Jude 1:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

After this, leaving aside the comparison of the impious, he proceeds to denounce them by their very deeds, calling them murmurers and faultfinders. A murmurer is one who reproaches what displeases him through his teeth and timidly. A faultfinder is one who always laughs at everything. These vile men are murmurers and faultfinders. They are murmurers because they do not dare to use their teaching openly, because of its foulness. It is unsafe to publish abroad their impiety, joined with corruption and blasphemy. They are faultfinders because they slander everything that is not their own, and even the truth itself, so as to establish more firmly their own evil and corruption. What was said above, that heretics, like Balaam, were carried away by reward, he now explains with the words: they show partiality for gain. To show partiality means to deal flatteringly with those in authority.

For they have no boldness to make use of their own teaching. How, then, will one who lives in debauchery, joining it with impiety and blasphemy, make it common property with impunity?

These are murmurers: people who can find rest in nothing and over nothing. They murmur against God, against men, against themselves, and against the whole condition and state around them.

They are stirred up and stir others against authorities (Jude 1:8), against laws, against good customs, and in general against the truth. As murmurers, they are forever dissatisfied with everything, with themselves, with others, and with the ordinary course of things.

"Walking according to their own lusts," and so forth: see the note on 2 Pet 2:10, 19; 2 Pet 3:3.

After this the Apostle cites the prophecy of Enoch, and also that of Christ's Apostles, concerning the bitter lot awaiting the heretics he denounces. He outlines their manner of life in the darkest colors. Where is the prophecy of Enoch quoted by the Apostle Jude found? It is not in the sacred books of the Old Testament. But it was preserved in Hebrew tradition, which the holy Apostle Jude introduced into his epistle. By this he gave it inspired significance. For New Testament writers often supplemented the Old Testament writers, introducing into their books from the sacred tradition of God's people what the Holy Spirit inspired them to say about it.

Characterizing the heretics directly, without comparisons, the apostle calls them murmurers, boastful speakers, hypocrites, and lawless men, pursuing their selfish aims in everything. The Apostle Peter also foretold the appearance of such heretics. Therefore the Apostle Jude reproduces his prediction almost literally (see 2 Pet 3:3). Finally, he calls them soulish men, like those of whom the Lord said: "My Spirit shall not be disregarded by these men forever, because they are flesh" (Gen 6:3). According to Oecumenius, by calling the heretics murmurers the apostle shows that they try to reproach and slander everything and always. Or, as another interpreter says, "they complain and murmur against the strictness of laws and authorities, which forbid their disorderly gatherings.

Applying Enoch's prophecy to the impious false teachers of his own time, Jude finds them worthy of God's strict judgment. They are "murmurers and faultfinders, dissatisfied with everything." Judging from the words that follow, one must suppose that the object and cause of their murmuring and dissatisfaction were divine and human laws. These laws were directed toward restraining the lusts to which they gave themselves impiously and lawlessly. They did not want to know any restrictions upon fleshly desires. They proclaimed that no one had the right to constrain freedom in satisfying them. This constraint seemed to them contrary to nature, and for this reason it could not please them.