Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (83 page)

Something more specific about the enemies’ alleged antinomian behavior is suggested by v. 4: they “alter the grace of our God into licentiousness”
In other words, they take the teaching of
too far, thinking that the Christian religion is all about grace, not about how one lives. For them—in the judgment of their opponent, the author—antinomian living is a consequence of the teaching of grace. In an earlier period, Paul himself, an advocate of
, was accused of holding some such view: “Just as some claim that we say, ‘let us do evil so that good might come’” (Rom. 3:8). Paul naturally denies the charge, but one can see how it might be taken, by others, to be the logical conclusion of his teaching of divine grace and the justifying effect of faith apart from “works of the Law.” But the charge makes even better sense against later forms of Paulinism, such as that represented in the book of Ephesians, a forgery that states quite explicitly that one is saved not by doing good deeds but solely by the grace
of God: “For you have been saved by grace, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not from works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).

The author of Ephesians takes Paul’s teaching on faith and grace a step beyond Paul, in indicating that good behavior can have no bearing on “being saved.” The opponents of Jude allegedly take the matter a step further still: antinomian
activity demonstrates the full grace of God, which alone brings salvation. Or at least the author of Jude
portrays
his opponents as making that argument. Whether they did so or not is anyone’s guess; but it does give one pause that Paul himself was falsely accused of something similar already decades earlier.
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In any event, this charge against what appears to be a (post-)Pauline position can help explain why the author claims to be Jude, the brother of James. As Sellin recognized, this author is uniting with the epistle of James in opposing a view of grace that renders the moral life of the Christian immaterial.
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But there is even more in the polemic of Jude to suggest that the opponents are being constructed as representing a form of Pauline Christianity. One of the specific charges leveled against them is that they denigrate and revile angels. Bauckham, who sees the problem with the opponents purely in antinomian terms, has difficulty explaining this charge. In his view, these angels are possibly the ones who delivered the Law; they are reviled by those who violate it—an implausible view, since nothing is said about the “glorious ones” being those who delivered the commandments to Moses. A better alternative has been proposed by Sellin and, to some extent dependent on him, Frey.
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The denigration of angelic beings was part of the Pauline tradition.

Before turning to Paul, consider the comments of Jude. According to v. 8, the opponents not only “defile the flesh,” they also “reject authority” and “revile glorious ones.” In v. 10 again they are said to “revile what they do not understand.” They are unlike the archangel Michael, who did not dare to revile the Devil (v. 9). Moreover, the one explicit quotation of the short epistle is of 1 Enoch in vv. 14–15, a passage that also relates to angels, as does the allusion to the Book of the Watchers (presumably) in v. 6.
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As Frey notes, the “decisive point for the author lies in his angelology.”
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Where in the Christian tradition are angels devalued? As Frey points out, we already see a movement in this direction, possibly, in the undisputed Paul, where the phenomenon of glossolalia already places believers on the same level as angels (1 Cor. 13:1). Moreover, for Paul, rulers, powers, and authorities are considered inferior forces, subject to Christ in the end (1 Cor. 15:24). And believers are said to be the future judges of angels (1 Cor. 6:3). In Galatians Paul devalues the Law precisely because it was given through angels (Gal. 3:19).

This depotentizing of angels is carried out yet further in the Deutero-Pauline epistles. Angelic powers are part of the creation overcome by Christ (Col. 1:16; 2:10; Eph. 1:21); they are stripped through Christ’s triumph over the powers (Col. 2:15), and for that reason they are decidedly not to be worshiped (Col. 2:18). This final verse is especially key for Sellin and Frey. As Frey states: “It is thus certainly imaginable that an attitude like the one mentioned by the author of Colossians appeared to the author of Jude as a denial of the cosmological and eschatological significance of the angels and the order represented by them.”
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Or as Sellin earlier put it:

Connections … may well exist between the author of Colossians, who polemicizes against angel-worshippers, and the heretics of the Epistle of Jude. After all, it becomes apparent in Col 2:18 that the tenets of the Law and the service of angels, on one hand, and antinomianism and the despising of angels, on the other hand, belong together. The heretics of the Epistle of Jude thus appear to me to be standing in a Pauline tradition whose oldest witness is Colossians.
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Despite the attractiveness of this position, it should be pointed out that the polemic of Jude appears to be directed at Pauline Christians who have taken their views (whether actually or simply in the author’s fertile imagination) yet a step farther than that evidenced in the Deutero-Pauline epistles of Ephesians and Colossians. Just as the opponents do not merely insist that
apart from good works brings salvation (as in Ephesians), but go much farther (allegedly) in promoting an actual antinomian lifestyle, so too the opponents do not merely discourage the worship of angels (as in the Deutero-Paulines), but they (allegedly) actively denigrate them. Thus even though the opponents do not take a position attested in any of the canonical Pauline writings, they stand in a clear Pauline trajectory.

It is impossible to say whether any such opponents really existed. But they certainly existed in the imagination of the author, whose attacks appear to be directed against Pauline Christians.
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It is this opposition to Paul—at least as conceived in the mind of the author—that explains, then, the choice of the pseudonym “Jude.” P. Davids is off-base to argue that an author wanting to choose a false name would not have chosen an “obscure” figure such as Jude, as we saw out the outset. Indeed, this author chose to polemicize against the Pauline tradition in a way that makes patent sense. By choosing the name Jude he has established his credentials as one closely related to James of Jerusalem, and he, in fact, stands in clear lines of continuity with the letter allegedly written by his more famous brother. His grounds of attack are different, but the target is the same: Paulinists whose radical views had led to the rejection of all authority, angelic and moral.
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Although the Epistula Petri is one of the “introductory writings” of the Pseudo-Clementine
Homilies
, it is not altogether clear that it was composed to serve that function. The “Preachings” of Peter at issue in the letter are not the
Homilies
of Clement themselves. Indeed, they appear to be a collection of writings that were earlier sent by Peter to “James, the lord and bishop of the holy church” (1:1),
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whether this was an actual collection, or more likely, a fiction alluded to simply to provide the occasion of the letter. Moreover, Clement is not mentioned in the letter. For these reasons, despite common scholarly opinion, the letter may have been composed independently and was only added to the
Homilies
secondarily.
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The purpose of the letter is to instruct James to follow the example set by Moses among “those who belong to his people” for the transmission of sacred literature. Just as Moses passed his books only to specially selected individuals who could
be trusted, so too the books of Peter’s preaching are not to be given to “any one of the gentiles,” nor to any “of our own tribe” before they have gone through a period of trial to demonstrate that they are trustworthy. The reason for Peter’s concern is clear: there have been some gentiles “who have rejected my lawful preaching [that is preaching about and in accordance with the Law], and have preferred a lawless and absurd doctrine of the man who is my enemy” (2.3). These gentile enemies have tried to “distort my words by interpretations of many sorts as if I taught the dissolution of the Law” (2.4). But for Peter this is a heinous charge, for he would never oppose “the Law of God which was made known by Moses” and which was borne witness to by Jesus, who indicated that none of the Law will ever pass away while there is a heaven and earth (quoting Matt. 5:18). Peter, in other words, is in full support of the Mosaic Law, which continues in full force; to think otherwise is to oppose God, Moses, and Jesus (2.5). It is only “the man who is my enemy,” and the gentiles he has influenced, who have twisted Peter’s words to make him appear to say otherwise.