I ? PRINCETON, N. J. ' Division Section , 5/5^^ Number THE GENEEAL EPISTLES OF SS. JAMES, PETER, JOHN^ AND JUDE GEOPvGE BELL & SONS, LONDON : YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, AND NEW YORK : GG, FIFTH AVENUE. CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. THE GENERAL EPISTLES OF SS. JAMES, PETEE, JOHN AND JUDE WITH NOTES CRITICAL AND PRACTICAL BY THE REV. M. F. SADLER RECTOR OF HOMTOiN AND PREBENDARY OF WELLS SECOND EDITION LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1895 CHISWICK PRRSS : — CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. WHO WAS ST. JAMES? '"'PHEKE is mucli difficulty in ascertaining who the holy man -*- was who wrote this Epistle. Three i^ersons bearing the name of James (Jacobus, one of the most common of Jewish names,) occupied prominent positions in the earliest times of the Church. One, the son of Zebedee, was martyred by Herod (" He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword," Acts xii. 2). No one, however, competent to speak on the subject, has ever ascribed this Epistle to him. The second is described in the four lists of the Apostles as the son of Alphseus. He was one of the original twelve, and never during the time covered by the New Testament narrative is said to have been an unbeliever. The third is the James, the Lord's brother of Gal. i. 19, who was certainly the Bishop or President of the Church of Jerusalem, to whom St. Paul, on his retui'n from his third journey, " went in, and all the elders," it is said, " were present." That he was the superintendent or Bishop of the Church at Jerusalem is also evident from this, that he presided at the meeting or council in v,'hich it was ruled that the Gentiles should not be called upon to submit to the Jewish law. Now the question arises, did these two names — James the son of Alphseus, and James the brother of the Lord — belong to the same person ? Many think that they did ; among them the late Dean of Rochester in the " Speaker's Bible," the late Bishop AVordsworth, Mr. Blunt, and others. This view is attended with what is to me an insurmountable difficulty, that the James, who with three others, Joses, Simon, and Judas, is called by the Nazarenes " the VI INTRODUCTION TO brethren of Jesus," was certainly not a believer when Jesus taught in the synagogue at Nazareth some time after the calling of the Apostles, and when the i^eople scornfully asked, " Are not his brethren, James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon ? And his sisters, are they not all with us ? " (Matth. xiii. 55), and later on when it is said in John vii. 5, " Neither did his brethren believe in him." But if he was not the son of Alphseus, of whom was he the son ? We cannot tell with certainty the name of his father, but we can tell with the utmost certainty the name of his mother — that she was a certain Mary who stood by the Cross, and is four times said to be the mother of James. We will begin our examination with the first notice, " Is not his mother called Mary ? and his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas ? And his sisters, are they not all with us ? " (Matth. xiii. 55). The second notice is in the same Gospel, " And many women beholding afar off ... . among which was Mary Mag- dalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses." Taking these passages together, as being in the same book and from the same hand, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the James and Joses were the same as those mentioned in Matth. xiii. 55, and that this Mary was their mother. The notices in St. Mark are the same, and lead to the same conclusion, only in that in Mark xv. 41, we read, "Mary the mother of James the less, and of Joses," and (xvi. 1) " Mary, the mother of James." In St. Luke (xxiv. 10), we read, " Mary, the mother of James," *• mother " being supplied. Now this Mary is called in John xis. 25, the (wife) of Cleophas, or rather Clopas, Cleopas being a very different word, differently derived. If the Clopas is the same as Ali)haBUS, then the Apostle St. James was one of the original twelve, and the inferences we have drawn from the fact that the Nazarenes claimed him as on their side, rather than on the side of Jesus, falls to the ground, and must be otherwise accounted for. I have considered all this very fully in my Excursus at the end of my notes on St. Mark on " The brethren of the Lord," and must refer the reader to that essay. St. James must have been either the Apostle James, the son of AlphsBUs, or the son of a Mary, in all probability the sister of the Virgin, who stood by the Cross, but the name of whose husband has not been preserved. THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. Vll NOTICES OF ST. JAMES IN SCRIPTUEE. The first mention of James as one of the Lord's brethren seems to imply that during the time of Christ's ministry he did not accept His claims to be the Messiah, but that at the time of the Piesurrection all doubts were dispelled, and the brethren of the Lord are joined with the Apostles in those days of prayer and sup- plication which preceded the descent of the Holy Ghost. His name is not mentioned till St. Peter's departure after his imprisonment, when he sent the, message, "Go shew these things unto James and to the brethren" (Acts xii. 17). Slight though this prominent mention of him seems to be, it can only be explained by what we find shortly afterwards, that he had been chosen to be the Bishop or President of the Church of Jerusalem. In this capacity we find him presiding at the council held at Jerusalem respecting the circumcision of the Gentiles, and delivering his opinion with a considerable degree