PETER, FIRST EPISTLE OP

(c) The Gospds. — While the Epistle affords no proof of acquaintance with our Gospels, it contains many suggestions of the life and teachings of Jesus. Peter claims to have been a witness of the sufferings and the glory of Jesus (5'), which may refer both to the Trans-figuration and to the appearances of the risen Christ. Christ is set forth as the example for the sufferer, as though His silent endurance of reviling and the agony of the sinless One had been indelibly impressed on the author's memory; and, as in the Synoptics, Jesus Christ fulfils the prophecy of the Suffering Servant. The great command of Jesus to His disciples to renounce the world, take up the cross and follow Him, seems to re-echo in this Epistle; as Jesus pronounced blessings on those who were persecuted for righteousness' sake, so does Peter (3" 4"), and other words from the Sermon on the Mount (Mt S'"- "• '« e^s) seem to speak in 2'^ 313-18 5«. The parable of the Sower may have supplied the figure of V^-\ the lesson of the tribute money may underlie 2"- "; and Christ's utterance of doom on apostate Israel, especially the parable of Mk 12'-'^ probably suggested the thought of 25-". That the Kingdom of God, so common in the teaching of Jesus, is not referred to, may be due to the fact that the terra had no worthy association for the readers. They had learned to call God 'Father,' not 'King.'

(ft) Acts. — There are similarities with Peter's speeches in Acts, e.g., the witness of the prophets to the Messiah; Jesus Christ as the Suffering Servant whose death was foreknown to God, and was endured for our sins; His exaltation and near return to Judge the living and the dead (Ac 2»- » S's 530- si 10«- 9). Cf. also 1 P 3m with Ac 3"-".

(c) The Pauline Epistles. — A comparison of Romans with this Epistle reveals striking resemblances between them (1 P 1», Ro 122; 1 P l^^, Ro 12"; 1 P 2', Ro 12i; 1 p 2»-a- •», Ro 9^- 32- "; 1 P 2"-", Ro 13'- '■ *• '; 1 P 3»- », Ro 12i«; 1 P 4'-", Ro 12»- «), so close, indeed, in 1 P 2« and Ro 9^2, that it is all but certain that one Epistle was known to the writer of the other; and Romans must have been the earlier. The more or less obvious relations of Ephesians with 1 Peter (1 P l'-*- '• ', Eph 13-"; 1 P 112, Eph 35- i"; 1 P 24-«, Eph 2'8-M; 1 P 218, Eph 66; 1 P 31-', Eph S^'-ss; 1 P 3«, Eph l"-«) justify the opinion that 'the authors of both letters breathed the same atmosphere' (v. Soden).

(/) Hebrews. — Many close verbal parallels are found between these Epistles, and their leading religious conceptions are similar. Both have the same view of faith, of Jesus Christ as an example, and as the One who introduces the believer to God, of His death as the sacrifice ratifying the new covenant and taking away sin. Similar stress is laid on hope and obedience; the fortunes of old Israel are employed in both to illus-trate the demand for faith on the part of new Israel, and a similar use is made of the sufferings of the readers. Cf. 1 P 1», He 111; 1 p i20_ He 9^; 1 P 2"-'", He 12i-'; 1 P 4" 51, He 11« 1313; 1 p 411, He 13^1; 1 P 5i», He IS". Though direct literary relationship between the two Epistles cannot be affirmed, the authors may have been close friends, and the readers were perhaps similarly situated.

(g) James. — A comparison of 1 P li, Ja li; 1 P I"-, Ja I"-; 1 P 123-21, Ja I11-22; 1 P 6"-, Ja 4"- "—proves close relationship, but the priority can be determined only on the basis of the date of James.

6. Authorship. — According to the present greeting, this Epistle was written by the Apostle Peter, and this is supported by very strong tradition. Polycarp is the earliest writer who indubitably quotes the Epistle, though it was probably famUiar to Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Papias, and perhaps Ignatius. Basilides seems to have known it, and it was rejected by Marcion on doctrinal grounds. It is first quoted as Peter's by Irenseus and Tertullian, and is frequently used by Clement of Alexandria. Its omission from the Mura-

PETER, FIRST EPISTLE OF

torian Fragment is not significant; it is contained in the oldest versions, and Eusebius, in full agreement with what we know of early Christian literature, places it among the books which the Church accepted without hesitation. In the Apostolic Fathers, e.g., it is as well attested as Galafians or Ephesians. Harnack suggests that tlie opening and closing verses were later additions, and that Polycarp did not regard the letter as Peter's ; but this hypothesis is utterly without textual support, and both paragraphs are fitted compactly into the Epistle. The chief objections to the Petrine authorship are — (1) the Epistle is said to be so saturated with Pauline ideas that it could not have been written by the Apostle Peter; (2) the readers are Gentile Christians living within territory evangelized by Paul, in which Peter would have been trespassing on the Gentiles (Gal 2'); (3) there is a lack of personal reminiscences of the life of Jesus that would be strange in Peter; (4) the use of good Greek and of the LXX would be remarkable in a Galilaean fisherman; (S) the persecution referred to in ch. 4 is said to be historically impossible until after the death of Peter.

In answer to (3) reference may be made to 5 (c). (4) is too conjectural to be serious, for 'there is not the slightest presumption against tlie use of Greek in writings purporting to emanate from the circle of the first believers. They would write as men who had used the language from boyhood' (J. H. Moulton). Silvanus also may have had a large share in the composition of the Epistle. The difficulty of (5) is removed if, as we have seen to be probable, no official Imperial persecution is involved. Little is known of its beginnings in the provinces, though from Acts we learn that the Jews soon stirred up hostUity against the Christians. Rome is called Babylon, the idolatrous oppressor of the true Israel. This might have happened whenever the Christians began to realize the awakening hatred of the wicked city, mistress of an empire ruled by a deified Nero, even before the persecution of 64 a.d. Un-doubtedly there is a close relationship between this Epistle and Paul's Epistles, closer in thought than in vocabulary. Probably the approximation is nearest in the treatment of morals, as, e.g., marriage, slavery, obedience to civil rulers; and how much of this was common Christian belief and practice. It is, however, striking that in an Epistle so indebted to the Romans the legalistic controversy is passed by, while a different view of righteousness, a change of emphasis as to the import of Christ's death, and a dissimilar conception of the work of the Spirit are manifest. Nor does the Ephesian idea of the Church appeal to this author. He cannot be called a Paulinist. He has been nurtured on prophetic, rather than on Pharisaic, ideals. Doubt-less St. Paul,- a broadly educated Jew, a Roman citizen, and a man of massive intellect and penetrating insight, influenced St. Peter. This much may be inferred from Gal 21' -1'. On the other hand, St. Paul did not resent St. Peter's visit to Antioch in Gal 2". Why should not St. Peter, many years later, have written to Churches some of which at least seem not to have been evangelized by St. Paul? But greatly as St. Peter may have been impressed by St. Paul's masterful construction of Christian thought, his character must have been im-measurably more moulded by Jesus, while his own strong temperament, responsive to the prophetic side of his people's religion, would change little with the years. It is precisely the ground-tone of the Epistle — in harmony with the spirit of OT prophecy and of the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels — that makes its Petrine authorship so reasonable.

7. Date.— The belief that St. Peter died in Rome is supported by a very strong chain of evidence, being deducible from Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Papias; and it is held by Dionysius of Corinth, Irensus, Ter-tullian, and Clement of Alexandria. Unless St. Peter had been definitely associated with Rome, it is difficult

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