On the other hand, the Epistle, at least the first and third chapters, contains nothing which
Peter might not have written, and the allusion to the scene of transfiguration admits only the
alternative: either Peter, or a forger. It seems morally impossible that a forger should have produced
a letter so full of spiritual beauty and unction, and expressly denouncing all cunning fabrications.
It may have been enlarged by the editor after Peter’s death. But the whole breathes an apostolic
spirit, and could not well be spared from the New Testament. It is a worthy valedictory of the aged
apostle awaiting his martyrdom, and with its still valid warnings against internal dangers from false
Christianity, it forms a suitable complement to the first Epistle, which comforts the Christians
amidst external dangers from heathen and Jewish persecutors.
Jude.
The Epistle of Jude, a, "brother of James" (the Just),^1129 is very short, and strongly resembles
2 Peter 2, but differs from it by an allusion to the remarkable apocryphal book of Enoch and the
legend of the dispute of Michael with the devil about the body of Moses. It seems to be addressed
to the same churches and directed against the same Gnostic heretics. It is a solemn warning against
the antinomian and licentious tendencies which revealed themselves between a.d. 60 and 70. Origen
remarks that it is "of few lines, but rich in words of heavenly wisdom." The style is fresh and
vigorous.
The Epistle of Jude belongs likewise to the Eusebian Antilegomena, and has signs of
post-apostolic origin, yet may have been written by Jude, who was not one of the Twelve, though
closely connected with apostolic circles. A forger would hardly have written under the name of a
"brother of James" rather than a brother of Christ or an apostle.
The time and place of composition are unknown. The Tübingen critics put it down to the
reign of Trajan; Renan, on the contrary, as far back as 54, wrongly supposing it to have been
intended, together with the Epistle of James, as a counter-manifesto against Paul’s doctrine of free
grace. But Paul condemned antinomianism as severely as James and Jude (comp. Rom. 6, and in
fact all his Epistles). It is safest to say, with Bleek, that it was written shortly before the destruction
of Jerusalem, which is not alluded to (comp. Jude 14, 15).
The Epistles of John.
Comp. §§ 40–43, 83 and 84.
The First Epistle of John betrays throughout, in thought and style, the author of the fourth
Gospel. It is a postscript to it, or a practical application of the lessons of the life of Christ to the
wants of the church at the close of the first century. It is a circular letter of the venerable apostle
to his beloved children in Asia Minor, exhorting them to a holy life of faith and love in Christ, and
earnestly warning them against the Gnostic "antichrists," already existing or to come, who deny
the mystery of the incarnation, sunder religion from morality, and run into Antinomian practices.
The Second and Third Epistles of John are, like the Epistle of Paul to Philemon, short private
letters, one to a Christian woman by the name of Cyria, the other to one Gains, probably an officer
of a congregation in Asia Minor. They belong to the seven Antilegomena, and have been ascribed
by some to the "Presbyter John," a contemporary of the apostle, though of disputed existence. But
the second Epistle resembles the first, almost to verbal repetition,^1130 and such repetition well agrees(^1129) Clement of Alexandria, Origen (in Greek), and Epiphanius distinguish him from the Apostles. He is mentioned with James
as one of the brothers of Jesus, Matt. 18:55; Mark 6:3. Comp. on this whole question the discussion in § 27.
(^1130) Comp. 2 John 4 –7 with 1 John 2:7, 8; 4, 2, 3.
A.D. 1-100.