of authority (Acts xv. 18), " Wherefore my sentence is {di6 tyu; Koivio) that we trouble not them," &c. Previous to this he had an interview with St. Paul shortly after his conver- sion, of which the only record is in the words, " Other of the Apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother " (Gal. i. 19). And in Gal, ii. 9, " And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me," &c. The last notice of him is in the account of an interview which St. Paul had with him in Acts sxi. 18-26, when he counselled Paul to adopt a Jewish ritual observance, in order to show to the bigoted Jews that " he walked orderly and kept the law." Nothing more is said of him in the Scripture narrative. In his Epistle he styles himself " A servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus." And St. Jude speaks of himself as the " Servant of Christ, and brother of James." We have, however, a full account of his martyrdom given us by Eusebius, (Eccles. Hist. ii. 23), chiefly taken from Hegesippus which it will be well to reproduce, since it bears very directly, as we shall show, on a question of importance connected with the con- tents of the Epistle. (P. 64) : " But the Jews, after Paul had appealed to Caesar and had been sent by Festus to Eome, frustrated in their hope of entrapping him by the snares they had laid, turn them- selves against James, the brother of the Lord, to whom the ejiis- copal seat at Jerusalem was committed by the Apostles. The vm INTRODUCTION TO following were their nefarious measures also against him. Con- ducting him into a public place, they demanded that he should re- nounce the faith of Christ before all the people ; but, contrary to the sentiments of all, with a firm voice, much beyond their expec- tation, he declared himself fully before the whole multitude, and confessed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, our Saviour and Lord. Unable to bear any longer the testimony of the man who on account of his elevated virtue and piety was deemed the most just of men, they seized the opportunity affoi'ded by the prevailing anarchy, and slew him. For as Festus died about this time in Judaea, the province was without a governor and head. But as to the manner of James' death, it has been already stated in the words of Clement, that he was thrown from a wing of the Temple, and beaten to death with a club. Hegesippus also, who flourished nearest the days of the Apostles, in the fifth book of his Commen- taries gives the most accurate account of him thus : ' But James, the brother of the Lord, who, as there were many of this name, was surnamed the Just by all, from the days of our Lord until now, received the government' of the Church with the Apostles. This Apostle was consecrated from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor fermented liquors, and abstained from animal food. A razor never came upon his head, he never anointed with oil, and never used a bath. He alone was allowed to enter the sanctuary. He never wore woollen, but linen garments. He was in the habit of entering the Temple alone, and was often found upon his bended knees, and interceding for the forgiveness of the people ; so that his knees became hard as camels' in consequence of his habitual supplication ; and, indeed, on account of his ex- ceeding great piety, he was called the Just, and Oblias (or Zaddick and Ozleam), which signifies justice and protector of the people. Some of the seven sects of the people mentioned by me above in my commentaries, asked him what was the door to Jesus ? and he answered that he was the Saviour. From which some believed that Jesus was the Christ They came therefore together, and said to James, " We entreat thee restrain the people who are led astray after Jesus, as if he were the Christ. We entreat thee to persuade all that are coming to the feast of the Passover rightly concerning Jesus, for we have all confidence in thee. For we and all the people bear testimony that thou art just, and thou respectest not persons. Persuade therefore the people not to be led astray by THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. IX Jesus, for wo and all the people have great confidence m thee. Stand therefore upon a wing of the Temple that thou mayest be conspicuous on high, and thy words may be easily heard by all the people." The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees therefore placed James on a wing of the Temple, and cried out to him, " O thou just man, whom we ought all to believe, since the people are led astray after Jesus that was crucified, declare to us what is the door to Jesus that was cruci- fied ? " And he answered with a loud voice, " Why do ye ask me respecting Jesus the Son of man ? He is now sitting in the heavens on the right hand of great Power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven." And as many were confirmed and gloried in this testimony of James, and said " Hosanna to the Son of David," these same priests and Pharisees said to one another,. " We have done badly in affording such testimony to Jesus, but let us go up and cast him down, that they may dread to believe in him." And they cried out, "Oh, oh, Justus himself is deceived ; " and going up, therefore, they cast down the just man, saying to one another, "Let us stone James the Just ; " and they began to stone him, and, turning round, he knelt down saying, " I entreat thee, O Lord God and Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." .... And one of them, a fuller, beat out the brains of Justus with the club that he used to beat out clothes. Thus he suffered martyrdom.' Such is the more ample testimony of Hegesippus. So admirable