THEOSISTheophylact of Bulgaria
Having set forth the examples just mentioned, the Apostle left the consequence of them for the hearer himself to infer. What consequence?
If God dealt in this way with these, without regard for their former good lot, then will the present impious men be delivered by the fact that the Son of God came into the world for men, endured reproach for them, and bore sufferings?
No one can say this. For although He is man-loving, He is also truly righteous. According to true justice He did not spare those who sinned, and according to His love for mankind He brought harlots and publicans into the Kingdom (Mt 21:31).
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This consequence follows. But the Apostle omitted it, either for the reason we stated before, or following the example of Saint Peter when he said, “If God did not spare the angels who sinned” (2 Pet 2:4), and so forth.
So we speak concerning this.
The words “dreamers, who defile the flesh” are spoken with remarkable modesty. By the expression “dreamers” the Apostle only hinted at the extremely shameful side of the matter.
Let us reveal it in part and insofar as is fitting, borrowing information about this from the work of Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus which he called the Panarion.
He says that these fornicators and defilers, while shamefully joining themselves to women, do not release the seed into the womb. Instead, before completing the defilement, they take it into their hands.
At once they put it into the mouths of the women with whom they were corrupting themselves. In this way the unclean ones withdraw from one another, imagining that they have done something great.
Because the act is unfinished, the Apostle calls this unclean handful “dreaming,” for a similar defilement occurs during sleep.
Defiling their flesh by such a foul offering, they also rise up madly against the divine nature, denying Its dominion and lordship over all.
Saint Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, spoke about this at greater length in his work Refutation of the Knowledge Falsely So Called.
Another explanation: the Apostle testifies to the corruption of the heretics, saying that they are unclean in life and most vile in knowledge.
He says that they reject principalities, that is, they reject the accomplishment of the mystery of Christ. They reject it because instead of angelic mysteries they perform their own defilements.
They revile exalted powers, δόξας. By powers one should understand the various opinions of wise men, called “positions,” θέσεις, among the noble Greeks.
By these they mean exalted opinions, accessible not to everyone, but to those acquainted with philosophy. The Apostle Paul is a witness to what we say.
When the Athenians brought him to the Areopagus and he preached to them the teaching about God, they considered him a babbler (Acts 17:1-34).
Thus, just as the teaching of the Apostles was called babbling, so the matters mentioned above were called powers.
Therefore, when speaking of men given by God and inspired by God, the Apostle Jude used the word “powers” as customary and known to all.
Another explanation: by “powers” he perhaps means the Old and New Testaments.
Or by “powers” he means ecclesiastical authorities, whom they reviled, as the beloved John makes known in his Third Epistle (3 Jn 1:9-10). He writes that Diotrephes slanders them with evil words.