There is a wonderful weightiness, and yet liveliness and sweetness, in the epistles of St. Peter. His design in both is, to stir up the minds of those to whom he writes, by way of remembrance, 2 Peter 3:1, and to guard them, not only against error, but also against doubting, 1 Peter 5:12. This he does by reminding them of that glorious grace which God had vouchsafed them through the gospel, by which believers are inflamed to bring forth the fruits of faith, hope, love, and patience. THE PARTS OF THIS EPISTLE ARE THREE:
1. As born of God. Here he recites and interweaves alternately both the benefits of God toward believers, and the duties of believers toward God:
1. God hath regenerated us to a living hope, to an eternal inheritance, 3-12 Therefore hope to the end, 13
2. As obedient children bring forth the fruit of faith to your heavenly Father, 14-21
3. Being purified by the Spirit, love with a pure heart, 22-1 Peter 2:10
2. As strangers in the world, abstain from fleshly desires, 11 And show your faith by,
1. A good conversation, 12
a. In particular, Subjects, 13-17 Servants, after the example of Christ, 18-25 Wives, 1 Peter 3:1-6 Husbands, 7 b. In general, all, 8-15
2. A good profession,
a. By readiness to give an answer to every one, 15-22 b. By shunning evil company, 1 Peter 4:1-6 (This part is enforced by what Christ both did and suffered, from his passion to his coming to judgment.)
c. By the exercise of Christian virtues, and by a due use of miraculous gifts, 7-11
3. As fellow-heirs of glory, sustain adversity, let each do this,
1. In general, as a Christian, 12-19
2. In his own particular state, 1 Peter 5:1-11 (The title beloved divides the second part from the first, 1 Peter 2:11, and the third from the second, 1 Peter 4:12.
III. The conclusion, 12-14
Adam Clarke
Preface to the First and Second Epistles of Peter.
CLA_1PE.PDF, source PDF p. 3
PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EPISTLES
OF PETER.
DR. LARDNER and Professor Michaelis have done much to remove several difficulties connected with the person of St. Peter, the people to whom he wrote, the places of their dispersion, and the time of writing. I shall extract what makes more immediately for my purpose.
“The land of Palestine, says Cave, at and before the coming of our blessed Saviour, was distinguished into three several provinces, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. In the upper, called also Galilee of the Gentiles, within the division belonging to the tribe of Naphtali, stood Bethsaida, formerly an obscure and inconsiderable village, till lately re-edified and enlarged by Philip the Tetrarch; and, in honour of Julia, daughter of Augustus, called by him Julias. It was situated upon the banks of the sea of Galilee, called also the lake of Tiberias, and the lake of Gennesareth, which was about forty furlongs in breadth, and a hundred in length; and had a wilderness on the other side called the desert of Bethsaida, whither our Saviour used often to retire.
“At this place was born Simon, surnamed Cephas, or Petros, Petrus, Peter, signifying a stone, or fragment of a rock. He was a fisherman upon the forementioned lake or sea, as was also in all probability his father Jonas, Jonah, or John. He had a brother named Andrew: which was the eldest of the two is not certain; for, concerning this, there were different opinions among the ancients. Epiphanius supposed Andrew to be the elder; but, according to Chrysostom, Peter was the first-born. So likewise Bede and Cassian, who even make Peter’s age the ground of his precedence among the apostles; and Jerome himself has expressed himself in like manner, saying, ‘that the keys were given to all the apostles alike, and the Church was built upon all of them equally; but, for preventing dissension, precedency was given to one. John might have been the person, but he was too young; and Peter was preferred on account of his age.’ “The call of Andrew and Peter to a stated attendance on Jesus is recorded in three evangelists. Their father Jonas seems to have been dead; for there is no mention of him, as there is of Zebedee, when his two sons were called. It is only said of Andrew and Peter that, when Jesus called them, they left their nets and followed him. Follow me, said he, and, I will make you fishers of men.
“Simon Peter was married when called by our Lord to attend upon him; and upon occasion of that alliance, it seems, had removed from Bethsaida to Capernaum, where was his wife’s family. Upon her mother our Saviour wrought a great miracle of healing. And, I suppose, that when our Lord left Nazareth, and came and dwelled at Capernaum, he made Peter’s house the place of his usual abode when he was in those parts. I think we have a proof of it in the history just noticed. When Jesus came out of the synagogue at Capernaum, he entered into Simon’s house, Luke 4:38. Compare Mark 1:29, which is well paraphrased by Dr. Clarke: ‘Now when Jesus came out of the synagogue, he went home to Peter’s house;’ and there it was that the people resorted unto him.
“Some time after this, when our Lord had an opportunity of private conversation with the disciples, he inquired of them what men said of him; and then whom they thought him to be. ‘Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;’ Matthew 16:13-16. So far likewise in Mark 8:27-29, and Luke 9:18-20. Then follows, in Matthew 16:17-19: ‘And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven:’ that is, ‘it is not a partial affection for me, thy Master, nor a fond and inconsiderate regard for the judgments of others for whom thou hast a respect, that has induced thee to think thus of me; but it is a just persuasion formed in thy mind by observing the great works thou hast seen me do by the power of God in the confirmation of my mission and doctrine.’ ‘And I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church-and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ By which many of our interpreters suppose that our Lord promised to Peter that he should have the honour of beginning to preach the Gospel after his resurrection to Jews and Gentiles, and of receiving them into the Church; if so that is personal. Nevertheless, what follows, ‘And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven;’ this, I say, must have been the privilege of all the apostles, for the like things are expressly said to them, Luke 22:29, 30, John 20:21-23. Moreover, all the apostles concurred with Peter in the first preaching both to Jews and Gentiles. As he was president in the college of the apostles, it was very fit, and a thing of course, that he should be primarily concerned in the first opening of things. The confession now particularly before us was made by him; but it was in answer to a question that had been put to all; and he spoke the sense of all the apostles, and in their name. I suppose this to be as true in this instance, as in the other before mentioned, which is in John 6:68, 69. In the account which St. John has given us of our Saviour’s washing the disciples’ feet, Peter’s modesty and fervour are conspicuous. When the Jewish officers were about to apprehend our Lord, ‘Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut of his right ear.’ Our Lord having checked Peter, touched the servant’s ear, and healed him. So great is Jesus everywhere! They that laid hold of Jesus led him away to the house of Caiaphas; the rest of the disciples now forsook him and fled; ‘but Peter followed him afar off, unto the high priest’s palace; and went in and sat with the servants to see the end.’ Here Peter thrice disowned his Lord, peremptorily denying that he was one of the disciples, or had any knowledge of him, as related by all the evangelists; for which he soon after humbled himself, and wept bitterly. We do not perceive that Peter followed our Lord any farther; or that he at all attended the crucifixion. It is likely that he was under too much concern of mind to appear in public; and that he chose retirement, as most suitable to his present temper and circumstances.
“On the first day of the week, early in the morning, when Mary Magdalene and other women came to the sepulchre, bringing sweet spices which they had prepared, ‘they saw an angel, who said unto them, Be not affrighted; ye seek Jesus who was crucified: he is not here, for he is risen: Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead.’ As in Matthew, ‘Tell his disciples and Peter.’ As in Mark, ‘Behold he goeth before you into Galilee.’ That was a most gracious disposal of Providence to support the disciples, Peter in particular, in their great affliction. “Our Lord first showed himself to Mary Magdalene, and afterwards to some other women. On the same day likewise on which he arose from the dead, he showed himself to Peter, though the circumstances of this appearance are nowhere related. And it has been observed, that as Mary Magdalene was the first woman, so Peter was the first man, to whom Jesus showed himself after he was risen from the dead.
“We have nowhere any distinct account of this apostle’s travels: he might return to Judea, and stay there a good while after having been at Antioch, at the time spoken of by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians. However, it appears from Epiphanius that Peter was often in the countries of Pontus and Bithynia; and by Eusebius we are assured that Origen, in the third tome of his Exposition of the Book of Genesis, writes to this purpose: ‘Peter is supposed to have preached to the Jews of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; who, at length coming to Rome, was crucified with his head downwards, himself having desired it might be in that manner.’ For the time of Peter’s coming to Rome, no ancient writer is now more regarded by learned moderns than Lactantius, or whoever is the author of the book of the Deaths of Persecutors; who says that Peter came thither in the time of Nero. However, it appears to me very probable that St. Peter did not come to Rome before the year of Christ 63 or 64, nor till after St. Paul’s departure thence at the end of his two years’ imprisonment in that city. The books of the New Testament afford a very plausible, if not certain, argument for it. After our Lord’s ascension we find Peter, with the rest of the apostles, at Jerusalem. He and John were sent by the apostles from Jerusalem to Samaria, whence they returned to Jerusalem. When Paul came to Jerusalem, three years after his conversion, he found Peter there. Upon occasion of the tranquility of the Churches in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, near the end of the reign of Caligula, Peter left Jerusalem, and visited the Churches in several parts of that country, particularly at Lydda and Joppa, where he tarried many days. Thence he went to Cæsarea, by the seaside, where he preached to Cornelius and his company. Thence he returned to Jerusalem, and sometime afterwards was imprisoned there by Herod Agrippa. This brings down the history of our apostle to the year 44. A few years after this he was present at the council of Jerusalem; nor is there any evidence that he came there merely on that occasion. It is more probable that he had not yet been out of Judea: soon after that council he was at Antioch, where he was reproved by St. Paul.
