backsliders to punishment and torment . . . that it may be known to all that the double-minded and doubters about God's power are for condemnation and for an example to all generations."

3. Neither the Epistle of Barnabas, nor Justin Martyr, nor Theophilus of Antioch, nor Irenæus, can be fairly adduced as citing or alluding to our Epistle. This assertion may surprise the reader who is acquainted with the strong assertions and easy assumptions of Dietlein. But let him take them one by one and examine them strictly and impartially, and he will find them all in succession prove worthless, except as shewing that primitive Christianity had a Greek vocabulary of its own to express its doctrines and convey its exhortations, which the Apostles and their immediate successors used in common. Neither does the ancient fragment known as the canon of Muratori make any mention of our Epistle. Neither does Tertullian, nor Cyprian, nor Clement of Alexandria in any of his extant works.

4. There is a passage in Hippolytus on Antichrist, which seems to be an amplification of 2 Pet. i. 21;-speaking of the prophets, he says: "For they spoke not out of their own strength, nor did they proclaim what things they themselves would, but first of all by means of the divine word they reasoned correctly, and then by means of visions they foretold future events rightly, and then with their persuasion they said the things which were revealed to them by God, but hidden from other men." Still, striking as the similarity is, we cannot venture to affirm that the inference is really a sound one, any more than in the case of that place in Theophilus of Antioch: "But men of God, being spiritually borne on by the Holy Spirit, and becoming prophets, inspired and gifted with wisdom by God Himself, were taught of God."

5. Eusebius reports of Clement of Alexandria, "that he in his book called Hypotyposes, made short expositions of all the canonical Scriptures; not passing over even the disputed books, such as that of Jude, and the rest of the Catholic Epistles, and that of Barnabas, and that called the Apocalypse of Peter." And so also says Cassiodorus, who however seems to assert, in another passage, that these expositions were only of 1 Peter, 1 and 2 John, and James.

6. The judgment between these conflicting testimonies must apparently be given on the side of Eusebius, and Cassiodorus's first assertion. For Eusebius mentions expressly the Epistle of Jude, as one of those on which Clement commented, whereas by the last-cited statement of Cassiodorus it is excluded. Still even thus we have no express mention of our Epistle, but can only include it by inference among the disputed books of which Eusebius speaks.

7. The testimony of Origen appears somewhat ambiguous.

Eusebius reports it thus: "Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, over which the gates of hell shall not prevail, has left one

acknowledged Epistle: perhaps also a second; for it is doubted about."

On the other hand, in those works which are extant only in a Latin version, Origen again and again quotes our Epistle as Scripture : e. g. in his Homily on Joshua,-" For Peter sounds with the two trumpets of his Epistles:" on Leviticus,—“ And again Peter says, 'Ye are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. i. 4): on Numbers, -"As Scripture saith in a certain place (2 Pet. ii. 16), 'The dumb animal speaking with human voice convicted the madness of the prophet.'"

8. Perhaps the solution of this is to be found, not by supposing that the translator Rufinus interpolated the passages, but by remembering the loose way in which both Origen himself and others were found to cite the Epistle to the Hebrews: ordinarily, and in course of writing, speaking of it as St. Paul's, but whenever they wrote deliberately, giving expression to their doubts respecting its authorship. We have only to believe that Origen acted similarly with regard to 2 Peter, and the mystery is at once solved.

In Origen's extant Greek works, it is true, we nowhere find the Epistle quoted. Nay, it is more than once by implication excluded from the number of the Catholic Epistles. Thus in his Commentary on John, cited above, ch. iii. § i. 7, he cites 1 Pet. iii. 18-21, as being "in the Catholic Epistle:" and in his passage on the Canon: "Secondly, that according to Mark, as Peter dictated to him: wherefore also he acknowledges him as his son in his Catholic Epistle."

9. Firmilian, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, a disciple of Origen (died 270), certainly alludes to our Epistle, if his words are rightly given in the Latin version in which only we now have them:

"The blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, who in their Epistles execrated heretics, and admonished us to avoid them."

