Greek literature, and especially the LXX, of which it is not impossible that he had gained some know-
ledge in his home at Bethsaida. At any rate the years which St. Peter spent in missionary work outside the borders of the a Land, specially, we may add with great probability, in the Syrian Antioch and its neighbourhood (see above), cannot but have given him a familiarity with Greek sufficient to enable him to write a letter in Greek, even if he still had to trust Mark ‘the inter-
reter’ to prune away in it any solecism of which ie might still be guilty. The orb of St. Peter, it must be ἘΣ στῶν is no isolated phenomenon in the apostolic age. One who accepts the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude as genuine is entitled to point to them as a proof that even Jews who, so far as it appears, did not extend their labours be- yond Jerusalem, could acquire a good Greek style.
(3) If the Epistle was written from Rome, its silence about the death of St. Paul, if his martyr- dom was recent, or, if St. Paul was then at Rome, the absence of any message from him or news about him, is said to be inexplicable (cf. von Soden
. 115). The subject will come before us again.
‘or the present, it is sufficient to say that the bearer of the letter—such as Silvanus appears to have been—might well be entrusted with personal news (Hort p. 6).
in my opinion, weighed down by inzuperable
rsecution are of such a
Jirst person
PETER, FIRST EPISTLE 787 (4) It is alleged that we do not find In the Epistle much which we should expect to find in a letter of St. Peter, the chief of the Lord’s personal followers; that it shows no sign of a vivid re- membrance either of Christ’s life or of His teaching (von Soden p. 115; Jiilicher p, 134; Harnack p. 451). We cannot, then, place the Epistle after St. Paul’s Epistles and suppose it to be the work of St. Peter, unless we admit, according to Jiilicher’s view, that ‘Paul had exercised on Peter a greater influence than Jesus.’ The discussion of this ob- jection falls under two heads. (a) The Lord’s life. silence as to the facts of the Lord’s life and ministry, strange to us in the case of one who re- membered details the knowledge of which would have been of priceless value to later generations, is not a phenomenon peculiar to 1 Peter. From the Books of the NT other than the Gospels hardly a hint as to the events of our Lord’s earthly lite can be gathered. In the speeches recorded in the Acts, if we may assume that they represent with substantial accuracy the apostle’s earlier teaching, St. Peter refers once to the Lord’s baptism (108 cf, 13. 47) and twice to His miracles (27 10%), but to nothing else before the Passion. The facts of the NT then point to the conclusion that in their public teaching, whether oral or written, the apostles con- centrated attention on the great momenta of the Lord’s ‘ manifestation’—His sufferings and death, His resurrection and exaltation. While, however, there is in the Epistle nothing biographical or autobiographical, there are unobtrusive indications that its author was an eye-witness of the Lord’s life. In 18 (ὃν οὐκ ἰδόντες ἀγαπᾶτε) a return to the eigen (v.3) would have been quite natural had the writer been one who had not seen the Lord. The words gain greatly in force and tenderness if they are the words of a disciple who loved One whom he had seen (Jn 21"), and who | welcomes to a fellowship in his love for Christ those who had not seen. Again, when in δὶ the writer | speaks of himself as ὁ συνπρεσβύτερος x. μάρτυς τῶν τοῦ Χριστοῦ παθημάτων, the description is almost pointless unless it implies that he witness to what he himself had seen (contrast 4"). The whole clause is clearly intended to justify the authorit, with which the writer addresses ‘the elders.’ He shared their position as elders, and therefore knows their difficulties. He is a witness to the very events which form their Gospel, and therefore has a unique claim to be heard. The full significance of the clause is seen only when it is compared with (i.) the commands addressed to the eleven, Jn 15”, Lk 247, Ac 15; (ii.) St. John’s words in Jn 19* (cf. 21%), 1 Jn 1 4%; (111,) St. Peter’s words as re- corded in Ac 1312. 293 316 4” 532 10"; and when, on the other hand, we mark the entire absence in St. Paul’s Epistles of any similar expression, and that in ges where he is insisting on his apostolic authority (¢.g. 2 Co 10-12", Gal 1). The nearest parallels in St. Panl—1 Co 9! 15%, ef. Ac 22'* 26'* —serve to bring out into sharper relief the dis- tinctiveness of the Petrine phrase (cf. Ac 135),
An instance of this μαρτυρία is found in 2%—a reminiscence of the arrest, and of what St. Peter saw as he lingered in the high priest’s vestibule. In this connexion the force of the imperfects is not to be overlooked. They give not the summary statement of the historian, but the vivid remem- brance of the eye-witness. Again, in the phrase ἀλλήλοις τὴν ταπεινοφροσύνην ἐγκομβώσασθε (5°), the picturesque word ἐγκομβώσασθε gathers up the de- tails of the scene related in Jn 13*" and its lessons. (δ) The Lord’s teaching. The following are the chief coincidences between 1 P and sayings of our Lord : (a) recorded in the Synoptic Gospels—1! P 19