finally that I may say once what is most potent: secrecy in dictating perishes," that is, that I may say the sum. The reason of this phrase is that very "once," which signifies one occasion for all, so that nothing afterward need be added. Lastly, "once," that is irrevocably, as if to say: "Knowing" all things "once," that is solidly, firmly and irrevocably, so that ye cannot forget them. So Ovid, epistle 5, on lost virginity: "She perishes once," that is irrevocably, because once lost it can never be recovered. And Lucan, book IX: "And the Author once said to those being born, Whatever it is permitted to know." Once, he says, so that he adds no word afterwards. Pliny, book VII, ch. 34: "The best man," he says, "since the founding of the age was once judged to be Scipio Nasica by the sworn senate"; and ch. 35: "The most chaste woman was once judged by the verdict of the matrons to be Sulpicia." Where the once has the charm of one affirming, so that what we wish to affirm to be most true, it suffices to have said only once. In which sense Job 33:14 says: "God speaks once, and does not repeat the same a second time"; and the Psalmist, Ps. 88, vs. 36: "Once have I sworn by My holy one"; and Ps. 61, vs. 12: "God hath spoken once"; and Paul, Heb. 9:12: "Christ once entered into the holies"; and Jude here vs. 3: "Of the faith once delivered to the saints." Similar are Exod. ch. 33, vs. 5; Num. 30:7; Lev. 27:28, and I Sam. 26:8, and elsewhere.
Moreover understand the all things conveniently. Oecumenius notes that St. Jude cites the history of the Old Testament, "both that he may declare the same to be God the founder of the Old and New Testaments, and not, as those wicked ones say, the one God of the Old Testament being an avenger and cruel, asserting the other of the New mild and benign; and at the same time he says, that neither these who now sin will be able to remain unpunished, just as neither those who were led out of Egypt." This very thing Didymus indicates, who thinks that by this example what Jude had just said is confirmed, that Christ is God and Lord of all created things. "For it has been said," he says, "before these things, of Him that He is true God, this only Sovereign and Lord Jesus Christ, who led the people out of Egypt through Moses: which things being so said, the consequence is that there is no other God of Moses: for there is no other besides the Trinity."
Because (that) Jesus.
St. Jerome, book I Against Jovinian, takes it of Joshua: for he is called "Jesus" by the Septuagint: for Joshua led the people into the land of promise. But it stands against this that Joshua did not lead the people out of Egypt; for Moses did that, whose minister and successor was Joshua. Again, for Jesus many Greek codices have Κύριος, that is Lord, and some add ὁ Θεός, that is God. Whence the Syriac and Clement of Alexandria read Lord God, which befits Jesus Christ alone, not Joshua. "Jesus" therefore, not as man (since He was not yet born on earth), but as God, led His people, namely the Hebrews, out of Egypt and its servitude and delivered them. For, as Paul says: "Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, the same forever," Heb. 13:8. By all these things St. Jude shows against Simon, Ebion and the Arians the divinity of Christ.
Saving, σώσας, that is, when He had saved.
Secondly destroyed those who did not believe. — (God and Moses promising that He would deliver to them the promised land, and therefore they wished to return into Egypt), destroyed them. How "secondly"? First, Bede and from him the Interlinear Gloss: "Secondly," he says, that is, twice He punished and destroyed them, namely first in this life through death, secondly in the other through hell. "Because," he says, "punishment frees from torment only those whom it changes; and those whom present evils do not correct, it leads on to what follows." But others commonly explain "secondly" as "afterwards," "thereafter," as Clement of Alexandria reads; whence the Arabic reads, "in a second turn."
The sense therefore is, as if to say: God once saved the people, when He led them, following Him, out of Egypt; but "secondly," that is, on another occasion, He destroyed them, namely when, having become unbelieving, they departed from Him and apostatized, and that not once but repeatedly. For He slew those who worshipped the golden calf at Sinai, Exodus 32:27; afterwards He slew those who murmured and longed for flesh at the Graves of Lust, Numbers 11:33. Finally, He condemned to death in the wilderness all but Joshua and Caleb, on account of the murmuring of the spies, Numbers 14:29.
Wherefore it is not necessary, with some, to refer "secondly" to the Hebrews in relation to the Egyptians, who were first destroyed and drowned in the Red Sea, as if to say: God first destroyed the Egyptians in the Red Sea, because they pursued the Hebrews, the people of God; but when the Hebrews, having struggled against God, imitated the Egyptians, indeed wished to return to Egypt, God turned His wrath upon them; and just as He had first destroyed the Egyptians, so secondly He destroyed the Hebrews. It is not, I say, necessary so to explain it, indeed it is not even fitting, because no mention is here made of the destruction of the Egyptians. Furthermore, St. Jude leaves this example to be applied to the faithful, as if to say: In like manner, God will secondly destroy the faithful whom He first saved in baptism, while they followed Christ, if they apostatize from Christ and turn aside to Simon, Ebion, and other enemies of Christ. "For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they had known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them," says St. Peter, Epistle II, chapter 2, verse 21. See what is said there.
Verse 6: The Angels Who Kept Not Their Principality
6. And the angels who kept not their principality, etc.
The Arabic translates thus: "He cast the angels who did not preserve their principality, but abandoned their order and office, into outer darkness, bound in eternal chains, reserving them unto this great day, the day of judgment." This is the second example and argument, namely of the angels, as the first was of the Hebrews, as if to say: If God cast down from heaven the most noble angels who apostatized and rebelled against Him, and reserved them to be condemned on the day of the great judgment, how much more will He punish you, O faithful, and condemn you on the day of judgment before the whole world, if, apostatizing from His faith, you fall away to the impiety and perfidy of the heretics? St. Peter uses the same in Epistle II, chapter 2, verse 4, saying: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments, to be reserved unto judgment," etc. See what is said there. This horrible fall of Lucifer and the Angels is graphically depicted by Isaiah, ch. 14, v. 12, and Ezekiel, ch. 28, v. 12. For "principality," the Greek is ἀρχή, which signifies both origin and beginning, as well as power and principality. Hence Cajetan and the Zurich version translate "their origin"; Gagneius, "their dignity"; Adamus, "their magistracy," that is, "they did not retain the honor and pre-eminence of angelic dignity," as if to say: the angels did not preserve their origin, that is, their original excellence, state, grace, justice, pre-eminence, and dominion over all corporeal things, that they might rule as princes in heaven and on earth, in which they were originally created and established by God. Hence it is clear that all angels, even the demons, were originally created in grace. For from original grace and justice flowed their original excellence and dominion over all things.
Wherefore the Master of the Sentences, Henry, Bonaventure, Scotus, Alensis, and Hugo, whom our Vasquez cites in Part I, disputation 217, chapter 3 and 4, less probably deny that the demons were created in grace; and from this passage and others he refutes them, where he shows that by "principality" sanctifying grace is principally to be understood: for through it we are constituted sons of God, heirs and princes of the heavenly kingdom, and indeed the angels themselves were by it friends and intimates of God, and princes in God's house and heavenly court. Much more is the error of the heretics evident from this, who say that the devil is by his own nature evil: thus thought the Priscillianists, whom St. Leo condemns in Epistle 97, chapter 6, and the Lateran Council, in chapter Firmiter, on the supreme Trinity; and Epiphanius in Heresy 48 refutes the heretics who said that the devil was the son of Sabaoth, that is, of the seventh power, whom they asserted to be the God of the Jews, and by his nature evil and contrary to the Father, but mingled with Eve, and from her begot Cain and Abel.
Tropologically, Bede: "In like manner, after the manner of the demons," he says, "the faithful who are puffed up with pride, who do not preserve the grace of adoption as sons of God, and who abandon their dwelling, namely the unity of the Church in which they were reborn unto God, or indeed the seats of the heavenly kingdom which they were to receive if they kept the faith, will be condemned grievously before the judgment, and more grievously in the universal judgment." Apply the same to clerics apostatizing from their Order, and to religious from their state. For both abandon their principality, and as it were fall from heaven into hell, indeed cast themselves down willingly. See Jerome Platus, book III On the Good of the Religious State, last and second-to-last chapters.
Finally, from this and other passages of Scripture, in which demons are called ἀρχαί, that is, principalities and powers, Cassian skillfully gathers in Conference VIII, chapter 8, that among the angels who fell, very many came from the highest of their princes. For these had so much greater an occasion of pride and ruin, in proportion as they perceived themselves to surpass the others by the greater gifts of nature and grace. Here that saying is true: "And the lightnings strike the highest mountains"; so through pride the highest in the Church have fallen, such as Saul, Origen, Tertullian, etc.
But left their own habitation, ἴδιον οἰκητήριον, that is, their own habitation, namely the heavenly one, namely the empyreal heaven, says Lyranus; but they "abandoned" it not directly and willingly, but indirectly and under compulsion: for because they willingly abandoned the heavenly mode of life, by which they clung to and served God, hence they were compelled by God to leave heaven, when they were cast down from it. So Œcumenius. Whence the Arabic translates, "they abandoned their order, or their established office." Truly St. Augustine, Sermon 28 On the Words of the Lord according to Luke: "Heaven," he says, "has been sanctified, the devil has been cast down"; and a little before: "Heaven is where guilt has ceased; heaven is where there are no scandalous deeds; heaven is where there is no wound of death." Hence it is clear that the angels were created in the empyreal heaven, although some deny this.
Morally, learn how every creature, even the angelic, is unstable, unless it be confirmed and stabilized by God: "Behold, those who serve Him are not steadfast, and in His angels He found wickedness," says Job, chapter 4, verse 18; and chapter 15, verse 15: "Behold, among His saints none is unchangeable, and the heavens are not pure in His sight." Again from this it is clear that the angels were not blessed at the beginning, nor had they seen God; for thus they would have been confirmed in grace, nor could they have fallen from heaven. Whence St. Augustine, in book XI On Genesis according to the Letter, chapter 13, says: "The demon never tasted the sweetness of the blessed life, which (he says) he certainly did not loathe after receiving it, but by not willing to receive it, he forsook and lost it."
Unto the Judgment (that is, unto condemnation, by metonymy: so Œcumenius) of the great day, — namely, the day of judgment: for this will be the great day, because great things will take place in it, namely the universal judgment, the consummation of the world, the glorious descent of Christ with all the Angels and Saints, the separation of the good from the wicked, the glorification of the good, and the damnation of the wicked unto eternity. Therefore this day will be the horizon of time and eternity, separating for all ages the angels from the demons, the blessed from the damned, Paradise from hell. Hence it is clear that the demons will appear in the universal judgment, and will be judged by Christ and receive the sentence of eternal damnation, according to that of 1 Corinthians 6:3: "Know you not that we shall judge angels?" as St. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Ambrose, Anselm, and others commonly teach and explain in that place.
With everlasting chains.
In Greek ἀΐδιος, that is, eternal, or not their own but foreign and coerced; or, as the Syriac, unknown, invisible, namely those which cannot be seen. Origen, in homily 9 on Matthew, reads: "with heavy chains"; St. Peter, Epistle II, chapter 2, verse 4, calls them σειραῖς ζόφου, that is, ropes, or chains of darkness. Whence Jude adds, "under darkness." These chains are spiritual, namely the divine power restraining them, and their binding and fastening through it to prison, hell, and eternal punishment. For God has so bound and constrained them to it, that they can nowhere and never shake it off or escape, and therefore they are called eternal; because although the demons are allowed until the day of judgment to dwell in this air and tempt men, yet wherever they go they carry around this obligation and binding, and indeed their very punishment and burning, as slaves carry around their chain. As therefore a man, say a judge, binds the bodies of the guilty, so God binds the spirits and souls of the damned to hell and to fire. It can secondly be explained thus, as if to say: God has reserved the demons under the darkness of this air with eternal chains, that is, unto eternal chains, with which on the day of judgment, in the sight of the whole world, He will bind them and shut them up in hell, that they can never again come out of it, as they can now, but be thrust into it as into a perpetual prison-house. Whence Cyril of Alexandria on Habakkuk III, number 49, reads: "For whom the darkness of shadows is reserved unto all ages." Both are true; for the demons are both already bound with eternal chains, and are again to be bound with the same on the day of judgment, as I have already said. Of the chains of the demons, what kind they are, and how they are bound by them, I shall speak on Apocalypse chapter 9, verse 14.
Finally, Clement of Alexandria interprets the "chains" of the demons as the loss of the honor in which they had stood, and as the desire for inferior things; for those bound by their own desire can in no way be converted. But these are symbolic and mystical chains, not literal ones.
Under darkness, both of this dark air, and rather of hell and tartarus, as St. Peter says, Epistle II, chapter — verse 4; for ζόφος, that is darkness, night, also signifies hell, because in it is the densest darkness, perpetual and eternal night: for some demons dwell in hell, others in this air; but both carry around their chain and punishment. Whence the Fathers teach that this air is full of demons. So St. Augustine, book XI of the City of God, chapter 33; St. Fulgentius, book On the Trinity, and others commonly. In the Life of St. Emmeram, book II, it is recounted that the multitude of demons in the air is so great, that it was revealed to a certain holy man that they, if they had bodies equal to ours, would intercept the splendor of the sun from mortals.
The preposition "under" notes that this darkness is in a place, not higher, but lower and beneath, and that it is like a prison. For a prison is wont to be in a deep and underground place, in which, and beneath which, the guilty are shut up, pressed down, and confined. Whence St. Augustine, On the Nature of the Good against the Manichaeans, chapter 33, asserts that the demons "received as a penalty this lower hell, that is, the lower darksome air, as a prison."
He hath reserved, "to be tormented," says St. Peter: see what is said there. St. Jude rather refers the word "reserved" to "eternal chains," as if to say: He has reserved them for the eternal chains, with which on the day of judgment He will bind them and shut them up in the prison and the eternal fire. Hence note morally how great is the misery and weakness of the demons, namely that they are as it were chained criminals, and accordingly, like dogs tied up, they cannot attack and bite us unless we voluntarily throw ourselves into their jaws and claws, as St. Augustine teaches, Sermon 197 On the Times, and Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women, chapter 2: "These," he says, "are the angels whom we shall judge. These are the angels whom we renounce in the laver of baptism. These are surely the things through which they deserved to be judged by man. What then do their offerings do before their own judges? What commerce is there between those who shall condemn and those who shall be condemned? With what constancy shall we ascend the tribunal to decree against those whose gifts we covet?"
Verse 7: Sodom and Gomorrha as an Example
7. As Sodom and Gomorrha.
This is the third example, by which he stigmatizes the infamous lusts of the Simonians and Gnostics, to which he threatens eternal fire; just as by the first example of the rebellious Hebrews he stigmatized their perfidy and rebellion; and by the second example of the apostatizing demons he stigmatized their pride and envy. By which he tacitly notes that they, like the Sodomites, defiled themselves with perverted and unspeakable lust.
Having given themselves to fornication, that is, fornicated to the utmost, exercising the most extreme and worst lust, so that they appear to have exceeded all its measure and limit, and to have exhausted all the powers of the body, all the seed, and all the sap of blood and life in fornicating. This is what Irenaeus writes in Book I about the mistresses of Marcus the Gnostic: "These," he says, "often returning to the Church of God, confessed both that they had been worn out in body by him as if by lust, and that, inflamed, they had loved him exceedingly." Secondly, Thomas Anglicus, Hugh, and the Gloss say: "exfornicatae," that is, they fornicated outside the vessel proper to nature, namely because, leaving the natural use of women, they burned in their lust toward males, Rom. 1:27. Others say "exfornicatae," that is, outside the brothels: not with harlots who prostituted themselves there, but with boys at home. But this is more subtle than solid.
Going after other flesh.
Syriac, "they walked after other flesh." For male and female in marriage become one flesh in order to beget offspring, according to Matthew 19:5: "They shall be two in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh." But male and male cannot become one flesh for begetting; therefore they are two, and if they are mingled, they go after other flesh. Therefore "other flesh," or, as Pagninus translates, "foreign flesh," is a concubine woman or a harlot: for she is other than the lawful wife. Or rather it is the male; for his flesh, and the perverted lust toward him, is foreign to the institution and use of nature, because incongruous and inept, indeed contrary to the generation and procreation of children. So Œcumenius: "He calls," he says, "'other flesh' the male sex, inasmuch as it is different and foreign to the intercourse of generation. For the flesh fitted for intercourse is the flesh of the woman, according to that which was said by our forefather: Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. But the flesh of males is other, that is, different in respect of intercourse." They therefore go after other flesh when males are perversely mingled with males, or females with females, or men with women outside the natural vessel; much more when they are mingled with a beast, or with a devil that has assumed a body, whether as incubus or succubus. With a similar phrase the Emperor Constans, in the law Cum vir, on the Julian law on adultery, says: "Because in this crime sex loses its place, Venus has been changed into another form." And the Wise Man, chapter 14:26, says that from idolatry (just as from heresy) arose the changing of birth, the inconstancy of marriages, and the disorder of adultery and unchastity.
Were made an example.
In Greek πρόκεινται δεῖγμα, that is, they are set forth as an example, set out for display. This is what St. Peter says, echoing Jude, in Epistle II, chapter 2, verse 6: "Setting them as an example to those who should after live wickedly." Whence Gellius, in book VI, chapter 14, among the three causes for which the wicked are to be publicly punished, assigns this as the chief: "The third reason of vindication," he says, "is that which is called by the Greeks paradigma, when punishment is necessary for the sake of example, that others may be deterred by fear of the known penalty from similar sins. Therefore our ancients also called punishments 'examples' when they were the greatest and most severe." Hence Num. 5:21, it is said of the adulteress: "May the Lord make thee a curse, and an example for all in His people"; and chapter 25:4: "Take all the princes of the people, and hang them up against the sun." The Septuagint has παραδειγμάτισον, that is, set forth as an example.
Suffering the punishment of eternal fire.
Firstly, because Sodom and the Pentapolis were consumed by heavenly fire, so that the traces of this conflagration continually remain, and shall remain forever, until the end of the world: namely the perpetual desolation, and the Dead Sea, perpetually smoking and exhaling the bitumen and sulphur with which it burned, admitting no fish or any living thing, but at once killing them; producing no apples or fruits other than vapid and ashy ones, so that Sodom is a specimen of the past burning, and a living example of the future one in hell. So Cajetan. For Jude cites the history of the burning of Sodom narrated by Moses in Genesis 19, where only its temporal burning, not the eternal one in hell, is recounted. Hear Strabo, book XVII: "That that region is set on fire, they bring forth many signs; for they show burnt rocks, and ashy earth, and drops of pitch dripping from the rocks, and rivers stinking with foul odor." Similar examples of divine vengeance against Sodomites even of our age, by which they were struck by God with thunders and lightnings and reduced to ashes, may be seen concerning the Peruvians and Mexicans in Ferdinand Cortez at the city of Themistitan, page 307, and in Peter Martyr, volume III of the Navigations of the New World, folios 28 and 29; indeed even European disastrous examples are not lacking. Famous is that saying of St. Jerome in the Epistle: "O lust, infernal fire! Whose matter is gluttony, whose flame is pride, whose spark is wicked conversation, whose smoke is infamy, whose ashes are uncleanness, whose end is hell."
Secondly, "of eternal fire," because all the Sodomites seem to have been passed from the temporal fire to the eternal fire of hell. Whence the Syriac translates, "placed under the fire of eternity, defendants of judgment"; and the Arabic, "when they were cast into eternal fire through the judgment of justice." So Isidore of Pelusium, book III, epistle 203. See what is said on Genesis 19.
