hUITied strokes. The apostle, it seems, bad heard of the errors of the fals0 teachers; they had already done mnch harm; they were beginning their evil work in Asia Minor. Perhaps St. J o.de's Epistle was put into St. Pater's hands; he flashed into something of his old passionate impetuosity. St. Jude's burning words fixed themselves upon his memory, and gave their own colour to the diction of the whole Epistle. This hypothesis is, to say the least, not improbable. St. Peter had read the Epistle of St. James and some of those of St. Paul; these writings had considerable influence upon the thought and style of the First Epistle. Is it not possible that a so.bse- quent pero.sal of St. Jo.de's Epistle may not only have given him fresh information, but may have communicated something of its fire and some- thing of its own peculiar character to bis impressionable mind? There is a strongly marked difference of style between the preface of St. Luke's Gospel and the narrative which follows. The preface is in the ordinary style of the writer; the narrative took its colour from the Aramaic doco.- ments which he consulted, or from the Aramaic language of the persons who related to him the events of which they had been eye-witnesses. It is possible, as St. Jerome suggests, that the difference of style between the two Epistles of St. Peter may have arisen from the employment of different interpreters. But there does not seem to be much ground for the hypothesis that St. Peter wrote originally in Aramaic, or dictated his letters to an interpreter. Galilee was a half-Greek country; Peter's own brother bore a Greek name; it is probable that the family always spoke Greek as well as Aramaic. It is scarcely possible that St. Peter could have been ignorant of Greek towards the end of a life of which mu.eh had been spent away from Palestine. We must remember also that the Epistles, especially the second, are short compositions; they furnish us with scarcely sufficient data to enable us to form an authoritative decision on a question so complicated and so delicate as that of style. Thus one commentator says that the Greek of the First Epistle is better than that of the second; another, also a good scholar, pronounces in favoo.r of the Second Epistle as more classical and less Hebraistic than the first. Bo.t if there is a difference, there are also many points of resemblance. We have said that the style of both Epistles is lively and picturesque; in both there are many words which occur nowhere else in the New Testa- ment. Attention will be drawn to them in the notes; but it is, perhaps, desirable for readier comparison to note some of the most remarkable of them here. In the First Epistle we have avayn-v~uas (i. 3), aµ.a.pavTo<; (i. 4), aV£KAaA7JTO'i (i. 8), avatwua1-uvo, (i. 13), 1raTpo1rapa.3oTO'i (i. 18), apTL- 'YO'V7JTO'i and d'.3o.\os (ii. 2), i£pa.Trnµ.a (ii. 5, 9), i1ro1TTru1JJ (ii. 12; iii. 2), V'lrOALJI,?ravw and {J1Toypaµ.µ.o,; (ii. 21), µ.w.\wif, (ii. 24), £JJ,7TAOK~ and h,3vuts (iii. 3), olvocp.\vy{a (iv. 3), ava_xucns (iv. 4), lliOTpwrntuK01ro,; (iv. 15), u.µ.a- pavTLvo,; (v. 4), fyKop.f3wuau0£ (v. 5), u.pxi1ro{p.71v (v. 4), wpvop.n-os (v. 8), uvv£KA£KTOS (v. 13). Among the remarkable words of the Second Epistle ,iii INTRODUCTION TO
