the ‘‘many teachers” is better understood at a time when the number of Christians had greatly increased. Here, again, the argu- ment on either side is inconclusive. Once more, the condition of the Churches to which the Epistle is addressed has not unnaturally been pointed to as not suggestive of the very early years of Christianity ; the earnestness and zeal which one might expect in those of the first generation of Christians is conspicuously lacking among those addressed ; the impression gained as to the characteristics of these is disappointing—the unbridled tongue, worldliness, quarrelling, - jealousy, a mercenary spirit, despising of the poor, flattering the rich, lust, and an entire absence of the wisdom that is from above, with the virtues which this brings in its train. This argument is extremely well answered by Mayor (pp. cxxviii. ff.), who gives a number of examples showing that a similar state of morals was exhibited in other newly-formed Christian communities ; but his answer is not - conclusive, for some of the examples cited—Ananias and Sapphira, Simon—are so obviously exceptional ; others, such as the murmuring of Hellenistic Jews against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration, and the jealousy between Jews and Gentiles mentioned in Acts xv., and the case of those who had not heard ‘‘whether there be any Holy Ghost,” are not, strictly speaking, analogous. Moreover, a difference must be made between recently converted Jews and those among the Gentiles who became Christians; among the former there had always been a previous training in moral discipline, which was not the case with the Gentiles ; the characteristics, therefore, alluded to above, which are spoken of in reference to Jewish-Christians sound stranger than if Gentile-Christians were in question. If, on the other hand, the Epistle—or those parts of it which come into consideration in this connection—was written after Christianity had been established for two or three generations, the conditions described would be more comprehensible.
The conditions just referred to must, in part, have been the cause of the predominantly ethical character of the Epistle ; morals rather than religion sound the dominant note, and for an Epistle like this to have been written during the Apostolic age, when religious fervour was so. pronounced, is certainly a little difficult of explanation. The attempts to solve this problem which have been made only bring into relief the incongruousness of the need of such a tone in an Epistle written in the middle (or shorty after the middle) of the first century ; for it differs utterly in this respect from other Apostolic writings. It is, of course, true to say that “πὸ Apostolic writing fails to exhibit