a

(d) The author of our Epistle is, according to ii. 3, disciple of the first apostles. Although not a native of Palestine, but a Hellenist, as his pure and select Greek diction shows, he must yet have continued a considerable time in the mother Church, and exercised a preponderating activity in it. If the peculiar conception of Judaism, which looks on it pre-eminently as the typical, yet in itself the imperfect institute of salvation, is conditioned by the special theme of our Epistle, it yet coalesces with the peculiarities of the author's doctrine in all directions, that he, even before his conversion, must have already belonged to some tendency of Judaism, which put the main stress neither on the fulfilment of the law, as James (§ 37, b), nor on the fulfilment of prophecy, as Peter (§ 36, b), but upon the salvation given in the Old Covenant; and this not in the exact fulfilment of the law, as Paul the Pharisee (§ 58, b) thought, but in the priesthood, and in the atonement mediated thereby. How far to our author the insufficiency or the typical character of the Old Testament saving institute had been already given up by the influence of prophecy, it is not possible to say. But he could, at any rate, after he had found in Jesus the Messiah, and with Him the perfect salvation promised to his people, reach certainty about this only by a comparison of the atonement offered in Christianity with that of the Old Testament. Our author further, like Paul, is no novice in respect to theology; but he has not been educated in the school of Pharisaic-rabbinic learning, as the former (§ 58, a), but in a school in which the spirit of Alexandrianism had the ascendency. Yet this culture seems to leave influenced rather the formal side of his method of doctrine. The question who this author is, does not further interest biblical theo

1 The Alexandrian culture of the author has, since Grotius, been admitted by most, but it has often been driven to one-sided exaggeration (comp. BaumgartenCrusius, p. 90, who will have it that all the main thoughts of the Epistle have been borrowed therefrom). But even Neander has shown how completely distinct is the spirit of our Epistle from Alexandrian speculation, and Riehm has convincingly proved that nothing specifically from Philo can be shown in it. But the Alexandrian school in general, to which the author owed his education, must have been ruled rather by the spirit of the Old Testament than by Hellenic philosophy, and must have more really preserved the spiritual connection with Palestinian Judaism, than the peculiarly Alexandrian Gnosis

logy, yet it ought to be noticed that only the supposition of Barnabas being the author has any real traditional basis, and can explain the peculiarities of our Epistle in all directions.

§ 112. The Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude.

The second monument of this epoch, and quite irrespective of its genuineness, is the so-called Second Epistle of Peter, which in its doctrinal method is in any case very nearly allied to the first, but belongs to the post-Pauline period (a). The rise of Libertinism in principle, as also the commencement of complaints as to the delay of the advent, form the historical background for the exhortations of the Epistle (b). How little the former expositions have hit the speciality of its doctrinal method is clear from this, that Alexandrianism has been suspected in it (c). As the Epistle is connected in its main section in the closest way with the Epistle of Jude, which was directed against the first emergence of that Libertinism, it seems suitable to treat of the latter along with it (d).

(a) The question of the genuineness of the Second Epistle, handed down to us under the name of Peter, is not, as sometimes happens, to be regarded as yet settled (comp. Weiss, die Petrinische Frage II. in den theologischen Studien und Kritiken, 1866, 2). If it is genuine, its origin falls shortly after the middle of the seventh decade, and then it is an undoubted monument of this epoch. But if it is not genuine, it must be regarded as such. Its whole doctrinal method is specifically Judaeo-Christian, moving in Old Testament images, histories, and ideas, and it exhibits in all its fundamental lines so manifold affinities with the First Epistle of Peter (comp. the work above, pp. 286-294), that we can imagine the author to

(p. 864). The ingenious attempt by Pfleiderer to explain the teaching of the Epistle from the specifically Philonian view of the contrast between the invisible imperishable archetypal world, and the visible perishable actual world of sense (pp. 325–332 [E. T. ii. 51-60]; comp. Lipsius, § 591, 704, 738), seems to me to mix up together the two quite distinct orders of ideas of the heavenly dwelling of God, as the archetypal holy place, and of the heaven of perfected salvation, already present (i.e. in the divine purpose), and ideally present to Christian hope, which do not throughout need any such explanation; and the assertion that the essential superiority of Christianity is traced back in it to that metaphysical opposition, seems to me to have not been quite established.

have proceeded only from the circle of the first apostles. On the other hand, the Epistle is addressed to the essentially Gentile churches of Asia Minor (i. 1; comp. iii. 1), that had been formed by the Pauline activity; he is aware of the Pauline Epistles (iii. 15, 16), and even the Epistles of the Imprisonment sent to Asia Minor; there are perhaps to be found even traces of the doctrinal language of the Pastoral Epistles. Our Epistle therefore belongs to the monuments of the form of doctrine of the first apostles from the post-Pauline period, even though it is difficult to show any traces of what is specially Pauline in it.

