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THE EXPOSITOR’S

monk PRS TAMENT

EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.

BDITOR ον “THE EXPOSITOR,” “THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE,” ETC.

VOLUME V.

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED

LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

πο. EXPOSITOR'S τς ΤΕ ΥΙΜΕΝΤ

I

THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER

BY THE REV. |. απ κ πκατ M.A, II

THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER

R. H. STRACHAN, M.A. III THE EPISTLES OF JOHN

DAVID SMITH, Μ.Α., D.D. IV THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE

BY THE REV. J. B. MAYOR, Lrrr:D. V

THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE

BY THE REV.

JAMES MOFFATT, D.D.

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL «ΟΕ

PETER

INTRODUCTION

In the case of this document a question preliminary to the ordinary heads of Introduction arises; the question of the Unity of the Epistle. For it contains two formal and solemn conclusions. The first! is “« That in all things God may be glorified through Fesus Christ to Whom belongs the glory and the victory to the ages of the ages. Amen;” and the second,’ ‘‘ Now the Godof all grace, he who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, himself shall refit you after brief suffering, shall confirm you, shall strengthen you, shall establish you. His is the victory to the ages of the ages. Amen.” The latter conclusion is followed by a postscript which ends with yet another formula of conclusion ὃ “ Peace to you all who are in Christ”’.

The address * at the head of the document stamps it as a circular letter or an encyclical epistle. The three conclusions divide it into three parts. Of these the last and shortest part may fairly be taken as a true postscript. The writer (we may suppose) takes the pen from the secretary, to whom he has been dictating, and appends a greeting in his own handwriting. St. Paul did the same thing in the Epistle to the Galatians.’ In such a case the value of the post- script would be greater than in the case of a circular letter addressed to widely separated churches in different provinces or countries. The Galatian letter would naturally be preserved in the chest of the chief church of the province; and St. Paul’s autograph would be prized as proof of the authenticity of the exemplar, copies of which were doubtless made and supplied as need and demand arose. But in this case also the autograph has a value of its own, inasmuch as it gives the credentials of the bearer, who presumably went from place to place and read it out to the assembled Christians, letting them see the postscript before he travelled on. So the third part of the letter may well be an integral portion of this encyclical.

But this postscript is preceded not by one conclusion but by two; and in this the document bears witness against its own unity. And

Viv, II. ἂν. το f. Ἑν. 14. 41, 1. 5 Gal. vi. ΤΙ-17.

4 INTRODUCTION

further it is to be noted that the first conclusion is followed by a general form of address—“ Beloved ””—which has occurred at an earlier point... In fact, apart from the formal superscription—X to Y greeting—the second part? of the Epistle is a complete epistle in itself. And it is natural enough that a circular letter, addressed to different communities, should contain alternative or additional letters, if the writer was aware that the conditions or circumstances were not identical in every case. The formal severance of the second part may, therefore, be taken as indicating that all the communities addressed were not necessarily in the condition, which that part implies.

1. The Recipients.~-Eusebius of Czsarea, whose Ecclesiastical History belongs to the beginning of the fourth century, is the earliest (extant) writer, who inquired systematically into the origins of the Christian literature. For him there is no question about the nation- ality of the first recipients of this document: they are Hebrews or Jewish Christians. He insists that the compact made between St. Peter and St. Paul at Jerusalem® was faithfully observed, as their respective writings and the evidence of St. Luke agree to testify: “That Paul, on the one hand, preached to those of Gentile origin and so laid the foundations of the churches from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum is plain from his own statements and from the narratives, which Luke gives in the Acts. And, on the other hand, from the phrases of Peter it is clear in what provinces he for his part preached the Gospel of Christ to those of the Circumcision and delivered to them the message of the New Covenant—I mean, from his acknowledged epistle in which he writes to those of Hebrew origin in the dispersion of Pontus and Galatia, Cappadocia and As@ and Bithynia.*

Just before this® plain statement Eusebius quotes verbally from Origen’s exegetical commentary upon Genesis: “ Peter seems to have preached in Pontus and Galatia and Bithynia, in Cappadocia and Asia to the Fews in dispersion”. Origen’s assertion rests presumably on the authority of the address of our document, although the order of the provinces differs in respect of Bithynia from the generally accepted text. When Eusebius speaks for himself he restores the conventional order of the provinces and explicitly quotes the authority of ‘the acknowledged Epistle’. It does not seem at all probable that either Eusebius or Origen had any other evidence for their belief than such as is preserved for modern investigation. Both knew of

απ τα, Ziv. 12-v. II. 3 Gal. ii. 7-9. “Ρας. Η. E. iti. 4. SEus, Η. Ἐ. αι. τ.

INTRODUCTION 5

the compact, in virtue of which Peter was to continue his work among the Jews: both construed the direction of the Epistle as proof that the writer had preached the Gospel to his readers: therefore in virtue of the compact his readers were fews—dJews of the Dispersion, but still Jews.

The evidence upon which both Eusebius and Origen seem to rely is extant; the deduction drawn—characteristic as it is of patristic exegesis—is not necessarily valid, and it is not supported by any pretence of independent tradition.

The compact to which James and Cephas and John, on the one side, and Paul and Barnabas, on the other, were consenting parties, cannot be held to prove these Christians to be Jewish Christians— even if it could be made out that St. Peter “the Apostle of the Cir cumcision,” who writes to them, converted them to Christianity.

The appellation of the Dispersion is on the face of it a weightier argument, because Dispersion is a technical term and comprises in itself all the Jews who lived outside Palestine. Whatever its pro- venance, the term is Jewish through and through, for it insists upon the First Cause of all such scattering and upon the central shrine from which the exiles are removed. The mere Greek spoke and thought of exiles as fugitives and had a collective term φυγή to cor- respond with the Jewish διασπορά. But the Jewish word recognises that those dispersed are placed here and there—as exiles, traders and what not ?—by God. Jewish as it is, this appellation is capable of extension to the new Israel and does not necessarily imply that the persons addressed were born Jews. Ultimately and fundamentally it does not denote privilege like the term Jsrael but rather penalty— removal from the place which was traditionally associated with the visible presence of Jehovah. The writer may, perhaps, be taken to use it without a precise definition of a centre corresponding to the Holy Land of the Jew; but there is no valid ground for doubting that he could apply it to Gentiles, who were in the world and not of it by virtue of their faith in Christ. Situated as they were among un- friendly friends these Gentile churches are collectively the new Dis- persion.

These Gentile Churches—for there is more than one passage in our document which seems to settle the point, apart from general probabilities to be derived from the traditions of St. Paul’s missionary activity. Inthe first place, St. Peter! applies to his readers the words of Hosea*?; ye who were once no People but now are God’s People, who were not ina state of experiencing His mercy, but now have

lii. το. 2 See Hosea ii. 23. vOL. V. I

6 INTRODUCTION

come under its influence.’’ At a definite time God had shown mercy to these Christians, who before—according to the strict Jewish point of view—had been outside the pale of His mercy. And, if we may argue from silence as from the tenses employed, they were formerly not a people at all, to say nothing of their being no people of God. In fact they were just tribes and Gentiles—not a dads but just έθνη. It is true that Hosea was speaking of the children of Israel, who had apostatized, and of the final restoration, when all the dispersed should be gathered together. It is true, again, that St. Paul! uses the pro- phecy conformably with the apparent intention of the prophet; but he cites it more fully than St. Peter in connexion with the calling of the Gentiles.2, The Christian Church is God’s, Israel the heir of His promises; and—who knows ?—the writer may have added the title of the Dispersion partly because it is written in the book of Hosea,® ‘“‘and I will sow her unto myself upon the earth, and 1 will love her who was not beloved, and I will say to Not-my-people, Thou art my people and he shall say, Thou art the Lord my God”. It is a great prophecy and a Jewish Christian would be slow to forget its first intention. Noline of argument can exclude the possibility that some of the Christians, to whom his letter is addressed, were born Jews. And if he thought less of them and most of the aliens, who, perhaps, outnumbered them, at anyrate his own mind was Jewish and he spoke to his Jewish self, before he wrote or dictated his letter. It must have been a strange experience for a Jew to preach a Messiah, whom his Nation had rejected, to a motley collection of Gentile be- lievers and to use such prophecies as this.

But whatever emotions the words stirred up within his heart they remained there. The thought of his countrymen does not shake him visibly as it shook St. Paul;+* and from this self-repression one might conclude that the Jewish element in these churches was insignificant, or that the decree which severed him and them from the unbelieving Jews was already made absolute.

The probable significance of this use of Hosea’s phrase is sup- ported by the words, “ For ye were once wanderers like sheep but now ye have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls” .® It is, of course, possible to exaggerate the force of ἐπεστράφητε, ye have returned, as if it implied a previous association with God. But the word means no more than obedience to the invitation Repent, which Christian missionaries addressed to all the world; in the Septuagint it is used of Jewish apostasy without implying previous

1Rom. xi. 28-32 2Rom. ix. 24-26. 3 Hosea ii. 23 (LXX). 4 Rom. ix. 1 ff. Sti. 25.

INTRODUCTION 7

apostasy, and here it is fitly applied to the adherence of Gentiles, who previously had no faith in God. In fact its proper force is represented by turn rather than return.

Another capital passage would seem to be sufficient in itself to show that the writer regarded the churches to whom he speaks, as composed of Gentile Christians : “ Sufficient is the time that is past for the accomplishment of the ideal of the Gentiles, when you walked in. . . unlawful idolatry”. If they were Jews by birth, who are so reproached for their pre-Christian life, it is clear that they must have been renegades, who had forfeited their title to be reckoned as Jews, For so great an apostasy there is no evidence whatever. That in- dividuals in the Dispersion did succumb to the attractions of the life outside the ghetto is probable enough. Philo, for example, warns his fellow countrymen against the seductions of pagan mysteries ; and his own nephew gave up his faith in order to become a soldier of fortune. But the interpretation, which makes Jews of the readers, involves an impossible assumption of wholesale perversion. The persons in question are, surely, Gentiles; before their conver- sion they lived as their neighbours lived, and, after their conversion, they excited the surprise of their neighbours by their change of life.?

The internal evidence of the Epistle is borne out by what is known of the evangelisation of the provinces named. With the ex- ception of Cilicia all Asia Minor is included and Asia Minor was the great field of the labours of St. Paul and his companions. There is nothing to suggest that St. Peter was addressing converts of his own as Origen and Eusebius* seem to assume.

The Author.—The beginning and the final conclusion of this document certify it to be the letter or epistle of Peter the Apostle of $esus Christ, who speaks of Silvanus and Mark as his companions and writes from ‘“‘ Babylon”. The certificate was accepted and re- mained unquestioned until quite modern times. Irenzus, whose connexion with Polycarp is certain, quotes the document as written by the Peter of the Church—Simon, son of John, to whom Jesus gave the name of Cephas or (in Greek) Peter. When F. C. Baur (for example) speaks of the ‘alleged apostolic authorship of writings which bear the marks of pseudonymity so plainly on their face,” + he illustrates the reaction which ran riot, when once the doctrine of the inspiration and authority of canonical books was called in question. The authorship of this document does not

liv. 3. Ziv. 4. ® See above page 4.

4 Church History (English translation: London, 1878), p. 131 (note) in refer- ence to the Epistle of James and the First Epistle of Peter.

8 INTRODUCTION

necessarily decide the question of its authority—all or none—as it did in the time of uncritical devotion to the letter of Scripture. But Baur’s brave words do no more to solve the problem than the stolid reiteration of traditional dogmas. And it is to be remembered that Catholic traditions have often been rehabilitated by critical researches.

Το the question, “ Do you at this time of day venture to attribute this document to Simon Peter?” the answer is, ‘‘ Why not ?”’

Such a conservative attitude excites the pity—if not the contempt —of the “advanced” critics. They find no difficulty in treating the Canonical Epistles as most men have treated the Epistles of Phalaris —ever since Bentley wrote his dissertation. Bentley said! out of Galen, “ That in the age of the Ptolemies the trade of coining false Authors was in greatest Practice and Perfection... . When the Attali and the Ptolemies were in Emulation about their Libraries, the knavery of forging Books and Titles began. For there were those that to enhance the price of their Books put the Names of great Authors before them, and so sold them to those Princes.” But Bentley proceeded to demonstrate that the Epistles of Phalaris contained blunders incompatible with their authenticity; and—for all their exquisite reasons—the critics, who treat the First Epistle of Peter as falsely so-called, have not yet found their Bentley. Indeed, their reasons are chiefly interesting as symptoms of presuppositions in- herited from past controversies. They reveal (for example) a ten- dency to resent the attribution of divine authority to the Apostles, and a tendency—which others share—to ignore the relatively mature theology to which, as a matter of fact, the first Christian mission- aries were bred, before ever they became missionaries or Christians at all. For those who believe that the Church has been directed by the Holy Spirit it is not easy to suppose that others than James and Peter, Jude andsJohn were as destitute as they were full of divine inspiration. And it is not difficult to acquiesce in the excommunica- tion of Marcion and all others who regard Christianity as a new thing descended from heaven with no affinity to any earthly ante- cedents.

In a natural and simple phrase this document professes to be written by Peter. But Harnack? has put forward the hypothesis that the opening and closing sentences* are an interpolation by an- other hand and argues against the assumption that the whole is a forgery. “If,” he says, ‘ the hypothesis here brought forward should prove erroneous, I should more readily prevail upon myself to regard the improbable as possible and to claim the Epistle for Peter him-

1 Wagner’s edition (London, 1883), pp. 80, 81. 2 Chronologie, p. 457 ff. 3i, 1, 2 and v. 12-14.

.

INTRODUCTION 9

self than to suppose that a Pseudo-Petrus wrote our fragment 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 assumption is, in my opinion, weighed down by insuperable difficulties.!

So far as extant evidence goes Harnack’s hypothesis of interpola- tion has nothing on which to rest. It remains to consider the chief objections which have been urged to prove that the traditional view is improbable. Peter cannot have written the Epistle (it is said) because (1) it is clearly indebted to Paulinism, (2) it contains no vivid reminiscences of the life and doctrine of Jesus, (3) it is written in better Greek than a Galilean peasant could compass, and (4) it reflects conditions which Peter did not live to see.

The first reason is regarded as decisive by Harnack:? ‘‘ Were it not for the dependence [of 1 Peter] on the Pauline Epistles, | might perhaps allow myself to maintain its genuineness: that dependence however, is not accidental, but is of the essence of the Epistle”. Dr. Chase has examined the affinities between 1 Peter and the Epistles of the N.T., and it is sufficient to state the results at which he arrives. ‘The coincidences with St. James can hardly be accounted for on the ground of personal intercourse between the two writers. . . . The coincidences with the Pauline Epistles other than Romans and Ephesians are not very close and are to be accounted for as the out- come of a common evolution of Christian phrases and conceptions rather than as instances of direct borrowing. . . . There is no doubt that the author of 1 Peter was acquainted with the Epistle to the Romans. Nor is this surprising if the writer is St. Peter. . . . The connexion of Ephesians with 1 Peter (here he adopts the words of Hort) is shown more by the identities of thought and similarity in ‘the structure of the two Epistles as wholes than by identities of phrase. ...” In his summing-up he says: “ All that we learn of St. Peter from the New Testament gives us the picture of a man prompt and enthusiastic in action rather than fertile in ideas. His borrow- ing from St. James’ Epistle shows that his mind was receptive and retentive of the thoughts of others. The Epistle undoubtedly owes much to St. Paul. But it is only when the Pauline element is isolated and exaggerated that it becomes a serious argument against the Petrine authorship of the Epistle.” ὃ ‘

It is to be remembered, also, that St. Paul did not invent Paul- inism and that St. Peter manifests (according to the narrative of

1 Die Chronologie, 464 f. (quoted by Chase, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii. p. 786 Ὁ).

2 Chron. p. 364 (quoted by Chase).

3 Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii. pp. 788 f.

IO INTRODUCTION

Acts) a disinclination to associate with the Gentile which suggests that he also was a strict Pharisee. There can be no doubt that of the Apostles of Christianity, who are known to us, St. Paul’s was the master-mind. And there can be no doubt that St. Paul brought to the service of the Church a body of doctrine which he had inherited from Gamaliel and the masters of*Gamaliel. The common notion that Christianity was something absolutely new planted by St. Paul and watered—watered down—by St. Peter and finally by St. John is inconsistent with known facts and with general probability. It is, indeed, the vicious product of the artificial isolation of the New Testament literature from the literature and the life of Judaism.

Others than St. Paul modified their inherited theology in the light of their belief, that Jesus, having been raised from the dead, was the promised and anointed deliverer—the Messiah, who by revealing God’s will more fully than the prophets or the scribes, but not independently of either, introduced to men more fully the Sove- reignty of Heaven, under whose yoke he lived and died. Inevitably and insensibly the first Christian teachers learned from each other and profited by their own and each other’s experience. But they all inherited and already possessed the presuppositions and categories of the Scribes, whose teaching their Master had endorsed and extended. Into this body of theology they fitted the new fact of a crucified Mes- siah—into the framework of Pharisaism—as Pharisees fitted all new facts which threw fresh light upon the will of God. If St. Paul was the first (as our fragmentary evidence suggests) to find a deep significance in it, it is not derogatory to St. Peter to suggest that he may have been indebted to St. Paul both here and elsewhere, and such in- debtedness is not necessarily an argument against the authenticity of this Epistle of Peter.

The second objection is that our document contains no vivid re- miniscences of the life and doctrine of Jesus such as we should expect from a personal disciple.

The alleged expectation is not altogether a reasonable one. If the document is, as an unbroken chain of tradition affirms, a pastoral letter addressed to Christian Churches already in being, there is no reason to expect reminiscences of the life and teaching of Jesus. The Church was built upon the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead and so declared to be the promised deliverer. His submission to death—and the death of the cross—was the crown and the summary of His life as it was the fulfilment of His teaching. So far as other facts and traditions were relatively necessary to the faith of the converts they were naturally communicated—formally or informally— by those who founded or confirmed the Churches. But in an epistle

INTRODUCTION II

like this they would have been irrelevant and inconclusive. The oc- casion called for the emphatic isolation of the glorious resurrection, which followed the culmination of the sufferings of Jesus and in which His past miracles were swallowed up like stars in the sunshine. As for the teaching of Jesus our records are plainly incomplete, and, whether the Fourth Gospel be permitted to give evidence or not it is quite clear that the arguments used by Jesus and the topics He treated were determined for Him by the character of those to whom He addressed Himself. When the Christian missionaries addressed themselves to men of different nationalities, they could not presume in them knowledge of Jewish presuppositions and therefore, quite apart from its relative insignificance they postponed indefinitely much of the teaching of Jesus. For in any case this teaching was relatively insignificant in their view; the essence of their message was Jesus and the Resurrection. Particular. incidents and particular sayings may have their value as links in the chain of proof that—witness here and witness there—Jesus was He of whom Moses and the Prophets had spoken. But such proof belongs properly to the controversy with the Jews and, in many cases, not to the original phase of it. Historical or biographical sermons upon which the Gospel according to St. Mark is by tradition asserted to be based, were a sequel to the summons, ‘ Repent and believe”. It may well be that St. Peter did so preach, and that he dwelt rather upon the record of Jesus’ life in Galilee of the Gentiles, because his own audience had little in common with the Jews of Jerusalem; but his reminiscences of the ministry prior to the Passion were not, as has been said,! ‘‘ the best, the most inspiring message that he could deliver at such a critical time”. He himself had seen and heard these things; yet, when the crisis came, he himself denied and repudiated Jesus. The impressiveness of these things, which failed to convince an eye-witness, was not likely to be heightened, when he repeated them to strangers. And there can be little doubt that, if he had inserted a reference to the Trans- figuration (for example), it would be said nowadays that this was the mark of a sedulous forger, anxious to keep up the part he was playing. In his intercourse with Jesus St. Peter had learned and unlearned here a little and there a little. But at the last his faith was not

1Von Soden, Early Christian Literature (English Translation), London, 1906, pp. 278 f. : ‘* It is evident that St. Peter cannot have written this epistle. The oldest personal disciple of our Lord would never have omitted the slightest reference to that which must above all things have distinguished him in the eyes of his readers. And how, especially at such a critical time, could he have refrained from speaking of

reminiscences which formed the best, the most inspiring, message that he could deliver ?””

ο INTRODUCTION

proof against the appearance of failure. When, therefore, he con- verted and began to establish his brethren, he imparted to them the convictions he had acquired, and did not parade the diverse and devious steps by which he had painfully reached that height.

A third objection is that the Greek of this Epistle is better than a Galilean peasant could compass and that a Palestinian Jew would not possess such a familiar knowledge of the Old Testament in Greek.

Such an objection seems to take no account at all of certain known facts and of general probability. Even a Galilean peasant, who stayed in his native place, needed and presumably acquired some knowledge of the Greek language in his intercourse with the non-Jewish inhabitants ofthe land, whom Josephus calls indifferently Greeks and Syrians. If he went up to Jerusalem for the feasts he there came into contact with Jews of the Dispersion, most of whom lived in the Greek-speaking world. The part played by these assemblies in cementing the solidarity of the whole nation is commonly overlooked; and therefore it is worth while to quote Philo’s explicit statement on the subject.1 ‘“ The Temple made with hands,” he says, ‘‘ is necessary for men in general. They must have a place where they can give thanks for benefits and pray for pardon when they sin. So there is the temple at Jerusalem and no other. They must rise up from the ends of the earth and resort thither, if they would offer sacrifice. They must leave their fatherland, their friends and their kinsfolk, and so prove the sincerity of their religion. And this they do. At every feast myriads from East and West, from North and South repair to the Temple to be free for a little space from the business and the confusion of their lives. They draw breath for a little while, as they have leisure for holiness and the honouring of God. And so they make friends with strangers hitherto unknown to them ; and over sacrifices and libations they form a community of interests which is the surest pledge of unanimity.” In the face of this, it seems impossible to accept the modern dis- tinction between Alexandrian and Palestinian Judaism as corre- sponding to an absolute severance in life, language and religion in the first century of the present era. Apart from this normal inter- course of all classes of religiously minded Jews, those who aspired to direct their fellows as Sages or Scribes seem to have travelled in foreign countries as a part of their training. And further, it is known that the delivery of the Temple dues at Jerusalem was regarded as a pious duty which the foremost members of each

1 De specialibus legibus, i. (de templo), §§ 67-70 (Cohn and Wendland, vol. v. pp, 17f.; ii. p. 223, Mangey).

INTRODUCTION 13

community were selected to perform. In these and other ways the Jews of Palestine became acquainted with the Greek language and, so far as they engaged in religious discussion with their visitors or hosts of the Dispersion, with the Old Testament in Greek also. ‘The translation known as the Septuagint was still a triumphant achievement, through which the Jews of the Greek world were retained within the fold of Judaism and the Greeks outside were offered knowledge of the Law. And even when the Christian missionaries began to utilise in the interests of their own creed the laxities of the Septuagint, the non-Christian Jews produced the ‘Greek versions of Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion. In fact, so far as and as long as any sect of Judaism engaged in missionary enterprise knowledge of the Greek language and the Greek Bible was indispensable to its agents.

It is therefore entirely in keeping with the tradition that this document is the Epistle General of St. Peter, the Apostle of the ‘Circumcision, that it should be written in passable Greek and bear evident traces of familiarity with the Septuagint. In order to prove that Jesus was the deliverer for whom the prophets had looked, he was bound to appeal to the Scriptures, and to the Scriptures in that ‘version which was established as the Bible of the Greek Dispersion.

If in spite of these and other considerations it is felt that the ‘general style of the Epistle is too literary for one who had lived the life and done the work of St. Peter, there is still another line of defence for the traditional view. In other words, it is still possible to believe that the document as it stands gives a just and true account of its own origin. In the postscript! the author says, “J write (or I have written) to you, briefly by means of Silvanus the faithful brother, as I reckon him”’,

If the phrase I write by means of Silvanus may be taken to imply that Silvanus was not only the bearer of the Epistle but also the trusted secretary who wrote out in his own way St. Peter’s message, then all the difficulties derived from the style of the document and its use of Pauline ideas vanish at once. And in any case this mention -of Silvanus proves that St. Peter was closely associated with the sometime colleague of St. Paul, who had actually helped to preach the Gospel in Syria, Cilicia and Galatia.2, For there seems to be no reason for questioning the identification of the Silas of the Acts with the Silvanus of the Pauline Epistles and this Epistle.

The interpretation of the phrase διὰ Οιλουανοῦ is still in dispute. Professor Zahn* maintains the view that ‘‘Silvanus’ part in the

ly. τὸ. 2See Acts xv. 23, 40 f.; xvi. 1-8. 3 Introduction to the New Testament (English Translation, 1go9), vol. ii. p. 150.

14 INTRODUCTION

composition was so important and so large that its performance required a considerable degree of trustworthiness. . . . It purports to be a letter of Peter’s; and such it is, except that Peter left its composition to Silvanus because he regarded him as better fitted than himself . . . to express in an intelligible and effective manner the thoughts and feelings which Peter entertained toward the Gentile Christians of Asia Minor”’

Dr. Chase! quotes Professor Zahn as arguing that Silvanus. ‘“must have been either a messenger who conveyed the letter or a friend who put St. Peter’s thoughts into the form of a letter”. Against this interpretation, he says, four “ considerations seem together decisive” ; and he concludes that Silvanus carried the Epistle and did not write it. It is of course possible that the phrase may bear this meaning, but the other is not to be excluded. The parallels quoted are, with two exceptions, ambiguous, and of the exceptions each supports one of the rival views. In Acts xv. 22, for example, it is said that the Apostles chose Judas and Silas and wrote by their hand.2 Clearly they were the bearers of the letter, as it is said that they delivered it at Antioch ;* and ‘ being prophets. they exhorted and confirmed the brethren”.* But it is certainly possible if not definitely probable that they actually wrote each a copy of the letter for himself at the dictation of St. James. The case on which Dr. Chase chiefly relies is the postscript of Ignatius’ letter to the Romans: “I write these things to you by the worthy Ephesians: Crocus whom I love is by my side with many others”’.° But even here the other interpretation is not impossible. They certainly were the bearers, but for safety’s sake each may have written his own copy of the letter. The journey from Smyrna to Rome was. long and dangerous, and apart from considerations of safe delivery each of them may well have desired to have his own copy. And there is one clear case in which this ambiguity disappears: Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, writes to Soter, Bishop of Rome, in acknowledg- ment of a letter received from the Roman Church, which (he says) ‘‘we shall always have to read for our admonition like the former

1 Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (1900), vol. iii. p. 790.

