Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion: wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever.
κυματα αγρια θαλασσης επαφριζοντα τας εαυτων αισχυνας αστερες πλανηται οις ο ζοφος του σκοτους εις αιωνα τετηρηται
9 Church Fathers comment on this verse
He likens them to raging waves. They bear a resemblance to them. For, driven by spirits of malice, they foam madly and uncontrollably with their shameful deeds in blasphemies against God. They bring the unstable and easily destroyed shame of their life to its end in the foam of proud blasphemies. Such also is the foam of the waves to which they are compared.
“Raging waves of the sea.” By these words James denotes the pagan life, the abominable end of their vanity.
“Wandering stars,” that is, because they do not follow the Sun of truth.
If you alone had written to me, wishing to know why it is said, "wandering stars, for whom the gloom of darkness is kept forever," I might have accused you of ignorance. I would have answered briefly that darkness is kept for men, not for stars, and so have done with it. But many who are esteemed as intelligent men have sought to know the same thing. Later, after much inquiry, they recognized it as very important. Therefore I shall not blame you at all, but shall try to interpret it with complete clarity.
I say, then, that the writer of the epistle is speaking about men whose falls are without excuse. He is not speaking about stars, clouds, waves, and trees. The writer sets these forth as examples, accusing men because by their own will they suffer what those things have by nature.
For clouds without water, driven by winds, and fruitless trees, of which it is said that they die twice, will not be punished. Nor do waves foam out their own shame, since they are irrational and without sense. So also the stars called wandering do not inherit darkness.
Those who inherit it are men who sin by their own will. These examples are brought forward concerning them. The saying has this meaning: the men in question are like wandering stars, turned aside from the straight path and walking on the path contrary to it. Therefore darkness is kept for them, that is, not for the stars, but for men. As I said before, the Apostle is not speaking about stars, clouds, or waves. He is speaking about men who have fallen into savagery, wantonness, and arrogance, and who by their conduct harm those who draw near them. If you wish, let us continue the discourse to show that this is truly so.
Those skilled in these matters maintain something scarcely persuasive and doubtful to simple people, since it contradicts obvious fact and the testimony of sight. They say that the planets have their own motion from west to east and strive to complete it. Yet, being overcome by the opposite and swifter motion of the greater stars, they move westward. To explain this, they offer the following example. When a wheel turns swiftly, an ant moving in the opposite direction does not make an equally swift motion. It is overpowered by the faster motion of the wheel. The planets stand in the same relation to the motion of the greater stars.
What exposes those who reason thus is this: they sometimes worship the stars as gods, and sometimes compare them to ants. I shall merely note this and pass it over in silence, for I hasten to speak of something else. I shall deal with the matter under inquiry.
Although skilled men maintain this, Scripture uses the name "planet" either properly, metaphorically, or according to common speech. For my part, I think as follows. I place among the planets the sun, the moon, and the other five stars known to few: the visible, the brilliant, the flickering, the fiery, and the light-bearing, that is, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Venus. Those more foolish than you gave them the names of certain men once powerful on earth, who lived shamefully, though they ended life in earthly glory. The sun traverses the northern and southern regions in latitude each year, and the moon does so each month. From this, I think, the word "month" arose. It did not arise because the moon becomes crescent-shaped, menoide, as some think, but because each month it fulfills the rule given to it. For the moon is called the month. All the rest also complete this revolution according to their circles and paths. For this very reason they have been called planets, wandering stars.
Yet whether this interpretation or the former is true, the knowledge of the Creator is glorified by it. He set them in this order and gave them a law, as He Himself says, "I commanded the stars" (Is 45:12). The Psalmist, showing that the divine commandment has been violated on earth because men gave themselves over to lawlessness, but has been preserved in heaven, said, "Forever, O Lord, Thy word abides in heaven" (Ps 118:89).
If some, because of the saying, "I commanded the stars," assert that they are living, rational, and free beings, I know that not only some unbelievers taught this, but also some believers. Yet I regard inquiry into this as unnecessary and useless. For it is said, "Seek not what is too high for thee, and search not what is too strong for thee. Understand what has been commanded thee, for thou hast no need of hidden things" (Sir 3:20-21). I neither approve nor condemn this. Rather, I shall say that Scripture speaks in the same way even of irrational and insensible things. It says, "The Lord commanded the scorching wind" (Jon 4:8), and, "The Lord commanded the clouds" (Ps 77:23), and, "The Lord commanded the worm" (Jon 4:7).
Therefore, whether these are rational living beings, as some say, or fiery spheres, or flat and round bodies kindled by ethereal fire, or spherical eruptions of fire, or incandescent bodies, for some philosophers asserted this also, or certain receptacles of immaterial and supramundane light, I shall not insist on this. I think it contributes nothing to virtuous life. But I shall say that Scripture uses the word "wandering" not only of the soul when it strays from the path of virtue, but also of the body when it goes astray. For it is said, "A man found Joseph wandering on the way" (Gen 37:15). And again, "He made them wander in a pathless place, and not on a way" (Ps 106:40).