Nothing is proved here by "their Epistles," as to two Epistles of St. Peter being meant: but by the fact mentioned, this second Epistle must be intended, seeing that it is in this only that heretics are inveighed against by St. Peter.

10. The testimony of Didymus, whose commentary on the Epistle is extant in a Latin version only, is given at the end of his remarks on this Epistle:

"We must not therefore forget, that this Epistle is accounted spurious, and, although it is currently published, yet is not in the

canon."

Here the Latin expressions cause some little uncertainty, and can only be interpreted by conjecturing what they represent in the original Greek. Undue stress has been laid on the "therefore," as if it were a ratiocinative conclusion from something preceding. But in all proba

bility the sentence was a mere concluding notice, and "therefore" was only a rounding off of what had gone before.

11. Eusebius says, "One Epistle of Peter, that which is called the first, is received: this the ancient presbyters use as undoubted in their writings. But that which is called his second we have received as not indeed among the New Testament writings; but yet, appearing useful to many, it has come to be reverenced with the other Scriptures:" and afterwards, "So many are the writings which are called Peter's; of which I know only one Epistle as genuine, and confessed by the ancient presbyters." And again: "Of those books which are disputed, but notwithstanding generally known, is that Epistle called James's, and that of Jude, and the second of Peter "."

12. Jerome says of St. Peter, "He wrote two Epistles, which are named catholic, of which the second is by most denied to be his, on account of the dissonance of its style from the former Epistle."

"Paul therefore had Titus for his interpreter, as the blessed Peter had Mark, whose Gospel was composed with Peter as narrator, and himself as writer. And the two Epistles which are ascribed to Peter are discrepant in style and character and structure of words; by which we understand that from necessity of circumstances he used different interpreters."

13. After the time of Eusebius, the Epistle appears to have been very generally received as canonical. We have however the statement of Gregory of Nazianzum, "that some held seven, some only three catholic Epistles;" and of Cosmas Indicopleustes, "that among the Syrians only three were found, those of James, Peter, and John." It confirms this notice to find, that this Epistle is not contained in the Peschito, or early Syriac version. Ephrem Syrus notwithstanding received the whole seven catholic Epistles, and so the Philoxenian, or later Syriac version. Leontius of Byzantium says that Theodore of Mopsuestia rejected our Epistle.

14. In the middle ages the Epistle was generally recognized and accounted canonical. At the time of the Reformation, the ancient doubts revived. Both Erasmus and Calvin express them. Cajetan, Grotius, Scaliger, Salmasius, question its genuineness. And in modern times, Semler, Neander, Credner, De Wette, Reuss, Mayerhoff, have ranged themselves on the same side.

15. On the other hand, there have not been wanting in our own days many defenders of the genuineness of the Epistle. The principal of these have been Michaelis, Pott, Augusti, Storr, Flatt, Dahl, Hug, Schmid, Lardner, Guericke, Windischmann, Thiersch. The same result

• See the testimony of Philastrius of Brescia in favour of our Epistle, above, ch. i. § i. 65.

is evidently to be supplied at the end of Brückner's notices, though he himself hesitates to affirm it. From what has already been said of Dietlein's book, it will be readily believed, that it is hardly worth quoting on this side.

16. If we now come to review the course of ancient testimony, we shall find its tendency to be very much the same as we found it respecting the Epistle of St. James, with which indeed our Epistle is often classed among the disputed books. And as far as this portion of the subject of our present section is concerned, we might append to it the same conclusion as that with which we terminated the corresponding section on that Epistle, ch. ii. § v. 15.

17. But another department of evidence in this case requires consideration. Weighty objections have, and that from early times', been brought against the Epistle on internal grounds. Some of these I have already dealt with by anticipation, in speaking on its occasion and object, on the probability as to the same readers being partly in view as those in the former Epistle, on the kind of use made of the Epistle of St. Jude. If our preceding remarks, which I have endeavoured to make fairly, and not in the spirit of a partisan, have been warranted by fact, then on all these points we have been gathering reasons by which those objections to its genuineness from supposed internal disqualification may be so far met.