“The books of the New Testament afford no light for determining where Peter was for several years after that. But to me it appears not unlikely that he returned after a short time to Judea from Antioch, and that he stayed in Judea a good while before he went thence any more; and it seems to me that, when he left Judea, he went again to Antioch, the chief city of Syria. Thence he might go to other parts of the continent, particularly Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, which are expressly mentioned in the beginning of his first epistle. In those countries he might stay a good while; and it is very likely that he did so; and that he was well acquainted with the Christians there, to whom he afterwards wrote two epistles. When he left those parts, I think he went to Rome, but not till after Paul had been in that city and was gone from it. Several of St. Paul’s epistles furnish out a cogent argument of Peter’s absence from Rome for a considerable space of time. St. Paul, in the last chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, written, as we suppose, in the beginning of the year 58, salutes many by name, without mentioning Peter; and the whole tenor of the epistle makes it reasonable to think that the Christians there had not yet had the benefit of the apostle’s presence and instructions. During his two years’ confinement at Rome, which ended, as we suppose, in the spring of the year 63, St. Paul wrote four or five epistles; those to the Ephesians, the Second Epistle to Timothy, to the Philippians, the Colossians, and Philemon; in none of which is any mention of Peter, nor is any thing said or hinted whence it can be concluded that he had ever been there. I think, therefore, that Peter did not come to Rome before the year 63, or perhaps 64. And, as I suppose, obtained the crown of martyrdom in the year 64 or 65; consequently, St. Peter could not reside very long at Rome before his death. “Cave likewise, in his life of St. Peter, written in English in 1676, places his death in 64 or 65; nor was his mind much altered when he published his Historia Literaria in 1688; for there also he supposes that St. Peter died a martyr at Rome, in the year of Christ 64, at the beginning of Nero’s persecution; and indeed he expresses himself with a great deal of assurance and positiveness. Jerome concludes his article of St. Peter saying, ‘He was buried at Rome, in the Vatican, near the triumphal way; and is in veneration all over the world.’
“It is not needful to make any remarks upon this tradition; but it is easy to observe it is the general, uncontradicted, disinterested testimony of ancient writers, in the several parts of the world, Greeks, Latins, and Syrians. As our Lord’s prediction concerning the death of Peter is recorded in one of the four gospels, it is very likely that Christians would observe the accomplishment of it, which must have been in some place, and about this place there is no difference among Christian writers of ancient times; never any other place was named besides Rome; nor did any other city ever glory in the martyrdom of Peter. There were, in the second and third centuries, disputes between the bishop of Rome and other bishops and Churches about the time of keeping Easter, and about the baptism of heretics; yet none denied the bishop of Rome what they called the chair of Peter. It is not for our honour or interest, either as Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained by early and well attested tradition. If any make an ill use of such facts, we are not accountable for it. We are not, from the dread of such abuses, to overthrow the credit of all history, the consequences of which would be fatal. Fables and fictions have been mixed with the account of Peter’s being at Rome; but they are not in the most early writers, but have been added since: and it is well known that fictions have been joined with histories of the most certain and important facts.* * I commend Dr. Lardner for his candour, and thank him for his advice; but I must think, on the evidence before me, that there is as much danger in believing too much as in believing too little. To me there is not the slightest evidence that St. Peter ever saw Rome; much less that he was first or indeed any bishop of that city. Those who mention his having been there, give us no evidence that they had any fact or history to vouch for their belief, but a sort of uncertain report that never attempts to show its origin or vouch for its truth. The New Testament, by direct inference, is totally against the tradition.
“Having written the history of the Apostle Peter, I now proceed to his epistles; concerning which three or four things are to be considered by us; their genuineness, the persons to whom they were sent, the place where, and the time when, they were written.
“The first epistle was all along considered, by catholic Christians, as authentic and genuine; this we learn from Eusebius, who says: ‘Of the controverted books of the New Testament; yet well known and approved by many, are that called the Epistle of James, and that of Jude, and the second and third of John.’ And in another place, ‘One epistle of Peter, called the first, is universally received. This the presbyters of ancient times have quoted in their writings as undoubtedly genuine; but that called his second, we have been informed, (by tradition,) has not been received as a part of the New Testament; nevertheless, appearing to many to be useful, it has been carefully studied with other scriptures.’ By which, I think, we may be assured that a great regard was shown to this epistle by many Christians in the time of our learned ecclesiastical historian. Jerome says, ‘Peter wrote two epistles called catholic, the second of which is denied by many to be his, because of the difference of the style from the former.’ And Origen before them, in his commentaries upon the gospel of St. Matthew, as cited by Eusebius, says, ‘Peter, on whom the Church is built, has left one epistle universally acknowledged: let it be granted that he also wrote a second, for this has been doubted.’
“What those learned writers of the third and fourth centuries say of those two epistles, we have found agreeable to the testimony of more ancient writers, whom we have consulted: for the first epistle seems to be referred to by Clement of Rome; it is plainly referred to by Polycarp several times; it is also referred to by the martyrs at Lyons; it was received by Theophilus, bishop of Antioch; it was quoted by Papias; it is quoted in the remaining writings of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian: consequently it was all along received. But we do not perceive the second epistle to be quoted by Papias, nor by Irenæus, (though in Grabe’s edition this epistle is twice quoted,) nor Tertullian, nor Cyprian. However, both these epistles were generally received in the fourth and following centuries by all Christians, except the Syrians: for they were received by Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, the council of Laodicea, Epiphanius, Jerome, Rufin, Augustine, and others.
“The first epistle being allowed to be St. Peter’s, we can argue in favour of the other also, in this manner: It bears in the inscription the name of the same apostle; for so it begins, ‘Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.’ And in 2 Peter 1:14 are these words: ‘Knowing that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me.’
“The writer of this epistle may have had a particular revelation concerning the time of his death, not long before writing this. But it is probable that here is a reference to our Lord’s prediction concerning St. Peter’s death, and the manner of it, which are recorded in John 21:18, 19. From 2 Peter 1:16-18, it appears that the writer was one of the disciples who were with Jesus in the mount, when he was transfigured in a glorious manner. This certainly leads us to Peter, who was there, and whose name the epistle bears in the inscription, 2 Peter 3:1: ‘This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance;’ plainly referring to the former epistle, which has been always acknowledged to be Peter’s. These words are express. But it might have been argued, with some degree of probability, from 2 Peter 1:12, 15, that he had before written to the same persons. Once more, 2 Peter 3:15, 16, he calls Paul brother, and otherwise so speaks of him and his epistles as must needs be reckoned most suitable to an apostle. The writer, therefore, is the Apostle Peter, whose name the epistle bears in the inscription. We are led here to the observation which Wall placed at the head of his notes upon this second epistle: ‘It is,’ says he, ‘a good proof of the cautiousness of the ancient Christians in receiving any book for canonical, that they not only rejected all those pieces forged by heretics under the name of apostles; but also if any good book, affirmed by some men or some Churches to have been written and sent by some apostle, were offered to them, they would not, till fully satisfied of the fact, receive it into their canon.’ He adds: ‘There is more hazard in denying this to be Peter’s, than in denying some other books to be of that author to whom they are by tradition ascribed. For they, if they be not of that apostle to whom they are imputed, yet may be of some other apostle, or apostolical man; but this author is either the apostle, or else by setting his name, and by other circumstances, he does designedly personate him, which no man of piety and truth would do.’ And then he concludes: ‘This epistle being written by him but a little before his death, 2 Peter 1:14, and perhaps no more than one copy sent, it might be a good while before a number of copies, well attested, came abroad to the generality of the Christian Churches.’
“Certainly these epistles, and the discourses of Peter, recorded in the Acts, together with the effects of them, are monuments of Divine inspiration, and of the fulfilment of the promise which Christ made to him, when he saw him and his brother Andrew employed in their trade, and casting a net into the sea; Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men, Matthew 4:19.
“Concerning the persons to whom these epistles were sent, there have been different opinions among both ancients and moderns. Mr. Wetstein argues from divers texts that the first epistle was sent to the Gentiles. Mr. Hallett, in his learned introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews, observes, ‘Some go upon the supposition that St. Peter’s epistles were written to the Jews, but it seems to me more natural to suppose that they were written to Gentile Christians, if we consider many passages of the epistles themselves:’ where he proceeds to allege many passages, and in my opinion, very pertinently; some of which will be also alleged by me by and by.