a man indeed was James, and so celebrated among all for his justice, that even the wiser part of the Jews were of opinion that this was the cause of the immediate siege of Jerusalem, which happened to them for no other reason than the crime against him. Josephus, also, has not hesitated to superadd this testimony in his works : ' These things,' says he,, 'happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was the brother of Him that is called Christ, and whom the Jews had slain, notwithstanding his pre-eminent justice.' " GENUINENESS AND CANONICITY OF THE EPISTLE. A considerable space of time elapsed before the Epistle was re- cognized throughout the Church as the work of St. James, and one of the canonical books of the New Testament. X INTRODUCTION TO It is not quoted in any of the Apostolic fatliers — Clement, Barnabas, Irenaeus, or Polycarp — tliough there appears a very clear reference to it in the " Pastor of Hermas," Book ii., Command- ment is. : " Cleanse therefore your hearts from all the vanities of this world, and from the words already mentioned, and ask of the Lord and you will receive all, and in none of yoi;r requests will you be denied, which you will make to the Lord without doubting. But if you doubt in your heart, you will receive none of your re- quests. For those who doubt regarding God are double-souled, and obtain not one of their requests. But those who are perfect in faith ask everything trusting in the Lord ; and they obtain because they ask nothing doubting, and not being double-souled." There seems a clear reminiscence here of James i. 5-7. "C^ There seems no_cl£ar quot ation from it iji_ Jrenaeus. ^ gmeut ef Alexandria, or Tertullian. The only references in these fathers are to passages which are common to it and other parts of the New Testament, as to ii. 8, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The first undoubted reference to it is in Origen's " De Principiis," book i., ch. iii. : "For to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin " (Jas. iv. 17). He also quotes St. James's Epistle by name, citing ii. 20 : " Faith without works is dead.'' (From commentary on St. John, quoted in Alford's introduction to this Epistle.) Eusebius classes it amongst the books respecting the canonicity of which doubts were entertained. " Eccles. Hist.," book iii., chap. 25, after naming the books which were universally received as genuine — the Gospels, Acts, Epistles of St. Paul, and First of John, and First of Peter, and Eevelation — he adds, " Among the disputed, although they are well known and approved by many, is reputed that called the Epistle of James and Jude, also the Second Epistle of Peter, and those called the Second and Third of John." He had also alluded to it in a previous section (ii. 23). " These accounts are given respecting James, who is said to have written the first of the Epistles General, but it is to be observed that it is considered spurious. Not many, indeed, of the ancients have mentioned it, and not even that called the Epistle of Jude, which is also one of the seven called Catholic Epistles. Neverthe- less we know that these, with the rest, are publicly used in most of the Churches." THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. XI It is found in the Syriac Version (Peschito), though that version does not contain the Second and Third epistles of John, that of Jude, and the Apocalypse. It was recognized as canonical by the Council of Carthage, a.d. 397, and was quoted by some of the most illustrious of the Greek Fathers — Athanasius, both the Cyrils, Gregory of Nazianzen, Epiphanius, &c. At the time of the Eefor- mation, the doubts respecting it were revived, particularly by Erasmus, Cardinal Cajetan, Luther, and others, and since by Grotius, Wetstein, and several moderns, as Schleiermacher, De Wette, and others. It is to be remembered that, though most holy and practical in its teaching.n o doctrine, or, in fact, n n-mnval n.R pfict of rJivi^ti pnity depe nds upon it. Its assertion of the necessity of works f as I have shown in my Excursus on chap, ii.) only j'ollows up the still more em phatic teaching of St. Paul on the same matter. It contains no allusion to the Atonement, to the Kesurrection, to the Christian Sacraments, to the laying on of hands either in confirmation or ordination, and no theory of Church government, and no historical allusion ; so that it presents less opportunity for citation than any other book of the New Testament. ITS OBJECT. The object of St. James in writing the Epistle seems to have been very simple. There were certain evils in the Christian com- munity over which he presided which he desired to correct ; and in this Epistle, so far as words of weight and authority are con- cerned, he endeavours so to do. These evils were "double minded- ness " (i. 1-8) ; "impatience under trial" (i. 12) ; " laying the blame of temptation upon God " (i. 13) ; " self-deception, as shown in hearing and not doing" (i. 22) ; "false notions of God's service " /Threskeia) ; " shameful partiality in the conduct of religious assemblies " (ii. 1) ; " ignoring Christian works " (ii. 10-2G) ; " the imrestrained license of the tongue " (iii. 1) ; " quarrellings" (wars, fightings) (iv. 1) ; " neglect of committing themselves to the providence of God " (iv. 13) ; " oppression of the poor " (v. 1) ; "impatience" (v. 7); "swearing" (v. 12); ending with direc- tions respecting the visitation of the sick (v. 14), and the con- Xll INTRODUCTION TO version of lliose in error (v. 19). But he appears not to have confined bis reproofs to evils and shortcomings amongst Chris- tians. The accQunt of his martyrdom, with the short notice