III. Persons for whom the Epistle was intended. — It was addressed to the churches of Asia Minor, which had for the most part been founded by Paul and his companions. From some expressions in the epistle many have thought that it was meant for Jewish Chris- tians. The words of the salutation arc — i/c/WroTc TraptniSi'ifioic ciaoTtopaq Ilovrov, etc. — "to the elect strangers of the dispersion," etc. Viewed by themselves the words seem to refer to Jews — Siao-n-opd being often employed to designate Jews living out of Palestine. This opinion is held by many of the fathers, as Euse- bius, Jerome, and Theophylact, and by Erasmus, Cal- vin, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Hug, and Pott. A modifica- tion of this extreme view is maintained by Gerhard, Wolf, Jachmann, and Weiss, viz. that Jewish converts were chiefly regarded in the mass of Gentile believers. The arguments of Weiss need not be repeated, and they are well met by Huther (Eiuleit. p. 21). But there are many things in the epistle quite irreconcilable with the idea of its being meant either solely or principally for Jewish believers. He tells his readers that "sufficient was the past for them to have wrought out the will of the Gentiles — as indeed ye walked in lasciviousness, wine-bibbing, revellings, drinking-bouts, and forbidden idolatries" — sins all of them, and the last particularly, which specially characterized the heathen world. Sim- ilarly does he speak (i, 14) of " former lusts in your ig- norance;" (iii, G), of Sarah, "whose daughters ye have become" — iyevlftiirE — they being not so by birth or blood. In ii, 9, 10, they are said to be " called out of darkness," to have been " in time past not a people, but now the people of God." The last words, referring orig- inally to Israel, had already been applied by Paul to Gentile believers in Rom. ix, 25. The term ciaoizopa
may be used in a spiritual sense, and such a use is war- ranted by other clauses of the epistle — i, 17, " the time of your sojourning;" ii, 11, "strangers and pilgrims." Peter, whose prepossessions had been so Jewish, and whose soul moved so much in the sphere of Jewish ideas from his very function as the apostle of the cir- cumcision, instinctively employs national terms in that new and enlarged spiritual meaning which, through their connection with Christianity, they had come to bear. Besides, the history of the origin of these churches ' in Asia Minor shows that they were composed to a large extent of Gentile believers. Many of them may have been proselytes, though, as Wieseler has shown, it is wrong in Michaelis, Credner, and Neudecker to apply to such exclusively the terms in the address of this epis- tle. Nor is it at all a likely thing that Peter should have selected one portion of these churches and written alone or mainly to them. The provinces (i, 1) included the churches in Galatia which are not named in Acts, as Ancyra and Pessinus, and the other communities in Iconium, Lystra, the Pisidian Antioch, Miletus, Colos- si, Laodicea, Philadelphia, Thyatira, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Troas, etc. (Steiger, Einleit. sec. C). That the persons addressed in the epistle were Gentiles is the view of Augustine, Luther, Wetstein, Steiger, Bruckner, Mayerhoff, Wiesinger, Neander, Reuss, SchafT, and Hu- ther. Reuss (p. 133) takes Trdpoucoi and TraptTricnfiei as^D^lS, Israelites by faith, not by ceremonial observ- ance. See also Weiss, Der Petrinische Lehrbegriff, p. 28, n. 2.
IV. Design, Contents, ami Characteristics. — The ob- jects of the epistle, as deduced from its contents, coin- cide with the above assumptions. They were: 1. To comfort and strengthen the Christians in a season of severe trial. 2. To enforce the practical and spiritual duties involved in their calling. 3. To warn them against special temptations attached to their position. 4. To remove all doubt as to the soundness and com- pleteness of the religious system which they had already received. Such an attestation was especially needed by the Hebrew Christians, who were wont to appeal from Paul's authority to that of the elder apostles, and above all to that of Peter. The last, which is perhaps the very principal object, is kept in view throughout the epistle, and is distinctly stated (v. 12).
These objects may come out more clearhr in a brief analysis. The epistle begins with salutations and a general description of Christians (i, 1, 2), followed by a statement of their present privileges and future inherit- ance (ver. 3-5) ; the bearings of that statement upon their conduct under persecution (ver. 6-9) ; reference, according to the apostle's wont, to prophecies concern- ing both the sufferings of Christ and the salvation of his people (ver. 10-12); and exhortations based upon those promises to earnestness, sobriety, hope, obedience, and holiness, as results of knowledge of redemption, of atone- ment by the blood of Jesus, and of the resurrection, and as proofs of spiritual regeneration by the Word of God. Peculiar stress is laid upon the cardinal graces of faith, hope, and brotherly love, each connected with and rest- ing upon the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel (xw. 13-25). Abstinence from the spiritual sins most directly opposed to those graces is then enforced (ii, 1) ; spirit- ual growth is represented as dependent upon the nour- ishment supplied by the same Word which was the in- strument of regeneration (ver. 2, 3); and then, by a change of metaphor, Christians are represented as a spiritual house, collectively and individually as living stones, and royal priests, elect, and brought out of dark- ness into light (ver. 4-10). This portion of the epistle is singularly rich in thought and expression, and bears the peculiar impress of the apostle's mind, in which Ju- daism is spiritualized, and finds its full development in Christ. From this condition of Christians, and more directly from the fact that they are thus separated from the world, pilgrims and sojourners, Peter deduces an en-