“To me it seems that St. Peter’s epistles were sent to all Christians in general, Jews and Gentiles, living in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia; the greatest part of whom must have been converted by Paul, and had been before involved in ignorance and sin, as all people in general were till the manifestation of the Gospel of Christ. That St. Peter wrote to all Christians in those countries is apparent, from the valedictory blessing or wish at the end of the epistle, 1 Peter 5:14: Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Lewis Capellus, who thought that St. Peter’s first epistle was written to Jewish believers, allows that the second epistle was written to all Christians in general, and particularly to Gentiles, induced thereto by the comprehensiveness of the address at the beginning of that epistle, To them that have obtained like precious faith with us. He should have concluded as much of the first epistle likewise, for they were both sent to the same people, as is evident from St. Peter’s own words, 2 Peter 3:1. Moreover, the inscription of the first epistle seems to be as general as that of the second. Let us observe it distinctly: to the elect, eklektoiv, says Wall upon the place: ‘He uses the word eklektoi, choice ones, just as St. Paul does the word agioi, saints, for the word Christians: and as St. Paul directs almost all his epistles to the saints, that is, the Christians of such a place; so St. Peter here, to the elect or choice ones, that is, Christians, sojourning in the dispersions of Pontus, Galatia, and Bithynia. Strangers, parepidhmoiv. good men, though at home, are strangers, especially if they meet with opposition, trouble, and affliction, as those Christians did to whom St. Peter is here writing; for he speaks of their trials and temptations, 1 Peter 1:6, 7, and exhorts them, 1 Peter 2:11, as sojourners and strangers, wv paroikouv kai parepidhmouv, to abstain from fleshly lusts. Says Œcumenius upon 1 Peter 1:1, 2: ‘He calls them strangers, either on account of their dispersion, or because all that live religiously are called strangers on this earth; as David also says, ‘I am a sojourner with thee, and a stranger, as all my fathers were,’ Psalm 39:12. Scattered throughout Pontus, or of the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia; so he calls them, not because they had been driven out from their native country, but because he writes to the Christians of divers countries, who also were but a few or a small number in every place where they dwelt. I shall now show that these Christians were, for the most part, of the Gentile stock and original. 1 Peter 1:14: ‘As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.’ This might be very pertinently said to men converted from Gentilism to Christianity; but no such thing is ever said by the apostle concerning the Jewish people, who had been favoured with Divine revelation, and had the knowledge of the true God. And 1 Peter 1:20, 21, he says, that ‘through Christ they did now believe in God;’ therefore they were not worshippers till they were acquainted with the Christian revelation. In like manner, 1 Peter 2:9, St. Peter speaks of those to whom he writes as having been ‘called out of darkness into God’s marvellous light.’ Moreover, they were not once God’s people; 1 Peter 2:10: ‘Which in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.’ Words resembling those of St. Paul, Romans 9:24, 25, where he is unquestionably speaking of Gentile converts. There are also other expressions which plainly show that these persons had been Gentiles, and had lived in the sins of Gentilism; 1 Peter 1:18: ‘Forasmuch as ye know that ye were redeemed from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers.’ And 1 Peter 4:3: ‘For the time past may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles; when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.’ St. Peter does not charge himself with such things, but they to whom he writes had been guilty in those respects; and, by way of condescension, and for avoiding offence, and for rendering his argument more effectual, he joins himself with them. And more, when St. Peter represents the dignity of those to whom he writes, upon account of their Christian vocation, 1 Peter 2:9, as ‘a chosen generation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood;’ certainly the expressions are most pertinent and emphatical, if understood of such as had been brought from Gentilism to the faith of the Gospel, as indeed they plainly were. For he there says, ‘they were to show forth the praises of Him who had called them out of darkness into his marvellous light.’ To all which might be added, what was hinted before, that the persons to whom Peter writes were for the most part the Apostle Paul’s converts. This must be reckoned probable from the accounts which we have in the Acts of St. Paul’s travels and preaching. Whence we know that he had been in Galatia, and the other countries mentioned by St. Peter at the beginning of his first epistle. Moreover he observes, 2 Peter 3:15, that ‘his beloved brother Paul had written unto them.’ We may reasonably suppose that he thereby intends St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, the Ephesians, and Colossians, all in those countries, and for the most part Gentile believers. Nor do I see reason to doubt that if Peter had, before now, seen and read St. Paul’s Epistles to Timothy; and if we should add them, as here intended also, it would be no prejudice to our argument. For those epistles likewise were designed for the use and benefit of the Churches in those parts. To me these considerations appear unanswerable; I shall, therefore, take notice of but one objection, which is grounded upon 1 Peter 2:12: ‘Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.’ Upon the first clause in that verse Beza says, that this place alone is sufficient to show that this epistle was sent to Jews. But I think not. From St. Paul may be alleged a text of the like sort, 1 Corinthians 10:32: ‘Give no offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, (kai eJllhsi,) nor to the Church of God.’ It might be as well argued from that text that the Corinthians were by descent neither Jews nor Greeks, as from this, that the persons to whom St. Peter wrote were not originally Gentiles. In the text of St. Paul just quoted, by Jews, and Gentiles or Greeks, are intended such as were unbelievers. So it is likewise in the text of St. Peter which we are considering as is apparent from the latter part of the verse above transcribed at large. St. Peter had a right to distinguish those to whom he writes from the Gentile people among whom they lived, as he had at the beginning of the epistle called them elect, or choice ones, and strangers; and they likewise went by the name of Christians, as we perceive from 1 Peter 4:16. “St. Peter’s two epistles, then, were sent to all Christians in general, living in those countries, the greatest part of whom had been converted from Gentilism or heathenism.
“Our next inquiry is concerning where these epistles were written. “At the end of the first epistle St. Peter says: ‘The Church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you;’ which text, understood literally, has been thought by some to denote, 1. Babylon in Assyria; or, 2. Babylon in Egypt. 3. By others it is interpreted figuratively, and is supposed to denote Jerusalem; or, 4. Rome. So that there are four opinions concerning the place where this epistle was written.
“If St. Peter had read St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans before he wrote his first epistle, it was written after St. Paul’s journey from Corinth to Jerusalem, described in Acts 20., 21.; for the Epistle to the Romans was written from Corinth. How much later than the time of this journey the First Epistle of Peter was written it is very difficult, for want of sufficient data, to determine. The epistle itself has hardly any marks which can guide us in deciding the year of its composition; and we know nothing of the history of St. Peter from the time of the apostolic council at Jerusalem, Acts 15., which is the last place where St. Luke mentions him, till his arrival many years afterwards at Rome, where, according to the accounts of ecclesiastical writers, he suffered martyrdom. However, a comparison of the first with the second epistle of St. Peter will enable us to form at least an opinion on this subject. St. Peter says, in his second epistle, 2 Peter 3:1: tauthn hdh, agaphtoi, deuteran umin grafw epistolhn. whence we may conclude that his first epistle was written to the same persons as the second. But if the second epistle was written fifteen or twenty years after the first, they who received the one were not the same persons as they who received the other; and we might rather expect that in this case St. Peter would have called his first epistle an epistle which he had written to their fathers. It appears, then, that the interval between the dates of the two epistles could not have been very long; and as the second epistle was written shortly before St. Peter’s death; we may infer that the first epistle was written either not long before, or not long after, the year 60. On the other hand, Lardner assigns this epistle too late a date; for he is of opinion that it was written between 63 and 65. This reason for supposing that it was not written till after 63 is, that an earlier date cannot be assigned for St. Peter’s arrival at Rome; and as he takes the word Babylon, whence St. Peter dates his epistle, not in its proper but in a mystical sense, as denoting Rome, he concludes that the epistle was not written before the time above mentioned. But if we take Babylon in its proper sense, the argument not only proves not what Lardner intended, but the very reverse; for if St. Peter’s arrival in Rome is to be dated about the year 63, an epistle written by St. Peter, in Babylon, must have a date prior to that year. “St. Peter, in the close of his epistle, sends a salutation from the Church in Babylon, which, consequently, is the place where he wrote his epistle. But commentators do not agree in regard to the meaning of the word Babylon, some taking it in its literal and proper sense, others giving it a figurative and mystical interpretation. Among the advocates for the latter sense have been men of such learning and abilities, that I was misled by their authority in the younger part of my life to subscribe to it; but at present, as I have more impartially examined the question, it appears to me very extraordinary that, when an apostle dates his epistle from Babylon, it should ever occur to any commentator to ascribe to this work a mystical meaning, instead of taking it in its literal and proper sense. For, in the first century, the ancient Babylon, on the Euphrates, was still in existence; and there was likewise a city on the Tigris, Seleucia, not far distant from the ancient Babylon, to which the name of modern Babylon was given; but through some mistake it has been supposed that the ancient Babylon, in the time of St. Peter, was no longer in being; and in order to furnish a pretence for a mystical interpretation, it has been denied that Seleucia was ever so called.
“It is true that the ancient Babylon, in comparison of its original splendour, might be called in the first century a desolated city; yet it was not wholly a heap of ruins, nor wholly destitute of inhabitants. This appears from the account which Strabo, who lived in the time of Tiberius, has given of it: for he says that Alexander (who died at Babylon, and who intended, if he had lived, to have made it the place of his residence) proposed to rebuild there a pyramid, which was a stadium in length, in breadth, and in height; but that his successors did not put the design into execution: that the Persians destroyed a part of Babylon, and that the Macedonians neglected it; but that Babylon had suffered the most from the building of Seleucia, by Seleucus Nicator, at the distance of three hundred stadia from it, because Seleucia then became the capital of the country, and Babylon was drained of its inhabitants. Strabo then adds: at present Seleucia is greater than Babylon, which last city has been desolated, so that one may say of it, what the comic poet said of Megalopolis in Arcadia: ‘A great city is become a great desert.’ If this be not sufficient proof that Babylon was still in existence in the first century, the reader may consult Cellarii Geographia, tom. ii., page 747; and Assemani Bibliotheca Orientalis, tom. iii., par. ii., page 7.
“It will be objected, perhaps, that if Babylon still existed in the time of St. Peter, it was yet in such a state of decay that an apostle would hardly have gone to preach the Gospel there. But I can see no reason why he should not; especially as Babylon was at that time so far from being literally destitute of inhabitants that Strabo draws a parallel between this city and Seleucia, saying, at present Babylon is not so great as Seleucia, which was then the capital of the Parthian empire, and, according to Pliny, contained six hundred thousand inhabitants. To conclude therefore that Babylon, whence St. Peter dates this epistle, could not have been the ancient Babylon, because this city was then in a state of decay; and thence to argue that St. Peter used the word mystically to denote Rome, is nearly the same as if, on the receipt of a letter dated from Ghent or Antwerp, in which mention was made of a Christian community there, I concluded that, because these cities are no larger than what they were in the sixteenth century, the writer of the epistle meant a spiritual Ghent or Antwerp, and that the epistle was really written from Amsterdam.
“It is, therefore, at least possible that St. Peter wrote his first epistle in the ancient Babylon, on the Euphrates. But before we conclude that he really did write there, we must first examine whether he did not mean Seleucia on the Tigris, which was sometimes called the modern Babylon. According to Strabo, Seleucia was only three hundred stadia distant from the ancient Babylon; and it was separated by the Tigris from Ctesiphon, the winter residence of the Parthian kings. At present it is not called Bagdad, as some have supposed, which is a very different city; but, in conjunction with Ctesiphon, is named by Syrian and Arabic writers Medinotho, Medain, Madain, under which name it appears in D’Anville’s maps in the latitude of 33° 7½.
“Since then, the name of Babylon was given actually to Seleucia, it is not impossible that St. Peter thus understood the word Babylon, and that his first epistle therefore was written at Seleucia on the Tigris. But I have shown in the preceding part of this section that there is likewise a possibility of its having been written in Babylon, properly so called, or in the ancient Babylon on the Euphrates. The question therefore is, which of these two senses shall we ascribe to the word Babylon? For one of these two we must ascribe to it, unless we give it, without any reason, a mystical interpretation. In the two last editions of this introduction I preferred the former sense; but after a more mature consideration, I think it much more probable, at present, that St. Peter meant the ancient Babylon. It is true that Lucan, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Stephanus Byzantinus, gave the name of Babylon to Seleucia; but the two last of these writers lived so late as the fifth century; and therefore their authority is perhaps not sufficient to prove that Seleucia was called Babylon in the first century. Lucan, indeed, was a contemporary with St. Peter; but then he uses this word in an epic poem, in which a writer is not bound by the same rules as in prose: and it is not improbable that he selected the word Babylon, because, partly, its celebrity added pomp to his diction; and, partly, because neither Ctesiphon nor Seleucia would have suited the verse. The writer of an epistle, on the contrary, can allow himself no such latitude; and perspicuity requires that in the date of his epistle, he should use no other name for the town where he writes than that which properly belongs to it. If, therefore, St. Peter had really written at Seleucia, he would have hardly called this city by the name of Babylon, though this name was sometimes applied to it: consequently, it is most probable that St. Peter wrote his first epistle in ancient Babylon on the Euphrates.
