After writing the former epistle to the Christians of Asia Minor,
Peter probably continued to reside in Babylon, since no occurrence is
mentioned which could draw him away, in his old age, from the retired
but important field of labor to which he had previously confined
himself. Still exercising a paternal watchfulness, however, over
his distant disciples, his solicitude before long again excited
him to address them in reference to their spiritual difficulties
and necessities. The apprehensions expressed in the former epistle,
respecting their maintenance of a pure faith in their complicated
trials, had in the mean time proved well-grounded. During the
distracting calamities of Nero’s persecution, false teachers had
arisen, who had, by degrees, brought in pernicious heresies among them,
affecting the very foundations of the faith, and ending in the most
ruinous consequences to the belief and practice of some. This second
epistle he wrote, therefore, to stir up those who were still pure in
heart, to the remembrance of the true doctrines of Christianity, as
taught by the apostles; and to warn them against the heretical notions
that had so fatally spread among them. Of the errors complained of, the
most important seems to have been the denial of the judgment, which had
been prophesied so long. Solemnly re-assuring them of the certainty of
that awful series of events, he exhorted them to the steady maintenance
of such a holy conduct and godly life, as would fit them to meet the
great change which he so sublimely pictured, whenever and however
it should occur; and closed with a most solemn charge to beware lest
they also should be led away by the error of the wicked, so as to
fall from their former steadfast adherence to the truth. In the former
part of the epistle he alluded affectingly to the nearness of his own
end, as an especial reason for his urgency with those from whom he
was so soon to be parted. “I think it meet as long as I am in this
tabernacle, to stir you up to the remembrance of these things, knowing
as I do that the putting off of my tabernacle is very near, according
to what our Lord Jesus Christ made known to me.” This is an allusion
to the prophecy of his Master at the meeting on the lake, after
the resurrection, described in the last chapter of John’s gospel.
“Therefore,” writes the aged apostle, “I will be urgent that you, after
my departure, may always hold these things in your memory.” All which
seems to imply an anticipated death, of which he was reminded by the
course of natural decay, and by the remembrance of the parting prophecy
of his Master, and not by anything very imminently dangerous or
threatening in his external circumstances, at the time of writing. This
was the last important work of his adventurous and devoted life; and
his allusions to the solemn scenes of future judgment were therefore
most solemnly appropriate. Those to whom he wrote could expect to see
his face no more, and his whole epistle is in a strain accordant with
these circumstances, dwelling particularly on the awful realities of a
coming day of doom.
The first epistle of Peter has always been received as authentic, ever
since the apostolic writings were first collected, nor has there ever
been a single doubt expressed by any theologian, that it was what it
pretended to be; but in regard to the epistle just mentioned as his
second, and now commonly so received, there has been as much earnest
discussion as concerning any other book in the sacred canon, excepting,
perhaps, the epistle to the Hebrews and John’s Revelation. The weight
of historical testimony is certainly rather against its authenticity,
since all the early Fathers who explicitly mention it, speak of it
as a work of very doubtful character. In the first list of the sacred
writings that is recorded, this is not put among those generally
acknowledged as of divine authority, but among those whose truth
was disputed. Still, quotations from it are found in the writings of
the Fathers, in the first, second and third centuries, by whom it is
mentioned approvingly, although not specified as inspired or of divine
authority. But even as late as the end of the fourth century there
were still many who denied it to be Peter’s, on account of supposed
differences of style observable between this and the former epistle,
which was acknowledged to be his. The Syrian Christians continued to
reject it from their canon for some time after; for in the old Syriac
version, executed before A. D. 100, this alone, of all books supposed
to have been written before that translation that are now considered
a part of the New Testament, is not contained, though it was regarded
by many among them as a good book, and is quoted in the writings of
one of the Syrian Fathers, with respect. After this period, however,
these objections were soon forgotten, and from the fifth century
downwards, it has been universally adopted into the authentic
canon, and regarded with that reverence which its internal evidences
of truth and genuineness so amply justify. Indeed, it is on its
internal evidence, almost entirely, that its great defense must be
founded,――since the historical testimonies, (by common confession of
theologians,) will not afford that satisfaction to the investigator,
which is desirable on subjects of this nature; and though ancient usage
and its long-established possession of a place in the inspired code
may be called up in its support, still there will be occasion for the
aid of internal reasons, to maintain a positive decision as to its
authenticity. And this sort of evidence, an examination by the rigid
standards of modern critical theology proves abundantly sufficient
for the effort to which it is summoned; for though it has been said,
that since the ancients themselves were in doubt, the moderns cannot
expect to arrive at certainty, because it is impossible to get more
_historical_ information on the subject, in the nineteenth century,
than ecclesiastical writers had within reach in the third and fourth
centuries; still, when the question of the authenticity of the work
is to be decided by an examination of its contents, the means of
ascertaining the truth are by no means proportioned to the antiquity
of the criticism. In the early ages of Christianity, the science of
faithfully investigating truth hardly had an existence; and such has
been the progress of improvement in this department of knowledge, under
the labors of modern theologians, that the writers of the nineteenth
century may justly be considered as possessed of far more extensive and
certain means of settling the character of this epistle by _internal_
evidence, than were within the knowledge of those Christian fathers
who lived fourteen hundred years ago. The great objection against
the epistle in the fourth century, was an alleged dissimilarity of
style between this and the former epistle. Now, there can be no doubt
whatever that modern Biblical scholars have vastly greater means for
judging of a rhetorical question of this kind, than the Christian
fathers of the fourth century, of whom those who were Grecians were
really less scientifically acquainted with their own language, and no
more qualified for a comparison of this kind, than those who live in
an age when the principles of criticism are so much better understood.
With all these superior lights, the results of the most accurate modern
investigations have been decidedly favorable to the authenticity of
the second epistle ascribed to Peter, and the most rigid comparisons of
its style with that of the former, have brought out proofs triumphantly
satisfactory of its identity of origin with that,――proofs so much the
more unquestionable, as they are borrowed from coincidences which must
have been entirely natural and incidental, and not the result of any
deliberate collusion.
This account of the second epistle is also taken from Hug and
Michaelis, to whom, with Lardner, reference may be made for the
details of all the arguments for and against its authenticity.
As to the place and time of writing this epistle, it seems quite
probable that it was written where the former one was, since there
is no account or hint whatever of any change in Peter’s external
circumstances; and that it was written some months after it, is
unquestionable, since its whole tenor requires such a period to have
intervened, as would allow the first to reach them and be read by them,
and also for the apostle to learn in the course of time the effects
ultimately produced by it, and to hear of the rise of new difficulties,
requiring new apostolical interference and counsel. The first seems
to have been directed mainly to those who were complete Jews, by birth
or by proselytism, as appears from the terms in which he repeatedly
addresses them in it; but the sort of errors complained of in this
epistle seem to have been so exclusively characteristic of Gentile
converts, that it must have been written more particularly with
reference to difficulties in that part of the religious communities of
those regions. He condemns and refutes certain heretics who rejected
some of the fundamental truths of the Mosaic law,――errors which no
well-trained Jew could ever be supposed to make, but which in motley
assemblages of different races, like the Christian churches, might
naturally enough arise among those Gentiles, who felt impatient at the
inferiority in which they seemed implicated by their ignorance of the
doctrines of the Jewish theology, in which their circumcised brethren
were so fully versed. It seems to have been more especially aimed at
the rising sect of the Gnostics, who are known to have been heretical
on some of the very points here alluded to. Its great similarity, in
some passages, to the epistle of Jude, will make it the subject of
allusion again in the life of that apostle.