JUDAS 1 JUDAS, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, 23 to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, in my great eagerness to write you concerning our common salvation, I am obliged to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith 4 which was once for all delivered to the saints. For some men have slipped in by stealth, those who were predestined to this doom long ago impious men, turning the grace of our God into sensuality, denying 5 also the only Master and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now I desire 6 7 to remind you-knowing as you do all things once for allthat after the Lord saved a people out of the land of Egypt, he next destroyed those who believed not: and that the angels who kept not their office but abandoned their own habitation, he has kept under the nether blackness in fetters everlasting for the judgment of the great Day: even as Sodom and Gomorra, with the surrounding cities, who (in a way resembling these men) glutted themselves with fornication and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as a warning, undergoing the penalty of fire eternal. 8 Yet in the same way these men of sensual imagination also pollute the flesh, contemn the Lordship, and abuse Majesties. 9 Now when Michael the archangel was disputing with the devil in controversy over the body of Moses, He dared not bring an abusive accusation against him; Nay, he said, "The Lord rebuke thee." 10 But these men heap abuse on anything they are ignorant of, And anything they do understand by nature, like the irrational brutes, through that they are corrupted. 11 Woe to them! For they went the road of Kain, and rushed headlong for wages in the error of Balaam, 12 These are the men who are sunken rocks in your love-feasts, 13 shepherding their own selves: Rainless clouds carried away by winds, Fruitless autumn-trees, twice dead, uprooted, Wild sea-waves, foaming out their own disgrace, 14 15 Wandering stars, for whom the nether blackness of darkness has been for ever kept. Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these also, saying: "Lo, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the impious of all their impious deeds which impiously they wrought, and of all the harsh words which impious sinners have spoken against him." 16 These are murmurers, grumbling at their lot, 17 18 Walking after their own lusts And their mouth speaks extravagantly Paying regard to men's appearances for their own advantage. Remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord How they told you: "At the end of the time there shall be scoffers 19 These are the men who make divisions, 24 Sensuous men, who have not the Spirit. But as for you, beloved, Building yourselves up on your most holy faith, Praying in the holy Spirit, Keep yourselves in the love of God, Waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to life eternal. Save others by snatching them out of the fire; Have mercy on others with fear, hating even the tunic spotted by the flesh. Now to him who is able to preserve you from stumbling, and to set 25 you with rejoicing faultless before his majesty-to the only God, our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, belong majesty, sovereignty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for all time: Amen. 1 Adding rou. THE EPISTLE OF SYMEON PETER (II.) THE Composition of this writing during the course of the second century, and probably in its first half, cannot be regarded any longer as one of the open questions in NT criticism. The epistle is notoriously weak in external attestation (DB, iii. pp. 799-806), but the security of the critical conclusion rests mainly upon internal evidence. Especially noteworthy are (a) the references to Paul's epistles 1 (316): these would appear to have acquired considerable prestige in the church, and to be ranked κar' Cox side by side with the canonical scriptures, as well as numbered among that class of books which forms a subject of discussion and dispute. All this, especially the co-ordination of apostolic writings with the sacred codex of the OT, points to a late and ecclesiastical atmosphere. (b) The writer, who is not an apostle (32, twv átoσtóλwv vμŵv), at the same time appeals intentionally and emphatically to the authority of Peter (112-19 31. 2. 