Stances

The Epistle is addressed to the Chris- tians in the four Roman provinces which together coincided with the region which bears the modern name of Asia Minor. It has, indeed, been lately urged (Deissmann, Bibelstudien p. 244) that no letter, properly so called, could be addressed to communities scattered over so vast a district; the circulation of such an Epistle, it is said, would have taken up many years of the life of the messenger.

Such a position, however, leaves out of sight the wonderful facilities for travel which Rome had created throughout the empire, as well as the fact that in St. Paul we have an instance of a Christian missionary who did plan and execute rapid tours of visitation over large districts (cf. e.g. Ac 15‘ 16° 18 (cf. 191) 197). Moreover, since the letter does not deal, as many of St.

Paul’s Epistles do, with controversy or business, or with matters of pressing local or personal importance, there would no need for the messenger to deliver it immedi- ately to all those to whom it was addressed. It would be sufficient if he communicated it to the several Churches in the provinces, as in the course of time he reached them. See also below, § 6. From the question of their home we turn to the problem of their past.

Is the letter addressed to those who had been converted to Christ from Judaism or from heathenism? The opinion that its readers were Jews by birth was held (as we infer from his aneEaee about St. Peter’s travels) by Origen (quoted us. HE it. i.), by Didymus of Alexandria, by Eusebius (HZ mt. iv. 2), and by the Greek Fathers generally. This consensus of ancient opinion was followed by many scholars between the Revival of Learning and the resent century—Erasmus, Calvin, Grotius, and Bengel.

Among critics of the last half century it has won the constant and earnest support of B. Weiss (e.g. Der petrinische Lehrbegriff, 1855, p. 99 ff. ; Introd. to NT, 1888, vol. ii. p. 137 ff., Eng. tr.), and recently of Kihl in his commentary in the Weiss-Meyer series. The two last mentioned scholars, it should be added, maintain their view as to the readers of the Epistle in close connexion with their conclusion as to the early date of the Epistle (see below).

On the other hand, in ancient times Augustine (c. Faust. xxii. 89; Enarr. in Ps. 146 (147) 9) and Jerome (adv. Jovinian. 1%) held that the Epistle was addressed to Gentile Christians, though in da Virr. Illust. 1 the latter follows Origen in speak- ing of the apostle’s ‘predicationem dispersionis eorum qui de circumcisione crediderant in Ponto’; and for this view recent critics of all schools have given ἃ practically unanimous vote.

A brief examination of Kiihl’s arguments will serve to bring into prominence some important points. (1) The word δια- σπορᾶς in the salutation, it is said, is decisive ; it must point to “Jewish settlements’ (cf. Ja 11)—an argument which convinced ancient opinion. As against this interpretation no stress can be laid on the absence of the article before διασαορᾶς ; for in such a formula as a salutation prefixed to a letter the article is frequently omitted.

The following considerations, however, PETER, FIRST EPISTLE seem to have decisive force on the other side. (a) In the clause itself the words rapiridnues and διασπτορά are kindred to each other, both dealing primarily with the manner of man’s life on earth. Since the former is here used in a metaphorical sense ay 117 211), it would be harsh to take the latter literally. δ) The opening and the close of the Epistle cannot be inter- preted independently of each other.

There is an intentional Correspondence between them. The phrase ixAtxreis παρ- ripe 3iaewopasin lianswers toy iv Βα βυλῶν, συνεκλικτή agi 6 word διασασορά and the name Βαβυλών (= Rome, see Basyton in NT and, both published since that art. was written, Hort, 1 Peter pp. 6, 167 ff., and Zahn, Fini. ii. p. 19 ff.) are both expressions taken from the vocabulary created by Jewish history and afterwards transferred to the Christian Church.

6) Elsewhere in the Epistle language primarily apr to 86] is used of the Obristian Church, see especially 2%. (d) The ee itself supplies a comment on διαστορά used metaphori- in 69 τῇ iy τῷ χόσμω ὑμῶν ἀδιλφότητι ; Compare Jn 1152, Didache éx.6. These considerations further exclude Salmon’s suggestion (Introd.6 p.

442), that ‘the Epistle was written to members of the Roman Church whom Nero’s persecution had reed to seek safety in the provinces’—a suggestion which is also ee to the objection that, while it is natural and intelligible to use a re ized term in a'metaphorical sense, it cannot be said to be either natural or intelligible to give it a special application unless that application is explained or in some way indicated by the context.

(2) The use of the OT without note of quotation in cases where the force of the words as proof depends on their recognition as derived from the OT, phar Lisi a familiarity with the OT which converte from eathenism would not possess.

To this it may be replied— (a) that the Epistle contains no mentative passage, and that & writer might well enforce an exhortation by an appeal to OT language which his readers would not fully appreciate ; more- over, it is not denied that in the Churches of Asia Minor there was an element of Jewish converts; (Ὁ) that the force of Kiihl’s argument depends almost entirely on his further supposition that the Epistle is addressed to recent converts (see below).

®) Kiihl adduces certain passages as proving the Jewish desceat of those addressed. The words of Hosea quoted in 210 were originally apoxen to Jews; it is natural, therefore, it is said, that St. Peter should re-apply them to the Jews. In 2% Kihl pends that the correlative terms ὅτε πλανώμενοι and ἐπιστράφητε ly that those addressed had /apsed—an assertion not true of Gentiles.

But Kihl’s interpretation of both these passages assumes a general apostasy on the part of the Jews of the Dispersion, for which, in fact, we have not the slightest evi- dence. In regard to 2%, even if the idea of a return is pressed it see Ac 1415 163. 19, 1 Th 19), the original relation of man to may well have been in the apostle’s mind here as in 419 a χτίστῃ ; οἵ. ¢.g. Ac 1726M., Col 120 dar dxararrdctas).

Again reference to 86, Kihl argues that Gentile women would become Sarah’s children by conversion to Christ, and that there- fore of none but Jewish women could it be said that they became 80 ‘ by well-doing.’ But, even if the common punctua- tion of the is adopted, the words may very well mean, * whose children you hia § women proved yourselves by well- doing’ (see Hort on 115, p. 71). There is, however, much to be said for making the clause ὡς Σάρρα...

