Considerable discussion has arisen about the passages in 2 Peter which are like the language of St. Jude. There can be no doubt that either one Apostle copied the words of the other, or that both drew from a common original. But this point, in whatever way it be settled, need not militate against St. Peter's authorship. It is nothing unworthy of the Apostle, if he find to his hand the words of a fellow-teacher which will serve his need, to use what he finds. Nay, the letter itself tells us that he was prepared to do this. For he refers his readers (iii. 15) to the writings of St. Paul for support of his own exhortations. St. Peter's seems, however, to be the earlier of the two epistles, if we compare his words, "There _shall be_ false teachers, who _shall bring_ in heresies of destruction," etc. (ii. 1), with St. Jude, who speaks of these misleading teachers as already existent and active: "There _are certain men crept in_ unawares"; "_These are_ spots now existing in the feasts of charity"; "_They are feasting among the brethren_ without fear." And St. Jude seems clearly to be alluding to St. Peter's words (2 Peter iii. 3) when he says, "Remember ye the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be _mockers_" (ἐμπαῖκται) "in the last time." This word for "mockers" is found only in St. Peter's epistle. It is nowhere else in the New Testament; and while St. Peter's words are a direct utterance, St. Jude's are a quotation. But there are two or three features of resemblance between the style of St. Peter's first epistle and the second which support strongly the genuineness of the latter. The First Epistle has a large proportion of words found nowhere else in the New Testament. There are a score of such words in this short composition. Now the Second Epistle presents us with the same peculiarity in rather larger abundance. There are twenty-four words there which appear in no other New Testament writing. It seems to have been a peculiarity of the writer of both letters to use somewhat uncommon and striking words. Now take the Second Epistle to have been the work of an imitator. He would be sure to notice such a characteristic, and sure also to repeat, for the sake of connexion, some distinctive expressions of the first letter in the second. But the case is much otherwise. There is the same abundance of unusual words in both epistles, but not a single repetition; the same peculiarity is manifest, but displays itself in entirely new material. This is an index of authorship, not of imitation.