of him in Eusebitis, show^thaTEeTiadextraordinary influence amongst the Jews generally ; andTthis goes far to accounrJof~the~aBsence~of specific^Ghfiinan^3ogniarwEich_3ierv^^ hQ.;3jlaisigd;;;;^^^C^ristimr'^gma^as_jili^^ "Basis of_holy liviog. thejess woul^Tnebelikely to influence~EIieTafge circle of those_outside the pale^ of jtjie Christian _Ciiurch ; so that, if he desired his words to reach unconverTed Jews, he must keep the Catholic faith in the background, till by other means — as by preaching — the outsiders were prepared to receive it. If any Christian doubts the rightfulness of this, let him remember the words of the Lord to His Apostles : " I have many things to say nnto you; but ye cannot bear them now" (John xvi. 12); and those of St. Paul to the Corinthians : " I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able " (1 Cor. iii. 2). And, indeed, when we come to think of it, we shall see that there must have been a certain reticence in dealing with Jews upon some of the leading truths of Christianity (especially upon the God- head of the Lord, and His Equality with the Father), much more than was necessary in dealing with the Gentiles. For the Jews had been educated in a religion, the first article of which was the absolute unity of God, so that it would sound the utmost heresy to them to be told that in this unity there was a Son and a Spirit, whereas the Gentiles were educated in the belief of a plurality of Gods ; and there would be little or no religious feeling on their part against accepting the truth that the supreme Being was at the same time One and Three — One in one sense, and Three in another. In order to realize this fact, let us set side by side in our minds two books of Scripture which were undoubtedly, in the first place, written for Jews, viz., the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Epistle of James, and compare them with two which were unquestionably written for Gentiles — the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Colossians. How undogmatic those to the Jews are compared with those to the Gentiles ; and though the Lord's Divinity may be inferred — in fact, must be inferred — from St. Matthew, yet no- where is it asserted as it is in the opening verses of St. John ; and THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. XIU there is nothing in St. James which at all corresponds to Coloss. i. 16 : " By him (the Son of God) were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him : and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." DATE. With respect to the date of this Epistle it is supposed by Alford and Plumptre to have been written as early as a.d. 45, but by Wordsworth and others as late as a.d. 61 ; but there is no ground, except the merest conjecture, for either the earlier or the later date, I believe the later most accords with the contents of the Epistle. INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. The First Epistle of St. Peter is placed by Eusebius among the books said never to have been disputed. Clement of Rome, on Epistle to Corinthians (chap, slix.), quotes 1 Pet. iv. 8 : " Lovo covereth a multitude of sins." Polycarp (chap, i.) cites 1 Pet.i. 8: " In whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable," Also (chap, ii.) : " Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing." Also (chap, viii.) : " Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." Also (chap, x.): "Love the brotherhood." Irenaeus quotes St. Peter byname ("Against Heresies," iv. 9. 2) : '' And Peter says in his Epistle, ' Whom not seeing ye love ; in whom, though now ye see him not, ye have believed, ye shall re- joice with joy unspeakable.' " Again (ii. 17. 9) : "Rehearsers of those super-celestial mysteries ' which the angels desire to look into '" (1 Pet. i. 12). Also (iv. 16. 5) : " For this reason Peter says that we have not liberty as a cloak of maliciousness." Clement of Alexandria also quotes Peter by name (" Miscel- lanies," iv. 20) : "Peter in his Epistle says: 'Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold tempta- tions ; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious ' " (1 Pet. i. ^-9). Again (" Miscel." iii. 18) : " And Peter says similar things in his Epistle, ' That your faith and hope may be in God,' " &c. And again (" Miscel." vi. 6) : " Do not [the Scriptures] show that the Lord preached the Gospel to those that perished in the flood, or rather had been chained, and to those kept 'in ward and guard'" (1 Pet.iii. 19, 20). In Tertullian, in an index I have now before me, I find thirty- three references to 1 Peter. Thus "Scorpiace," 14 : "Peter no doubt had likewise said that the king, indeed, must be honoured " (1 Pet. INTRODUCTION TO FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. XV ii. 13). Again (" Scorpiace "), "Addressing the Christians of Pontus, Peter, at all events, says : ' How great, indeed, is the glory, if ye suffer patiently, without being punished as evildoers .... even hereunto were ye called, since Christ also suffered for us, leaving you himself as an example,' " &c. (1 Pet. ii. 20). FOE WHAT EEADERS WAS THIS EPISTLE INTENDED? The Apostle enumerates certain provinces in the first verse which, taken together, comprise by far the greater part of what we call Asia Minor, but the further question arises, does he send his Epistle to the converted Jews in those provinces, or to the Christians generally ? I think the latter, for the " sojourners of the dispersion " seems a wide designation, and when compared with the "strangers (sojourners) and pilgrims" of chap. ii. 11, seems to embrace Gentile Christians, who from the moment of their becoming