“Before I conclude this section, I must take notice of a passage in Josephus, which not only confutes all notions of a spiritual or mystical Babylon, but throws a great light on our present inquiry; and this passage is of so much the more importance, because Josephus was a historian who lived in the same age with St. Peter; and the passage itself relates to an event which took place thirty-six years before the Christian era, namely, the delivery of Hyrcanus, the Jewish high priest, from imprisonment, by order of Phraates, king of Parthia, with permission to reside in Babylon, where there was a considerable number of Jews. This is recorded by Josephus, Antiq. xv. c. 2, in the following words: dia touto desmwn men afhken, en babulwni de katagesqai pareicen, enqa kai plhqov hn
ioudaiwn. Josephus then adds, that both the Jews in Babylon, and all who dwelt in that country, as far as the Euphrates, respected Hyrcanus, as high priest and king. Now the word Babylon in this passage of Josephus evidently means a city in the east; and it cannot possibly be interpreted in a mystical manner either of Jerusalem or Rome. The only question is, whether he meant the ancient Babylon on the Euphrates, or Seleucia on the Tigris. The former is the most obvious interpretation; and is warranted by the circumstance that, in other places where Josephus speaks of Seleucia on the Tigris, he calls it by its proper name Seleucia.
“The first argument in favour of a mystical and against a literal interpretation of the word Babylon is, that in the whole country of Babylonia there were no Jews in the time of St. Peter; and thence it is inferred that he could not have gone to preach the Gospel there. Now in this argument both the premises and inference are false. The inference is false, because even if there had been no Jews in the whole country of Babylonia, St. Peter might have gone to preach the Gospel there; for he preached to the uncircumcised at Cæsarea, and he himself declared that it was ordained by God that the Gentiles, by his mouth, should hear the word of the Gospel and believe. The premises themselves are also totally unfounded; for if we except Palestine, there was no country in the world where the Jews were so numerous and so powerful as in the province of Babylonia, in which they had their two celebrated seats of learning, Nehardea and Susa.
“The second argument in favour of a mystical interpretation of the word Babylon is, that almost all the ancient fathers have explained it in this manner, and have asserted that St. Peter used it to denote Rome. But we must recollect that an assertion of this kind is not testimony to a fact, but a mere matter of opinion, in which the ancients were as liable to mistake as we are. Nor is it true that all the ancient ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the word Babylon a mystical meaning; for though the Greek and Latin fathers commonly understood Rome, yet the Syriac and Arabic writers understood it literally, as denoting a town in the east; and if we are to be guided by opinion, an oriental writer is surely as good authority, on the present question, as a European.
“The third argument on which Lardner particularly insists is, that, in the accounts which we have on record relative to St. Peter’s history, no mention is made of a journey to Babylon. Now this argument would prove nothing, even if our knowledge of St. Peter’s life and transactions were more perfect than it really is. Let us suppose an instance of some eminent man in modern times, in the history of whose life no mention is made that, during his travels, he paid a visit to Vienna, but that among his letters to his friends, one of them, not withstanding the silence of his biographer, is dated from Vienna. In this case, unless we had reason to suppose that the whole epistle was a forgery, or that the author had used a false date, we should immediately conclude, on the bare authority of this single epistle, that he had actually been at Vienna; and we should hardly think of a mystical or spiritual Vienna. Lardner himself has argued in this very manner with respect to Paul, though his history is infinitely better known than that of St. Peter, and has inferred from the single passage, Titus 1:5, ‘For this cause left I thee in Crete,’ that St. Paul made a voyage into Crete in the year 56, though this voyage is mentioned neither by St. Luke nor by any other historian. No reason therefore can be assigned why we should refuse to argue in the same manner with respect to St. Peter. In fact, Lardner’s argument could nowhere have been more unfortunately applied than in the present instance.
“From the time of the apostolic council at Jerusalem, in the year 49, at which St. Peter was present, till the time of his [supposed] arrival in Rome, which Lardner acknowledges was not before 63, there is an interval of fourteen years, during which we have no history of him whatsoever. How then can we form a judgment of his transactions during that period except from his own writings? And how can the silence of history, in respect to his journey to Babylon, afford an argument that he was never there, in contradiction to his own epistle, when the fact is, we have no history at all of St. Peter during this period? We cannot therefore talk of its silence in respect to any one particular transaction, since every transaction of St. Peter, throughout the whole of this interval, is unrecorded. Lardner indeed conjectures, as the epistle is addressed to the inhabitants of Pontus, Galatia, Ac., that St. Peter spent a part of his time in these countries, though he denies that St. Peter ever was in Babylon, whence the epistle is dated. Now this mode of arguing is nearly the same as if I concluded, from a letter dated from Vienna, and addressed to a person in Venice, that the writer of that letter had been in Venice, but that he never was at Vienna. Lardner supposes also that St. Peter spent a part of this time in Jerusalem. Now it is impossible for us to determine what stay St. Peter made in Jerusalem after the holding of the apostolic council, or whether he remained there at all; but this I think is certain, that he was not at Jerusalem when St. Paul returned thither for the last time, since St. Luke makes particular mention of St. James, and describes him as the head of the Christian community at Jerusalem, but says nothing of St. Peter, whom he would hardly have passed over in perfect silence if he had been there. Now St. Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem happened in the year 60, and since I have shown that the First Epistle of St. Peter was written about this time, it is not at all improbable that St. Peter, who was absent from Jerusalem, was then engaged in preaching the Gospel to the Babylonians.
“The last argument in favour of the opinion that the Babylon where Peter wrote was not Babylon properly so called, is derived from 1 Peter 2:13, where St. Peter commands obedience to the king, and from 1 Peter 2:17, where he says, ‘Honour the king.’ Hence Lardner concludes that St. Peter must have written in a place which was subject to the same king or emperor as the people to whom he sent the epistle. But these were subject to the Roman emperor, whereas Babylon, with its whole territory, was then subject, not to the Romans, but the Parthians, and therefore, according to Lardner, could not have been the place where St. Peter wrote. Now this argument rests on a supposition which is contradicted by the common usage of every language, the expression, ‘the king,’ in a letter from a person in one country to a person in another country, may, according to circumstances, denote the king to which the reader is subject as well as the king to which the writer is subject.
“It appears, then, that the arguments which have been alleged to show that St. Peter did not write his first epistle in the country of Babylonia are devoid of foundation, and consequently the notion of a mystical Babylon, as denoting either Jerusalem or Rome, loses its whole support. For in itself the notion is highly improbable, and therefore the bare possibility that St. Peter took a journey to Babylon, properly so called, renders it inadmissible. The plain language of epistolary writing does not admit of the figures of poetry, and, though it would be very allowable, in a poem written in honour of Gottingen, to style it another Athens, yet if a professor of this university should, in a letter written from Gottingen, date it Athens, it would be a greater piece of pedantry than ever was laid to the charge of the learned. In like manner, though a figurative use of the word Babylon is not unsuitable to the animated and poetical language of the Apocalypse, yet St. Peter, in a plain and unadorned epistle, would hardly have called the place where he wrote by any other appellation than that which literally and properly belonged to it.”
That many persons both of learning and eminence have been of a different opinion from Professor Michaelis, the intelligent reader is well aware, but Dr. Lardner, of all others, has written most argumentatively in vindication of the mystical Babylon, i.e. Rome, as being the place from which the apostle wrote this epistle. His weightiest arguments however are here answered by Michaelis, and to me it appears that there is a great balance in favour of the opinion that Babylon on the Euphrates is the place intended. The decision of this question, although not an article of faith, is nevertheless of some importance. I am still of opinion that St. Peter did not write from Rome; that he was neither bishop of Rome nor martyred at Rome, in a word, that he never saw Rome.
THE FIRST GENERAL EPISTLE OF PETER.
Chronological Notes relative to this Epistle.
-Year of the Constantinopolitan era of the world, or that used by the Byzantine historians, and other eastern writers, 5568.
-Year of the Alexandrian era of the world, 5562.
-Year of the Antiochian era of the world, 5552.
-Year of the world, according to Archbishop Usher, 4064.
-Year of the world, according to Eusebius, in his Chronicon, 4288. -Year of the minor Jewish era of the world, or that in common use, 3820. -Year of the Greater Rabbinical era of the world, 4419.
-Year from the Flood, according to Archbishop Usher, and the English Bible, 2408.
-Year of the Cali yuga, or Indian era of the Deluge, 3162. -Year of the era of Iphitus, or since the first commencement of the Olympic games, 1000.
-Year of the era of Nabonassar, king of Babylon, 809.
-Year of the CCIXth Olympiad, 4.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 807. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Frontinus, 811. -Year from the building of Rome, according to the Fasti Capitolini, 812. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Varro, which was that most generally used, 813.
-Year of the era of the Seleucidæ, 372.
-Year of the Cæsarean era of Antioch, 108.
-Year of the Julian era, 105.
-Year of the Spanish era, 98.
-Year from the birth of Jesus Christ, according to Archbishop Usher, 64. -Year of the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 60.
-Year of Claudius Felix, governor of the Jews, 8.
-Year of Vologesus, king of the Parthians, 11.
-Jesus, high priest of the Jews, 1.
-Year of the Dionysian period, or Easter Cycle, 61.
-Year of the Grecian Cycle of nineteen years, or Common Golden Number, 4; or the second after the first embolismic.
-Year of the Jewish Cycle of nineteen years, 1; or two years before the first embolismic.
-Year of the Solar Cycle, 13.
-Dominical Letter, it being Bissextile, or Leap Year, FE. -Day of the Jewish Passover, the second of April, which happened in this year on the fourth day after the Jewish Sabbath.
-Easter Sunday, the sixth of April.
-Epact, or age of the moon on the 22d of March, (the day of the earliest Easter Sunday possible,) 3.
-Epact, according to the present mode of computation, or the moon’s age on New Year’s day, or the Calends of January, 11.
