(c) Reminiscences of the Lord’s teaching. —The writer of 1 P constantly shows that he has the Lord’s sayings in his mind. It is doubtful if the writer of 2 P refers to more than two of them.
(ὦ) Use of St. Paul’s Epistles.—The writer of 1 Pis deeply influenced, both in thought and in language, by two of St. Paul’s Epistles(Ro, Eph). The writer of 2 P, while he mentions St. Paul’s Epistles gener- ally, owes no debt, literary or doctrinal, to them. This argument, however, cannot be said to carry so much weight as it napbeats to do at first sight. For we saw cause to believe that there were special reasons why the words and thoughts of these two Epistles of St. Paul should be in St. Peter’s mind when he wrote the First Epistle.
(e) Doctrine.—It has often been remarked that while in 1 P ‘the end’ is regarded as near (47), the ¥titer of 2 P seems to contemplate delay as part of the Divine counsel. It might be a not unfair reply that in the one case the writer sets forth his own personal hope, in the other case he has to meet the jibes of enemies of the truth, and to account for the unquestionable fact of delay which gave point to their mocking question. But, indeed, the difference between the two Epistles in regard to doctrine is deeper and more far-reaching than a contrast of view as to the hope of the Lord’s speedy return. Any one who has endeavoured to w out the doctrinal teaching of the two Epistles must feel that they are aadely separated from each other. There is a richness of devout thought, a vital apprehension of the t facts and truths which are characteristic of tianity, in 1 P, for which we search in vainin2P. The thought of Christ’s sufferings, considered as the supreme example and as redeeming acts dealing with all the needs of men, the thought of Christ raised and exalted by the Father, the thought of the present personal relation of Christians to Christ’s work and to Christ Himself, dominate the one Epistle; they are, as we have seen (see above, p. 812), passed over in the other,
Such are the differences between the two Epistles. It remains to examine certain considerations which have been suggested with a view to explain or to mitigate the ificulty.
(1) Difference of date. —If St. Peter wrote the two Epistles, they could not be ὙΠΕΙΥ separated in
int of time. The examination of all the evi-
ence points to the year 61 as the probable date of 1 P (see above, p. 791f.). 2 Ῥ, if the work of St. Peter, could not be placed more than a year or two later, or, if we accept the view of Spitta and Zahn that the former Epistle alluded to in 2 P 81 is not
1 P, a year or two earlier. Even if we put aside ancient evidence, and, accepting the theory which finds in 1 P indications of a later date (see above, ᾿ 783 1.}, suppose that St. Peter’s life was pro- onged beyond the year 70, the interval between the two documents cannot have been much more than ten years, It may well be doubted whether ten years at the end of a long life can reasonably be i pe to have so completely changed a man’s literary style and the tone and range of bis thoughts. ;
(2) Difference of subject.—The object of 1 P, it is urged, was to comfort and encourage the suffering ; that of 2 P to warn against a shameful perversion of the truth. It must, however, be remembered that ch. 1 of 2P is not denunciatory. Such a difference of subject might well account for a difference of tone, and a difference in the relative
osition and emphasis given to Christian doctrines. t would modify ; it would hardly revolutionize.
(3) Difference of circumstances.—The strongest presentation of the case in this respect is probably the theory of Zahn (ZinJ. ii. p. 96). ‘So long,’ he says, ‘as men started with the assumption that 1 P is a document actually composed by the apostle (‘ein eigenhindiges Schreiben des Apostels’), and that 2 P purports to be intended for a circle of readers similar to that addressed in 1 P, then the
t diversity of the two Epistles in thought and anguage could not but be strong evidence against the genuineness of 2P. But this evidence is destroyed, since both the above-mentioned assump- tions have been shown to be erroneous. It is obvi- ously intelligible that Peter, in a letter addressed to the Gentile Churches of Asia Minor, which Silvanus wrote by his commission and in his name, should speak in a way different from that in which he speaks in a letter of his own composition (‘in einem eigenhindigen Brief’) addressed to Churches of Jewish Christians, who owed their Christianity to him and his associates.’
In this position three points must be noticed. (a) It is remarkable that both Spitta (p. 530 ff.) * and Zahn, in defending the Petrine authorship of 2 P, are obliged to give up the real Petrine author- ship of 1P. It has, however, been shown in the article on 1 PETER (p. 789f.) that (a) the language about Silvanus in 1 P 5%, though it does not exclude, yet certainly does not ie aah the hypo- thesis that the composition of the letter was feft to him ; (8) the phenomena of the Epistle itself are decisive against this theory. (4) It has been pointed out (see above, pp. 798, 806) that 2 P con- tains no indication of being addressed to Jewish Christians, and that the internal evidence, both negative and positive, points decisively in the opposite direction. (c) But if these two points are conceded, it is clear that everything depends on the sense given to ‘speaking in a different way ’— ‘anders redet.’ The supposed variation of circum- stances would account for a difference, perhaps a great difference, between the two letters, But, on the one hand, it must be observed that the charac- teristic of tender and sympathetic affection is conspicuous in the letter which was addressed to those with whom St. Peter had had no personal dealings, while it is absent from the letter which (in Spitta’s and Zahn’s view) was sent to persons who owed their Christianity to the apostle—a reversal of what would have been naturally antici- pated. And, on the other, the differences between the two Epistles in literary style and tone and teaching are, as it appears to the present writer, so numerous and so fundamental that no difference