Imperial Court had lately frustrated the endeavour of the Jews to secure the condemnation of the apostle of the true Messiah, the event would appear as a revelation of ‘the will of God’ in
PETER, FIRST EPISTLE
respect to His use of the power of the civil magistrate—djaforaolyras φιμοῖν τὴν τῶν ἀφρόνων ἀνθρώπων ἀγνωσίαν. (ii.) Critics from many points of view have laid stress on the absence in the Epistle of any reference to St. Paul. It is one of the problems of the Epistle. But does not the eee cuey vanish at once 1f we suppose that St. Peter wrote while St. Paul was still in Rome, and that Silvanus was undertaking as St. Paul’s messenger 8 journey tothe Churches of Asia Minor? In that case it would have been unnatural for the Epistle to convey 8 menage “του St. Paul; while news about St. Paul would be needless, since Silvanus would himself explain the position of affairs at Rome.
It is commonly taken for granted that the Silvanus of 1 P is the same person as the Silas of Acts and the Silvanus of St. Paul's Epistles. Thisis an assumption, though a highly probable one. Four persons bearing the name in the shortened form (Silas) meet us in the pages of Josey The name Silvanus is fo in the form Σιλβανός in CIG 1816, 7256, in the form Dasares in CIG 4039, 4071. The name, then, is not 80 common as to make it very likely that more than one Silvanus was closely connected with the apostles. And, further, what we know of the Silvanus of the earlier apostolic history corresponds so strikingly with the facts and probabilities involved in the mention of Silvanus in 1 P, that the identification is advanced many stages of probability. The points important for our present purpose are as follows. Silvanus appears suddenly at the time of the ‘Council’ at Jerusalem as an ἀνὴρ ἡγούμενος ἐν τοῖς ἀδιλφοῖς (Ac 15%). He is chosen by the Church at Jerusalem undertake a mission of extreme delicacy as delegate to the Church of Antioch. There his prophetic git made a di impression. After a time he returned to Jeru- salem. That he had left Antioch before the painful controversy alluded to in Gal 2, and that he was not therefore one of οἱ Awwei "Ἰουδαῖοι who proved faithless to St. Paul's teaching, seems clear from the fact that St. Paul deliberately selected him as his com} on after the rupture with Barnabas and Mark (see art. Mark). As St. Paul’s companion, he visited Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium. With him he traversed τὴν Φρυγίαν καὶ Γαλατικὴν ἄρ» and, having shared his journey along the borders of
ysia, with him entered Europe. When 80. Paul was con- strained by ‘the brethren’ to hasten from Berma, he left behind him Silas and Timothy—Silas, doubtless, as his representative, and Timothy as Si companion and assistant—to carry out the important work of building up the recently planted Church. When the apostle arrived at Athens, he seems to have felt ki the need of the support of Silas’ and Timothy's presence (Ac 1715). It seems probable that Timothy joined St. Paul at Athens, and wassent back by him thence to Thessalonica (1 Th 81), and that Silas remained in Macedonia and continued the work in other cities besides Berca, till he at length, with Timothy, left Macedonia, and met St. Paul at Corinth (Ac 185). It
whatever the exact details of the ilas was entrusted by St. Paul with
delet to notice tha ry may have been, the task of ereioring his own Initial work in the Churches of
Macedonia, to w! the a) le himself, as time went on, became bound with unusu ly strong and tender ties of affeo- tion. After his arrival at Corinth, Silvanus disappears from the narrative of the Acts (cf. 2Co 11%), Some ten years elapse, and we find a Silvanus at Rome, probably, as we have seen, while Paul was still in the city. (a) t would have been very natural for St. Paul’s old companion to join him at Rome, where others among the a) le’s former fellow-workers had ered round him (Col 47-14, Philem 23°). St. Paul clearly special need of the pathy and faithful co-operation of “those who were of the circumcision’ (Col 411). (Ὁ) On the other hand, the fact that Silvanus is not mentioned in any of the Epistles of the Captivity, and that he appears in the city, apparently not long after the last of these was written, In connexiontwith St. Peter, suggests the probability that he came to Rome with St. Peter. Silvanus was in early days closely connected with the Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch (Ac 1522 32 33), and it may well be that after he ceased to travel with St. Paul he resumed work in Syria. St. Peter, as we saw, - probably came to Rome from Syria, possibly from Antioch. The two men may thus have been much thrown together In later asin earlier years. If St. Peter was summoned to Rome by St. Paul himself with the express pu of deepening the unity of the Church, he would naturally choose as the com- panion of his journey to the capital one of St. Paul's old associates. For such a mission Silvanus was peculiarly fitted. He was a Jewish Christian who had long possessed the confi- dence of the leaders of the Church at Jerusalem (Ac 15%2*-), He had been closely associated with St. Paul. le was a Roman citizen (Ac 1 St. Paul was in the habit of sending his most trusted friends as his delegates to distant places to consolidate or to extend his work. It would be very natural that he should send Silvanus on such a mission to districts In some of which were Churches [n planting which they had worked together, while in others were Christian communities which must have been to some extent the Indirect outcome of their common work, On the assumption, then, that we have to deal with only one Silvanus in the apostolic history, we are able to weave the probabilities into a natural and consistent narrative ; and, #0 far as is possible in such cases, the assumption is justified.