Jude of James II. James, President of) the church at Jeru- I sal em Brethren of the Lord.
Jude, the brother of James The question is, Are the persons in No, I. the same as, or different from, the persons in No. II. ? Two objections occur to their being identified :— 1. That for this purpose we must render 'IoMos 'Ialcail3cal in an unusual way, supplying dcSEXods, and not vi.6s; and 2. That we must understand the phrase brethren of the Lord,' as meaning his cousins,' or near relations.' The former of these objections is not of serious weight, because instances can be produced in which other terms of relationship besides that of S071 were left to be supplied in similar ellipses ; and in such a case as that before us, the principle which Winer lays clown may be held to operate, that where ac quaintance with the family circumstances of any is presupposed, the relationship of father, brother, servant, may be so expressed, as well as that of son' (Gramm., sec. 66). The latter of the above objections is of more weight ; for though the Hebrew usage admits of a liberal construction of terms of relationship, yet when Ns e find that the brethren of Jesus are associated with his mother and his sisters (Matt. xiii. 55, 56), and when it is expressly mentioned that his brethren believed not on him (John vii. 5), a statement which cannot be meant to apply to persons who were actually of the number of his select disciples ; the strong pro bability is, that the persons so designated were really the sons of Joseph and Mary, and so uterine brothers of Jesus. On the other side, it is objected that James the Lord's brother is called an apostle (Gal. i. 19), and that several of the Fathers speak of Jude, the author of this epistle, as an apostle. On this, however, much cannot be built, for the term apostle' is used occasionally in the N. T. in a lax way, as applicable to persons who were asso ciated with the apostles in their work (Acts xiv.
; Rom. xvi. 7) ; and persons who sustained the honourable position of being the Lord's brothers, would. be especially likely to be regarded by a
later age as standing on a par with the apostles, and worthy of receiving that designation. On the whole, we conclude that the writer of this epistle was not Jude the apostle (properly so called), but Jude the Lord's brother, the son of Joseph, as he is expressly designated by Clement of Alexandria (.4eittmbr., sub init.) His reason for describing himself as the brother of James,' was probably tbat James, from his peculiar position, was more extensively and influentially known than Jude him self was. If any should ask, Why did Jude, if he was indeed the Lord's brother, not present this his higher relationship, rather than that which he bore to James, as a claim upon the regard of those to whom he wrote ? the answer may be given in the words of Clement of Alexandria : Judas qui catholicam scripsit epistolarn frater filiorum Joseph exstans, valde religiosus, cum sciret propinquitatem Domini, non tamen dixit se ipsum fratrem ejus esse, sed quid dixit ? 71tdas servus yesu Christi, utpote domini; frater autem Jacobi' (Loc. cit.) The Lord Himself had taught his followers that rela tionship to him according to the flesh was of very inferior importance to spiritual relationship to him (Matt. xii. 48-5o ; Luke xi. 27, 2S) ; and we may believe that none of those who had imbibed the spirit of his teaching would have so much as thought of resting on their earthly affinity to him for any portion of that authority which they sought to attach to their teaching. So utterly foreign is this from the spirit of the apostolic writers, that, as has been justly remarked, had such a designa tion as daeXObs TOD Kupiou been found in the address to an epistle, it would have formed a strong a priori objection to its authenticity' (Al ford, Gr. Test., iv. 2; Prolegg. 19o). Whilst, however, we ascribe the authorship of this epistle to one who was not an apostle, there is nothing in the epistle unworthy of an apostle's pen.