τίχνα 8 nthesis, and taking &yalowosieas κιτιλ. a8 co-ordinate with iweraers- Oh on the other hand, there are a of two kinds which only by β haga acta of exegetical violence can be construed as applicable to Jews. (1) Passages scattered throughout the oo) 8 dealing with the past moral condition of those addressed, 114 (cf.

Ac 1799, Gal 48, Eph 415), 118 <= Ro 12, Eph 417; on πατροπαραδότου see Hort’s note), 424 (for τὰ ἔθνη in an ethical sense see 1 Th 45, Eph 211 417; note also fsGerrms—heathen δε ‘hbours Eolas onan, Jews ὩΣ ποῖ Join in ἰὐὶν lolatrous immoralities). ( 6 opening pa oH) where the contrast between cere and fates alike, 1 and ‘ you ’(cf. Eph 1!

2f), and still more the emphatic and remark- able ee used about ‘you’ as persons for whom the bless- ings of the gospel were destined in God's purpose, and whom they had at length reached (15-1012, cf. 1%), seem to imply the fundamental conception of the admission into the family of God of the long-excluded Gentiles (see Hort’s notes on 151%), Further, the negative argument in this case is of considerable weight.

The writer is silent on many topics on which almost inevitably he would have dwelt had he been speaking as a Jew to Jews. Then he does not, like St. James, draw out the moral teaching of the Law ; nor, like the writer to the Hebrews, does he concern himself with the spiritual interpretation of the ancient histories, and of the ritual of the old covenant.

He mever takes occasion by a reference to ‘the Fathers’ to allude to the glories of Israelitish ancestry and its manifold significance for a Christian Jew (see Ac 8!3 % 630 72 38 1817. 53 2214, He 1], of. Ro 08). In short, the contrast between our Epistle (both in matter and manner) and those apostolic speeches and which are addressed to Jews, and, we may add, those parts of St.

Paul's Epistles in which he turns to the Jewish element in the Churches to which he wri is by itself a cogent reason for rejecting the theory that the ‘tle was primarily addressed to Jewish Christians. To sum up: the Acts supplies evidence that in many churches within the provinces enumerated in 1 P l' there was a considerable Jewish element, and there is no reason for supposing that the other PETER, FIRST EPISTLE 783 churches comprehended in the salutation differed from these in character.

Such converts from Judaism would be especially alive to the meaning of the allusions to OT language so frequent in the Epistle. All considerations, however, point de- cisively to the conclusion that St. Peter had in his mind predominantly, though probably not exclu- sively, Gentile readers. We aaa to the evidence supplied by the Epistle as to the more recent history and the present condi- tion of its readers. They owed their conversion to more than one evangelist (1%).

That they were newly-made converts is certainly not implied by the injunction ὡς ἀρτιγέννητα βρέφη τὸ λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα ἐπιποθήσατε (27; cf. 1 Co 14"; Hermas, Sim. ix. 29); the habit of responding to their true seine instincts was a lifelong duty. And, on the contrary, there are indications that they had been Christians for some considerable time. St.

Peter assumes that there were Christian presbyters in the communities addressed, and, moreover, that these elders were exposed to temptations arising from official routine, and from motives of sordid pres and of ambition—temptations which would ardly assail men watching over the first stages of the haha ofinfantchurches.

Further, the apostle implies that sufficient time has elapsed since his readers became Christians for them to have become a marked body among their heathen neighbours, and to have had experience of the difficulties and dangers inseparable from such a position. What was the nature of these perils? On our answer to this question depends our view as to the date of the Epistle, and consequently, to a large extent, as to its general character and meaning.

Does the letter presuppose that its readers were the victims of a persecution organized or authorized by the State? And, if so, is there evidence that this persecution was of a kind unknown in the year A.D. 647 It will be convenient to consider the second of these two questions first. The ἜΦΕΜΙ on which the answer depends is 4%, and three points in regard to it claim attention. (a) In view of the evidence now available, it seems unreasonable to question St.

Luke’s statement that ‘the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch’ shortly before the year A.D. 44, still more unreasonable to doubt its currency at Rome at least some little time before the Neronian persecution® (see Light- foot, Jgnatius i. p. 400 δ΄; Zahn, Find. ii. p. 40 π΄; also art. CHRISTIAN in vol. i. p. 384 ff.) The name Christian, then, does not in itself suggest a date later than 64.

(δ) But ‘the Epistle seems to refer directly to the edict of Trajan, which has a place in Pliny’s correspondence, if the difficult word ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος points to the delator’ (Jiilicher, Einl. p. 135; οἵ. Holtzmann, Find. p. 494), But, even if the essential idea of delator were not absent from the word ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος, the passage itself refutes this view.

For, since the first three offences are mentioned in the inverse order of their heinousness—murder, theft, ill-doing (on the last see Hort, p. 135f.)—the fourth place in the series could not be assigned to so vile an offence as that of the delator. Moreover, the 4 ὡς before ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος, contrasted with the previous 4... %, marks the transition to a different Aind of offence.

All the requirements of the passage are satisfied if we suppose that three /ega/ offences are * Two bilities must be borne in mind. (a) Luke docs not say that the name Christian was Orst invented at this time, but that it was now first used of ‘the disciples.’ It may have been applied to the Jews at Antioch earlier, and thus it may be a part of the Inheritance which passed to Christianity from Judaism.

(Ὁ) It may have been used of ‘the disciples’ Inde- pendently at different places, expecially if it was ao ie to Jews. There is, however, nothing strange in a im- nortation of the nickname from the Syrian Antioch to Lee οἵ, Juv. fil. 62). PETER, FIRST EPISTLE 784 spoken of, then a social fault. The word itself, when examined, confirms this view. It is best illustrated by Epictetus, Encheir. iii. 22 (quoted by Zahn, Find. ii. p. 39), οὐ yap τὰ ἀλλότρια πολυ- πραγμονεῖ [i.e.

the Cynic) ὅταν τὰ ἀνθρώπινα ἐπισ- κοπῇ, ἀλλὰ τὰ ἴδια, and Hor. Sat. ii. 3. 19, ‘aliena negotia curo Excussus propriis’—the former pas- sage being a protest against, the latter a playful pleading guilty to, the charge often brought against the philosophers of a themselves with their neighbours’ concerns.

