He was also called Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus, and was the son of Cleophas and of Mary the Virgin's sister; he is said to have married and had children.
"He is scarcely mentioned in the Gospels, but they point out that he is not to be confounded with Judas--which, however, was done, actually by reason of the similarity of name, during the Middle Ages; Christians rejected him and sorcerers appealed to him.
"He never speaks in the course of the Sacred Narrative but when he breaks silence at the scene of the Last Supper to ask the Lord a question as to predestination; and Christ replies beside the mark, or rather does not answer him at all.

He was also the author of a Canonical Epistle, in which he seems to have been inspired by the Second Epistle of Saint Peter; and, according to Saint Augustine, it was he who introduced the dogma of the Resurrection of the flesh into the _Credo_.
"In legend he is associated with Saint Simon; according to the Breviary, he is said to have evangelized Mesopotamia and to have suffered martyrdom with his companion Saint in Persia.

The Bollandists, on the other hand, assert that he was the Apostle to Arabia and Idumea, while the Greek Menology relates that he was shot to death with arrows by the infidels in Armenia.
"In fact all these accounts differ; and iconography adds to the confusion by representing Jude with the most various attributes.
Sometimes, as at Amiens, he holds a palm, or, as at Chartres, a book.

He is also seen with a cross, a square, a boat, a wand, an axe, a sword, and a spear.
"But in spite of the unfortunate reputation earned for him by his namesake Judas, the symbolists of the Middle Ages regard him as a man of charity and zeal, and attribute to him the splendour of the purple and gold fires of the chrysoprase, regarded as emblematical of good works.
"All this is but incoherent," thought Durtal, "and what also strikes me as strange is that this Saint, so rarely invoked by our forefathers--who for long never dedicated any altar to him, is twice represented in effigy at Chartres--supposing the Verlaine of the royal porch to represent Saint Jude; but then that seems improbable." "What I should now like to know," he went on, "is why the historians of this cathedral pronounce the scene of the last Judgment represented on the tympanum of the door as the most remarkable of its kind in France.
This is utterly false, for it is vulgar, and certainly inferior to many others.
"The demoniacal half is far less vigorous, more supine, less crowded than in other churches of the same period.

At Chartres, it is true, the devils with wolves' muzzles and asses' ears, trampling down bishops and kings, laymen and monks, and driving them into the maw of a dragon spouting flames--the demons with goats' beards and crescent-shaped jaws seizing hapless sinners who have wandered to the mouldings of the arch, are all very skilfully arranged, in well composed groups round the principal figure; but the Satanic vineyard lacks breadth and its fruit is insipid.