“ypawavres διὰ χειρὸς auTav.

5 Acts xv. 30, of μὲν οὖν ἀπολυθέντες κατῆλθον εἰς ᾽Αντιόχειαν καὶ συν- αγαγόντες τὸ πλῆθος ἐπέδωκαν τὴν ἐπιστολήν.

4 Acts xv. 32.

5 Ad Romanos, xiv. 1, γράφω δὲ ἡμῖν ταῦτα ἀπὸ Ομύρνης 80 Ἔφεσιων τῶν: ἀξιομακαρίστων. ἔστιν δὲ καὶ ἅμα ἐμοὶ σὺν ἄλλοις πολλοῖς καὶ Κρόκος τὸ ποθητόν΄ μοι ὄνομα.

INTRODUCTION 15

Epistle written to us through Clement”.! Here the preposition clearly denotes the interpreter who writes in the name of the Church and cannot cover the messenger also, because the bearers of the Epistle—Claudius Ephebus, Valerius Bito, and Fortunatus—are named at the end.’

Since, therefore, διά can in such contexts designate the writer as well as the bearer of an Epistle, it is hardly safe to say that Silvanus cannot have been both in this case. If St. Peter had not so far profited by his general experience and in particular by his association with Silvanus and other missionaries as to write moderately good Greek and to employ ‘“‘Pauline”’ ideas, then we may suppose that he permitted Silvanus to write the Epistle for him. He was none the less the real author if he employed a letter-writer whose position and experience enabled him to supplement the author’s alleged deficiencies in respect of the language and modes of thought familiar to the persons addressed. The postscript indicates St. Peter's approval of the draft thus made and submitted to him. The tone of authority which is used in the addresses to separate classes is naturally reproduced by the secretary from his recollection of what St. Peter had said. The secretary’s intervention affects only the manner of the Epistle at most. If Silvanus had really contributed to the matter he would have been joined with St. Peter in the salutation. On the other hand, there is every reason to suppose that Silvanus was also St. Peter’s messenger plenipotentiary and would, as when he was sent by the Apostles of Jerusalem, ‘‘ proclaim the same things by word of mouth ’”’.®

The fourth objection to the traditional view is that the Epistle reflects conditions which were definitely later than the date of St. Peter’s death. No other book of the New Testament offers any plain information about St. Peter at any time after the hypocrisy he practised at Antioch. But Christian tradition connects him not only with Antioch ® and Asia Minor ®&—statements which are probably simple inferences from the statements of St. Paul’s Epistle to the

1 Τὴν σήμερον οὖν κυριακὴν ἅγιαν ἡμέραν διηγάγοµεν ἐν ᾖ ἀνέγνωμεν ὑμῶν trv ἐπιστολήν:' ἣν ἕξομεν ἀεί ποτε ἀναγινώσκοντες νουθετεῖσθαι ὡς καὶ τὴν προτέραν ἡμεῖν δια Κλήμεντος γραφεῖσαν (Eusebius, Historiae Ecclesiae, iv. 23. 8).

2Clement, ad Corinthios, Ixv. 3 Acts xv. 27. 4 Gal. ii.

5So Origen (in Lucam Homilia, vi.): ‘‘ Eleganter in cuiusdam martyris epistola

scriptum repperi, Ignatium dico, episcopum Antiochiae post Petrum secundum, qui in persecutione Romae pugnavit ad bestias, ‘ principem saeculi huius latuit virginitas

Mariae’.””

8So Origen (fragment in Eusebius, Historiae Ecclesiae, iii. 1): Πέτρος δὲ ἐν Πόντῳ καὶ Γαλατίᾳ καὶ Βιθυνίᾳ Καππαδοκίᾳ τε καὶ ᾿Ασίᾳ κεκηρυχέναι τοῖς ἐκ διασπορᾶς ᾿Ιουδαίοις ἔοικεν.

16 INTRODUCTION

Galatians and the First Epistle of St. Peter respectively—but also with Rome. For this part of the tradition there is no obvious hint in the New Testament which can be used to explain away its origin, unless it be supposed that the bare mention of Babylon in the First Epistle of St. Peter is sufficient of itself to have given birth to so complete a legend. It is not surprising that Babylon should have been interpreted as meaning Rome from the first ; but the tradition, that St. Peter died at Rome under Nero, has nothing on which to rest in the Epistles or elsewhere.

Tertullian is the first to state this tradition explicitly. We read, in the Lives of the Caesars, ‘“‘ Nero first laid bloody hands upon the rising faith at Rome. Then was Peter girded by another when he was bound to the cross.”!1 But apart from the definite date, the tradition is as old as Clement of Rome, who cites St. Peter and St. Paul as ‘‘noble examples of our own generation ” in his Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘“‘ By reason of envy and jealousy the great and righteous Pillars were persecuted and struggled on till they died. Let us put before our eyes the good Apostles—Peter, who by reason of unrighteous envy endured not one or two but many labours and so became a martyr and departed to the place of glory which was his due”.2. A brief account of St. Paul’s sufferings, based largely on New Testament evidence, follows; and the conclusion that St. Peter suffered before St. Paul and both at Rome is commonly drawn. After this Clement goes on to say: ‘‘To these men of holy life was gathered a great multitude of elect persons who by reason of envy suffered many outrages and torments and so became a noble example among us”. This further illustration of the terrible effects of envy and jealousy—the theme to which all these references are incidental —is most naturally interpreted as describing the victims of the Neronian persecution of Α.Ρ. 64, of whom Tacitus* speaks as ‘‘a huge multitude”. If, then, Clement has put his illustrations in

1Vitas Caesarum legimus: Orientem fidem Romae primus Nero cruentavit. Nunc Petrus ab altero cingitur, cum cruci adstringitur (Scorpiace, 15). The fact is so stated as to indicate the fulfilment of the word of Jesus reported in John xxi. 18:

διὰ ζῆλον καὶ φθόνον οἱ µέγιστοι καὶ δικαιότατοι στύλοι (cf. Gal. ii. 9) ἐδιώχθησαν καὶ ἕως θανάτου ἤθλησαν. λάβωμεν πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν ἡμῶν τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἀποστόλους Πέτρον ὃς διὰ ζῆλον ἄδικον οὐχ ἕνα οὐδὲ δύο ἀλλὰ πλείονας ὑπήνεγκεν πόνους καὶ οὕτω µαρτυρήσας ἐπορεύθη εἰς τὸν ὀφειλόμενον τόπον τῆς δόξης (I Clementis ad Corinthios, v. 2-4).

τούτοις τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ὁσίως πολιτευσαµένοις συνηθροίσθη πολὺ πλῆθος ἐκλεκτῶν οἵτινες πολλὰς αἰκίας καὶ βασάνους διὰ ζῆλος παθόντες ὑπόδειγμα κάλλιστον ἐγένοντο ἐν ἡμῖν (1 Clementis ad Corinthios, Vi. 1).

4 Annals, xv. 44.

INTRODUCTION 17

chronological order, he agrees with Tertullian in asserting that St: Peter died as a martyr under Nero and, being a conspicuous pillar of the Church, before the mass of the Christians. To this assertion Origen, quoted by Eusebius,! adds the statement that ‘at the end Peter being at Rome was crucified head-downwards having himself requested that he might so suffer”.

Eusebius in his account of the Neronian persecution endorses this tradition of St. Peter’s martyrdom and cites evidence to prove its truth: “So then at this time this man who was proclaimed one of the foremost fighters against God was led on to slaughter the Apostles. It is related that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself and that Peter was likewise crucified in his reign. And the history is confirmed by the inscription upon the tombs there which is still in existence. It is also confirmed by an ecclesiastic named Gaius, who lived at the time when Zephyrinus was Bishop of Rome, who writing to Proclus, the leader of the Phrygian heresy, says these very words about the places where the sacred tabernacles of the aforesaid Apostles are deposited, ‘ But I can shew the trophies of the Apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way you will find the trophies of those who founded this Church. And that they both became martyrs at the same time Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, writing to the Romans proves in this way. You also by such admonition have compounded the plant of Romans and Corinthians which came from Peter and Paul. For they both of them came to our Corinth and planted us, teaching like doctrine, and in like manner they taught together in Italy and became martyrs at the same time.” 3

All the other extant evidence* agrees with this, and we may fairly conclude that from the end of the first century it has been the unchallenged belief of the Christian Church that St. Peter was put to death at Rome in Α.Ρ. 64. The question therefore arises, Is this tradition compatible with the traditional ascription of this document to St. Peter ?

Date, CIRCUMSTANCES, AND PurRPoOsE.

‘

If St. Peter was the author of this document and if St. Peter perished in the persecution under Nero, it follows that the document

1 Historiae Ecclesiasticae, iii. 1: ὃς καὶ ἐπὶ τέλει ἐν Ρώμῃ yevopevos averkodo- πίσθη κατὰ κεφαλῆς οὕτως αὐτὸς ἀξιώσας παθεῖν.

3 Historiae Ecclesiasticae, ii. 25.

3See Dr. Chase’s article on Peter (Simon) in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible vol. iii.

18 INTRODUCTION

must have been written before Α.Ρ. 64, The conclusion is challenged on the ground of the circumstances implied by the document and consequently one or other of the premises is invalidated. The cir- cumstances implied and indicated are suppposed to belong to a date definitely later than the time of Nero; and from this supposition it follows either that St. Peter did not write the Epistle or that he did not perish under Nero. In either case the Epistle is now com- monly assigned to the reign either of Domitian (Α.Ρ. 81-96) or of Trajan (A.D. 98-117). Professor Gunkel (for example) in a popular commentary recently published! ends his introduction with the words: ‘‘ The more precise dating of the Epistle must be determined in accordance with the persecutions above mentioned, with which, it must be confessed, we are not perfectly acquainted. Now the Neronian persecution affected only Rome and not the provinces, On the other hand more general persecutions seem to have taken place under Domitian. The time of Trajan, under whom a persecu- tion (A.D. 112) to which the letters of Pliny to the emperor testify, certainly took place in Asia Minor, is open to the objection that then the Christians were compelled to offer sacrifice—to which the Epistle has no reference. Our Epistle is therefore best assigned to the early period of Domitian’s reign. A still later dating (sc. than the reign of Trajan ?) is excluded by the lack of references to Guosis and the Episcopate.”’

Professor Ramsay similarly suggests, on the basis of the contents of the Epistle : ‘‘ ThevFirst Epistle of Peter then must have been written soon after Vespasian’s resumption of the Neronian policy in a more precise and definite form. It implies relations between Church and State which are later than the Neronian period, but which have only just begun.” ?

Professor Cone ὃ urges that the conditions implied by the Epistle fit the time of Trajan, and argues, as against Professor Ramsay, that ‘since they also fit the later date, they furnish no ground for exclud- ing it in favour of the earlier”. His conclusion is: “The data supplied in the Epistle and in known and precisely determinable his- torical circumstances do not warrant us in placing its composition more definitely than in the last quarter of the first, or the first quarter of the second, century”. For this he relies partly on Pro- fessor Ramsay’s opinion that ‘‘the history of the spread of Chris-

1 Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments neu iibersetzt und fur die Gegenwart εγε]ᾶγέ. . . Gottingen, 1908. 2 The Church in the Roman Empire (sixth edition: London, 1893), p. 282. He assigns it, therefore, to ο. A.D. 80 at the end of Vespasian’s reign. 3 Encyclopedia Biblica III., “ Peter, the Epistles of”.

INTRODUCTION 19

tianity imperatively demands for 1 Peter a later date than Α.Ρ. 64”; and from it he deduces the corollary: “The later date renders it very probable that Babylon is employed figuratively for Rome, ac- cording to Rev. xiv. 8, xvi. 19, xvii. 5, xviii. 2, 10, 21”.

Professor Cone’s corollary deserves attention. He seems to assume that the Christians started afresh—de novo or ex nihilo—to evolve modes and idioms of thought for themselves. Such an as- sumption is demonstrably untenable. In the particular case of such cipher-language as this, it is certain that the Christians appropriated the inventions of the Jews, who in their own oppressions and their own persecutions had BG Bip to veil their hopes from all but the initiated. Babylon was the great and typical oppressor, and her successors in the part naturally received her proper name. Rome ‘was not the declared and inflexible enemy of the Jewish nation as a whole before the time of Caligula; but Rome stood behind Herod the Great, and Pompey had desecrated the Temple at Jerusalem. Philo might forgive and forget the outrages which Pompey and Herod had perpetrated in order to heighten the enormity of Caligula’s offences, but the Psalms of Solomon and the evidence of Josephus suffice to prove that for some Rome was already the enemy in the last century B.c. Pormal proof that the Jews actually spoke of Rome by the name of Babylon before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is, indeed, wanting. But the identification of Rome with Babylon and the consequent transference of the paraphernalia of Babylon to Rome is part and parcel of the apocalyptic vocabulary and passed over into the language of the Rabbis. The author of the Epistle had no more need to explain his use of Babylon than had the Jewish poet who wrote in the name of the Sibyl and said in reference to Nero :—

‘Poets shall mourn for thee, thrice-hapless Greece, What time the mighty king of mighty Rome, Coming from Italy, shall pierce thine Isthmus— A God-like mortal, born (they say) of Zeus By lady Hera, who with dulcet songs Shall slay his hapless mother and many more. A shameless prince and terrible! He shall fly ͵ From Babylon...” }

And again he prophesied that after a time and times and half a time?

1Oracula, Sibyllina, v. 137-143 (Geffcken: Leipzig, 1902). ITbid. 154: "ἐκ τετράτου éreos”” ; compare Daniel vii. 25.

20 INTRODUCTION

‘* Prom heav’n into the sea a star shall fall That shall consume with fire the ocean wide, And Babylon herself, and Italy...”

Nero’s achievements added matricide to the specification of Anti- christ ; but the book of Daniel and other apocalypses, which were directly or indirectly inspired by the experience of the Jews under Antiochus Epiphanes, had long ago established the code of language by which each particular persecutor was identified with the vanished type. Inthe time of Antiochus such disguise was a necessary pre- caution; and it was so again in the time of Nero or Vespasian, of Domitian or Trajan. In fact, Professor Cone’s corollary has nothing, to do with his conclusion. Whenever any Christian community be- came exposed for whatever reason to attack by any representative of the State, the State became for them the enemy, and therefore Babylon.

For Trajan’s attitude towards the Christians of Bithynia we have ample testimony—thanks to the lack of independence displayed by his legate, the younger Pliny. In a.p. 112 Bithynia was in a bad state. There were many abuses which called for remedies, and the province was distracted by factions.2 The law which forbade the formation of clubs or associations for different purposes had fallen into abeyance, and Pliny began by re-enacting it in accordance with Trajan’s mandate? On this policy Trajan insisted so strongly that he refused to authorise a fire brigade in Nicomedia, in spite of Pliny’s. protestations that only 150 men would be enrolled, only carpenters, and for the sole purpose of dealing with such a conflagration as had recently devastated the city. From experience he held that all corporations, whatever name they bore, quickly became politica] associations.» This rigid interpretation of the law made the ordi- nary meetings of the Christians at once illegal; and there were so: many Christians in Bithynia that the temples were almost deserted and the customary sacrifices were omitted. When the edict was

1 Or. Sib. v. 158-160.

2Trajan to Pliny, xxxii. (xli.): ‘‘ Meminerimus idcirco te in istam provinciam missum, quoniam multa in ea emendanda apparuerint; xxxiv. (xlili.) meminerimus- provinciam istam . . . factionibus esse vexatam”’.

3 Pliny to Trajan, xcvi. (xcvii.): ‘‘ Edictum meum quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram ’’.

‘Pliny to Trajan, xxxiii. (xlii.): “Tu, domine, dispice an instituendum putes. Collegium fabrorum dumtaxat hominum Cl. Ego attendam ne quis nisi faber reci- piatur neve iure concesso in aliud utatur; necerit difficile custodire tam paucos”’.

5 Trajan to Pliny, xxxiv. (xliii.): ‘‘Quodcumque nomen ex quacumque causa dederimus eis qui in idem contracti fuerit. . . . hetaeriae que brevi fient ”.

INTRODUCTION 21

published, some Christians — apparently renegades, who abjured Christianity when challenged by Pliny—asserted that either they or the Christians generally gave up either the practice of meeting for a common meal or their religious meetings also. It is improbable that those who persisted in their wicked and immoderate superstition should have abandoned their weekly assemblies at which they recited a hymn to Christ as God, but it is unnatural to distinguish between these assemblies and the subsequent meetings for the common meal, and the statement of the renegades may reasonably be confined to their own obedience to the edict. \

Professor Ramsay, however, infers from Pliny’s language that the statement refers to the Christians as a whole: “They had, indeed, been in the habit of holding social meetings, and feasting in common; but this illegal practice they had abandoned as soon as the governor had issued an edict in accordance with the Emperor’s in- structions, forbidding the formation or existence of sodalitates”} And he asserts that Pliny’s language implies a distinction between the illegal meetings of the evening and the legal meetings of the morning: “The regular morning meetings which Pliny speaks about and which, as we know, must have been weekly meetings, were not abandoned, and Pliny obviously accepts them as strictly legal. Amid the strict regulations about societies the Roman government ex- pressly allowed to all people the right of meeting for purely religious purposes. The morning meeting of the Christians was religious; but the evening meeting was social, including a common meal, and therefore constituted the Christian community a sodalitas. The Christians abandoned the illegal meeting, but continued the legal one. This fact is one of the utmost consequence. It shows that the Christian communities were quite alive to the necessity of acting according to the law, and of using the forms of the law to screen themselves as far as was consistent with their principles.” 2

Against this view it must be urged, in the first place, that the common meal of the Christian community had a definitely religious character and could not be abandoned without a breach of their principles; and, in the second place, that Pliny’s language is by no means so explicit and clear as is suggested. The authors of the, statement are a large number of persons accused of Christianity, either by an anonymous letter or by an informer: all of them convinced Pliny that they had never been Christians, or had ceased to be Christians, by offering sacrifice to idols and blas-

1The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 206. 2 Tbid. pp. 219 f. VOL. V. 2

22 INTRODUCTION

pheming Christ.' As regards their past Christianity—if ever they had practised Christianity—they affirmed that this was the sum and substance of their crime, that they had been accustomed to assemble on a fixed day before sunrise and to repeat alternately a hymn to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by an oath—not to commit any crime, but—to abstain from theft, brigandage, adul- tery, breach of faith, and refusal of any deposit; which done they usually departed and assembled again to take food, which food was taken by all together, and involved no crime. And even this, they said, they had ceased to do after the edict.?

Here, surely, Pliny is concerned only with renegades who proved to him that the Christian faith which they had abandoned had led them into no crimes of which he must take cognisance. Their oath was not proof of conspiracy and their meal was not a cannibal feast, To satisfy himself that their denial of the charges brought against them was well founded, Pliny examined two slaves, who were called deaconesses, under torture. Finding nothing in them but a foul im- moderate superstition, he submitted the case to the Emperor.’

The fact is that the large number of persons involved and the doubt whether those who had repented of their Christianity had thereby deserved free pardon, gave Pliny food for reflexion. Christi- anity had been rampant in his province, but his experience of these apostates gave him good hope that it might be checked. Apostates would naturally be more zealous heathens, and therefore good

1 Pliny to Trajan, xcvi. (xcvii.): ‘‘ Propositus est libellus sine auctore multorum nomina continens. Qui negabant esse se Christianos aut fuisse cum praeeunte me deos appellarent et imagini tuae, quam propter hoc iusseram cum simulacris nomi- num adferri, ture ac vino supplicarent, praeterea male dicerent Christo, quorum nihil posse cogi dicuntur qui sunt se vera Christiani, dimittendos esse putavi. Alii ab indice nominati esse se Christianos dixerunt et mox negaverunt; fuisse quidem, sed desisse, quidam ante plures annos non nemo etiam ante viginti quoque. Omnes et imaginem tuam deorumque simulacra venerati sunt et Christo maledixerunt.”

2 Pliny to Trajan, xcvi. (xcvii.):; ‘“‘ Adfirmabant autem hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem, seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent; quibus peractis morem sibi discedendi fuisse, rursusque ad capiendum cibum, promiscuum tamen et innoxium; quod ipsum facere desisse post edictum meum, quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram ”’.

3 Pliny, ibid.: ‘‘Quo magis necessarium credidi ex duabus ancillis quae minis- trae dicebantur, quid esset veri et per tormenta quaerere. Nihil aliud inveni quam superstitionem pravam immodicam. Ideo dilata cognitione ad consulendum te decucurri ”’.

INTRODUCTION 23

citizens, in future. To execute them all would have been to diminish seriously the population of his province. As a conscientious gover- nor, he was anxious to bring this section of his subjects to their senses, and he believed that the extension of clemency to those who repented of their Christianity would be the means most likely to secure that end.? If room for repentance was given, all the Christians might be induced to recant. He does not contemplate a policy of religious toleration at all. Though there might be no crimes inherent in the profession of Christianity, Christians were still guilty of sacrilegium when they refused to worship the gods of the Empire, even if they satisfied Pliny that their meetings were purely religious in character and, therefore, did not constitute them a sodalitas within the meaning of the law. Obstinate Christians had three opportunities of recantation: if they did not take ad- vantage of their opportunities, they were executed summarily—or, if they were Roman citizens, they were transported to Rome. It was an accepted and a familiar fact that a Christian was, as such, a criminal *—so familiar, indeed, that Pliny leaves their crime of sac- rilege to be inferred from the sacrifice required of those who would prove their apostasy. He confesses that he never occupied such an official position as to be called on to decide or advise in the case of Christians, and was therefore ignorant of the precise nature of the proceedings. But he did not hesitate to condemn the obdurate,5 although he might doubt whether the name itself, if it involved no crime, or the crimes attaching to the name were thereby punished.®

1Tbid.: ‘‘ Visa est enim mihi res digna consultatione maxime propter pericli- tantium munerum. Multi enim omnis aetatis, omnis ordinis utriusque sexus etiam, vocantur in periculum et vocabuntur. Neque civitates tantum sed vicos etiam atque agros superstitionis istius contagio pervagata est; quae videtur sisti et corrigi posse. Certe satis constat prope iam desolata templa coepisse celebrari et sacra sollemnia diuintermissa repeti pastumque venire victinarum cuius adhuc rarissimus emptor.”

2 [bid.: ‘‘ Ex quo facile est opinari quae turba hominum emendari possit si sit paenitentiae locus”’.

’Tbid.: ‘* Interrogari ipsos an essent Christiani. Confitentes iterum ac tertio interrogari, supplicium miratus: perseverantes duciiussi. Neque enim dubi- tatum, qualecumque esset quod faterentur, pertinaciam certe et inflexibilem obstina- tionem debere puniri. Fuerunt alii similis amentiae quos, quia cives Romani erant, adnotari in urbem remittendos.”

‘Professor Ramsay’s paraphrase of Pliny’s words (1δίά.): ‘‘ Cognitionibus de Christianis interfui numquam; ideo nescio quid et quatenus aut puniri soleat aut quaeri”’. 5 See note (1) supra.

8 Ibid. : "Νες mediocriter haesitavi sitne aliquod discrimen aetatum an quam- libet teneri nihil a robustioribus differant, detur paenitentiae venia an ei qui omnino Christianus fuit desisse non prosit. nomen ipsum, si flagitiis careat, an flagitia cohaerentia nomini puniantur ”.

24 INTRODUCTION

Such doubts as this arose from his examination of the renegades and the slaves who were called deaconesses, in which he learned that there were no crimes other than sacrilegium involved in the name, and, therefore, was emboldened to suggest that renegades should be pardoned.

Trajan’s answer authorises the policy suggested: “Any one who denies that he is a Christian and gives plain proof of his. truthfulness, that is, by worshipping our gods, though his past may not be above suspicion, shall obtain pardon by his repentance’! No anonymous accusations are to be entertained,? and Christians are not to be sought out. If they are brought before the governor and convicted of being Christians they must, of course, be punished. Pliny did well to investigate the cases of the so-called Christians, who had been brought before him.’ No general policy can be laid down. Trajan is content to endorse the existing practice of punishing obdurate Christians as Christians, and to sanction the pardon of such Christians as were prepared to renounce their Christianity and to ratify their renunciation by performance of heathen rites.

Trajan’s endorsement of the action which Pliny took without hesitation against the Christians as such, proves that “persecution for the name” was already an established and familiar part of Roman policy. If Pliny had been present at trials of Christians before becoming governor of Bithynia, he might have learned that the vulgar were wrong in ascribing foul crimes to the Christians, as. such. But there is no question that Christians, as such, were liable to capital punishment. In the first instance, when he had only to do with those Christians who refused to apostatize, Pliny con- demned them to death almost instinctively as a matter of routine and immemorial tradition.

Under Domitian (according to Dio Cassius) Flavius Clemens was put to death on the charge of atheism, and many others who embraced the customs of the Jews were condemned to death or

1 Trajan to Pliny, xcvii. (xcviii.). . . . puniendi sunt ita tamen ut qui negaverit se Christianum esse idque re ipsa manifestum fecerit, id est supplicando dis nostris, quamvis suspectus in praeteritum, veniam ex paenitentia impetret”’.

2Ibid.: ‘‘Sine auctore vero propositi libelli in nullo crimine locum habere debent. Nam et pessimi exempli nec nostri saeculi est.” 3Ibid.: ‘“* Actum quem debuisti, mi Secunde, in excutiendis causis eorum qui

Christiani ad te delati fuerunt secutus es. Neque enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam forman habeat constitui potest. Conquirendi non sunt: si deferantur et arguantur, puniendi sunt”... .