Therefore let the lustful think, let the heretics think, let sinners think, when lust or any concupiscence solicits them to sin, of the fire of Sodom, indeed of the fire of hell, and by fear of it let them resist desire. For the fire of even a slight concupiscence must be paid for by the perennial fire of hell. Let them hear Isaiah thundering, chapter 33:14: "Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" And St. Chrysostom, homily 44 on Matthew: "They shall be thrust," he says, "into a river and a sea of fire, and a sea impassable, and most bitter in its magnitude, in which fiery waves are raised up like mountains"; and homily 13 on the Epistle to the Romans: "Weigh the evils of the other life, what they shall be, the privation of the kingdom of heaven, the pain branded by hell, the perpetual chains, the outer darkness, the venomous worm, the gnashing of teeth, the narrow oppression of place, the fiery rivers, the furnaces never to be extinguished." And St. Gregory, book XIV of the Morals, chapter 10, treating of Sodom: "In the very quality of the punishment," he says, "He marked the stain of the crime: for sulphur has stench, fire has burning; those therefore who burned with perverse desires from the stench of the flesh, it was fitting that they should perish at once by fire and sulphur." Furthermore, it is certain that the demons and the damned are tormented by the true fire of hell; for Scripture everywhere names fire when it treats of their punishment, and so teach St. Basil on Psalm 28; St. Augustine, book XXI of the City of God, chapter 9; St. Gregory, book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 29; Isidore, book I On the Highest Good, chapter 31; St. Chrysostom cited a little before; St. Cyprian, On the Praises of Martyrdom; Nazianzen, oration on the Holy Laver; St. Justin, Exhortation to the Gentiles; Clement, book V of the Stromata; the Master and the Scholastics with unanimous consent, in IV, distinction 3, chapter 44. As to what therefore the Damascene, book IV On the Faith, last chapter; Nyssen, book On the Resurrection and the Soul; St. Jerome, on the last chapter of Isaiah; Ambrose, book VII on Luke, chapter 14; Chrysostom, homily 1 on the Epistle to the Hebrews; St. Augustine, book XXI of the City of God, chapter 10; St. Gregory, book XV of the Morals, chapter 14, otherwise 17, insinuate, that the demons and the souls of the damned are tormented by a fire not material and corporeal, but spiritual and mystical, understand not "corporeal" as meaning gross, earthly, and dull, such as our fire is; for the fire of hell is of another kind from ours, and far more sharp, burning, and penetrating, so much so that it acts even upon souls and spirits, and burns them, in which respect it is called spiritual, both because the object on which it acts is spiritual, and because the mode of acting, as well as the effect, is spiritual, indeed miraculous and divine.
Verse 8: These Defile the Flesh and Despise Dominion
8. In like manner these also defile the flesh, etc.
The Greek adds, ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι, that is "these dreaming," or "deluded by dreams"; which one might suspect to have been added by someone in the margin for the sake of explanation, and then to have crept into the text, because the Latin omits it. But the ancients, such as St. Epiphanius in heresy 26, and from him Œcumenius, and Clement in book III of the Stromata, chapter 1, read it the same way and so explain it, as if to say: Simon and the Gnostics do not teach the truth, but obtrude on the peoples their own dreams and inventions about lust, the licence of the flesh, contempt of superiors, etc. "They speak," says Epiphanius, "their words as if through dreams, and not through the sobriety of waking reason. For Isaiah also says to the doctors in Jerusalem, chapter 56, verse 10: All the dumb dogs not able to bark, dreaming of intercourse, etc. And indeed here in the Epistle of Jude he shows it, saying: Dreaming of intercourse, speaking the things they know not; and he shows that he is not speaking of dreams in sleep, but of their fabulous tragedy and trifling, which is uttered as if through a dream, and not from a sound mind."
This sense suits this passage very well: for the word "dreaming" refers not only to "defile the flesh," but also to what follows: "despise dominion, blaspheme majesty," etc., as is clear from the Greek. Whence also the Arabic translates: "These also are likened to them who are seers of dreams." And thus the false prophets are often called by the Prophets "dreamers," because they preached not the oracles of God, but the figments and dreams of their own fancy. So Moses calls them, Deuteronomy 13:3; Jeremiah, chapter 27, verse 9; Zechariah, chapter 10, verse 2. But God says clearly through Jeremiah, chapter 23:25: "I have heard," He says, "what the Prophets said, prophesying lies in My name, and saying: I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the Prophets foretelling lies, and prophesying the seductions of their own heart? Who would have My people forget My name for their dreams, etc. Behold I am against the Prophets that have dreamed lies, etc., when I sent them not." He has similar things in chapter 29:8. Hence also Irenaeus, in book I, chapter 20, calls the Gnostics Oniropompos, because they sold their dreams as if they were the oracles of God.
But hear the dream of the Gnostics about Elijah from Epiphanius, heresy 26: "They put forward a fabricated Gospel of the Apostle Philip, and from it mere dreams and ravings, to establish their impure doctrines. Indeed they even dare to utter blasphemies about holy Elijah: when he was taken up, they say, he was again cast down into the world. For there came, they say, one of the female demons, and held him, and said to him: Whither goest thou? for I have children by thee, and thou canst not ascend into heaven, without thou shouldst dismiss them here. And Elijah said: Whence have you children by me, since I have lived in chastity? And she said: Surely when, dreaming dreams, you were often emptied in the flow of bodies, I was the one who took the seed from you, and bore you sons."
Second, others fittingly explain the word "dreaming" thus, as if to say: They are so given over to lusts that they think, speak, imagine, indeed dream of nothing else. So Clement of Alexandria, book III Stromata, chap. 1; whence the Syriac translates, "in sleep they are enticed to the flesh by defilers"; St. Jerome, Against Jovinian: "Thinking of nothing but pleasures"; Vatablus and Pagninus translate, "deluded by dreams," that is, they defile themselves with lust not only by day, but also at night through dreams, says Vatablus, namely through nocturnal illusions, imaginations and pollutions; for these are caused by the daytime imagination of obscene things. So Gagneius, Salmeron and others. This is what Theodoret says, book I Heretical Fables: "Those who belonged to Simon's sect gave themselves audaciously to every lust and intemperance, and used every kind of incantations and tricks (which like dreams dazzle and bewitch the eyes), contriving certain enticing love-charms (philtres)."
Wherefore St. Bernard wisely writes and prescribes concerning the moderation of sleep, to the brethren of Mount-God: "Take care, servant of God, never to sleep wholly, lest your sleep be not the rest of the weary, but the burial of a smothered body; not the renewal but the extinction of your spirit. Sleep is a suspect thing, and in great part like drunkenness. For except for those vices which in the sleeper, when reason sleeps along with the body, there is no one to contradict, with respect to the duty of continual progress, no time of our life is so wasted as that allotted to sleep." Hence he gives wholesome advice: "When you go to sleep, always carry something with you in memory or thought, in which you may peacefully fall asleep, which you may sometimes even dream of with profit, which on awakening receives you and restores you to the state of yesterday's intent. Thus night shall be enlightened for you as the day, and the night shall be your illumination in your delights. You will sleep peacefully, rest in peace, awake easily, and rising will be ready and quick to return to that from which you did not wholly depart. For sober sleep follows sober food and sober sense. But carnal and brutish sleep, and, as it is called, lethean sleep, is to be abominated by the servant of God."
Third, others translate ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι as "put to sleep," as by lethargy, as if to say: They are so immersed in heresy and lust that they seem stupefied as by its lethargy and torpor, so that the obscene things they do while waking they likewise carry out while sleeping in dream, from continual and ardent use and habit of lusts. So Serarius. Again, awakened from their shameful dreams they take delight in them, and waking they perform and perpetrate them in deed. For in sleep, since reason is asleep, the whole imagination, concupiscence and lust pour themselves out. Whence the proverb: "The lust of dreamers," for poured-out and supreme lust. Hear St. Augustine, book X Confessions, chap. xxx, humbly confessing and groaning of himself: "There still live," he says, "in my memory the images of such things which my custom fixed there; and they meet me when waking, indeed lacking strength, but in sleep not only unto delight, but even unto consent and a deed most like the real one. And so great is the power of the illusion of an image in my soul, and in my flesh, that false visions persuade the sleeper of what true ones cannot persuade the waker." On the other hand lust itself is so ardent and brutish that it lulls mind and reason like sleep. Whence Erasmus here: "Dreamers," he says, "because every lust is carried out as it were through a dream, with reason lulled to sleep." Hence Hippocrates called lust a kind of brief epilepsy, as Gellius witnesses, book XIX, chap. II.
Morally, "dreaming," because lust and every pleasure passes like a dream. Whence Peter Chrysologus wisely and pathetically exclaims, serm. 124: "Why do we stand stupefied? what is this sleep that closes us in? what is this lethal forgetfulness that holds us? Why do we not exchange earth for heaven? Why do we not buy eternal things with perishable ones? Why do we not procure abiding things for things that perish?" Indeed Plato also, and Philo from him, book On Joseph, judged that "all things and joys of mortals are nothing else than the dreams of the waking."
They defile the flesh indeed, — through pollutions and unspeakable lusts. For as Paul says, 1 Corinthians 6:18: "Every sin that a man commits is outside the body; but he that fornicates sins against his own body," where Ambrosiaster says: "Other sins," he says, "although they are produced through the body, do not however make the soul so bound up and subjected to carnal concupiscence as the use of lust acting in the work of carnal fornication causes the soul to be commingled with the body itself: because the soul is so glued to the body that at that very moment a man can think of or intend nothing else, since the very submersion and absorption of lust and of carnal concupiscence subjects the very mind captive." Whence Alexander the Great said that intercourse was a species of epilepsy, or the falling sickness, as Plutarch witnesses in his Life.
Wherefore Arias wrongly, against all Interpreters, expounds it thus: "They defile the flesh," that is, they preach that the flesh is defiled, as though St. Jude were censuring the Encratites, who forbade marriage and abstained from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving, 1 Timothy 4:3. "To marry," says Irenaeus, book 1, chap. xxII, "and to beget, they say is from Satan"; and Theodoret in his Epitome of divine decrees: "They waged war," he says, "against the Creator of this universe, therefore they feared lest by marriage His workmanship be increased." But the Apostle is here pursuing not the Encratites, but their opposites, the incestuous Gnostics.
And they despise dominion. — The Syriac, they are reviled. First, Clement of Alexandria here explains this of the angels, as if to say: the heretics despise the angels, especially that order of them which is called "Dominions." Second, Epiphanius, heresy 26: "The Gnostics," he says, "despise dominion," that is, the divinity, and His majesty, dominion and empire, which He has over all things created by Him. Whence the Arabic: "They provoke," it says, "the power of God"; and Œcumenius: "Beyond this," he says, "they rage against the divine nature, denying His dominion and empire over the universe, since they invent certain other architects of the world," namely angels or demons, to whom the Valentinians assigned the rule and dominion of the world, as Tertullian teaches, book Against Valentinus, chap. XXII.
Third, others say, as if "Dominion," that is, they deny the Ruler and our Lord Jesus, as St. Peter says, epist. II, chap. 2, vers. 1. So Clement of Alexandria, Adamus, Cajetan and others. Œcumenius adds, who again explains it thus: "Dominion," that is, "they wish to abrogate the ceremonies of the mystery of Christ, while in place of the angelic mysteries they perpetrate their own crimes."
Fourth, and genuinely, they despise "dominion," that is, the magistracy both civil and especially Ecclesiastical, saying that they have been made free through the law of Christ, so that they are subject to no prince or magistrate. So Thomas the Englishman, Gagneius, Catharinus, Salmeron, and Vatablus, who, for "dominion," translates "lords." See what is said on 2 Peter 2:10. Whence Irenaeus, book I, chap. I and xx: "These," he says, "are those who rise up against the truth, and against the Church of God"; and St. Cyprian cited above: "From no other source," he says, "have heresies arisen, or schisms been born, than from this — that the Priest of God is not obeyed." St. Peter gives the cause, epist. II, chap. II, vers. 10: "Because," he says, "they are audacious, self-pleasing." See what is said there. From the Gnostics is derived the calumny of the Gentiles against Christians, that by the Gospel human governments are overturned, that obedience to princes is despised under the pretext of liberty: which therefore Justin, Tertullian and others in Apolog. zealously refute.
And they blaspheme majesty.
The Interpreter seems to have read δόξαν in Greek: so too the Syriac reads; for it translates "majesty," as does Ours. Now they read δόξας, which first, Œcumenius translates "glories," "dignities," that is those constituted in dignity, illustrious in majesty, namely princes, especially of the Church, namely the Apostles and Bishops, they blaspheme, that is, they pursue with reproaches, insults, and curses. So Gagneius, Pagninus, Catharinus, Vatablus, Salmeron, Serarius and others.
Second, Clement of Alexandria translates and explains it, as if to say: They blaspheme angels. Estius adds, referring this to the unworthy fictions which the Gnostics ascribed to the angels, and Epiphanius, heresy 26: "Whoever," he says, "after that name have been employed for the governance of the world, that is, the angels who are ministers of God, and the rulers of provinces, they blaspheme."
Third, Adamus understands by "majesty" Moses and the Prophets, in whom the majesty of God properly shone forth, whom Simon and the Gnostics wonderfully attacked. This is favored by what Jude adds about Michael disputing with Satan about the body of Moses. Whence Thomas the Englishman understands by "majesty" both Angels, and Saints, and God.
Fourth, Œcumenius takes δόξας, that is glories, as the glorious mysteries written in both Testaments, namely the New and the Old, which the heretics despised, or violated and perversely interpreted, as Epiphanius witnesses, heresy 26. For so Paul calls the New Testament "glory," 2 Corinthians 3:7 and 11.
Fifth, properly Simon and the Gnostics blasphemed the majesty of God, when they slandered His works, perverted the mysteries hidden in the Scriptures, weakened His power: so Bede and Hugo; and especially they blasphemed the glorious wisdom of God, His goodness, justice, mercy, etc., shown to us through Christ, when they denied that Christ was truly born, suffered, and died. Thus Cajetan and Arias understand by "majesty" Christ, and both His natures, divine and human, as well as His miracles, His heavenly doctrine, His resurrection, ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit, which the Simonians denied: for these were δόξα, that is glories, of God and Christ. For, as the Poet says, properly "majesty befits God Himself." For majesty signifies absolute dominion subject to none (such as God alone has), and thence supreme honor, amplitude, and dignity: God therefore is sacred majesty. Whence Ovid, V Fasti: "Hence is sprung Majesty, who tempers the whole world." And soon after: "She has taken her seat sublime in the midst of Olympus, Golden, conspicuous in her purple bosom."
In this sense we rightly distinguish majesty from dominion, which preceded, so that dominion belongs to the magistrate, majesty to God, whose glorious, august and divine attributes and endowments the Greek δόξας signifies. For the heretics denied and blasphemed the providence of God, His foreknowledge, justice, vengeance, etc. These therefore he calls δόξας. And there is a climax or gradation. For the heretics first shake off the yoke of princes, then gradually growing more insolent that of the angels, and at last that of God Himself and His divine majesty, according to that of Psalm 35:1: "The unjust said, that he might transgress in himself; the fear of God is not before his eyes"; and Psalm 13:1: "The fool has said in his heart: There is no God." Moreover Epiphanius expressly asserts that the Gnostics blasphemed God, heresy 26. The very word "they blaspheme" signifies this more strongly. For blasphemy properly is railing against God. Whence the Syriac translates, "they are not moved by majesty when they blaspheme," as if to say: The thought of the divine majesty which they invade and violate ought to deter them from blasphemy, but it does not deter, because they despise it. Finally, some understand by δόξας the Apostolic dogmas: for δόξαι among other things signifies fixed dogmas, illustrious sentiments, axioms. Moreover our Interpreter, in 2 Peter 2:10, translates δόξας as "sects"; for the heretics despised the δόξας of the Apostles, that is their teachings, in order to introduce their own δόξας and sects. See what is said there.
Verse 9: Michael the Archangel Disputing with the Devil
9. When Michael, etc.
— It is an argument from example, as if to say, says Œcumenius: Michael contending with Satan did not dare, although he was shameless and deserving, to blaspheme him, that is, to revile him; how then do the heretics dare to blaspheme majesty, not only of angels and Saints, but even of God Himself? He therefore sets the modest Michael against the shameless and blasphemous Gnostics, and this is signified by the Greek δέ, when it says: ὁ δὲ Μιχαήλ, that is, but truly Michael. So Pagninus and Vatablus.
Note: Michael in Hebrew is so called as it were מי כאל mi cael, that is "who is like God?" for this he himself humbly answered, and set in opposition to proud Lucifer who said: "I will ascend into heaven, I will be like the Most High," Isaiah 14:13. Isidore adds, VII Etymologies, chap. v, that by the name Michael, that is "who is like God," is signified that no one can offer propitiation or expiation, except God. Less correctly therefore Pantaleon, chartophylax of Cone, in the Encomium of St. Michael, which is found in Surius, September 29, interprets the name Michael as "Captain of the army of God"; for although that is true, yet this is not the genuine etymology of Michael.
From Michael, Moses learned that song of victory after Pharaoh was drowned, Exodus 15:11: "Who is like to Thee among the strong, O Lord?" from the initial Hebrew letters of which words, some think the Maccabees received their name, as I have said in that place.
Archangel.
— The Arabic: prince of angels: for Michael is the highest and prince of all the angels, and therefore the protector of the Church, as he was formerly of the Synagogue, as I have shown on Daniel 12:1. Here there is a twofold comparison of persons. The first, as if to say: If Michael the Archangel did not dare, by what right would any man dare? The second: if not even the devil is to be cursed, by what right shall magistrates and princes be cursed?
With the devil.
— Diabolus in Greek is the same as "accuser": for διαβάλλειν is "to accuse." He means Lucifer: for he is the prince of demons, as Michael is of the angels, and therefore his antagonist. This is what the Church sings in the office of St. Michael: "We all praise with veneration the soldiers of heaven, but especially the chief of the heavenly host, Michael, in valor crushing the zabulus." For "zabulus" in Aeolic is the same as "diabolus." For the Aeolians say ζα for διά. Wherefore less genuinely St. Cyprian, Exhortation to Martyrdom, derives the name Zabulus from Beelzebub, that is the Lord of the fly, namely God who restrains the plague of flies: for take away the name Bel, and "sebub" remains, whence Zabulus; for so it would have to be called Zabubus, not Zabulus. Less fitting also seems what St. Jerome judges, that Zabulus is a Hebrew name, and means "flowing downward," as he himself says on Titus II; or "wave of the night," as he himself says in De Nominibus Hebraicis; or "dwelling-place of the night," as he himself says in his Hebrew Traditions on Genesis, as though it were the same as or nearly the same as the name Zabulon, that is "dwelling-place," who was so called by his mother Leah, because through the bearing of him and his brothers, her husband Jacob the patriarch was thereafter to dwell with her, Genesis 30:20. Moreover the devil in Hebrew is called Satan, that is, adversary; and Belial, that is, "without a yoke," because he wished to throw off the yoke of God.
Disputing, contended.
— The Syriac: should dispute; others, should contend in judgment; the Arabic: after he had rebuked Satan and removed him. This disputation and contention of Michael with Satan about the body of Moses is nowhere found in Scripture: Jude therefore received it either by tradition of the elders, or from a book which then existed, which Origen, book III Periarchon, chap. II, cites, giving it the name Ascension of Moses. The same is cited by Clement of Alexandria, VI Stromata, where from it he relates that Moses was seen by Joshua and Caleb in glory, when he was being taken up among the angels: "Rightly therefore," he says, "Joshua, the son of Nave, saw Moses double when he was being taken up: one indeed with the angels, the other above the mountains, who was worthy that funeral rites should be made for him in the valleys." See Sixtus of Siena under the entry "Mosis Ascensio," where he teaches that this book was reckoned among the apocryphal by Pope Gelasius; nevertheless, in apocryphal books many things can be true. Thus Paul cites verses of Aratus, Menander, Callimachus, the Gentile Poets, on Titus chap. 1, not because he approves all their sayings, but only those which he cites. Others wish that Jude received this from the book of Enoch. So St. Jerome in his epistle on Titus, and Origen, book IV Periarchon. However it may be, from Jude it is certain that this history is sure and canonical. So St. Paul says the names of the magi who resisted Moses were Jannes and Mambres, 2 Timothy 3:8, which however Moses nowhere expressed.
About the body of Moses.
