JUDE, THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF, a book of the New Testament. As with the epistle of James, the problems of the writing centre upon the superscription, which addresses in Pauline phraseology (1 Thess. i. 4; 2 Thess. ii. 13; Rom. i. 7; 1 Cor. 1. 2) the Christian world in general in the name of "Jude, the brother of James" (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3). The historical situation depicted must then fall within the lifetime of this Judas, whose two grandchildren Zoker and James (Hegesippus _ap._ Phil. Sidetes) by their testimony before the authorities brought to an end the (Palestinian) persecution of Domitian (Hegesippus _ap._ Eus. _H. E._ iii. 20, 7). These two grandsons of Judas thereafter "lived until the time of Trajan," ruling the churches "because they had (thus) been witnesses (martyrs) and were also relatives of the Lord." But in that case we must either reject the testimony of the same Hegesippus that up to their death, and that of Symeon son of Clopas, successor in the Jerusalem see of James the Lord's brother, "who suffered martyrdom at the age of one hundred and twenty years while Trajan was emperor and Atticus governor," "the church (universal) had remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin" free from "the folly of heretical teachers"; or else we must reject the superscription, which presents the grandfather in vehement conflict with the very heresies in question. For the testimony of Hegesippus is explicit that at the time of the arrest of Zoker and James they were all who survived of the kindred of the Lord. True, there is confusion in the narrative of Hegesippus, and even a probability that the martyrdom of Symeon dated under Trajan really took place in the persecution of Domitian, before the arrest of the grandsons of Jude, for apart from the alleged age of Symeon (the traditional Jewish limit of human life, Gen. vi. 3, Deut. xxxiv. 7), the cause of his apprehension "on the ground that he was _a descendant of David_ and a Christian" (Hegesippus _ap._ Eus. _H. E._ iii. 32, 3) is inconsistent with both the previous statements regarding the "martyrdom" of Zoker and James, that they were cited as the only surviving Christian Davididae, and that the persecution on this ground collapsed through the manifest absurdity of the accusation. But even if we date the rise of heresies in the reign of Domitian instead of Trajan,[1] the attributing of this epistle against corrupting heresy to "Jude the brother of James" will still be incompatible with the statements of Hegesippus, our only informant regarding his later history.