INTRODUCTION 25

deprived of their goods. His wife Domitilla, a relative of the Emperor, was merely banished to Pandateria.!

Suetonius? describes Flavius Clemens as a man of contemptible inactivity—a conventional description of Christians 3—and says that he was put to death on the barest suspicion. Eusebius‘ asserts explicitly that Domitilla was banished with many others, because she bore witness to Christ. Probably the Christians were regarded as a Jewish sect who could not claim the privileges of Jews proper. Evidently the sect was proscribed. A Christian as such was liable to death, banishment, or confiscation of his goods. Domitian (as Eusebius® says) was the second persecutor of the Christian Church and made himself the heir of Nero’s battle with God. But according to Hegesippus,® as reported by Eusebius,’ Domitian stopped the persecution after examining the grandsons of Judas, the brother of Jesus.8

1]xvii. 14 (epitome of Xiphilinus): Kav τῷ αὐτῷ ἔτει (A.D. 95) ἄλλους τε πολλοὺς καὶ τὸν Φλάβιον Κλήμεντα ὑπατεύοντα, καίπερ ἀνεψιὸν ὄντα, καὶ γυναῖκα καὶ αὐτὴν συγγενῆ ἑαυτοῦ Φλαουίαν Δομιτίλλαν ἔχοντα, κατέσφαξεν 6 Δομετιανός' ἐπηνέχθη δὲ ἀμφοῖν ἔγκλημα ἀθεότητος, ὑφ᾽ ἧς καὶ ἄλλοι εἰς τὰ τῶν Ιουδαίων ἔθη ἐξοκέλλοντες πολλοὶ κατεδικάσθησαν, καὶ οἱ μὲν ἀπέθανον, οἱ δὲ τῶν γοῦν οὐσιῶν ἐστερήθησαν: ἡ δὲ Δομιτίλλα ὑπερωρίσθη µόνον εἰς Πανδατερίαν.

2 Domitian xv. Denique Elavium Clementem patruelum suum contemptissimae inertiae . . . repente ex tenuissima suspicione tantum non ipso eius consulatu interemit ; quo maxime facto maturavit sibi exilium.

’ Compare Tertullian’s Apology, xlii.: ‘‘Sed alio quoque iniuriarum titulo postulamur et infructuosi in negotiis dicimur. . . . Quomodo infructuosi videmur negotiis vestris, cum quibus et de quibus vivimus, non scio. Sed si carimonias tuas non frequento, attamen et illa die homo sum.”

4 Historiae ecclesiasticae, iii. 18: ‘eis τοσοῦτον δὲ dpa . . . ἡ τῆς ἡμετέρας πίστεως διέλαµπε διδασκαλία, ὡς καὶ τοὺς ἄποθεν τοῦ Kal’ ἡμᾶς λόγον συγγραφεῖς py ἀποκνῆσαι ταῖς αὐτῶν Ἱστορίαις τόν τε διωγμὸν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ μαρτύρια παρα- δοῦναι. οἵγε καὶ τὸν καιρὸν ἐπ᾽ ἀκριβὲς ἐπεσημῄναντο, ἐν ἔτει πεντεκαιδεκάτῳ Δομετιανοῦ μετὰ πλείστων ἑτέρων καὶ PAaviav Δομετίλλαν ἱστορήσαντες, ἐξ ἀδελφῆς γεγονυῖαν Φλανίου Κλήμεντος, ἑνὸς τῶν τηνικάδε ἐπὶ Ρώμης ὑπάτων, τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν μαρτυρίας ἕνεκεν, εἰς νῆσον Ποντίαν κατὰ τιµωρίαν δεδόσθαι.”

5 Historiae ecclesiasticae, iii. 17: ‘‘ Tis Νέρωνος θεοεχθρίας τε καὶ θεοµαχίας διάδοχον ἑαυτὸν κατεστήσατο. δεύτερος δῆτα τὸν Kad’ ἡμῶν ἀνεκίνει διωγμὸν, καίπερ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ Οὐεσπασιανοῦ μηδὲν καθ’ ἡμῶν ἄτοπον ἐπινοήσαντος.”

Hegesippus was an Eastern—probably a native of Palestine. He visited Rome in the episcopate of Anicetus (? Α.Ρ. 155-156) and published his five books of Memoranda or Memoirs (ὑπομνήματα) in Α.Ρ. 180. See Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, i. pp. 483-490.

Historiae ecclesiasticae, iii, 20: “ép’ ols μηδὲν αὐτῶν κατεγνωκότα τὸν Δομετιανὸν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς ἐντελῶν καταφρονήσαντα, ἐλευθέρους μὲν αὐτοὺς dveivar, καταπᾶνσαι δὲ διὰ προστάγµατος τὸν κατὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας διωγµόν

26 INTRODUCTION

Eusebius’ quotes Tertullian*® to the same general effect: “ Domitian, a semi-Nero in cruelty, attempted to condemn the Christians ; but, being also a man, he readily stopped the course of action he had begun, and even recalled those whom he had banished ”.

But Nero was the first to persecute the Christians * and something is known of his procedure from Tacitus,‘ who represents his per- secution as a final effort to divert from himself the suspicion of having given orders for the fire of Rome. Human assistance, public largesses, services of expiation, all failed to banish the calumny. So to put an end to the rumour, Nero made the Christians, as they were commonly called by the vulgar who hated them for their crimes, scape-goats in his place and visited them with the most elaborate penalties. Christ from whom their name was derived was executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. For a time this fatal superstition was suppressed, but it broke out after- wards not only in Judaea, the birthplace of the mischief, but also in Rome... Accordingly, in the first instance those who confessed were arrested ; and afterwards on their information a huge multitude were sent to join them not so much on the charge of arson as on that of hatred of the human race.

Tacitus emphasises the fact that the Christians were guilty and deserved to suffer the last penalty of the law. Public feeling con- demned them as enemies of civilised society; but the outrageous mockery with which Nero had them executed, and the common sus- picion that the alleged arson was a mere pretence produced a revul-

1 Historiae ecclesiasticae, iii. 20.

2 Apology v.: ‘‘ Temptaverat et Domitianus, portio Neronis de crudelitate ; sed qua et homo (ἀλλ᾽ οἶμαι ἅτε ἔχωντι συνέσεως, Eusebius) facile coeptum repressit, restitutis etiam quos relegaverat.

3 Tertullian, Apology, v.: ‘‘Consulite commentarios vestros; illic reperietis primum Neronem in hanc sectam cum maxime Romae orientem Caecsariano gladio ferocisse. Sed tali dedicatore damnationis nostrae etiam gloriamur. Qui enim scit illum, intelligere potest non nisi grande aliquod bonum a Nerone damnatum.”

4 Annals, xv. 44: ‘‘Sed non ope humana, non largitionibus principis aut deum placamentis decedebat infamia, quin iussum incendium crederetur. Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quaesitissimis poenis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vul- gus Chrestianos (sic) appellabat. Auctor nominis eius Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. Repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, non modo per Judaeam originem eius mali sed per urbem etiam. . . . Igitur primo correpti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens, haud perinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis coniuncti sunt.” ,

5 Ibid.: ‘*sontes et novissima exempla meritos”’.

INTRODUCTION 27

sion in their favour.1 The bare punishments—crucifixion, burning” at the stake, and death by wild beasts—were right and proper. But

the people to whom Nero threw open his gardens, in order that they

might witness such sights, found Nero himself among them dressed

in the garb of a charioteer2—the ancient equivalent of a jockey. If

the Christians were really magicians, as their punishments implied,*

and their stories of healings may have suggested, the situation was

too serious for such buffoonery. Nero’s conduct was enough to dis-

credit his plea of reasons of state.

It is clear, then, that Christians, who confessed their Christianity or were denounced as Christians by such confessors, were put to death by Nero after the great fire of Rome in Α.Ρ. 64. It was alleged that they were incendiaries or magicians, but these allegations were not proven. The reference to the execution of the founder of the sect suggests that they were, in accordance with that precedent, liable to capital punishment in Rome or in the provinces.

Suetonius records that under Nero many practices were severely punished and prohibited and many others set up. No food was henceforth to be sold in the cook shops (for example) except vege- tables ; and punishments were inflicted upon the Christians—a_ kind of men who embraced a new and maleficent superstition.+4

The natural inference that Nero’s action in the matter of the Christians formed a precedent which was followed generally and in the provinces unless further regulations were introduced by himself or his successors, is probable in the nature of the case, and it is expressly asserted by Sulpicius Severus, who follows Tacitus, and may have known parts of his Annals which are no longer extant. This, he says, was the beginning of the savage treatment of the Christians.

1 Annals: “ pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti, laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus affixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur... Unde. . . miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utili- tate publica sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur.”

* [bid. : ‘* Hortos suos ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat et Circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel circulo insistens’’.

%So Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 236: '' Odium humani generis was, as Arnold aptly points out, the crime of poisoners and magicians. . . . The punishments inflicted on the Christians under Nero are those ordered for magiciang. Paulls, Sentent. v. 23 M.: ‘‘ Magicae artis conscios summo supplicio afflici placuit, id est, bestiis obici aut cruci suffigi. Ipsi autem magi vivi exuruntur.”

4 Vita Neronis, xvi.: ‘‘ Multa sub eo et animadversa severe et coercita nec minus instituta . . . interdictum, ne quid in popinis cocti praeter legumina aut holera veniret cum antea nullum non obsonii genus proponeretur; adflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstition's novae ac maleficae.”’

25 INTRODUCTION

Afterwards also laws were laid down by which the religion was pro- scribed and edicts were issued by which it was publicly declared illegal to be a Christian. Then Paul and Peter were condemned to death.!

To the three first persecutors of the Church—Nero, Domitian, and Trajan—Sulpicius Severus suggests that Titus should be added. If he is following good authority—say, Tacitus, here as elsewhere— Titus held a council to decide the fate of the Temple, when Jerusalem was taken in Α.Ρ. 70. Of his councillors some urged that a con- secrated house famous beyond all mortal things ought not to be destroyed. Its preservation would bear witness to Roman modera- tion; its ruin would be an eternal mark of their cruelty. Others, and among them Titus himself, held the Temple should be destroyed at once, in order that the religion of the Jews and Christians might be more completely undone; inasmuch as these religions, though opposed to one another, nevertheless came from the same parent stock. The Christians sprang from the Jews. If the root were taken away the branch would naturally perish.?

From this survey of the evidence it appears that the non-Christian authorities bear out the assertion of Tertullian that from the year 64 A.D. Christianity was distinguished from Judaism and, therefore, pro- scribed. It had lost the protection of the ancient and famous lawful religion, which sheltered it at the first.2 Nero set the law in motion against it for his own purposes and attempted to justify his action to the people. But such action once taken, persecution of the Church was part of the law of the Empire, as Suetonius, Sulpicius Severus, and Tertullian aver.t There is nothing in the evidence to

1 Chronicon, ii. 29: “Hoc initio in Christianos saeviri coeptum. Post etiam datis legibus religio vetebatur, palamque edictis propositis Christianum esse non licebat. Tum Paulus et Petrus capitis damnati.”

2 Chronicorum, ii. 30: “ Fertur Titus adhibito consilio prius deliberasse an templum tanti operis everteret. Etenim nonnullis videbatur aedem sacratam ultra omnia mortalia illustrem non oportere deleri, quae servata modestiae Romanae testimonium, diruta perennem crudelitatis notam praeberet. At contra alii et Titus ipse evertendum imprimis templum censebant, quo plenius Judaeorum et Christianorum religio tolleretur: quippe has religiones, licet contrarias sibi, isdem tamen ab auctoribus profectas: Christianos ex Judaeis extitisse: radice sublata stirpem facile perituram.”

3 Tertullian, Apology, xxi.: ‘‘ Antiquissimis Judaecorum instrumentis sectam. . . suffultam . . . sub umbraculo insignissimae religionis certe licitae”’.

4In addition to passages quoted above, see Tertullian, ad Nationes, i.7: ‘ Prin- © cipe Augusto nomen hoc ortum est: Tiberio disciplina eius inluxit: sub Nerone damnatio invaluit ut iam hinc de persona persecutoris ponderetis, si pius ille princeps, impii Christiani. . . si non hostis publicus, nos publici hostes: quales simus dam- nator ipse demonstravit, utique aemula sibi puniens: et tamen permansit erasis

INTRODUCTION 29

‘suggest that the Neronian persecution slackened, because the citizens ‘of Rome saw through the pretexts of arson and witchcraft. On the contrary the evidence suggests that the name was condemned by Nero.

It was still possible for Titus and for Dio Cassius to recall the fact that Christianity was a sect—a schismatic sect of Judaism. Perhaps the condemnation of the sect carried with it a partial pro- ‘scription and prohibition of its name. But there is no trace of any real change of attitude between the policy, on which Nero embarked in sudden desperation, and the action taken by Pliny, when he began to put the affairs of Bithynia in order. Pliny assumed that the name -of Christian was proof of guilt and only inquired why, when he found himself dealing with special and extenuating circumstances. Nero in special circumstances had sought to save himself from popular suspicion by making the name of Christian proof, first of special and then of general guilt.

It remains to examine the relations of the Christian Church and ‘the Roman State, as they are reflected in the First Epistle of St. Peter, and to inquire which of the first three persecutions known to us they best fit.

In the first part of the Epistle, which ends at iv. 11, the writer speaks generally of manifold temptations.! ‘‘ He exhorteth them— to quote the summary of the revisers of 1611—from the breach of charity . . . he beseecheth them also to abstain from fleshly lusts, to be obedient to magistrates, and teacheth servants how to obey their masters, patiently suffering for well-doing after the example of ‘Christ. He teacheth the duty of wives and husbands to each other, exhorting all men to unity and love, and to suffer persecution. .. . He exhorteth them to cease from sin by the example of Christ, and the consideration of the general end that now approacheth. .. .

In the second part of the Epistle the writer ‘‘ comforteth them against persecution. He exhorteth the elders to feed their flocks, the younger to obey, and all to be sober, watchful, and constant in the faith : to resist the cruel adversary the devil.” Here only it is sug- gested that Christians may be put to death forthe Name. For certain churches, to whom the bearer would read this part of the letter and whose special circumstances the writer had in mind, a trial? was im- minent : their adversary the devil was walking about, as a roaring lion,

omnibus hoc solum institutum Neronianum: iustum denique, ut dissimile sui

-auctoris’’. 11, 6. 2 iv. 12.

30 INTRODUCTION

seeking whom he might devour. In the earlier and general part the- references to persecution and persecutors are vaguer, and stress is- laid upon the railing or reviling* to which the Christians are exposed, but must not retaliate in kind. In both parts the example of Christ is put before them as their model—He suffered and they must suffer- as He suffered—but only in the second part is it added that they must commit the keeping of their souls to God, as He did? The first part, in fact, does not seem to contemplate state-persecution so- much as the discredit and discomfort inevitably incurred by those who dissent from an established religion.

But such a distinction between the two parts of the Epistle, even if it be accepted as valid, does not relegate the second part to a later period. In some of the Churches of Asia Minor, at any rate—and there is no evidence to show which—the conditions described in the second part existed already. And so the evidence of the Epistle as. a whole must be taken.

The faith of the Christians addressed is undergoing atrial: for a. season (if need be) they are in heaviness through manifold tempta- tions. In different ways their faith is being tested. The tests— whatever they are—cause a temporary grief in the midst of their permanent joy, but will only refine their faith and purge it of dross. Half-hearted Christians will fall away. They have already purified. their souls by obedience to the truth revealed to them,°® and must lay aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings.6 They must abstain from fleshly lusts which war- against the soul, and, by their good conduct, refute the common rumour which speaks of them as evildoers.’ Pending the visitation of God, they are exhorted to be obedient to the Emperor and his officers, and as loyal citizens stop the mouths of ignorant fools.® There is no room, here, for the later test of their loyalty : the writer- could not exhort them to offer sacrifice toCzsar. No one can really harm them, if they obey these commands; but they may have to- suffer for righteousness’ sake. They must not be afraid. They must be ready to defend themselves and to reply to every one who- inquires about their hope. Good behaviour and gentle answers may put their calumniators to shame; in any case it is essential.!”

In certain places Christians are already sharing in the sufferings. of Christ, and therefore must rejoice therein. Their suffering may be misrepresented as the just punishment of murderers, thieves,.

ly, 8 2 iii. g with ii. 21-23. 3 iv. 19 with ii. 23. 31.6. 5.1 2ο δη, τ. πι ατα. 5µ, τα, πα. τας 10 iii. 15 f.

INTRODUCTION 3)

criminals or busybodies: they must correct by word or deed all such misrepresentations and make it clear that they are reproached—or what not ?—simply because they are Christians.1 Their adversary the devil—in the persons of all his agents—goes about seeking whose faith he may destroy; they must resist him and survive the ordeal.? Throughout the world the Christian brotherhood is exposed to the same temptations and varied persecutions.

From this evidence Professor Ramsay ὃ concludes that the Epistle belongs to the time when Vespasian revived the policy of Nero. “‘ The Christian communities of Asia Minor north of the Taurus are regarded as exposed to persecution (i. 6), not merely in the form of dislike and malevolence on the part of neighbours, . . . but persecu- tion to the death (iv. 15, 16), after trial and question (iii. 15). The persecution is general, and extends over the whole Church (ν. 9). The Christians are not merely tried when a private accuser comes forward against them, but are sought out for trial by the Roman officials (v. 8, iii. 15). They suffer for the Name (iv. 14-16) pure and simple; the trial takes the form of inquiry into their religion, giving them the opportunity of ‘ glorifying God in this name’.”

Of this persecution by Vespasian there is no evidence except an inference from the statement of Sulpicius Severus, that Titus his son and successor wished to exterminate both Judaism and Christi- anity, and the general deduction from the letter of Pliny, that persecution for the Name was an established practice. Apart from this objection, it may fairly he said that even the rigorous interpre- tation which Professor Ramsay puts upon different passages is not necessarily inconsistent with the conditions of the reign of Nero when persecution of the Church did, as a fact, begin. If the vague terms, in which the various sufferings of Christians are described, are to be pressed and limited to mean State persecution and persecu- tion to the death, there still remain indubitable references to un- official persecution which did not go to such lengths. The author, as Professor Ramsay himself says, looks forward to a period of persecution as the condition in which Christians have to live. Further he exhorts Christians to be loyal subjects and therein proves that the obvious test of loyalty had not yet been applied to, them. And he definitely excludes the narrow interpretation of the roaring lion, when he urges the Christians to resist it.

For these and other reasons, Professor Ramsay’s theory is re-

liv 13-16. Seto kos 3 The Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 279 ff.

32 INTRODUCTION

jected by Dr. Chase on the one hand and Professor Schmiedel! on the other. But many of his arguments hold good against the date under Trajan, to which Professor Schmiedel adheres. Pliny’s cor- respondence with Trajan, however, is not easily made to fit the state of things reflected in the First Epistle of St. Peter. For one thing, in Pliny’s time Bithynia was so far infected by real or nominal Christianity that the temples were deserted. The unlawful super- stition was so far predominant that many of its adherents conformed without any conviction. Pliny’s anticipation that clemency shown to such penitents would result in the annihilation of Christianity suggests an altogether different state of things.

On the whole—whether St. Peter perished under Nero or, as Professor Ramsay urges, at a later date—the Epistle may not un- reasonably be referred to the time when Nero inaugurated the attack upon the provincial Roman Christians and gave the cue to all provincial governors who wished to earn his favour by endorsing the rightfulness of his action under whatever pretext. Already they were distinguished from the Jews, and, therefore, stood under the ban of the law as an unlicensed corporation. They were magicians who prophesied the destruction of the world, and the fire of Rome was proof of their power. They might plead innocence of crimes associ- ated with the name by vulgar suspicion ; but even when they cleared their name it was in itself sufficient tocondemn them. That is the pagan view. The Christian view is that Christ suffered and they must follow in His steps. No colour must be given to the misrepre- sentations of their enemies. They must take every opportunity of removing them. This done, though death be their penalty, they will die to the glory of God, resisting the slanderer and remaining firm in their faith.

CANONICITY.

There are two different ways of treating the fact that any given book of the New Testament Canon is first quoted as authoritative Scripture and as the work of its commonly reputed author by a later writer of known date and recognised authority. You may say that the said book is thereby recognised as canonical and as authentic either not before or as early as such and such a date. In the former case the endorsement of tradition is regarded as an innovation, in the latter as an explicit regularisation of previous, but inarticulate, practice.

1 Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. i.: ‘‘ Christian, name of”.

INTRODUCTION 33

The former interpretation of such facts has the advantage of appearing to appeal to what is apparent and to nothing else. But it involves axioms which require to be proved. We must suppose that the Canon was definitely fixed by authority and was not a thing of gradual growth. And, if we are to argue from the silence of ec- clesiastical writers, we must ignore the fact that many of them are no longer extant and postulate for them an interest in such matters as canonicity equal to our own. In fact it seems more reasonable to allow ourselves the exercise of a sober imagination in dealing with the evidence. In the case of 1 Peter at all events there is no sign of any attempt to force a new forgery upon the acceptance of the Church. It contains no innovation of doctrine such as might need the support of Apostolic authority.

The Epistle, then (we may say), is used by Irenzeus as early as the third quarter of the second century. Behind Irenzus in all probability there lies a period, in which the idea of the New Testa- ment Canon grew up and in which its contents were gradually reduced for reasons which appeared to those in authority to be adequate. Of that period we certainly do not know everything. All the Gnostics whom Irenzeus has pilloried are represented only by fragments and summaries of their doctrines contemptuously preserved by their opponents at a later time. But, even so, it appears that the Gnostics in their efforts to elucidate the philosophy of the Christian religion and to advance to something higher than the somewhat pedestrian and commonplace theology of the ordinary ecclesiastic laid stress upon Scripture. And in so far as they tended to relegate the Old Testament to a definitely inferior place in the development of true religion they necessarily devoted themselves to the writings of the Apostles—the Scriptures of the New Testament. Inevitably the Gospels, which contained the sayings of Jesus, and the works of St. Paul occupied the first place in their estimation. The Lord and the Apostle exercised an authority to which the Church must bow. So the Gnostics applied themselves to New Testament exegesis—not always for the purposes of theological controversy. The controversies, which ensued upon the deductions they drew from such exegesis, led to the delimitation of the Canon and there is a strong presumption in favour of the traditional view of the books which survived the’ ordeal. 1 Peter is not a book which was likely to be much to the mind of daring thinkers who could discriminate between the different degrees of inspiration latent in different sayings of the Lord and who were determined to be done with Judaism. The Gnostics professed to be wiser than the Apostles—Irenzeus their posthumous conqueror

34 IN RODUCTION

asserts. 1 Peter is a book more congenial to such a man as Polycarp, who was more fitted to be a simple recipient of the general tradition. And it is to be remembered that Polycarp takes us back to a time when the idea of a Canon of New Testament Scripture was in its infancy.

Our document is first quoted with the formula Peter or Peter in his Epistle says in the latter part of the second century.

Irenzus, the disciple of Polycarp, whose book Against Heresies was written while Eleutherus was Bishop of Rome (Α.Ρ. 175-189),} is the earliest witness to its reception as such. He appealed to it (for example) along with Paul and Isaiah: “ et Petrus ait in epistula : ? Quem non videntes diligitis, inquit, in quem nunc non videntes credt- distis, gaudebitis gaudio inenarrabili”’. Inanother place it is quoted after Moses and the Lord: “et propter hoc Petrus, ait, non vela- mentum malitiae habere nos libertatem* sed ad probationem et manifestationem fidei ”.

Tertullian, a little later, puts Peter on a level with Paul in respect of his inspiration, and explains their agreement as due to the fact that they were inspired by the same spirit: “de modestia quidem cultus et ornatus aperba praescriptio est etiam Petri cohibentis eodem ore quia eodem et spiritu quo Paulus, et vestium gloriam et auri superbiam et crinium lenoniam operositatem’’.® In his Antidote to the poison of the Gnostics, which may perhaps be dated Α.Ρ. 213, he cites 1 Peter as addressed to the natives of Pontus: “ Petrus quidem ad Ponticos, Quanta enim, inquit, gloria st non ut delin- quentes puniamini, sustinetis, Haec enim gratia est, in hoc et vocati estis, quoniam et Christus passus est pro nobis, relinquens vobis exemplum semetipsum, utt adsequamini vestigia ipsius. Et rursus Dilecti ne expavescatis ultionem quae agitur in vobis in temptationem, quasi novum accidat vobis; etenim secundum quod communicatis passionibus Christi, gaudete, uti et in revelatione gloriae eius gau- deatis exultantes: st dedecoramini nomine Christi, beati estis, quo- niam gloria et det spiritus requiescat in vobis, dum ne quis vestrum patiatur, ut homicida aut fur aut maleficus aut alieni -speculator. Si autem ut Christianus, ne erubescat, glorificet autem dominum in nomine tsto.®

1“ yoy δωδεκάτῳ τόπω τὸν τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἀπὸ τῶν ᾿Αποστόλων κατέχει κλῆρον Ελεύθερος.’ Irenzus, Adv. Haer., iii. 3. 3 (Harvey’s edition).

2 Adv. Haer. iv. 19, 2 1 Peter i. 8. 3 Adv. Haer. iv. 28. 41 Peter ii. 16.

5 De Oratione, xv. referring to 1 Peter iii. 3 and Tim. ii. 9; compare Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, III., xi. 66, quoted above.