— Œcumenius thinks this contention of Michael with Satan was because Michael wished Moses to be honorably buried for his merits, that the law given by him might be the more commended; Satan was unwilling, objecting against him the crime of homicide, namely that he had killed the Egyptian, Exodus 2:12. Glycas adds, part II Annals, and Pantaleon the chartophylax, oration On St. Michael, that the devil wished to claim Moses for himself as a homicide. Second, others judge that this contention was about the rapture of Moses' body into Paradise, that he might dwell with Elijah and Enoch, whether he was translated thither alive, as Philo seems to say, book On the Life of Moses, at the end, and St. Jerome on chap. IX of Amos; or whether after death he was raised again and was caught up thither, as R. Samuel Maroch judges, On the Coming of the Messiah, chap. XIII. But this rapture of Moses into Paradise is fictitious; for it is established that the soul of Moses went to the limbo of the Fathers, and that his body was buried in the earth. Third, others everywhere more truly judge that Satan wished Moses to be buried in a known and public place, so that the Hebrews, prone to idolatry, might worship him as it were a God and divinity; but Michael withstood him, and saw to it that he was buried in secret. So St. Chrysostom, homily 5 on Matthew, and St. Ambrose, II Offices, chap. VII, Thomas the Englishman, Hugo, Dionysius, Cajetan, Gagneius, Arias, Salmeron, Adamus and others; whence Deuteronomy 34:6 says: "And no man has known his sepulcher unto this present day." See what is said in that whole chapter.
Hence Epiphanius, heresy 9 and 64, witnesses that there is a tradition that Moses was buried by the angels, and Œcumenius here asserts that Michael presided over the burial of Moses. Philo adds, book III On the Life of Moses, that the face of Moses as he was dying was made glorious, and that lightnings, lamps, and arrows preceded him, and that the angels mourned his death. But these things seem to have been said by him poetically, or by exaggeration. This is the common opinion of almost all interpreters and Fathers, from which therefore one can hardly depart. There is added that scarcely any other reason can be invented why God ordered Moses to be buried in secret by the angels, except lest, if he were publicly buried, he should be worshiped by the Jews. For what some say, that this was done for honor's sake — namely so that the Hebrews might revere Moses the more as one hidden away or rapt — seems less fitting. For far greater, indeed continuous and perpetual would have been the honor of Moses among the Hebrews, if they had been able to visit and venerate his sepulcher, just as the sepulcher of St. Catherine, buried by angels on Mount Sinai and revealed by them, is venerated by the great pilgrimage and devotion of the faithful flocking from all the world.
You will say first: The Hebrews did not venerate the sepulchers of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and especially Joseph, whose bones they carried with them through the desert; therefore neither would they have venerated the sepulcher of Moses, even if they had known it. I answer by denying the consequence. The reason for the disparity is, first, that the antiquity of so many centuries, which had held Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph as men, not as gods, had abrogated their divinity, indeed had worn away even the opinion and shadow of it. Second, that their benefits to their own people, and to those few, were likewise antiquated. Third, that they were not illustrious for so many prodigies, deeds, and governance of the people, as was Moses. Fourth, that the Hebrews from Scripture and from their Fathers had most deeply impressed upon themselves this saying of God: "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." Whence they knew that not Abraham, but the God of Abraham was to be worshiped; but the memory of Moses, having recently died, was fresh, as also of his benefits, portents, plagues, and governance, by which he had gloriously led the entire most numerous Hebrew nation, through ten plagues sent upon all Egypt, across the Red Sea on dry foot, the Egyptians being drowned, into the desert: and there the law received from God he had given them, with heavenly manna had fed them for 38 years, had assigned to them a pillar of fire and cloud as the leader of their journey, etc.; moreover they had heard that saying of God to Moses: "I have appointed you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your Prophet," Exodus 7:1. Besides this, while sojourning through the desert, and now about to cross over into the promised land, they needed a divine guide. Hence when Moses delayed longer on Sinai to receive the law, they made for themselves a golden calf, namely Apis, as if a guide for the journey. For this is what they themselves said to Aaron: "Arise, make us gods that may go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has befallen him," and when the calf was made, they acclaimed it: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt," Exodus 32:1 and 4. With Moses therefore dead, it would have been easy for them, if they had had his body, to worship and invoke him as the guide of the rest of the journey. For he himself had been the supreme legislator, Pontiff, Prophet, prince, and king of the whole people.
You will say second: The Hebrews were not so stupid as to worship the dead body of Moses: for this spectacle of mortality would have shaken from them every opinion of divinity, and would have demonstrated that he was a man. I answer: All idolatry is stupid: for that idolaters stupidly raised to gods men of distinction who had departed this life — namely parents, kings, eminent benefactors — and worshiped them with divine honors, is taught not only by Pliny, book II, chap. VII; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods; Justin, Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius and others writing Against the Gentiles, but also Holy Scripture expressly assigns this origin of idolatry, Wisdom 14:15; and it is known to all that Jupiter, Mercury, Aesculapius, Venus, etc., were men who, on account of their benefits, after death were enrolled by the Gentiles among the gods. So the Cretans worshiped their Jupiter as king, yet boasted that his sepulcher and bones existed among them in Crete. Whence Lactantius rightly mocking them, book I Divine Institutions, chap. xI: "How then," he says, "can a god be alive in one place and dead in another? have a temple in one place and a sepulcher in another?" Thus the Roman Emperors when dead were held to be gods through apotheosis, by which their bodies were publicly burned with pomp, and an eagle from the pyre, as if carrying the Emperor's soul into heaven, flew away, as Herodian narrates at length at the beginning of book IV; indeed they worshiped the souls of their own under the name of Manes, after the body had been burned and reduced to ashes. Whence that common saying which we still read here and there inscribed on their sepulchers in Rome: "To the Divine Manes." For they believed that the souls of the dead were present to or sat by their sepulchers and ashes. The Hebrews could have done and believed the same about Moses, as they did afterwards for King Asa when he died, 2 Paralipomenon 16:14. Do you wish an example? In Egypt, as also in the desert, the Hebrews worshiped a calf, namely Apis, or Serapis, which was a hieroglyphic of Joseph; who by means of lean and fat calves or oxen had predicted the sterility and fertility of Egypt and of the whole world, Genesis 41:1 and 29, as Rufinus judges, book XI History, chap. xxix, Suidas under the word Serapis, the Author of De Mirabilibus S. Scripturæ in Augustine, book 1, chap. xv, and the Author of the Questions of the New and Old Testament in the same, chap. xv, and others whom I cited on Genesis 41, at the end of the chapter. Finally the Hebrews worshiped the bronze serpent, and also inanimate images, namely the bronze and golden idols of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians: what wonder if they had worshiped Moses after death, as if come back to life and endowed with divinity for so many merits? Indeed Epiphanius, heresy 55, narrates that in Arabia Moses was on account of prodigies reputed to be God, and his image was worshiped. Ambrosiaster in chap. III on Galatians says that the devil contended that the body of Moses might be revealed, or be raised by the Magi, in order that by this means he might induce the Hebrews to worship him; but St. Michael withstood him.
Several other opinions about the cause of this contention our Serarius reviews here, but either false or improbable, among which the more notable is that of Hugh Etherianus, On the Return of Souls, chap. ix, namely that the devil wished to hinder the soul of Moses from going to the place of rest and beatitude, namely to limbo, and the fellowship of the holy Fathers, and from there through Christ delivering them into heaven. The same is the view of Cyril of Alexandria and Martyrius in Syntagm. on the state of the dying, which book our Raderus translated from Greek into Latin. But this contention was about the body of Moses, not about the soul. Similar is that exposition of a certain author not sound in faith but heterodox, that this contention was about the body of Moses, that is, about the restoration of the Mosaic law and Judaism. For this is a mystical body, not literal.
More probable is that of Serarius himself, namely that the devil contended that the body of Moses might be brought into the land of promise, and not be buried outside it in Moab, as a region addicted to the cult of idols, lest he should suffer any harm from him, as he complained that he had received from the sepulcher of St. Babylas at Daphne, as the Life of St. Babylas has it, and from it Baronius, tom. IV. For which cause he everywhere strives through heretics to burn or abolish the relics of the Saints. Moreover heretics wrongly twist this hiding of the body of Moses against the display and veneration of holy relics. For Christians do not worship relics with the cult of latria, as the Hebrews would have worshiped the body of Moses; nor among Christians is there danger of idolatry from relics, as there was from the body of Moses among the Hebrews. See Bellarmine, book II On the Relics of the Saints, chap. IV; nay rather the veneration of relics is established from this passage. For if St. Michael had so great a care for the body of Moses and its burial, certainly we ought to have a greater one.
Again gather from this: If the devil contends so much for the body of the Saints in death, how much more does he contend for their soul? And conversely, if Michael and the angels so defend the bodies of the dying Saints, much more will they defend their souls. Thus the demons contended for the soul of Theodore and of Chrysaorius crying out: "A respite until morning," and for the soul of the monk of Iconium, as St. Gregory narrates, IV Dialogues, xxxviii. See more in Raderus in the Syntagma already cited. Hence the devil appears to many in death, that he may strike them and drive them into despair or some other sin. Whence St. Martin when dying, on seeing him: "Why do you stand here, said he, bloody beast? you will find nothing baneful in me," as Sulpitius witnesses in his Life. Hence again the Church sings of Michael: "I have appointed you prince over all the souls to be received." For St. Michael, whether by himself, or through angels subordinated to him, receives the souls of the just at death, and conducts them into heaven, either immediately, if they have nothing to be purged; or mediately through Purgatory, if they have anything to be expiated there. See Serarius and Lorinus here. Hence that prayer of the Church for the dead: "Come, angels of the Lord, receiving his soul, and presenting it in the sight of the Most High." See what is said on Daniel 12.
Symbolically Bede: The political or mystical body of Moses, he says, is the Synagogue or people of the Jews, whom the devil wished to detain in the Babylonian captivity; but Michael withstood him, that is, Jesus the priest, who by his prayers obtained from God his liberation. For what some wish to be literal, as if St. Jude were citing the vision of Zechariah, chap. III, where Satan disputes against Jesus the son of Josedec the pontiff, is little probable: for in many things that vision differs from the words of St. Jude, as I have shown there, and is plain to anyone considering it.
He dared not bring a judgment of blasphemy.
— He calls "judgment of blasphemy" a blasphemy, that is a curse just and deserved, to be inflicted by a just judgment, as if to say: Michael did not dare to judge and blaspheme the devil — although the author of all malice and most unjustly resisting him — that is, to hurl at him a just and deserved insult and curse, by saying: Go, accursed Satan; depart, most wicked one, into curse and gehenna. Whence the Zurich version translates: he did not dare to brand him with the mark of curse; or, as Vatablus: to revile him; the Arabic: he did not dare to enter into a contradiction of blasphemy against him. Or by "judgment" he means the condemnation and punishment of the "blasphemy" by which Satan blasphemed Moses, when Michael wished to bury his body in a hidden place. Finally, some judge that the "judgment of blasphemy" is that which St. Peter, epist. II, chap. II, vers. 21, calls execrable (in Greek βλάσφημον) judgment, about which see more there. The first exposition, being the easiest, is also the plainest, and the following antithesis requires it: "But these blaspheme whatever indeed they do not know." Note the phrase "he did not dare," not that Michael feared the devil, but that he feared to utter blasphemy, that is, an insult and curse, as a thing unbecoming to him. "The devil deserved a curse, but blasphemy ought not to have come forth through the mouth of an Archangel," says St. Jerome on Titus III.
Michael, says Didymus, looked to the good nature of the devil, and therefore abstained from curses, and by his example taught what we ought to do, who, often inflamed by hatred or anger, attack and curse not so much vices as men themselves. Hence Hugh infers, by the example of St. Michael, that magistrate and judge ought to abstain from injurious words, and care should be taken lest he rule with severity or imperiously, and be like a lion in the house overturning his household and subjects, Ecclesiasticus 4:35, but with gentleness should rule and correct them, that they may amend their life. The same St. Jerome expressly teaches, book II Against Rufinus, that this should be observed by every Christian contending with his rivals and detractors, such as Rufinus was to St. Jerome. Indeed Ecclesiasticus chap. xxi, vers. 30: "When the impious man curses the devil, he himself curses his own soul," because in impiety he is like the devil; condemning therefore the impiety of the devil, he condemns his own.
But he said (modestly and gravely): May the Lord command thee,
— in Greek ἐπιτιμήσαι σοι Κύριος, which Pagninus translates: may the Lord rebuke you. So too St. Jerome on chap. III to Titus reads: "May the Lord rebuke you," following the Greek syntax ἐπιτιμήσαι σοι, as if to say: May God restrain your insolence, malignity, and wickedness, O Satan, and compel you to allow Moses to be buried secretly, lest, if he be buried publicly, an occasion of idolatry be given to the Hebrews, that they should wish to worship him. May God therefore by rebuking command you with power and reproof, that is, may He powerfully and with command repress and restrain you, who unjustly and unworthily resist Me.
He alludes to that saying of the Lord to Satan: "May the Lord rebuke you, Satan," Zechariah chap. III, 2. See what is said there. Thus ἐπιτιμᾷν in the Gospels is now translated "rebuke," now "command," because by rebuking one commands; as where the Interpreter translates Matthew chap. 8:26: "He commanded the winds," in Luke chap. 8:24, he translates "rebuked," in Mark chap. 4:39, "threatened." For the Hebrew נער gaar, that is "to rebuke," by catachresis and metalepsis means "to command by rebuking," "to repress," "to restrain," "to calm," as is plain in Nahum 1:4; Psalm 9:6; Psalm 119:21; Psalm 106:9; Psalm 104:7; Isaiah 50:2, and chap. 30:17.
Note: St. Michael could of himself and by his own power restrain the insolence of the devil, because he is more powerful than he and superior; but he preferred out of modesty and reverence to transfer this work and this virtue to God, whom as he bears in name, so much more does he refer to in heart and deed, and to ask Him to repress the devil. The same did St. Macarius of Alexandria, as his Life records. Moreover St. Ambrose on Luke 8 thinks that Christ did the same, when He commanded silence to the winds clashing on the sea, saying: "Be still and be silent"; for this He said to the devil, who was stirring up these winds and the storm on the sea. The Church uses the same when she exorcizes those to be baptized or the possessed, on which rite see our Delrio in Magic. book VI, chap. II, sect. 3, quest. 43, and Joseph Vicecomes On the Rites of Baptism, book I, chap. xxix and following.
Verse 10: They Blaspheme What They Know Not
10. But these indeed blaspheme whatever they do not know.
— It is the apodosis, or return and application of the example, as if to say: Michael, although by his rightful authority he could justly blaspheme Satan — knowing his impiety, by which he was contending most unworthily against him about the body of Moses — that is, curse him, punish him with reproach, chastise him with disgrace, indeed strike and scourge him, nevertheless out of modesty he was unwilling; but the Simonians and Gnostics with intolerable audacity and shamelessness blaspheme, and curse the things which they do not know, and which exceed their grasp, since they are carnal, namely God, God's attributes, the mysteries of Christ, heavenly, sublime, and divine matters. So Epiphanius, heresy 26: "They blaspheme (the Gnostics)," he says, "not only Abraham, Moses, Elijah and the whole choir of the Prophets, but also God who chose them," etc. So the Arians, Macedonians, Sabellians, when they did not grasp the mystery of the Holy Trinity, denied and blasphemed it. So today the Calvinists and Zwinglians, who do not grasp God's omnipotence in the mystery of the Eucharist, deny and blaspheme it. For with heretics the rule of believing is the senses and natural reason, not faith, not the omnipotent word of God. What they see and understand, they believe; what they do not understand, they refuse to believe. Wherefore Irenaeus, book I, chap. xxxv, says that against heretics victory is the manifestation of their opinions, and St. Jerome to Ctesiphon: "To have published their opinions," he says, "is to have overcome them." Moreover the causes of the ignorance of heretics are three: the first is pride; the second is levity; the third is pleasure and concupiscence. For, as Architas says: "Pleasure, the enemy of reason, hinders counsel, blinds the eyes of the mind, and has no commerce with virtue." Wherefore from these three is composed the sphinx, which is the enigma of ignorance among the Mythologists. For they painted the sphinx as a monster with the face of a maiden, the wings of birds, the feet of a lion, which, proposing obscure enigmas, killed those who did not know how to solve them. Hear Alciatus, emblem 187: "What monster is that? It is the Sphinx. Why does she have the bright face of a maiden, And the wings of birds, and the legs of a lion? This face the ignorance of things has assumed, of so great A matter; for the cause and origin of evil is threefold: There are those whom a fickle wit, those whom alluring pleasure, And those whom proud hearts make boorish." Then he assigns the remedy, namely: "Know yourself."
But what things soever they naturally know, like dumb animals (in Greek ἄλογα, that is irrational, and therefore brute and dumb, that is, lacking articulate and human voice; thus Cicero more than once calls brute animals "dumb"), in these things they are corrupted, by debasing and defiling their bodies and minds with foul gluttony and obscene lusts, like swine and dogs — indeed, more foully than swine and dogs — as Epiphanius shows of the Gnostics in heresy 26. Hence the Arabic: "They work," he says, "their natural things" (namely, the carnal) "like brutes." Furthermore they "know" these things by sense, by concupiscence, by experience, and by habit — that is, they savor, touch, crave, lust after, and practice them; whence Gagneius, instead of ἴσασιν (that is, they know), suspects we should read ἐπιθυμοῦσιν (that is, they crave); but the unanimous testimony of all the Greek and Latin codices stands against this. It is better that the word "they know" includes "they crave," as I have said. Œcumenius puts it clearly: "Whatever things," he says, "irrational, dumb, or brute animals know by natural impulse or appetite, these men pursue like madmen, lusting after women like horses or swine." And so they corrupt the powers of body and mind: reason, health, integrity, purity, chastity, in short life and nature itself, by debauchery and lusts against nature. Truly Seneca, in De Vita beata, ch. 14, says that pleasures are like wild beasts that tear their own masters. And Architas used to say that there is no plague in the world more deadly than bodily pleasure, as Cicero attests in Cato the Elder. Socrates, indeed, said pleasures were to be avoided as if they were sirens that bewitch, infatuate, and slay a man, as Laertius testifies in book II. Wherefore Aristotle warned us to look upon pleasures not from the front, but from behind — that is, not as they come, but as they depart. For as they come, they fawn with a painted appearance, but as they depart they leave a sting — that is, repentance and grief. So Laertius, book V, ch. 1.
Verse 11: The Way of Cain, the Error of Balaam, the Contradiction of Korah
11. Woe to them who. — He reads οἵ, that is "who"; some now read ὅτι, that is "because." Jude blazes forth in his invective against the Gnostics, sharply rebuking them and comparing them first to Cain, second to Balaam, third to Korah — because, namely, they imitate the envy and fratricide of Cain; the avarice, magic, impiety, and obscenity of Balaam; the sedition, rebellion, and schism of Korah; and therefore, like those, they are sharply punished, not only in the life to come, but also in the present life. For "way" in Scripture means the manner of life, the mode of living, acts and morals, as well as outcomes and ends. The way of Cain, then, is contempt of God, envy, homicide, indeed parricide, atheism, a wandering life, despair. He names these three above all others because these three were enemies of God, of faith, and of holiness, and sought to seduce the faithful and destroy the Church; whence they were the types and forerunners of Simon, of the Gnostics, and of the heretics. For Cain killed Abel, the first offshoot of faith and of the Church; Balaam wished to destroy the people of the Hebrews, who were the worshippers of the true God and His Church; Korah, in his ambition for the priesthood, rebelled against Moses, and by his schism cut and destroyed the Synagogue.
And so first, just as Cain in his avarice used to offer the inferior sheep to God and reserve the better ones for himself, and by this means preferred himself and his own conveniences to God: so likewise the Simonians, Gnostics, and other heretics put themselves and their gains before God; indeed, they profane and plunder the churches of God, the chalices and the offerings. The name Cain fits this avarice aptly: for Cain in Hebrew is the same as acquisition and possession. For Eve called her firstborn son Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man through God," Gen. ch. IV, v. 1; for קנה kanah means to possess; hence קנה Cain is possession. Furthermore St. Augustine, in book IV De Baptismo contra Donatistas, ch. IV, aptly compares to heresy that avarice which St. Paul calls the service of idols. Wherefore the heretic Kyrstenus is wrong here in the Arabic version when he writes that Cain means vomit and surfeit, from the root קא kaa, that is, he vomited.
