Jiilicher and Harnack. The arguments for the second century date are examined by Chase (of. cit., pp. 803 f.), and found insufficient.
If the date in the last decade of the first century be accepted for Jude, 2 Peter must be later; but there is not that evidence of advance in the Gnostic views opposed in 2 Peter upon those in Jude to warrant our assigning to 2 Peter a date much later than Jude.
To sum up the internal evidence for the date of 2 Peter, the considerations adduced in (3) would fix the terminus ad quem at least previous to 140-160, the probable date of Justin, in whose day Chiliasm was an orthodox belief. On the other hand, (1), (2), (5) would render it possible to regard the Epistle as the product of a time not very much later than the apostolic, and perhaps (4) may also be regarded as confirmatory in this connexion. The relationship to Jude would suggest a date not earlier than Α.Ρ. 100. The external evidence, as we have seen, would render possible a date not later han the first decade of the second century. Perhaps Α.Ρ. 100-115, may be tentatively suggested as the extreme limits.
1A summary of the evidence may here be given :—
1, πίστις, spoken of in Jude 3-20, as a formulated deposit, is used in practi- cally the same way in Gal. i. 23, ili. 23, vi. Io, etc.
2. In ver. 17 the language need not imply that the apostolic period is long past. The mention of oral instruction (ἔλεγον) would quite suit a date in early sub-apostolic times, when some of the Apostles were dead and some scattered.
3. The argument from the use of apocryphal books is invalid. Of the two quoted by Jude, Enoch is assigned by most scholars to a date B.c., and the Assumption of Moses was probably written within the first thirty years A.D.
4. The Gnostic views attacked in the Epistle are not necessarily of late date.
CHAPTER IV. RELATION TO 1 PETER.
Ir is a very generally accepted result of criticism that the two Epistles of Peter are not by the same hand. Jerome (Script. Eccles., 1), in connexion with 2 Peter, remarked on the “stili cum priore dissonantiam’’ (see p. 175). So marked are these differences between the two Epistles, that even Spitta and Zahn, who defend the authenticity of 2 Peter, are therefore obliged to give up the real Petrine authorship of 1 Peter. They admit that 2 Peter is a letter from the Apostle’s own hand, and attribute the First Epistle to Silvanus, under the direction of the Apostle, in accordance with their interpretation of 1 Peter v. 12 (Spitta, of. cit, pp. 530 ff.; Zahn Introd. Π., pp. 149 ff.).
Space does not permit of a full discussion of this question, and the reader is referred to the minute and elaborate treatment of the subject in Mayor’s edition (pp. Ixviii. ff.). Reference may be made briefly to the following points :—
1. Resemblances in Vocabulary and Style.—(1) Vocabulary— (a) Χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη, 2 Peter i. 2, 1 Peter i. 2; use of καλεῖν, 2 Peter i. 3 and 1 Peter i. 15, ii. 9, 21, iii. 9, v. 10; with κλῆσιν καὶ ἐκλογὴν, 2 Peter i. 10, may be compared the foregoing references to use of καλεῖν in 1 Peter, and the use of ἐκλεκτός, 1 Peter i. 1, 11. 4,9; θέληµα 2 Peter i. 21, and 1 Peter ii. 15, iii. 17, iv. 2, 19; with ἐν ἐπιθυμίαις σαρκὸς ἀσελγείαις cf. πεπορευµένους ἐν ἀσελγείαις, ἐπιθυμίαις 1 Peter iv. 3; ἐπόπται, 2 Peter i. 16, and ἐποπτεύοντες, 1 Peter ii. 12, iii. 2; ἄσπιλοι καὶ ἀμώμητοι, 2 Peter iii. 14, and ἅμωμος καὶ ἄσπιλος, 1 Peter i. 19; ἁκαταπαύστους ἁμαρτίας, 2 Peter ii. 14, and πέπαυται ἁμαρτίας, 1 Peter iv. 1.