tended to signify that, while the visible Church consisted of a mere “remnant,” a “little flock,” yet these few represented all who share the Resurrection of Christ, “‘the general assembly and church of the first-born,” which would be continually recruited not only from the living, but also from the dead by the ever-present, ever-active Spirit of Christ (1 P. iii, 19)? In the account of Sodom P. (ii. 6) differs from J. in laying stress on Lot’s protest against surrounding wicked- ness, and on the mercy shown towards him, just as he had done pefore in regard to Noah (hereby illustrating the duty of the faithful under the present stress); and the moral he draws from the two. stories is that “God knows how to deliver the godly from trial, as well as to keep the wicked under chastisement for the day of judg- ment”. P.- alone gives details as to the destruction of Sodom (τεφρώσας καταστροφῇ κατέκρινεν), while J. speaks of its present state as a warning to future ages. As regards this warning P.’s ὑπόδειγμα µελλόντων ἀσεβέσιν is better expressed than J.’s rather confused πρό- κεινται δεῖγμα πυρὸς αἰωνίου δίκην ὑπέχουσαι. In ver. 8 J. turns to the libertines and declares that they are guilty of like sins with these sinners of the old world: they defile the flesh, make light of authority and rail at “ glories” (as the men of Sodom did towards the angels), and this they do because they are still buried in a carnal sleep (cf. Eph. ν. 14). These men (ver. 10, οὗτοι δέ) rail at things beyond their ken, while they surrender themselves like brute beasts to the guidance of their appetites, and thus bring about their own destruc- tion. P. (ii. 10) combines part of 6.5 description of the men of Sodom, who went ὀπίσω σαρκὸς ἑτέρας (for which he substitutes ὀπίσω σαρκὸς ἐν ἐπιθυμίᾳ μιασμοῦ πορευοµένους) with 6.5 condemnation of the libertines as despising authority,? and predicates both characteristics of the wicked, whom God keeps under chastisement for the day of judgment. Then turning to the libertines he exclaims against them as “headstrong and shameless (toApnrtai, cf. ἐτόλμησεν, J. ver. 9) men that shrink not from railing at glories” (ii. 10). In ii. 12 he goes on, as J. does in ver. 10, with a οὗτοι δέ, “‘these are like brute beasts’, Apparently he wants to bring out more fully the force of J.’s ὅσα Φυσικῶς ἐπίστανται, ἐν τούτοις φθείρονται by the periphrasis γεγεννηµένα φυσικὰ eis ἅλωσιν καὶ Φθοράν and ἐν τῇ φθορᾷ αὐτῶν Φθαρήσονται. That is, while J. simply states that the libertines are destroyed through
1For the connexion between the darkened heart which refuses to know God, and the indulgence in the vilest lusts, see Rom. i. 21-28.
21t will be noticed that, while J. couples κυριότητα and δόξας as belonging to the same category, P. only names the abstract word κυριότητα here, and introduces δόξας later on as a concrete example.