the compact, in virtue of which Peter was to continue his work among the Jews: both construed the direction of the Epistle as proof that the writer had preached the Gospel to his readers: therefore in virtue of the compact his readers were fews—dJews of the Dispersion, but still Jews.
The evidence upon which both Eusebius and Origen seem to rely is extant; the deduction drawn—characteristic as it is of patristic exegesis—is not necessarily valid, and it is not supported by any pretence of independent tradition.
The compact to which James and Cephas and John, on the one side, and Paul and Barnabas, on the other, were consenting parties, cannot be held to prove these Christians to be Jewish Christians— even if it could be made out that St. Peter “the Apostle of the Cir cumcision,” who writes to them, converted them to Christianity.
The appellation of the Dispersion is on the face of it a weightier argument, because Dispersion is a technical term and comprises in itself all the Jews who lived outside Palestine. Whatever its pro- venance, the term is Jewish through and through, for it insists upon the First Cause of all such scattering and upon the central shrine from which the exiles are removed. The mere Greek spoke and thought of exiles as fugitives and had a collective term φυγή to cor- respond with the Jewish διασπορά. But the Jewish word recognises that those dispersed are placed here and there—as exiles, traders and what not ?—by God. Jewish as it is, this appellation is capable of extension to the new Israel and does not necessarily imply that the persons addressed were born Jews. Ultimately and fundamentally it does not denote privilege like the term Jsrael but rather penalty— removal from the place which was traditionally associated with the visible presence of Jehovah. The writer may, perhaps, be taken to use it without a precise definition of a centre corresponding to the Holy Land of the Jew; but there is no valid ground for doubting that he could apply it to Gentiles, who were in the world and not of it by virtue of their faith in Christ. Situated as they were among un- friendly friends these Gentile churches are collectively the new Dis- persion.
These Gentile Churches—for there is more than one passage in our document which seems to settle the point, apart from general probabilities to be derived from the traditions of St. Paul’s missionary activity. Inthe first place, St. Peter! applies to his readers the words of Hosea*?; ye who were once no People but now are God’s People, who were not ina state of experiencing His mercy, but now have
lii. το. 2 See Hosea ii. 23. vOL. V. I