6 Scorpiace xii. = 1 Peter ii. 20, 21 and iv. 12-15.

INTRODUCTION 35

Clement of Alexandria (Α.Ρ. 150-(?) 210) commented on 1 Peter in his Hypotyposes, but the commentary is only preserved in a Latin abridgment.! In his extant works he quotes freely from the Epistle and uses it as if it were familiar to his readers. In the Paedagogus?* (for example), which is addressed to catechumens, he SayS: éyvwkdtes οὖν τὸ ἑκάστου ἔργον, ἐν φόβῳ τὸν τῆς παροικίας ὑμῶν χρόνον ἀναστράφητε, εἰδότες ὃτιοῦ Φθαρτοῖς, ἀργυρίῳ ἢ Χρυσίῳ, ἐλυτρώθημεν ἐκ τῆς pa- ταίας ἡμῶν ἀναστροφῆς πατριπαραδότου, ἀλλὰ τιµίω αἵματι ὡς ἀμνοῦ ἀμώμου καὶ ἀσπίλου Χριστοῦ. ἀἆρκε- TOs οὖν ὁ παρεληλυθὼς χρόνος--ό Πέτρος Φησί-- τὸ βούλημα τῶν ἐθνῶν κατειργάσθαι, πεπορευµένους ἐν ἀσελγείαις, ἐπιθυμίαις, οἰνοφλυγίαις, κώµοις, πότοις. καὶ ἀθεμίτοις ἐιδωλολατρείαιςὸ Andin the Stromateis,* which were intended for more advanced Christians, he has, after quotations from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: 816 καὶ 6 θαυμάσιος Πέτρος pyotv - ἀγαπητοί, παρακαλῶ ὡς παροίκους καὶ παρεπιδήµους ἀπέχεσθαι τῶν σαρκικῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν, aitives στρατεύον- ται κατὰ τῆς Ψψυχῆς, τὴν ἀναστροφὴν ὑμῶν καλὴν ἔχοντες ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. ὅτι οὕτως ἐστι τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀγαθοποιοῦντας Φιμοῦν τὴν τῶν ἀφρόνων ἀνθρώπων ἐργασίαν, ὡς ἐλεύθεροι καὶ μὴ ὡς ἐπικάλυμμα ἔχοντες τῆς κακίας τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, GAN ὡς δοῦλοι θεοῦ. On one occasion® he fuses together the sumptuary laws for women laid down by St. Paul and St. Peter: προσιέναι δὲ αὐτὰς 6 παιδάγωγος κελεύει ἐν καταστολή κοσµίῳ, μετὰ αἰδοῦς καὶ σωφροσύνης κοσμεῖν €autds,© ὑποτασσομένας τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν, os καὶ el τινες ἄπειθοῖεν τῷ λόγω, διὰ τῆς τῶν γυναικῶν ἀν- αστροφῆς ἄνευ λόγου κερδηθήσονται, ἐποπτεύσαντες, φησί, τὴν ἓν λόγῳ ἁγνὴν ἀναστροφήν ὑμῶν' dv ἔστω οὐχ 6 ἔξωθεν ἐμπλοκῆς καὶ περιθέσεως χρυσίων ἢ ἐν- δύσεως ἱἵματίων κόσμος, ἀλλ 6 κρυπτὸς τῆς καρδίας ἄνθρωπος ἐν τῷ ἀφθάρτω τοῦ πραέος καὶ ἡσυχίου πνεύ- µατος, ὅ ἔστιν ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ πολυτελές. This fusion is characteristic: both St, Paul and St. Peter wrote Scripture, and Clement follows popular usage, which never has insisted upon a nice ‘discrimination between the authors of “texts”. Indeed in another place * he refers part of the first Epistle to Timothy ® to St. Peter:

1 Potter’s edition, pp. 1006 f. ITIL, xii. 85. 81 Peter i. 17-10, iv. 3. πι xi. 75; 5 Paedagogus, III., xi. 66. Sr Tim, ii. 9. +x Peter iii. 1-4. 8 Paedagogus, II., xii. 127. ® Tim. ii. 9 f.

~

36 INTRODUCTION

πάνυ your θαυµασίως 6 Πέτρος 6 µακάριος γυναῖκας, φησίν, ὥσαυτως μὴ ev πλέγμασιν ἢ χρυσῷ ἢ µαργαρίταις ἢ ἱματισμῷ πολυτελεῖ, ἀλλ ὃ πρεπει γυναιξὶν ἐπαγγελλομέναις θεοσέβειαν, δι ἔργων ἀγαθῶν σφᾶς αὐτὰς κοσ- μούσων.

The fact of the matter is that even Clement used, at any rate in his Paedagogus, manuals of extracts from Scripture classified according to their subjects. His Paedagogus or instructor is the distinguished successor of a line of humbler books of the same kind. The Christian catechist had his armoury of appropriate texts just as the missionary to the Jews had his. The extracts were arranged under headings: sayings of Moses, the Prophet, the Psalmist, the Sage, the Lord and the Apostle followed each other in various. orders and with different degrees of precision in attribution. The inevitable results were that the extracts were affected by their new neighbours in respect of their text, and that their proper ascrip- tion was lost sight of. As the learning and the security of the Church increased, these results were corrected. Complete Bibles in the Church chests superseded the manuals, and Origen (for ex- ample) laboured to restore the purity of the text. The new state of things is reflected in the Stromateis of Clement: there Jesus Son of Sirach receives credit for his wisdom, which in the Paedagogus is ascribed to wisdom, the Paedagogue, or Solomon; and the text of the extracts conforms to the standard of the uncial manuscripts. But the literature which preceded Clement was popular rather than scholarly, and the phenomena presented by his use of Scripture in the Paedagogus contribute to confirm the conclusion that the argument based upon the silence of his. predecessors is fallacious, and that their silence can fairly be construed as a denial of the Petrine origin or authorship of 1 Peter.

These examples of the use of 1 Peter made by Irenzus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria have been given in full to show what the raw material of the evidence really is. Samples only as they are, they suffice to show that 1 Peter was recognised as St. Peter’s Epistle about Α.Ρ. 200 in Gaul, Africa, and Alexandria. By a stretch of the imagination it might be supposed that Tertullian was dependent upon Clement for this knowledge; but Irenzeus and Clement represent a tradition which they inherited independently from a distant past. Now Clement was the earliest Christian scholar, whose works have come down to us, and Irenzus is linked to the apostolic age by his. connexion with Polycarp.

In his Epistle to the Philippians, Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna,.

INTRODUCTION 37

who died a martyr on 23rd February, Α.Ρ. 155 at the age of 86 years,} has left, as Eusebius noted, a valuable witness to the earlier history of the New Testament Canon.

So far as the Canonicity of 1 Peter is concerned the evidence of the Epistle is overwhelming. It is true that Polycarp does not give the name of the authority, which he uses so often. It would be un- reasonable to expect that he should. ‘‘ Paul” and ‘‘the Lord” are the only authors named. The words of the Lord have naturally a higher authority than those of His Apostles—at any rate at this stage in the development of the Canon. And St. Paul as the founder of the Church at Philippi had a special claim upon their obedience: ‘Neither I (Polycarp says) nor anyone like me can attain to the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who, when he came among you, before the face of the men of that time taught accurately and surely the word of truth, who also when he was absent wrote letters to you into which if you look you will be able to be built up in the faith given unto γοι. 2. Other Scriptures, even the first Epistle of St. John, Polycarp’s teacher, are used just as 1 Peter is used— anonymously and not always with a clear formula to stamp the quotations as quotations.

The following passages contain clear cases of Polycarp’s use of 1 Peter :—

(1. 1-3) συνεχάρην . . . ὅτι ἡ βεβαία τὴς πίστεως ὑμῶν pita . . . μεχρὶ νῦν διαμένει καὶ καρποφορεῖ εἰς τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστὸν . . eis ὃν οὐκ ἰδόντες πιστεύετε χαρᾷ ἀνεκλαλήτω καὶ δεδοξασμένηὸ εἰς ἦν πολλοὶ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν εἰσελθεῖν.ά

I]. 816 ἀναζωσάμενοι τὰς ὀσφύας ὑμῶνῦὸ δουλεύσατε τῷ θεῷ . . . πιστεύσαντες εἰς τὸν ἐγείραντα τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν καὶ δόντα αὐτῷ δόξανῦ καὶ θρόνον ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτοῦ .. . μὴ ἀποδιδόντες κακὸν ἀντ κακοῦ ἢ λοιδορίαν ἀντὶ λοιδορίας] ᾖἢ γρόνθον ἀντὶ γρόνθου ἢ κατάραν ἀντὶ κατάρας.ὃ

V. καλὸν γὰρ τὸ ἀνακόπτεσθαι ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσµω, ὅτι πᾶσα ἐπιθυμία κατὰ τοῦ πνεύματος στρατεύεται." VII. ἐπὶ τὸν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἡμῖν παραδοθέντα λόγον ἐπιστρέψωμεν νήφοντες

πρὸς τὰς ἐυχὰς᾽Ό καὶ προσκαρτεροῦντες νηστείαις.

190 Bardenhewer, Geschichte der Altkirchlichen Litteratur, i. p. 149.

ain. 2. Στ Peter 1.8. 4 Compare 1 Peter i. 12. ὅτ Peter i. 3. ο eter 1.20. 71 Peter iii. 9. 8 Compare 1 Peter iii. 9. 51 Peter ii. 11 conflated with Galatians v. 17. 10 Peter iv. 7s

VOL. V. 3

33 INTRODUCTION

VIII. προσκαρτερῶμεν τῇ ἐλπίδι ἡμῶν καὶ τῷ ἀρραβῶνι τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἡμῶν, ὃς ἐστιν Χριστὸς ᾿Ιησοῦς, ὃς ἀνήνεγκεν ἡμῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας τῷ ἰδίῳ σώματιέἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον, ὃς ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἐποίησεν, οὐδὲ εὑρέθη δόλος ἐν τῷ στόµατι αὐτοῦ." ἀλλὰ δι ἡμᾶς, ἵνα ζήσωμεν ἐν αὐτῷ, πάντα ὑπέμεινεν. μιμηταὶ οὖν γενώµεθα τῆς ὑπομονῆς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐὰν πάσχωμµεν διὰ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, δοξάζωµεν αὐτόν. τοῦτον γὰρ ἡμῖν τὸν ὑπογραμμὸν ἔθηκε δι ἑαυτοῦ, καὶ ἡμεῖς τοῦτο ἐπιστεύσαμεν."

X. In his ergo state et domini exemplar sequimini firmi in fide et inmutabiles, fraternitatis amatores diligentes invicem. . . .° Omnes vobis invicem subiecti estote,® conversationem vestram inreprehensibilem habentes in gentibus, ut ex bonis operibus vestris et vos laudem accipiatis et dominus in vobis non

blasphemetur." 1y Peter ii. 24. 27 Peter ii. 22. Shr Peter lv.) £0; aT Peter ie σε. 5 Compare 1 Peter iii. 8 (ii. 17). 6 Compare 1 Peter v. 5.

7x Peter ii. 12: the paraphrase of the latter part of the verse (ἐποπτεύοντες δοξάσωσι τὸν Gedy) is due to the next quotation (Isaiah lii. 5), vae autem, per quem nomen domini blasphematur.

NOTE.

This edition is based on a course of lectures delivered, in the first instance, to a class of honours men who were expected to use the late Professor Bigg’s com- mentary as a text-book. The lectures were, therefore, made independently of that commentary and with a view to the exhibition of new material and processes rather than results. In particular, an attempt was made to illustrate the reference of the Septuagint and Jewish literature generally to the exegesis of the New Testament. In the reduction of these notes to their present form the commentaries of Alford, Bigg, Hort, Kiihl-Meyer, and Von Soden were consulted.

The text is taken from the facsimile of the great Vatican Codex (B), the lines of which are indicated by spaces.

The editor gratefully acknowledges the kindness of the Rev. George Milligan D.D., and the Rev. R. St. John Parry, B.D., who read the commentary in proof.

“πέτροὺ A.

ΠΕΤΡΟΣ ἀπόστολος

σπορᾶς Πόντου Γαλατίας Καπ

la XG) ἐκλεκτοῖς παρε

πιδήµοις δια- ]. 1 παδοκίας ᾿᾽Ασίας κατὰ 2

119 XB is the normal contraction of Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ: so KY = κυρίον, OF = Θεοῦ. After ᾽Ασίας all other manuscripts and all the versions add καὶ βιθυνίας: the original scribe of Codex Vaticanus (B*) stands alone in the omission,

CHAPTER I.—Vv.1,2. Peter the High Commissioner of Jesus, who is Messiah of Greeks as of Jews, sends greeting after the Christian fashion, in which the Greek and Jewish formule have been combined and transformed, to the Churches of Northern Asia Minor. They are the dispersion of the New Israel, chosen out of the whole world in accordance with God’s foreknowledge of their fitness, to undergo the hallow- ing of His Spirit, and with a view to their reception into His Church. For the result, and therefore the purpose, of their election is that they may profess obedience and receive the outward sign of sprinkling, being baptised into the death of Jesus Christ. For them may grace (and not mere greeting) and peace (God’s peace not man’s) be multiplied! For discussion of writer and readers see Introduction.

Ver.I. ἐκλεκτοῖς παρεπιδήμµ- οις διασπορᾶς, elect sojourners of dispersion, a combination of titles of Israel appropriated to Christians in ac- cordance with the universal principle of the early Church. (i.) The Jews were the chosen race (ii. 9 from Isa. xliii. 20) as Moses said, Because He loved thy fathers therefore He chose their seed after them (Deut. iv. 37; cf. Rom. xi. 28). So Jesus said to His disciples, I have chosen you (John xv. 16, 19, etc.), and refers to them in the eschatological discourse as the elect (Mark xiii. 20). (ii.) Being chosen out of the world—in the world, indeed, but not of it, John xv. 16 Π.--- Christians are alien sojourners during their life on earth. Their fatherland is the city that hath foundations (i.7, ii. 11;

Heb. xiii. 14; Phil. iii. 20), In Heb. xi. 9-13 the Patriarchs are credited with the same idea and Philo says that the sages of Moses’ school are all introduced as sojourners (p. 416 M). So Abraham said to the Sons of Heth, ‘‘I am astranger and sojourner (πάροικος καὶ παρεπίδηµος =

SYN 33) with you” (Gen. xxiii. 4); Jacob speaks of the days of the years of my pilgrimage (S9)3%) &s παροικῶ) ; and the Psalmist anticipates Peter and Heb. in the generalisation I am a stranger and sojourner (mapo.xos καὶ παρεπίδηµος) in the earth as all my fathers were (Ps. xxxix. 13). Deissmann (Bible Studies, p. 149) quotes two ex- amples of παρεπίδηµος from wills of the third century B.c., one of a Jew resident in the Fayyiim (Απολλώνιον [παρεπ]ίδη- pov ὃς καὶ συριστὶ ᾿Ιωνάθας). In P. Tor. 8 (B.c. 118) παρεπιδημοῦντες and κατοι- κοῦντες are contrasted. (iii.) Moses said to Israel thou shalt be scattered among the kingdoms of the earth (Deut. XXvili. 25) ; and the rendering of the LXX διασπορά is probably the earliest ex- ample of the technical designation (cf. John vii. 35) of the Jews, who—for what- ever reason—lived outside the Holy Land. The collective term (Rabbinic

54) implies the real unity of these scattered communities, whose scattering is no longer regarded as God’s punish- ment for sin. It thus serves well the purpose of one, who, like St. Paul, in- sists on the unity of the whole brother- hood of Christians (e.g., ν. 9); but this application of the principle that the Church is the Israel of God is subordi- nate to others which imply that there is

40

πρόγνωσιν Θῦ 1 πατρὸς

καὶ ῥαντισμὸν αἵματος

ἐν ἁγιασμῶ πνεύμα

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α a.

τος eis ὑπακοὴν

Ιδ XU- χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη

1 Θ0 is the normal contraction of Θεοῦ.

no earthly correlative to it. When St. James addresses the twelve tribes which are in Dispersion, he may on the other hand be contrasting the saints of Jeru- salem with those abroad (as St. Paul did in the matter of the Collection) if indeed he is not speaking simply to his fellow- countrymen as a Jew to Jews. But St. Peter writes from ‘‘ Babylon” and the capital of Christendom is no longer Jeru- salem. The collocation of παρεπι- Sy pots and διασπορᾶς implies that this scattering, which in the case of the type was God’s punishment for sin, will not be permanent for the antitype. For the Christian Church the Jewish hope of the ingathering will be fulfilled, as is indicated by the emphatic ἐκλε- «tots—for Jesus said, “ The Son of Man .. . shall gather together his elect

. - from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven” (Mark κ. 26, 27; cf. Deut. xxx. 4). Compare Didache ix. 4, ‘‘ For as this was broken [bread] scattered over the hills and being gathered together became one, so may thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom,” and Justin Martyr, Dial. 113, ‘As Moses . . . so also Jesus the Christ (corresponding to J., the Son of Nun) shall turn again the Dispersion of the People . . . shall give us the possession eternally ”’.

Ndvrov...’Agias. The order indicates the, route of the messenger, who landed presumably at Sinope or Amastris and, if the omission of καὶ Βιθυνίας be accepted, left the country at Ephesus or Smyrna. The (Armenian) Acta of Phocas (Martyr of Sinope under Trajan) are addressed to the brethren dwelling in Pontus and Bithynia in Paphlagonia and in Mysia in Galatia and in Cappadocia and in Armenia (Cony- beare, Monuments of Early Christianity, Ρ. £03). See Introduction.

Ver.2. Thethreeclauses katTa..., ἐν ..., and eis... qualify ἐκλεκ- τοῖς and perhaps also ἀπόστολος (as Oecumenius) Peter himself is elect and shares their privileges but had no need to magnify his office, as had St. Paul. Yet see Acts xv. 7 ff.

κατὰ wpdyvwotv.... The noun occurs only in Acts ii. 23 (speech of St.

Peter) in reference to the slaying of Christ τῇ ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ καὶ προγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ, cf. i. 20. The use of nouns instead of verbs is characteristic of this Epistle. The same idea is expressed more elaborately by St. Paulin Rom. viii. 29 (g.v.). Cf. Origen, Philocalia, xxv. Oecumenius infers that the Apostle is thus. the equal of the prophets, especially Jeremiah (ο. Jer. i. 5).—@€v ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος, subjective genitive like θεοῦ, being elect they are within the sphere of the proper work of the Holy Spirit. The context excludes the render- ing hallowing of the (human) spirit. Peter uses the stereotyped phrase; cf. 2 Thess. ii. 13 (which corresponds exactly to the whole context) εἵλατο ὑμᾶς 6 θεὸς an” ἀρχῆς (κατὰ πρ. 0. π.)... ἐν aye ασμῷ πνεύματος καὶ πίστει ἄλη- θείας (εἰς ὑπ.).--εἰς ὑπακοὴν .. . |. Χριστοῦ, the goal or purpose of their election. Obedience is a technical term : sc. to God; cf. i. 14, where it is con- trasted with the ignorant disobedience of their past lives (i. 22). As Christians, they obeyed God and not men (Acts iv. το, ν. 29) ; God gives His Holy Spirit to them that obey Him (Acts v. 32). Com- pare the Pauline obedience of faith. This obedience implies a change of mind in Jew and in Gentile, which is effected by the sprinkling of blood of Ὕεσις Christ. They are now cleansed from sin, which is disobedience in Jew or Gentile. Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, sprinkles those whom God selected with His own blood, as Moses sprinkled the children of Israel who had promised obedience with the blood of oxen (Exod. xxiv. 7 £.; cf. Heb. ix. το). But refer- ences to other sprinklings of the Ο.Τ., unconnected with obedience, must not be excluded. The word ῥαντισμός is appro- priated, for example, to the water in which the ashes of the heifer were dis- solved (Num. xix.); and a less obvious explanation is supported by Barnabas, ‘that by the remission of sins we might be purified, that is in the sprinkling of His blood for it stands written... by His bruise we were healed (Isa. ΠΠ. 5)’. Indeed the best commentary is supplied by the Epistle to the Hebrews in which evidence of the O.T. is reviewed and the conclusion drawn that according to the:

2—3. πληθυνθείη. εὐλογητὸς 6 OS! καὶ πα Xd 6 κατὰ τὸ πολὺ αὐτοῦ

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

ἔλεος ἀναγεννήσας

41

τὴρ τοῦ KU ἡμῶν 163 ἡμᾶς 3 eis

1 OF is the normal contraction of Θεός: so Xs = Χριστός, ks = κύριος, ἰς = ᾿Ιησοῦς. 2For ἡμᾶς a few cursives read ὑμᾶς: the words are practically interchangeable

in manuscripts.

law everything is cleansed by blood. All the types were summed up in the fulfil- ment (see especially Heb. ix.) whether they related to the Covenant or to the Worship. So in Heb. xii. 24 the blood of Abel the first martyr is drawn into the composite picture of typical blood shed- dings. It would be possible to take ὑπακοήν with Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, and to render either that ye might obey Jesus Christ (cf. i. 22; 2 Cor. x. 5) being sprinkled with His blood or that ye might obey as He obeyed even unto death (cf. Heb.. v. 83. Phil; ii. 8). χάρις... πληθνυνθείη. This tull formula is found also in 2 Peter and Jude. For precedent see Dan. iii. 31. Its use here is not merely a convention peculiar to the Petrine school ; grace and peace are multiplied to match the growth of hostility with which the Christians ad- dressed are confronted, lest the word of Jesus be fulfilled διὰ τὸ πληθυνθῆναι τὴν ἀνομίαν ψυγήσεται ἡ ἀγάπη τῶν πολλῶν (Matt. xxiv. 12); cf. Rom. ν. 20 f. In the Pastoral Epistles ἔλεος (cf. ver. 3) is inserted between x. and eip., so 2 John 3. From Gal. vi. 16 it appears that ἔλεος stood originally in the place which χάρις usurped (as distinctively Christian and reminiscent of the familar χαίρειν); so that the source will be Num. vi. 24-26. κύριος . . . ἐλεήσαι σε . . . καὶ Son σοι εἰρήνην.

Vv. 3-12. Benediction of the Name. The mention of God is followed by the Benediction of the Name as Jewish piety prescribed; the formula the Holy One, blessed be He, being amplified by the Christian appreciation of their fuller knowledge. The Apostle surpasses the fervour of the Psalmist, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel inasmuch as the last mighty work surpasses all previous de- liverances. It falls naturally into three divisions. Vv. 3-5 have as their central figure the Father, vv. 6-9 the Son, and vv. 10-12 the Spirit who is at last given, who inspired the prophets of old and now inspires the Christian missionaries. From the past which preceded their acceptance of God’s choice of them and its outward sign St. Peter turns to consider their present condition and to illuminate it with the light of the future glory.

Vv. 3-5. Blessed be God whom we have come to know as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For He has granted to us the crowning mani- festation of His great mercy. He has raised Jesus Christ from the dead and us thereby to newness of life. So you may hope for and in part enjoy the inheritance which was prefigured by the Promised Land. This heavenly treasure God has kept for those whom He guards with His power. So your faith respond, He is guarding you for the salvation which will be revealed at the last.

Ver. 3. εὐλογητός. The verbal adjective is recognised, perhaps coined by the LXX as proper to the Benediction of the Name. This usage is reflected in ΝΤ Rom. τ ο κ. ο (Cor. 1.) 3, xi. 31; Eph. i. 3; note Mark xiv. 61. ὁ Beds... ἡμῶν, part ot the for- mula (cf. 2 Cor. i. 3; Eph. i. 3)—based on the saying “I ascend to your father and my father, unto your God and my God” (John xx. 17). κατὰ τὸ πολὺ ἔλεος, the more elaborate κατὰ τὸ πλοῦτος τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ of Eph. i. 7 (cf. ii. 4). ἀναγεννήσας (cf. i. 23). Else the verb only occurs in N.T. as variant to γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν in Old Latin (and Irenzus) text of John iii. 5, which prompted St. Peter’s Christian use of the word, see especially i. 23. Later it is used to describe the outward sign of baptism (e.g., Justin Apol. i. 51) for the benefit of pagans as to the limitation of worshippers of Isis (Apuleius, Met. xi. 26, ut renatus quodammodo staatim sacrorum obsequio desponderetur). And of Mithras (in aeternum renati). Here the regenera-

tion of the Christian corresponds to the | resurrection of Christ (Chrysostom on |

John) and implies a previous mystical or figurative death to sin—see ii. 24; iii. 17 f.; iv. 1—which is repeated in the |

practice of their unnatural virtue (iv. 1-4). ΄

The simple idea of regeneration underlies St. Paul’s elaborations of the doctrine of the καινὴ «riots. Hort refers to Philo, de incorruptibilitate mundi (ii. 489 M.) where ἀναγέννησις is used for the more usual madvyyeveol(a—rebirth of the world—of the Stoics. ἐλπίδα ζῶσαγν. The omission of the definite article is characteristic of St. Peter. The Hope

|

42 πμ ιρο ια 1.

4 ἐλπίδα ζῶσα 1 νοµίαν ἄφθαρτον k,” 5 οὐρανοῖς εἰς ὑμᾶς τοὺς

δι) ἀναστάσεως Ι8 XT ἀμίαντον καὶ ἁμάρα. ἐν δυνάµει OF pou

ἐκ νεκρῶν eis κληρο τον τετηρηµένην ε poupevous διὰ

1ζωσα--- ζῶσαν: the sign™ for v is apt to be absorbed in the preceding line and so disregarded: it is used at the end of the line or sichu, whether or not the word

in which it occurs has come to its end.

2 is the common abbreviation for καί:

it is probably derived from cursive writ-

ing in which letters were joined together and so varied in shape according to their

companions,

is a recognised technical term (Acts xxiii. 6, etc.) of the Pharisees, cor-

responding to "P77. Ceoav stamps

the Christian hope as Divine since life is God’s prerogative (cf. i. 23 and the living bread, water of John) and effective (cf. the corresponding use of dead faith, Jas. ii. 17, 26). Cf. Sap. iii. 4, ἡ δὲ ἐλπὶς αὐτῶν ἀθανασίας πλήρης. δι &. with ἀναγεννήσας rather than ζῶσαν: three prepositional clauses are thus attached to ᾱ. as to ἐκλεκτοῖς (and ἀπόστολος) in ver. 2. The resurrection of Jesus is the means and guarantee of the spiritual resurrection of the Christian (rz Cor. xv. 14,17) from the death of the sinful and fleshly life.