-Monthly Epacts, or age of the moon on the Calends of each month respectively, (beginning with January,) 11, 13, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 19, 21, 21.
-Number of Direction, or the number of days from the twenty-first of March to the Jewish Passover, 12.
-Year of the reign of Caius Tiberius Claudius Nero Cæsar, the fifth Roman monarch, computing from Octavianus, or Augustus Cæsar, properly the first Roman emperor, 7.
-Roman Consuls, the Emperor Nero Augustus, the fourth time, and Cossus Cornelius Lentulus.
Joseph Benson
Preface
BEN_VOL8.PDF, source PDF p. 731
FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF
PETER
PREFACE
No person, who has read with attention the four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, can be unacquainted with the character of St. Peter, whether as a follower of Christ, or as an apostle. He and his brother Andrew were the first two that were called by the Lord Jesus to be his disciples, John 1:41; Matthew 4:18-20. And in all the passages in which the names of the twelve apostles are recorded, Peter is mentioned first. He was one of the three whom Jesus admitted to witness the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter; before whom he was transfigured, and with whom he retired to pray in the garden, the night before he suffered. And although afterward, in an hour of sore temptation, termed by Jesus “the hour and power of darkness,” Peter gave a sad proof of human weakness, in denying three times, and that with oaths, that very Master with whom, a few hours before, he had declared his readiness to go to prison and to death; yet in consequence of the deep remorse he felt for his crime, Jesus, having pardoned him, ordered the women, to whom he first “showed himself alive after his passion,” to carry the news of his resurrection to Peter by name; and appeared to him before he appeared to any other of his apostles. And at another appearance, (John 21:15-17,) he confirmed him in his apostolical office, by giving him a special commission to “feed his sheep;” and soon after judged him worthy, under the impulse and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, to open the gospel dispensation in all its glory, and first to preach salvation through a crucified Redeemer to Jews (Acts 2.) and Gentiles, Acts 10. When he and John were brought before the Jewish council, to be examined concerning the miracle wrought on the impotent man, Peter boldly testified that the man had been healed in the name, and by the power of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had crucified, but whom God had raised from the dead; assuring them that there was salvation in no other. It was Peter who questioned Ananias and Sapphira about the price of their lands; and for their lying in that matter punished them miraculously with death. And, what is yet more remarkable, although by the hands of all the apostles many signs and wonders were wrought, it was by Peter’s shadow only, that the sick, who were laid in the streets of Jerusalem, were healed as he passed by. Soon after, when, to please the Jews, enraged at his zeal and success in preaching the gospel, Herod Agrippa, who had lately killed James, the brother of John, with the sword, had cast Peter into prison, intending to put him to death also, he was delivered by an angel. From these and many other facts, recorded in the gospel history, and well known to every Christian reader, it appears that Peter was very early distinguished as an apostle, and that his Master highly esteemed him for his courage, zeal, and various other good qualities, and conferred on him various marks of his favour, in common with James and John; who likewise distinguished themselves by their fortitude, zeal, and faithfulness in the execution of their apostolic office. But, that Peter received from Christ any authority over his brethren, or possessed any superior dignity as an apostle, as the Romanists contend he did, there is no reason for believing. All the apostles were equal in office and authority, as is plain from our Lord’s declaration, “One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.” And it appears, from Peter’s epistles, that he did not think himself superior in authority to the other apostles; for if he had entertained any imagination of that sort, insinuations of his superiority, if not direct assertions thereof, might have been expected in his epistles, and especially in their inscriptions; yet there is nothing of that sort in either of his letters. On the contrary, the highest title he takes to himself, in writing to the elders of the churches, is that of their “fellow-elder,” 1 Peter 5:1.
In the history of the Acts, no mention is made of Peter after the council of Jerusalem. But, from Galatians 2:11, it appears that after that council he was with Paul at Antioch; after which, it is generally supposed that he returned to Jerusalem. What happened to him after that is not said in the Scriptures; but, according to Eusebius, Origen, in his exposition on Genesis, wrote as follows: “Peter is supposed to have preached to the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; and at length, coming to Rome, was crucified with his head downward, himself having desired that his crucifixion might be in that manner.” Lardner thinks, that when he left Judea he went again to Antioch, the chief city of Syria, and thence into other parts of the continent, particularly those mentioned in the beginning of this epistle; and that, when he left those parts, he went to Rome; but not till after Paul had been in that city and was gone from it. If the reader wishes to see the evidences from antiquity, on which Peter’s having been at Rome rests, he will find them fully set forth by Lardner, (Can., vol. 3. c. 18,) who concludes his inquiry as follows: “This is the general, uncontradicted, disinterested testimony of ancient writers, in several parts of the world — Greeks, Latins, Syrians. As our Lord’s prediction, concerning the death of Peter, is recorded in one of the four gospels, it is very likely that Christians would observe the accomplishment of it; which must have been in some place. And about this place there is no difference among Christian writers of ancient times. Never any other place was named besides Rome; nor did any other city ever glory in the martyrdom of Peter. It is not for our honour, nor for our interest, either as Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained by early and well-attested traditions. If any make an ill use of such facts, we are not accountable for it. We are not, from a dread of such abuses, to overthrow the credit of all history, the consequence of which would be fatal.”
Learned men are not agreed to whom chiefly this epistle was addressed, whether to the converted Jews of the dispersion only, or to the converted Gentiles, or to both conjointly; or (which was Lord Barrington’s opinion, embraced and defended by Dr. Benson) to the converted proselytes of the gate. In this diversity of opinions, the only rule of determination, as Dr. Macknight observes, must be the inscriptions, together with the things contained in the epistle itself. Now from 2 Peter 3:1, it appears that both St. Peter’s epistles were sent to the same people; wherefore, since the inscription of the latter epistle is, “To them who have obtained like precious faith with us,” both epistles must have been addressed to believers in general. Accordingly the valediction in the first epistle is general, “Peace be with you all who are in Christ Jesus,” 1 Peter 5:14. So also is the inscription, Εκλεκτοις παρεπιδημοις διασπορας Ποντου, &c., “To the elect sojourners of the dispersion of Pontus,” &c. For the appellation of “sojourners” does not necessarily imply that this letter was written to none but Jewish believers. In Scripture all religious persons are called “sojourners and strangers,” because they do not consider this earth as their home, but look for a better country: therefore, in writing to the Gentile believers, Peter might call them “sojourners,” as well as the Jews, and exhort them to “pass the time of their sojourning here in fear;” and, beseech them “as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts,” 1 Peter 2:11. Further, he might term them “sojourners scattered” through those countries, although none of them were driven from their native countries, because the expression may merely signify, that they lived at a distance from each other, in the widely-extended regions mentioned in the inscription, and because they were few in number compared with the idolaters and unbelievers among whom they lived. Many other arguments might be drawn from divers passages in the epistles, to prove that they were written to the whole body of Christians residing in these countries, and that whether they were of Jewish or Gentile extraction. Respecting the design of this epistle it may be observed, that it was intended, 1. To explain more fully the doctrines of Christianity to these newly-converted Jews and Gentiles. 2. To direct and persuade them to a holy conversation, in the faithful discharge of all personal and relative duties, in the several states, both of the civil and the Christian life, whereby they would secure their own peace, and effectually confute the slanders and reproaches of their enemies, who spoke against them as evil-doers. 3. To prepare them for, and comfort and confirm them under, the various sufferings and fiery trials which they already endured, or were likely to endure. This seems to be the apostle’s principal intention, for he brings this subject forward, and enlarges less or more upon it, in every chapter; encouraging and exhorting them, by a great variety of arguments, to patience and perseverance in the faith, lest the persecutions and calamities to which they were exposed should cause them to apostatize from Christ and his gospel.
“St. Peter’s style,” says Blackwall, “expresses the noble vehemence and fervour of his spirit, the full knowledge he had of Christianity, and the strong assurance he had of the truth and certainty of his doctrine; and he writes with the authority of the first man in the college of the apostles. He writes with that quickness and rapidity of style, with that noble neglect of some of the formal consequences and niceties of grammar, still preserving its true reason and natural analogy, (which are always marks of a sublime genius,) that you can scarce perceive the pauses of his discourse, and distinction of his periods. A noble majesty, and becoming freedom, is what distinguishes St. Peter: a devout and judicious person cannot read him without solemn attention and awful concern. The conflagration of this lower world, and future judgment of angels and men, in the third chapter of the second epistle, is described in such strong and terrible terms, such awful circumstances, that in the description we see the planetary heavens and this our earth wrapped up with devouring flames, hear the groans of an expiring world, and the crashes of nature tumbling into universal ruin.” It is not very easy to assign the date of this epistle with exactness. The most commonly received opinion is, that it was written about the seventh of the emperor Nero, or A.D. 62.
Respecting the place where this epistle was written, from Peter sending the salutation of the church at Babylon to the Christians in Pontus, &c., it is generally believed that he wrote it near Babylon. But as there was a Babylon in Egypt, and a Babylon in Assyria, and a city to which the name of Babylon is given figuratively, (Revelation 17., 18.,) namely, Rome, the learned are not agreed which of them is the Babylon meant in the salutation. Pearson, Mill, and Le Clerc, think the apostle speaks of Babylon in Egypt: but if Peter had founded a church in the Egyptian Babylon, it probably would have been of some note; yet, if we may believe Lardner, there is no mention made of any church or bishop at that place, in any of the writers of the first four centuries; consequently it is not the Babylon in the salutation. Erasmus, Drusius, Beza, Lightfoot, Basnage, Beausobre, Cave, Wetstein, think the apostle meant Babylon in Assyria; in the remains, or vicinity, of which city, a Christian church had probably been planted, consisting principally of the descendants of the Jews, who remained in those regions after the Babylonish captivity: and in support of this opinion Dr. Benson observes, that the Assyrian Babylon being the metropolis of the eastern dispersion of the Jews, Peter, as an apostle of the circumcision, would very naturally, when he left Judea, go among the Jews at Babylon, and that it is not probable he would date his letter from a place by its figurative name. For which, indeed, no satisfactory reason could be assigned: language of that kind, however well it might be suited to the nature of such a book as St. John’s Revelation, (a book almost wholly figurative and emblematical,) being entirely unsuitable to the date of a letter.
