making any distinction between himself andthem. The phrase need not necessarily mean “the Twelve,” but rather missionaries from whom the knowledge of the Gospel was first received.! Of these the writer is one (i. 16). ἀπόστολος is so used Phil. ii. 25, 2 Cor. viii. 23 (cf. discussion of term in Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, Bk. iit, @h.! i); The passage, therefore, does not exclude a date later than the Apostolic Age.
(5) Chap. iii. 16—Two considerations are suggested by this reference to St. Paul that have a bearing on the date of the Epistle. (a) Paul’s Epistles are included in a body of writings called γραφαί, and we have reason to suppose that τὰς λοιπὰς γραφάς probably refers to the Ο.Τ. Scriptures. (b) The “unlearned and unstable ”’ distort these Epistles of Paul to their own destruction. Both these statements require that the date of the Epistle be postponed so as to leave room for them. (a) renders it quite impossible to fix a date in the life-time of Peter. The statement implies not neces- sarily a collection of Pauline letters such as we have in the Canon of the N.T., but the epithet γραφή would be applied if certain letters of Paul were accustomed to be read in the churches. That in- terpretation would not require a date later than the end of the first century. At the same time (0) demands that time must be allowed to enable the Pauline Epistles to gain such a position of recognised authority in the Church as Scripture that they can be misinterpreted by “unlearned and unstable souls”. All these circumstances would be met by a date quite early in the second century.
(6) Chap. ii—The resemblances in this chapter to the Epistle of Jude are undoubted. There are parallels in thought and language also in Jude 1,2=2 Peter i. 1,2; Jude 3, 2= Peter i. 12; Jude 17-19 =2 Peter iii. 1-3; Jude 20-25=2 Peter iii. 14-18. Spitta, Zahn, and Bigg are among the foremost defenders of the view that 2 Peter is prior to Jude. Irresistible arguments, however, may be adduced for the opinion that the relationship is the other way. For the discussion of the question the reader may be referred to the In- troduction to Jude. At the moment we are concerned with the question only in so far as it has a bearing on the date of 2 Peter. A. date not later than Α.Ρ. 90 is assigned to Jude by Chase, Mayor, Salmon, Plummer, Spitta. The limits 100-180 are accepted by
1Two conceptions of the term “apostle”? are found in the early church, a wider, based on the Jewish official use of the term, and a narrower, confined to the “ Twelve”. The two conceptions existed side by side, and “ the narrower was successful in making headway against its rival”? (Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, i. p. 408). If the wider use is found here, it would amount to an. argument for an early date to the epistle.