Again, the writer makes you feel without quoting that he has the words of Jesus constantly in his mind. Thus in the exhortation, "Cast all your anxiety upon God, for He careth for you" (v. 7); when he says, "If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye" (iv. 14), or "Be sober; be vigilant" (v. 8), or "Be sober unto prayer" (iv. 7), or commends "not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but contrariwise blessing" (iii. 9), at each of the sentences--and the letter abounds with examples--there rise in the reader's mind some similar words of Christ, making him feel that he is perusing a writing of one to whom the Lord's language was abundantly familiar.
With the marks of personal character and associations meeting us constantly, and with the unbroken consensus of antiquity in favour of St. Peter's authorship, we shall not lightly allow speculations about hypothetical differences between the teaching of the Apostles of the Gentiles and of the circumcision to disturb our acceptance of this letter for what it proclaims itself to be: the work of the Apostle St. Peter, of one who was himself a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
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Of the Second Epistle the whole history is very different. It appears to have been little known in the early Church, and is included by Eusebius (330) among the ἀντιλεγόμενα, "books to which objection was raised" as late as his day. It is true that in Clement of Rome there is a sentence (Ep. i., chap. xi.) which many have accepted as containing a clear allusion to the passage (2 Peter ii. 6, 7) which speaks of Lot and the destruction of Sodom. And if this could be demonstrated with certainty, it would be most valuable testimony. It would prove the Epistle to have been accepted at a very early date and by the important Church in Rome. But we have so far to go before we come upon any other notice that the silence makes us doubtful of the evidence from Clement. Moreover, such other witness as we do find is not of a very direct character. Firmilian, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, about 256 A.D., in a letter of which a Latin version is preserved among the writings of Cyprian, uses words which probably indicate that he knew both the epistles of St. Peter; but he gives no quotation. The Second Epistle was no doubt meant for the same readers as the First; and that is addressed, among others, to the Christians of Cappadocia, so that there is no improbability in supposing the letter to have been early known there. Theophilus of Antioch (170) uses the comparison of the word to a lamp shining in a dark place in such a way as to give the impression that he knew the Epistle, and a similar possible reference is found in the writings of Ephrem Syrus (+ 378). Palladius (400), who was a friend of Chrysostom, and wrote at Rome, makes a clear allusion to 2 Peter; and in the Apology of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, there is a passage concerning the destruction of the world by fire at the last day which is strikingly parallel to 2 Peter iii. 5-7, and can hardly have been written without a knowledge of the Epistle.
This is a very small amount of early evidence, and among the more voluminous writers of the first three centuries we find no mention of the Epistle. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that by Eusebius it is classed among the works of less acceptance. But the same fate befell larger and more important writings than this Epistle. The Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews stand in the same list in Eusebius. And St. Peter's second letter has not the same general interest as the first, and therefore is likely to have been less widely circulated; and this is all that Eusebius's classification means. The books were not generally received because there was a less general knowledge of their existence and history.