Joseph Sutcliffe
The First Epistle of Peter.
SUT_VOL5.PDF, source PDF p. 339
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER.
OF St. Peter’s history the gospels are full, and St. Paul has placed him as the first apostle, and effectual minister to the circumcision. Galatians 2:8. Peter was with Paul at Antioch, which became the chief seat of christianity in Asia. When Peter was liberated from prison by the angel of the Lord, he deemed it not prudent to remain in the territories of Herod Agrippa; yet he was at the council held in that city. Acts 15:7. After this he travelled in proconsular Asia, as Origen on Genesis modestly asserts, “and preached to the scattered [jews and proselytes] in Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia and Asia. Afterwards, on coming to Rome, he was crucified with his head downward, having himself requested that his crucifixion might be in this manner.” He is supposed to have laboured about seven years in Antioch, and the adjacent provinces. F. Sixtus, a learned preacher at Sienna, in his Bibliotheca Sancta, anno 1626, mentions five books attributed to Peter, but which Pope Gelasius had accounted either suppositious or interpolated. These are,
1. On Preaching.
2. The Gospel.
3. The Acts.
4. The Revelation.
5. The Judgment.
Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome, as Linus writes, during the second year that he was bishop of that city. 2 Timothy 4:21. This epistle was written from Babylon, that is, from Rome, figuratively called Babylon, because she oppressed the church as ancient Babylon oppressed the jews. To think otherwise is a provocation; for before the apostles’ times Seleucia had drawn off the inhabitants from old Babylon, and left it an execrated ruin.
As Peter left Rome to go with Mark to Alexandria, about the year forty three or forty five, it is generally inferred, but with no certain evidence, that he wrote to the scattered flocks about that time. The epistle is full of excellence of doctrine, purity of morals, and fervour of exhortation. The opening chapter is generally allowed to be written in a style of great magnificence. See more on Acts 28.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction
WHD_CO14.PDF, source PDF p. 253
1 PETER.
INTRODUCTION
THE Apostle Peter, until his acquaintance with our Lord, was known simply as Simon, son of Jonas, and, like his father, was a fisherman of Bethsaida, in Galilee. He was a disciple of John the Baptist, and became, in order of time of selection, the third disciple of Jesus. It was in their memorable interview at the Jordan, near where John was continuing his ministry, that Jesus gave him the new name of Κηφας, Cephas, the Aramaic form of the Greek Πετρος, Peter, (John 1:42,) significant, doubtless, of what he would afterward become. As a married man he resided at Capernaum, and at his house Jesus seems to have made his home. His first call, and perhaps his second, (Matthew 4:19,) left him intervals for his trade of fishing; but the third (Luke 5:10) induced his leaving it permanently for the service of Christ, and being finally chosen one of the twelve apostles. Matthew 10:2. In that select company his natural promptness gave him an especial prominence. While he was in some sort a representative of the body, his over-confidence and impulsiveness sometimes led him into blunders, and exposed him to pointed rebukes from his Master. Yet with his prominence was no superiority or headship, but official equality with his fellow-apostles. His leadership in the Pentecostal Church is specially bold and marked; but he is always only primus inter pares; and nowhere does any papacy appear. To him was given the high honour of opening, against all his former ideas, the door of the Church to the Gentiles, (Acts 10:48,) although his special mission was to be to the Jews. And it is chiefly from his speeches in the Acts that we learn the full gospel as preached by the twelve apostles. After St. Peter’s deliverance from prison, and from Herod Agrippa, A.D. 44, “he went into another place,” (Acts 12:6-17,) and appears afterward in the Acts only at the Jerusalem Council, some six or seven years subsequently, (Acts 15:7-11,) where he gives his opinion, but neither presides nor pronounces the decree. A few months later he was at Antioch for a little time, (Galatians 2:11,) where he received a severe rebuke from St. Paul. The mention of his name in 1 Corinthians 1:12, etc., does not prove that he was ever at Corinth; and the account of Dionysius, making him joint founder with St. Paul of the Corinthian Church, is not confirmed by other good authority. Aside from these two notices, we have no certain knowledge of him after the year 44, except in the date of this epistle at “Babylon.”
Eusebius makes St. Peter founder of the Antioch Church, and afterward Bishop of Rome for twenty years. Jerome, following and enlarging, tells us that after he was Bishop of Antioch, and had preached in Pontus, Galatia, etc., in the second year of Claudius he journeyed to Rome to oppose Simon Magus, and was Bishop there for twenty-five years, until, in the last year of Nero, he was crucified with his head downward. That St. Peter founded the Antioch Church is contrary to the account in Acts 11:19-26; and that he was Bishop there is not sufficiently authenticated. The statement of his preaching in Pontus, etc., is taken from Origen, who only supposes it; and that about Simon Magus is probably based on Justin Martyr’s misreading of the inscription on a statue to the god Semo. The story of a twenty-five years’ Roman episcopate assumes that St. Peter left Palestine before the Council in A.D. 51, which is alike improbable, and inconsistent with Galatians 2:7-9. His position at the Council was evidently not that of head of the Church. It is not conceivable that, had he been at Rome, St. Paul could have written an epistle rich in salutations to the Roman Church with no greeting for him, or that the epistles sent by him while a prisoner should have no message from his fellow-apostle, or even mention of his name. We, therefore, reject the theory of the Roman residence and episcopate.
It is quite probable that St. Peter, after his release from prison, pursued his missionary work in Palestine until the time of the Council; that after a brief visit at Antioch he went “to the circumcision” in Pontus and the countries westward, visiting Churches already existing, and perhaps planting others; and that at length he turned his steps toward Babylon, on the Euphrates. The DISPERSION consisted of three great branches—the Babylonian, the Asiatic, and the Egyptian; the first of which was the most numerous, (more than two millions, according to Josephus,) wealthy, learned, and noble. It was truly a fitting field. From this place St. Peter wrote his first epistle. 1 Peter 5:13. Eusebius, however, writes: “Peter mentions Mark in his first epistle, which, they say, he wrote in Rome itself, and that he signifies this in calling that city figuratively Babylon.” But the authority is too weak. Besides, that St. John, thirty-five years later, so used the name in his highly-wrought symbolic diction, is no reason for the unpoetic Peter’s using it in the same way. Babylon in Egypt, and two or three other places of the same name, have had advocates, but there is no good ground to doubt that the Assyrian Babylon is meant. The fact that the countries to which the epistle is addressed are named in the order in which a writer at Babylon would naturally view them, confirms this conclusion. The epistle was universally accepted as authentic in the early Church, unless by one or two unimportant exceptions. It is quoted by Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Theodotus, Tertullian, and Eusebius; and, though not found in the Muratorian Canon, it is in the Peshito. Modern critics have objected to it as lacking originality or definite purpose, or as being too like in its expressions to those of St. Paul. That both apostles drew from the same fount cannot be doubted; and it were therefore absurd to expect their disagreement. The Pauline and Petrine theologies are opposed in no respect, save in the minds of the Tubingen critics. St. Peter was unquestionably familiar with most of the writings of his illustrious collaborator, and perhaps all of them, except First and Second Timothy and Titus; and it is not difficult to imagine, with Wordsworth, that in writing to persons who had been told of a disagreement between them in order to undermine St. Paul’s authority, he purposely used some of the latter’s thoughts and almost his expressions. Yet in treating the same topics it is inevitable that close resemblances should have occurred, but they are accompanied by such differences in thought and expression as prove both originality and independency. The style of our apostle is his own. His Judaic mind is full of Old Testament truth and imagery, but he subordinates it to the kingdom and glory of Christ. His purpose in writing is to encourage his readers to fidelity and endurance in view of their severe trials, and to confirm them in the broad truths of the gospel. 1 Peter 5:12. The suffering and the glory of both Christ and his people are the central point of his doctrine, encouragement, and exhortation for practical life.
The elect strangers of the dispersion would, of itself alone, indicate that the epistle was addressed to Jewish Christians, as was held by Eusebius, Jerome, Theophylact, Grotius, Bengel, and others; but such passages as 1 Peter 1:14; 2:10; and 4:3, 4, conclusively show that both Jewish and Gentile Christians are included.
Plan of the Epistle.
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As to the proper date of the epistle, we place it as late as A.D. 63, on account of the manifest acquaintance with St. Paul’s epistles, written during his first imprisonment. Mark was at Rome in A.D. 62, and was about going to Colosse, (Colossians 4:10;) and in A.D. 67 or 68 he was in Asia, perhaps at Ephesus. 2 Timothy 4:11. He was at Babylon at the time of this writing, (1 Peter 5:13,) and probably in this interval. It was in a time of persecution, but plainly not so severe as that under Nero; and it was after the epithet “Christian” (chap. 4:16) had become familiarly and widely known. The most probable time is early in A.D. 64. That St. Peter suffered martyrdom we know from John 21:18, 19, written after his death. The universal testimony of antiquity, east and west, is, that he was martyred at Rome by the order of Nero. So much of historic error and evident fable surrounds this testimony that it inevitably falls under heavy suspicion; but, on the other hand, there is no contrary statement, as might have been expected if it were without foundation. Tertullian first mentions his crucifixion, and says he was tied to the cross with cords; Origen, that he was fastened to the cross κατα κεφαλης, by the head, which Eusebius follows, only using the word “crucified;” and Jerome, expanding, says: “He was affixed to the cross, and crowned with martyrdom, with his head turned to the earth and his feet raised aloft, asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified as was his Lord.” Touching as is the story, the simple fact appears that he was crucified, not “head downward,” but fastened to the cross by the head. It seems most probable that the apostle was pursuing his work in Babylon when he was arrested by order of Nero, who had already seized St. Paul, that he was carried prisoner to Rome, and there executed in the last year of the tyrant’s reign. PLAN OF THE EPISTLE.
I. THE BLESSEDNESS AND GLORY OF THE GOSPEL SALVATION 1 Peter 1:3-2:8
1. Hope looking toward the heavenly inheritance 1 Peter 1:3-5
2. Joy in the blissful prospect in contrast with severe temporary trial 1 Peter 1:6, 7
b. To obedience after the pattern of Christ 1 Peter 1:14-16 c. To fear in view of the judgment 1 Peter 1:17-21 d. To fervent love to one another 1 Peter 1:22-25 e. To growth in spiritual life 1 Peter 2:1-8
II. THE HIGH CALLING, DIGNITY, AND DUTIES OF THE NEW AND SPIRITUAL ISRAEL 1 Peter 2:9-1 Peter 3:12
John Wesley
Notes on the First Epistle General of St. Peter.