Christians, must have begun to feel that " here they had no continuing city." That St. Peter should be supposed to have in his eye Jewish converts almost eschisively seems to arise from a misconception of the intention of the division of labour alluded to in Gal. ii. And if we look at the maps of St. Paul's travels we shall see that of the five provinces mentioned by St. Peter, St. Paul had never set his foot in three, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Bithynia, and even in Galatia his journeys by no means covered anything but a small part of the province, so that there is no reason whatsoever for supposing that the Epistle was not intended for the benefit of all the Christians dwelling in the provinces to which it was directed. THE DESIGN OB PURPORT OF THE EPISTLE. We are told what this is at the conclusion. It is to exhort and to testify that " this " which is described in the Epistle is the true grace of God wherein they stood. Now we shall find on examination that the whole Epistle con- XVI INTRODUCTION TO sists of the settiug forth of grace, and of exhortation to continue in. that grace. It begins with the grace of Election. God the Father in Tlis •foreknowledge chose them to the grace of obedience and sprinkling of the Blood of His Son (i. 2). He chose them to Eegeneration, to a lively hope based on the Resurrection (i. 3). He chose them that they should be kept by faith unto salvation (i. 5). He chose them that they should rejoice under the severest trials, BO that their faith might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ (i. C). He chose them to a grace concerning which the prophets had enquired and searched •diligently, and into which the angels had desired to look(i. 11, 12). He exhorts them, on this account, to gird up the loins of their mind •and to be holy as He Who hath called them is holy (i. 13-15). He reminds them that they were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious Blood of Christ (i. 19). Again he reminds them of their new birth, not of corruptible, but of incor- ruptible seed (i. 23). Then because of this they were to lay aside all malice, to desire the sincere milk of the word, and to come to Christ as the living stone (ii. 4). Then he would have them believe that they were a •chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and because of this they were to have their conversation honest among the Gentiles, to submit themselves to every ordinance of man, that those among them who were slaves should take oppression and hardness patiently as being acceptable to God after the example of Christ (ii. 20). Then they were to remember that they had been wander- ing sheep, but were now, through the grace of God, gathered into the fold of Jesus Christ (ii. 25). Then, on account of all this grace, wives were to submit to their husbands, and husbands to dwell with their wives according to knowledge (iii. 1-7). That they were to account themselves happy if they suffered for righteousness sake — that all this grace and blessing was sealed to them in Baptism. That as Christ hath suffered for us so we should arm ourselves with the same mind (iv. 1, 2). And the rest of the Epistle is made up of particular exhortations to be sober, to watch unto prayer, to be fervent, charitable, to be hospitable, to minister one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God — to glorify God by their suffering as Christians. The elders are to feed the flock of vGod, the younger to submit themselves, to humble themselves THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. xvu under God's band, to be sober, to be vigilant in watching against the enemy. Such is the grace in which they stood and the needful accompanying exhortations. I now have to approach a matter in which I am compelled to differ from the greater part of modern expositors. It is upon this — Were the Epistles of Sc. Paul known to St. Peter? This has been made (on the hypothesis that they were) a reason for deter- mining the date of the writing of St. Peter's first Epistle, that it was composed shortly after, or at least some time after, the writing of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Anyhow, it is assumed that the Epistle to the Ephesians, and perhaps others,must have been known to St. Peter, and it is said or implied that he adopted the ideas and language of St. Paul in order to show his unanimity with the Apostle, with whom for a short time he had been at variance (Gal. ii. 11, &c.). Now having examined several I'sts of parallel passages in the Epistles of St. Peter and those of Bt, Paul, I assert that there is no evidence whatever that the one knew, or made the smallest iise of, the writings of the other ; all that can be asserted is that they have a number of Christian ideas in common. Take the second verse of the fii'st chapter. Here we find men- tion made of election, " Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father," and it is assumed tiiat the doctrine of election is St. Paul's speciality, and that St. Peter would not have alluded to it unless he had found it in St. Paul's writings. Now St. Peter and St. Paul believed in election, not in the smallest degree on any abstract grounds, but because they were both Jews, and it was the first article of a Jew's creed that there was one God, and the second, that God had chosen him to be one of His people. If either St. Peter or St. Paul wrote to any Church in which there was any mix- ture of Jews and Gentiles, they must have of necessity before their minds two questions, " Did the acceptance on the part of the Jews of a crucified Messiah cast them out of God's election ? " and, " Did the Gentiles, on their believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, become elect in Him, so that from that time forth they who had not been a people were now the people of God ? " So that the fact that St. Peter and St. Paul both mentioned elec- tion does not prove that either had seen the writings of the other, but simply proves this, that they had both been brought up in the Jewish Keligion, but had seen reason to adopt the Christian, which adoption immeasureably enlarged the views of both of them on the h xviu INTRODUCTION TO subject of God's election, which they must refer to if they wrote to any Churches which consisted of Jews and Gentiles. The second parallel usage shall be the reference in 1 Peter i. 7, and 1 Cor. iii. 13, to the assaying of metals by fire. The reference in St. Peter is to the trying of gold by fire in the crucible of the refiner, whereas the reference in St. Paul is to the effects of a con- flagration which consumes the wood, hay, and stubble of a city, but has no effect on the gold, silver, and precious stones. The third parallel reference shall be to the use of milk. In 1 Pet. ii. 2, the desiring of it is commended to Christians, " As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby," but in 1 Cor. iii. 2 it is looked upon with somewhat ot contemx^t as the fitting food for those who are yet carnal. The fourth shall be the references to the Christian building or temple in 1 Peter ii. 4. There the very remarkable figure is adopted of a stone to which the other stones are to come that they may have life. This figure is adopted in Ephesians ii. 20-22, but with very marked difference in the treatment. There Christians are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets — the building growing unto an holy temple — builded together for an habitation of God. Now seeing that both SS. Peter and Paul were brought up in the belief that Isaiah was a true prophet of God, and seeing that as soon as they accepted Jesus as the Messiah, they would accept the whole prophecy as more or less having to do with him, they would no doubt accept Isaiah xxviii. 16, as relating to Jesus Christ — but the difference in their mode of application seems to me very marked, and convinces me that the one could not have so much as seen the writing of the other. Again, both Apostles take up (which as servants of Christ they were bound to do) the submission of Christians to the governing powers of this world, but without a word in common. The one begins, Eom. xiii. 1, " Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God," and the other, 1 Peter ii., " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the King as supreme," &c. Lastly. Both Apostles take up the enforcement of domestic affection and duties — wives to their husbands and husbands THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. XlX towards wives, but enforced on totally different principles: St. Paul on the Headship of Jesus Christ to the Church: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church .... and He is the saviour of the body. Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church," &c. Now is it possible to sui^pose that St. Peter should have read this Epistle to the Ephesians and not have referred to St. Paul's motive for enforcing domestic affections and duties, because it is so remark- able a one, grounded on the relation of Christ to his Church ? but he never hints at such a reason why wives should be obedient and husbands loving. Again, in the matter of the sympathies and duties of the members of the Church towards one another, had St. Peter ever read 1 Cor. xii. containing such words as, "If one member suffer all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular " ? Surely if St. Peter had once read this chapter he must have remembered it : for it is no common argument. That St. Peter and St. Paul had a vast mass of religious ideas or sentiments in common, is very certain; it would have been very strange if they had not. They had ideas of the Godhead and Divine authority of Christ, of Redemption, of Atonement, of a new life from God, of the Crucifixion of Christ, of His Eesurrec- tion, of His Glorification, of His Second Coming, of the power of faith, of the sanctifying work of the Spirit, of all the moral aspects of Christianity, of all the duties which Christians owe to God and to one another, which were exactly the same, only they seem to me always to express them in a different way, or to put them, as it were, in a different setting. St. Paul seems to have had one special doctrine committed to him as his, for he alone seems to bring it out, and this is, that Christ is the Head of His Body, the Church. No other Apostle dwells on this, or even specifically mentions it. There seems to have been some special difficulty in the way of the Christian Jews receiving this great truth. For it is not men- tioned in the Epistles of St. James and St, Peter, and seems studiously excluded from the Epistle to the Hebrews. In my introduction to that Epistle, pp. xxi and xxii, I have dwelt some- what on the difficulty which to me is quite conceivable, that the XX INTRODUCTION TO FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. Jewish believers could not hold together the supremacy of Christ as the Head of the Mystical body, and the same supremacy under the figure of the High Priest of humanity entering once for all into the heavenly Holy of Holies. THE DATE OF WETTING. Those who conceive that St. Peter refers to, or had seen the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians, consider that this Epistle could not have been written before a.d. 62, and may have been written as late as 64. Alford thinks about 67 or 68. But there is in reality no certain ground on which to assign any date. With respect to the place in which it was written, this seems to have been Babylon, either the actual city called by that name, or Eome as the mystical Babylon. There seems to have been a large colony of Jews in Babylonia, over which St. Peter may at times have extended his oversight, and the order of the provinces mentioned in the first verses seems to have beea that which would suggest itself to one writing in the East, rather than in the West. He would naturally, it is supposed, have begun with those nearest to the place from which he was writing, and it is very doubtful, indeed, whether the mystical name of Babylon would have been at that time applied to the Imperial city. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. ITS CANONICITY. THE establishment of the Canonicity of the Second Epistle of St. Peter is a matter of very great difficulty, and yet there seems to me no Epistle in the New Testament which presents so many marks of Divine assistance, in what it teachers and enforces, as this. The first ten or eleven verses seem almost unique among the Epistles for their majestic eloquence. If it be an apocryphal book, it is very different indeed from every other which has come down to us — nothing approaching to puerility, to feebleness, to undue condescension to the error or prejudices of those for whom it is written. Every line of it subservient to the main design of putting the readers on their guard, lest " being led away by the error of the wicked, they fall from their own steadfastness." The Second Epistle is not distinctly referred to by any of the Apostolic fathers. I say " distinctly," for though there are several references to the quotation, " A thousand years is as one day," yet they cannot be with any certainty referred to 2 Pet. iii. 8. Till very lately it was supposed that the first undoubted reference was by Origen in the third century ; but a remarkable passage is given by Bishop Wordsworth from an oration of Milito of Sardis in the second century, which seems undoubtedly a reminiscence of 2 Pet. iii. 8 : " There was a flood of water, and all men and living creatures were destroyed by the multitude of waters, and the just men preserved in an ark of wood by the ordinance of God. So also it will be at the last time; there will be a flood of fire, and the earth will be burnt up together with its mountains, and men will be burnt up with the idols which they have made, and the gsa, together with the isles, shall be burnt ; and the just shall be xxii INTRODUCTION TO delivered from tlie fury of the fire, as their fellows in the ark from the waters of the deluge." This was first published from the Syriac discovered by the late Dr. Cureton. Now as I have re- marked in my note there is no other place in Scripture in which the deluge of water and the deluge of fire are put side by side except this ; so that we are almost driven to the belief that Milito must have seen this passage. Hippolytus, in a discourse " On the End of the World and of Antichrist," writes : "He (Peter) who has the keys of the kingdom, has instructed us to this effect: 'Know this first, children, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts : and there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies.' " Origen also (but in those works only which survive in the Latin translation of Eufinus), constantly quotes the Second Epistle. Thus in Homily iv., On Leviticus: "And again, Peter says: 'Ye have been made partakers (consortes) of the Divine nature.' " And again in a Homily, xiii., on the book Numbers, " As Scripture says in a certain place, ' the dumb animal, answering with human voice, rei^roved the madness of the prophet.' " From the time of Eusebius, as Alford says, it was very generally received as canonical. With respect to the internal evidence, this would principally b© found in the use of words and illustrations, which are common to this and to the First Epistle, confessed on all hands to be genuine. Taking into account the shortness of both these documents, there are some remarkable coincidences of language. Thus in the opening salutation we have in each the use of the terms : " Be multiplied " [TrXrjOwOeir]). This association in a bene- diction occurs in St. Jude only. Thus we have the word aptrii, only once found in the New Testa- ment, except in these two Epistles, and in each of these two asso- ciated with God (2 Pet. i. 3, and 1 Pet. ii. 9). Then we have in each Epistle the word " Philadelphia," which occurs only three times elsewhere in the New Testament. Thus we have the word "eyewitnesses" {tiroTTTai), with its verb iTTOTT-Ttvu) (1 Pet. ii. 12, and 2 Pet. i. 16), not found elsewhere in the New Testament. And lastly, we have "without blemish," aaTriXoe, and "without spot," djiwuoQ, in conjunction as they are nowhere else, though each are found separately, or joined with other words. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. XXlii These five instances of the use of very unfrequent words in two short Epistles seem to me to carry very great weight in helping to establish the identity of the authorship. COMPAEISON OF MATTERS COMMON TO THIS EPISTLE AND THAT OF ST. JUDE. We shall now have to consider the extraordinary similarity be- tween the illustrations found in the second chapter of this Epistle, and those in the Epistle of St. Jude. I give side by side the parallel passages in the Revised Version : — 2 Tet. ii. 1 But there arose false pro- phets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their lascivious doings, by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of. And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchan- dise of you, whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not. 4 For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell (Tarta- rus), and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. St. Jude. 3. Beloved, when I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salva- tion, I was constrained to write unto you, exhorting you to con- tend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. 