The Christians, in their first for the Divine law of purity and love, would be apt to be betrayed into an exasperating officiousness, into making a vain attempt to set the world around them to rights. Such a social indiscretion would not bring ari within the law, but it would most surely involve them in much suffering—hence such apostolic precepts as Col 4°, Eph 5" (cf. 1 Th 44, 2 Th 34).

The word ἀλλοτριο- exicxoros, then, ap’ to show that the word πασχέτω has a wider reference than to punishments inflicted by a magistrate (cf. 2). (c) A distinction is drawn Netween the proceedings against Chris- tians under Nero in A.D. 64 and those which took place at a later time. In the earlier period, it is said, Christians suffered not as Christians but as those who were proved guilty of crime. In the later period the name Christian itself ensured con- demnation.

No evidence, it is allowed, is extant as to the time when the earlier procedure gave place to the later. The transition had taken lace before the correspondence of Trajan and liny ; at poseiy, took place as early as Vespasian’s reign. The language of 1 P 4", it is urged, pre- supposes the circumstances of the later period, when a Christian suffered as a Christian. But surely this conclusion is due to a confusion of thought.

It is obviously true that such language could be used by a Christian teacher after, but it by no means follows that it coulda not be used before, the alleged change in the attitude of the State towards the Church.

For even if it be granted that in the eyes of the law each Christian who suffered in Nero’s gardens suffered as a con- victed incendiary, yet in the eyes of his fellow- believers he suffered for Christ ; and when once the nickname Christian had become a current term, the phrase ‘to suffer as a Christian’ would become a natural synonym of the older phrases ‘ to suffer for Christ’ or ‘for the name of Christ’ (Mt 24°, Lk 2123, Ac 54 916 15% 2118, Ph 15).

It is, moreover, open to serious question whether the evidence maples any essential difference be- tween the proceedings under Nero and those under, e.g., Trajan, All that we know of the Neronian persecution is derived from the somewhat rhetorical account in Tacitus (Ann. xy. 44), one brief sentence of Suetonius (Vero 16), and the allusion in Clement’s Epistle. To the present writer, the evidence seems to point clearly to the conclusion that in A.D.

64 at Rome the Christians suffered legally for their re- ligion. The reasons for this view are briefly these: (1) It would have ill-suited Nero’s position to throw the blame of the great fire on persons who would have to be proved guilty of incendiarism before they were punished.

We must surely con- clude that he adopted the simple and sensible plan of slaking the public thirst for vengeance by the dramatic punishment of an unpopular class of people on whom he could shift the odium of being the authors of the fire, but who could be legally condemned without more ado as the votaries of a religio wlicita. ‘The legal grounds for inter- ference were in existence from the first, and no special edict was needful’ (Harnack, Die Chronol. p. 454n.; ef. Lightfoot, Ignatius i. p.

11; West- cott’s Essay on ‘The Church and the World’ (in Epistles of St. John)). (2) The language of Tacitus PETER, FIRST EPISTLE is quite consistent with, even if it does not require, this interpretation of the situation. Thus, in re- gard to the clause ‘Primum correpti qui fatebantur,’ the whole context refutes the idea that the con- fession was of incendiarism. The meaning can only be ‘fatebantur se esse Christianos.’ The admission of Christianity was the turning-point of their case.

Again, in the following clause (‘Multitudo ingens haud perinde in crimine in- cendii quam odio humani generis conuicti sunt’) the word conuicti, which appears to imply judicial investigation of detailed criminal charges, is a conjecture for the MS reading coniwncti—a word which may justly be thought to be more in Tacitus’ manner than the prosaic conuicti. Nor can the phrase ‘odium humani generis’ be taken as naturally pointing to dlegal actions or conduct.

It has a close parallel in the phrase which Tacitus uses in his description of the Jews (Hist. v. 5), aduersus omnes alios hostile odium. Jews and Christians would alike hold aloof from the social life of pagans ; they would alike rebuke by their conduct, if not by their words, the idolatries and the profligacies of their neighbours. If the Roman Christians used such words as we find in St. Paul’s Roman Epistle (e.g. Ro 118 2%), they might easil be represented as ‘haters of the human race.

(3) The words of Suetonius (‘afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis nouz ac malefice’) are most naturally interpreted as asserting that Christians suffered as Christians. Moreover, if Nero was the first to act on the essential illegality of their position, and so stamped Christianity as illegal, the historian had a good reason for placing his notice of the fact among various police regulations.

If, on the other hand, they were condemned not for their Christianity but for their criminal actions (real or supposed), there would be nothing new about the procedure— nothing to differentiate their case from that of criminals generally. (4) It is difficult to suppose that the ingens multitudo (cf. πολὺ πλῆθος, Clem.), including, according to Clement, matrons and girls and slaves, were one and all convicted of criminal actions.

Their condemnation as votaries of an illegal religion, capestally in a time of excitement and panic, would be an easy and expeditious matter (cf. Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Suet. Claud. 25).

So far, then, it appears (a) that the somewhat scanty evidence as to the Neronian persecution does not support the theory, that it differed essentially from later persecutions in regard to the method of procedure against the Christians ; (δ) that, if such a difference were proved to exist, the language of 1 P would be as natural from the en of a Christian teacher in the earlier as in the ater period.

We are thus brought to the question— What was the nature of the sufferings to which those to whom the Epistle was addressed, like their fellow- Christians throughout the world (5°), were exposed 1 Were they the victims of a persecution directed by the State? ‘The clearest point,’ writes Dr. Hort (p.

1), ‘is that [the Epistle] was written during a time of rising persecution to men suffering under it’; and he suggests that this was either ‘the persecution begun by Nero, or a secondary per- secution arising from that,’ or a persecution pecnle to Asia Minor, ‘independent of any nown persecution bearing an emperor’s name, and perhaps even a little earlier than Nero’s persecution’ (p. 3f.)