Ver. 4. εἷς κληρ.... Gpapav- τον, as God's sons in virtue of their re- generation they are God’s heirs (Gal. iv. 7) and have an heavenly inheritance. The accumulated adjectives recall various images employed to describe it—and em- phasise the fact that it is eternal (Heb. ix. 15) and spiritual. It is ἄφθαρτον, in- corruptible (cf. i. 23, iii. 4) because it be- longs to the future life which the risen dead (τ Cor. xv. 52) share with God Him- self (Rom. i. 23; 1 Tim.i.17). It is set _ where “ moth doth not corrupt (διαφθεί- pet, Luke xii. 33: Matt. vi. 19 ff. has adavite),” apart from this corruptible world (cf. Isa. xxiv. 3). It is the incor- ruptible crown (x Cor. ix. 25). The second epithet ἁμίαντον is applied to the great High Priest, Heb. vii. 26 (cf. Heb. xiii. 4; Jas. i. 27) and implies again separation from this sinful world of which it is written ἐμιάνατε τὴν γῆν µου καὶ τὴν κληρονοµίαν µου ἔθεσθε εἰς βδέ- Avypa (Jer. ii. 7). Compare the descrip- tion of virtue in Sap. iv. 2, στεφανηφο- ροῦσα πομπεύει τὸν τῶν ἁμιάντων ἄθλων ἀγῶνα νικήσασα. ἁμάραντον is peculiar to x Peter in N.T., cf. ἁμαράντι- vov (v. 4): it is perhaps derived from Sap. vi. 12, ἁμάραντός ἐστιν ἡ σοφία, and thus presupposes the identification of eternal life with knowledge of God (John

xvii. 3). Compare the application of Isa. xl. 6 f. (cited infra 24) in Jas.i. 11. All three suit or are associated with the wreath presented to the victor in the games—a metaphor which the Lord Him- self used according to the Apocalypse (ii. 10, cf. x /Peter πμ. κ ο). Origen (?) in Cramer’s Catena notes that the words contradict Chiliasm. τετ- ηρηµένην εἰς ὑμᾶς, reserved (1) with a view to you, cf. John xii. 7, ἵνα cis τὴν ἡμέραν .. . τηρήσῃ, 2 Peter ii. 4, εἰς κρίσιν τηρουµένους; for same use of eis in similar context see Rom. viii. 18. (2)... until you came—a sense which would suit the other examples of τηρεῖν

eis. (3) . . « for you, εἰς = = dative (so Syriac), the writer or translator being influenced by eis above and below. The inheritance is still, as it has always been, kept back, but the Christians are sure to succeed to it. So Enoch refers to the secrets of the righteous which shall be revealed (xxxviii. 3); the lot of the right- eous which the Son of Man preserves (xlviii. 7); and says Blessed are ye ye righteous and elect for glorious will be your lot . . . it will be said to the holy that they should seek in heaven the secrets of righteousness the heritage of faith (lviii. 5).

Ver. 5. The Christians addressed are —to complete the metaphor from other passages in the Epistle—a spiritual house (ii. v.), which is besieged by the devil (v. 8) but guarded and garrisoned by God’s Power. So long as they have faith (v. g) they are safe: ‘‘ our faith lays hold upon this power and this power strengthens faith and so we are preserved” (Leigh- ton). Without responsive faith God’s power is powerless to heal or to guard (cf. Mark vi. 5 f. and accounts of Jesus’ mir- acles generally, Jas.i.6f.). The langu- age seems to echo Rom. i. 16, Svvapis θεοῦ cis σωτηρίαν παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι,͵ combined with Gal. iii. 23 (cf. Phil. iv. 7) where also the distinctive @povpetv oc- curs in similar context. The Power

——

4---6.

, πίστε ws els σωτηρίαν ἑτοί

ἐσχάτω" ἐν ὦ

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ A

µην ἀποκαλυφθῆναι ἀγαλλιᾶσθε ὀλίγον ἄρ

43

ἐν καιρῶ τι ct δέον 1 λυπηθέντες2 6

1 Codex Alexandrinus with others adds ἐστι after δέον.

λυπηθέντες is probably right, εἰ δέον being parenthetical: the variants λυπη- θέντας (first hand of Codex Sinaiticus and many cursives) and λυπηθῆναι (one cursive and the Vulgate) are due to the connexion of δέον with its context, the parenthetical character of the phrase being disregarded.

(sna) of God is put for ¥ehovah

in the Targum of Isa. xxxiii. 21; and the corresponding use of ἡ δύναμις is found in Mark xiv. 62 (see Dalman, 200 f.; and add ἡ µεγαλωσύνη, a more exact render- ing, of Heb. i. 3, viii. 1). In Philo God’s powers are personified self-manifestations. eis σωτηρίαν, κ.τ.λ., is probably the third clause qualification of φρουρ. (cf. 2, 3). Below, the salvation of souls is described as the goal of faith (ο) ina passage where the ἑτοίμην, κ.τ.λ., qualify σωτηρίαν rather than κληρονομίαν which is explained by owt... . ἐσχάτῳ. Sal- vation is to St. Peter that saivation which is to be revealed in the future (c/. i. 9, ii. 2; so Rom. xiii. 11, viv ἐγγύτερον +++ ἡ σωτηρία). Partial anticipations he neglects; for them as for Christ the glory follows the present suffering. The idea of the revelation of salvation comes from Ps. xcviii. 2 (cf. Isa. lvi. 1) which has influenced St. Paul also (Rom. i. 16 f.). ἑτοίμην seems to be simply

the equivalent of “PY prepared, which St. Paul renders with more attention to current usage than etymology by µέλ- λουσαν (Rom. viii. 13; Gal. iii. 23; so I Peter v. 1). This weaker sense begins with Deut. xxxii. 35 (LXX, πάρεστιν ἔτοιμα. as Peter here) and prevails in new Hebrew (Tarphon said. . . the re- compense of the reward of the righteous

is for the time to come. sab DY Aboth, ii. το). But the proper signific- ance of the word is recognised and utilised in the Parables of Jesus, Matt. xxiv. 4, 8. καιρῷ ἐσχάτῳ, still anarthrous as being technical term—indefinite as the time is unknown as well as in accordance with authors’ custom (cf. δύναµις, πισ- τέως, σωτηριαν above) ; cf. John ii. 18. Vv. 6-9. Exult then. These various temptations to which you are exposed cause present grief. But they are part of God’s plan for you. Even material per- ishable gold is tried in the fire. So is your faith tested that it may be purged of its dross and the good meta! be discovered when Jesus Christ is revealed. You love Him whom you never saw; though you see Him not you believe on Him. Enxult

then with joy that anticipates your future glory. You arewinning the prize of your faith, the ultimate salvation of souls. St. Peter returns to the present and regards it from the point of view of those whom God is guarding—but only to advance again to the glorious future (7 fin, 9) when Jesus Christ the present object of their love and faith shall be revealed. He is the central figure of this sectionwhich is based upon two of His sayings which are appropriate to the circumstances of these His persecuted followers (so iv. 13) v. Matt. v. 12 = Apoc. xix. 7 from Ps. xxi. 1, cxvill. 24. Compare Jas. i. 2-4 and John cited below.

Ver. 6. ἐν ᾧ. There are four possible antecedents. (1) καιρῷ, (2) Jesus Christ, (3) God, (4) the state of things described in 3-5. (1) would imply that they must live in the future and is least probably right. (2) is supported by 8 but is un- likely at this point. The choice lies be- tween (3), God being hitherto the domin- ating figure; and (4): cf. Luke i. 47 = 1 Sam. il. 1 a—a. with évin LXX as well as ἐπὶ. ἀγαλλιᾶσθε. Indicative (with or without quasi future meaning) rather than Imperative. Bye form of ἀγάλλομαι (Homer downwards) first found in LXX especially as assonant

rendering of "1 : used later in bad sense (λοιδορεῖται, Hesych): here bor- rowed from Matt. v. 11 f. χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε. ὀλίγον, (1) for a little time, or (2) to a small extent (contrast John xvi. 6, 4 λύπη πεπλήρωκεν ὑμῶν τὴν καρδίαν). εἰ Séov, they cannot but fee] grief at their trials (John xvi. 20, ἡμεῖς λυπηθήσεσθε ἡ δὲ λύπη ὑμῶν εἰς χαρὰν γενήσεται), but they must not in- dulge their natural weakness. To take the ‘‘necessity” as referring to their’ trials (for not all the Saints are oppressed, Oec.) limits Ava. to the external sense of vexation without reference to the feelings of the grieved corresponding to the feel- ings implied in ay. The contrast is thus destroyed, but this sense harass would suit the other military metaphor, τοὺς Φρουρουμένους.--ἐν ποικίλοις πει- ρασμοῖς, the adjective rules out the

’

44 ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α is

7 ἐν ποικίλοις πειρασμοῖς

πολυτει 2

o 4 5 , 1 ε (a ἵνα τὸ Soxipiov! ὑμῶ µότερον χρυσοῦ τοῦ

τῆς πίστεως

ἀπολλυμένου διὰ πυ ρὸς δὲ

1 For δοκίµιον three cursives read δόκιµον, a more familiar form of the adjective. *The ει in πολυτειµότερον is used in place of the conventional t to show that

the syllable is long: so τειµήν, etc.

limitation of π. to external trials which St. James who has the entire phrase seems to put upon it.

Ver. 7. τὸ δοκίµιον. The evi- dence of the papyri (Deissmann, Bible Studies, pp. 259 ff.) shows that δοκίµιος is a bye form of the adjective δόκιµος approved; so Ps. xii. 7, ἀργύριον πεπυρ- ωμένον δοκίµιον (cf. 1 Chron. xxxix. 4; Zech. xi. 3, where it occurs as v.l. for δόκιµον). Hence the phrase (here and in Jas. i. 37) corresponds exactly to St. Paul’s τὸ τῆς ὑμετέρας ἀγάπης γνή- σιον--' {πε genuineness of your faith or “the approvedness ”). So Arethas on Apoc. ix. 4, of δὲ τὸ δοκίµιον ἑαυτῶν διὰ πυρὸς παρεχόµενοι. The substantive δ.-Ξ ‘‘ means of trial, testing”’ which does not suit this context, or a specimen of metal to be tested.—rolv- τιµότερον, to justify the common rendering (A.V., R.V.) according to which π. κ.τ.λ. are taken as in apposition to τὸ δοκ., Sv must be supplied as if omitted by haplography after πολ. But there is no need for emendation, if πολ. be taken as predicate thrown forward for the sake of emphasis.— xpvaov κ.τ.λ. St. Peter adapts the familiar comparison of man’s sufiering to the fining-pot of precious metal, insisting on the superiority of the spiritual to the material gold. The stress lies on διὰ πυρός. True faith is tested by trials, just as goldis proved by fire. It is more valuable than gold which is per- ishable. If men test gold thus, much more will God test faith which outlives the present age, cf. Hebrew ix. 23. Cf. use of πύρωσις, iv. 12. Zech. xili. 9, δοκιμῶ αὐτοὺς ὡς δοκιµ- άζεται τὸ χρυσίον; Ps. Ixvi. το; Prov. xvii. 3; Sir. ii. 5, etc.—Tod ἀπολ- λυμένον, cf. John vi. 27, τὴν βρῶσιν τὴν ἀπ. (contrasted with imperishable food; here gold generally is contrasted with faith) and Φθαρτοῖς ἀργυρίῳ καὶ χροσίῳ below.—etpeOq, cf. 2 Peter iii. 14, σπουδάσατε ἄσπιλοι καὶ ἀμώμητοι αὐτῷ εὑρεθῆναι ἐν εἰρήνῃ; Ps. xvii. 3, ἐδοκί- µασας τὴν καρδίαν pov... καὶ οὐχ εὑρέθη ἐν ἐμοὶ ἀδικία.--- eis ἔπαινον ..» must be taken with the whole sen- tence, unless dv be supplied. So eis might introduce the predicate (better ".'

For the image, ’

The secondary uncials have πολὺ τιµίωτερον.

stronger) of εὗρ., cf. Rom. vii. το. εἰς

taken as = 5) expressing transition into a new state or condition (as Rom. vii. 10). --ἔπαινον is the verdict. ‘ Well done good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The Christian is the true Jew and receives at last the praise which the name Judah signifies. In Rom. ii. 29, 6 ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ *lovdatos - + + οὗ 6 ἔπαινος οὐκ ἐξ ἀνθρωπων GAN ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, Paul follows the alteration of the original ἐξομολόγησις (Gen. xxix. 35, LXX, and Philo) consequent upon the

transference of the praise (5 Τ1Γ}) from God to men (cf. Gen. xlix. 8, Ιούδα σε αἰνέσαισαν ot ἀδελφοί σου). The old Israel set their hope on praise from the congregation (Sir. xxxix. 10) or glory from men, John v. 44; xii. 42f. The new Israel looked for praise from God to balance the dispraise of men (Matt. v. ΤΙ f.); so St. Peter adds ἐπ.. to the usual formula δόξαν καὶ τιµήν, Rom. ii. 7, 1Ο (Ps. viii. 6) δόξῃ καὶ ting ἐστεφάνωσας ἄνθρωπον, cf. oxedos εἰς τιμήν, Rom. ix. 21, for the less obvious word. Hort compares Marcus Aurelius xii. II, μὴ ποιεῖν ἄλλο H ὅπερ μέλλει 6 θεὸς ἐπαινεῖν.- ἐν ἀποκαλύψει lu. Χν., when Fesus Christ is revealed. The expression is derived from the saying κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ἔσται ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ ὁ vids τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀποκαλύπτεται (Luke xvii. 30). As Judge He will pronounce the verdict of approval and bestow glory and honour. The reference to present glorified joy in the midst of trial suggests that the writer has advanced beyond the simple belief in a final theophany and contemplates a spiritual revelation of Jesus Christ as each Christian (cf. Gal. i. 16) realises the meaning of His Resurrection; but cf. μὴ ὁρῶντες below.

Ver. 7. The Christians addressed were not personal disciples of Jesus but converts of the Apostles (12). As such they could claim Beatitude µακάριοι οἱ py ἰδόντες καὶ πιστεύσαντες (John xx. 29). Their love began and continues without sight of Him; even now when they expect His coming they must still believe without seeing Him and exult. The Latin version of Augustine, gives

7—I0.

δοκιμαζοµένου ἀποκαλύψει Ι8 XG ὃν ὁρῶντες πιστεύοντες δὲ ἀγαλ δεδοξασµένη Ψψυχῶν. i

κομιζόµενοι τὸ τέλος περὶ ἧς ow ται οἱ περὶ τῆς eis ὑμᾶς

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α εὑρεθῆ eis ἔπαινον k οὐχ 1 ἰδόντες ἀγαπᾶτε

λιᾶτε χαρᾶ ἀνεκλαλή

τηρίας ἐξείήτησαν &

45

δόξαν καὶ τειμὴν ἐν

3 a »” A εἰς ὃν ἄρτι μὴ 8 τω καὶ τῆς πίστεως σωτηρί avg ἐξηραύνησαν προ- 1ο

Χάριτος προφητεύσα «τες

1 The first hand of Codex Vaticanus is alone in reading οὐχ, which could only

be justified if followed by an aspirate.

2 For ἰδόντες many manuscripts, headed by Codex Alexandrinus, read εἰδότες : this confusion between ἰδεῖν and εἰδέναι is common.

‘ three distinct clauses referring to the past, the present and the future climax whom you knew not; in whom now—not secing ye believe; whom whenyou see you will exult. But for lack of support it ‘must be set aside in favour of the Greek text (which regards present as leading up to future culmination without a break) as being a redaction of the passage for separate use. εἰς ὃν, with πιστεύοντες, μὴ ὁρῶντες being parenthesis added to explain force of πιστ. (Heb. xi. 1 ; Rom. viii. 24)—xap@ ἀνεκλαλήτῳ καὶ δεδοξασµένῃ. Their faith enables them to pass beyond their present suffer- ings to the joy which belongs to the sub- sequent glories. Thus their joy being heavenly is unspeakable and glorified. Language cannot express the communion with God which the Christian like St. Paul may enjoy (2 Cor. xii. 3 f.); com- pare Rom. viii. 26, αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα ὑπερ- “evVTVyXavet στεναγμοῖς ἀλαλήτοις. And this joy is glorified because it is an earnest of the glory which shall be re- vealed; cf. iv. 14.

Ver.g. The connexion with mention of persecution suggests that the writer is here thinking of the saying, 7m your patience ye shall win your souls and per- haps also of the contrast between the persecutor who has only power over the body. Whatever happen to the body the conclusion—the consummation of their faith—is assured {πεπῃ.--κομ.ι ζ ό- µενοι implies that already they are receiving what is due to them (cf. ν. 4) and therefore they rejoice with Hannah in God the Saviour. In the Attic Orators who use a refined form of colloquial Greek the verb is common in the sense of recovering debts, as in Matt. XXV. 27, ἐκομισάμην ἂν τὸ ἐμόν. St. Paul applies it to future recompense (2 Cor. v. 10, ἵνα κοµίσηται ἕκαστος τὰ διὰ τοῦ «σώματος; Eph. vi. 8; Col. iii. 25: cf. 2 Macc. viii. 33, τὸν ἄξιον τῆς δυσσεβείας

ἐκομίσατο µισθόν); in Heb. iii. 4, it is used of receiving promises.—r6 τέλος. The common meaning fulfilment or con- summation gives a fair sense but the con- nection with κομιζόµενοι is thus some- what strange. The parallel of v. 4, taken with Pindar, Ol. x(xi.) 81, Δόρν- κλος 8 ἔφερε πυγμᾶς τέλος, suggests as a possible rendering because ye receive the reward. The Septuagint, again (Num. xxxi. 28, etc.), uses 7. to

translate D3 = proportion to be paid, tax. And this use is well estab- lished in Greek literature for τὰ τέλη, cf. λυσιτελεῖν, etc. Accordingly Suidas defines τέλος as TO διδόµενον τοῖς βασιλεῦσι. The particular connotations can hardly be pressed here but these uses give some colour of support to the Syriac rendering recompense and the mercedem of Augustine; cf. Rom. vi. 22. —cotnplar Ψψυχῶν-τ σωτηρίαν above. Ψψυχῶν is added to console the readers for their sufferings in accordance with Mark viii. 35, ὃς 8 ἂν ἀπολέσει τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου σώσει αὐτήν = John xii. 25; cf. Luke ax τος Jas. i 2k.) Phe sonl) for St. Peter is the self or personality as for Jesus Himself.

Vv. 10-12.—The ancient prophets pro- phesied concerning the grace which was destined for you and enquired diligently about this salvation. They were the un- conscious instruments of the revelation of God and their first duty done continued to pore over the inspired descriptions of the sufferings and subsequent glories o the Messiah. They asked themselves to whom does this refer and when shall these things be. And to them the revela- tion was made that they were only the administrators of an estate which others —you in fact should enjoy. The subjects of their prophecies have now been pro- claimed to you by your Christian teachers who, like the prophets, were inspired by

46

11 ἐραυνῶντες els πνεῦμα Ἰ προµαρτυρό

τίνα ἢ ποῖον καιρὸν

μενον 2

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ A a

ἐδήλου τὸ ἐν αὐτοῖς

τὰ εἲς Χρειστὸ παθήματα καὶ τὰς

Codex Vaticanus is alone in omitting Χριστοῦ after πνεῦμα. *Codex Alexandrinus with others has προµαρτυρουµενον.

the Holy Spirit—with this difference that now the Spirit has been sent from heaven whereas of old He dwelt only in minds of a few. And these are the mysteries into which angels long to peep.

St. Peter has utilised a saying of Jesus to explain the great problem of unfulfilled prophecy and expounded it. Among the prophets he includes the so-called apoca- lyptic writers like Daniel and his suc- cessors. Gradually the coming of the Messiah and the dawn of the new age had been pushed further and further back until the inspired prophets realised that ——as the Christians held—the Messiah would only come just before the end of all. The Messiah was not Hezekiah despite the Rabbis, nor yet the best of the Has- monean house as Enoch hoped. ἀπεκαλύ- $y. Such was the revelation or Apoca- lypse from which the latest of the prophets derive their common name; and St. Peter credits all the line with the curiosity which characterised the last of them and his Own contemporaries; cf. Acts ii. and Heb. xi. 13 ff. The saying in question on which St. Peter builds is reported differently: According to Matt. xiii. 17, Jesus said, πολλοὶ προφῆται καὶ δίκαιοι ἐπεθύμησαν . . . according to Luke x. 24, προφῆται καὶ βασιλεῖς ἠθέλησαν .. . according to St. Peter προφῆται (10) καὶ ἄγγελοι. The mention of the righteous derives support from Heb. xi. 13-16, and

John viii. 56, and an original Oty) ‘‘the righteous” would easily be altered in the course of transmission into Ὀ συ)

= princes earthly or heavenly (cf. Dan. x. 21; LXX, Μιχαἡλ 6 ἄγγελος). The motive which prompted the interpretation ἄγγελοι is due to the influence of the Book of Enoch (see note below) which explains the writer’s conception of the prophets.

Ὑετ.το. The prophets were concerned with the Messianic salvation and searched their own writings and those of their pre- decessors for definite information about it. They are honoured by the Christians who realise that as a matter of fact they prophesied concerning the grace which was destined for the Christian Church.— τῆς εἰς ὑμᾶς χάριτος, the grace which belongs to you, cf. τὰ eis χριστὸν παθ. (11).

Ver. 11. The construction of εἰς

τ.κ.π. καιρόν and of προµαρτ. is doubt- ful. épavv@vres takes up ἐξείήτησαν k.t-A. (10); the run of the sentence seems to naturaliy connect τὰ . . . δόξας with προµαρτ. and εἰς . . . καιρόν with ἐδή- λου. So Vulgate in quod vel quale tempus significaret ... Spiritus... prae- nuntians. . . passiones. Butifeis.. « καιρὸν be unfit to be a direct object and προµαρτ., perhaps, to have one οἱ this kind, ra. . . δόξας must be governed by ἐδήλου. It is possible also to dis- sociate tiva from καιρὸν and to render in reference to whom and what time the Spirit signified... 5 ef. Eph.) ν. 5», ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστόν, Actsii. 25. If viva be taken with καιρόν, the two words correspond to the two questions of the disciples, When? . . . and what shall be the sign ? (Mark xiii. 4). Failing to dis- cover at what time, the prophets asked af what kind of time; their answer received a certain endorsement in the eschatolo- gical discourse of Jesus (Mark xiii. 5 ff. and parallels)—é€8yAov, cf. Heb. ix. §, τοῦτο δηλοῦντος τοῦ Πνεύματος. The word implies discernment on the part of the student (Heb. xii. 27, τὸ δὲ ἔτι ἅπαξ δηλοῖ . . «). What time . . . did point unto of R.V. is unjustifiable; a simple accusative is required, 1.6., either (i.) ποῖον κ. or (ii.) τίνα ἢ π. κ. (ets being deleted as dittography of -es) or (iii.) τὰ . δόξας.- τὸ πνεῦμα [Χριστοῦ], the full phrase is a natural one for a Christian to employ—Christ being here the proper name = Jesus Christ and not the title. κύριος in the Ο.Τ. was commonly inter- preted as referring to Our Lord; and XC. is a frequent v./. for KC. Hence Barnabas (v.q.), ot προφῆται ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἔχον τὴν χάριν εἰς αὐτὸν ἐπροφήτευσαν. ---πµπρομιαρτυρόμενον -only occurs here. 1 μαρτύρομαι (the proper sense): determine the meaning of the compound render ‘‘ protesting (calling God to wit- ness) beforehand”. It usage justify con- fusion with μαρτυρεῖν, be witness [of | render testifying beforehand or (publicly.) --τὰ εἰς Xv παθήματα, the doctrine that the Messiah must suffer and so enter into His glory was stated by the prophets (e.g. Isa. iii.) but neglected by the Jews of the first century (John xii. 34). Be- lievers were reminded of it by the risen Lord Himself (Luke xxiv. 26, 46) and put it in the forefront of their demonstratio

ΙΙ---Ι2.

µε τὰ ταῦτα δόξας ols a

ὑμῖν δὲ διηκό

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

πεκαλύφθη ὅτι οὐχ ἑ

νουν 1 αὐτὰ ἃ νῦν ἂνηγ

47

αυτοῖς 12 γέλη ὑμῖν διὰ τῶν εὖ

1¥For διηκόνουν Dr. Rendel Harris (Side-Lights on New Testament Research, p. 207) conjectures that διενοοῦντο should be read in accordance with the statement of the Book of Enoch, “I contemplated them (the things heard in the vision) not

for the present generation but for one that was far distant”’.

