After this greeting J. turns at once to the immediate occasion for his letter. He had been preparing, he says, to write on the subject which is of highest interest to all Christians, viz., salvation,’ when news reached him of a new danger threatening the Church, against which he felt bound to warn his readers. It seems hardly possible to suppose that this note of alarm could have come to him through P., who writes in a much more leisurely way, not feeling it necessary at once to plunge into controversy and supply his readers with weapons for the defence of the faith. In fact the latter begins with the very subject which J. had felt himself obliged to omit, or at least to postpone to the end of his Epistle (ver. 20), viz. the doctrine of salvation. Thus we seem to lose sight of J. until the beginning of the second chapter of P., but we shall see that in the intervening passage of P. there is frequent recurrence to thoughts which are found in the former epistle.
After speaking generally of the blessings in store for man through the goodness of God, P. goes on (i. 5) to speak of the corresponding duty on man’s part. We are to use every effort to build up the Christian life in its seven-fold completeness on the rock of faith. Towards the end of J. we find words which may very possibly have suggested to P. this idea of the seven ascending tiers rising on the foundation of faith and culminating in love (J. ver. 20), ἐποικοδομοῦντες ἑαυτοὺς τῇ ἁγιωτάτη ὑμῶν πίστει . . . ἑαυτοὺς ἐν ἀγάπη Θεοῦ τη- ρήσατε. The phrase σπουδὴν πᾶσαν of P. i. 5 occurs also in J. ver. 3. The mention of εὐσέβεια in P. i. 3, 6, 7 may be due to the prevalence of ἀσέβεια so often deplored by J. The verses which follow (i. 8-11) dwell on the importance of the cultivation of these virtues or graces. “Their continued growth will tend to make us not unfruitful (cf. J. ver. 12) in regard to that knowledge of God, out of which they grow. Their absence causes blindness, or at least limits us to narrow earthly views, and makes us forgetful of the baptismal cleansing from the sins of our old life. Remember that it is not enough simply to have been baptised. We have to make sure the calling and election of which baptism was the seal. If you are diligent in doing this, you will never stumble, but will have a glorious entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Here toc we find connecting links with the later verses of J. ‘‘ Eternal life’ is the goal in J. ver. 21, ‘‘the eternal kingdom,” in P.i. 11. The οὐ μὴ πταίσητε and the πλουσίως ἐπιχορηγηθήσεται of P. remind us of J.’s summing up in ver. 24, “God our Saviour is able to keep us without
1The word κοινήν here may have suggested to P. his phrase ἰσότιμον πίστιν.