Second, just as Cain envied his brother Abel because he was more pleasing to God — inasmuch as he offered God the better sheep, and God by sending fire from heaven to kindle his victims testified to that very thing — so the Simonians and heretics envied and envy the Orthodox, and pursue them with calumnies, curses, injuries, and plunderings. So Bede: "They walk in the way of Cain," he says, "who, on account of envy of their betters, take to themselves the title of teachers, by which they may be honored."
Third, just as Cain killed his brother Abel out of hatred and envy: so the heretics, out of hatred and envy of the Orthodox, kill the souls of the faithful by enticing them into their heresy, and not rarely even slaughter the bodies of those who oppose them. For heresy is cruel, because it is driven by the cruel Satan. Thus cruel were the Arians, as appears from the writings of St. Athanasius, of Lucifer of Cagliari, and of St. Hilary to Emperor Constantius, and from Victor of Utica in the Persecution of the Vandals. Whence St. Athanasius, Apology for His Flight: "Who," he says, "does not see the crimes of the Arians, that they are thirsty and greedy for human blood, and by their cunning, as if by nets, catch those whom they have marked for slaughter? Their own works plainly declare this, and show that their minds are more savage than wild beasts and more cruel than the Babylonians." Concerning the cruelty of the Donatists see St. Augustine and Optatus of Milevis. Concerning the savagery of the Hussites in Bohemia see Aeneas Sylvius, De Rebus Bohemicis.
How our Calvinists and other heretics of this age have raged against the temples, the wealth, the cities, the bodies of the Orthodox throughout Germany, France, Hungary, England, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc., we all know — indeed, we have seen with our own eyes. See the Theater of Heretical Cruelty, and Stanislaus Rescius, On the Phalarisms of the Evangelicals. They learned this from their parent Luther, who in the Prelude to the Babylonian Captivity, in the year of the Lord 1520, stirred up the peasants to make war on their princes. But when the sedition recoiled upon the heads of the peasants — a hundred thousand of them being slain — Luther turned his cloak, and sang a palinode, taking the side of the princes by defending their cause against the peasants, and he said: "I, Martin Luther, killed all the peasants in the peasants' war: for I commanded that they be slaughtered; all their blood is on my shoulders; but I cast that burden upon God." So Aurifaber in the Table Talk of Luther, under the title On War.
Fourth, Cain, if we believe the Chaldee, was the first heresiarch, and even an atheist, and wanted to draw his brother Abel into heresy and atheism, and therefore, when Abel resisted him, he killed him. For the Jerusalem Targum, which is the Chaldee Paraphrast, on Gen. IV, asserts that Cain in the field began to complain about God's providence and equity, and to dispute against the last judgment, against the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked. "When," it says, "both had gone out into the field, Cain said: There is no judgment, there is no judge, no good reward for the just nor punishment for the impious; nor was the world created by the mercy of God." On the contrary, Abel asserted these things, defended God, and rebuked his brother, and was therefore slain by him. Whence St. Cyprian, book IV, epistle 6, calls Abel a Martyr: "Let us imitate," he says, "the just Abel, who began the martyrdoms, when for righteousness' sake he was the first slain." Hence also Cain, when God asked where Abel was, responded insolently, impudently, and lyingly: "I know not; am I my brother's keeper?" — and by this he sufficiently signified that he supposed his crime was hidden from God. He therefore did not believe that God knew all things, saw all things, because he did not believe that He had seen his quarrel and parricide with Abel. So heretics in the end become atheists, and every heresy is, as it were, a royal road to atheism, as I said on II Peter II. For this reason St. John calls Cain the son of the devil, indeed his first and firstborn, in epistle I, ch. III, v. 12: "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one," Greek ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ, that is, of that evil one — who is so par excellence and is called Evil, namely the devil. So when St. Polycarp answered the heresiarch Marcion who asked, "Do you recognize me?" "I recognize the firstborn of the devil," he would have responded more truly to Cain.
Fifth, Cain, when reproved by God, did not repent but hardened himself; whence he was marked by Him with a trembling of body as if a stigmatic, and the reproach of the world, and fleeing from the face of God he became a vagrant and a fugitive — indeed, worse and more impious, if we believe Josephus, Antiquities I, ch. III, where he speaks thus of Cain: "So far was he from changing his life for the better by this chastisement, that he became even worse, indulging in all pleasures even at the cost of injury to others, and amassing his domestic resources by force and plunderings; and gathering from everywhere companions in robbery and wickedness, he became their master in a criminal life. Besides this, he changed the hitherto simple manner of living by inventing measures and weights, and corrupted into cunning that pristine sincerity and generosity that knew nothing of such arts." So Simon Magus, when rebuked by St. Peter, became worse. So too heretics, when convicted, indeed when chastised by God, become worse, and rush into every pleasure and crime; for heresy is the mother of all crimes and wickedness. Hence, like wanderers and vagrants, they roam through the provinces in order to deceive, deprave, and destroy the faithful.
Sixth, Cain despaired of the mercy of God, saying: "My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon," Gen. IV, 13. So the heretics, from a conscience of so many and so great crimes, rush into the abyss of despair.
And by the error of Balaam they have been poured forth for reward. — That is, into the error of Balaam, which was reward, or the lust of reward and gain, they are poured out, as if to say: They are wholly poured out into wealth and gain; or, in other words, By the error and deception of reward by which Balaam was deceived, they pour themselves out into curses, impious counsels, and other crimes. For the error of Balaam was the hope of reward and the lust of gain, namely that, in hope of the reward offered by Balak, king of Moab, he was willing to curse and destroy the people of God, namely the Hebrews, Num. XXII and following. Whence the Syriac translates: "After the reward of Balaam they were made partakers in reward, or burned with desire"; Pagninus: "by the deception of reward by which Balaam was deceived, they are poured out"; Vatablus: "they are poured out by the deception of the reward of Balaam, and by the deceitful reward by which he was deceived they have departed from God's precepts and have been led off into every crime." Note here: For "reward" the Greek has the genitive μισθοῦ, which Pagninus, Vatablus, and others refer to πλάνῃ, that is, "by the error and deception" — as if to say: They have poured themselves out by the deception of reward, like Balaam. But our [translator] renders it in the ablative, "by reward," either because for μισθοῦ he reads μισθῷ; or because he supplied ἕνεκα or χάριν, as if to say ἕνεκα μισθοῦ, that is, "on account of reward," hence "by reward"; or rather because the preposition ἐξ, which is in ἐξεχύθησαν (that is, "are poured out"), demands the genitive — as if to say ἐξ μισθοῦ ἐξεχύθησαν, that is, "out of reward," "through reward," "by reward they are poured out." But it all comes to the same thing.
Again, the phrase "are poured out" signifies the great license, ardor, and impetus of the heretics in sinning, by which they pour themselves out wholly into rewards and wealth, and through these and on account of these, into all desires and all crimes. The Arabic translates, "and in his reward they have dried up," because after pouring out follows dryness: hence when our moisture is poured out through sweat or blood, we grow dry and thirsty. "They have dried up" denotes that rewards and gains acquired through crime do not enrich but dry up and vanish, according to that saying: "Ill-gotten things, ill-departing. The third heir does not enjoy what was gained badly."
Furthermore, the heretics imitate Balaam: First, because like Balaam, "for love of earthly conveniences, they assail the truth which they themselves know," says Bede; and Œcumenius: "The Gnostics," he says, "do all things from the lust of gain."
Second, because instead of the Holy Spirit which they boast of, they are driven by the spirit of error and the father of lies, namely the devil. So Didymus.
Third, because heresiarchs are frequently magicians, or have a familiar demon, as Suatus had.
Fourth, just as Balaam wished to curse the people of God and the Synagogue, but God turned his curse into a blessing: so the heretics are most full of cursing, and continually with insults and reproaches assail and slander not only the Orthodox but also one another. But God turns these reproaches of theirs into their own disgrace and the glory of the Church, by showing the whole world their impatience, their evil-speaking, their calumnies.
Fifth, Balaam gave impious counsel to King Balak, namely that he should send beautiful young women into the camp of the Hebrews, who would entice them to lust and from there to idolatry, so that, with God thus deserting them, they might be conquered and slain by Balak, as is clear from Num. XXXI, 15, where Theodoret teaches, Question 45, and Josephus, Antiquities IV, 6. So the heretics give impious counsels, and persuade religious and clerics to apostasy, violation of vows, perfidy, heresy; the laity, to rebellion, lust, gluttony, and every license of the flesh. So Didymus. Indeed Christ to the Angel, that is the Bishop, of Pergamum, Apoc. II, 19: "I have," He says, "a few things against thee, because thou hast there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a scandal before the sons of Israel, to eat and to fornicate: so hast thou also those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans"; concerning whom there is more in the same place. Whence Philastrius, in his book On Heresies, lists the Balaamites among the heretics; for their heresy was, that it was lawful to fornicate and to eat things sacrificed to idols. Wherefore Balaam, fitting to the matter, took his name from his work and crime: for Balaam in Hebrew is the same as one who licks or devours peoples, or who swallows up the people. For Balaam, by inviting the Hebrews through young women to eat of the things sacrificed to idols, wished to swallow them up and destroy them.
Finally, just as Balaam was slain by the sword by the Hebrews in the Midianite war, so heretics are killed by the swords of princes, because they are impious toward God and because they trouble the commonwealth by stirring up rebellions, seditions, and schisms, as Balaam through women wished to overthrow the camp of the Hebrews. For nothing so effeminates manly and military spirits as lust. Wherefore the ancient Gentiles kept women, even wives, away from the camps, as Tertullian testifies in his book On Chastity, ch. 12. Whence the camps (castra) are so called "as if chaste (casta), because in them lust is castrated," says Isidore, Etymologies IX, ch. 3. This cause Tacitus alleges, Histories III: "namely, that there is in the company of women that which delays peace by luxury and war by fear." And Valerius Maximus, book II, ch. 7: "When the shameful sewer of harlots had been drained from the camps of Scipio, the Roman army, which a little before, through fear of death, had stained itself with the disgrace of a treaty, with virtue restored, leveled to the ground that fierce and high-spirited Numantia, consumed by fires." See Lipsius, On the Roman Militia V, Dialogue 48, where he relates that the Germans of old, when they caught women in the camp, cut off their noses and drove them out.
And in the contradiction (in Greek τῇ ἀντιλογίᾳ, that is, in the contradiction) of Korah they perished, — because the heretics, though they did not yet exist in the time of Korah, nevertheless perished in him and with him, typically and figuratively: for the destruction of Korah, by which he himself was swallowed alive by the earth and descended into hell, was the type and figure that in a similar way the heretics, his followers, would be destroyed and descend into Tartarus. Whence concerning the Antichrist and his false prophet it is said in Apoc. XIX, 20: "These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone." By a similar expression the Apostle says that the faithful were baptized into Moses and into the sea, and ate the same food with him, namely typically and figuratively, because indeed the passage of Moses through the Red Sea was a type of baptism, and his manna was a type of our Eucharist, I Cor. X, 2; and Rom. VI, 3, he says that we were buried together with Christ by baptism into death, namely because baptism is a type of the burial and death of Christ, and represents it; whence in explaining he adds: "That as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life."
Second and more plainly, "in the contradiction," that is, in the manner of the contradiction — as if to say: After the manner of the seditious Korah, who perished in his contradiction and sedition, the heretics have perished and do perish. So often in Hebrew ב, that is "in," is taken for כ, that is "like, in the manner of." So Vatablus.
Third, "they perished" mystically, because by heresy they destroy and slay their own souls and those of the people whom they seduce, and make them liable to hell.
Furthermore, St. Jude rightly compares the heretics with Korah: First, because just as Korah in his pride rebelled against Moses, putting forward bald and trifling pretexts — whence in Hebrew Korah means "bald" — so they rebel against the Pontiff and the Church.
Second, just as Korah aspired to the priesthood, so they aspire to bishoprics and rich benefices.
Third, just as Korah caused a schism, so do they.
Fourth, Korah, when lightly reproved by Moses, answered arrogantly and despised the one warning him: so they too clamor against the warnings of Pastors and Bishops.
Fifth, just as Korah descended alive into hell, so do they. So Bede, Œcumenius, and others: see the things said on Numbers XVI.
Finally, St. Jude compares the heretics with Korah and Cain, because in the spirit he foresaw that there would be Cainite heretics, who would defend and venerate both. Hear St. Augustine, Heresy 18: "The Cainites," he says, "are so called because they honor Cain, saying he was of the strongest virtue; and at the same time they think Judas the traitor to be something divine, and they reckon his crime a benefit, asserting that he foresaw how much the passion of Christ would profit the human race, and on that account handed Him over to the Jews to be killed: they are also said to venerate those who, in making schism in the first people of God, perished when the earth opened up, Korah, Dathan, and Abiron, and the Sodomites. They blaspheme the law, and God the author of the law, and they deny the resurrection of the flesh."
Morally, note here how severely God punishes murmuring and rebellion against Superiors and the ministers of God: for on its account Korah, Dathan, and Abiron were swallowed up alive by the earth and by hell; and, as St. Ambrose says, book III, epistle 25, to the Church of Vercelli: "The earth, bellowing forth, is split in the midst of the people, a chasm is opened to the depths, the guilty are snatched away, and so they are banished from all the elements of this world, that they might not contaminate the air with their breath, nor the heavens with the sight of them, nor the sea with their touch, nor the earth with their tomb." So Miriam, the sister of Moses, murmuring against Moses, was struck with leprosy, Num. XII. So the magicians of Pharaoh, resisting Moses, were punished with ulcers, Ex. IX, 9. So Absalom, persecuting King David, hanging from a tree between heaven and earth as if unworthy to touch either one, was pierced through with three lances, II Sam. XVIII, 14. So Paul punished Elymas, who resisted him, with blindness, Acts XIII, 11.
Symbolically, Cain, Balaam, and Korah represent the threefold concupiscence, from which comes every evil: namely Cain the avaricious, the concupiscence of the eyes; Balaam the gluttonous and lustful, the concupiscence of the flesh; Korah the ambitious, the pride of life: concerning which St. John, epistle I, ch. II, v. 16: "All that is in the world," he says, "is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life."
Cain therefore represents the avaricious, Balaam the gluttonous and lustful, Korah the proud. Against these three St. Jude levels his "woe," that is, eternal malediction and hell; just as Amos, ch. VI, v. 1: "Woe," he says, "to you who are wealthy (behold the avaricious) in Sion, etc., entering with pomp (behold the proud) the house of Israel, etc.; who are set apart for the evil day, who sleep on beds of ivory and are wanton on your couches; who eat the lamb of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the herd; who sing to the voice of the psaltery, drinking wine in bowls, and anointed with the finest ointment (behold the gluttons and the lustful), and were not at all concerned about the affliction of Joseph."
Verse 12: Spots in Their Feasts, Clouds Without Water, Trees Twice Dead
12. These are blemishes in their feasts. — In Greek ἐν ἀγάπαις, that is, "defiled in your loves, in your acts of charity," as St. Augustine reads, De Fide et Operibus, ch. 25; that is, in feasts. For originally the Christians, as a symbol of charity, used to celebrate common feasts after the Eucharist, both for the poor and the rich, but frugal and pious; and therefore they called them Agapes, that is, charities, as I have shown on I Cor. XI, 20. So the Gentiles had their own feasts, which they called φιλίτια and φιλέτια, as symbols of love and friendship. Now the sense is what the Syriac gives: these are they who in their delights defile both the body by debauchery, and the mind by drunkenness, gluttony, lust; and likewise their fellow-guests by depraved doctrine and heresy, as well as by detraction, evil-speaking, and shameless words and looks; for they have "eyes full of adultery and of incessant sin," as St. Peter says, epistle II, ch. II, v. 14. See what is said there. The Arabic translates, "these are they who provoke guilt upon you," because, namely, they defile you with heresy, gluttony, and lust, and therefore make you guilty and liable to divine wrath and vengeance. In these men therefore that saying of Tertullian is true, On Fasting against the Psychics, ch. 17: "With you Agape steams in the cooking-pots, faith warms itself in the kitchens, hope reclines on the dishes. But greater than these is the Agape, because through her your young men sleep with the sisters: namely, lasciviousness and luxury are the appendages of gluttony." For the Gnostics, when sated, used to give up their wives to others, saying: "Arise, and make Agape with the brother," as Epiphanius says, Heresy 26. Less correctly does Cajetan thus punctuate, transpose, and explain: These men feasting in your loves, that is, in the benefits received from you, holding banquets, are blemishes, because, being defiled themselves, they defile others with their vices.
For "blemishes" the Greek has σπιλάδες, which Hesychius in his Lexicon, Pliny, book III in the Proemium, Œcumenius and others render "crags," or rugged rocks in the sea, against which ships dashed are broken to pieces and their passengers drowned. Like such crags are the heretics and impious feasters, who drag those who feast with them into ruin and destruction. More fittingly, however, our [translator] renders "blemishes"; for these fit feasts better than rocks, and them the Greek σπίλοι signifies, in St. Peter epistle II, ch. II, v. 13; and so here likewise translate the Zurich Bible, Clarius, Erasmus, Arias, and Pagninus.
Elegantly, Thomas the Englishman says: They are called "blemishes" with respect to lewdness; "feasting" with respect to drunkenness; "without fear" with respect to unseemly mirth; "feeding themselves" rather than the poor, with respect to the table.
Feasting without fear, — because, without reverence for God or men, they intrepidly and shamelessly stuff themselves with flesh and gorge themselves with wine, are wanton in their gestures, and vomit forth in words the venom of their breast; wherefore they are whirlpools, gluttons, born to Venus and the belly. St. Dionysius notes that one reclining at table needs the fear of God more than others, and ought to stir it up in himself, because at table many occasions of gluttony, detraction, pride, lewdness, etc., are presented, which cannot be overcome without the fear of God. Wherefore St. Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, and other Saints, though invited, would not go to banquets, but at their own home seasoned the banquet and the guests with sacred reading. Whoever therefore goes to banquets, let him fortify himself with the fear of God, and let him remember the saying of the Wise Man, Prov. XXIII, 4: "When thou sittest to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face; and put a knife to thy throat, if thou hast power over thy soul, lest thou desire of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit." See St. Chrysostom, homily 32 on Matthew; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus II, ch. 1 and 11; St. Paulinus, epistle 31; St. Ambrose in St. Augustine, Confessions VI, ch. 2; St. Jerome, epistle 22; St. Gregory, book I, epistle 71, all of whom teach excellently of what kind and how sober the banquets of Christians ought to be.
I cannot pass over Tertullian alone, who describes the whole rite of the Christian banquet thus: "Our supper shows the reason for itself by its name; for it is called agape, which among the Greeks means love. Whatever the cost, it is gain to make expense in the name of piety; for indeed by this refreshment we also relieve the needy. It admits nothing cheap, nothing immodest: men do not recline before prayer to God is first tasted; one eats as much as the hungry can take in; one drinks as much as is useful for the chaste; they are filled in such a way as men who remember that even through the night God must be adored by them; they converse in such a way as men who know that the Lord hears; equally, prayer breaks up the banquet." And a little after: "Our forefathers also instituted a solemn banquet, which they called Charistia, to which no one was admitted besides relatives and kinsmen by marriage; so that if any quarrel had arisen among kinsmen, it might be removed at the sacred meal, and amid the cheerfulness of minds, with the favorers of concord brought in."
Furthermore, some refer the phrase "without fear" to what follows, "feeding themselves." But the Roman copies more aptly refer it to the preceding "feasting"; but the matter comes to the same. For "feasting" the Greek has συνευωχούμενοι, which some refer to lust and shameful intercourse, as I said on II Peter II, v. 13. Whence the Arabic translates: "Who run through deceit and unchastity in their desires."
