necessarily decide the question of its authority—all or none—as it did in the time of uncritical devotion to the letter of Scripture. But Baur’s brave words do no more to solve the problem than the stolid reiteration of traditional dogmas. And it is to be remembered that Catholic traditions have often been rehabilitated by critical researches.
Το the question, “ Do you at this time of day venture to attribute this document to Simon Peter?” the answer is, ‘‘ Why not ?”’
Such a conservative attitude excites the pity—if not the contempt —of the “advanced” critics. They find no difficulty in treating the Canonical Epistles as most men have treated the Epistles of Phalaris —ever since Bentley wrote his dissertation. Bentley said! out of Galen, “ That in the age of the Ptolemies the trade of coining false Authors was in greatest Practice and Perfection... . When the Attali and the Ptolemies were in Emulation about their Libraries, the knavery of forging Books and Titles began. For there were those that to enhance the price of their Books put the Names of great Authors before them, and so sold them to those Princes.” But Bentley proceeded to demonstrate that the Epistles of Phalaris contained blunders incompatible with their authenticity; and—for all their exquisite reasons—the critics, who treat the First Epistle of Peter as falsely so-called, have not yet found their Bentley. Indeed, their reasons are chiefly interesting as symptoms of presuppositions in- herited from past controversies. They reveal (for example) a ten- dency to resent the attribution of divine authority to the Apostles, and a tendency—which others share—to ignore the relatively mature theology to which, as a matter of fact, the first Christian mission- aries were bred, before ever they became missionaries or Christians at all. For those who believe that the Church has been directed by the Holy Spirit it is not easy to suppose that others than James and Peter, Jude andsJohn were as destitute as they were full of divine inspiration. And it is not difficult to acquiesce in the excommunica- tion of Marcion and all others who regard Christianity as a new thing descended from heaven with no affinity to any earthly ante- cedents.
In a natural and simple phrase this document professes to be written by Peter. But Harnack? has put forward the hypothesis that the opening and closing sentences* are an interpolation by an- other hand and argues against the assumption that the whole is a forgery. “If,” he says, ‘ the hypothesis here brought forward should prove erroneous, I should more readily prevail upon myself to regard the improbable as possible and to claim the Epistle for Peter him-
1 Wagner’s edition (London, 1883), pp. 80, 81. 2 Chronologie, p. 457 ff. 3i, 1, 2 and v. 12-14.
.