, adding that the language about the emperor and his officers (2%) is in favour of the second of these two alternatives. ‘The Christian congregations,’ says Jiilicher (Zinl. p. 135; ef. Harnack, Die Chronol. p. 453), ‘and that throughout the whole world, have now to endure bitter suffering, to bear the fiery proving PETER, FIRST EPISTLE of their faith (4)—a trial so bitter that now the end of all things cannot be far off (477). .

The period of systematic persecutions has pepane On e other hand, Zahn (Zin. ii. p. 34) finds it hard to comprehend how a ‘ persecution of the Christian confession, regulated by the imperial power or by the magistracy, can be discovered in the Epistle.’ A decision between views so diametrically opposed can be arrived at only by an examination of the Epistle itself.

The passages bearing on the ques- tion may be conveniently considered under the following heads :— @) 47 (‘the end of all things is at hand This phrase is 8 commonplace with those (e.g. Jiilicher, Harnack) who insist that the of Asia Minor were enduring the extreme of persecution. The context, however, gives no countenance at all to the supposition that the expectation of the end was connected in the writer’s mind with the cruelty of the Church’s sufferings.

He draws from the expectation the lesson, not of patience but of devout sobriety—a duty dealt wit) ὋΣ ΓΝ preceting context, τῆς 9 Ὁ very kindred speaking of ‘the proving of faith’). The language in the former of these passages, an echo of Ja 1%, is quite eral αν ποικίλοις tuparueis).

In the other the word πύρωσις, derived from Pr 2721 (where it is re lel to doxiuser), emphasizes, not the intensity of the suffering but its testing and proving nature, and thus the aa a AG oe ‘the “att trial’ (AV, RV), as commonly ers’ , Suggests misleading associations.

It should be remembered that the locus classicus on παιδεία in the NT (He “el addressed to men who had ‘not yet resisted unto bl The words which follow about participation in ‘the suff of the Christ,’ while they imply the idea of trials endured for His sake, do not go beyond such passages as 2 Co 18 410, Ph 12%, Col 1% (ct. Ro 818, 5 ὁ 417). With these two es may be associated 54!., where the devil is regarded as 6 author of “ea ται the faithful, but where the point of the reference lies.

not in the greatness of those sufferings but in the ibilities or spiritual declension which they involve. (8) 2191. 814. 17 419.19 610, In this group of passages ‘suffering’ for Ohrist’s sake is undoubtedly spoken of. But πάσχειν (cl. 1Th 214, 2 Th 15, Gal 34) is an inclusive word; in 22 it is a synonym of χκολαφίζεσθα:. (4) 212 39.16 4414. From these passages it appears that — and insults had a prominent place among these sufferings.

’ (5) -17, The form of these hypothetical sentences (ris ὁ ne ; ἀλλ᾽ εἰ χαὶ πάσχοιτε [ποῦ εἰ πάσχετε), and εἰ υΐλοι {not θέλει] ; cf. εἰ 3é 16) makes it clear that the writer regards suffering for Christ as no more than a possibility for at least some of those whom he is addressing. Such language is incon- sistent with the hypothesis that a general persecution, organized by the Roversiment, was raging fiercely. (6) 315 415%.

Both these es are very frequently supposed to deal with the relation of Christians and Roman magistrates. But in neither case can this reference be sustained. On 415f see above. In 816 (ἔτοιμεοι ἀεὶ πρὸς ἀπολογίαν παντὶ τῷ αἰτοῦντι κιτιλ. the word σαντί as well as the expression μετὰ σραὔτυτος καὶ φόβου show that the injunction deals with the general inter- course of the Christians with their pagan neighbours (cf. Col 46 σῶς δι ὑμᾶς iv) ἱκάστῳ Maen Ω ΞΕ 2156. The is an echo of St.

Paul's words in Ro 1815. But in p of the general language of Ro (ἐξουσίαν mk cep νος αἱ οὖσαι ikourias . . οἱ ἄρχοντες) We have in 1 P aclear and detailed reference to the imperial government—‘ the emperor (SaeiAsés),’ ‘provincial governors sent by him (ἡγεμόνες δι᾿ αὐτοῦ πιωμπόμενοι)." Moreover, St. Peter's description of the urpose of the existing central government as being (on one side) e ‘commendation’ of ‘ well-doers’ goes considerably beyo the earlier dictum of St.

Paul (τὸ dyalléy wolu, καὶ ἵξως ἔπαινον ἐξ airys); and this description he still further emphasizes by the explanation—‘ thus (i.e. in accordance with His «ries —the Divine institution of civil government) it is the will of God, that by well-doing men silence the ignorance of those who are senseless.’ To this passage must be added the other Ἐ5 in the Epistle where the writer speaks in a tone of unwave ng ho ness as to the effect of ἀγαθοσοιΐα on the heathen worl 81.16), St.

Paul wrote Ro 18 when he still rded the an State as ‘the restraining power,’ and still looked to the Empire as the protector of the Church. That a Christian teacher, writing from Rome after Nero's attack on the Church to fellow-Ohristians in the provinces, should adopt St. Paul's language, only making it more explicit and emphasizing its hopefninoes, seems inconceivable.

How impossible such a position at that time would have been, is clear when with the paragraph in 1 P we compare the symbolism of the Apocalypse —the beast and the harlot seated on the seven hills, ‘drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev 178. 9%), To sum up: the strong reason for t * Of. Didachéd xvi.

δ, τότε ἔξω ὁ κτίσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων ule τὸν σύρνσιν φῇς δοκιμασίας, καὶ σκανδλαλσθόσοενται σελλεὶ κτλ, The previous Sontext speaks of the advent of the ‘ world-cleceiver.’ VOL. I11.—50 assage last considered affords finking that the storm of the PETER, FIRST EPISTLE 785 Neronian pereccnii had not as yet swept over the Church at Rome, and that no persecuting policy against the Church had been adopted by the Roman magistrates in Asia Minor.