Feeding themselves, — as if to say: It is the office of Shepherds to feed the sheep, not themselves. But these false-shepherds feed themselves, not the sheep; nay, they fleece the sheep, that they may feed themselves on them and on their goods. It is the part of a good Shepherd to feed the poor even bodily. But these arrogate to themselves the alms which they collect from the faithful for the poor. He alludes to Ezek. XXXIV, 2. See what is said there.
Second, Œcumenius explains the Greek ποιμαίνοντες, that is "feeding," as "ruling": for of old kings were called and were Shepherds of peoples. Whence Agamemnon is called by Homer ποιμὴν λαῶν, "shepherd of peoples." For with the same diligence, care, and humanity with which a Shepherd feeds and rules his sheep, with the same a King ought to feed and rule the people. Whence the Arabic translates: "they govern themselves without virtue"; Pagninus and Vatablus: "living by their own leading and judgment"; others: they make themselves Shepherds and Bishops, not called by God, nor elected by the Church.
Clouds without water, — that is, clouds barren and unfruitful, which seem to promise water for the refreshment of men and the fruitfulness of the earth, but do not deliver it. So the Gnostics put forth an empty name of knowledge and doctrine, but did not deliver it, says Didymus, according to that of Prov. XXV, 14: "Clouds and wind, and rains not following — a boastful man, and not fulfilling his promises." In place of this, St. Peter, epistle II, ch. II, 17, calls them fountains without water and mists driven by storms. Tropologically, clouds without water are pompous and wordy preachers, who scratch the ears but do not strike the heart.
Second, Œcumenius: "Just as a cloud without water," he says, "driven by the winds, does not refresh with water the places upon which it lies, but covers and darkens them with gloom: so the heretics do not water, refresh, and fructify souls with the salutary word, but darken them with detestable teachings."
Third, Bede: "As barren clouds," he says, "are carried about by the winds, so the heretics by winds — that is, by the breaths and suggestions of demons — are snatched into various errors of vices. Again, as a cloud is driven away by the wind like smoke and vanishes, so also the heretics are dissipated and vanish away by their spirit of vanity." So St. Athanasius said of Julian the Apostate, when he was already reigning and beginning to rage against the faithful: "Let us withdraw," he said, "a little while, O friends; for it is a little cloud which quickly passes and vanishes," as Socrates testifies, book II, ch. 12. He was a true prophet; for in the following year Julian was slain. Truly Job ch. VII, v. 9: "As a cloud is consumed and passes away," he says, "so he that descends to the netherworld shall not come up." He alludes to Simon Magus, who like a cloud driven by the wind flew through the air, snatched up by a demon, but cast down by the prayers of St. Peter, broke his legs.
Note the word "are carried about"; for the heretics slip from one heresy to another and another, and daily forge new dogmas, according to that: "The impious walk in a circuit" of dogmas and errors. Whence St. Hilary to Emperor Constantius says that the Arians have many creeds, that they may have none; indeed, yearly and monthly creeds, and so have as many creeds as wills. Truly our Frusius: "Why is one faith now played upon by so many strings (faiths)?"
Heretics therefore are Proteuses and chameleons, who like the Euripus always fluctuate, and nowhere stand firm. See Irenaeus, book I, ch. 5; Tertullian, On Prescription, ch. 42; and Vincent of Lerins, Against the Profane Novelties of Heresies.
Autumnal trees, — δένδρα φθινοπωρινά, which can first be rendered "trees withering in autumn," namely losing their fruits and contracting themselves into root and earth. For in like manner the heretics are men withered, bearing no fruit of true doctrine and good works; but fastened to earthly things they do not grasp nor desire heavenly things, indeed they despair. So Adamus, Vatablus, and others. Furthermore Columella, book III, ch. 10, shows that analogically man is rightly compared to a tree and a plant, and he compares the parts and members of each one to the other. For man is, as it were, an inverted tree, having his root — namely the head — above; his branches — namely the feet — below: of which a tree does the opposite.
Second, δένδρα φθινοπωρινά can be rendered "trees of the ending and last autumn, and nearest to the squalor of winter," so called παρὰ τὸ φθίνεσθαι τὴν ὀπώραν, that is, "from the ending of autumn." For then trees lose their hair, namely all their leaves; they grow dry and gray. So the heretics put forth no leaves or appearance of true wisdom or eloquence, but as they are barren in fruit, so in leaves and appearance they are dry and squalid. So Salmeron and Gagneius.
Third, φθινοπωρινά are called "fruit-losing trees," παρὰ τὸ φθίνεσθαι τὰς αὐτῶν ὀπώρας, that is, because they corrupt their own fruits, and produce nothing but what is corrupt and shriveled. Whence the Arabic translates, "trees of corrupted fruits." For some trees, especially young and recently planted ones, are wont, at the very end of autumn and against the order of the season, to blossom; and this indicates to husbandmen that they, as if having exhausted all moisture and vigor, will soon die during the winter. Others begin to bring forth fruits in autumn; but on account of the oncoming winter they do not bring them to maturity, but leave them sour. Such are the heretics, who are not only dead but death-bearing, because they extirpate not only their own but also others' good works and fruits of piety, and indeed infect and intoxicate them with the pestilential poison of heresy. So Bede, Salmeron, Catharinus, and others.
Tropologically Hugo says: "Autumnal trees are the slothful and lazy, who late, slowly, and sluggishly begin to serve God, and therefore bring nothing to maturity; but when winter comes upon them — that is, temptation and adversity — their zeal and work die out." On the contrary, the fervent and strenuous just man is "like a tree planted beside the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in its season, and his leaf shall not fall off, and all whatsoever he shall do shall prosper," Ps. I, 3. Again: "The just shall flourish like the palm-tree, and shall be multiplied like the cedar of Lebanon," Ps. XCI, v. 13; and: "I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God," Ps. LI, 10. See Eccli. ch. XXIV, vv. 17 and following, where the practical wisdom of God and of the Saints compares itself to the ever-green cypress, palm, olive, cinnamon, balsam, myrrh; and finally v. 23: "I," it says, "as a vine have brought forth a sweetness of fragrance; and my flowers are the fruit of honor and of integrity." So Joseph is called "a growing son and bearing fruit," Gen. XLIX, 22.
Fruitless, — because they have either lost or are losing fruit, as I have said. Aptly St. Epiphanius, Heresy 31, and Irenaeus, book I, ch. 33, compare the Gnostics and heretics to mushrooms, which spring from trees as if their excrement, arise in a single night, and soon die. For so the heretics have come forth from us, suddenly dry up, and most quickly perish, says St. Augustine on Ps. LIV.
Twice dead. — First, because they have lost not only their fruits but also their leaves, as I have said. For in like manner heretics are deprived not only of the fruit and the savor, but also of the appearance and beauty of piety and of good works. So Œcumenius.
Second, "twice," that is wholly and utterly, "dead." So we say "twice and thrice," meaning wholly, blessed. So the Apostle says that Presbyters who rule well are worthy of double — that is, manifold — honor, I Tim. V, v. 17, where I have cited more examples of this phrase.
Third, some take "twice dead" to mean "twice planted and twice uprooted," and that this signifies those who have relapsed into heresy. Others say that they were dead first, when before baptism they were living in paganism, and dead a second time, when after baptism they fell into heresy. Others reckon them twice dead, because they are dead both in body, which they contaminate with every lust, and in mind. So Œcumenius.
Anagogically, first, the soul dies through sin, by which grace — which is the life of the soul — perishes; second, it dies when it is thrust into hell: for this is the second death, Apoc. XX, 14.
Fourth and most genuinely, trees "twice dead," that is, uprooted, as St. Jude adds in explanation, just as a little before he explained "autumnal" by "fruitless." For a tree first dies in itself, when it withers, but lives on still in the root, from which in spring it sprouts again and revives; but secondly it dies in the root, when it is uprooted, and then dies fully and entirely, so that no hope of life remains for it. So Arias. In a similar manner the soul of a heretic dies, first by mortal sin: for by this he loses charity and grace, which is the life of the soul. Then second, he dies through heresy: for by this he loses faith as it were the root, which is the beginning of the spiritual life: for heresy is never the first sin of a man, but one descends gradually to it through previous sins as it were by degrees.
Uprooted. — Œcumenius and the others already cited think this is something more than "twice dead"; for the dead can revive and sprout again if the root subsists in healthy soil; but uprooted ones have no hope of life. But it is truer that the word "uprooted" explains "twice dead," as I have said. Furthermore, the heretics by schism and heresy are uprooted from the Faith, the Church, God, and Christ, as if excommunicated. The word "uprooted," therefore, signifies the despaired-of salvation of the Gnostics. For, as Œcumenius says, "They are uprooted from Paradise, that is, from the Church of the Lord, and being cast forth are gathered up for eternal fire. For what state or root can he have, who on account of the filth of pleasure is cast off by all?"
Verse 13: Raging Waves of the Sea and Wandering Stars
13. Waves of the wild sea. — "Wild," that is "ferocious," as Saint Martin I, Pope, reads in epistle 1; the Syriac, the violent waves of the sea; the Arabic, the agitated waves of the sea. So Ovid calls the waves savage; and Virgil, in Book VII of the Aeneid, calls them barking waves, because they sound and roar like barking dogs; whence even a part of the Zealand sea is named from such barking, Den Sond, that is dog. Physically Saint Chrysostom notes on Matthew chapter 14 that God created the sea not tranquil, but rolling and surging, so that in restraining and moderating it He might show forth His power and providence. Such too is our life, which God so balances with temptations and tribulations that we are neither overwhelmed by their excess, nor, being entirely without them, grow torpid. Saint Jude has compared the Gnostics, first, to clouds without water; secondly, to autumnal trees; thirdly here, to fierce and savage waves of the sea. And this first, because like the waves they are restless, dark, bitter, and swollen, and through pride are lifted up, so as to strike heaven with their cursing and blasphemy. So Beda, according to that of Isaiah 57:20: "The wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest."
Secondly, because just as fierce waves toss a ship, so they themselves, turbulent, seditious, and tumultuous, shake and trouble the Church.
Thirdly, because just as the waves, though swelling and very high, lashing the shore and the rocks, are repelled by them, leap apart, and pass off into foam and vanish: so also the assaults, the haughtiness, and the rage of heretics lashing the Church burst back upon themselves and vanish. So Beda, according to that saying: "Man is a bubble," which is nothing other than swollen foam.
Fourthly, just as wave dashes against wave, so one heresy butts against another, and so they wear each other out and slay one another.
Foaming out. — Others read "dispumantes"; for properly despumare is to take off the foam; but dispumare is to cast forth foam as it were a dreg and to foam out; but often despumantes is taken for dispumantes, as in Persius, Satire 3: "We snore until that hour is enough to foam off the unconquered Falernian wine, while the fifth line is touched by the hour."
Whence Martin I, Pope, reads, foaming out their own confusions; the Syriac, who in the hand of their foaming declare their disgrace; the Arabic, as the waves of the agitated fierce sea boil up in their confusions or in their offenses. Now by "confusions," or, as Vatablus, disgraces, understand, first, shameful, heretical, blasphemous, proud, contumelious, and obscene words. Secondly, shameful deeds, namely sacrileges, plunderings of temples, seditions, wars, slaughters, robberies. Thirdly, and most aptly, the word confusions denotes the shameful debaucheries of the Gnostics and their monstrous lusts, so that they even offered their own seed to God, and mingled it with the Eucharist and ate it, as Epiphanius says, heresy 26: for these are the effects and punishments of pride, Romans 1:24, as if to say: They grow proud and lift themselves up like the waves; but this pride subsides, and goes off into shameful foam of shameful lust. So Didymus and Thomas the Englishman. For Venus is called Aphrodite by the Greeks, from foam, because she is believed to have arisen from the foam of the sea; so says Plato in the Cratylus; or, as Aristotle has it in II On the Generation of Animals, ch. 2, because the nature of seed is foamy, that is frothy; or, as Euripides in the Hecuba, because she is the goddess of ἀφροσύνη, that is, of folly. Thus Saint Jerome to Ocean: "The belly," he says, "boiling with unmixed wine, soon foams over into lusts."
Wandering stars, — that is, planets; for so the Greek has it, ἀστέρες πλανῆται, that is, errant stars. For the planets such as Mars, Venus, the Moon, Mercury wander in heaven with varied and roving course. So too the heretics stray from the true faith into one error after another, and lead others into error. The phrase "wandering" therefore signifies not only their errors, but also the inconstancy and mutability of their errors. So Œcumenius, Beda, and others. They wander therefore like the planets, which always change their path, so that they never rise and set in the same place, but always one and another, and are turned now more slowly, now more swiftly; for at one time they descend to the lowest parts of the wintry zone, at another they ascend to the high places of the solstitial zone, at another they repeat the middle line of the equinoctial zone, says Beda. But with this difference, that the planets in their wandering and motion are regular and constant. Whence Pliny, book II, ch. 6: "We call seven stars," he says, "wandering from their gait, though none wander less than they." But heretics in erring are altogether irregular and vagrant: for they fashion new errors every year; whence in the constancy of innovating they are most inconstant.
Secondly, Cajetan not amiss interprets "wandering stars" not as the heavenly planets (for these have constant motions), but as meteors and fiery exhalations, which Aristotle, I Meteorology, calls stars running through the air. For the Greek πλανήτης is the same as πλάνης, that is, vagrant, wanderer, errant star whether in heaven or in the air. Whence Plato, book II of the Republic, calls merchants πλανήτας ἐπὶ τὰς πόλεις, that is, planets of the cities, because they wander about and roam through cities for the sake of merchandise. And in warfare, soldiers who depart hither and thither rashly are called λειποτάκται, whom the Emperor Heraclius punished with the penalty of λειποταξίου, by which were punished those who deserted their place in the battle line. Finally guests, because they pass through many regions, are called πλανηταί. Such altogether are heretics. See Bellarmine in the oration prefixed to his last volume, where he aptly compares Luther to a star falling from heaven to earth, nay rather into hell, Apocalypse 8:10. For he fell from the Religious state, which is the imitation and beginning of the heavenly life, into earthly desires and filthiness, and into infernal errors and blasphemies. Wherefore the Syriac translates, seducing stars; the Arabic, dark or maleficent stars, such as are exhalations, which when kindled seem to fall from heaven like stars. Likewise wandering or will-o'-the-wisp fires, which lead travelers into trackless rivers or down precipices. Most like to these are heretics. A long disputation concerning these wandering stars Isidore of Pelusium has, book IV, epistle 58. Saint Jude again censures Simon Magus, who by flying through the air wandered like an errant star in heaven.
He also seems to have foreseen the pseudo-prophet who shortly after, under the Emperor Hadrian, seduced the Jews and stirred them up to rebel against the Romans, and therefore called himself Barchochebas, that is, son of the star (for כוכב cocab in Hebrew is a star), of whom Eusebius, in book IV of his History, ch. 6: "There was," he says, "at that time a leader of the Jews by the name of Barchochebas, which signifies a star, a man otherwise ready for slaughter and brigandage. But because of the meaning of his name he portentously lied, claiming that to the Jews, oppressed as it were by servitude, a certain light had descended as it were from heaven and had shone upon those afflicted." And in ch. 7 he says that Basilides the heresiarch invented for himself prophets named Barcabus and Barcoph, in order to stupefy his hearers. Again Saint Jude censures the thirty Aeons which Valentinus invented, like thirty stars wandering in heaven; whence he distributed them by triads of heavens after the manner of stars, as may be seen in their diagram, which Pamelius displays in his edition of Tertullian, at the beginning of the book Against Valentinus.
For whom the storm of darkness is reserved for eternity. — For procella the Greek is ζόφος, which the Translator, in II Peter 2:17, renders as gloom, and so reads Martin I, Pope, epistle 1, and the Arabic translates, perfection of darknesses; for gloom is aptly fitted as a punishment to wandering stars; yet rightly also is the storm fitted to them: for clouds, which veil the stars as it were with gloom, are storms. Now in hell properly there is gloom and storm of darkness. Saint Jude therefore signifies that both have been prepared for the heretics, and this fittingly, that through the things by which they sinned, they may also be punished, Wisdom 11:17: namely through darkness, because they introduced the darkness of errors into the Church; through storm, because they shook the Church with schism and sedition. "Rightly," says Beda, "shall they be sent into the eternal darkness of torments, who in the Church of God under the name of light brought in the darkness of errors. Deservedly shall they be smitten with the storm of punishments, who in the likeness of sea-tempests disturbed the peace of the Church." The darkness represents the punishment of loss, namely the deprivation of the vision of God; the storm, the punishment of sense; the words "for eternity" indicate the eternity of both punishments.
Tropologically, all these things which Saint Jude hurls against the heretics, you may hurl against any seditious, proud, avaricious, gluttonous, lustful persons, etc., both because such in truth were, and even now are, the heretics; and because the proud, the avaricious, the lustful, etc., has his own heresy, that is, a depraved choice repugnant to God, and is practically a heretic. For e.g., the lustful man practically says: It is good for me to fornicate: I must fornicate. But if he said this same thing speculatively, he would truly and properly have an error in faith, and would be properly a heretic: for he is a heretic who says that fornication is lawful, that it is good and to be embraced. The proud man therefore, the avaricious, the lustful, and any sinner whatsoever, first, is as it were a cloud without water, because he has the outward appearance of wisdom and uprightness, like a cloud, but inwardly empty of virtue, void and sterile.
Secondly, the same is an autumnal tree, that is, fruitless, dead, and soon to be uprooted and cast into Gehenna, according to that of Christ: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire," Matthew 7:19.
Thirdly, the same is like a wave of the sea, because he is tossed by a thousand surges of desires, in which he foams forth into his own confusions and shameful words and crimes, according to that of Isaiah 57:20: "The wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest, and the waves thereof cast up trampling and mire."
Fourthly, the same is a wandering star, because he wanders away from heaven, from God, from rectitude, from virtue, from happiness, and tends toward Tartarus. On the contrary, of the just man the Wise One says, Sirach 27:12: "The holy man abideth in his wisdom like the sun, for a fool is changed as the moon." Wherefore for him too the storm of darkness has been reserved for eternity.
Verse 14: Enoch's Prophecy of the Lord's Coming
14. Now Henoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these.
He proves that for the impious heretics the storm of darkness has been reserved for eternity, from the testimony of Henoch, who was the seventh from Adam. For Adam begot Seth, he Enos, he Cainan, he Mahaleel, he Jared, he Henoch. This prophecy is most ancient, as having been published before the flood: for Henoch was the great-grandfather of Noah: for he begot Methuselah, he Lamech, he Noah, Genesis 5. See what is said there.
Furthermore Henoch was a Prophet, and what Jude here cites he prophesied by living voice, which Jude either received by the tradition of his elders, or from a book composed either by Henoch himself, or by Noah, or by some other who collected the prophecies of Henoch. Whence Tertullian, On the Habit of Women, ch. 3, holds that this book was preserved through the flood in the ark, or restored from memory by Noah through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Saint Jerome agrees, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, on Henoch, as do Didymus and Beda here, Saint Athanasius in his Synopsis, and Clement, book VI of the Stromata. Wherefore it is likely that this book once existed pure and genuine, but afterwards either perished, as the book of Addo the Seer perished, and many others which are cited in the books of Kings; or was corrupted and depraved by heretics, as also elsewhere other prophecies of the ancients. For the book of Henoch which is cited by Tertullian, Irenaeus, and the others already named, swarms with errors, such as that it asserts that the sons of God in Genesis 6 were angels, who from the daughters of men, through the hot tears flowing from the eyes of the angels, begot the giants: which Saint Augustine, XVIII On the City of God, ch. 38, deservedly calls a fable. Such too is what Tertullian cites from the book of Henoch, in his book On the Adornment of Women, ch. 10, namely that the angels were damned who taught women to adorn and paint themselves, with gold and silver to weave garments, to dye fleeces, etc. The same author, ch. IV On Idolatry, says Enoch foretold that demons would convert all the elements and all things in earth and sea into idolatry. The Book of Enoch is frequently cited in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which Origen and Procopius cite and praise: it is cited, I say, in the Testament of Simeon, Levi, Issachar, and Dan, where Enoch's oracles are recounted concerning what should befall the sons and grandsons of the Twelve Patriarchs, concerning the crimes and punishments of the Hebrews, concerning the world's Redeemer to be killed by the Jews, concerning the slaughter, servitude, and perpetual reprobation of the Hebrews. Irenaeus, book IV, ch. XXX, says Enoch performed an embassy from God to the angels — understand, to the sons of God, whose lust toward the daughters of Cain He chastised, Gen. VI — as Fevardentius rightly interprets Irenaeus. Furthermore St. Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, on Jude, and St. Augustine in the place already cited, and book XV De Civitate, XXIII, say that things written in the Book of Enoch lack certain credit, since their excessive antiquity made them suspect, lest they be spurious or corrupted.
