jude epistle of

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jude epistle of - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary :

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