Not a word is found in the Epistle about men shedding their blood or laying down their lives for the gospel. None of the passages in any of the above groups, as we have seen, contains any reference to, or hint of, an organized persecution. But it needs only a little reflexion in the light of actual history to convince us how much of the keenest suffering the confession of Christ must have cost these Asiatic Christians, though the State had not as yet become their enemy.

They were called upon to face violence, slander, the severance of social and eanily, ties, worldly ruin. In the earliest days of their missionary activity St. Paul and Barnabas frankly told their converts—dia πολλῶν θλίψεων δεῖ ἡμᾶς εἰσελθεῖν els τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ (Ac 14%). Such tribulations were not confined to the Churches of Asia Minor. It was well that St.

Peter, out of his wider experience at Kome* and elsewhere, should remind them that these sufler- ings were the lot of the Christian brotherhood everywhere (5°). V. AUTHORSHIP AND DatE.—It will be con- venient to preface the discussion of these questions with a tabular statement (founded on that given by Holtzmann, Lind. p. 318 ff.) of the diflerent views held by representative critics. I. On the Assumption of the Authenticity of the Epistle: (1) ¢. 54 a.p. (before St. Paul's 7 pe at Ephesus)—B.

Weiss, Kiibl. (2) shri, Ho later period of St. Paul's activity before his imprisonment—B. Briickner. (8) 69 or 60—Gloag. (4) ¢. 62 (during St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome)—Steiger, Guericke, Bleek, Wieseler. ® Shortly before the Neronian persecution— Hofmann, Renan, F. 0. Cook, Zahn. (6) 6. 65 (or a little later)}— e.g.

Eichhorn, de Wette, Neander, Grimm, Huther, Sieffert, Ewald, Wiesinger, Usteri; probably the ras ats of English scholars, ae: Plumptre, Salmon, Farrar, Sanday (apparently ; Expositor, June 1893, p. 411), Hort (not earlier than 62, prob- ably after Neronian persecution), Lightfoot (‘probably written not earlier than the summer of δέ, Clement ii. p. 499). (7) 70-80, Ramsay πο would assign 80 as the probable date, The Ch. and the Empire p. 279ff.)

, Swete (preferring apparently the first half of the decade, St. Mark p. xviif.) II. On the Assumption of the Spuriousness of the Epistle: (1) Under Domitian (81-96)—Scholten, von Soden (92-96), Harnack 83-93, but ibly one or even two decades earlier than ἘΞ, ie Gheonokews 454), McGiffert (about 90). (2) Under Trajan ‘98-117)}—Schwegler, Baur, Keim, Lipsius, Pfleiderer, Hausrath, . Briickner, Hilgenfeld, 8. Davidson, Jiilicher (about 100) (8) Under Hadrian (117-138)—Zeller. (4) 140-147—Volkmar.

The difficulties involved in the theory that the Epistle is spurious may be conveniently considered first. They are many, and of various kinds. A close study of the document itself reveals no motive, theological, controversial, or historical, which ex- plains it as a forgery (cf. Harnack, Die Chronol. Ρ. 456f.) It denounces no heresy. It supports no special system of doctrine. It contains no rules as to Church life or organization.

Its references to the words and the life of Christ are unobtrusive. It presents no picture of any scene in St. Peter's sailing life, and does not connect itself with any of the stories current in the early Church about his later years. Why, moreover, should a forger, with all the world to choose from, select so strangely wide a district, four provinces, as the supposed des tination of the letter, and why should ia mention them in an order (on this supposition) so chaoti: and so inexplicable?

Why should he represent Silvanus as the amanuensis or the bearer of ¢ Peter's letter, though in the Acts he nowhe: appears as in any way connected with that apostle, but both in the Acts and in three Epistles * When St. Paul first arrived at Rome, the Jews at Rome tell him that they know that ‘everywhere this sect is spoken against’ (Ac 28%), The language of Tacitus (Ann. xv.

44) | clearly implies that before the Neronian persecution Christians | were regarded at Rome with feelings of hatred and horror *quos per flagitia Inuisos uolgue Christianos appellabat ' aduersus sontes et noulmima exempla meritos 186 PETER, FIRST EPISTLE (land 2 Th, 2 Co) as the companion of St. Paul? Why, above all, should a forger give to Pauline thoughts and to Pauline language a prominent place in an Epistle bearing the name of St. Peter?

These difficulties do not appear less formidable when we review the theories of those critics who have attempted to meet them. The Tiibingen school, indeed, had a clear and concise answer to the question why a Pauline element is found in a Petrine Epistle. The letter, in their view, is a Unionsschrift (see Holtzmann, Zinl. p. 316), celebrating the agreement of the two parties in the Church which bore the names of the two pet apostles. ‘But that theory,’ to quae arnack’s verdict (Dse Chronol. p.

456, cf. p. vii ff.), ‘is admittedly profoundly shaken in general, and in particular it is refuted in its application to 1 Peter.’ We turn at once to three recent theories. (a) Von Soden (Hand-Commentar zum NT iii. 2, B 117), putting the letter in the last four years of lomitian’s reign, suggests that Silvanus was the author of the Epistle (54): that, however, instead of speaking in his own name, he makes St.

Peter, the glorious martyr (51), utter words of encourage- ment to Churches among which the apostle had himself once worked; that, conscious what judg- } ment the apostle had formed of him, he ventures to add the testimony to himself πιστοῦ ἀδελφοῦ ὡς λογίζομαι ; that he perhaps derived his right to speak in the apostle’s name from his own position as an ἀπόστολος (1 Th 2°) and a prophet (Ac 1583). A theory burdened with such complicated improba- bilities hardly merits serious discussion.

(ὁ) Jiilicher (Hind. p. 134 ff.) holds that the letter was written about the year 100. In view of 5% and of the author's familiarity with St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, he conjectures that he was a Roman Christian.

In spite of its obvious * catholic’ character, the letter is addressed to the five provinces of Asia Minor; and Jiilicher finds an explanation of this fact in the supposition that the writer was a native of Asia Minor, and thus had a natural interest in the brethren of that region. He had, it is clear, an intimate knowledge of St.

