unstable souls, ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες μεστοὺς µοιχαλίδος καὶ ἀκαταπαύστους ἁμαρτίας, δελεάζοντες ψυχὰς ἀστηρίκτους (cf. γεγεννηµένα eis ἅλωσιν, ti. 12), καρδίαν γεγυμνασµένην πλεονεξίας ἔχοντες, κατάρας τέκνα. Perhaps P. may intend this partly to take the place of J.’s fine figure κύματα ἄγρια θαλάσσης ἐπαφρίζοντα τὰς ἑαυτῶν αἰσχύνας.
In vv. 14, 15 J. gives the prophecy of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, which simply announces the future judgment on impious deeds and words. To this P. makes no direct reference, but, as I have before suggested, it may have been one reason for speaking of Noah as the eighth. In ver. 16 (perhaps taken from the Assumption of Moses) J. goes on to describe the libertines as “murmuring and dis- contented, walking after their own lusts, whose mouth λαλεῖ ὑπέρογκα, and who flatter others for the sake of advantage”. To the same effect P. (ii. 18) speaks of them as uttering ὑπέρογκα µαταιότητος. by which they seduce through the lusts of the flesh those who were just escaping from heathen error. In ii. 19-22 P. is mostly indepen- dent of J., but I have already noticed that ἐλευθερίαν ἐπαγγελλόμενοι may be an echo of J. ver. 4, χάριτα µετατιθέντες eis ἀσέλγειαν. He con- tinues, εἰ γὰρ ἀποφυγόντες τὰ µιάσµατα τοῦ κόσμου ἐν ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτῆρος ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, words which recall what he had said ini. 4, ἀποφυγόντες τῆς ἐν τῷ κόσµω ἐν ἐπιθυμίᾳ φθορᾶς, . . . διὰ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως
.«τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ᾿Ιησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, and goes on to give an impressive warning against the dangers of backsliding, in which he borrows from J. ver. 3, ὑποστρέψαι ἐκ τῆς παραδοθείσης αὐτοῖς ἁγίας ἐντολῆς, Concluding with the proverb of the dog and the sow returning to their foulness after being cleansed from it.
In the third chapter of P. we go back againtoJ. The readers are addressed as ἀγαπητοί in P. iii. 1 asin J. ver. 17. In both, they are bidden to remember the words of the Apostles, warning them against mockers who should come in the last days, walking after their own lusts. To this P. adds (iii. 1, 2) ‘“‘This is the second letter I am writing to you, and in both 1 stir up your sincere mind by calling on you to remember the command of the Lord and Saviour spoken by your Apostles’. Since in i. 16, he had used the phrase ἐγνωρίσαμεν ὑμῖν τὴν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν παρουσίαν, it would seem that P. must himself be included among “your Apostles”. He further bids them “re- member the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets,’” recurring in this to what he had said in i. 19. What are we to understand by the allusion to a previous letter? Our first thought is naturally of 1 P. But is there anything in it which would answer to the description here given? Many have denied this, because they thought that the contents of the prophecy, as given in J. ver. 18, were