The Letter of Jude
The letter of Jude is the shortest of the New Testament, barely a page, but of a burning intensity. Its author presents himself as the brother of James, thus a kinsman of the Lord. He wanted to write on the common salvation, but urgency seized him: men have slipped into the communities who corrupt the faith and morals. So Jude takes up the pen as one sounds the alarm. His letter is a cry of vigilance, a call to defend the treasure of the faith against those who distort it, and an invitation to be strengthened in God.
Contending for the faith
The watchword of the letter has remained famous. Jude exhorts believers to “contend for the faith once for all handed down to the saints.” Jude 1:3 This formula states an essential conviction: faith is not a malleable material, that each generation could reshape to its taste; it is a deposit, received from the apostles, entrusted to the Church to be kept faithfully. What the Church calls the deposit of faith holds in these words: a revelation given once for all in Jesus Christ, closed with the apostles, which the centuries are not to enrich with their inventions but to hand on intact. To contend for the faith is not to fight out of pride, it is to watch over a sacred inheritance and protect it from those who would empty it of its content.
The warning against error
Jude describes without indulgence the false teachers who threaten the Church. They are men who abuse the grace of God to justify the disorder of their life, who despise all authority and follow only their lusts. To warn against them, Jude recalls terrible examples drawn from sacred history and the traditions of Israel: the angels who abandoned their rank and fell, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah punished for their debauchery, all those who rebelled against God and bore its chastisement. The message is clear: infidelity never remains without consequence, and to claim the faith while living against it is the worst of deceptions. This severity is not harshness: it is the love of a shepherd who warns his sheep against the wolf. Jude draws his warnings from a rich treasury of memory: he recalls the exodus from Egypt, the revolt of the angels, Sodom, but also rarer Jewish traditions, such as the dispute of the archangel Michael with the devil over the body of Moses, or a word attributed to Enoch about the coming judgment. The Church received his letter as inspired without thereby canonizing these secondary stories: Jude uses them as vivid images for his generation, in the manner of a preacher who borrows from the stories his hearers know. What remains essential is his message: in every age God has judged pride and unfaithfulness, and he will judge them again.
Building on the most holy faith
To the warning succeeds the positive exhortation, addressed to the faithful. Faced with error, Jude does not say only to defend oneself, but to grow: “build yourselves up on your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit.” Jude 1:20 The best protection against evil is not fear, but rootedness. The believer must build himself up like a house on its foundation, hold himself in prayer animated by the Spirit, keep himself in the love of God, and await the mercy of the Lord. Jude adds a pastoral concern for those who waver: one must have pity on those who doubt, save others by snatching them from the fire, without ever believing oneself out of danger. Firmness in the faith goes hand in hand with gentleness toward the weak.
The final doxology
The letter, so severe in places, ends on one of the most beautiful prayers of praise in the New Testament. After showing all the dangers, Jude turns his gaze toward the One who alone can keep his own: “him who is able to keep you from all falling and to present you, blameless and in gladness, before his glory.” Jude 1:24 All the combat of faith is resolved in this trust: it is not first man who saves himself by his strength, it is God who keeps and who presents. The vigilance to which Jude called does not open onto anguish, but onto the peace of the one who places everything in the hands of God, sure that his grace will complete what it has begun. The shortest letter of the New Testament thus ends with an act of trusting surrender, glory given to the Savior who keeps his people to the end. On this doxology also ends the little collection of the catholic letters, and with it the direct voice of the apostles. After James, Peter, John, and Jude, there will remain to Scripture only one last book, Revelation, to open the future onto the return of Christ. These seven short letters will have played their role: to watch over the faith, to anchor it in life, to defend it against error, and to place into the hands of God those they exhort. The last word is not a command, but a praise, as if the whole teaching of the apostles finally resolved into thanksgiving toward the One who keeps and who saves.