18. But they extend to several other points besides those above mentioned. For instance, it is said, that the kind of mention of the coming of our Lord in the two Epistles could not have proceeded from the same person. In the former Epistle it is simply introduced as one of the great comforting assurances for God's persecuted people: in the latter, it is defended against cavil and unbelief. Now would it not have been more just in this case to say, that the circumstances and persons in view cannot be the same, rather than that the Writers cannot? For surely there is nothing in this Epistle shewing a belief, on the part of the Writer himself, inconsistent with that professed in the other. Nay, it is evidently shewn by such passages as ch. iii. 8, 10, that the firm persuasion expressed in 1 Pet. iv. 5 was that of our Writer also.

19. It is said, that the peculiarities with regard to certain uncommon points which we find in the first Epistle (e. g. iii. 19, iv. 6, iii. 6, 21) are not found reproduced in the second. But, as Brückner has well observed, the very fact, that it was characteristic of St. Peter to adduce these mysterious and outlying points, would also account in some measure for their appearing, not always, but in a scattered and irregular manner, as illustrations by the way: just as they do appear in this second Epistle also (e. g. iii. 5, 10). So that this is rather an argument for, than against 7 Compare Jerome, above, par. 12.

the identity of the Writers. Besides which, it halts in two essential points. For 1) it is not altogether correct in its statement. We do find the Writer's view of ancient prophecy continued from one Epistle (1 Pet. i. 10-12) to the other (2 Pet. i. 19—21; iii. 2) :—the new birth by the divine word, which in the first Epistle is alleged as a motive for putting off worldly lusts and passions (i. 22—ii. 2), reappears in the second in i. 4: the "virtues" of Him who hath called them, 1 Pet. ii. 9, reappear in the same peculiar form, 2 Pet. i. 3: if we read, 1 Pet. iv. 17, that judgment is beginning at the house of God, and will proceed on to the disobedient, we read of the deceivers in the second Epistle, 2 Pet. ii. 3, that their judgment is not idle. Other instances might be and have been produced, shewing that the allegation will not hold. And 2) it is forgotten by the objectors, that it would be only in a spurious Epistle imitating the first, that we should find such reproductions carefully carried out the occasion and object of a second genuine Epistle being totally different, forms a very sufficient reason why they should not be found to any considerable extent.

20. It is again objected, that whereas in the former Epistle the sufferings and death and resurrection of Christ were brought forward frequently and insisted on,-in this, these facts of Redemption are altogether put into the background, and only the exalted Christ is in the view of the Writer. But it is to be remembered that 1) in that first Epistle we found the exalted Person of our Lord mainly before the Apostle's eyes: that 2) the differing occasion and object would tend to produce just the diversity found here, where there is no longer any purpose of comforting under persecution, but only of warning against error and building up in knowledge: that 3) in the first Epistle, where "salvation" was so conspicuous with its facts and consequences, our Lord is commonly found as "Christ" simply (i. 11, 19; ii. 21; iii. 15, "the Lord Christ"), or " Jesus Christ" (i. 1, 2, 3, 7, 13; ii. 5; iii. 21; iv. 11), or "Christ Jesus" (v. 10); whereas in the second, where "salvation" hardly appears (iii. 15), He is ordinarily "our Lord" (or God?) "and Saviour Jesus Christ" (i. [1,] 11; ii. 20; iii. 18), or our Lord Jesus Christ" (i. 2 [“ Jesus our Lord"], 8, 14, 16): but never simply "Christ,' ""Jesus Christ," or "Christ Jesus." This, which has been also alleged as against the identity of writers, is, I submit, strikingly characteristic of the different realms of thought of the two Epistles. In the first, it is community of suffering and glorification with Him, which is to give encouragement: His lordly and glorious titles are dropped, and his office ("Christ") or combined Person and office (“Jesus Christ," or "Christ Jesus") is ever brought forward. But in this second, where warning, and caution against rebellion are mainly in view, we are ever reminded of His lordship by "Lord,"

8 See above, ch. iii. § vi. 4.

66