feel on first reading it, will imperceptibly vanish. In the first place, the Mss. do not agree in respect to the word nuv. Two wholly omit it. Very many, and those of high authority, (A and C in Griesbach), read v. Admitting this reading, the vμ ☎ whole difficulty vanishes. It is to be conceded to the opponents that vu might have been inserted as an amendment more easily than ; yet when the great number of Mss. which preserve the reading or is taken into the account, the text may be properly regarded as not sufficiently established. Besides, the connexion of the whole passage would seem to be thrown into confusion. Who would undertake to write in this manner: τῆς τῶν ἀποστόλων ἡμῶν ἐντολῆς τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτῆς pos? As many genitives are found as there are words, and these not following each other in proper order. It is manifest that ¿vrons on account of the preceding article is is to be connected with ἀποστόλων, but it does not appear whether τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτήρος is to be referred to ἐντολῆς or to ἀποστόλων. On this account the ancient versions join the words in various ways. The Syriac versions render: "The commandment of our Lord and of our Saviour, which was through the apostles." The Ethiopic "The commandment of the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour." The Vulgate: "Et apostolorum vestrorum, praeceptorum Domini et Salvatoris." It is not wholly at variance with the truth to suppose that in the Mss. used by the authors of the versions, there were various readings, and that the text of the entire passage was not well settled. But from this to draw an argument against the genuineness of the epistle seems to me, I will not say absurd, but altogether uncertain and hazardous. If it were submitted to conjecture, I might believe that the words should stand thus: καὶ τῆς τῶν ἀποστό λων ἐντολῆς τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος. This reading the Ethiopic expresses. The words thus transposed may well be referred to the apostle Peter.

There are, moreover, other traces of fraud, in the view of the opponents, which pertain less to the author of the epistle than to the heretics assailed by him. These heretics, contemporary and before his eyes, he describes as if future and far remote, in order that he might refer his epistle to the apostolic age. Ullmann, who particularly urges this argument, p. 73 seq., remarks that suspicions are awakened from the fact that the author, after he had more than once asserted that the heretics had not yet appeared 2:1 seq., afterwards, forgetting the deception which

he had practised, betrays clearly, the spuriousness of the epistle, inasmuch as in v. 10-15, he describes and opposes them as if actually present. I acknowledge that this argument had weight with me long before I had read the work of Ullmann, and that it was a matter of surprise to me why most of the opponents of the epistle had wholly neglected it, while the commentators either gave it but a slight notice, or had wholly passed it over. Of these individuals, it is sufficient to mention. Grotius, Augusti and Pott. This especially, as Ullmann well saw, must be a serious difficulty with the more diligent student, that after the futures, ἔσονται, παρεισάξουσιν, ἐξακολουθήσου σιν, βλασφημηθήσονται, ἐμπορεύσονται, 2: 1-3, the author of the epistle should subsequently, v. 11, in traces not very distinct indeed and drawn only from the lives of the heretics, describe them as if actually present, using too the aorist tense, and also repeating it in chap. 3: 3 seq. Perhaps it may be said that the future is here used for the present. But in accordance with the authority of Hermann, we must conclude that the future and present are never interchanged; those cases being excepted which are enumerated by Hermann, where the future indicative is placed for the subjunctive present, or where the discourse is respecting an event, whose occurrence is dependent on the will of an agent; but this passage falls within neither of these exceptions. Although the matter stands thus, yet, in my opinion, there are arguments which are not to be contemned, which will prevent one from yielding to the opinion of Ullmann who concludes that there are in this difficult passage clear proofs of the spuriousness of its origin. If we may lawfully come to this conclusion, then other epistles of the New Testament, (those which bear the signature of Paul), may be called in question. In 1 Tim. 4:1 comp. with 6: 21, and 2 Tim. 3: 1 comp. with 3:5, 6, 8. 4:3, the apostle describes heretics who were afterwards to arise, as if they were present. The passage 2 Tim. 3: 1 is very similar to the one in question. The apostle begins ἔσονται οἱ ἄνθρωποι, φίλαυτοι κ. τ. λ. and proceeds καὶ τούτους αποτρέπου—οὗτοι ἀνθίστανται τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. Now, on a more thorough investigation of these passages, it will be readily seen how the apostles might wish to write, and did actually write, in this manner. The future, indeed, pertains to the predictions concerning the heretics, uttered by the Saviour

~

himself and by the prophets, and which were present before the minds of the apostles; these predictions appeared to the apostles to have reference partly to their time; they did not hesitate, consequently, to apply them to the heretics of that period; yet they saw that these prophecies had but a partial fulfilment, therefore they presented them by the future tense in connection with the present, indicating that a part were fulfilled, while another part remained to be fulfilled. Admitting this interpretation, all the difficulties of our epistle, as well as of the others, vanish; no traces of a pious fraud remain, which, if actually found in an epistle, would greatly impeach the author, and place him at the utmost remove from the company of the apostles.

Ullmann, p. 91, 92, indeed, endeavors to excuse or extenuate the fault of the forger of the epistle, yet, in his humane feelings, he rather shelters the man than his production. But, better would it be, in my opinion, if the thing could be done, utterly to renounce the authority of the epistle than to attribute it to the apostle Peter if he was not the author. If the reader does not accord with this opinion of mine, it will be preferable to maintain that the author of the epistle, in this passage, wrote in his own name, and not in that of Peter, forgetting that he was penning a letter in the behalf of the apostle.

