(3) The priority of P. is confirmed by the prevailing use of the future tense in regard to the innovators, whereas J. uses the past or the present; cf. P. ii. 1 ἔσονται, παρεισάξουσιν, il, 2 ἐξακολουθήσουσιν, βλασφημηθήσεται, ii. 3 ἐμπορεύσονται, with J. ver. 4 παρεισεδύησαν, ver. 8 µιαίνουσιν, ver. 10 βλασφημοῦσιν and the aorists in ver. 11.
Dealing with these objections in order, we may concede that, if both Epistles are genuine, we should rather have expected the borrow- ing to be on the side of the more obscure. Yet the probability is not one that can be pressed. Milton and Handel borrowed from men much inferior to themselves ; Isaiah borrows from. Micah, and 1 P. from James. Ifon the other hand we find reason to believe that 2 P. was not written by the Apostle, the objection only amounts to this, that, though St. Peter himself had borrowed from James in 1 P., an admirer of St. Peter could not have borrowed from Jude in 2 P. With regard to obj. (2), I have pointed out in my note that the word πάλαι in J. ver. 4 cannot refer to P., but must be understood of the orophecy of Enoch, quoted in J. ver. 15, in which the word ἀσεβεῖς (which sums up the judgment in ver. 4), occurs no less than four times (if we include the cognate verb and abstract noun). I have also pointed out that J. in ver. 17 refers not to any one writer, but to the oral teaching of the Apostles, and that P. in iii. 2 does not profess to utter any new prophecy, but simply adds to what Jude had said, that the teaching of the Apostles rested upon the authority of Christ, and that it was in agreement with the teaching of the prophets. As re- gards obj. (3), the difference of tense, P. is not consistent in his use of the future. We have the pres. in ii. 10 τρέµουσιν, ti. 17 εἰσίν, Π. 18 δελεάζουσιν, iii, 5 λανθάνει, from which we should conclude that the innovators had already begun their work, if not among those to whom he writes, yet among other churches, to which J. may have addressed himself. Ifthe former Epistle is a product of the second century, the writer may have used the future tense to give it verisimilitude, while falling at times into the present from inadvertence.
(4) Spitta asks why, if P. is borrowing from J., he makes no re- ference to him, as he does to Paul? It might be enough to ask in reply, ‘‘ Why, if J. borrows from P., does he make no definite acknow- ledgment of the fact’””? But we have a parallel case, though no doubt on a smaller scale, in the unacknowledged borrowings from the Epistle of James in 1 Peter, on which see the Introduction to my edition of James, pp. xcviii to cii. The reason however for the mention of Paul in 2 P. is quite distinct from the acknowledgment of a debt. The libertines claimed his authority in behalf of their own views (cf. J. ver. 4), and it was necessary for P. to protest against this.