Oecumenius, on Jude 1:12

“These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots,”

“These are the blemishes who are in your love feasts, feasting without fear, shepherding themselves; they are clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead and uprooted; wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. "These are the blemishes who are in your love feasts (ἀγάπαις)." There were still at that time, tables that were prepared in the churches, of which Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Corinthians (11): which were also called ἀγάπας, that is, "loves). Jude says, "They come together not for the purpose that is in them, but to find an opportunity "enticing unstable souls": as Peter also says in the second Epistle (2:14). And what he says: without fear, or with the preceding, it should be arranged that there is this sense: "Like the stones of the sea living together," that is, when they expect nothing to fear, they suddenly take on one form, like the stones of the sea leading to the punishment of souls. But, fearlessly shepherding themselves, or rather to be arranged towards the blemishes, so that the meaning may be this: Fearlessly feasting like blemished ones, that is, not anticipating any fear from the fellow diners, suddenly, like blemished ones, bringing upon them the destruction of souls. As for the shepherding, feeding themselves without fear. Without fear, he says, the judgment from not knowing how to shepherd, but blind, leading the blind, and into the abyss, as the Lord will say, falling in with those being shepherded. And he likens them to cliffs, and to clouds without water, and to autumn trees, and to wild waves, and to wandering stars. For they have that which exists by nature, these things by choice. For if the whirlpools are deadly to those sailing, unexpectedly arising, they also present a trustworthy evil to those dining together. And the waterless clouds, driven by the winds, wherever they may be carried, do not refresh with rain, for they do not have it; rather, they work out darkness for them. Likewise, these also do not save the souls of those who encounter them with a saving word, but they darken them with their most polluted teachings, being driven by the wicked practices of the demons. But even the autumn trees, dying twice, both in the shedding of their fruit and in the falling of their leaves (for they seem then to be deprived of beauty, both from the splendor of the fruit and from the flowery elegance of the leaves), suffer something appropriate to them. For they are twice cast out due to the eating of the seed, and they are deprived of the good behavior that comes from a temperate state. Therefore, they are also uprooted from the paradise of the Lord of the Church. And being cast out from this, they are gathered to the eternal fire. For what standing or root will he have, who is being thrown by all into the heap of pleasure? The stars also wander and engage in business, not because they are transforming to the firmament of our faith, having the sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2), Christ, arising through them, and producing the hours of virtues, and giving life to the faithful arranged according to these, but because they seem to be transformed into an angel of light, as the wicked demon who is their precursor, on the contrary, only bear the doctrines of the Lord, by which they also darken those approaching, and acquire for themselves eternal darkness. But even when compared to wild waves, they do not deny their similarity to them. For they themselves, driven by the spirits of wickedness, blaspheme against God without restraint, foaming up their own shame, ultimately coming to a foam with the height of blasphemy, from the weak and easily broken filth of their lives. Such is the foam of the waves to which they have been compared.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.