Epistle of Jude in Easton's Bible Dictionary
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 Israel.
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.
Link: https://bible-history.com/eastons/J/Jude,+Epistle+of/