arises-Is he writing to all the Christiane in those provinces, or to Jewish believers only ? St. Peter is regarded as the apostle of the circumcision ; there was an understanding (see Gal. ii. 9) that Ja.mes, Cephas, and John, "who seemed to be pillars," should go to the circumcision, and that Paul and Barnabas should go unto the heathen. It has been thought that St. Peter would have been interfering with the province of St. Paul if he bad written to the Gentile Christians of the Churches founded by St. Paul 01· his companions. The words also of the address mean, literally translated, "to the sojourners of the dispersion;" and "the dispersion" (3ia,nropa) was the name current in Judrea for the Jews who lived outside the limits of the Holy Land. On the other hand, if St. Peter was, as compared with St. Paul, an apostle of the circumcision, yet God had made choice (as he himself said in the council at Jerusalem) that the Gentiles by his mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. "He did eat with the Gentiles" at Antioch, and "lived after the manner of the Gentiles" (Gal. ii. 12, 14), although for a time "he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision." St. Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, was wont to offer the gospel first to the Jews, and preached, whenever it was possible, in the synagogues. It is not likely that St. Peter at any time confined his ministrations entirely to the Jews; nor would the supposed interference with St. Paul's field of labour be altogether removed if the Epistle were addressed to Jewish Christians only rather than to the whole Christian population. The word " sojoumers " (1Tap£1Tt371µ.oi) is used meta- phorically, in eh. ii. 11, for Christians generally; it is probable that in eh. i. 1 St. Peter was adapting Jewish words to Christian thoughts, as he often does, and meant by the "sojourners of the dispersion" all the citizens of the heavenly country who were then sojourning upon earth, dispersed among the unbelievers. It is plain, from the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles, that the Gentile element was predominant in the Churches of Asia Minor; it would be strange if St. Peter had addressed his Epistle exclusively to the small minority. The Epistle itself witnesses to the Catholic character which its title suggests. Though it is saturated with Hebrew thought, and crowded with quotations from the Old Testament, there is no allusion to the Law of Moses; the word voµ.os does not once occur in it-an omission which would be singular indeed if the Epistle were addressed exclusively to Jewish Christians, but not surprising as coming from one who once described the Law as a yoke "which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear" (Acts xv. 10). Again, such passages as eh. i. 14; ii. 10; iv. 3, and perhaps also eh. i. 18, could scarcely have been addressed exclusively to Jewish Christians; nor could St. Peter say of Jewish matrons that they became (fyo,-/Jf}TJT() the daughters of Sarah if they did well ( eh. iii. 6). There are no traces at all of a distinction of Jews and Gentiles in the Churches of Asia Minor such that an Epistle could be written by an apostle to one section of the Church to the exclnsion of the other. We conclude, therefore, that the readers contemplated by this, viii INTRODUCTION TO
Rs by all the writings of tbe New Testament, are Christians generally of whatever origin. "There is neit,her Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor u ncircn mcision . • . but Christ is all at1d in all."
III. PROD.ADLE DATE. Though we cannot £:x: the exact date of the Epistle, there are indications which help us to determine the limits of time within which it must hnvo be-en written. In the first place, the writer was evidently well acquainted with the Epistle to the Ephesians, which was written about the year 63, towards the end of St. Paul's first Roman imprisonment. St. Peter cannot have written till some little time after that date, for the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians-the former of which was probably e. circular lctt-er addressed to several of the Churches of Asia :\finor-gi ve no hints of such sufferings as those me:ntioned by St. Peter. But he must have written before the outbreak of any systematic attempt to crush out Chris- tianity, or any legalized persecution such as that under Trajan. Judgment was about to begin at the honse of God ( eh. iv. 17) ; for the present there was a possibility that Christians might disarm the fury of their persecutors by nn innocent and npright life ( eh. iii. 13) ; there was room to hope that their good conversation in Christ might shame their accusers (eh. iii. 16); even that some of those accusers might be won to the faith by beholding the good works of their Christian neighbours. It was still possible to describe the Roman governors as sent "for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well" (eh. ii. 14). .All this seems to point to the time of the N eronian persecution. Before that date, we gather from St. Panl'a Epistles, there was no actual persecution in Asia Minol'; there are allnsions here and there to sufferings (see Gal. iii. 4; vi. 12), but apparently not nearly so severe as the sufferings of the Macedonian Chris- tians (see Phil i. 28, 30; 1 Thess. ii. 15; iii. 4; 2 Thess. i. 4; iii. 2). Even then, it seems, there were no formal Jaws against Christianity; probably it had not yet become a religio illicita, though Tertullian; appa- rently without sufficient evidence, asserts the contrary. The Christians of Rome were accused of barning the city; the fury excited against them doubtless extended to the provinces; the heathen would naturally catch the infection of cruelty from the imperial city; Christians would be accused of disloyalty, of contempt of law, of those supposed crimes that Tacitue lays to their charge ('Ann.,' xv. 44). The persecutions would be irregular, inter- mittent, perhaps illegal, caused rather by tumultuous violence than by formal accusations; but often severe and all the harder to bear because it was the first ontbnrst. Christiana regarded persecution as a. strange thing (eh. iv. 12); the Church had to become inui'ed to the fiery trial. .Again, we read in eh. v. 13 that " Marcus my son" was with St. Peter at Babylon. • In all probability common opinion is right in identifying this Marcus with the" John whose surname was Mark" of tlle Acts of the TllE FIRST EPISTLE GENETIAL OF rETER. Ix