SECTION 3.

Alleged discrepancies in sentiment from the doctrine of Christ and the apostles.

There are in modern times, if I may so express myself, new Marcionites, who in all the books of the New Testament, and even in the declarations of Jesus Christ, suspect that there are Jewish and mythic opinions. We have nothing, however, to do with this class of persons here. If the fact were as they represent, scarcely any thing could be drawn in opposition to the genuineness of our epistle from the mythi found in it. Suppose that the apostles did indulge in perverse sentiments of this sort, yet nothing would prevent us from completely vindicating the second Epistle of Peter from the charge of Judaism. We therefore pass it by. A graver accusation seems to be adduced against the authenticity of our epistle, inasmuch as it is urged by a candid critic. Ullmann sincerely acknowledging those things in the gospels, and in the epistles of Paul which seem to

have some alliance with Jewish superstitions, to be yet simple, divine verities, still persuades himself that there are in the second epistle of Peter dogmas very far removed from the pure doctrine of the gospel. Two things in particular are noted by him as mythic; first, the assertion that the world is to be destroyed by fire; secondly, that the earth was formed from water. The author learnedly discusses these matters, pointing out traces of them in the ancient writers.* Yet, he has not shown, which was a thing of the highest importance, that traces of these opinions are wholly wanting in the sacred books, or that they are at variance with the genius of Christianity. Indeed, in reference to these matters, I have come, on established grounds, to far different conclusions.

Let us now take up the sentiment which Ullmann calls mythic. That there is any thing strange or objectionable in the opinion that the world will one day be destroyed by fire, I cannot see. That the world is perishable no one has ever denied, nor can deny; it must perish in some way; what agent for its destruction more likely to be employed than fire, the most active element, which penetrates and dissolves every thing? Our Lord Jesus Christ himself has spoken with sufficient clearness respecting the dissolution of the heavens and of the earth, Matt. 5: 18. 24:35. Luke 21:33; and, though he may not have added in so many words, that all things would be consumed by fire, yet he uttered nothing which forbids us from supposing that he might have taught the same thing. Such a supposition is by no means devoid of probability, since the prophets † intimate repeatedly and in no doubtful manner, that the world is to be destroyed by fire. Moreover, the ancient and the modern doctrinal writers adduce this sentiment as a scriptural one, and not on the authority of our epistle alone. Besides,

* Comp. 1. c. p. 112 seq. 2 Pet. 3: 5 seq.

+ Comp. Ps. 102: 27. (Heb. 1: 11.) Is. 34: 4. 51: 6. 65: 17, but more especially Zeph. 3:8, where the language is as follows: w?

The context shows that the prophet has . קִנְאָתִי תֵּאָכַל כָּל־הָאָרֶצ

reference, not to any particular region or territory, but to the whole earth.

Justin Martyr apol. min. p. 44, and Tatian Orat. ad Graecos. p. 162 oppose the fuлvodov of the Stoics, but maintain the Christian view, The opinions of the moderns respecting the destruction of the world are found in Bretschneider Dogmatik der evang. Luth. Kirche. II. p. 443 seq.

recent writers on physics, influenced simply by arguments derived from nature, have been led to adopt the same opinion.* It seems then that in a sentiment of this sort there is nothing which can properly be called mythical; although it is to be freely conceded that the ancient mythographers delineated and perverted this dogma along with others, in various ways.

Of the same nature is the other sentiment, in relation to the aqueous origin of the earth. The words: y datos nai di ὕδατος συνεστώσα τῷ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγῳ explain the Mosaic cosmogony, particularly the words Gen. 1: 2 лνεμа Dɛov iлegioετο ἐπάνω τοῦ ὕδατος. It is readily granted that in no other passage has Christ or the apostles taught this sentiment. But nowhere else is the question respecting the mode of the creation of the earth agitated; nothing is propounded by them which is at variance with this sentiment. Besides, the principal writers on physics of our times,† guided by physiological arguments alone, have defended the opinion that water was the primary element from which our earth was formed.

Therefore, nothing can be deduced, in my opinion, from either of these sentiments which will invalidate the genuineness of our epistle. They teach something, indeed, in relation to the origin and destruction of the world, but what is asserted is in the form of an universal proposition; the writer does not descend to particulars; there is nothing which betrays the mythic spirit. A mythus may be either historical or philosophical; it so embellishes its sentiment as to confound with it matters of little consequence, drawn, for the most part, from popular customis and maxins. Thus e. g. the Persians transposed the doctrine relating to the destruction of the world into a mythus, corrupting the simple fundamental idea with various adjuncts springing from the genius of the people. Opinions, however, to which science alone, resting on physical grounds, has relation, are not rightly named mythi; unless other circumstances,

* Kant in his treatise: Ende aller Dinge, in Berliner Monatschr. June 1792; also Vermischte Schriften ed. Tieftrunk, Vol. I. p. 422. III. 249 seq.; also Physische Geographie 1. p. 225 seq. Bode Betracht. über das Weltgebäude. p. 198 seq.

The different opinions of learned men on this subject may be found in "Krüger Gesch. der Urwelt, Lips. 1822. I. p. 130 sq. Newton, Burnet, Silberschlag, and De Luc have adduced the general physical arguments in favor of the aqueous origin of the earth.