Commentary by A. R. Faussett

Introduction

Authenticity and Genuineness. — If not a gross imposture, its own internal witness is unequivocal in its favor. It has Peter‘s name and apostleship in its heading: not only his surname, but his original name Simon, or Simeon, he thus, at the close of his life, reminding his readers who he originally was before his call. Again, in 2 Peter 1:16-18, he mentions his presence at the Transfiguration, and Christ‘s prophecy of his death! and in 2 Peter 3:15, his brotherhood with Paul. Again, in 2 Peter 3:1, the author speaks of himself as author of the former Epistle: it is, moreover, addressed so as to include (but not to be restricted to) the same persons as the first, whom he presupposes to be acquainted with the writings of Paul, by that time recognized as “Scripture” (2 Peter 3:15, “the long-suffering of God,” compare Romans 2:4). This necessarily implies a late date, when Paul‘s Epistles (including Romans) already had become generally diffused and accepted as Scripture in the Church. The Church of the fourth century had, besides the testimony which we have of the doubts of the earlier Christians, other external evidence which we have not, and which, doubtless, under God‘s overruling providence, caused them to accept it. It is hard to understand how a book palpably false (as it would be if Peter be not the author) could have been accepted in the Canon as finally established in the Councils of Laodicea, a.d. 360 (if the fifty-ninth article be genuine), Hippo, and Carthage in the fourth century (393 and 397). The whole tone and spirit of the Epistle disprove its being an imposture. He writes as one not speaking of himself, but moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21). An attempt at such a fraud in the first ages would have brought only shame and suffering, alike from Christians and heathen, on the perpetrator: there was then no temptation to pious frauds as in later times. That it must have been written in the earliest age is plain from the wide gulf in style which separates it and the other New Testament Scriptures from even the earliest and best of the post-apostolic period. Daille well says, “God has allowed a fosse to be drawn by human weakness around the sacred canon to protect it from all invasion.”

Traces of acquaintance with it appear in the earliest Fathers. Hermas [Similitudes, 6.4] (compare 2 Peter 2:13), Greek, “luxury in the day  …  luxuriating with their own deceivings”; and [Shepherd, Vision 3.7], “They have left their true way” (compare 2 Peter 2:15); and [Shepherd, Vision 4.3], “Thou hast escaped this world” (compare 2 Peter 2:20). Clement of Rome, [Epistle to the Corinthians, 7.9; 10], as to Noah‘s preaching and Lot‘s deliverance, “the Lord making it known that He does not abandon those that trust in Him, but appoints those otherwise inclined to judgment” (compare 2 Peter 2:5, 2 Peter 2:6, 2 Peter 2:7, 2 Peter 2:9). Irenaeus, a.d. 178 (“the day of the Lord is as a thousand years”), and Justin Martyr seem to allude to 2 Peter 3:8. Hippolytus [On Antichrist], seems to refer to 2 Peter 1:21, “The prophets spake not of their own private (individual) ability and will, but what was (revealed) to them alone by God.” The difficulty is, neither Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, nor the oldest Syriac (Peschito) version (the later Syriac has it), nor the fragment known as Muratori‘s Canon, mentions it. The first writer who has expressly named it is Origen, in the third century (Homily on Joshua; also Homily 4 on Leviticus, and Homily 13 on Numbers), who names it “Scripture,” quoting 2 Peter 1:4; 2 Peter 2:16; however (in Eusebius [Ecclesiastical History, 6.25]), he mentions that the Second Epistle was doubted by some. Firmilian, bishop of Cappadocia, in Epistle to Cyrpian speaks of Peter‘s Epistles as warning us to avoid heretics (a monition which occurs in the Second, not the First Epistle). Now Cappadocia is one of the countries mentioned (compare 1 Peter 1:1 with 2 Peter 3:1) as addressed; and it is striking, that from Cappadocia we get the earliest decisive testimony. “Internally it claims to be written by Peter, and this claim is confirmed by the Christians of that very region in whose custody it ought to have been found” [Tregelles].

The books disputed (Antilegomena), as distinguished from those universally recognized (Homologoumena), are Epistles Second Peter, James, Second and Third John, Jude, the Apocalypse, Epistle to Hebrews (compare Eusebius [Ecclesiastical History, 3.3, 25]). The Antilegomena stand in quite a different class from the Spurious; of these there was no dispute, they were universally rejected; for example, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Revelation of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas. Cyril of Jerusalem (a.d. 348) enumerates seven Catholic Epistles, including Second Peter; so also Gregory Nazianzen (a.d. 389), and Epiphanius (a.d. 367). The oldest Greek manuscripts extant (of the fourth century) contain the Antilegomena. Jerome [On Illustrious Men], conjectured, from a supposed difference of style between the two Epistles, that Peter, being unable to write Greek, employed a different translator of his Hebrew dictation in the Second Epistle, and not the same as translated the First into Greek. Mark is said to have been his translator in the case of the Gospel according to Mark; but this is all gratuitous conjecture. Much of the same views pervade both Epistles. In both alike he looks for the Lord‘s coming suddenly, and the end of the world (compare 2 Peter 3:8-10 with 1 Peter 4:5); the inspiration of the prophets (compare 1 Peter 1:10-12 with 2 Peter 1:19-21; 2 Peter 3:2); the new birth by the divine word a motive to abstinence from worldly lusts (1 Peter 1:22; 1 Peter 2:2; compare 2 Peter 1:4); also compare 1 Peter 2:9 with 2 Peter 1:3, both containing in the Greek the rare word “virtue” (1 Peter 4:17 with 2 Peter 2:3).