2. The internal evidence is perplexing, and may reasonably be considered adverse.
On the other hand:—
1. The external evidence is not definitely adverse.
2. No convincing reason can be assigned for forging such an Epistle. The critics who believe it to be forged, hold that it was written in Egypt in order to oppose the Gnosticism of c. A.D. 150 or 160. But the Gnosticism rebuked in 2 Peter cannot definitely be assigned to the 2nd century. And it is very difficult to say that the heresy rebuked in 2 Peter belongs to the 2nd century without also maintaining that the heresy rebuked in Jude belongs to the 2nd century.[4] Yet several facts in Jude point so decidedly to the 1st century that some of the ablest writers who deny the authenticity of 2 Peter strongly assert the genuineness of Jude.
We can only conclude by doubting whether we know more about the problem of 2 Peter than the Church of the 3rd and 4th centuries knew. Perhaps we do not know nearly as much. And under these circumstances we cannot effectively criticize the judgment of the Church which decided to admit 2 Peter into the Canon.
[Sidenote: To whom written.]
To the same readers as the First Epistle (iii. 1).
[Sidenote: Where and when written.]
It was probably written in Rome, and some of the earliest references to it are by writers who lived in Rome. {252} Justin Martyr lived in Rome, and if the references in Justin Martyr and other writers before Hippolytus be considered doubtful, Hippolytus is a Roman witness of the first importance.
The date is perhaps between A.D. 63 and 67. If it were later than 70, we might reasonably expect to find a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem after the allusion to God's retribution on the people of Sodom and other malefactors of old times. The errors which are denounced are akin to those which are denounced in 1 and 2 Timothy. The allusion to St. Paul's Epistles in iii. 16 suggests that some collection of these Epistles already existed, and that St. Paul was already dead. It has been urged against the genuineness of the Epistle that it includes the Pauline Epistles in Scripture (iii. 16), and that this would have been impossible in the apostolic age. But the statement need not necessarily mean more than that the Epistles were 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."