127.
The Apostle, St.Peter, speaking of the day of the Lord, says, that that day will come suddenly, &c.

(2 Pet.iii.

10.) There are serious difficulties besetting the authenticity of the Catholic Epistles under the name of Peter; though there exist no grounds for doubting that they are of the Apostolic age.

A large portion too of the difficulties would be removed by the easy and nowise improbable supposition, that Peter, no great scholar or grammarian, had dictated the substance, the matter, and left the diction and style to his 'amanuensis', who had been an auditor of St.Paul.The tradition which connects, not only Mark, but Luke the Evangelist, the friend and biographer of Paul, with Peter, as a secretary, is in favour of this hypothesis.

But what is of much greater importance, especially for the point in discussion, is the character of these and other similar descriptions of the 'Dies Messiae', the 'Dies ultima', and the like.