Therefore it is not surprising if some have called the motion of the seven stars a wandering. They go here and there, passing around north and south, in comparison with the course of the greater stars, which travel one and the same path. If they run their path rightly and harmoniously, why should they undergo punishment? But if the pagans say, which it is unlawful even to utter, that the planets were not created and have no cause of being, then they will be all the more refuted by their regularity and order. For order proclaims the Ordainer.
If they do not believe this, let them hear what Plato says: "The Maker of this universe is good." Let them hear what Euripides says: "Both sun and night are in service to mortals." Having heard this, let them put an end to such impiety.
But if, as is truly the case and as Greeks, Jews, Christians, and all who are not deprived of reason and sense acknowledge, the greater and lesser planets have a Creator and Maker, who governs their motion and order, by which seasons and nights occur, then it is clear that their wondrous and most regular course is blameless. If it is blameless, why should they undergo punishment? Even if they were living, rational beings with free will, as some think, and we grant this hypothetically to prepare a greater refutation for them, even then it would not be just for them to suffer punishment.
If they went wherever they wished and arranged whatever they desired, then not only this position would have a basis, but also the other, according to which the planets are the causes of evils. Then they would justly have to undergo punishment. But if they eternally complete the course prescribed to them, one must not call them causes of evils. This would be both impious and irrational.
If, as some assert, and as I shall not affirm, since it is absurd to speak boldly about what is not fully known, we grant hypothetically that the planets serve as signs beforehand, then even in this case they are not subject to punishment. Nor were the Prophets punished for foretelling the evil deeds that the Jews would later commit. Those deeds were not done because they had been foretold. They were foretold because they were going to be done. The malice of the Jews became the cause of the prophecy, not the prophecy the cause of the malice.
Thus, when every objection has been wholly removed, it has become clear to all that the writer of the epistle is not speaking about the stars, nor about waves, clouds, or trees. The main thought of the whole epistle shows this. He is speaking about men who have sinned, "for whom the gloom of darkness is kept forever." For the Apostle began with examples and ended with those of whom he was speaking.
These are the ones who have slain the soul by a depraved life, impiety, and evil teachings. Or it may be understood this way: before faith they died through impiety; then, drawing near to the Gospel, they came to life.
"Raging waves of the sea." These impious false teachers are compared to waves of a troubled sea because their restless heart is fiercely stirred by every passion, lust, and savage desire. Through this they produce disorders and disturbances in the Church, whose consequence for some may be the danger of shipwreck in the faith (1 Tim 1:19). These waves of the troubled sea of their heart cast up from their depth every uncleanness and the shame of their words and deeds (Mt 15:19 and following). "Wandering stars," and so forth. These may be falling stars, which flash and swiftly plunge into the deep darkness forever. Or they may be the so-called wandering lights that mislead travelers in the desert.
More probably they are wandering comets, in contrast to the stars that adorn the vault of heaven. Such are these false teachers, deceived and deceiving (2 Tim 3:13), unstable in their faith and teaching, and not having in themselves the spirit of truth. "He calls them wandering stars. Heretics are like them, not because they adorn the firmament of our faith and through them passes the Sun of righteousness, Christ. He brings virtues to maturity and gives life to the faithful devoted to them. Rather, they appear to have assumed the form of an angel of light, like their originator, the evil demon (2 Cor 11:13). Yet they rush only against the teaching of the Lord. By this they darken those who draw near to them and prepare eternal darkness for themselves" (Theophylact). "The gloom of darkness" is an intensified expression for the absence of the light of truth and spirit (see note on 2 Pet 2:17).
“Raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame,” that is, leading on the path of destruction all who follow their instructions. “For whom the gloom of darkness is reserved forever.”
From living examples and images of heretics, the apostle turns to comparing them with objects and phenomena of nature. He calls them waterless clouds, from which there is no benefit except deception and darkness. He calls them trees from which fruit cannot be expected in any way, and which are ready only for burning. He calls them raging waves that foam in vain, ready to destroy others, and stars falling into the abyss of darkness. Some of these comparisons are mentioned by the Apostle Peter. But the Apostle Jude presents a whole series of phenomena, as majestic as they are terrible. By this he awakens Christians' horror at being carried away by the impiety of heretics.
By the darkness reserved for heretics we must understand both their blindness here, God's handing them over to a debased mind to do what is improper (Rom 1:28), and their deprivation of the vision of God in eternity, with condemnation to the darkness of Hades (cf. 2 Pet 2:17).
These words show how the false teachers are put to shame in their efforts to shake the Church. They attack her with the fierceness of sea waves striking a rock. Yet the rock stands unmoved, and they rebound from it with their shame, that is, with disgrace. So also the Church stands, and will stand forever, unshaken upon the firm Rock, Christ. No hostile powers will prevail against her. Further, false teachers are like "wandering, deceptive stars, for whom the gloom of darkness is reserved forever." By these stars meteors are meant. During their swift motion through the air they strike the eye with brilliance. But when they fall to the earth, they prove to be ordinary dark stones. False teachers astonish by the glitter of eloquence.
Yet the falsehood they defend cannot endure the light of truth and falls apart. Only darkness remains from it. Falsehood sinks into the gloom of oblivion. This is an image of the eternal darkness, or destruction, of false teachers, while the truth of the Lord abides forever.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 17 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS