re on
the margin of a Canon which was in process of formation. There is good
reason for believing that the Pauline Epistles occupied this position
at a time when men who had known some of the apostles were still
living, and perhaps earlier. The manner in which St. Peter has made
use of St. Paul's work in his First Epistle, makes it quite possible
for us to think that he believed in the peculiar inspiration of his
great comrade. And it is an interesting fact that the Syriac _Doctrine
of Addai_ in speaking of the Epistles of St. Paul, adds, "which Simon
Peter sent us from the city of Rome."

[Sidenote: Character and Contents.]

The key-word to the Epistle is not _hope_, as in 1 Peter, but
_knowledge_ (i. 3, 8; ii. 20). We find, as in 1 Peter, a fondness or
the word "glory." But in 1 Peter glory seems to be represented as
given to Christ after His sufferings, and promised to Christians in the
future after their sufferings (1 Pet. i. 11; iv. 13; v. 1). Here glory
is rather spoken of as manifested in all the new dispensation, and
especially at the Transfiguration (i. 3, 17). The apostle {253}
appeals to the fact that he witnessed the Transfiguration as a
guarantee of his prophecy of the second "coming" of Christ. He finds
another warrant in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and asserts
that prophecy is not a matter for a man's own private unaided
interpretation, inasmuch as it was an utterance prompted by the Holy
Spirit (i. 19-21).

This description of true religious knowledge is followed by an
arraignment of false prophets and speculative heresy. It is possible
that the teaching of definitely false doctrine was already combined
with previously existing immoral practice. The verse (ii. 1) in which
the writer speaks of false _teachers_, refers to the rise of these
heretics as future. But in other verses of the chapter the
"self-willed" teachers are spoken of as already active. We gather from
iii. 16 that the licence which is so sternly rebuked was a system in
which St. Paul's doctrine of justification by faith was represented as
a justification of vile indulgence. Although this part of the Epistle
is a paraphrase of Jude, it is not a mere reproduction. A new feature
in 2 Peter is that the heretics were sceptical concerning the second
coming of Christ (iii. 4). They argued that since the death of "the
fathers," _i.e._ the first followers of Christ, the world continued as
before. St. Peter urges that the