4. For there are certain men crei)t in pi'ivily, even they who were of old set forth unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. 5 Now I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things onco for all, how that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, after- wards destroyed them that be- lieved not. INTRODUCTION TO 5 And spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. 6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an ensample imto those that should live ungodly. 7 And delivered righteous Lot, sore distressed by the las- civious life of the wicked. 8 For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds. 9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of tempta- tion, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment. 10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of de- filement, and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they tremble not to rail at dignities. 11 Whereas angels, though greater in might and power, bring not a railing judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these are creatures without reason, born mere ani- mals, to be taken and destroyed, railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their de- stroying surely be destroyed. 6 And angels which kept not their own priucipality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept under everlasting bonds under darkness, unto the judg- ment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Go- morrha, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication, and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punish- ment of eternal fire. 8 Yet in like manner these also in their dreamings defile the flesh, and set at nought dominion, and rail at dignities. 9 But Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing judgment, but said, " The Lord rebuke thee." 10 But these rail at whatso- ever things they know not, and what they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason, in those things are they de- stroyed. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. TETER. XXV 13 Suffering wrong as the hire of wrong-doing, men that count it pleasure to revel in the daytime ; spots and ble- mishes, revelling in their loose feasts while they feast with yon. 14 Having eyes full of adul- tery, and that cannot cease from sin : enticing unsteadfast souls ; having an heart exercised with covetousness ; children of curs- ing. 15 Forsaking the right way, they went astray, having fol- lowed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the hire of wronsfdoing. 16 But he was rebuked for his own transgression ; a dumb ass si^ake with man's voice, and stayed the madness of the pro- phet. 17 These are springs (wells) without water, and mists driven by a storm ; for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved. 11 Woe unto them, for they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. 12 These are they which are hidden rocks in your love-feasts, when they feast with you, shep- herds which without fear feed themselves; clouds without water carried along by winds : autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. 13 Wild waves of the sea foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever, 14 And to these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, pro- phesied, saying. Behold the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, &c. 16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their lusts (and their mouth speaketh great swelling words), showing respect of persons for the sake of advantage. In looking over these two passages, we have to note that the ex- traordinary resemblance between them consists almost entirely in the examples cited, and not in the words tised. Taking into con- sideration the number of examples brought forward common to both epistles, the words in common are exceedingly few. Take the opening words in each. The false prophets and false teachers of St. Peter are represented in St. Jude by " certain men." The success of these men is mentioned by St. Peter: "Many shall follow their lascivious doings ; " whereas St. Jude says nothing of this, but speaks of them as of old, set forth to this condemnation. XXVI INTRODUCTION TO In St. Peter their crowning sin is denying the Lord that bought them ; in St. Jude it is denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. There is nothing in the Epistle of St. Jude answering to verses 2 and 3 of St. Peter. We should certainly have expected something corresponding to " by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of ; " and something answering to "whose judgment now of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not." There is no reference to the destruction of the unbelieving Israelites in St. Peter. The reference to the Apostate Angels is markedly different in the two Epistles. In St. Peter there is no allusion to the circumstances of their sin. In St. Jude it consisted in " leaving their proper habitation." The description of their punish- ment in St. Peter is : aanaig 'Cofov Taprapdiaag Trapt'oojwv slg Kphiv TtT7)p7]fievovg. In St. Jude it is : elc Koicnv iJ.tydXi]Q ijj.iepaQ Secrixoig aicioig I'TTo Z6