See Henoch, i. 2,

καὶ οὐκ ἐς τοῦ vuv γενεὰν διενοούµην ἀλλὰ ἐπὶ πόρρω ἦνσαν ἐγὼ λαλῶ. διανοίας of verse 13 is cited in confirmation of the conjecture.

evangelica (Acts ΠΠ, 18, xvii. 3, xxvi. 23). The phrase corresponds exactly to the

original 2} son: eis standing for

the (periphrasis for construct. state).— τὰς μετὰ ταῦτα δόξας, the plural glories implies some comprehension of the later doctrine, ¢.g., John, which recog- aised that the glory of Jesus was parti- ally manifested during His earthly life; although the definition subsequent reflects the primitive simplicity and if it be pressed the glories must be explained as referring to the resurrection ascension triumph over angels as well as the glorious session (viii. οι f.).—ols ἀπεκαλύφθη, so St. Peter argues that Joel prophesied the last things (cf. Sir. xlviii. 24) and that David foresaw and spoke concerning the resurrection (Acts ii. 17, 31, cf. iii. 24). Compare Dan. 1x. 2, xii. 4, etc., for ex- amples of partial revelations of this kind proper to apocalyptic writers. Heb. l.c. supy. credits the Patriarchs with the same insight—ovx ἑαυτοῖς ὑμῖν δέ, negative and positive presentation of the past for emphasis is common in this Epistle. — Sunkdvovv αὐτά, '' they were supplying, conveying the revelations granted to them—primary the prophecy and the revealed solution of it alike,” cf. iv. 10, εἰς ἑαυτοὺς αὐτὸ διακονοῦν- tes. The context shows, if the word διακονεῖν does not itself connote it, that herein they were stewards of God’s mani- fold grace—channels of communication. For Acc. with διακον. cf, 2 Cor. iii. 3, ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ διακογηθεσα ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν, vill. 19, τῇ χάριτι ταύτῃ τῇ δια- κονουµένῃ Ud ἡμῶν, from which it may be inferred that 8. connotes what the context here suggests, cf. ἃ viv avny- γέλη, have been at the present dispensa- tion declared; a. is taken from the great proof text relating to the calling of the Gentiles, ols οὐκ ἀνηγγέλη ἀκούουσιν, Isa. lii. 15 cited Rom. xv. 21. ‘But St. Peter probably meant more by the word . . . the phrase includes not only the announcement of the historical facts of the Gospel, but, yet more, their implicit teachings as to the counsels of God and

the hopes revealed for men” (Hort).— διὰ τῶν evayy. ὑμας, God spake through the evangelists (cf. Isa. lxi. 1, apud Rom. x. 15) as through the pro- phets, Matt. i. 22, ii. 15, etc. Both are simply God’s messengers. For accusative

after εὐαγγ. cf. use of SAP] = gladden with good tidings (Isa. Ixi. 1). So πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται (Matt. xi. 5; Luke vii. 22) is substituted for the original πτωχοῖς εὐαγγελίζεσθαι (Luke iv, 138 = Isa. Ixi. 1) if the prophecy which Jesus appropriated and which forms the basis of the Christian use of the word.— πνεύµματι «TA. The evangelists preached by the Spirit, as Stephen spoke (Acts vi. το), τῷ πνεῦματι ᾧ ἐλάλει. In Sir. xlviii, 24, if the Greek and Hebrew texts are trustworthy, πνεύµατι the simple Dative (πνεύµατι peyaho εἶδεν τὰ ἔσχατα i.e, Isaiah) corresponds- to : of. insertion of ἐν here in oul: αλ. oe descent of the Holy Spirit is contrasted with the indwel- ling Spirit which inspired the pro- phets. The Holy Spirit was given, when Jesus was glorified, as never before, οὐκ ἐκ µέτρου (John iii. 34). Vulgate renders by ablative absolute.—eis ἃ ... παρα- κύψαι, after expanding the first part of Jesus’ saying (and its context ye see) St. Peter at last reaches the second in its secondary form. He combines with it as its proper Scripture, the prophecy of Enoch (ix. 1) καὶ ἀκούσαντες ot τέσ- σαρες μεγάλοι ἀρχάγγελοι . . . παρέ- κυψαν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἐκ τῶν ἁγίων τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. St. Paul spiritualises the idea “to me... this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles . . . in order that now might be made known to the princi- palities and the authorities in heavenly places by means of the Church the very-’ varied wisdom of God” (Eph. iii. 8 ff.). St. Peter reproduces faithfully the sim- plicity of the original and represents this longing as still unsatisfied since the Church is not yet perfect or complete. It thus becomes part of the sympathetic groaning and travailing of the whole creation (Rom. viii. 22 f.), In iii. 21 St. Peter states on the same authority that

αγγελισαµένων ὑμᾶς πνεύµατι 1 ἁγίω πο

a

13 cls ἃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ay

A 3 , fol [ή τὰς ὀσφύας τῆς διανοίας

τ4 ἐπὶ τὴ

γελοι παρακύψαι.

φεροµένην ὑμῖν χάρι

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α 4

σταλέντι ἀπ᾿ οὐρανοῦ διὸ

ὑμῶν νέφοντες ? τε

ἀναζωσάμενοι λείως ἐλπίσατε

ἐν ἀποκαλύψει IG XU. as

1 Το πνεύµατι Codex Sinaiticus, with other manuscripts of less weight, prefixes

ἐν. Ἀνέφοντες {ΟΙ νήφοντες.

Christ preached to the spirits in prison ; adding that when he ascended all angels were subjected to Him. The apparent contradiction is due to the discrepancy between the ideal and its gradual realisa- tion and not to an imperfect coordination of these conceptions of the universal sovereignty of God. Seer Cor. xv. 25 f., Μορ πο πο Wen dor wersee . - παρακύψαι has lost its suggestion of peeping through its use in the LXX for

Πρω look forth though it is not em-

ployed by them in the places where God is said to look down from heaven (Ps. xiv. 2, etc.). The patristic commentators seem to hold by the Evangelist rather than the Apostle in respect to the saying, as they refer exclusively for illustration to the O.T. figures, Moses (Heb xi. 26), Isaiah (John xii. 41). Oecumenius notes that Daniel is called by the angel a man of longings (Dan. ix. 25). That the angels of Peter are due to Enoch and secondary seems to be borne out by the Targum of Eccles. i. 8, “‘ In all the words that are prepared (about) to come to pass in the world the ancient prophets wearied

themselves and could not find their ends” Vy. 13-21. Practical admonitions. In

this section St. Peter is engrossed with the conception of the Church as the new Israel which has been delivered from idolatry—the spiritual Egypt—by a far more excellent sacrifice. Jesus Himself endorsed such adaptation of the direc- tions given for the 'typical deliverance (Luke xii. 35) and the principle that the worshippers of Jehovah must be like Him (John iv. 23 f.; Matt. v. 48, etc.).

Ver. 13. διό introduces the practical inference. —avalwoadpevot, K.TA., the reference to the directions for celebra- tion of the Passover (Exod. xii. 11, οὕτως δὲ φάγεσθε αὐτό" ai ὀσφύες ὑμῶν περι- εἷωσμέναι . « . μετὰ σπουδῆς) is unmis- takable. The actual deliverance of the Christians is still in the future; they must be always ready against the coming of the Lord. Oec. refers to Job xxxviii, 3. The particular compound occurs only twice in LXX—once in this phrase of the

manly woman in Prov. xxxi. 17, ἀναζωσα- µένη ἰσχυρῶς τὴν ὀσφὺν αὐτῆς, where it implies preparation for serious work. In 2 Kings iv. 29 ff. (Elisha’s mission of Gehazi which is in some ways a type fulfilled by Jesus’ mission of the Seventy, cf. Luke x. 4), ζῶσαι τὴν ὀσφύν σου is the preparation for an urgent errand. The addition of τῆς διανοίας implies that the readiness required is spiritual. St.

Paul uses καρδία in the same way (Eph.

i. 18, πεφωτισµένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς καρδίας ὑμῶν) and from Mark xii. 30 = Deut. vi. 4 f. it appears that διάνοια is

a recognised equivalent of 45) heart. --γήφοντες τελείως. Incases like this it is natural to take the adverb with the preceding verb. τελείως (only here in N.T.) has much the same force as τῆς διανοίας; so the adjective is applied to the antitype as contrasted with the type in Heb. ΙΧ. II, τῆς . . . τελειοτέρας σκηνῆς and Jas. i. 25, νόµον τέλειον τὸν τῆς ἐλευθερίας. For νήφοντες cf. iv. 7 and ν. 8, νήψατε γρηγορήσατε, 1 Thess. v. 8, γρηγορῶμεν καὶ νήφωμεν. Sobriety is necessary to watchfulness. The origin of this use of the word (not in the LXX) is to be found in the parable of Luke xii. 45 f.; it has special point in view of the K@pots and πότοις, in which they were prone to indulge.—t 7 v φερομένην ὑμῖν χάριν is an adaption of the common Greek idiom (Homer down- wards) φέρειν χ», to confer a favour (cf. Sir. viii. το, μὴ ἀναφερέτω σοι χάριν) and is thus analogous to St. Paul’s use of χαρίζεσθαι (see Rom. viii. 32). The present participle has its natural force. Peter does not distinguish between the present and the climax; already the new age which is the last has begun. ΤΠεχάρις is the final deliverance and its use here is another link with the type: ἔδωκεν 6 Κύριος τὴν χάριν τῷ λαῷ αὐτοῦ (Exod. xii. 36).--ἐν ἀποκαλύψει Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Jesus Christ is being re- vealed or is revealing the salvation. The revelation began with the resurrection cf. φανερωθέντος and continues to the cul- mination (7).

Ver. 14. ὦς, inasmuch as you are, cf.

13—17.

, ς ~ A ul τέκνα ὑπακοῆς" μὴ συσχηματιζόµε TH ἀγνοία ὑμῶν ἐπι a μα A 3 A o > , ἅγιο καὶ αὐτοὶ ἅγιοι ἐν πά διότι γέγραπται πατέρα ἀἐπικαλεῖσθε τὸν ἄπρο

τὸ ἑκάστου ἔργον ἐν φόβω τὸν

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ A

θυµίαις’ ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸ ση ἀναστροφῆ γενή ov oa ” J > ὅτι ἅγιοι έσεσθε ὅτι ἐ σωπολήµπτως κρί

τῆς παροικίας ὑμῶν

49

ναι 1 ταῖς πρότερον ἐν καλέσαντα buds 15 θητε:

‘ ov ‘ > γὼ ἅγιος: καὶ ev 16, 17 νοντα κατὰ

χρόνον

1 The termination συσχημµατιζόµεναι is probably due to the following ταῖς.

ii. 2, 5, iii. 7, είο.-- τέκνα tbmraKxoj7s, obedient corresponds to St. Paul’s υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθείας (Col. iii. 6; Eph. ii. 2, ν. 6). Both phrases reflect the Hebrew use of 75}, ‘followed by word of quality

characteristic, etc.” (B.D.B., s.v., 8). For τέκνα in place of usual viot in this idiom, cf. Hos. 9, τέκνα ἀδικίας and Eph. ii. 3, τέκνα ὀργῆς. Here it suits better with βρέφη (ii. 1).--συσχηματιζό- µεναι, from Rom. xii. 2, μη συσχηµα- τίζεσθε τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ. The feminine is peculiar to B whose scribe was perhaps influenced by the Alexandrian identifica- tion of woman with the flesh (John 1. 13) or regarded such conformity as woman- ish. The participle has the force of an imperative. The Christians needed to be warned against conformity to the manners and morals of their countrymen, which were incompatible with their new faith (see v. 2-4). The use of σχῆμα in Isa. iii. 17, perhaps assists the use of συσχ. in connection with lusts.—év Tq ἀγνοίᾳ ὑμῶν. It wasa Jewish axiom that the Gentiles were ignorant (Acts xvii. 30; Eph. iv. 17 f.). Christian teachers demonstrated the equal ignor- ance of the Jews (Peter, Acts iii. 17; Paul, in Rom.). So Jesus had pronounced even the teachers of Israel to be blind and promised them knowledge of the truth (John viii. 32 ff., cf. interview with Nicodemus); whereas speaking to the Samaritan woman He adopted the Jew- ish standpoint (John iv. 22)—cf. 2 Kings xvii. 20-41 with Isa. ii. 3; Baruch. iv. 4, µακάριοί éopev ᾿Ισραὴλ ὅτι τὰ ἀρεστὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῖν γνωστά ἐστιν.

Vv. 15{. The command Ye shall be holy for I am holy is connected originally with the deliverance from Egypt and the distinction between clean and unclean, which lays down the principle of separa- tion involved in the Exodus (Lev. xi. 44- 46, etc.; cf. Isa. ΠΠ. rz). St. Peter com- bines the Scripture with the Word of Jesus for κατὰ τὸν . . . corresponds to ὡς of Matt. v. 48. Gentiles needed God’s

summons before they could regard Him as their heavenly Father; hence Him that called you. Compare Deut. xviii. 13 (whence τέλειος ot Matt. /.ο.) where also contrast with abominations of the the heathen.—aytov is better taken as predicate than as substantive, since 6 καλέσας (καλῶν) is well-established as a title of God in His relation to Gentile Christians (cf. ii. 9, etc.).—év πάσηῃ ἀναστροφῇ, cf. i. 18, ii, 12, ΠΠ. 1, 2, 16; Tobit iv. 19, ἴσθι πεπαιδευµένος ἐν πάσῃ a4 gov. The corresponding verb, ἀναστρέφεσθαι is found as rendering of

πι in the same sense (Prov. xx. 7,

ἀναστρέφεται ἅμωμος); both verb and noun are so used in late Greek authors (especially Epictetus)—yev 4697 € be- come as you were not oR show yourselves as you are; the latter sense suits a. which is distinctively outward behaviour.

Ver. 17, cf. Εοπι. Π.1ΟΓ, εἰ πατέρα ἐπικαλεῖσθε, if ye invoke as Father :— reminiscence of Jer. iii. το, εἰ πατέρα ἐπικαλεῖσθέ pe (5ο Q. perhaps after τ Peter, for εἶπα πατέρα καλέσετέ pe) cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 27, αὐτὸς ἐπικαλέσεται µε Πατήρ pov el σύ. There may be a reference to the use of the Lord’s Prayer (surname the Fudge Father); but the context of Jer. l.c. corresponds closely to the thought here: ‘‘ All the nations shall be gathered . . . to Jerusalem, neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. In those days . . . Judah and Israel shall come together out of the land of cap- tivity . . . andI said ‘ My father ye shall call me’.”” —ampocwTrory partes summarises St. Peter’s inference {τοπή experience at Caesarea (Acts x. 34) κατα- λαμβάνομαι ὅτι ovK ἐστιν προσωπολή- µπτης ὁ θεός. Adjective and adverb are formed from λαμβάνειν πρόσωπον of

LXX = “HD NW) receive (lift up) the face of, i.e., be favourable and later partial, to. The degeneration of the phrase was due to the natural contras!

50 ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α 1.

18 ἀναστράφη ἐλυτρώθητε ἐκ τῆς 19 δότου :

between the face and the heart of a man, which was stamped on the Greek equiva- lent by the use of πρόσωπον for mask of the actor or hypocrite—«pivovra. If the tense be pressed, compare the saying of Jesus recorded in John xii. 31, viv κρίσις ἐστιν τοῦ κόσμου τούτου. Rom. ii. 16 is referred to the last Judgment by διὰ Χριστοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ. But the present participle may be timeless as in 6 καλῶν, 6 βαπτίζων, etc.—KkaTa τὸ ἑκάστουν ἔργον, a commonplace Jewish and Christian, cf. Ps. xii. 12 (cited Rom. ii. 6), σὺ ἀποδώσεις ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ (Hebrew has the work). R. Aqiba used to say . . . The world is judged by grace and everything is according to the work (Pirge Aboth., iii. 24). For col- lective singular lifework, cf. also 1 Cor. iii, 13-15, etc.—év φόβῳ, Fear is not entirely a technical term in N.T. Chris- tians needed the warning to fear God (so Luke xii. 5 ; 2 Cor. v. 10), although love might be proper to the perfect—Gnostic or Pharisee—z John iv. 18. The natural and acquired senses exist side by side, as appears in the use of ἄφοβος. Compare ἄφοβος οὐ δύναται δικαιωθῆναι (Sir. i. (22 with ἐν τούτῳ ἄφοβός cipr (Ps. xxvii. 2, Symmachus) = 1x Him I am con- fident.—tov τῆς παροικίας χρο- νον, during your earthly pilgrimage, which corresponds to the sojourn of Israel in Egypt (Acts xiii. 17). If God is their Father, heaven must be their home (i. 4); their life on earth is therefore a sojourn (see on i. 1). St. Paul has his own use of the metaphor (Eph. il. το). Gentile Christians are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow-citizens of the saints.

Ver. 18. Amplification of Isa. lii. 3 f., Δωρεὰν ἐπράθητε καὶ οὐ μετὰ ἀργυρίου λυτρωθήσεσθε (cf. αἷν. 13) . . « Eis Αἴγυπτον κατέβη ὁ λαός µου τὸ πρότερον παροικῆσαι ἐκεῖ. The deliverance from Babylon corresponds to the deliver- ance from Egypt. To these the Chris- tians added a third and appropriated to it the descriptions of its predecessors.—ot Φθαρτοῖς, κ.τ.λ. The preceding negative relief to positive statement is characteristic of St. Peter, who here found it in his original (Isa. 1.ο.). φΦθαρ- τοῖς echoes ἀπολλυμένου and is prob- ably an allusion to the Golden Calf of which it was said These be thy gods O

τε: εἰδότες ὅτι οὗ φθαρ µαταίας ὑμῶν ἄναστρο > x 4 9 ς

ἀλλὰ τιµίῳ αἵματι ὡς

τοῖς ἀργυρίω ἢ χρυσίω

φῆς πατροπαρα- ἀμνοῦ ἀμώμου καὶ ἆ σπίλου Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt (Exod. xxxii. 14). Accord- ing to Sap. xiv. 8, it is the proper name for an idol : τὸ δὲ φθαρτὸν θεὸς ὠνομάσθη. So the dative represents the agent and not only the instrument of the deliver- ance.—patatas supports the view taken of φθ., for the gods of the nations are

vanity, µάταια bin (Jer. x. 3, etc.).— πατροπαραδότου, ancestral, here-

ditavy. The adjective indicates the source of the influence, which their old way of life—patrius mos, patrit ritus—still exer- cised over them. The ancient religion had a strength—not merely vis inertiae— which often baffled both Jewish and Christian missionaries: ‘to subvert a custom delivered to us from ancestors the heathen say is not reasonable” (Clem. Ac. Protr. x.). “This power of the dead hand is exemplified in the pains taken by the Stoics and New Pythagoreans to con- serve the popular religion and its myths by allegorical interpretation. Among the Jews this natural conservatism was highly developed; St. Paul was a zealot for the ancestval laws. But the combination of patriarch and tradition does not prove that the persons addressed were Jewish Christians. The law, according to which the Jews regulated their life, was Divine, its mediator Moses; and there is a note of depreciation in the words not that it ts derived from Moses only from the Fathers (John vii. 22). πατρο is contrasted with πατέρα (17) as παραδότου with the direct calling.

Ver. 19. The blood of Christ, the true paschal lamb, was the (means or) agent of your redemption. The type contem- plated is composite; the lamb is the

yearling sheep (Xt? πρόβατον, but Targum-Onkelos has “\WS lamb and

στυλ is rendered ἀμνός in Lev. xii. 8; Num. xv. 11; Deut. xiv. 4) prescribed for the Passover (Exod. xii. 5). But the des- cription perfect (τέλειον Dn) is glossed by Gpopov (cf. Heb. xii. 14), which is the common translation of DWM in this connection, and ἁἀσπί- λου which summarises the description of sacrificial victims generally (v. Lev. xxli. 22, etc.). ἅμωμος would be unintel- ligible to the Gentile, because it has acquired a peculiar meaning from the

———

15-21.

XU προεγνωσ ῥωθέντος δὲ ἐπ᾽ ἐσχά

Hebrew DD blemish. ἄσπιλος is used by Symmachus in Job xv. 15, for 757 Hesychius treats ἄσπιλος. ἅμωμος and καθαρός as synonyms.—ripiq is set over against φθαρτοῖς as πολντιµ. against ἀπολλυμένου; cf. Ps. cxvi. 15, τίμιος ἐναντίον Κυρίου 6 θάνατος τῶν ὁσίων and λίθον . . . ἔντιμον (ii. 4).

Ver. 20. As the paschal lamb was taken on the tenth day of the month (Exod. xiii. 3) so Christ was foreknown before the creation and existed before His manifestation. The preexistence of Moses is stated in similar terms in As- sumption of Moses, i. 12-14, “* God created the world on behalf of His people. But He was not pleased to manifest this pur- pose of creation from the foundation of the world in order that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted... . Ας- cordingly He designed and devised me and He prepared me before the founda- tion of the world that I should be the mediator of His Covenant.” So of the Messiah, Enoch (xlviii. 3, 6) says: ‘‘ His name was called before the Lord of spirits before the sun and the signs of the zodiac were created.... He was chosen and hidden with God before the world was created. At the end of time God will reveal him to the world.” Alex- andrian Judaism took over from Greek philosophy (Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle) the doctrine of the preexistence of all souls. Soin the Secrets of Enoch (xxiii. 5) it is said ‘‘Every soul was created eternally before the foundation of the world”. The author of Wisdom was a goodly child and obtained a good soul or vather being good came into a body unde- filed (Sap. viii. το f.); and Philo found Scriptural warrant in the first of the two accounts of Creation (Gen. i. 264). Out- side Alexandria, apart from the Essenes (Joseph, B. J., ii. 154-157) the general doctrine does not appear to have been accepted. But the belief in the preexist- ence of the Name of the Messiah if not the Messiah Himself was not unknown in Palestine and was latent in many of the current ideals. The doctrine of Trypho was probably part of the general reaction from the position reached by the Jewish thinkers (Α.Ρ.) and appropriated by the Christians, There are many hints in the Ο.Τ. which Christians exploited without violence and the development of angel- ology offered great assistance. Current

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ A

µένου μὲν πρὸ κατα

του τῶν χρόνων δι

δα

βολῆς κόσμου dave 20, 21

ὑμᾶς τοὺς δι αὐτοῦ

conceptions of Angels and Wisdom as well as of the Messiah all Jed up to this belief. Apart from the express declara- tions of Jesus recorded by St. John, it is clear that St. Peter held to the real and not merely ideal pre-existence of Christ, not deriving it from St. Paul or St. John and Heb. It is no mere corollary of God’s omniscience that the spirit of Christ was in the prophets.— poe- yvwopévon, cf, κατὰ πρόγνωσιν, ver. 2; only here of Messiah, perhaps as a greater Jeremiah (cf. Jer. i. 5)—but see the description of Moses cited above.— πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμον. The phrase does not occur in LXX but Matt. xiii. 35 = Ps. Ixxvili. 2 renders O72 a al a)

by ἀπὸ καταβολῆς (LXX am ἀρχῆς) Philo has καταβολὴ yeveoews and ai καταβολαὶ σπερµάτων and uses ἐκ κ. = afresh. In 2 Macc. ii. 29, καταβολή is used of the foundation of a house; cf. κατασκευάζειν in Heb.—odavep wb év- τος, of the past manifestation of Christ. In v. 1 of the future implies previous hidden existence, cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16 (quota- tion of current quasi-creed) ἐφανερώθη ἐν τῷ κόσµφ. The manifestation consists in the resurrection and glorification evi- denced by déscent of spirit (21): cf. Peter’s sermon in Acts ii., risen, exalted, Fesus has sent the spirit: therefore let all the house of Israel know surely that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ. St. Paul speaks in the same way of the revelation of the secret, which ts Christ in you; see especially Col. i. 25-27. Compare John i. 14.--ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων, at the end of the times, cf. ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν (Heb. i. 1 and LXX). The deliverance effected certo tempore by Christ's blood is eter- nally efficacious, cf. αἰώνιον λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος Heb., ix. 12 and the more popular statement of the same idea in Apoc. xiii. 8, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Ver. 21. δι’ ὑμᾶς, for the sake of you Gentiles, {.ε., ἵνα ὑμᾶς προσαγάγῃ τῷ θεῷ, iii. 18. The resurrection of Jesus and His glorification are the basis of their faith in God and inspire not merely faith but Ἠορε.--δι αὐτοῦ. Compare for form Acts iii. 16, ἡ πίστις ἡ Sv αὐτοῦ and for thought Rom. v. 2; Eph. ii. 18--- πιστοὺς εἰς θεόν. This construc- tion occurs not infrequently in the Bezan text and is simply equivalent to π. with

~

52

πιστοὺς } eis OF τὸν ἐ

αὐτῶ 22 OV: τὰς ψυχὰς as? cis φιλαδελφίαν

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ A

δόντα: ὥστε τὴν πί ὑμῶν ἡγνικότες ἐν ἀνυπόκριτον ' ἐκ Kap

1.

κρῶν καὶ δόξαν εἶναι εἰς

γείραντα αὐτὸν ἐκ νε στιν ὑμῶν καὶ ἐλπίδα TH ὑπακοῆ τῆς ἀληθεί

δίας ἀἄλληλους

1 For πιστοὺς Codex Sinaiticus and others substitute the participle πιστεύοντας in order to avoid the unfamiliar construction with the adjective.

2 Manuscripts of secondary importance add διὰ πνεύματος after τῆς ἀληθείας

and (with the original hand of Codex Sinaiticus) καθαρᾶς before καρδίας.

The

latter addition might be regarded as a mistaken emendation of an accidental repeti- tion of καρδίας; but in the course of transmission such safeguards are commonly

added to Scriptural texts. after καρδίας.

the Dative (Acts xvi. 15) corresponding to ' YON). But w. keeping construc-

tion has changed its meaning. Already it is semi-technical = believing, sc. in Jesus and here πίστιν . . . εἰς θεόν fol- lows immediately. So the verb πιστε- ύοντας is a true gloss; the addition of eis θεόν corrects the common conception of faith, which ultimately gave rise to a distinction between belief in Christ and belief in ἄοά.- δόξαν αὐτῷ δόντα, so ¢.g., the prophecy (Isa. lii. 13) 6 wats µου . . . δοξασθήσεται σφόδρα was ful- filled when the lame man was healed by St. Peter and St. John; ὃ θεὸς “ABpaap -. . ἐδόξασεν τὸν παῖδα αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦν (Acts iii. 13). But the glory is prim- arily and generally the glorious resurrec- tion and ascension, in which state Jesus sent the Holy Spirit (ἠν τὸ πνεῦμα ὅτι οὕπω ἐδοξάσθη, John).—dore . . . θεόν. καὶ ἐλπίδα may be part of the subject of εἶναι εἰς θεόν, so that your faith and hope are in God, or predicate so that your faith is also hope in God. In either case ἐλπίς is rather confidence than hope, in accordance with LXX usage

(= ΠΤΙ), and supplies an adequate climax—patient faith leads up to the ap-

propriation of the Hope of Israel.

