The discovery last year in Egypt of some fragments of the Gospel and Apocalypse once current under the name of St. Peter has drawn attention once more to the genuineness and authenticity of the Second Epistle in our canon. But the difference in character between it and these apocryphal documents is very great. The Gospel ascribed to Peter seems to have been written by some one who held the opinion, current among the early heretics, that the Incarnation was unreal, and that the Divine in Christ Jesus had no participation in the sufferings at the Crucifixion. Hence our Lord is represented as having no sense of pain at that time. He is said to have been deserted by His "power" in the moment of death. The stature of the angels at the Resurrection is represented as very great, but that of the risen Christ much greater. To these peculiar features may be added the response made by the cross to a voice which was heard from heaven, the cross having followed the risen Christ from the tomb. In the fragments of the Apocalypse we have a description of the torments of the wicked utterly foreign to the character of the New Testament writings, in which the veil of the unseen world is rarely withdrawn. The circumstance and detail given in the apocryphal fragment to the punishments of sinners mark it as the parent of those mediæval legends of which the "Visions of Furseus" and "St. Patrick's Purgatory" afford well-known examples. The study of these fragments, of which the Gospel may be dated about 170 A.D., sends us back to the contemplation of the Second Epistle of St. Peter more conscious than before at what a very early date errors, both of history and doctrine, were promulgated among the Christian societies, while at the same time we are impressed more strongly with the sense that the accord of the Second Epistle with Gospel history, where it is alluded to, as well as the simplicity of Christian doctrine which it enforces, mark it as not unworthy of that place in the Canon which was accorded to it in the very earliest councils which dealt with the contents of New Testament Scripture. CONTENTS _THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER_ I PAGE THE WORK OF THE TRINITY IN MAN'S ELECTION AND SALVATION 3 II THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE 17 III THE UNITY AND GLORIOUSNESS OF THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION 29 IV THE CHRISTIAN'S IDEAL, AND THE STEPS THEREUNTO 41 V CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD: ITS CHARACTER AND DUTIES 55 VI THE PRIESTHOOD OF BELIEVERS 69 VII CHRISTIANS AS PILGRIMS IN THE WORLD 83 VIII CHRISTIAN SERVICE 95 IX