Paul’s writmgs; but, when he wanted to give an apostolic authority te his own words, he refrained from using the name of that apostle, partly from motives of reverence and partly that he might not tear open in wounds which were now half healed. It is clear that this special view of the composition of the Epistle is open to all, or to nearly all, the objections mentioned above as generally valid against the supposition of its spuriousness, _(c) Harnack (Chronol. p. 457 ff.)

draws a distine- tion between the opening and closing sentences (1! 5!) and, on the other hand, the main body of the Epistle (18-5"). The latter—whether originally a letter or not, there is no evidence to determine—is the work of ‘ some prominent teacher and confessor, who, possibly writing from Rome, and, it may be, a prisoner there, was certainly so familiar with Pauline Christianity that he could move about erfect freedom.

’* The date of this document, which to us is a fragment, lies be- tween 83-93, but may conceivably be some 20 years earlier. The opening and closing sentences, on the other hand, Harnack, modifying a suggestion first | put forward by him in his edition of the Didaché | (p. 106 n.), considers to have been added between A.D. 150 and 175.

He further discovers resem- blances in style between these sentences and within its area with 2 Peter, the earliest document in which our Epistle is quoted as the work of St. Peter, and indulges the suspicion that the clauses which now begin and * McGiffert (History of Christianity in the Apost. Age p. 599) conjectures that the writer of the Epistle was Barnabas. accepts Harnack’s theory of interpolation. He PETER, FIRST EPISTLE end 1 Peter are the work of the same author sa 2 Peter.

Harnack (p. 458 ff.) urges that his view as to 117. 6126. 18. con- firmed by four arguments. (1) These sentences can without loss be removed from the document. Sut, on this principle, al) Epistles might profitably be curtailed at both ends. (2) Thes. sentences are poor in style, and present various ditticulties.

But it is only natural that the beginning and the close of a letter should be simple and plain in style, and Harnack’s objection to the phrase εἰς ὑπακοὴν καὶ ῥαντισμὸν αἵματος ᾿ἴησοῦ Χριστοῦ (12) is due to a want of appreciation of the words (see below, p. 794). Further, the existence of ambiguities in those parts of a letter which deal with personal matters is often a strong proof of its authenticity.

The writer of a letter assumes on m rest of his correspondents a knowledge of personal facts, obvious enough at the time, but soon forgotten. Moreover, any gaps in such knowledge the bearer of a letter would be trusted to fill up. (3) The motive of such additions lay in αὶ sense of the instructiveness of the document, and the feeling that words so full of edification must be apostolic, Phenomena not wholly dissimilar are found in connexion with other docu- ments—‘ Ephesians,’ Ep.

Barnabas, the so-called Second Ep. of Clement. But the first assertion suggests no answer to the question why the fragment should be assigned to St. Peter and not rather to St. Paul, with whose writings it has obvious pointe of contact. In regard to the second assertion, the reply is obvious. The documents adduced fail as parallels, both in other respects and especially just in the crucial point, viz.

the addi- tion to a document of sentences containing details geographical and personal, which are, as they stand, obscure, and are alto- gether lacking in Sposa seh precision, (4) Tradition favours the hypothesis. No writer before Irenwus quotes the letter as that of St. Peter. On the reception of the Epistle in the Church see above. Harnack’s hypothesis is open to serious objections, based on the internal evidence of the document itself and on exter- nal evidence.

In the first place, what was the character of the document (i.e. 13-519)? It was not a treatise, for it is hortatory throughout. Was it, then, like the so-called Second Epistle of Clement, a homily? This is in the highest degree improbable, partly because of its close resemblances to St. Paul’s Epistles, especially of the opening paragraph—slaocynros ὁ θεὸς καὶ τατήρ κιτ.λ.

(13)—to the opening paragraph of 2 Co and ‘Ephesians’; partly because of the great variety of topics dealt with—a procedure natural in a letter, but ill-suited to a sermon ; artly because the language is general, and there is an absolute lack of any such reference to the immediate surroundings or the special circumstances of his hearers as we should expect in the words of a preacher; partly because the whole tone of the document produces the impression that the teacher is not face to face with those whom he is addressing—note especially the phrase wpioBuripous οὖν ἐν ὑμῖν παρακαλῶ (51).

If, then, the docu- ment was neither a treatise nor a homily, it must have been a letter ; and, if a letter, it must originally have included, if not some perecral message, at least some form of salutation. We must therefore suppose either that the interpolator deliberately excised the original beginning or ending or both, or that the document came into his hands ina mutilated form.

This last hypothesis, so far as the initial salutation is concerned, is highly improbable; for the first leaf of the MS must have contained much more of the letter than the customary brief words of salutation, and the paragraph which must have immediately followed the salutation (15) is extant. Inthe second place, the difficulties arising from the consideration of internal evidence are increased when external evidence is taken into account. The main body of the Epistle, as Harnack admits (p.

461f.), waa known to Clement (probably), Polycarp, and Papias. The Epistle therefore must have been widely circulated before the time of the supposed interpolator. How are we to account, then, for these widely-circulated (uninterpolated) copies having disap- peared, leaving no posterity ; while all known MSS and versions all MSS used by Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Irenwus, and all other early writers who gn the Epistle as the work of St.

Peter, must have descended from a single ancestor—the copy that is, in which the additions at the beginning and the end were made about the middle of the 2nd cent.?* The improba- bilities involved in Harnack’s hypothesis are many and great. It is important, because it essentially belongs to a period of transition.

It is the product, on the one hand, of the linger: ing influence of an older criticism, too thoroughly bent upon negative results to retain much delicacy of perception ; and, on the other hand, of a keen literary and spiritual sense of the significance of a writer’s matter and manner. His own worda (p. 464 1.)

are remarkable, and appropriately conciude this section: ‘If the hypothesis here brought forward should prove erroneous, I should more readily prevail upon mveelf to regard the gee as possible and to claim the Epistle for Peter himself, than to suppose that a Pseudo-Petrus wrote our frag- ment as it now stands, from the first verse to the last, soon after a.p. 90, or even from ten to thirty years earlier.

