apostasy, and here it is fitly applied to the adherence of Gentiles, who previously had no faith in God. In fact its proper force is represented by turn rather than return.
Another capital passage would seem to be sufficient in itself to show that the writer regarded the churches to whom he speaks, as composed of Gentile Christians : “ Sufficient is the time that is past for the accomplishment of the ideal of the Gentiles, when you walked in. . . unlawful idolatry”. If they were Jews by birth, who are so reproached for their pre-Christian life, it is clear that they must have been renegades, who had forfeited their title to be reckoned as Jews, For so great an apostasy there is no evidence whatever. That in- dividuals in the Dispersion did succumb to the attractions of the life outside the ghetto is probable enough. Philo, for example, warns his fellow countrymen against the seductions of pagan mysteries ; and his own nephew gave up his faith in order to become a soldier of fortune. But the interpretation, which makes Jews of the readers, involves an impossible assumption of wholesale perversion. The persons in question are, surely, Gentiles; before their conver- sion they lived as their neighbours lived, and, after their conversion, they excited the surprise of their neighbours by their change of life.?
The internal evidence of the Epistle is borne out by what is known of the evangelisation of the provinces named. With the ex- ception of Cilicia all Asia Minor is included and Asia Minor was the great field of the labours of St. Paul and his companions. There is nothing to suggest that St. Peter was addressing converts of his own as Origen and Eusebius* seem to assume.
The Author.—The beginning and the final conclusion of this document certify it to be the letter or epistle of Peter the Apostle of $esus Christ, who speaks of Silvanus and Mark as his companions and writes from ‘“‘ Babylon”. The certificate was accepted and re- mained unquestioned until quite modern times. Irenzus, whose connexion with Polycarp is certain, quotes the document as written by the Peter of the Church—Simon, son of John, to whom Jesus gave the name of Cephas or (in Greek) Peter. When F. C. Baur (for example) speaks of the ‘alleged apostolic authorship of writings which bear the marks of pseudonymity so plainly on their face,” + he illustrates the reaction which ran riot, when once the doctrine of the inspiration and authority of canonical books was called in question. The authorship of this document does not
liv. 3. Ziv. 4. ® See above page 4.
4 Church History (English translation: London, 1878), p. 131 (note) in refer- ence to the Epistle of James and the First Epistle of Peter.