However that may be, it is certain that the things Jude cites from Enoch were predicted. Wrongly therefore do Cajetan and others hold this Epistle suspect, because it cites the apocryphal book of Enoch: for he cites not the book, but the prophecy of Enoch, which could have been oral and verbal; and even if the same thing had once been written by Enoch or Noah, it was authentically written, even though it may have been corrupted in later ages by added fables. Therefore if Jude cites the now corrupted, and therefore apocryphal, book of Enoch, he does not on that account approve everything in it, but only cites and approves it in that part where it was authentic and genuinely Enoch's or Noah's, namely Enoch's prophecy on the last judgment. See what was said in like manner at v. 9. Now then St. Jude cites his prophecy in the part where he treats of and threatens God's judgment against the impious, because the impure and impious Gnostics denied this. For this is the strongest restraint to keep men from sins and lusts, which abounded in Enoch's time. Hence soon afterward God brought a universal flood upon the earth. "For who can sin, if he always sets God's judgment before his eyes?" says St. Peter in St. Clement, Epist. I. Hence the saints continually set God's judgment before themselves and others — St. Jerome, St. Ephrem, St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, both St. Gregorys, and others. See the examples and maxims I cited at Deut. XXXII, 29. Hence Enoch himself with Elijah is to come as a forerunner of Christ the judge, both to resist Antichrist and to preach the imminent judgment, and to drive men to penance, that they may prepare for it: of which more at Apocalypse XI, 3. Similarly St. Athanasius, in his book On the Incarnation of the Word: "I would not have you ignorant," he says, "that another, illustrious and divine, advent of His is awaited, not contemptible in humility, but magnificent in glory, and is at hand, since He is going to return not in order to suffer, but in order to bestow on all the fruits of His cross — namely, immortality, resurrection, and incorruptibility — and not to be judged, but to judge."
Saying: Behold, the Lord comes. — In Greek ἦλθε, that is, He came, in the past tense. Hence the Arabic translates, "now behold, the Lord has already come." "He comes," that is, He will come so certainly and so soon, as if He had already come. For the prophets speak of the future as of the past, on account of the certainty of these things, because in God's foreknowledge and predestination they are already past. For God foreknew and predestined them from eternity, that they should come to pass at the appointed time decreed by Himself. Again, the eternity of God, who foretold these things through Enoch, encompasses, includes, and transcends all times, according to what St. Peter said, Epistle II, ch. III, v. 8: "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord does not delay His promise." The Prophets and Apostles everywhere proclaim this Second Coming of Christ to men with trumpet-like voice, that they may prepare themselves for Him. So Isaiah, ch. III, v. 17: "The Lord stands up to judge, and stands to judge the peoples. The Lord will come to judgment with the elders of His people, and with their princes"; and ch. LXVI: "Behold, the Lord shall come in fire, and His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His indignation in fury." Joel ch. II, v. 1: "The day of the Lord comes, because the day of darkness and gloominess is near, a day of clouds and whirlwind," etc. Apocalypse ch. I, v. 7: "Behold, He comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they who pierced Him."
In (that is, with) His holy thousands, — surrounded, namely, by countless legions of angels and Saints. Hence St. Cyprian to Novatian reads: "Behold, He comes with many thousands of His messengers," according to Daniel VII, 10: "Thousand thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him." For when Christ descends from heaven for judgment, all the angels without exception will accompany Him as His ministers for honor's sake, in order to adorn so solemn and universal an act of Christ and of the world, according to Christ's word: "When the Son of Man shall come in His majesty, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His majesty," Matt. xxv, 31. To Enoch, Moses alludes when dying and blessing the people, Deut. XXXIII, 2, saying: "The Lord came from Sinai, etc., and with Him were thousands of saints. In His right hand a fiery law. He loved the peoples; all the saints are in His hand"; and Zechariah XIV, 6: "The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Him." In judgment then, "infinite legions of angels will surround Christ the King on every side," says Nyssenus, on the text: "What you did to one of these little ones of Mine." Likewise many legions of holy men, who with Christ will judge the impious. Aghast at this, St. Augustine in Meditations ch. IV: "I shall stand helpless before as many judges as have gone before me in good work; I shall be confounded by as many accusers as gave me examples of right living; I shall be convicted by as many witnesses as admonished me with profitable words and gave themselves to be imitated by their just actions."
Verse 15: To Execute Judgment Against All
15. To execute judgment against all. — St. Cyprian to Novatian reads, to execute judgment concerning all; the Arabic, that all flesh may be judged. Truly St. Augustine, sermon 64 On the Words of the Lord: "He will sit as judge, who stood beneath a judge; He will condemn the true guilty, He who was made the false guilty." And St. Paul II Cor. V, 10: "We must all be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ, that each may receive what is proper to the body, according as he has done, whether good or evil." For then, as the same Paul says in ch. IV, v. 5: "The Lord will illumine the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of hearts"; and St. John, Apocalypse XX, 12: "I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the sight of the throne, and the books were opened, etc., and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."
And to convict all the ungodly. — The Greek adds αὐτῶν, that is, of them. Hence Pagninus: that He may convict all of them who are ungodly. For he explains what he said, "to execute judgment against all," by what he adds, "and to convict all the ungodly among them." For Christ will institute judgment against all men, namely against the whole body of men (because by far the greater part of it is ungodly), in order to destroy from among them whomever He shall actually find ungodly. St. Cyprian to Novatian reads: "And to destroy all the ungodly, and to convict all flesh concerning all the deeds of the ungodly which they have done impiously"; the Syriac: "That He may convict those exalted ungodly ones, on account of all those works which they did impiously." Hence it is clear that absolutely all the ungodly, even unbelievers and heretics, are to be judged on the day of judgment. As for St. Augustine, sermon 38, denying that they will be judged, and Christ in John III saying, "He who does not believe is already judged," — understand that they will not be judged with the judgment of discussion and inquiry, but with the judgment or sentence of condemnation: for since their cause is clear, it does not need discussion, but only the pronouncement of sentence and the infliction of punishment.
And of all the hard things (St. Cyprian in the place cited reads ungodly things) which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. — Arabic, and concerning the harsh and contradictory speeches by which they spoke ungodly sins against Him; namely, concerning all blasphemies, errors, and murmurings hurled against God; likewise concerning all the slanderous, detracting, indecent words spoken against one's neighbor: for since these are against God's law, they are equally against God Himself the lawgiver, and therefore must be judged, convicted, and avenged by Him on the day of judgment. St. Jude alludes to what he said in v. 8: "They blaspheme majesty." So the men of Capernaum, when they heard Christ's discourse about eating His flesh, said: "This is a hard saying; and who can hear it?" John VI, 61.
Verse 16: Murmurers and Complainers Walking After Their Own Desires
16. These are grumblers, complainers. — The Syriac: these are they who disturb and complain about everything; the Arabic: these are the ones provoking guilt upon you. The Gnostics no doubt grumbled about the Evangelical law, that it was too strict and difficult for the flesh; that on account of it the faithful were exposed to the hatred, plundering, and slaughter of the Gentiles; that the Bishops imposed new laws, new burdens of fasts, festivals, rites, observances, etc., grave and hard, on the people.
For "grumblers" the Greek has γογγυσταί, that is, mutterers. A susurro (mutterer), says Œcumenius, is one who silently and by muttering, not openly, reproves and carps at what displeases him, and especially one who sows discord among the faithful and among friends, and disturbs unity and peace — as the heretics disturb it by secretly detracting from Bishops and Pastors.
For "complainers" the Greek has μεμψίμοιροι, that is, querulous. Œcumenius and others render fault-finders; μεμψίμοιρος, says Œcumenius, "is one who finds fault with the portion and lot of others, and who is eager to vituperate everything and always."
Walking according to their own desires (ἐπιθυμίας, that is, concupiscences). — The Arabic: running, like unbridled horses driven by the gadfly.
And their mouth speaks proud things, — ὑπέρογκα, that is, swollen, lofty, haughty, exceeding all measure and credibility; the Syriac, astounding things; the Arabic: they wrap their mouths in the greatest of things. He censures the arrogance of Marcus and the Gnostics, of whom Irenaeus, book I, ch. IX: "They call themselves Perfect, as though no one could equal the greatness of their knowledge — not even if you should name Paul or Peter, or any other of the Apostles — but they have known more than all, and alone have drunk in the greatness of that knowledge, which is of unspeakable power; and that they themselves are in a height above every virtue. Wherefore they freely do all things, having no fear of anything: for, on account of the redemption, they become incomprehensible and invisible to the judge." He adds that they cite the very judge to the supreme tribunal of God. "All swell, all promise knowledge," says Tertullian, On Prescription, ch. XLI. St. Gregory, Moralia XVIII, XXVII (otherwise XXXVIII), relates that a certain heretic said he did not envy Christ for being made God, since if he wished, he himself could become so. Others called themselves Cathari, that is, pure; others Manichaeans, as though pouring out Manna; others Noëtians, as though intelligent. Concerning the pride of Luther and Calvin I have spoken at II Peter II.
Admiring persons. — The Syriac: praising persons, that is, they look up to and proclaim illustrious, leading, wealthy men; that is to say, they flatter the powerful and rich, marvelously praise and extol them, pretending to admire their excellence, talent, wisdom, wealth, virtues. So Œcumenius. Thus Simon, by flattering Nero and pretending to admire him, won his favor. Thus Marcus the heretic, says Irenaeus, book I, ch. IX, courted purple-clad and very wealthy women, and so milked their wealth. St. Jerome on Amos, ch. VII, testifies that heretics hunt for and parade the favor of princes, and that emperors communicated with them; and if anyone opposed them, they were wont straightway to accuse him: "Then are you acting against the Emperor? Do you despise Augustus's commands?" Thus the Arians, by flattering Constantine the Great, made him an enemy to St. Athanasius; and by humoring his son Constantius, they made him an Arian and a fierce persecutor of the orthodox. So in our age the heretics flattered Elizabeth, Queen of England, so that she wished to be called and held the head of the Anglican Church, and to be venerated as a Popess — and indeed a real one, not a fabulous one, like that Joan, also English. Furthermore they do this
For the sake of gain. — In Greek, for the sake of advantage; the Syriac, for the sake of profits; the Arabic, gaping for gain. St. Jerome on ch. II of Isaiah and on Jeremiah VI testifies that the Syrians, like the Jews, are by nature greedy and avaricious. Now the first heresiarchs and heretics were Judaeo-Christians. Hence St. Ignatius, epist. 3, calls them coveters of others' goods, rapacious of money and as it were whirlpools. Furthermore, St. Jude took this phrase, "admiring persons," from the Septuagint, which use mirari (to admire) for to look up to, revere, honor. Hence Gen. ch. XIX, 21: "I have received your prayers"; the Hebrew has: "I have lifted up your face"; R. Mordecai: "I have shown reverence to your face"; the Septuagint: "I have admired your face" — for what we lift up, we as it were look up at, admire, and revere as raised on high. Hence the acceptance, or as the Hebrew has it נשׂא neso, that is, the elevation of persons, the Septuagint call admiration of persons, as in Deut. X, 17: "Who does not accept the person"; Hebrew, does not elevate; Septuagint, does not admire. Proverbs XVIII, 5: "To accept"; Hebrew, to elevate; Septuagint, to admire — "the person of the impious is not good." Isaiah IX, 15: "Who, by leading them astray, beatify the people"; Septuagint, who admire faces. Hence Naaman the Syrian, a great man with the king of Syria, IV Kings V, 1, is called by the Septuagint τεθαυμασμένος προσώπῳ, that is, admirable in face, or one whose person all admired. Our Augustinus de Quiros was the first to note and annotate this skillfully here.
By a similar Latin phrase a proud man is said to admire himself, meaning to please himself and to think and speak grandly of himself; and Virgil, Aeneid XI: "Great in fame, he says, greater in arms, Trojan hero, with what praises shall I match you to heaven? Shall I admire your justice first, or your labors in war?" Again, by metalepsis to admire is to imitate. So Virgil, Aeneid VIII: "And from your earliest years let him admire you," admire, that is, imitate, says Servius. And Lucan, book IX: "and the admirer of Cato." For the finest talents must needs imitate what they admire. Thus the Gnostics by flattering admired, that is, imitated, the manners and gestures of the powerful and rich, in order to hunt for their favor. Such admirers may be seen in the courts of princes, who instantly imitate whatever the prince does, so that they seem plainly to reproduce the prince in voice, gesture, dress, gait; and by this art they hunt for his favor.
Verse 17: Be Mindful of the Words of the Apostles
17. But you, beloved. — This is the conclusion, in which, having set forth the frauds and vices of the heretics, he exhorts the faithful constantly to hold to the doctrine and admonitions of the Apostles, and to shun those men as plagues.
Be mindful of the words which have been predicted (that is, said before, said earlier: so the Syriac, the Arabic, Pagninus, and others) by the Apostles, — as by St. Peter, Epist. II, ch. III, v. 2; by St. Paul, I Tim. ch. I, v. 1, and Epist. II, ch. III, v. 2, where they forewarn the faithful to beware of heretics soon to arise, and in part already arisen. See what is said there.
Verse 18: Mockers in the Last Time
18. Scoffers. — Hebr. לצים letsim, that is, mockers, deriders — they call the worst men, who deride all things divine and human, as heretics do. Hugh: "who mock the faithful," as the Jews mocked Christ, so that they may rightly be called Antichrists; Dionysius: "who deceive the simple" by sweet speeches, by hypocrisy and pretense of piety. But especially the Gnostics mocked God's providence and judgment, that without fear of Him they might freely indulge their lusts. Hence in mockery they said: Where is His promise or coming? II Peter III, 4.
Walking according to their own desires in impieties. — In Greek ἀσεβειῶν, that is, of impieties, as if to say: Their desires are the desires of impieties, that is, of impious things and most impious. The Syriac, who walk according to their concupiscences after impiety; the Arabic, they run in their desires of unchastity.
Verse 19: They Separate Themselves, Sensual, Not Having the Spirit
19. These are they who separate themselves, — from the Church and the assembly of the faithful, and consequently from God, Christ, and heaven, by making a schism, a Church and sect of their own; the "themselves" is missing in the Greek. Hence Œcumenius, rendering the Greek ἀποδιορίζοντες, that is, distinguishing, dividing, discriminating, segregating, by exterminating or rather setting beyond bounds, explains it thus: "Those who set beyond bounds, that is, who lead men away and separate them outside the bounds of the Church, that is, outside the faith and the sacred tabernacle of the Church. For when they have made their lodgings and gatherings into dens of robbers, they snatch them from the Church and drag them to themselves." Therefore the Apostles from the beginning, for the unity of the Church and the fellowship of the faithful, and that they might better know, care for, and promote all, urged Christians strongly to frequent the Churches and the common assemblies. Hence Acts ch. II, v. 46: "Daily continuing with one accord in the temple"; and ch. XX, v. 7: "When we had come together to break bread"; and I Cor. ch. XI, v. 20: "When therefore you come together into one place"; to the Hebrews X, 23: "Not forsaking our assembly." Clement of Rome, book II of the Apostolic Constitutions, ch. LIX: "Come together," he says, "in the Church each day morning and evening to sing the psalms." St. Ignatius, epist. 6 to the Magnesians: "All come together to pray in the same place, let there be one common prayer"; and epist. 11 to Polycarp: "Let assemblies and synods be more frequently celebrated, inquire after all by name." He further assigns the reason why they separate themselves, when he adds:
Animal [sensual], — not from anima (soul) but from animality, says Hugh. But anima also signifies this, when it is distinguished from animus, that is, from the higher part. Hence Accius in Epigoni, cited by Nonius: "We are wise by the animus, we live by the anima; without animus the anima is weak." The heretics therefore are called "animal" from the sensitive and vegetative soul, to which they wholly serve; for, like animals, they follow not reason but sense, and live in the concupiscences of the flesh, "not having the spirit"; Syriac and Arabic, in whom there is no spirit, as if to say: They one and all are mere animals, mere flesh; hence they have nothing of spirit: for "the animal man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God," I Cor. II, 14. Again: "Whoever falls away, and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ, has not God," says St. John, Epist. II, 9. The reason therefore why they separate themselves from the Church is because they are animal. For just as animals follow their own fancy, so they follow their own brain and judgment, refusing to believe and submit themselves to the judgment of the Church and her Rectors. Hence the Arabic translates, or living. Secondly, because like animals they follow their own appetites — not those of reason and spirit, but of sense, namely of gluttony, avarice, anger, pride, lust, etc. Hence Œcumenius translates, living according to the constitution of the world. Again: "They have not," he says, "the Spirit, namely the divine Spirit speaking in them, because they use diabolic wisdom." Hear St. Bernard to the Brothers of the Mount of God: "The soul," he says, "is an incorporeal thing, capable of reason, fitted to give life to the body. This makes men animal, when they savor of the flesh, clinging to the senses of the body. When it begins to be not only capable, but also participant of perfect reason, it forthwith puts off from itself the name of the feminine gender, and becomes animus, participating in reason, fitted to govern the body, or even possessing itself as spirit. For so long as it is anima, it is soon effeminated into what is carnal. But animus, or spirit, meditates on nothing except what is virile and spiritual, etc. Animus, I say, inasmuch as it well animates and perfects its animal by the addition of free reason; but good, inasmuch as it now loves its good, by which it becomes good, and without which it could neither be good nor be animus. And animus becomes good and rational by loving the Lord its God with all its heart, fearing God and keeping His commandments. For this is every man."
Note: One can be a schismatic and not a heretic, that is, if he separates himself from the Church, not because he believes she is not the true Church or has errors in the faith, but because he is unwilling to obey her. For such a one can believe all the dogmas of the faith which the Church believes, and yet, because he refuses to submit to her, he makes a schism from her. For schism is directly opposed not to faith but to charity and union. But commonly schism ends in heresy. For in order that schismatics may show that they have rightly made a schism, they immediately deny that the Church from which they have made the schism is true and orthodox; they likewise deny the authority of Bishops and the Supreme Pontiff, namely that he is the head of the whole Church, and especially of their schismatic Church: which two, being articles of faith, whoever denies them becomes by that very fact a heretic. Thus the schism of the Greeks, of the Donatists, and recently of the English passed at once into heresy. Wherefore St. Augustine, book II Against Crescentius, ch. VII, defines schism and distinguishes it from heresy thus: "Schism is a recent dissension of an assembly arising from some diversity of opinions; heresy is an inveterate schism." And St. Jerome on ch. III of the epistle to Titus: "No schism," he says, "but invents some heresy for itself, in order that it may seem to have rightly withdrawn from the Church."
Furthermore schism is a grave and monstrous sin, first, because it is an injury to God: for it abolishes His one and unanimous Religion and worship, and splits it into two. Wherefore God punished Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, schismatics, with a horrible death, so that, the earth opening, they went down alive into hell, Num. ch. XVI. But it is most of all an injury to the Holy Spirit, who is the lover and author of peace and concord. Hence Bede calls the Holy Spirit, by whom the Church is gathered, the coagulum (rennet) of charity.