Such an * Harnack supposes interpolations not only in 1 P, but also in Jude, the Pastoral Epistles, Mt, Jn (Die Chronologie pp. 468, 485, 700, 679). The improbability of such a hypothesis in the case of a sett document, as pointed out above, is very great. The improbability of the same improbable series of events having taken place in the case of six separate documents is infinite. The argument is well put by Dom Butler in the Dublin Review for Jan. 1899, p. 13 ff.

PETER, FIRST EPISTLE assumpton dimiculticn ag We proceed, then, to examine the objections ἃ against the view that the salutation is original and veracious, and that the Epistle was The chief of these are five urged written by St. Peter. in number— (1) The references to kind as to imply a date which lies outside the prob- able, if not the possible, limits of St. Peter’s life. This objection has been (p. 783 ff.) considered. (2) St.

Peter was a Jew of lowly origin, and Papias ks of Mark as his ἑρμηνευτής. The Epistle, on the other hand, is written in good Greek, and the writer was thoroughly familiar with the LXX (so, ¢.g., Jiilicher, Hind. p. 132f.) The facts alle; as to the Epistle are undisputed (see above, Ῥ. 781f.) Are they incompatible with St. Peter’s authorship? In Galilee, with its Greek towns such as Gadara (Jos. Ant. Xvil. xi. 4, Β τι. vi.

3), there was so considerable an element of Greek life that, even when St. Peter became a follower of Christ, it is unlikely (to say the least) that he was wholly ignorant of colloquial Greek (Mayor, St. James pp. xli, ecix ; Abbott, Zssays on the Original Texts of the Old and New Testaments p. 162 ff.; Zahn, inl. i. p. 23f.)

_We may reverently suppose that our Lord, when He chose the a e as ‘the rock on which He would build His Church,’ discerned in him intellectual as well as spiritual gifts which fitted him for his destined work. In Jerusalem, after the Ascension, St. Peter had much intercourse with Hellenistic Jews.

His departure from Pales- tine can have been no sudden step; and it would be strange if he did not prepare himself for the work which lay before him by ing Op rtunities, which certainly were within his reach, of increasing whatever knowledge he already had of the lingua franca of the Roman world. Mark was known in the early Church as ‘the interpreter of Peter,’ probably because he assisted the apostle in his first ey so to address Greek-speaking people.

Greek must have been the vehicle of communication with Cornelius, and not improbably with the Jews of the Dispersion on the Day of Pentecost. We may conjecture that Mark was one of ‘the brethren’ who accompanied St. Peter from Joppa (Ac 10%), and that he helped him in speaking to the Roman centurion and his household.

It may well be that Mark ‘the interpreter’ read with the apostle some Greek literature, and especially the LXX, of which it is not impossible that he had gained some know- ledge in his home at Bethsaida. At any rate the years which St.

Peter spent in missionary work outside the borders of the a Land, specially, we may add with great probability, in the Syrian Antioch and its neighbourhood (see above), cannot but have given him a familiarity with Greek sufficient to enable him to write a letter in Greek, even if he still had to trust Mark ‘the inter- reter’ to prune away in it any solecism of which ie might still be guilty. The orb of St. Peter, it must be ἘΣ στῶν is no isolated phenomenon in the apostolic age.

One who accepts the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude as genuine is entitled to point to them as a proof that even Jews who, so far as it appears, did not extend their labours be- yond Jerusalem, could acquire a good Greek style. (3) If the Epistle was written from Rome, its silence about the death of St. Paul, if his martyr- dom was recent, or, if St. Paul was then at Rome, the absence of any message from him or news about him, is said to be inexplicable (cf. von Soden . 115).

The subject will come before us again. ‘or the present, it is sufficient to say that the bearer of the letter—such as Silvanus appears to have been—might well be entrusted with personal news (Hort p. 6). in my opinion, weighed down by inzuperable rsecution are of such a Jirst person PETER, FIRST EPISTLE 787 (4) It is alleged that we do not find In the Epistle much which we should expect to find in a letter of St.

Peter, the chief of the Lord’s personal followers; that it shows no sign of a vivid re- membrance either of Christ’s life or of His teaching (von Soden p. 115; Jiilicher p, 134; Harnack p. 451). We cannot, then, place the Epistle after St. Paul’s Epistles and suppose it to be the work of St. Peter, unless we admit, according to Jiilicher’s view, that ‘Paul had exercised on Peter a greater influence than Jesus.’ The discussion of this ob- jection falls under two heads. (a) The Lord’s life.

silence as to the facts of the Lord’s life and ministry, strange to us in the case of one who re- membered details the knowledge of which would have been of priceless value to later generations, is not a phenomenon peculiar to 1 Peter. From the Books of the NT other than the Gospels hardly a hint as to the events of our Lord’s earthly lite can be gathered. In the speeches recorded in the Acts, if we may assume that they represent with substantial accuracy the apostle’s earlier teaching, St.

Peter refers once to the Lord’s baptism (108 cf, 13. 47) and twice to His miracles (27 10%), but to nothing else before the Passion. The facts of the NT then point to the conclusion that in their public teaching, whether oral or written, the apostles con- centrated attention on the great momenta of the Lord’s ‘ manifestation’—His sufferings and death, His resurrection and exaltation.

While, however, there is in the Epistle nothing biographical or autobiographical, there are unobtrusive indications that its author was an eye-witness of the Lord’s life. In 18 (ὃν οὐκ ἰδόντες ἀγαπᾶτε) a return to the eigen (v.3) would have been quite natural had the writer been one who had not seen the Lord.

The words gain greatly in force and tenderness if they are the words of a disciple who loved One whom he had seen (Jn 21"), and who | welcomes to a fellowship in his love for Christ those who had not seen. Again, when in δὶ the writer | speaks of himself as ὁ συνπρεσβύτερος x. μάρτυς τῶν τοῦ Χριστοῦ παθημάτων, the description is almost pointless unless it implies that he witness to what he himself had seen (contrast 4").

The whole clause is clearly intended to justify the authorit, with which the writer addresses ‘the elders.’ He shared their position as elders, and therefore knows their difficulties. He is a witness to the very events which form their Gospel, and therefore has a unique claim to be heard. The full significance of the clause is seen only when it is compared with (i.) the commands addressed to the eleven, Jn 15”, Lk 247, Ac 15; (ii.) St. John’s words in Jn 19* (cf. 21%), 1 Jn 1 4%; (111,) St.

