Note 102 — Chapter XXX · THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE EPISTLE OF ST. JUDE.

A plerisque rejicitur. Possibly this means "is rejected by very many;" it certainly ought not to be rendered "is rejected by most." "Most" is the classical meaning of plerique; but in Tacitus it means no more than "very many" (Hist. iv. 84, etc.), and in Jerome and his contemporaries it need mean no more than "some." Thus in Jerome's letter to Dardamus (Ep. cxxix.) we have licet plerique eam vel Barnabæ vel Clementis arbitrentur (of the Epistle to the Hebrews), where plerique = the τινές of Eusebius and Origen (H. E. VI. xx. 3; xxv. 14).

[103] See the Academy of September 21st, 1889, where he shows how much of the Fragment can be turned quite literally into Greek verse, and suggests that the εἰς πάσας τὰς γράφας, "Odes referring to all the Scriptures," mentioned among the works of Hippolytus whose titles are inscribed on his chair (see Kraus, Real. Encykl. der Chris. Alterthümer, I., pp. 661-64), refers to metrical compositions on the contents of the Old and New Testaments. The Fragment says respecting this Epistle, "Epistola sane Iude et superscrictio (sic) Iohannis duas in catholica habentur", where superscrictio is a clerical error for superscripti, "the John mentioned above."

[104] The Genevan Version introduced this rendering. Previous versions either leave the meaning doubtful, "Judas of James," as Wiclif, or translate "James' sonne," as Tyndale and Cranmer. Luther also is for "son."

[105] These words are quoted from a commentary which the writer of this volume wrote in 1879 for Messrs. Cassell, in the New Testament Commentary for English Readers, edited by Bishop Ellicott (p. 505), of which, through the courtesy of the publishers, he is allowed to make use for the present work.