Secondly, because it is an injury to Christ: for it tears and rends His seamless tunic, namely the Church, which the Jews and Gentiles who crucified Christ did not dare to do. For which reason St. Cyprian, in the treatise On the Unity of the Church, and St. Jerome, in his epistle to Damasus, assert that schismatics are worse than those who crucified Christ. So Christ appeared to St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria and martyr, with His garment rent, and when He was asked the reason, said: "Arius has torn My garment, which is the Church," at the same time commanding him never to receive Arius into communion, since He knew him to be dead to God. So says the Life of St. Peter, on the 26th of November. Likewise St. Augustine, epist. 171, calls the Donatists dividers of the Lord's garments. St. Irenaeus, book IV, ch. LXII: "Considering," he says, "their own advantage rather than the unity of the Church, on account of trifling and any sort of causes, they cut up and divide the great and glorious body of Christ, and, so far as in them lies, they kill it."
Thirdly, because it is an injury to the Church: for the schismatics tear and cut her in pieces; just as one would do a grave injury to a man and to his body who should mutilate and dissect it. Wherefore Irenaeus, book IV, ch. XXVI, says there can be no such great destruction as that of schism. Excellently does Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius, History VI, ch. XLV, write thus to Novatus: "If you were unwillingly impelled" (to become a Bishop and to make a schism from the true Bishop), "as you say, you will prove this if you return voluntarily. Indeed you ought to have endured anything rather than rend the Church of God. Nor is this martyrdom — undertaken for the sake of not rending the Church — of less glory than that which is borne for refusing idolatry. Indeed in my judgment it is even of greater glory: for there martyrdom is borne for one soul, but here for the whole Church. Now if you persuade or even compel the brethren to return to concord, this so excellent deed will be greater than the offence that went before. But if you cannot persuade the unruly, save your own soul by saving it."
Fourthly, it is an injury to the Prelates of the Church, from whose jurisdiction and due obedience he separates himself. Wherefore wisely St. Jerome, epist. 57 to Damasus, in the schism of Vitalis, Meletius, and Paulinus: "I," he says, "am joined in communion with Your Beatitude, that is, with the Chair of Peter: I know the Church to be built upon that. Whoever shall eat the lamb outside this house is profane. If anyone shall not have been in the ark of Noah, he shall perish when the flood reigns. I do not know Vitalis, I reject Meletius, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoever does not gather with you, scatters: that is, he who is not of Christ is of Antichrist." For, as Optatus of Mileve, book I Against Parmenian, says: "Forsaking their Catholic mother, ungodly sons, while they run out of doors and separate themselves from the root of mother Church, cut off by the sickles of envy, withdraw rebellious through error."
Fifthly, it is an injury to the rest of the faithful, from whose society, concord, and brotherly charity he wickedly separates himself. The same proportionally takes place in the schism by which someone separates himself not from the Church, but from his own Order and congregation. Hence St. Bernard, sermon 1 On St. Michael, says that nothing pleases the holy Angels so much as concord, and nothing so displeases them as discord and schism: "There are many things," he says, "which please them, such as sobriety, chastity, poverty, frequent groaning toward heaven; yet above all these the angels of peace require of us unity and peace. Why should they not be most delighted in those things which represent in us a kind of form of their own city, that they may admire the new Jerusalem on earth? I say it, that as the participation of that city is in the same thing, so we also should think the same thing, say the same thing. On the contrary, nothing so offends and provokes them to indignation as dissensions and scandals, if they happen to be found among us." And presently citing the words of St. Jude: "These," he says, "are they who separate themselves, animal, not having the spirit. You may see how the soul of a man vivifies all the members of the body when they cohere together. Separate then anything from the joining of the rest, and see whether it lives. So is everyone who says anathema to Jesus: which no one says when speaking in the Spirit of God, because anathema is separation. So, I say, of everyone who is divided from unity, doubt not that the spirit of life has departed from him." Then he adds that the angels say to schismatics: "What have we to do with this generation that has not the spirit? For if the spirit were present, through it charity would surely be poured forth, and unity would not be rent. Let us not abide with these men forever, because they are flesh. For what fellowship has light with darkness? We are of the kingdom of unity and peace, and we hoped that these men would come into the same unity and peace: but now in what way shall they cohere with us, who are at variance with themselves?"
Sixthly, it is an injury to the person to whom it clings: for it makes the schismatic to be separated from the Church, from Christ, from God, incapable of grace and salvation, so that those who in schism meet death for Christ's faith are not martyrs, and do not ascend to heaven, but descend to hell, as St. Augustine teaches in the book On Patience, near the end, and indeed the Apostle, I Cor. ch. XIII, v. 3. Those then who separate themselves, by their own judgment condemn and as it were excommunicate themselves.
Finally, it is an injury to his own followers, whom he plunders from the Church and leads off into his schism and eternal ruin. See St. Cyprian, book I, epist. 6 to Magnus, and epist. 8 to the People — where he calls schismatics adulterers, impious, sacrilegious. And St. Chrysostom, homily 11 on the epistle to the Ephesians: "A holy man (St. Cyprian)," he says, "said this sin is not to be wiped out even by the blood of martyrdom. For tell me, I pray, on what account do you undergo martyrdom? Is it not for the glory of Christ? In what manner then, you who lay down your soul for Christ, do you assault the Church for which Christ laid down His soul?" St. Cyprian, in the book On the Unity of the Church: "Tear away," he says, "a sunbeam from the body of the sun, the unity of light does not admit division; break off a branch from the tree, it will not be able to bring forth fruit; cut off a stream from the fountain, when cut off it will dry up."
Verse 20-21: Building Up Yourselves on Your Most Holy Faith, Praying in the Holy Spirit
20 and 21. But you, beloved, building up yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God. — The "building up" depends on "keep."
Note: In the Scriptures the metaphor from buildings is frequent, in which men and sons are called "houses"; but the faithful and saints are called "the temple of God," whose foundation is faith, resting on the most solid cornerstone Christ Jesus, "in whom all the building, fitly framed together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord," Eph. II, 21. Therefore when they build themselves up on holy faith, they raise an august dwelling for God. Hence St. Paul there adds: "In whom you also are built together into a habitation of God"; and St. Peter, Epist. I, ch. II, v. 1: "Coming to whom, the living stone, etc., and you yourselves as living stones are built up, spiritual houses." Christ therefore and the faithful adhering to Christ, raise and form a noble mystical temple of God, namely the Church, whose foundation is Christ, whose walls are the particular and provincial Churches, whose stones are the individual faithful, who upon Christ the foundation are built up by faith and grace. Indeed each member of the faithful builds himself up as a particular temple, or chapel, for God, according to the saying: "You are the temple of the living God," I Cor. VI, 16. The foundation of this temple is faith, the walls are hope and the other virtues, the roof is charity. Hence St. Augustine, sermon 22 On the Words of the Apostle: "The house of God," he says, "is founded by believing, raised by hoping, perfected by loving"; and Origen on ch. IV to the Romans: "The first beginnings and the very foundations of salvation are faith; the progress and increases of the building are hope; but the perfection and crown of the whole work is charity."
St. Jude opposes the "building up" to what he said in the preceding verse: "These are they who separate themselves," as if to say: The Gnostics by heresy separate themselves both from the faith and from the building of Christ; but you, O faithful, constantly hold to and cling to the faith already received, and all together build yourselves up, that you may all together constitute one Church complete in every respect.
He calls the faith not holy, but "Most Holy," to signify its wonderful and supreme sanctity: for by many titles, names, and causes it is most holy, as I have shown at II Peter II, 20. He opposes the most holy, that is, most pure, faith of Christ to the most impious and most impure sect and perfidy of the Gnostics.
In the Holy Spirit (namely, by the Holy Spirit) praying. — Œcumenius refers "in the Holy Spirit" to "building up," which preceded. Better, the Roman codices and others refer it to "praying." "For the Spirit Himself asks," that is, makes us ask, "with unutterable groanings," Rom. VIII, 27. The Arabic translates: stand upon your holy faith, when you pray in the Holy Spirit.
Take prayer to mean both private prayer and, rather, public prayer in the assembly and Church. So Œcumenius. For he notes the animal Gnostics, whose assembly and prayer was impure, and therefore was not made in the Holy Spirit, but in a venereal and diabolical spirit; for they practiced the most shameful lusts on one another. He notes also the followers of Simon Magus, who taught that they were by nature spiritual, and therefore could be saved by themselves, and did not need the prayer and aid of the Holy Spirit, as Irenaeus testifies, book I, ch. I, III, and XX.
The phrase "in the Holy Spirit" therefore signifies four things. First, that true prayer is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and without Him no one can pray as one ought, in order to obtain grace and salvation, as the Council of Orange and the Council of Trent, sess. VI, can. 3, define; indeed Paul, Rom. VIII, 26. Hence St. Augustine, book IX of the Confessions, ch. VII, treating of his own prayers: "We," he says, "still cold, were being kindled by the warmth of Your Spirit."
Secondly, that in prayer those things ought to be asked which the Holy Spirit suggests, not the flesh or the world, and those things which are pleasing to the Holy Spirit, not to the flesh.
Thirdly, that prayer makes a man spiritual, not animal; for prayer is a work of the Holy Spirit, which makes the one praying like Him, and therefore spiritual. Hence, just as some of the ancients define an angel: "An angel is a celestial, immortal animal, sounding forth hymns of the praises of God," so you may define a spiritual man: "He is one who prays to and praises God; he is an angel on earth sounding forth hymns."
Fourthly, that the Holy Spirit directs our prayer, that we may not ask and obtain hurtful things, but salutary ones. For He inspires both the affection and the effect of praying, as St. Augustine says, according to Zechariah XII, 10: "I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a spirit of grace and of supplications," Hebrew החנונים tachanunim, that is, of mercies; because prayer suggested and directed by the Holy Spirit is a great mercy of God, and opens the fountains of divine compassion, from which nothing but good and salutary things flow. The Israelites did otherwise, who, driven by the spirit of gluttony and murmuring against the manna, asked God for flesh, and obtained it, but immediately God's plague raged against them, Numbers xi, 33. Truly St. Isidore, book III On the Highest Good, chapter vii: "God does not hearken to many according to their will, in order that He may hearken to their salvation"; and St. Augustine, tract 73 on John: "He who would use ill what he wishes to receive, by God's rather merciful refusal does not receive it: therefore, if that be asked of Him from which a man may be harmed by being heard, it is more to be feared lest what He could not give favorably, He may give in wrath."
Verse 21: Keep Yourselves in the Love of God
21. Keep yourselves in the love of God.
The Syriac: "let us keep our soul in love." He joins love or charity to prayer: first, because prayer through the Holy Spirit obtains charity, according to: "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us," Rom. v, 5; second, because in order that God may love us and grant good things to those praying, He in turn wishes to be loved by us; third, because the goal, fruit, summit and perfection of the structure of the virtues — namely faith, hope and prayer — is charity, according to: "The fulness of the law is love," Rom. xiii, 10; and: "The end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart," I Tim. i, 5: for charity is the queen, indeed the soul, of all the virtues. Moreover this love of God includes love of neighbor. For our neighbor must be loved for God's sake; for thus does God command, and God's charity. For he opposes to the schism of the Gnostics the charity of the faithful, that united by it they may conspire and grow together into the one structure of the Church, according to that saying of St. Paul: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," Eph. iv, 3. For, as St. Augustine says, tract 2 on John: "Envy separates, charity joins." The same in epistle 50 to Boniface: "The Catholic Church alone is the body of Christ, whose head He is, the Savior of His own body. Outside this body the Holy Spirit gives life to no one, because he is not partaker of divine charity who is an enemy of unity." Let one therefore have it, "that he may grow together with the tree of life."
Waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ (which may lead you) unto life eternal, or, that you may attain eternal life. Arabic, in eternal life. In it we shall feel God's immense mercy, and shall enjoy it in the vision and possession of God. He exhorts the faithful to retain Christ's faith and charity steadfastly, by stirring them up to the hope of eternal life, which they will surely obtain from a merciful God if they persevere in faith and charity. With this hope, as with a shield, all persecutions, difficulties and temptations are to be repelled and shattered. Hence the Syriac translates: "Let us keep our soul in the love of God, while we hope for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ." For hope leans more upon God's mercy than upon our own merits: first, because we have merits only from God's mercy and grace; second, because God does not owe glory to our merits out of justice, but has promised glory to them out of mercy. So St. Augustine, epistle 103. Hence Paul: "The grace of God," he says, "is life everlasting," Rom. vi, 23. God therefore gives to the faithful when troubled and afflicted, as a most powerful consolation and support, hope (indeed Himself in hope), "which we have as a sure and firm anchor of the soul, going in even unto the interior of the veil," Heb. vi, 19. Hence Ovid sang of hope, in book I From Pontus, elegy 7: "When the divinities fled the wicked lands, This goddess, hated of the gods, alone remained on earth." Moreover St. Augustine vividly portrays eternal life in his colloquy on it with his mother, book IX Confessions, chapter x, where among other things he says: "We came into our own minds, and transcended them, that we might attain the region of unfailing abundance, where Thou pasturest Israel forever upon the food of truth, and where life is wisdom, by which all these things are made — both those that have been, and those that are to come; and itself is not made, but is as it was, and shall be so always; nay rather, to have been and to be about to be is not in it, but only to be, since it is eternal: for to have been and to be about to be is not eternal. And while we spoke and panted after it, we touched it slightly with the whole beat of our heart, and we sighed, and there we left bound the firstfruits of the spirit."
Verse 22: Reprove the Judged
22. And these indeed reprove, having been judged, namely as condemned in themselves, by the matter itself and the evidence of fact, that is, convicted of public heresy and schism, and condemned by the atrocity of their crime, even though no one pronounces a sentence of damnation against them, according to that saying of Paul to Titus III, 10, concerning the heretic: "He is subverted, since he is condemned by his own judgment." Some Greek manuscripts read: καὶ οὓς μέν ἐλεεῖτε διακρινόμενοι, which Pagninus and Vatablus translate: "and these indeed pity while you are being judged," namely by them, or while you are or shall be judging, namely them — which Our [Latin] translator renders passively, but in the same sense: "judged." For Διακρινόμενοι is a middle verb, hence it can be translated either actively or passively. Again Œcumenius translates διακρινομένους as "those who separate and segregate themselves." But better other manuscripts, which the Arabic, Œcumenius and our Interpreter follow, read ἐλέγχετε διακρινομένους, that is "reprove the judged." For thus the antithesis stands with the other member of the partition, which he adds saying: "But save those." There is a partition: for the pronoun "these" refers to the heretics; "those" however to their disciples, and those seduced by them, of whom He has spoken throughout the chapter, and a little before in verse 19: "These," he says, "are they who segregate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit." Now the sense is, as if to say: I wish you to preserve and exercise love not only toward the faithful, but also toward the unfaithful, the apostates and heretics, and their followers. "These" therefore, namely the heresiarchs and teachers of heresy, while disputing about heresy, ἐλέγχετε, that is judge, refute, convince — that, with their error made plain to all, they may be shunned and hissed away — "the judged," that is, when you have judged them, and shown by true reasonings their error and schism, so that now, if not to themselves, at least to others, they may seem convicted, judged and condemned. "Judged" therefore understand as those obstinate in heresy.
Verse 23: Save Others, Snatching Them From the Fire
"But those," namely the disciples of the heretics, or the faithful who are beginning to listen to them and to waver in the faith, "save," σώζετε, that is preserve, from imminent ruin into the heresy of the Gnostics, into lusts and perdition, as it were most swiftly and violently "snatching them out of the fire," just as a cloth caught and burning in fire is straightway violently snatched out by an inserted hand. The word "of the fire" denotes both the lusts of the Gnostics, and the burning deserved in Gehenna. Hence the Greek adds ἐν φόβῳ, that is "in fear" or terror, as if to say: by threats and the terror of punishment and of Gehenna save and rescue them from the fire of hell.
23. But on others have mercy.
These [words] are now lacking in the Greek, in which therefore the sentence is two-membered, while in the Latin it is three-membered. Its sense therefore is, as if to say: Reprove sharply the very teachers of the heresy, as condemned and judged by their own as well as by God's and men's judgment, that the rest may fear; but their disciples, partly by fear and partly by mercy and clemency according to each one's disposition, lead back to the faith. The Arabic adds something which is neither in the Greek nor in the Latin, for it translates thus: "Show mercy to certain ones, when they are in judgment or contradiction, or when they are reproved by law or judicially."
Secondly, others explain this three-membered sentence thus, as if to say: openly reprove manifest heretics; preserve those who are still whole and sound in faith unharmed, and as it were snatch them from a fire; finally embrace, not without chaste fear, those who are already wavering and inclined to ruin, with compassion.
Thirdly, others distinguish here three grades of sinners: First, those obstinate in heresy and sin; these Jude commands to be sharply reproved and harshly rebuked, just as Paul to Titus II, 13. Second, those who have fallen into heresy and sin through deception, ignorance or weakness; these he commands to be snatched from the fire. Third, those who, repenting, acknowledge their guilt and beg pardon; these he commands to be pitied, and mercifully received into the grace and bosom of the Church. All these are probable.
Morally, St. Jude here teaches how greatly we ought to apply ourselves to the salvation of souls, even of unbelievers and heretics, and that by the example of Christ and the Apostles, who spent themselves and all their own for the saving of souls. "You were bought with a great price," says St. Paul, I Cor. vi, 26. See and be amazed how precious any soul is; for Christ purchased it at the price of His blood. The price therefore of a soul is the blood of Christ; therefore the soul itself is worth Christ and Christ's blood. "Great is the soul which has been redeemed by the blood of Christ," says St. Bernard, epistle 54; and St. Chrysostom, homily 3 on the first Epistle to the Corinthians: "There is nothing," he says, "that can be compared to the soul, not even the whole world. Therefore even if you bestow immense sums upon the poor, you will have done more if you convert a soul." Hence St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, chapter iii: "Of all divine perfections," he says, "the most divine perfection is to be God's cooperator, namely in the leading back of souls to their Creator," as Dionysius the Carthusian interprets there.
Secondly, St. Jude teaches that this zeal for souls ought to be swift and effective, when he says: "Snatching them out of the fire." For just as, if we should see some boy or madman rushing into the fire, we should immediately with all our strength snatch him from there even against his will and resistance: so likewise souls willingly rushing through sin into the fire of Gehenna, we ought with all effort and speed, even by force, to snatch from there, according to that saying of Amos iv, 11: "You were made as a brand snatched from the burning."
Furthermore every sin, every desire, is fire, but most of all lust: hence concerning lust, frequented by the Gnostics, St. Jude says: "Snatching them out of the fire." For first, just as fire burns the body, so lust burns the mind, according to Virgil's saying about Dido: "The wretched one is burned, and consumed by an unseen fire." And Ovid, book I On the Art [of Love]: "Venus in wine, fire in fire grows hot." Nay, even St. Paul, I Cor. vii, 9: "It is better to marry than to be burned." Secondly, just as fire creeps in a house, and pervades and burns it all up: so also lust pervades and devours the whole mind, imagination, senses, and all the members of a man, according to that saying of Job xxxi, 12: "It is a fire devouring even unto destruction, and rooting up all things that spring up." Thirdly, as fire creeps from house to house, from tree to tree, and in a short time, with the flames laying waste, takes hold of and sets ablaze the whole street, city and forest, so also the lust of one or a few creeps into a whole neighborhood, city and commonwealth, and like Etna or Vesuvius infects and inflames it. Therefore one must oppose its beginnings, and this fire must be choked and extinguished in its tinder and spark, according to the saying: "Blessed is he who shall hold and dash thy little ones against the rock," Psalm cxxxvi, 9. Fourthly, lust is fire, because it is close to the fire of Gehenna: for nothing lies between the lustful man and the fire of Gehenna, except the fragile wall of the body, which when broken down, he is straightway seized by the avenging flames of Gehenna. Hence Sodom, burning with the fire of lust, was consumed by heavenly, indeed by infernal fire. Whence the interlinear Gloss says that St. Jude commands "that they should strive with a certain force to deliver others from the fire of vices, and so from the fire of torments."
