Attestation of 2 Peter in the Early Church

It is clear that of the books accepted into the New Testament canon, 2 Peter has the poorest attestation from early Church Fathers.⁴ One of the earliest commentators, Clement of Alexandria (d. 215), writes several phrases that appear to be copied directly from 2 Peter, but he does not mention the book by name.⁵ Irenaeus too appears to quote or allude to 2 Peter, but he also does not mention 2 Peter by name.⁶ The first reference to 2 Peter by name is from Origen, writing at the beginning of the 3rd century. He noted that some had doubts about the epistle, although he did not indicate their reasons. Origen himself had full confidence in the 2 Peter, quoting it six times⁷ and making two clear allusions to it.⁸

Regarding canonical lists, 2 Peter was fully accepted in the Canon of Laodicea and the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in the fourth century.⁹ These councils notably rejected respected works such as the letters of Barnabus and Clement considering them sub-apostolic. In all, although there were some doubts surrounding 2 Peter, it has considerable support especially when compared against the background noise of a multitude of pseudepigraphic writings attributed to Peter.

Pseudepigraphy

Closely related to the subject of early church attestation is the concept of pseudepigraphy.  In the second century and later, many writings surfaced claiming to be written by Apostles. The majority of these works contained heretical theology and used the names of Apostles to give their ideas credibility. Some scholars have argued that pseudepigraphy was an accepted practice in the early church and that it was done with the highest respect to the Apostles. But several events show this hypothesis to be false. First, Paul himself warns against accepted such false writings (2 Thess. 2:2; 3:17). Second, the author of the Acts of Paul was removed from his post by Tertullian for falsely writing the book in Paul’s name.¹⁰ Third, Serapion, the Bishop of Antioch (c. 180), initially accepted the Gospel According to Peter, but later rejected it when he discovered it was not written by Peter.¹¹

The early church did not accept pseudepigraphic writings and would not have accepted 2 Peter if they had not thought it written by Peter.