WES_NTN2.PDF, source PDF p. 354
NOTES ON THE FIRST EPISTLE
GENERAL OF ST. PETER.
There is a wonderful weightiness, and yet liveliness and sweetness, in the epistles of St. Peter. His design in both is, to stir up the minds of those to whom he writes, by way of remembrance, 2 Peter 3:1, and to guard them, not only against error, but also against doubting, 1 Peter 5:12. This he does by reminding them of that glorious grace which God had vouchsafed them through the gospel, by which believers are inflamed to bring forth the fruits of faith, hope, love, and patience. THE PARTS OF THIS EPISTLE ARE THREE:
I. The inscription, 1 Peter 1:1, 2
II. The stirring up of them to whom he writes:
1. As born of God. Here he recites and interweaves alternately both the benefits of God toward believers, and the duties of believers toward God:
1. God hath regenerated us to a living hope, to an eternal inheritance, 3-12 Therefore hope to the end, 13
2. As obedient children bring forth the fruit of faith to your heavenly Father, 14-21
3. Being purified by the Spirit, love with a pure heart, 22-1 Peter 2:10
2. As strangers in the world, abstain from fleshly desires, 11 And show your faith by,
1. A good conversation, 12
a. In particular, Subjects, 13-17 Servants, after the example of Christ, 18-25 Wives, 1 Peter 3:1-6 Husbands, 7 b. In general, all, 8-15
2. A good profession,
a. By readiness to give an answer to every one, 15-22 b. By shunning evil company, 1 Peter 4:1-6 (This part is enforced by what Christ both did and suffered, from his passion to his coming to judgment.)
c. By the exercise of Christian virtues, and by a due use of miraculous gifts, 7-11
3. As fellow-heirs of glory, sustain adversity, let each do this,
1. In general, as a Christian, 12-19
2. In his own particular state, 1 Peter 5:1-11 (The title beloved divides the second part from the first, 1 Peter 2:11, and the third from the second, 1 Peter 4:12.
III. The conclusion, 12-14
Adam Clarke
Preface to the First and Second Epistles of Peter.
CLA_1PE.PDF, source PDF p. 3
PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EPISTLES
OF PETER.
DR. LARDNER and Professor Michaelis have done much to remove several difficulties connected with the person of St. Peter, the people to whom he wrote, the places of their dispersion, and the time of writing. I shall extract what makes more immediately for my purpose.
“The land of Palestine, says Cave, at and before the coming of our blessed Saviour, was distinguished into three several provinces, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. In the upper, called also Galilee of the Gentiles, within the division belonging to the tribe of Naphtali, stood Bethsaida, formerly an obscure and inconsiderable village, till lately re-edified and enlarged by Philip the Tetrarch; and, in honour of Julia, daughter of Augustus, called by him Julias. It was situated upon the banks of the sea of Galilee, called also the lake of Tiberias, and the lake of Gennesareth, which was about forty furlongs in breadth, and a hundred in length; and had a wilderness on the other side called the desert of Bethsaida, whither our Saviour used often to retire.
“At this place was born Simon, surnamed Cephas, or Petros, Petrus, Peter, signifying a stone, or fragment of a rock. He was a fisherman upon the forementioned lake or sea, as was also in all probability his father Jonas, Jonah, or John. He had a brother named Andrew: which was the eldest of the two is not certain; for, concerning this, there were different opinions among the ancients. Epiphanius supposed Andrew to be the elder; but, according to Chrysostom, Peter was the first-born. So likewise Bede and Cassian, who even make Peter’s age the ground of his precedence among the apostles; and Jerome himself has expressed himself in like manner, saying, ‘that the keys were given to all the apostles alike, and the Church was built upon all of them equally; but, for preventing dissension, precedency was given to one. John might have been the person, but he was too young; and Peter was preferred on account of his age.’ “The call of Andrew and Peter to a stated attendance on Jesus is recorded in three evangelists. Their father Jonas seems to have been dead; for there is no mention of him, as there is of Zebedee, when his two sons were called. It is only said of Andrew and Peter that, when Jesus called them, they left their nets and followed him. Follow me, said he, and, I will make you fishers of men.
“Simon Peter was married when called by our Lord to attend upon him; and upon occasion of that alliance, it seems, had removed from Bethsaida to Capernaum, where was his wife’s family. Upon her mother our Saviour wrought a great miracle of healing. And, I suppose, that when our Lord left Nazareth, and came and dwelled at Capernaum, he made Peter’s house the place of his usual abode when he was in those parts. I think we have a proof of it in the history just noticed. When Jesus came out of the synagogue at Capernaum, he entered into Simon’s house, Luke 4:38. Compare Mark 1:29, which is well paraphrased by Dr. Clarke: ‘Now when Jesus came out of the synagogue, he went home to Peter’s house;’ and there it was that the people resorted unto him.
“Some time after this, when our Lord had an opportunity of private conversation with the disciples, he inquired of them what men said of him; and then whom they thought him to be. ‘Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;’ Matthew 16:13-16. So far likewise in Mark 8:27-29, and Luke 9:18-20. Then follows, in Matthew 16:17-19: ‘And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven:’ that is, ‘it is not a partial affection for me, thy Master, nor a fond and inconsiderate regard for the judgments of others for whom thou hast a respect, that has induced thee to think thus of me; but it is a just persuasion formed in thy mind by observing the great works thou hast seen me do by the power of God in the confirmation of my mission and doctrine.’ ‘And I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church-and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ By which many of our interpreters suppose that our Lord promised to Peter that he should have the honour of beginning to preach the Gospel after his resurrection to Jews and Gentiles, and of receiving them into the Church; if so that is personal. Nevertheless, what follows, ‘And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven;’ this, I say, must have been the privilege of all the apostles, for the like things are expressly said to them, Luke 22:29, 30, John 20:21-23. Moreover, all the apostles concurred with Peter in the first preaching both to Jews and Gentiles. As he was president in the college of the apostles, it was very fit, and a thing of course, that he should be primarily concerned in the first opening of things. The confession now particularly before us was made by him; but it was in answer to a question that had been put to all; and he spoke the sense of all the apostles, and in their name. I suppose this to be as true in this instance, as in the other before mentioned, which is in John 6:68, 69. In the account which St. John has given us of our Saviour’s washing the disciples’ feet, Peter’s modesty and fervour are conspicuous. When the Jewish officers were about to apprehend our Lord, ‘Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut of his right ear.’ Our Lord having checked Peter, touched the servant’s ear, and healed him. So great is Jesus everywhere! They that laid hold of Jesus led him away to the house of Caiaphas; the rest of the disciples now forsook him and fled; ‘but Peter followed him afar off, unto the high priest’s palace; and went in and sat with the servants to see the end.’ Here Peter thrice disowned his Lord, peremptorily denying that he was one of the disciples, or had any knowledge of him, as related by all the evangelists; for which he soon after humbled himself, and wept bitterly. We do not perceive that Peter followed our Lord any farther; or that he at all attended the crucifixion. It is likely that he was under too much concern of mind to appear in public; and that he chose retirement, as most suitable to his present temper and circumstances.
“On the first day of the week, early in the morning, when Mary Magdalene and other women came to the sepulchre, bringing sweet spices which they had prepared, ‘they saw an angel, who said unto them, Be not affrighted; ye seek Jesus who was crucified: he is not here, for he is risen: Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead.’ As in Matthew, ‘Tell his disciples and Peter.’ As in Mark, ‘Behold he goeth before you into Galilee.’ That was a most gracious disposal of Providence to support the disciples, Peter in particular, in their great affliction. “Our Lord first showed himself to Mary Magdalene, and afterwards to some other women. On the same day likewise on which he arose from the dead, he showed himself to Peter, though the circumstances of this appearance are nowhere related. And it has been observed, that as Mary Magdalene was the first woman, so Peter was the first man, to whom Jesus showed himself after he was risen from the dead.
“We have nowhere any distinct account of this apostle’s travels: he might return to Judea, and stay there a good while after having been at Antioch, at the time spoken of by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians. However, it appears from Epiphanius that Peter was often in the countries of Pontus and Bithynia; and by Eusebius we are assured that Origen, in the third tome of his Exposition of the Book of Genesis, writes to this purpose: ‘Peter is supposed to have preached to the Jews of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; who, at length coming to Rome, was crucified with his head downwards, himself having desired it might be in that manner.’ For the time of Peter’s coming to Rome, no ancient writer is now more regarded by learned moderns than Lactantius, or whoever is the author of the book of the Deaths of Persecutors; who says that Peter came thither in the time of Nero. However, it appears to me very probable that St. Peter did not come to Rome before the year of Christ 63 or 64, nor till after St. Paul’s departure thence at the end of his two years’ imprisonment in that city. The books of the New Testament afford a very plausible, if not certain, argument for it. After our Lord’s ascension we find Peter, with the rest of the apostles, at Jerusalem. He and John were sent by the apostles from Jerusalem to Samaria, whence they returned to Jerusalem. When Paul came to Jerusalem, three years after his conversion, he found Peter there. Upon occasion of the tranquility of the Churches in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, near the end of the reign of Caligula, Peter left Jerusalem, and visited the Churches in several parts of that country, particularly at Lydda and Joppa, where he tarried many days. Thence he went to Cæsarea, by the seaside, where he preached to Cornelius and his company. Thence he returned to Jerusalem, and sometime afterwards was imprisoned there by Herod Agrippa. This brings down the history of our apostle to the year 44. A few years after this he was present at the council of Jerusalem; nor is there any evidence that he came there merely on that occasion. It is more probable that he had not yet been out of Judea: soon after that council he was at Antioch, where he was reproved by St. Paul.