15); he plainly uses 1 Peter, which he endeavours to imitate for his own purposes in spite of individual peculiarities of style and thought (cp. on the well-marked difference of language, Holtzmann, Einl. p. 322, and the moderate statement of Simcox: Writers of NT, pp. 63-69, besides the critical editors). (c) The literary relations of the epistle involve its dependence upon Clem. Rom., and even more markedly on the epistle of Judas, of which a large part is reproduced and expanded in 2 Pet 2: probably also (in spite of Chase's scepticism) a similar connection with 4th Esdras and the Antiquities of Josephus, and apparently a set of similarities in thought and expression to the recently discovered Apocalypse of Peter (DB, iii. pp. 814-816; Harnack, TU, ix. 2. p. 90 f.), if not to Hebrews and James as well. (d) The general contour of the writing is late we have the incipient ecclesiasticism of the church with its three authorities (32), the Lord, the apostles, the prophets; the corresponding identification of "apostolic" with "authoritative"; the subtle traces of Gnosticism with its subjectivity (120) and conceptions of the Divine essence (14), in view of which the writer emphasises the genuine Christian " "knowledge" (γνῶσις, ἐπίγνωσις) * with its correlative of steady faith in the second 2 1 "Das Christenthum ist hier schon ganz geworden, was zuvor das Judenthum war; Bibelglaube, Buchreligion, wie dem auch 120. 21 die Inspirationslehre in der Form des schroffsten Supernaturalismus vorgetragen wird" (Holtzmann, NTTh, ii. p. 397). On the analogous Hellenic belief in inspiration and reverence for antiquity, cp. Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 50, 51. 2 Elaborated in three articles by Dr. E. A. Abbott (Exp. iii. pp. 49-63, 139-153, 204-219), which are not deprived of their substantial force by the adverse discussions of Professor Warfield (South. Presbyterian Review, 1882, p. 45 f., 1883, p. 390 f.), Dr. Salmon (INT, p. 497 f.), and Zahn (Einl. ii. p. 109); cp. the more impartial investigations of Farrar (Exp. iii. pp. 401-423; Early Days, bk. ii. chap. ix.; Exp. viii. pp. 58-69) and Krenkel (Josephus u. Lucas, p. 350 f.). 3 Knowledge has displaced the "hope" of 1 Peter, and by a corresponding change the sufferings of Christ and Christians have fallen into the background (contrast 1 P 51 with 2 P 116-18). 1 advent, according to the original and apostolic tradition, and as opposed to current spiritualisations; the fact of errorists being able for their own ends to pervert the scripture (316), and to make use, as it is known the Marcionites did, of Paul's epistles (passages like 1 Thess 51, 2 Thess 213, Rom 29, are much more likely than Gal 211, if any special reference is to be thought of); the general impression that the early Christian age is far behind the writer and his readers, an era to be looked back upon (e.g. 34, ἀφ' ἧς γὰρ οἱ πατέρες ἐκοιμήθησαν). These form a cumulative argument for the second-century date, which is final. It is accepted even by writers like Beyschlag (NTTh, ii. pp. 490-498), who finds 2 Peter is critically disputed with evident reason, based upon the epistle of Judas -which he puts into the first century-and a product of the second century; as also by Bovon (NTTh, ii. pp. 485 f.). Generally c. 150 A.D. or the years preceding that time form the period adopted by a very numerous and weighty league of scholars, including Reuss (275-277), Hilgenfeld, Hausrath, Bleek, Mangold, Renan, S. Davidson (INT, ii. pp. 523-559), Holtzmann, Krüger, von Soden, Ramsay (before 130 A.D.), McGiffert, Adeney, and most recently Chase (DB, iii. pp. 796-818) in an article of exceptional brilliance and research. After Keim (iv. p. 312, etc.), Pfleiderer puts the date further down into the century (Urc. pp. 838-843), and Jülicher chooses 125-175 A.D.; but Simcox rightly demurs to such a late period, on the ground that the book contains an indisputably Hebraistic element, and it is probably safer to place the writing not subsequent to the sixth or seventh decade of the second century. At any rate it is the latest writing in the NT (cf. Brückner, Chron. pp. 296-307). Harnack's wellknown theory would imply that about this time, i.e. 150-175, the Petrine title was added to 1 Peter, probably by the author of 2 Peter (Chron. pp. 450-470). This date involves the pseudonymity of the epistle. Of course, were the title to be interpreted literally and logically, the writing would be the testament of Peter. It must then have been composed, as the author intended his readers to believe, shortly before the death of Peter and subsequently to the first epistle, i.e. between 65 and 67 (Salmon, Lumby, etc.). Weiss (followed by Kühl), with his theory of the extremely early date of 1 Peter, has little difficulty in supposing that this writing might have followed some ten years later (INT, ii. pp. 154-169), and Spitta, on grounds of his own, arrives at a similar result; while Zahn actually dates the writing before 63, addressed by Peter to churches in or near Palestine (Einl. ii. pp. 42-110). But the contents of the epistle are in hopeless contradiction with this hypothesis, the case for which is largely made up of assertions and assumptions. It may be said with perfect moderation and justice that the whole available evidence, positive and negative, internal and external, points away from such a period of composition. Calvin's excellent sense made him very dubious of the Petrine authorship, and finally suggested to him that the epistle might have been composed 1 When the bubbling, many-coloured theosophies of Gnosticism were fronted by a movement of the church towards organisation and a canon. 