lolatrous immoralities). ( 6 opening pa oH) where the contrast between cere and fates alike, 1 and ‘ you ’(cf. Eph 1!2f), and still more the emphatic and remark- able ee used about ‘you’ as persons for whom the bless- ings of the gospel were destined in God's purpose, and whom they had at length reached (15-1012, cf. 1%), seem to imply the fundamental conception of the admission into the family of God of the long-excluded Gentiles (see Hort’s notes on 151%),
Further, the negative argument in this case is of considerable weight. The writer is silent on many topics on which almost inevitably he would have dwelt had he been speaking as a Jew to Jews. Then he does not, like St. James, draw out the moral teaching of the Law ; nor, like the writer to the Hebrews, does he concern himself with the spiritual interpretation of the ancient histories, and of the ritual of the old covenant. He mever takes occasion by a reference to ‘the Fathers’ to allude to the glories of Israelitish ancestry and its manifold significance for a Christian Jew (see Ac 8!3 % 630 72 38 1817. 53 2214, He 1], of. Ro 08). In short, the contrast between our Epistle (both in matter and manner) and those apostolic speeches and which are addressed to Jews, and, we may add, those parts of St. Paul's Epistles in which he turns to the Jewish element in the Churches to which he wri is by itself a cogent reason for rejecting the theory that the ‘tle was primarily addressed to Jewish Christians.
To sum up: the Acts supplies evidence that in many churches within the provinces enumerated in 1 P l' there was a considerable Jewish element, and there is no reason for supposing that the other
PETER, FIRST EPISTLE 783 churches comprehended in the salutation differed from these in character. Such converts from Judaism would be especially alive to the meaning of the allusions to OT language so frequent in the Epistle. All considerations, however, point de- cisively to the conclusion that St. Peter had in his mind predominantly, though probably not exclu- sively, Gentile readers.
We aaa to the evidence supplied by the Epistle as to the more recent history and the present condi- tion of its readers. They owed their conversion to more than one evangelist (1%). That they were newly-made converts is certainly not implied by the injunction ὡς ἀρτιγέννητα βρέφη τὸ λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα ἐπιποθήσατε (27; cf. 1 Co 14"; Hermas, Sim. ix. 29); the habit of responding to their true seine instincts was a lifelong duty. And, on the contrary, there are indications that they had been Christians for some considerable time. St. Peter assumes that there were Christian presbyters in the communities addressed, and, moreover, that these elders were exposed to temptations arising from official routine, and from motives of sordid pres and of ambition—temptations which would
ardly assail men watching over the first stages of the haha ofinfantchurches. Further, the apostle implies that sufficient time has elapsed since his readers became Christians for them to have become a marked body among their heathen neighbours, and to have had experience of the difficulties and dangers inseparable from such a position.
What was the nature of these perils? On our answer to this question depends our view as to the date of the Epistle, and consequently, to a large extent, as to its general character and meaning. Does the letter presuppose that its readers were the victims of a persecution organized or authorized by the State? And, if so, is there evidence that this persecution was of a kind unknown in the year A.D. 647
It will be convenient to consider the second of these two questions first. The ἜΦΕΜΙ on which the answer depends is 4%, and three points in regard to it claim attention. (a) In view of the evidence now available, it seems unreasonable to question St. Luke’s statement that ‘the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch’ shortly before the year A.D. 44, still more unreasonable to doubt its currency at Rome at least some little time before the Neronian persecution® (see Light- foot, Jgnatius i. p. 400 δ΄; Zahn, Find. ii. p. 40 π΄; also art. CHRISTIAN in vol. i. p. 384 ff.). The name Christian, then, does not in itself suggest a date later than 64. (δ) But ‘the Epistle seems to refer directly to the edict of Trajan, which has a place in Pliny’s correspondence, if the difficult word ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος points to the delator’ (Jiilicher, Einl. p. 135; οἵ. Holtzmann, Find. p. 494), But, even if the essential idea of delator were not absent from the word ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος, the passage itself refutes this view. For, since the first three offences are mentioned in the inverse order of their heinousness—murder, theft, ill-doing (on the last see Hort, p. 135f.)—the fourth place in the series could not be assigned to so vile an offence as that of the delator. Moreover, the 4 ὡς before ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος, contrasted with the previous 4... %, marks the transition to a different Aind of offence. All the requirements of the passage are satisfied if we suppose that three /ega/ offences are
* Two bilities must be borne in mind. (a) Luke docs not say that the name Christian was Orst invented at this time, but that it was now first used of ‘the disciples.’ It may have been applied to the Jews at Antioch earlier, and thus it may be a part of the Inheritance which passed to Christianity from Judaism. (Ὁ) It may have been used of ‘the disciples’ Inde- pendently at different places, expecially if it was ao ie to Jews. There is, however, nothing strange in a im- nortation of the nickname from the Syrian Antioch to Lee οἵ, Juv. fil. 62).