othing in the
epistle clearly to decide; though, forming our judgment by the aid
of other sources of information, we should conclude in favor of
the first of these three conceptions as most probably expressing
the writer's thought.

5 Griesbuch's reading of the 25th verse of Jude.

The second chapter of the epistle is almost an exact parallel with
the Epistle of Jude: in many verses it is the same, word for word.
It threatens "unclean, self willed, unjust, and blaspheming men,"
that they shall "be reserved unto the day of judgment, to be
punished." It warns such persons by citing the example of the
rebellious "angels, who were thrust down into Tartarus, and
fastened in chains of darkness until the judgment." It speaks of
"cursed children, to whom is reserved the mist of darkness
forever." Herein, plainly enough, is betrayed the common notion of
the Jews of that time, the conception of a dismal under world,
containing the evil angels of the Persian theology, and where the
wicked were to be remanded after judgment and eternally
imprisoned.

The third and last chapter is taken up with the doctrine of the
second coming of Christ. "Be mindful of the words of the prophets
and apostles, knowing this first, that in the last days there
shall be scoffers, who will say, 'Where is the promise of his
coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as
from the beginning.'" The writer meets this skeptical assertion
with denial, and points to the Deluge, "whereby the world that
then was, being overflowed with water, perished." His argument is,
the world was thus destroyed once, therefore it may be destroyed
again. He then goes on to assert positively relying for authority
on old traditions and current dogmas that "the heavens and the
earth which are now are kept by the word of God in store to be
destroyed by fire in the day of judgment, when the perdition of
ungodly men shall be sealed." "The delay of the Lord to fulfil his
promise is not from procrastination, but from his long suffering
who is not willing that any should perish." He waits "that all may
come to repentance." But his patience will end, and "the day of
God come as a thief in the night, when the heavens, being on fire,
shall pass away with a crash, and the elements melt with fervent
heat." There are two ways in which these declarations may be
explained, though in either case the events they refer to are to
occur in connection with the physical reappea