2 Peter thus forms (cp. Renan's testimony, L'Église Chrét. chap. vii.) the most worthy member of the series of Petrine pseudepigrapha; it is an attempt to conserve the faith against Gnostic errors and the moral and mental snares which they set. Still, the actual environment of the book is dim. All we can see is that eschatological doubts have risen, since Judas wrote. Scepticism upon the last things has been revived and added to the heresies already prevalent. 2 Jewish-Christian, upon the whole, and indebted for their Christianity to Peter or to other early disciples and apostles of Jesus. at the command of the apostle by one of his followers, as he had already conjectured that Malachi was a name assumed by Ezra. This is a reasonable line of criticism, and it has become a favourite in several quarters. Recently, for example, the allied hypothesis of a literary amanuensis has been ingeniously used to account for the faults and conflicting facts of style and expression. On this view the writing becomes Petrine rather than Peter's; the cast of thought is secured for the apostle, while the peculiar Greek is attributed to a different secretary from the Silvanus who composed the first epistle. But this notion raises more difficulties than it solves. Nor does it fairly satisfy the internal evidence of the writing, which is crucial. A better attempt upon the same line is that of Professor Ramsay (CRE, pp. 492, 493). He regards the author as a pupil of Peter, who reproduced his master's counsels and spirit in face of new and later circumstances, just as the author of the "pastorals" is held to have done with Pauline ideas. But, as he proceeds to point out, some words of Tertullian (Adv. Marcion, iv. 5) 2 indicate that in ancient opinion a pupil's work could often be treated as that of his master: consequently, pseudonymity in a case like the present-though a further development-might be considered as a method which betokened humility and self-effacement upon the part of the author, rather than any attempt to deceive his contemporaries. This indeed would be the true standpoint from which to regard any NT pseudepigrapha. Probably, too, 2 Pet was put under Peter's name owing to the eminence of the genuine first epistle and the increasing authority of the Petrine tradition among the sub-apostolic communities. The Greek style of the book has drawn upon it severe, though slightly exaggerated, strictures from Dr. Abbott, who inveighs against its use of some words almost unknown to Greek literature, its misuse of other words and idioms, its fondness for grandiloquent novelties and strained sonorousness, its weak reduplication of florid phrases." This laboured and ambitious character suggests to him the English written by a Bengalee affecting the "fine style." After one gets over the odd associations of the parallel, "Baboo Greek" helps to elucidate at least one or two points in the epistle; it is decisive against the Petrine authorship, though not directly for the second-century date. Chase also terms the vocabulary "ambitious, poor, and inadequate" (DB, iii. pp. 806-809). 4 66 The origin of the epistle has been usually given as Egyptian, but Deissmann (Bibel-Studien, pp. 277-284) has discovered some interesting parallels between the style of the introduction and a decree of Stratonicea, which would rather point to Asia Minor. 1 E.g. by Farrar and Simcox. But the notion is as old as Jerome's day. Much more plausible is the idea that 2 Pet is by the author of the "Apocalypse of Peter." 2 "Since it is permissible that what scholars publish should be regarded as the work of their master"; cp. Dr. Sanday's most cautious sentences ("Inspiration," Bampton Lectures, pp. 348-350). 3 The growing distance from the religious centre of Christianity is even more noticeable in 2 Peter than in the other NT productions of the second century. It comes out in the diminution of simplicity, the increased recourse to vehement appeals and threats, the dependence on Jewish Haggada, and the presence of popular ideas such as that of the world's catastrophic overthrow and renewal (a Stoical opinion, Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, ii. 46). Cp. Zeller's Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics (ETr.), pp. 155 f. 4 Dr. Stanton's remark (JTS, I. 19) upon the publication of pseudepigraphic literature applies to 2 Pet: "The real author of any such work had to keep himself altogether out of sight, and its entry upon circulation had to be surrounded with a certain mystery, in order that the strangeness of its appearance at a more or less considerable interval after the putative author's death might be concealed." |