Vv. 22-25. The combination of puri- fication of souls with love of the brother- hood suggests that the temptations to relapses were due to former intimacies and relationships which were not over- come by the spiritual brotherhood which they entered. Different grades of society were doubtless represented in all Chris- tian churches and those who were marked out for leaders by their wealth and posi- tion were naturally slow to love the slaves and outcasts. As at Corinth old intimacies and congenial society led the better classes (iv. 3 f.) to fall back on the clubs to which they had belonged and in

The third hand of Codex Sinaiticus substitutes ἀληθινῆς

the company of their equals to sneer at their new brothers—‘‘ the brethren ”’ (ii. r). St. Peter reminds them that they must purify their souls from the taint— with a side-glance perhaps at the rites proper to the associations in question. They must love the brotherhood and its members as such. Earthly relationships are done away by their regeneration ; they have exchanged the flesh for the spirit. The section is full of echoes; compare ἡγνικότες with ἅγιοι (15), ἐν ἁγιασμῷ (2), τῇῃ ὑπακοῇ with τέκνα v. (14), ἄναγε- γεννηµένοι with ἀναγεννήσας (3), Φθαρτῆς with Φθαρτοῖς (18), εὐαγγελισθέν with τῶν εὐαγγελισαμένων (12). It should be compared throughout with Eph. iv. 18- 24.—Tas.. . Ἠγνικότες from Jer. vi. 16, “ see what is the good way and walk in it and youshall find purification (ayviopév LXX) to your souls. a. usually of cere- monial purification in LXX. Compare Jas. iv. 8, ayvicate καρδίας δίψυχοι (cf. ἀνυπόκριτον). The perfect participle is used as indicating the ground of the admonition, so ἀναγεγεννημένοι (23). Pagan rites professed to purify the worshipper but cannot affect the soul, the self or the heart any more than the Jewish ceremonies can (Heb. ix. 9 f.). Scripture declares 6 φόβος Κυρίου ἁγνός (Ps. xix. 10). They must realise that they have cleansed themselves ideally at baptism, cf. 1 John iii. 3 and 15 f. above with con- text.—év τῇ ὑπακοῇ τῆς ἆληθε- ίας, in your obedience to the truth, cf. Jer. lic. above. They are no longer igno- rant (14) but have learned the truth (cf. John xvii. 17-19, and γνώσεσθε τὴν ἀ., John viii. 32) from the missionaries. They - must persist in the obedience to it which they then professed, in contrast with those who are disobedient to the truth (Rom. ii. 8; cf. 2 Thess. ii. 12). Hortsays: “St. Peter rather means the dependence of Christian obedience on the possession

22—25.

ἀγαπή cate ἐκτενῶς dvaye Φθαρτῆς ἀλλὰ

ToS.”

ἀφθάρτου διὰ λόγου διότι πᾶσα σὰρξ

Χόρτου ἐξηράνθη ὁ τὸ δὲ ῥῆμα

ἄνθος Κυ µένει εἰς τὸν ala

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α γεννηµένοι οὐκ ἐκ

ὡς χόρτος καὶ πᾶσα , 7 A ” Χόρτος καὶ τὸ ἄνθος

ων

σπορᾶς 1 23 ζῶντος Θῦ kai µένο

δόξα αὐτῆς ὡς 24 ἐξέπεσεν

να: τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν τὸ

25

1 The three great uncials (Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Ephraemi Rescriptus) put φθορᾶς for σπορᾶς keeping φθαρτῆς: the variant was probably a paraphrase of the whole phrase and possibly implied the identification of ἀφθάρτου with ζῶντος

Θεοὺ καὶ µένοντος.

2 The addition of eis τὸν αἰῶνα to µένοντος is due to verse 25.

of the truth,” relying on Eph. iv. 24, and the probability that ‘‘ St. Peter would have distinctly used some such language as év τῷ ὑπακούειν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ”’. In regard to the latter point it should be observed that St. Peter is curiously fond of using nouns instead of verbs (e.g., 2)—ets Φιλαδε- Ἀφίαν, love of the brethren, Vulgate, tn fraternitalis amore, mutual love which exists between brothers. It is the prim- ary Christian duty, Matt. xxiii. 8, the first fruits of their profession of which St. Paul has no need to remind the Thessa- lonians, | Thess. iv. Ο.--ἀνυπόκρι- τον, unfeigned, contrasted with the love which they professed towards their fellow Christians (cf. ii. 1) which was neither hearty nor eager. There was pretence among them whether due to imperfect sympathy of Jew for Gentile or of wealthy and honourable Gentiles for those who were neither the one nor the other. For a vivid illustration of this feigning see Jas. ii. 15 f. and ii. 1-5, etc., for the fric- tion between rich and Ροοτ.--ἀλλήλ- ους ἀγαπήσατε. St. John’s sum- mary of the teaching of Jesus (John xiii. 34 f., xv. 12, 17) which he repeated in extreme old age at Ephesus, till the dis- ciples were weary of it: ‘‘ Magister quare semper hoc loqueris”. His answer was worthy of him: ‘‘Quia praeceptum Do- mini est et si solum fiat sufficit (Hieron. in Gal. vi. 1Ο).--ἐκτενῶς, intentius (Vulg.), in LXX of ‘strong crying to God” (Jonah iii. 8 = mpi. violently, cf. Jud. iv.12; Joeli.14; 3 Macc.v.Q: in Polybius of a warm commendation (xxxi. 22, 12) a warm and friendly welcome (viii. 21, 1), a warm and magnificent reception (xxxili. 16 4).

Ver. 23. ἀναγεγεννημένοι. So St. John ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους ὅτι... mas ὁ ἀγαπῶν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγέννηται; cf. Eph. iv. 17, ν. 2.--ἐκ σπορᾶς ἀφθάρτον, i.c., of God regarded as

VOL. V. 4

ο

Father and perhaps also as Sower (cf. νετ. 24); the two conceptions are com- binedin 1 John iil. 9, was 6 γεγεννηµένος ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἁμαρτίαν οὐ ποιεῖ ὅτι σπέρμα αὐτοῦ µένει. Compare Philo, Leg. All., Ρ. 123 M. Λείαν ... ἐξ οὐδενὸς γεννη- τοῦ λαμβάνουσαν τὴν σπορὰν . . . add’ ὑπ) αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ.- διὰ λόγου... µένοντος, the connection of ζῶντος κ. μέν. is doubtful ; the following quotation might justify the abiding word and Heb. iv. 22, the living word in accordance with Deut. xxxii. 47—cf. 3, ἐλπίδα ζῶσαν. On the other hand the rendering of the Vulgate, per verbum det vivi et perman- entis, is supported by Dan. vi. 26 (αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστιν θεὸς µένων καὶ Lov) and sup- Ροτίς5 St. Peter’s argument: earthly rela- tionships must perish with all flesh and its glory; spiritual kinship abides, be- cause it is based on the relation of the kinsfolk to God living and abiding. For the word of God as the means of regeneration, cf. Jas. i. 18, βουληθεὶς ἀπεκύησεν ἡμᾶς λόγῳ ἀληθείας. For its identification with ῥῆμα of the quotation, cf. Acts x. 36 f.

Ver. 24 f. = Isa. xl. 6-8, adduced as endorsement of the comparison instituted between natural generation and divine regeneration, with gloss explaining the saying of Jehovah (cf. Heb. i. 1 f.). The only divergences from the LXX (which omits—as Jerome notes, perhaps through homcedeuton—quia spiritus dei flavit in eo: vere foenum est populus; asuit foe- num cecidit flos) are that ὡς is inserted before x. (so Targum), and that αὐτῆς is put for ἀνθρώπου (so Heb., etc.) and Κυρίου for τοῦ θεοῦ nee (in accordance with the proper reading of ¥ehovah in the omitted verse).

Ver.25. τὸ evayyeAto Bev comes from 6 εὐαγγελιζόμενος Σειὼν of Isa. x! g which the Targum explains as referring to the prophets.

94

II. 1 ῥῆμα τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲ κακίαν καὶ 2 καταλαλιὰς ὥς

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

πάντα δόλον καὶ ὑπό

ος

εἰς ὑμᾶς. ἀποθέμενοι οὖν πᾶσαν κρισιν καὶ φόνους] k πάσας

ἀρτιγέννητα βρέφη τὸ λογικὸν ἄδολον

1 φόνους is an error (peculiar to Codex Vaticanus) for φθόνους.

ΟΗΑΡΤΕΚ IJ.—Vy. 1-10. Continuation of practical atlmonition with appeal to additional ground-principles illustrating the thesis of i. το.

Ver.1. Put away then all malice—all guile and hypocrisy and envy—all back- biting. οὖν resumes διό (i. 13). The faults to be put away fall into three groups, divided by the prefix all, and cor- respond to the virtues of i. 22 (ὑπόκρισιν ἀνυπόκριτον). The special connection of the command with the preceding Scrip- ture would require the expression of the latent idea, that such faults as these are inspired by the prejudices of the natural man and belong to the fashion of the world, which is passing away (i. John ii. 17).- ἀποθέμενοι, putting off. Again participle with imperative force. St. Peter regards the metaphor of removal as based on the idea of washing off filth, cf. σαρ- Kos ἀπόθεσις PU Tov (iti. 21). St. James (i.21,806 ἀποθέμενοι πᾶσαν ῥυπα- piav καὶ περισσείαν κακίας) which seems to combine these two phrases and to deduce the familiarity of the spiritual sense of filth (cf. Apoc. xxil. 11, ῥυπαρὸς κἄγιος). St. Paul has the same word but associates it with the putting off of clothing (Col. iii. 5 ff.; Eph. iv. 22; Rom. xiii. 12—all followed by ἐνδύσασθαι).--- κακίαν, probably malice rather than wickedness. Peter is occupied with their mutual relations and considering what hinders brotherly love, not their vices, if any, as vice is commonly reckoned. So James associates the removal of κακία with courtesy ; and St. Paul says let all bitterness and anger and wrath and shouting and ill-speaking be removed from you with all malice (Eph. iv. 31; cf. Col. iii. 8). κ. is generally eagerness to hurt one’s neighbour (Suidas)—the feeling which prompts backbitings and may be subdivided into guile, hypocrisy, and envy.—86Xov, Guile was character- istic of Jacob, the eponymous hero of the Jews, but not part of the true Israelite

ἴδε ἀληθῶς Ἰσραηλίτης ἐν ᾧ δόλος οὐκ ἔστιν John i. 47). It was also rife among the Greeks (μεστοὺς . . . δόλον, Rom. i. 29) as the Western world has judged from experience (Greek and grec = cardsharper ; compare characters of Odysseus and Hermes). 8. is here con-

trasted with obedience to the truth (i. 22), Vii. 22, ili, 10.—tméxpiow is best ex- plained by the saying Isaiah prophesied about you hypocrites. This people honours me with their lips but their heart is far away from me (Mark vii. 6f. = Isa.

It stands for IN profane,

impure in Symmachus’ version of Ps. XXXV. 16: SO ὑποκριτὴῆς in LXX of Job (xxxiv. 30, xxxvi. 13), and Aquila (Prov. xi. Ο), etc. In 2 Macc. vi. 25, v is used of (unreal ?—not secret) apostasy perhaps in accordance with the earlier sense of

‘Fy, which only in post-Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic = hypocrisy. In His re- peated denunciations of the hypocrites Jesus repeated the Pharisees description of the Sadducees that live in hypocrisy with the saints (Ps. Sol. iv. 7). Polybius has v. in the classical sense of oratorical delivery, and once contrasted with the purpose of speakers (xxxv. 2, 13).— καταλαλιάς, detractiones (Vulgate), of external slanders in ii. 12, ili. 11. For internal calumnies, cf. Jas. iv. 11; 2 Cor. xii. 20 illustrates one special case, for φυσιώσεις καᾳταλαλιαὶ correspond to eis ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἑνὸς φυσιοῦσθε κατὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου of 1 Cor. iv. 6 (cf. i. 12).

Ver. 2. ws, inasmuch as you are new- born babes; cf. ἀναγεγεννημένοι (i. 23). The development of the metaphor rests upon the saying, unless ye be turned and become as the children (ὡς τὰ παιδία) ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xviii. 3).--βρέφη (only here in metaphorical sense) is substituted for παιδία (preserved by St. Paulin τ Cor. xiv. 20) as= babes at the breast. A παιδίον might have lost its traditional innocence but not a βρέφος (= either child unborn as Luke i. 41, or suckling in classical Greek). For the origin of the metaphor, which appears also in the saying of R. Jose, ‘‘the proselyte is a child just born,” compare Isa. xxviii. ο, Whom will he teach knowledge? ... Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts, which the Tar- gum renders, To whom was the law given? . Was it not to the house of Israel whith is beloved beyond all peoples ? —td... γάλα. The quotation of ver. 3 suggests that the milk is Christ;

xxix. 13).

I—5.

> , o > λα ἐπιποθήσατε ἵνα ἐν αὖτ

γά εἰ ἐγεύσα σθε ὅτι χρηστὸς ὁ KS λίθον Lavra ὑπ a Θῶ ἐκλεκτὸν ἔντει μον’ κα

µεῖσθε οἶκος πνευματικὸς

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

@ αὐξηθῆτε] eis

θρώπων μὲν ἆποδε ὶ

αὐτοὶ ὡς λίθοι εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον

55

σωτηρίαν 3, 4 πρὸς ὃν προσερχόµε vor δὲ

ζῶντες οἴκοδο- 5

δοκιµασμένον παρὰ

ἀνενέγκαι

1 The variant ἀξιωθγτε for αὐξηθίτε illustrates the possibilities of variation and consequently of emendation: at the same time it directs attention to the omni- potence of God and the relative impotence of man.

compare St. Paul’s explanation of the tradition of the Rock which followed the Israelites in the desert (1 Cor. x. 4) and the living water of John iv. 14. Milk is the proper food for babes; compare Isa. lv. 1, buy ... milk (LXX, στέαρ) without money (cf. i. 18). This milk is guileless (cf. δόλον of ver. 1) pure or un- adulterated (cf. μηδὲ δολοῦντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, 2 Cor. iv. 2). The interpreta- tion of λογικόν (pertaining to λόγος) is doubtful. But the use of Adyos just above (i. 23) probably indicates the sense which St. Peter put upon the adjective he borrowed (?) from Rom. xii. I, τὴν λογικὴν λατρείαν. There and elsewhere λ. = rationabilis, spiritual ; here belong- ing to contained in the Word of God, delivered by prophet or by evangelist. St. Paul in his use of A. and of the meta- phor of milk (solid food, 1 Cor. iii. 1 ff.) follows Philo and the Stoics.—tva... σωτηρίαν, that fed thereon ye may grow up (cf. Eph. iv. 14 f.) unto salvation ; cf. Jas. i. 21, “‘ receive the ingrafted word which is able to save your souls”’.

Ver. 3. St. Peter adopts the language of Ps. xxxiv. 9, omitting καὶ ἔδετε as inap- propriate to γάλα. χρηστός (identical in sound with χριστός) = dulcts (Vulg.) or kind (cf. χρηστότης θεοῦ, Rom. ii. 4, xi. 22). Compare Heb. vi. 4 f. γευσαµέγους τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς ἐπουρανίου ... καὶ καλὸν γευσαμµένους θεοῦ ῥῆμα.

Vv. 4-10. Passages of scripture prov- ing that Christ is called stone are first utilised, then quoted, and finally ex- pounded. The transition from milk to the stone may be explained by the pro- phecy the hills shall flow with milk (Joel iii. 18), as the stone becomes a mountain according to Dan. ili. 21 f.; or by the legend to which St. Paul refers (1 Cor. x. 4); compare also ποτίσαι of Isa. xliii. 20, which is used in ver. 9. This collection of texts can be traced back through Rom. ix. 32 f. to its origin in the saying of Mark xii. το f.; Cyprian (Test. ii. 16 f.) gives a still richer form.

Ver. 4. πρὸς ὃν προσερχ. from

Ps. xxxiv. 6, προσελθόντες πρὸς αὐτὸν (Heb. and Targum, they looked unto Him ; Syriac, look ye...). Cyprian uses Isa, ii. 2 f.; Ps. xxiii. 3 f. to prove that the stone becomes a mountain to which the Gentiles come and the just Ώδοεπά.---λίθον ζῶντα, a paradox which has no obvious precedent in O.T. Gen. xlix. 24 speaks of the Shepherd the stone of Israel, but Onkelos and LXX

substitute πο thy father for jas

stone. The Targum of Isa. viii. 14, how- ever, has SP jas a striking stone, for PAIN which might be taken as meaning

veviving or living stone, if connected with the foregoing instead of the follow- ing words. The LXX supports this con- nection and secures a good sense by in- serting a negative; the Targum gives a bad sense throughout. wm... ἔντιμον, though by men rejected, yet in God's sight elect precious. ἀποδεδοκ. comes from Ps. cxvili. 22 (see ver. 7); ἐκλ. ἐντ. from Isa. xxviii. 6 (see νετ. 6). ἀνθρώπων is probably due to Rabbinic

exegesis “read not 05993) builders but

DIN 1} sons of men”. St. Peter insists upon the contrast between God’s judg- ment and man’s in the sermon of Acts ii.

Ver. 5. Fulfilment of the saying,

_ Destroy this temple and in three days

I will raise it (John ii. το). Christians live to God through Jesus Christ (Rom. vi. 11). For this development of the figure of μήν cf. especially Eph. ii. 20 Π.-- οἰκοδομεῖσθε, indicative rather than imperative. ‘‘ It isremarkable that St. Peter habitually uses the aorist for his imperatives, even when we might expect the present; the only exceptions (two or three) are preceded by words re- moving all ambiguity, ii. 11, 17, iv. 12 f.” (Hort)—otkos .. .ἅγιον, aspiritual house for an holy priesthood. ‘The con- nection with priesthood (Heb. x. 21) and the offering of sacrifices points to the special sense of the House of God, {.ε..

56

6 mveupate περιέχει ἐν γραφῆ άκρο ἍὙωνιαῖον ἔντειμον

7 καταισχυν στοῦσιν 1 δὲ λίθος ὃν a ἐ γενήθη cis κεφαλὴν

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

Kas θυσίας εὐπροσδέ ἰδοὺ τίθηµι ἐν Σειὼν

θη: ὑμῖν οὖν ἡ τειμὴ πεδοκίµασαν οἱ οἶκο

, 1 4 γωνίας καὶ λίθος προσ

πε

κτους Θῶ διὰ Ι8 XT δι ότι

λίθον ἐκλεκτὸν

A c , yes ° na > 9

καὶ ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ᾽ av τῶ οὐ μὴ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν: ἄπι

δομοῦντες οὗτος

A

κόμματος καὶ

1 For ἀπιστοῦσιν Codex Alexandrinus, with others, reads ἀπειθοῦσιν.

the Temple;'{cf. (iv. 17; 1 Tim. iii. 5) ναὸς ὅς ἐστε tpets, 1 Cor. iii. 16; Eph. ii. 21. So Heb. iii. 5 f., οὗ (Χριστοῦ) οἶκός ἐσμεν ἡμεῖς .. —lepatevpa, body of priests, in Exod. xix. 6 (Heb. priests) xxiii. 22; 2 Mace. ii. 17; cf. 9 infra. Here Hort prefers the equally legi- timate sense, act of priesthood. Usage supports the first and only possible ety- mology the second. The ideal of a national priesthood is realised, Isa. 1xi. 6. --ἀνενέγκαι . . . Χριστοῦ. to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Fesus Christ—8 ra Ἰησοῦ Χ. is better taken with av. than εὐπροσδ.; cf. Heb. xiii. 15, 8° αὐτοῦ, where the thankoffering is singled out as the fit type of the Christian sacrifice. Spiritual sacrifices are in their nature acceptable to God (John iv. 23) and Christians are en- abled to offer them through Jesus Christ. ἀναφέρειν in this sense is peculiar to LXX, Jas. and Heb.

Ver. 6. περιέχει ἐν γραφῇ, {ΐ is contained in Scripture. The formula occurs in Josephus (Ant. xi. 7, βούλομαι γενέσθαι πάντα καθὼς ἐν [τῇ ἐπιστολῇ| περιέχει) and is chosen for its compre- hensiveness.—m €pté yeu is intransitive as the simple verb and other compounds often are; cf. περιοχή, contents, Acts viii. 32.—y pad q, being a technical term, has πο ατεῖο]ε.-“ἰδοὺ...καταισχυνθῇ, formal quotation of Isa. xxviii. 16, preced- ing quotation from Psalms, as prophets always precede the writings. The LXX has ἰδοὺ ἐμβάλλω ἐγὼ εἰς τὰ θεμέλια (unique expansion of normal θεμελιῶ = “1D of Heb., cf. eis τὰ 6. below ; Targum,

S57) I will appoint) Σειὼν λίθον πολυ- τελῆ (π. duplicate of ἔντιμον; Heb., a stone a stone; Targum, a king a king ; pointing to Jewish Messianic interpreta- tion) ἐκλεκτὸν ἀκρ. ἔντ. eis τὰ θεμέλια αὐτῆς (a foundation a foundation, Heb.) καὶ 6 πιστεύων (+ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ ΝΑ) οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ (= aya for (wor of Heb. = shall not make haste; Targum, when tribulation come shall not be moved).

The chief difference is that St. Peter omits all reference to the foundation, and substitutes τίθηµι; LXX is conflate, ἐμβάλλω eis being the original reading and τὰ θεµ. added by some purist to pre- serve the meaning of the Hebrew root. This omission may be due to the fact that Christians emphasised the idea that the stone was a corner stone binding the two wings of the Church together (Eph. ii. 20) and regarded this as inconsistent with εἰς κεφ.

Ver. 7 f. Thesecond quotation is con- nected with the first by means of the parenthetic interpretation: The “ pre- cious ”-ness of the stone is for you who. believe but for the unbelievers it is... ‘‘q stone of stumbling”. Itis a stereo- typed conflation of Ps. cxviii. 22 and Isa. viii. 14, which are so firmly cemented together that the whole is cited here where only the latter part is in point. The same idea of the two-fold aspect of Christ occurs in St. Paul more than once; 6.6., Christ crucified to Fews a stumbling-block . . . but to you who be- lieve . . . 1 Cor.i. 23. The problem in- volved is discussed by Origen who ad- duces the different effects of the sun’s light—% τιµή, the τιµή involved in the use of the adjective ἔντιμον., or rather

Heb. mam? underlying it. The play

on the peculiar sense thus required does not exclude the ordinary meaning honour (for which cf. 1. 7; Rom. ii. ΤΟ).--λίθος dv... γωνίας-- Ps. l.c: (LXX)—the prophetic statement in scriptural phrase of the fact of their unbelief. The idea may be that the raising of the stone to be head of the corner makes it a stumbling- block but in any case λίθος . . . σκα- νδάλου is needed to explain this._AtBbos προσκόµµατοςκ. π. σκ. from Isa. viii. 14 ; LXX paraphrases the original, which St. Peter’s manual Ῥτεδεινες, reading καὶ οὐχ ὡς λίθῳ προσκόµµατι συναντήσεσθε οὐδὲ ὡς πετρας πτώμ- ατι (common confusion of construct. with Gen.).— ot... ἀπειθοῦντες, des-

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

6---ο. 57 πέτρα σκανδάλου ot προσκό = Trova TH λόγω ἀπι στοῦντες ὃ εἰς ὃ καὶ ἐτέ Onoav:! ὑμεῖς δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτὸν βασίλειον 9

ε , ” εφ a ἱεράτευμα ἔθνος ἅγιο

ἐξαγ Ἁγείλητε τοῦ ἐκ σκότους

λαὸς els περιποίησιν " ὑμᾶς καλέσαντος εἰς

ὅπως τὰς ἀρετὰς τὸ

1 Τη view of “the argument which is intended to carry one back to the opening of the prophetic passage,” Dr. Rendel Harris (Side-Lights on New Testament Research, pp. 209 f.) proposes to substitute ἐτέθη for ἐτέθησαν.

cription of the unbelieving in terms of the last quotation, who stumble at the word being disobedient. τῷ λόγῳ is pro- bably to be taken with πρ. or both πρ. and 4. in spite of the stone being identi- fied with the Lord. Stumbling at the word is an expression used by Jesus (Mark iv. 17, διὰ τὸν λόγον σκανδαλί- ἵονται; Matt. xv. 12, ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον ἐσκανδαλίσθησαν; John vi. 6ο, τοῦτο--ὁ λόγος οὗτος--ὑμᾶς σκανδα- λίζει). For a. cf.iv. 17, τῶν ἀπειθούντων τῷ τοῦ θεοῦ εὐαγγελίῳ.--εἰς ὃ καὶ ἐτέθησαν, whereunto also (actually) they were appointed. ἐτέθησαν comes from τίθηµι (6); stone and stumbler alike were appointed by God to fulfil their functions in His Purpose. For the sake of the unlearned he only implies and does not assert in so many words that God appointed them to stumble and disobey; but his view is that of St. Paul (see Rom. ix., xi., especially ix. 17, 22); cf. Luke ii. 34. Didymus distinguishes between their voluntary unbelief and their appointed fall. If any are tempted to adopt such ingenious evasions of the plain sense it is well to recall the words of Origen: ‘‘If in the reading of scripture you stumble at what is really a noble thought, the stone of stumbling and rock of offence, blame yourself. You must not despair of this stone . . . con- taining hidden thoughts so that the say- ing may come to pass, And the believer shall not be shamed. Believe first of all and you will find beneath this reputed stumbling-block much holy profit (in Jer. xliv. (li.) 22, Hom. xxxix. = Philocalia x.).