Wherefore in order that he might extinguish in himself this boiling fire of lust, St. Francis handled icy snow. Another, solicited by a harlot, burned his fingers in the flame of a lamp, and thus by fire overcame fire, and snatched two from a double fire: for he both saved himself, and pricked and converted the harlot. So the Lives of the Fathers, book V On Fornication, number 37. Another, about to carry his old mother across a river, wrapped his hands in his cloak that he might not touch her; when asked the reason by his mother, he said: "Because a woman's body is fire, and from my mother the idea of other women is suggested to me." Same place, booklet IV, number 68. Finally Ursinus the presbyter, when dying, repulsed his presbytera who was bringing her hand to his mouth, saying: "Withdraw from me, woman, a little spark still lives," says St. Gregory, IV Dialogues 40.
Thirdly, St. Jude teaches that this zeal for souls ought to be joined with the bowels of mercy, when he says: "But on others have mercy." For he who strives to save them ought not be indignant at sinners, but at the sin; rather have mercy on the sinners: just as a physician is not indignant at the frenzied man, nor does he attack him, but his frenzy. Hence St. Augustine, sermon 15 On the Words of the Apostle: "If discipline is imposed through charity," he says, "let gentleness not depart from the heart. For what is so pious as a physician bearing his instrument? He weeps who is to be cut, and is cut: he weeps who is to be burned, and is burned. This is not cruelty: he rages against the wound, that the man may be healed, for if the wound is caressed, the man is lost"; and St. Chrysostom, homily on that of Psalm ix, "The patience of the poor shall not perish forever": "Let charity be preserved," he says, "and let the impudent man be rebuked; let the tongue cry out, and the heart love; because that cry, though it cries, within loves." And St. Basil in Brief Rules, question 296, assigns as the mark of a good caretaker of souls, "if he has imitated, against sinners, that admirable and awe-filled mercy of holy men." In this mercy St. Martin excelled, who, as Sulpicius narrates in his Life, chapter xxiv, said to the devil: "If thou thyself, O wretched one, wouldst desist from persecution of men, and wouldst repent of thy deeds even at this time, when the day of judgment is near, I, truly trusting in the Lord, would promise thee Christ's mercy." Sulpicius adds: "O how holy a presumption concerning the Lord's piety, in which though he could not give it authority, he showed his affection!" For the devil, because he is damned and obstinate in evil, as he cannot repent, so is incapable of mercy and pardon. To this purpose what Philo notes, book On the Sacrifice of Cain and Abel, that we must endeavor, as far as we can, to save even those certainly to be lost, from their vices: both that we may discharge our office, and that they may sin less and be less damned, and so we may imitate good physicians, who though they see the sick cannot be healed, yet apply every care to him, lest they seem to have failed in their office. For from a physician and a pastor what is required is care, not cure, since the disease is not seldom incurable.
Have mercy in fear, by setting before them the punishments of hell, as well as the temporal ones, which may strike fear into them so that they may convert; or rather "in fear," as if to say: fearing lest, if you are unmerciful and harsh toward those who have fallen, or act imprudently with them, you yourselves also may, with God deserting you, fall into the same or like sin, and so in turn experience God as unmerciful and harsh toward you, according to the parable of the servant rigidly exacting every debt from his fellow servant, Matt. xviii, 33. This is what Paul warns of in Galatians vi, 1: "Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted." Thus St. Ambrose, Dominic, Eligius, when hearing confessions wept out of compassion for the sins: because, as St. Augustine says in the Soliloquies, chapter xv: "There is no sin that any man has ever committed, which another man could not commit, if the Creator by whom man is made were absent." Again, "in fear," that is with a certain as it were reverence, both toward God, and toward His image which the brother has defiled by his sin: so our Lorinus. Less correctly some refer the word "in fear" to "hating," which follows.
Hating also (and, that is even, or meanwhile) the fleshly garment, the spotted (in Greek ἀπὸ τῆς σαρκὸς ἐσπιλωμένον, that is, spotted from the flesh) tunic.
These [words] depend upon what preceded: "But on others have mercy in fear," as if to say: I wish you to have mercy on those seduced by the Gnostics, but with fear and hatred — not of the heretics, but of the heresy — lest, drawn in by familiarity with them, they themselves rub off their scab on you, and breathe out by panting their lust and heresy. Therefore I admonish you to strive by loving to convert their souls, but meanwhile to hate their stained robe and tunic. But what is this?
First, some take it as concupiscence, which Paul calls the old man, and commands to be put off with its acts, Col. iii, 9.
Secondly, others by "tunic" understand the flesh: for this is as it were the garment of the soul, which the Gnostics defiled with their lusts, according to that saying of verse 8: "And they indeed defile the flesh."
Thirdly, others take it as the hypocrisy and outward show of piety which the same ones outwardly displayed over their filth; for inwardly they were foul, and polluted with every lust.
Fourthly, and best, by "stained tunic" understand foul and carnal manners and affections (for these are as it were the garment of the soul — beautiful if they are beautiful, foul if they are foul); a foul way of living, a manner of life soiled with lusts and vices: for foul works are as it were the foul clothing of the soul. So Vatablus and Clement of Alexandria: "The stained tunic," he says, "is when the spirit has been polluted with carnal desires."
He alludes first, to the ritual of the old law Levit. xv, by which the garments of the leprous, or those polluted with blood or seed, were considered polluted, so that whoever touched them would be legally polluted, and would be barred both from the temple and from the company of men. Secondly, to the lavish gluttonies and lusts of the Gnostics, which flowed down even onto their clothes, and infected and stained them, according to that saying of verse 12: "These are spots in their feasts." Thirdly, to the white garment with which the faithful are clothed in baptism, that they may be reminded to guard and preserve internal purity, and therefore they hear from the priest baptizing: "Receive the white garment, holy and unspotted, which mayest thou bear without stain before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thou mayest have life eternal, and live unto the ages of ages, amen." See St. Augustine, sermon 139 On the Time, and St. Ambrose, book On Those to Be Initiated. The sense therefore is, as if to say: See, O faithful, that by associating with the Gnostics you do not contaminate the white garment of innocence which you received in baptism with their impurity and lust, but plainly hate and execrate it. Thus we read concerning the Emperor Valentinian in Sozomen, book VI, chapter vi, that when he was still serving under Julian the Apostate, while having entered with him into the temple of idols, the priest sprinkled Julian with dewy fronds, and one drop fell on Valentinian's garment; whereupon he immediately, with Julian listening, calling himself polluted and not purified, rebuked the priest and struck him with his fist; nay even cut off the part of the garment sprinkled with the drop and threw it away.
Morally, Jude here teaches that the charity of the faithful ought to be prudent and circumspect, lest while they wish to save others, they lose themselves. Therefore those who associate with sinners, especially confessors, who hear the foulest crimes, should fortify themselves with prayer, and with hatred and execration of the stained tunic, namely of every vice and filth. Thomas of Cantimpré relates that he obtained from God through St. Lutgardis that he should be moved by no foul narration in receiving confessions, although otherwise he was frequently and grievously tormented by foul phantasms: so the Life of St. Lutgardis has it, book II, in Surius, June 16. Therefore let priests first establish themselves in chastity and virtue, and then deal with the incestuous and wicked, and convert them, lest if they are weak and infirm in it, they be overcome by the stronger obscenity and crime; just as the weak who extend a hand to those swimming and about to drown, in order to draw them out, are themselves drawn into the waves and submerged by them as the stronger.
Verse 24: He Who Is Able to Preserve You Without Sin
24. Now to Him who is powerful to preserve you without sin.
The Syriac and the Arabic add, "and without spot," that you may be free of the stained tunic of the Gnostics, of which the discourse just preceded. St. Jude seals the epistle with a magnificent doxology, says Œcumenius, with all the affection of his heart celebrating God's attributes and the magnificence shown in Christ. This doxology contains a tacit vow and prayer, namely that God may preserve the faithful without sin, and present them unspotted to Christ when He gloriously comes to judgment, that endowed with glory by Him they may exult, and praise Him unto all ages. In a similar way St. Paul closes the Epistle to the Romans xvi, 25: "Now to Him who is powerful to confirm you according to my Gospel, etc., to God only wise, through Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and glory unto the ages of ages, amen." So too St. Peter closes the first epistle, chapter v, verse 11: "To Him," he says, "be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages, amen." Likewise the second, chapter iii, verse 18: "To Him be glory both now and unto the day of eternity, amen."
Furthermore he opposes this doxology to the blasphemies and heresies of Simon and the Gnostics. For Simon said that he was God and Redeemer, not Christ; that we are saved by his grace, not Christ's. The Gnostics denied the foulness of sins, their punishment, and the universal judgment. These things therefore in this doxology St. Jude professes, and celebrates God as the sole Savior, the sole Glorifier, the sole Powerful One, the sole Worker of wonders, the sole Ruler, the sole Magnificent, the sole Glorious, the sole Eternal.
Note: The phrase "to Him who is powerful" signifies not only that God can, but also that He wills to preserve us without sin, and indeed will preserve us, unless we fail Him and His help and grace. With a similar phrase Paul says, II Cor. ix, 8: "And God is powerful to make all grace abound in you." "Is powerful," that is, can, knows, wills and makes all grace abound in His faithful.
Hence we learn that no one without God's grace can avoid all sins, and live without sin, even grave and mortal: but through His ordinary help we can avoid all mortal sins, yet not all venial ones over a long time, except by His special privilege — such as the Church believes was granted to the Blessed Virgin, says the Council of Trent, session VI, canon 23, and chapter 1: "That voice of the just is both humble and truthful: Forgive us our debts." Hence St. Augustine, On Nature and Grace, chapter x: "Let this," he says, "be confessed, which is denied with most wicked impiety: that without God's grace a man cannot be without sin." And St. Cyprian, On Works and Almsdeeds: "If," he says, "no one can be without sin, whoever calls himself blameless is either proud or foolish"; and St. Gregory, book XXI Morals, chapter ix: "Many," he says, "in this life can be without crime, but no one without sins." Wherefore the Arabic translates: "For our salvation is powerful to keep you without sin, and without spot or vice." By "salvation" he understands God the Savior, and His saving grace given through Christ. For God alone of Himself and by His nature is impeccable, both because He is goodness and holiness itself by essence, and because His reason and will is, to Himself, and to angels and men, the norm and rule of all that is right and good, as St. Thomas teaches, I part., Question lxiii, article 1. But all creatures are of themselves capable of sinning, but participate from God in not sinning, and subsequently in being unable to sin, as the Blessed are. The more therefore they approach God, the more they recede from sin, and at last become as it were impeccable, as St. Augustine teaches, book XXII On the City [of God], chapter xxx; whence St. Jerome, book II Against the Pelagians: "Without vice, which is called κακία, that is malice, I say a man can be: ἀναμαρτήτως, that is without sin, I deny he can be; for that belongs to God alone, and every creature lies subject to sin, and needs God's mercy." And Tertullian, book On the Prescription of Heretics: "To the Son of God alone," he says, "was it reserved to remain without faults."
And to present [you] unspotted before the sight of His glory.
In Greek ἀμώμους, that is irreproachable. He calls "the sight of glory," first, the presence of glorious God, in which all in this life we stand, according to Elijah's saying: "The Lord of hosts liveth, before whose face I stand," III Kings xviii, 15, as if to say: that you may be in the eyes of God, and walk unspotted. Thus Dionysius; whence Clement of Alexandria expounds, "in the presence of the angels," as if to say: that you may do all things as in the sight of God and the holy angels; so Paul says Eph. i, 4: "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity." And Zacharias: "That we may serve Him in holiness and justice before Him all our days," Luke i, 74.
Secondly and more plainly, he calls "the sight of glory" the glory of God, by which He appears glorious, sees and is seen by the Blessed in the beatific vision: for to this no one will be presented unless he is wholly pure and unspotted, Apoc. xxi, 24; whence the Syriac translates, "without blemish": for no blemish, not even the slightest, is admitted to that glory. Whence it follows: "At the coming of the Lord": so Bede, Lyranus, Thomas the Englishman and others. Therefore to this heavenly glory let us continually lift up the eyes of heart and body, according to that admonition of the Church: "Lift up your hearts." And St. Augustine on Psalm xxxi: "Lift up the heart on high, lest it rot in the earth."
And in exultation, both that with which a holy conscience exults in this life, in that it is conscious of no evil to itself, according to Psalm xxxi, 11: "Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye just, and glory, all ye right of heart." For "a secure mind is as a continual feast," Prov. xv, 15. But rather that with which the Blessed exult in heaven, according to: "The saints shall rejoice in glory," Psalm cxlix, 5; "They shall obtain joy and exultation," Isaiah xxxv, 10. For the exultation of the Blessed over God seen and possessed is the very fruition of God, and therefore is either formal beatitude itself, as Medina holds, I II, Question III, article 4, and others; or rather it is the fruit, flower and complement of the beatitude consisting in the vision of God, as the rest of the theologians commonly teach. Furthermore exultation is an excess of joy with a certain leaping of heart and body. Hence in Greek ἀγαλλιᾶσθαι, that is, to exult, is said as if ἄγαν ἅλλεσθαι, that is to leap and spring up greatly, which the Hebrews call רנן ranan, that is to jubilate, and עלץ alats, that is to exult. Hence the Greek ἀγαλλίασις.
Excellently St. Augustine on that of Psalm cxlviii, "Praise the Lord from the heavens": "Although our body," he says, "is still held in Babylon, let our heart be sent forth to Jerusalem. Therefore let every creature praise the Lord, because we shall do there what here we premeditate. Heavenly things are tranquil; there is always joy, no death, no trouble; the Blessed always praise God. We are still in the depths, but when we think how God is praised there, let us have our heart there, and not without cause hear: Lift up your hearts. Let us lift the heart upward, lest it rot on the earth: since it pleases us what the angels do there. Praise Him therefore in the highest."
At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
These [words] are now lacking in the Greek, Syriac and Arabic, and in some ancient Latin manuscripts. He understands the second coming of Christ, namely the glorious one for judgment, by which He will beatify and glorify all the Saints, according to II Thess. i, 10: "When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be made admirable in all those who have believed." Hence St. Francis in the Explanation of the Lord's Prayer, explains that, "Thy kingdom come," thus: "Thy kingdom come, that Thou mayest reign in us by Thy grace, and make us come to Thy kingdom, where there is manifest vision of Thee, perfect love of Thee, blessed society with Thee, eternal fruition of Thee."
Verse 25: To the Only God Our Savior, Glory and Magnificence
25. To the only God our Savior.
The name of Savior is now attributed to Jesus Christ — for Jesus is the same as Savior — now to God the Father, or rather to the whole Holy Trinity: for this saves us through Christ. Thus here God, namely the whole Holy Trinity, is called our Savior, according to Psalm xxxv, 8: "Men and beasts Thou wilt save, O Lord, as Thou hast multiplied Thy mercy, O God." And I Tim. iv, 10: "We hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, but especially of the faithful." The Greek adds σοφῷ, that is "to the wise": for God alone of Himself and by essence is wise, good, powerful: for angels, men and creatures participate from God and beg from Him a particle of goodness, wisdom, power, etc. Furthermore the word "to the wise" is fittingly joined to "Savior," because the knowledge of the saints is the knowledge of salvation, Wisdom x, 10; Luke i, 77. With St. Jude St. Paul agrees in I Tim. i, 17, saying: "To the King of ages immortal, invisible, to God alone be honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen."
Through Jesus Christ. — "From His own nature," says St. Bernard, sermon 2 On the Circumcision, "our Jesus has it that He is Savior; this name is innate to Him, not given by human or angelic nature." For through Christ's birth, preaching, miracles, passion, death, resurrection, etc., God's glory, magnificence, dominion and power became known, indeed was celebrated throughout the whole world, according to Christ's saying: "Father, glorify Thy name"; and a voice came from heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again," John xii, 28; and chapter xvii, verse 1: "Father, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee"; and verse 6: "I have manifested Thy name to men."
Glory. — "Glory," in Greek δόξα, that is brightness, "is bright knowledge with praise," says St. Augustine, drawing from Aristotle and Cicero, in his book of LXXXIII Questions, Question XXXIII; or, as St. Basil, book On the Holy Spirit, chapter xxiii, glory is the commemoration of the wonders that are in someone, especially in God. Or, as others, "glory is brighter knowledge of some excellence"; see St. Jerome on chapter v to the Galatians, and Dominic Soto on IV [Sentences], distinction xlix, Question III, article 4. This glory God reserves to Himself alone, Isaiah xlii, 8, saying: "My glory I will not give to another," because glory is proper, and properly owed, to God alone on account of His infinite majesty, loftiness, magnitude and magnificence. Thus the Angels and all the Blessed sing glory to God, Apoc. iv, 11, v, 12, xix, 7. The Saints imitate the same in this life. Hence St. Ignatius, founder of our Society, had this, and impressed on us this motto: "To the greater glory of God." St. Jude therefore wishes glory to God, namely that all angels, all men, and all creatures should celebrate, proclaim, praise and glorify Him as the supreme majesty.
And magnificence. — The Syriac: "power"; in Greek μεγαλωσύνη, that is majesty, greatness, magnificence, comeliness, amplitude, dignity. Now magnificence is the carrying out of great works, likewise the great comeliness, splendor, ornament, and majesty of a person: in both ways God is most magnificent. Hence thousands of thousands minister to Him. Hence magnificence is called a virtue, which Cicero thus defines, book II On Invention: "It is the agitation and administration of great and lofty matters with a certain ample and splendid resolution of mind."
And dominion. — In Greek κράτος, that is strength: so the Syriac and the Arabic. For God has over all and all things the fullest, strongest and most efficacious right and dominion, and is the supreme emperor and ruler of the Universe. Now St. Jude and the Saints, out of the highest love and reverence for God, wish to God magnificence and dominion, as it were congratulating Him, rejoicing and desiring that those things may always persevere in Him; again, that they may be acknowledged, worshipped, and celebrated by angels and men. See what was said on Habakkuk II, on that of verse 20: "But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before His face."
And power, ἐξουσία; the Syriac: "dominion"; the Arabic: "might," which no one indeed can resist. Power is as it were the execution of dominion: for it efficaciously executes whatever God's will commands. Furthermore Hugh considers God's glory in Himself, magnificence in operation, dominion in the rule of all things, that all His will may be done; power, that nothing may resist Him. Lyranus explains glory inasmuch as God appears worthy of all praise; magnificence as concerning the diffusion of His goodness over all things; dominion as concerning the obedience of the whole creation to Him; power as concerning the punishment of the wicked and the rewarding of the good.
Before all ages, namely was and stood, "and now" stands; or rather, I wish and pray that it may stand. Or, as if to say: those things which are owed to Him before all ages, the same may now be rendered to Him "and now," namely in the present life by the faithful, "and unto all ages" by the Blessed in heaven.
And unto all ages of ages. In Greek καὶ εἰς πάντας τοὺς αἰῶνας; the Syriac: "and unto all those very eternities": for although God's eternity is one, yet this infinity surrounds, embraces and transcends the eternities of angelic ages and human times, even those which the mind can imagine.
Amen, that is, let it be done, let it be done, as the Septuagint translate. See what was said on I Cor. xiv, 16, and II Cor. i, 20. For the just "now," that is in this life, glorify God; but the Blessed in heaven shall glorify God through all eternity, according to Psalm lxxxiii, 5: "Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house, O Lord, they shall praise Thee unto the ages of ages." Where excellently St. Augustine: "Do not," he says, "fear that thou canst not always praise Him whom thou canst always love: if thou ceasest from praise, thou wilt cease from love; from love thou canst not cease." Finally Boethius, book III On Consolation, meter 9, thus sings together and rejoices to God, as the beginning and end of all things: "Thou art tranquil rest for the pious, to behold Thee is the end: Beginning, Bearer, Leader, Path, and End the same."
Closing Doxology
Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house, O Lord, they shall praise Thee unto the ages of ages. O highest Truth, true Charity, dear Eternity, my God and my all: make us to savor Thee, to live for Thee, to die for Thee, to enjoy Thee through the eternal ages of ages. Amen.