(b) The Second Epistle is hortative, as is the first; but if the position of Christians in the midst of the unbelieving world gave occasion to the exhortation of the latter (§ 36, a), the exhortation of the former is caused by the special dangers which threatened the inner life of the Church. That great corruption of morals, which the Pastoral Epistles prophesied for the last times (§ 110, a), we see here already in part begun. But the most dangerous thing was, that it excused itself for the fundamental principles of Libertinism, which ought to be a consequence of true Christian liberty, and were based on an appeal to misunderstood and misapplied words of Paul and other passages of the Bible. But it was to be expected that this Libertinism would ever more acquire for itself a yet more comprehensive basis, and so would shape itself into a false doctrine, dangerous to the soul. The more our author now borrows for his exhortation, as Peter does (§ 51, d), motives from the doctrine of Christian hope, the more dangerous was it if the foundations of Christian hope itself began to get unsteady. But even already, the delay in the fulfilment of this hope began at that time to be spoken of in the Church in a tone of complaint or of faultfinding (comp. § 111, a), and it was to be expected, that if that whole generation, within which the advent of the Parousia had been confidently expected, should really die out before it came, the frivolous doubt would deny any possibility of its fulfilment, and thus the fundamental grounds for striving after Christian virtue would be undermined. It is this historical situation which gives its special colouring to the exhortation of our Epistle, and conditions its whole contents and compass.

(c) Schmid (ii. pp. 212-217 [E. T. 413–416]) treats of the doctrines of our Epistle in the appendix to his representation of the Petrine doctrinal system, while he brings forward many right, but in no respect exhaustive, considerations as to the connection of the two; and in consequence of a mistaken conception of the eπiyvwσis emphasized in it, he ascribes to the Epistle an Alexandrian colouring, which must stamp it as intermediate between the Petrine and the Johannean systems. While Lechler (p. 191 f.) and Lutterbeck (pp. 179-182) do not go beyond a few unimportant remarks, which give a result unfavourable to its authenticity, Messner (pp. 154-170) has dealt with the doctrinal system of our Epistle in the sense of Schmid in the greatest detail; while, on the other hand, van Oosterzee, p. 30, has mainly sought to prove the relationship of its doctrinal system with that of First Peter. On the side of the Tübingen school, Schwegler (ii. pp. 495–517) has enrolled our Epistle in the history of the development of the Roman Church, and reckoned it along with the pretended Gospel of Mark recommended by him, and the Clementine Recognitions, which represent the complete conclusion of peace. He declares its dogmatic character to be Petrine, and finds Philo's writings to be diligently used in it, although, to be sure, the proof for this adduced by him cannot prove anything (comp. Immer, p. 493 f.). Baur, on the other hand, only asserts that Christianity is conceived of in it theoretically as ἐπίγνωσις, practically as ἀγάπη οι ȧpern, and thus Paulinism and Jewish Christianity were united, in which was shown the tendency of the doctrinal system of the Catholic Church as it was being shaped (p. 297).

(d) The Epistle of Jude, written apparently about the middle of the sixth decade, comes from the brother of James, whom we, § 37, put among the representatives of the early apostolic type of doctrine. It is very natural, on this account, to connect his doctrine with that of this James, and by this Schmid (ii. pp. 140-150 [E. T. 368-374]) and Messner (pp. 99-107) have allowed themselves, in fact, to be misled. In his doctrine of the judgment he is to present a sidepiece to the doctrine of James about the law. But our Epistle neither contains any special doctrine of the judgment, which naturally is spoken of only in his threats against those libertines he is

contending with (whom both regard, but mistakenly, as special false teachers), nor does he show elsewhere any affinity to the Epistle of James beyond the common fundamental principles of Jewish Christianity. Since, now, the Second Epistle of Peter was not only acquainted with the Epistle of Jude, but in its polemic against the libertines (note b) is in great part in harmony with it, their spiritual affinity is thereby established on both sides. In this Epistle there are shown, to be sure, although its method of teaching is rooted in the Old Testament, hints even of the Pauline method in contradistinction from the Epistles of Peter. Yet we shall ever have a right to reckon the otherwise small results, which the Epistle of Jude furnishes to biblical theology, incidentally with the representation of doctrine of the Second Epistle of Peter (comp. Immer, p. 491). Lechler (p. 170 f.) and Lutterbeck (p. 176 f.) have contented themselves with establishing its Jewish-Christian character in general. Reuss has, by the way, made use of both our Epistles as sources for Jewish-Christian theology (i. book iv.). Van Oosterzee has included the Epistle of Jude, § 31, among the doctrinal systems allied to the Petrine. Schwegler has dealt with it only by way of appendix (i. pp. 518-522), in order to prove a tendency to recommend the apostolic tradition, which would be put strangely enough in the mouth of an unknown individual, for whom only the claim was made for the honour to be the brother of the honoured head of the Jewish Christians.

§ 113. The Johannean Apocalypse.

The third monument of this period, in which the inner dangers and the external troubles required a re-quickening of the flagging hope in the nearness of the Parousia, is the Apocalypse (a). This comes apparently from the Apostle John; but it must in any case be considered, without reference to the other Johannean writings, as a witness of the early apostolic Jewish Christianity of this period (b). The prophetic character of the book renders it more difficult to estimate its biblical theological value, but it does not lessen that value (c). In the former conceptions of its method of