are uronµ.os (i. 1), l7ra.yy£Aµ.o. (i. 4), 7ra.pncr£VtyKa.vT£<; (i. 5), µ.vw?ra.,wv (i. 9), mxm,s (i. 14; ii. 1), E7r07r'l"r}S (i. 16), 8,a.vya.,w, a,;;XJLTJp6s, <f,wcr<f,opos (i. 19), ir.O,vcr,s (i. 20), £K7ro.AO.t (ii. 3; iii. 5), 7rAO.crTo<; (ii. 3), TO.pTa.pwcra.<; and crnpoi:s or crnpa.'i.,; (ii. 4), n<f,pwcra.,; (ii. 6), a0£crµ.os (ii. 7; iii. 17), {3'A.lµ.µ.a. (ii. 8), ,,_,dcrJJ,O<; (ii. 10), TOAJLTJTO.{ (ii. 10), µ,wµ.os and f.VTpv<f,aw (ii. 13), 0.1TT17ptKTOS (ii. 14; iii. 16), a.Ka.Ta.?ra.vcrTo<; (ii. 14), ?ra.pa.<f.,pov{a. and l>..£yt,s (ii. 16), ltlpa.µ.a., Kv)ucrµ.a., and /3op/3opos (ii. 22), l.µ.?ra.tyµ.ov~ (iii. 3), po,,7786v (iii. 10), Ka.vcrcfo, (iii. lO, 12), 8vcrvo71To<; and crTp£/3Aovcrtv (iii. 16), crTTJptyµ.os (iii. 17). Forty- eight a?ra,f A£-yoµ.£Va. have been counted in the Second Epistle, fifty-eight in the first. Thus the use of unusual words is characteristic of both Epistles; one or two in the second, as especially -ra.pTa.pwcra.s, may be stranger and more startling than any in the first; but this may be acci- dental (there are but a few such), or it may be due to the difference in subject; and surely an imitator in the second century would be far more likely to copy some of the more unco=on words of the First Epistle, than to show an amount of literary skill which we cannot attribute to any Christian writer of that period, by catching the manner of St. Peter without anything like a servile reproduction of his expressions. Bot although there is no direct imitation, there are words and phrases which occur also in the First Epistle or in St. Peter's speeches as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, sufficient in number and importance to form an element in estimating the genuineness of our Epistle. Thus, in the first chapter, the words lcronµ.os of ver. 1 and -r{µ.,a. of ver. 3 remind us of the -r[µ.ios of 1 Pet. i. 7, 19. The salutation of ver. 2 corresponds exactly with that of the First Epistle. In ver. 3 we have the word a.pE-r~ (a very unusual word in the New Testament) ascribed in a very remarkable way to God himself, as in 1 Pet. ii. 9. In ver. 5 the word £7rtXOP7JY~cra.n: points back to the xopvrE'i of 1 Pet. iv. ll. In ver. 7 we have the <f,iAa.8£A<f,{a. which we have already met with in 1 Pet. i. 22 and iii. 8. In ver. 14 the a.?ro0£crts -rov cr"'lvwµ.a.Tos µ.ov brings to our memory the words of 1 Pet. iii. 21, cra.pK?is ar.o0£crt<; pwov. In ver. 16 E7r07rTa.t reminds us of the E7r07rT£VOVT£!/ of 1 Pet. ii. 12. In the first verse of the second chapter the use of the verb ciryopa.,nv reminds us of the description of the redeeming work of Christ in 1 Pet. i. 18. In ver. 4 the words £ls Kp[crtv TET'l'/PT/11-lvovs turn our thoughts to 1 Pet. i. 4, where the heavenly inheritance is said to be TETTJPT/JJ-WTJV b, o;;pa.vo'is £ls vµa.s. In ver. 7 we have the word a.crtAyna., which occurs also in 1 Pet. iv. 3. In ver. 14 Ka.-rd.pa.s -rtKva. reminds us of the -rtKVa. i11ra.Ko~s of 1 Pet. i. 14, aud O.KO.T0.7r0.1JC1"TOV!/ aµ.a.pT{a.,:; of the 71'(7r0.VTO.t aµ.a.pT{a.s of 1 Pet. iv. I. In cb. iii. 3 the words, E7r' lcrxaTWV 'TWV ~µ..pwv, remind us of the E7r' lcrxd.-rov 'TWV XPovwv of 1 Pet. i. 20, and in ver. 14 the exhortation to be found, /1.crmAo, Kai "-fL"'fL7JToL, po', : s back to the "Lamb without blemish and without spot (ap.wµov ,ca.i a.u7r{l\.ov)" of 1 Pet. i. 19. The use of the word ZStos (1 Pet. iii. 1, 5; eh. i. 3; ii. 16; iii. 17) and the frequent omission of the article may aho be noticed as points of similarity between the two Epistles : dvcurrpo<f,~, conversation, and the cognate verb, are favourite words in both. Age.in, THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER.