PERVERTING
PETER
319
personality. (/) It has been the fuhiuni of foreign missions ; "for there are souls to be saved wherever humanity is to be found. This is the most beauti- ful and characteristic t ..sk of the Church of Christ. These are some of the modern developments of personality as to its rights and duties. By means of their proper balance and mutual influence, Christendom makes its advance. And this bal- ance is maintained so far as man is in Christ. For from Him alone comes the ultimate sense of human dignity both for oneself and for all. At His feet we leaVn that personality is given its fiill enfranch- isement in order that it niaj' co-operate with the Father in the employments of perfect love.
LiTERATiRE.^Besides the works alluded to above, see Illing- worth, PersonaliUj, Human and Divine; Moberly, Atonement and Personality, esp. ch. ix. ; Martensen, Ethics; Domer, Ethics ; Seth, Hegeliayusm and Personality ; W. Richmond, Personality ; Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics; James, Prob- lems of Personality ; Lotze, Microoosmus, i. 248ff. ; Green, Prolecj. to Ethics ; Au^stine, Confessions, etc. See also A. Chandler in A Lent in London (1895), p. 193 ; C. C. Hall, The Gospel of tfie Divine Sacrifice (1897), p. 26" ; H. Raahdall, Doctrine and Develovment (1898), p. 268; T. G. Selbv, The God of the FraiH\902), p. 22; J. Newton. The Problem of Person- ality (1905) ; \V. N. Clarke, Outline of Theology, pt. 2 ; Lx)tze, Outlines of Philosophy of Religion, §§ 30-35 ; Oman, Vision and Authority, pp. 19-24 ; Myers, Human Personality, i. lOff.
A. Norman Rowland.
PERVERTING (Siaarpefi^, Lk 2i-;a.Tro<jTpect>iO, v."). — The word occurs principally in the trial of Jesus before Pilate, where the first charge brought against Him was that of 'perverting the nation.' Such a charge, though somewhat vague, implied that He was a conspirator against the State, spreading a sjiirit of disaflection and rebellion among the people, and thus turning them against the Imperial Govern- ment. The charge was utterly false, but it revealed the bitter malice of the Jews and their determina- tion to bring about the death of Jesus. The power of life and death was not possessed by the Sanhe- drin : no merely religious ottence could be visited with capital jninishment (Jn 18^M, and therefore the object which they clamoured for could be accomplished onlj' through the instrumentality of the civil power. Accordingly, the leaders of the Sanhedrin lay aside the charge of blasphemy, which really weighed with tiiemselves, but of which they knew Pilate could take no cognizance, and they bring Jesus before the Roman governor as a politi- cal ottender, guilty of setting Himself and others in opposition to the ruling power of Rome. A charge of this character Pilate was in duty bound to consider and examine. DuGALD Clark.
PESTILENCE (XotMos).— The word is found twice in the Gospels, in both cases in the prophecy of Christ regarding the last days (Mt 24" [AV ; RV, following" WH and others, omits], Lk 21"). In the OT the word is used in a generic .sense, and usually indicates a direct Divine visitation (Lv 26", Xu 1412, 1 Ch 21'^ Ps 785« etc.). The disease, whatever its nature, is not rarely associated with war and its consequences (Jer 24'° 29^' 34i', Ezk 6'^ etc.). Thus it seems to be used by Christ in the texts quoted.
The specific meaning of the word Xot/u6s is not easily determined. It seems to indicate a swiftly- developing and mortal illness, contagious or infec- tious in its nature, as we may infer from Ac 24^ It may point to the glandular or bubonic plague, well known and universally dreaded by the ancients, and the great scourge of the world in the Middle Ages. (See Hastings' DB, iii. pp. 324, 755).
Henry E. Dosker.
PETER.— The use of the names Simon and Simon Peter in the Gospels is instructive. Mt., when he first mentions the Apostle, calls him ' Simon, who is called Peter' (4^^); he uses the same language in his list of the Apostles (10-). Again, with most
obvious appropriateness he calls him ' Simon Peter' at the time of his celebrated confession (16'*), while on the two occasions on which our Lord addresses the disciple directly, he is 'Simon bar-Jona' (16^") and 'Simon' (17^). In Mk. the name 'Simon' is employed up to the selection of the Twelve, and thereafter ' Peter ' is used : but when our Lord accosts him in Gethsemane, He name^ him ' Simon " (14"). In Lk. also he is de-igoiated ' Simon ' with a single exception (5*) till the. choice of the Apostles, after which he becomes ' Peter " ; but when our Lord speaks to him he is ' Simon. Simon,' which is softened to ' Peter ' (223i- «). Hi^. fellow-believers give him the same name when they relate that our Lord appeared to him after His re;-urrection (24**). The practice of Jn. is equally notable. Before Peter appears on the scene at all, his brother Andrew is described as ' the brother of Simon Peter' (l*^). This double name is that which the Evangelist chiefly emploj^s ; in fact, he prefers it except m hen its repetition would seem pedantic. At the same time, he indicates clearly that the Apostle's original name was 'Simon' (1^), and he places this name on the lips of Jesus just as the other Evangelists do (l'*^).