Vv.gf. The Church, God’s new people, has all the privileges which belonged to the Jews. In enumerating them he draws upon a current conflation of Isa. xliii. 20 f., ποτίσαι τὸ yévos µου το ἐκλεκτὸν (1) λαόν µου dv περιεποιησάµην (4) τὰς ἀρετάς µου διηγεῖσθαι with Exod. xix. 65, ὑμεῖς δὲ ἔσεσθέ por βασίλειον ἵερά- τευµα (2) καὶ ἔθνος ἅγιον (3) ἔσεσθέ por λαὸς περιούσιος (4) ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἐθνῶν (1); and Ps. cvii. 14, καὶ ἐξήγαγεν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐκ σκιᾶς θανάτου . . . ἐξομο-

λογησάσθων τῷ κυρίῳ τὰ ἐλέη αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ θαυμάσια αὐτοῦ τοῖς viois τῶν ἀνθ- pwmwv—to which is appended Hos. i. 6, 8.—yévos ἐκλεκτόν, Isa. lc, LXX (Heb., my people my chosen); yévos, race implies that all the individual members of it have a common Father (God) and are therefore brethren (cf. viol γένους ‘ABpadp, Acts xiii. 26); cf i, 1, 6.— βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, a royal priesthood, from Exod. l.c. LXX (Heb., a kingdom of priests = Apoc. i. 6, βασιλείαν iepets). Christians share Christ’s prero- gatives. The priesthood is the chief point (see ii. 5) it is royal. Clement of Alex- andria says: ‘“‘Since we have been sum- moned to the kingdom and are anointed (sc. as Kings)”. ‘The comparison of Mel- chizedek with Christ perhaps underlies the appropriation of the Εῑιε.--ἔθνος ἅγιον, to the Jew familiar, with the use of ἔθνη for Gentiles, as much a paradox as Christ crucified. But λαός, the com-

mon rendering of O37 in this connexion is wanted below, and St. Peter is content to follow his authority.—Aads εἰς περιποίησιν, a people for possession

= στης o The source of the Greek phrase is Mal. iii. 17, but the Hebrew title variously rendered occurs in the two great passages drawn upon. Deut. (vii. 6, etc.) has λαὸς περιούσιος which is adopted by St. Paul (Tit. ii. 14); but the phrase εἰς π. is well established in the Christian vocabulary, Heb. x. 39 ; 1 Thess. v. 9; 2 Thess. ii. 14, and the whole title is apparently abbreviated to περιποίησις in Eph. i. 14.-- ὅπως... ἐξαγγε- ίλητε, from Isa.l.c. + Ps. l.c., the latter containing the matter of the following designation ot God. In Isa. tas ape-

τάς pov stands for snosn my praise ; and this sense reappears in Esther xiv. 10. ἀνοῖξαι στόµα ἐθνῶν cis ἀρετάς µαταίων, the praises of idols. Else- where it stands for "Τὸ glory (Hab. iii, 3; Zach. vi. 13). in the books of Maccabees (especially the fourth) it has its ordinary sense of virtue, which cannot

~

1Οθαυμαστὸν αὐτοῦ

11 οὐκ ἡ ὡς παροίκους

12 ἐπιθυμιῶν αἵτινες στροφὴν 2 ὑμῶν ἐν τοῖς

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ A

φῶς: ot tote οὐ λαὸς λεημένοι νῦν δὲ ἐλε καὶ παρεπιδήµους ἀπέ

στρατεύονται κατὰ ἔθνεσιν καλὴν ἵνα

Il, viv δὲ λαὸς OF οἱ ἀγαπητο παρακαλῶ χεσθαι 1 τῶν σαρκικῶ τῆς ψυχῆς τὴν ava

ἐν ® καταλαλοῦσιν

ηθέντες.

1Ἐοι ἀπέχεσθαι Codex Alexandrinus and others read ἀπέχεσθε: ε and αι are

interchangeable in the manuscripts.

2 Codex Vaticanus omits ἔχοντες, which is formally required to govern ἄναστρο-

φὴν.

be excluded altogether here. The whole clause is in fact the pivot on which the Epistle turns. Hitherto Peter has ad- dressed himself to the Christians and their mutual relations, now he turns to consider their relations to the outside world (i. 11 f.). In 2 Peter i. 3, &. corre- sponds to θεία Svvapis, a sense which might be supported by Ps. l.c. (for dis- cussion of other—very uncertain — evi- dence see Deissmann, Bible Studzes, pp. 95 ff., 362) and the events of Pentecost (see especially Acts ii. 11).- τοῦ... φῶς is derived from Ps. l.c.; the natural antithesis light is readily supplied (cf. Eph. v. 8, 14) ; darkness = heathenism in cf. το. /

Ver. το, from Hosea i. 6, ii. 1(3); of. Rom. ix. 25 (has καλέσω κάλεσον of Hos.); the terms are so familiar that µου is omitted by Peter as unnecessary (cf. γένος é«. for τὸ y. pov ἐ.).

Vv. 11 f. indicate generally the subject to be discussed. Beloved I exhort you to abstain from the lusts of the flesh, be- cause they wage war against the soul. Slanders and even torments can only affect the body. But the lusts natural or acquired which you have renounced may hinder your salvation, as they have already impeded your mutual love. For the sake of your old friends and kinsfolk refuse to yield to their solicitations. If rebuffed they resort to persecution of whatever kind, remember that it is only a passing episode of your brief exile. Let your conduct give them no excuse for reproach; so may they recognise God’s power manifest not on your lips but in your lives.—a yam Tol, not an empty tormulz but explanation of the writer’s motive. He set before them the great commandment and now adds to it as Jesus did, Love one another as I have loved you, John xiii. 34.- ὡς π. καὶ παρεπιδήµους with amex. (motive for abstinence in emphatic position) rather than παρακαλῶ (as νουθετεῖτε ὡς ἀδελφόν, 2 Thess. iii. 15—the motive of exhorta-

If ἀπέχεσθαι represents the infinitive, ἔχοντας would be more grammatical.

tion is here expressed by ay.) echoes παρεπιδήµοις of i. 1 and παροικίας of i. 17. The combination (= ΙΓ] ηλ) occurs twice in LXX (Gen. xxxiii. 4; Ps. χχχιχ. 13). Christians are in the world, not of the world.—amwéyeoO@at, cf. Plato, Phaedo, 82 C, true philosophers, ἀπέχονται τῶν κατὰ τὸ σῶμα ἐπιθυμιῶν ἁπάσωγ-- ποῖ for fear of poverty, like the vulgar, nor for fear of disgrace, like the ambitious, but because cnly so can he, departing in perfect purity, come to the company of the gods”.—t@v σαρκι- κῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν, the lusts of the flesh. St. Peter borrows St. Paul’s phrase, ἡμεῖς πάντες ἀνεστράφημέν ποτε ἐν ταῖς ἐπι- θυµίαις τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν ποιοῦντες τὰ θελήµατα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν (Eph. i. 3), but uses it in his own way in a sense as wide as τὰς κοσμικὰς ἐ. (Tit. i. 12). For the flesh is the earthly life (cf. Col. iii. 5) the transitory mode of existence of the soul which is by such abstinence to be preserved (i. 9).— αἵτινες ... ψυχῆς, because they are campaigning against the soul. — στρατεύονται (cf. iv. rf., for mili- tary metaphor) perhaps derived from Rom. vii. 23, “I perceive a different law in my members warring against (άντιστρατε- υόµενον) the law of my mind;” cf. Jas. iv. I, the pleasures which war in your members, and 4 Macc. ix. 23, ἱερὰν καὶ εὐγενῆ στρατείαν στρατεύσασθε περὶ τῆς εὐσεβείας.- κατὰ τῆς ψΨυχῆς. The lusts of this earthly life are the real enemy for they affect the soul. Compare Matt. x. 28, which may refer to the Devil and not to God, and the Pauline parallel, ἡ σὰρξ ἐπιθυμεῖ κατὰ τοῦ πνεύματος - +. ταῦτα yap ἀλλήλοις ἀντικεῖται (Gal. ν. 17).

Ver. 12. Adaptation of the saying, ὅπως wow ὑμῶν τὰ καλὰ ἔργα καὶ δοξάσωσιν τὸν πατέρα ὑμῶν τὸν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (Matt. ν. 16). The good be- haviour on which the resolved ἀναστρέ- Φεσθαι permits stress to be laid is the

1ο---15.

6 μῶν ὡς κακοποιῶν δοξά σωσι τὸν OV ἐν ἡμέρα πάση ἀνθρωπί

νη κτίσει

ὑπε µῥρέχοντι εἴτε ἡγεμό ἐκδίκη giv κακοποιῶν ἔπαι ἐστὶν τὸ θέληµα τοῦ Θῦ ἆγαθο

fruit of the abstinence of ver. 11; cf. Heb. xiii. 8; Jas. iii. 13. This second admonition is disjointed formally—against formal grammar—from the first; cf. Eph. ποσα παρακαλῶ oo + ὑμᾶς . . « ἄνε- χόμενοι.--ἐντοῖς ἔθνεσιν, the people of God (ii. ϱ) is a correlative term and implies the existence of the nations, who are ignorant and disobedient. The situa- tion of the Churches addressed justifies the use of Dispersion ini. 1. But the point of the words here is this: you—the new Israel must succeed where the old failed, as it is written my name is blasphemed ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν on your account (Isa. lii. 5; LXX, cited Rom. ii. 24)—tva... ἐπισκοπῆς, in order that as a result of your good works they may be initiated into your secrets and come to glorify God _in respect to your conduct when He at last visits the world, though now they calum- niate you as evildoers in this matter.— ἐν ᾧ in the case of the thing in which, {.ε., your behaviour generally ; cf. ii. 16, iv. 4, and for δοξ. τὸν θεὸν ἐν, iv. 11, 16. --καταλαλοῦσιν ὡς κ. Particular accusations are given in iv. 15. This popular estimate of Christians is reflected in Suetonius’ statement: Adflicti suppli- ciis Christiani, genus hominium super- stitionis novae et maleficae (Ner. 16).— ἐποπτεύοντες takes Acc. in iii. 2 (over- look, behold, as in Symmachus’ version of Ps, Χ. τό, xxxili. 13); but here the avail- abie objects are either appropriated (θεόν with 808.) or far off (ἀναστροφήν). It will therefore have its ordinary sense of become ἐπόπτης, be initiated. The Chris- tians were from the point of view of their former friends members of a secret asso- ciation, initiates of a new mystery, the secrecy of which gave rise to slanders such as later Christians brought against the older mysteries and the Jews. St. Peter hopes that, if the behaviour of Christians corresponds to their profession, their neighbours will become initiated into their open secrets (for as St. Paul insists this hidden mystery has now been re- vealed and published).—8o0fadqcwotrv τὸν θεόν, come to glorify God—like the centurion, who said of the crucified Jesus, Truly this was the Son of God

TIETPOY A

ἐκ τῶν καλῶν ἔργων ἐπισκοπῆς. διὰ τὸν Κύ ε 3 3 ow ὡς δι’ αὐτοῦ wep νον δὲ ἀγαθοποιῶν -

59

ἐποπτεύοντες γητε 13

ὡς

ὑποτά βασιλεῖ

ποµένοις εἰς 14

” ειτε

ὅτι οὕτως 15 ποιοῦντας Φφειμοῦ. τὴν

(Mark xv. 39)—1i.e., recognise the finger of God either in the behaviour of the Christians or in the whole economy (see Rom. xi.).—év ἡμέρᾳ ἐπισκοπῆς, from Isa. x. 3, What will ye do—ye the oppressors of the poor of my people—in

day of visitation (App DD) i.e. (Tar-

gum), when your sins are visited upon you. But St. Peter looks for the repent- ance of the heathen at the last visitation (cf. iv. 6), though the prophet found no escape for his own contemporaries. Com- pare Luke xix. 44.

Vv. 13-17. The duty of the Christian towards the State; compare Rom. xiii. 1-7.--πάσῃ ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει, every human institution, including rulers (14), masters (18), and husbands (iii. 1). κτίζειν is used ordinarily in many senses, e.g., of peopling a country, of founding a city, of setting up games, feasts, altar, etc. In Biblical Greek and its descend- ants it is appropriated to creation. Here κτίσις is apparently selected as the most comprehensive word available; and the acquired connotation—creation by God— is ruled out by the adjective ἀνθρωπίνῃ. It thus refers to all human institutions which man set up with the object of maintaining the world which God created. --διὰ τὸν κύριον, for the sake of the Lord. διά may be (1) retrospective— i.e., because Jesus said, Render what is Czesar’s to Cesar or, generally, because God is the source of all duly-constituted authority; oy (ii.) prospective for the sake of Fesus (Fehovah); your loyalty re- dounding to the credit of your Master in heaven.—Bagthet, the Roman Em- peror, asin Apoc. xvii. 9, etc.; Josephus B.J., ν. 136, v. infra.—iwe ρέχο ντι, pre-eminent, supreme, absolute, as in Sap. vi. 5, where τοῖς ὑπερέχουσιν corresponds’ to those who are underlings of His Sove- reignty (4), to whom power was given from the Lord (3); cf. δι’ αὐτοῦ below.— ἡγεμόσιν, properly Governors of pro- vinces, but Plutarch uses the singular = Imperator. Peter rather follows the con- ventional rendering of the saying of Jesus, ἐπὶ ἡγεμόνων καὶ βασιλέων σταθήσεσθε, interpreted in the light ot popular usage

60 ΠΕΤΡΟΥ A . II.

16 τῶν ἀφρόνων ὡς ἐπικάλυμμα ἔχο 17 00 δοῦλοι πάντας τιµή 18 τὸν Ov do τασσόµενοι ἐν παντὶ 10 ἀγαθοῖς

(cf. Luke xxi. 12) or of Jet. xxxix. 3, ἢγε- poves βασιλέως Βαβυλῶνος. Contrast vague general term, ἐξουσίαις ὑπερεχ' ὡς - - » which St. Paul employed before his visit to Ἐοπε.- πεμπ., as being sent through the Emperor. διά implies that the governors are sent by God acting through the Emperor; so Rom. xiii. 1-7 (cf. Sap. vi. 3) and John xix. 11, et μὴ Fv δεδοµένον σοι avwlev.—eis ἐκδίκησιν, κ.τ.λ. The ruler executes God’s ven- geance (Rom. xii. 19) and voices God’s approval (Ps. xxii. 25, παρὰ σοῦ 6 ἔπαινός pov). The former function of governors has naturally become prominent, the latter is exemplified in the crowns, decrees and panegyrics with which the Greek and Jewish States rewarded their benefactors if not mere well-doers.—ottTws... since this is so (referring to 13 f.) God's will is that ... (cf. Matt. xviii. 14, οὕτως οὐκ ἔστιν θέλημα where οὕτως refers to the preceding parable) rather than God’s will is thus namely that ... or... well-doing thus. Since God has set up governors who express His approval of well-doers, you as well- doers will receive official praise and thus be enabled to silence the slanderers. St. Peter is thinking of the verdict pro- nounced in the case of St. Paul and of Jesus ΠἰπιθεΗ.--ϕφιμοῦν, (1) muzzle (1 Cor. ix. 9), (2) stlence as Jesus did (Matt. xxii. 34, ἐφίμωσεν τοὺς Σαδδουκαίους). --τὴν ἀγνωσίαν, ατατεννοτά-- ρετπαρς borrowed from Job xxxv. 16, ἐν ἀγνωσίᾳ ῥήματα βαρύνει, He multiplieth words without knowledge. In 1 Cor. xv. 34, ἀγνωσίαν yap θεοῦ τινες ἔχουσιν, it is derived from Sap. xiii. 1, οἷς παρῆν θεοῦ ἀγνωσία. It is the opposite of γνῶσις (ἀγνωσίας τε καὶ γνώσεως, Plato, Soph., 267 B) cf. ἄγνοια, of Jews who crucified Jesus, Acts iii. 17.- τῶν Adpdvev = the foolish men who calumniate you (12). &. is very common in the Wisdom litera- ture (especially Proverbs); as used by Our Lord (Luke xi. 40) and St. Paul (2 Cor. xi.); it implies lack of insight, a point of view determined by external appearances.

Ver. 16. ὡς ἐλεύθεροι, the con- trast with τῆς κακίας supports the connection of é. in thought with ἄγαθο-

> , 3 ΄- ἀνθρώπων ἀγνωσία -

τες τῆς κακίας τὴν

βεῖσθε, τὸν βασιλέα τει / “a /

$6Bw τοῖς δεσπόταις, A. 5 , > \ Ν

καὶ ἐπιεικέσι ἀλλὰ καὶ

ὡς ἐλεύθεροι καὶ μὴ ἐλευθερίαν ἀλλ᾽ ὡς

gate: τὴν ἀδελφότη Ta ἀγαπᾶτε

pate. ot οἰκέται ὕπο

οὐ µόνον τοῖς

τοῖς σκολιοῖς. τοῦτο

ποιοῦντας, Which explains the nature of the self-subjection required. Christians are free (Matt. xvii. 26 f. g.v.; John viii. 36; Gal. ii. 4) and therefore must sub- mit to authority. Peter generalises sum- marily St. Paul’s argument in Gal. v. 13, which refers to internal relations.—k at μὴ... EXevOeplay, and not having your freedom as a cloak of your malice. For ἐπ. cf. Menander (apud Stobaeum Florileg.) πλοῦτος δὲ πολλῶν ἐπικάλυμμ᾽ ἐστιν κακῶν. The verb is used in Ps.

cited Rom. iv. 7 = "\9)5; and this sense may perhaps be contemplated here ; early Christians regarded their freedom as con- stituting a propitiation for future as for past sins.

Ver. 17. Sweeping clause based partly on Rom. xiii. 7 f. (cf. Matt. xxii. 21), partly on Prov. xxiv. 21, φοβοῦ τὸν θεὸν υἱὲ καὶ βασιλέα καὶ µηθετέρῳ αὐτῶν ἀπειθήσῃς.- πάντας τιµήσατε. The aorist imperative is used because the present would be ambiguous; cf. ἀπό- Sore, Rom. ζ.ο., and for matter, Rom. xii. το, TH Tipp ἀλλήλους προηγούμενοι, since πάντας covers both the brotherhood and the emperor.—ot οἰκέται, voca- tive; the word is chosen as being milder than δοῦλος and also as suggesting the parallel between slaves and Christians who are God’s household (ii. 5)-—¥ a o- τασσόµενοι has force of imperative resuming ὑποτάγητε or goes with τιµ- ήσατε (17) as being a particular applica- tion of that general principle-—rots δεσπόταις, to your masters, not ex- cluding God, the Master of all, as is indi- cated by the insertion of i all fear (cf. 17, etc.) and τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς καὶ ἐπιεικέσιν (cf. Ps. Ixxxvi. 4, σὺ κύριος χρηστὸς καὶ ἐπιεικής).--τοῖς σκολιοῖς, the βεγ- verse, cf. Phil. ii. 15, ἵνα γένησθε.. . τέκνα θεοῦ ἅμωμα µέσον γενεᾶς σκολιᾶς καὶ διεστραµµένης, where the full phrase is cited from Deut. xxxii. 5 (ox. = wy):

The Vulgate has dyscolis = δυσκόλοις; Hesychius, σκολιός. ἄδικος; Prov. xxviii. 18, 6 σκολιαῖς ὁδοῖς πορευόµενος x. 6 πορευόµενος δικαίως.

Vv. 19 f. Summary application of the teaching of Jesus recorded in Luke vi. 27-

———

16—23.

γὰρ Χάρις εἰ διὰ συνίδη ἀδίκως. 1

ποῖον γὰρ κλέος εἰ ἆ

µενοι ' ὕπομε

ὑπομενεῖτε, τοῦ TO χάρις παρὰ OD.

>

OTL kat Xs ἔπαθεν ὅ pov ἵνα ἐπακολουθή

ς Le > > 4 2Q 8

ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἐποίησεν οὐδὲ

αὐτοῦ ὃς λἎοι δορούµενος οὐκ ἂν

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

aw Θῦ ὑποφέρει τις µαρτάνοντες καὶ κο νεῖτε; GAN’ εἰ ἄγαθοποι

εἰς πὲρ ὑμῶν ὑμῖν bio

61

λύπας πάσχων

λαφιζό- 29 οῦντες καὶ πάσχον TES τοῦτο γὰρ ἐκλήθητε 21

λιμπάνων ὑπογραμ

σηται τοῖς ἴχνεσιν αὐτοῦ: ὃς 22 εὑρέθη δόλος ἐν τῶ στόµατι τελοιδόρει πάσχων οὐκ 23

1 The third corrector of Codex Sinaiticus puts κολαζόµενοι for κολαφιζόμενοι with

the assent of some cursives.

Such variations may be due to careless copying or

they may result from erroneous expansion and interpretation of abbreviations.

36 = Matt. v. 30-48δ.- χάρις seems to ‘be an abbreviation of the Ο.Τ. idiom {ο

Jind favour Qn) with God—cf. Χάρις παρὰ θεῷ (20)—taken from St. Luke’s ver- sion of the saying, εἰ ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς aya- πῶντας ὑμᾶς, ποία ὑμῖν χάρις ἔστιν (vi. 332). --- Compare χάριτας = psn that

which is acceptable in Prov. x. 32.--διὰ συνείδησιν θεοῦ, (i.) because God is conscious of your condition (θεοῦ sub- jective genitive), a reproduction of thy Father which seeth that which is hidden (Matt. vi. 4, etc.); so συνείδ. in ‘definite philosophical sense of conscience is usually followed by possessive geni- tive OR (ii.) because you are conscious of God (8. objective genitive), cf. σ. apap- -rtas, Heb. x. 2. The Jatter construction is preferable: the phrase interprets διὰ τὸν κύριον with the help of the Pauline expression διὰ τὴν σ. (Rom. xiii. 5 ; 1 Cor. x. 25) employed in the same context.— πάσχων ἀδίκως, emphatic. Peter has to take account of the possibility which Jesus ignored, that Christians might deserve persecution ; cf. 20, 25.— ποῖον κλέος, what praise rather than what kind of reputation (κλ. neutral as in Thuc. ii. 45) cf. ποία χάρις τίνα µισθόν, Matt. «A. (only twice in Job in LXX) corresponds to ἔπαινος above: χάρις παρὰ θεῷ shows that the praise of the Master who reads the heart is intended.— κολαφιζόμενοι, from description of the Passion, Mark xiv. 65, Πρξαντό πινες . . . κολαφίζειν αὐτόν: cf. Matt. ν. 39, ὅστις σε ῥαπίζει. So also St. Paul recalls the parallel between Christ’s and the Christians’ sufferings (1 Cor. iv. 11) κολαφιζόµεθα.-- ἀγαθοποιοῦν- τες, opposed to ἁμαρτάνοντες, explains ἀδίκως (19).— x 4 pts, See ON x. Ver. 10. Ver. 21. ets τοῦτο, sc. to do well and to suffer, if need be, without flinch-

ing, as Christ did.—é« AW On Te, sc. by God; cf. διὰ τὴν συνείδησιν θεοῦ.-- ἔπαθεν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, ver. 22 supplies the essential point, which would be readily supplied, but Christ’s suffering was un- deserved (δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, iii. 18).— καί also with reference to the similar experience of Christians; so Phil. ii. 5, τοῦτο φρονεῖτε ἐν ὑμῖν ὃ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ. --Ὁπογραμμόν (1) outline, 2 Macc. ii. 28, to enlarge upon the outlines of our abridgment ; (2) copy-head, pattern, to be traced over by writing-pupils (Plato, Protag., 227 D; Clement of Alexandria, Strom., v. 8, 49, gives three examples of which βεδιζαμψχθωπληκτρον σφιγὲ is 0Π6).---ἐπακολουθήσητε, remini- scence of Jesus’ word to Peter, ἄκολον- θήσεις ὕστερον, John xiii. 36.

Ver. 22 = Isa. liii. 9, ap. being put for ἀνομίαν (DPT) and εὗρ. δόλος (so ὼ 8 AQ, etc.) for δόλον ( = Heb.) of LXX. The latter variation is due to con- junction of Zeph. iii. 13, οὐ ph εὑρεθῇ έν τῷ στόµατι αὐτῶν γλῶσσα δολία : Christ being identified with the Remnant. The former appears in the Targum: ‘that they might not remain who work sin and might not speak guile with their mouth”.

Ver. 23. Combination of the Scripture οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόµα (Isa. liii, 7) with the saying ὅταν ὀνειδίσωσιν και διώξωσιν (Matt. v. 11). For λοιδ. cf. 1 Cor. iv. 12. λοιδορούμενοι εὐλογοῦμεν (εἴπωσιν πᾶν πονηρόν of Matt. 1...) John ix. 28, ν the Jews ἐλοιδόρησαν the once blina man as Jesus’ disciple and, for O.T. type Deut. xxxiii. 8, ἐλοιδόρησαν αὐτὸν emt ὕδατος ἀντιλογίας (Levi = Christ the Priest, cf. ἀντιλογία, Heb. xii. 3).--ο ὐ κ ἠπείλει, the prophecy ἀπειλήσει τοῖς ἀπειθοῦσιν (Isa. lxvi. 14) is yet to be ful- filled (Luke xiii. 27). Occ. notes that He threatened Judas, seeking to deter him and reviled the Pharisees, but not in re-

62

24 ἠπείλει παρεδί ὑμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνή ἵνα ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἆ

25 τῷ µώλωπι } στράφη

I ὑμῶν.

ἰάθηται.

III.

ς , ομοι

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ Α

4 ~ , Sou δὲ TH κρείνοντι νεγκεν ἐν TO σώµα

ὡς πρόβατα πλανώμε τε νῦν ἐπὶ τὸν ποιµέ ως Ὑγυναῖκες ὕποτασ

II, 24-25. ΤΠ.

, a BY ς Les δικαίως: ὃς τὰς ἁμαρτίας τι αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλο

πογενόµενοι TH δικοσύνη ζήσωμεν: οὗ

νοι ἀλλὰ ἐπε- ψυχῶν' ἰδίοις

να καὶ ἐπίσκοπον τῶ

σόµεναι τοῖς

® The superfluous. αὐτοῦ after οὗ τῷ µώλωπι is Omitted by Codex Vaticanus and.

other authorities.

It would be repugnant to the ear of a Greek, but is not there-

fore to be regarded as necessarily absent from the original.

tort.—mapedfSov. It is doubtful what object, if any, is to be supplied. The narrative of the Passion suggests two renderings: (i.) He delivered Himself (ἑαυτὸν omitted as in Plato, Phaedrus, 250 Eye Cp. Luke xxiii, 46 (Ps. xxxi. 5), παρατίθεµαι τὸ πνεῦμά pew and Isa. μα, 6: κύριος παρέδωκεν αὐτόν. 7b. 12 παρε- δόθη. (1. He delivered the persecutors (latent in passive participles λοιδ. and πάσχων), when He said Father forgive them. In ordinary Greek παραδίδωμι without object = permit ; but this hardly justifies the rendering He gave way to (cf. δότε τόπον τῇ ὀργῇ, Rom. xii. ΤΟ), {.ε., permitted God to fulfil His will. But

most probably παρ. τῷ . . « represents ©

the Hebrew ellipse, Ay xs by commit to