Peter’s words as re- corded in Ac 1312. 293 316 4” 532 10"; and when, on the other hand, we mark the entire absence in St. Paul’s Epistles of any similar expression, and that in ges where he is insisting on his apostolic authority (¢.g. 2 Co 10-12", Gal 1). The nearest parallels in St. Panl—1 Co 9! 15%, ef. Ac 22' 26' —serve to bring out into sharper relief the dis- tinctiveness of the Petrine phrase (cf.

Ac 135), An instance of this μαρτυρία is found in 2%—a reminiscence of the arrest, and of what St. Peter saw as he lingered in the high priest’s vestibule. In this connexion the force of the imperfects is not to be overlooked. They give not the summary statement of the historian, but the vivid remem- brance of the eye-witness.

Again, in the phrase ἀλλήλοις τὴν ταπεινοφροσύνην ἐγκομβώσασθε (5°), the picturesque word ἐγκομβώσασθε gathers up the de- tails of the scene related in Jn 13*" and its lessons. (δ) The Lord’s teaching. The following are the chief coincidences between 1 P and sayings of our Lord : (a) recorded in the Synoptic Gospels—1! P 19 Mt 5° 25" 6”; 18943) Mt 5"; 1 k 10"; 1% i Lk 24%; ΣῊ Lk 12% 21%; ΤῊ Mt 6” Lk 11" 188 PETER, FIRST EPISTLE 2? || Mt 18% 10} Lk 18!7; 24 (wpocepy.) || Mt 11% (cf.

Jn 67 757); 2° || Mt 16'8; 27 (Ps 118%) || Mt 21%; 213 (ef. 31%) || Mt 5; 212. 17 || Mt 22%; 23! (ἐπακολ.) || 6.0. Mt 105"; am (οἱ. 41) || Lk 234; 2° || e.g. Mt 9% Lk 15‘; 3° || Lk 6®; 815 || Lk 10% 2118; 314) Mt 5; 314 || Mt 10%-; 36 || Lk 6%; 47 (cf. 5°) || Mt 24# 2518 264 Lk 12° 218; 414|) Mt 54; 419 (9. κτίστῃ) || Mt 6555. δὶ | Lk 24 (Ac 18) Mt 19% Lk 22%; 53 || Mt 2075; δὴ} Mt 23%; (8) recorded in St. John—1 P 15:35} Jn 3; 18) 20%; 119 9% |) 139. 36. 133 y 1341.

1512; οὐ | 8'2 12; 2% (Gentiles) || 1011. 14. 15. 5% 4} 211° 17 (note τὰ ἀρνία μου). It has been already noticed that St. Peter’s imagery diflers from that of St. Paul (see above, p. 782). It may further be remarked that all his metaphors (except those of painting and working in metals) fin pack in the Lord’s ae bat In estimating the force of the list of parallels given above, two points must be borne in mind; (1) We are not here dealing with a question of literary indebtedness.

For us the sayings of Christ are preserved in the literature of the Greek Gospels. One who heard them uttered in the original Aramaic would reproduce them, when writing in Greek, in a form peculiar to himself. Hence verbal similarity to the Gospels is not a measure of real coincidence. (2) The Gospels do not give us an exhaustive collection of our Lord’s sayings.

Hence, in the case of a document which claims to be the work of an apostle, the Gospels are an imperfect criterion of indebtedness to the Lord’s teaching.

Yet, judging the influence of our Lord’s sayings on the writer of 1 P by the admittedly imperfect standard of the written Gospels, it is not too much to say that his mind is saturated with the words of Christ, and that, in dealing with uestions and circumstances very different from those which called forth the Lord’s teaching, he in- stinctively turns to the substance and to the words of that teaching as bearing upon the actual needs of the present. St.

Paul was certainly acquainted with the Lord’s teaching (see, e.g., 1 Co 7), whether in an oral or in some written form; but the whole literature of his Epistles supplies a list of coin- cidences with the Gospels fewer in number and far less close than this one Epistle. Apart from the Johannine Epistles, the only parallel in this respect to 1 P is the Epistle of James.

(5) The objection against the Petrine authorshi of our Epistle on which recent critics have lai most stress is its affinity in doctrine, thought, and language with the Pauline Epistles. Jiilicher (p. 133) brings out three points as to the relation of 1P to the Pauline literature. (i.) There is nothing un-Pauline in it. (ii.)

In regard to his conception of Christ, of the saving efficacy of His death, of faith and regeneration, the writer of 1 P breathes the Pauline spirit even as he uses the Pauline formulas (e.g. ἐν Χριστῷ 3° 510. 14. ἑωοποιεῖν 318, ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτεσθαι six times, his favourite word ἀναστροφή). (iii.)

There are many similarities between 1 P and the Pauline Epistles, especially Ro and Eph, which cannot be acci- dental ; the ascription of Eph and 1 P to the same author is a proposition which has been seriously maintained.+ This whole position has the ap- proval of Harnack (Die Chronol. p. 451ff.) But the words of the latter in maintaining it give expression to significant admissions. ‘The author,’ he writes (p. 452), ‘is completely determined by the spirit of Pauline Christianity.

But this de- termination is united with such independence and freedom in regard to religious thought and teach- ing within the limits of this Paulinism, that the assumption is an obvious one that Paul himself is * Outside the Gospels, Rev 144 is the only passage in NT, except 1 P 221, where ‘ to follow’ is used in this connexion. t This is the conclusion of Sieffert (Zeitschrift f. wissensch. Theol. 1881, pp. 178 ff., 332 ff.) PETER, FIRST EPISTLE —ooos the author of thedocument.’ And again (B.

364 n.), ‘Were it not for the dependence [of 1 P] on the Pauline Epistles, 1 might perhaps allow myself to maintain its genuineness: that dependence, how- ever, is not accidental, but is of the essence of the Epistle.’ It will be best to clear the ground by indicating the affinities between 1 P and the Epistles of the