“The books of the New Testament afford no light for determining where Peter was for several years after that. But to me it appears not unlikely that he returned after a short time to Judea from Antioch, and that he stayed in Judea a good while before he went thence any more; and it seems to me that, when he left Judea, he went again to Antioch, the chief city of Syria. Thence he might go to other parts of the continent, particularly Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, which are expressly mentioned in the beginning of his first epistle. In those countries he might stay a good while; and it is very likely that he did so; and that he was well acquainted with the Christians there, to whom he afterwards wrote two epistles. When he left those parts, I think he went to Rome, but not till after Paul had been in that city and was gone from it. Several of St. Paul’s epistles furnish out a cogent argument of Peter’s absence from Rome for a considerable space of time. St. Paul, in the last chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, written, as we suppose, in the beginning of the year 58, salutes many by name, without mentioning Peter; and the whole tenor of the epistle makes it reasonable to think that the Christians there had not yet had the benefit of the apostle’s presence and instructions. During his two years’ confinement at Rome, which ended, as we suppose, in the spring of the year 63, St. Paul wrote four or five epistles; those to the Ephesians, the Second Epistle to Timothy, to the Philippians, the Colossians, and Philemon; in none of which is any mention of Peter, nor is any thing said or hinted whence it can be concluded that he had ever been there. I think, therefore, that Peter did not come to Rome before the year 63, or perhaps 64. And, as I suppose, obtained the crown of martyrdom in the year 64 or 65; consequently, St. Peter could not reside very long at Rome before his death. “Cave likewise, in his life of St. Peter, written in English in 1676, places his death in 64 or 65; nor was his mind much altered when he published his Historia Literaria in 1688; for there also he supposes that St. Peter died a martyr at Rome, in the year of Christ 64, at the beginning of Nero’s persecution; and indeed he expresses himself with a great deal of assurance and positiveness. Jerome concludes his article of St. Peter saying, ‘He was buried at Rome, in the Vatican, near the triumphal way; and is in veneration all over the world.’
“It is not needful to make any remarks upon this tradition; but it is easy to observe it is the general, uncontradicted, disinterested testimony of ancient writers, in the several parts of the world, Greeks, Latins, and Syrians. As our Lord’s prediction concerning the death of Peter is recorded in one of the four gospels, it is very likely that Christians would observe the accomplishment of it, which must have been in some place, and about this place there is no difference among Christian writers of ancient times; never any other place was named besides Rome; nor did any other city ever glory in the martyrdom of Peter. There were, in the second and third centuries, disputes between the bishop of Rome and other bishops and Churches about the time of keeping Easter, and about the baptism of heretics; yet none denied the bishop of Rome what they called the chair of Peter. It is not for our honour or interest, either as Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained by early and well attested tradition. If any make an ill use of such facts, we are not accountable for it. We are not, from the dread of such abuses, to overthrow the credit of all history, the consequences of which would be fatal. Fables and fictions have been mixed with the account of Peter’s being at Rome; but they are not in the most early writers, but have been added since: and it is well known that fictions have been joined with histories of the most certain and important facts.* * I commend Dr. Lardner for his candour, and thank him for his advice; but I must think, on the evidence before me, that there is as much danger in believing too much as in believing too little. To me there is not the slightest evidence that St. Peter ever saw Rome; much less that he was first or indeed any bishop of that city. Those who mention his having been there, give us no evidence that they had any fact or history to vouch for their belief, but a sort of uncertain report that never attempts to show its origin or vouch for its truth. The New Testament, by direct inference, is totally against the tradition.
“Having written the history of the Apostle Peter, I now proceed to his epistles; concerning which three or four things are to be considered by us; their genuineness, the persons to whom they were sent, the place where, and the time when, they were written.
“The first epistle was all along considered, by catholic Christians, as authentic and genuine; this we learn from Eusebius, who says: ‘Of the controverted books of the New Testament; yet well known and approved by many, are that called the Epistle of James, and that of Jude, and the second and third of John.’ And in another place, ‘One epistle of Peter, called the first, is universally received. This the presbyters of ancient times have quoted in their writings as undoubtedly genuine; but that called his second, we have been informed, (by tradition,) has not been received as a part of the New Testament; nevertheless, appearing to many to be useful, it has been carefully studied with other scriptures.’ By which, I think, we may be assured that a great regard was shown to this epistle by many Christians in the time of our learned ecclesiastical historian. Jerome says, ‘Peter wrote two epistles called catholic, the second of which is denied by many to be his, because of the difference of the style from the former.’ And Origen before them, in his commentaries upon the gospel of St. Matthew, as cited by Eusebius, says, ‘Peter, on whom the Church is built, has left one epistle universally acknowledged: let it be granted that he also wrote a second, for this has been doubted.’
“What those learned writers of the third and fourth centuries say of those two epistles, we have found agreeable to the testimony of more ancient writers, whom we have consulted: for the first epistle seems to be referred to by Clement of Rome; it is plainly referred to by Polycarp several times; it is also referred to by the martyrs at Lyons; it was received by Theophilus, bishop of Antioch; it was quoted by Papias; it is quoted in the remaining writings of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian: consequently it was all along received. But we do not perceive the second epistle to be quoted by Papias, nor by Irenæus, (though in Grabe’s edition this epistle is twice quoted,) nor Tertullian, nor Cyprian. However, both these epistles were generally received in the fourth and following centuries by all Christians, except the Syrians: for they were received by Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, the council of Laodicea, Epiphanius, Jerome, Rufin, Augustine, and others.
“The first epistle being allowed to be St. Peter’s, we can argue in favour of the other also, in this manner: It bears in the inscription the name of the same apostle; for so it begins, ‘Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.’ And in 2 Peter 1:14 are these words: ‘Knowing that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me.’
“The writer of this epistle may have had a particular revelation concerning the time of his death, not long before writing this. But it is probable that here is a reference to our Lord’s prediction concerning St. Peter’s death, and the manner of it, which are recorded in John 21:18, 19. From 2 Peter 1:16-18, it appears that the writer was one of the disciples who were with Jesus in the mount, when he was transfigured in a glorious manner. This certainly leads us to Peter, who was there, and whose name the epistle bears in the inscription, 2 Peter 3:1: ‘This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance;’ plainly referring to the former epistle, which has been always acknowledged to be Peter’s. These words are express. But it might have been argued, with some degree of probability, from 2 Peter 1:12, 15, that he had before written to the same persons. Once more, 2 Peter 3:15, 16, he calls Paul brother, and otherwise so speaks of him and his epistles as must needs be reckoned most suitable to an apostle. The writer, therefore, is the Apostle Peter, whose name the epistle bears in the inscription. We are led here to the observation which Wall placed at the head of his notes upon this second epistle: ‘It is,’ says he, ‘a good proof of the cautiousness of the ancient Christians in receiving any book for canonical, that they not only rejected all those pieces forged by heretics under the name of apostles; but also if any good book, affirmed by some men or some Churches to have been written and sent by some apostle, were offered to them, they would not, till fully satisfied of the fact, receive it into their canon.’ He adds: ‘There is more hazard in denying this to be Peter’s, than in denying some other books to be of that author to whom they are by tradition ascribed. For they, if they be not of that apostle to whom they are imputed, yet may be of some other apostle, or apostolical man; but this author is either the apostle, or else by setting his name, and by other circumstances, he does designedly personate him, which no man of piety and truth would do.’ And then he concludes: ‘This epistle being written by him but a little before his death, 2 Peter 1:14, and perhaps no more than one copy sent, it might be a good while before a number of copies, well attested, came abroad to the generality of the Christian Churches.’
“Certainly these epistles, and the discourses of Peter, recorded in the Acts, together with the effects of them, are monuments of Divine inspiration, and of the fulfilment of the promise which Christ made to him, when he saw him and his brother Andrew employed in their trade, and casting a net into the sea; Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men, Matthew 4:19.
“Concerning the persons to whom these epistles were sent, there have been different opinions among both ancients and moderns. Mr. Wetstein argues from divers texts that the first epistle was sent to the Gentiles. Mr. Hallett, in his learned introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews, observes, ‘Some go upon the supposition that St. Peter’s epistles were written to the Jews, but it seems to me more natural to suppose that they were written to Gentile Christians, if we consider many passages of the epistles themselves:’ where he proceeds to allege many passages, and in my opinion, very pertinently; some of which will be also alleged by me by and by.
“To me it seems that St. Peter’s epistles were sent to all Christians in general, Jews and Gentiles, living in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia; the greatest part of whom must have been converted by Paul, and had been before involved in ignorance and sin, as all people in general were till the manifestation of the Gospel of Christ. That St. Peter wrote to all Christians in those countries is apparent, from the valedictory blessing or wish at the end of the epistle, 1 Peter 5:14: Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Lewis Capellus, who thought that St. Peter’s first epistle was written to Jewish believers, allows that the second epistle was written to all Christians in general, and particularly to Gentiles, induced thereto by the comprehensiveness of the address at the beginning of that epistle, To them that have obtained like precious faith with us. He should have concluded as much of the first epistle likewise, for they were both sent to the same people, as is evident from St. Peter’s own words, 2 Peter 3:1. Moreover, the inscription of the first epistle seems to be as general as that of the second. Let us observe it distinctly: to the elect, eklektoiv, says Wall upon the place: ‘He uses the word eklektoi, choice ones, just as St. Paul does the word agioi, saints, for the word Christians: and as St. Paul directs almost all his epistles to the saints, that is, the Christians of such a place; so St. Peter here, to the elect or choice ones, that is, Christians, sojourning in the dispersions of Pontus, Galatia, and Bithynia. Strangers, parepidhmoiv. good men, though at home, are strangers, especially if they meet with opposition, trouble, and affliction, as those Christians did to whom St. Peter is here writing; for he speaks of their trials and temptations, 1 Peter 1:6, 7, and exhorts them, 1 Peter 2:11, as sojourners and strangers, wv paroikouv kai parepidhmouv, to abstain from fleshly lusts. Says Œcumenius upon 1 Peter 1:1, 2: ‘He calls them strangers, either on account of their dispersion, or because all that live religiously are called strangers on this earth; as David also says, ‘I am a sojourner with thee, and a stranger, as all my fathers were,’ Psalm 39:12. Scattered throughout Pontus, or of the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia; so he calls them, not because they had been driven out from their native country, but because he writes to the Christians of divers countries, who also were but a few or a small number in every place where they dwelt. I shall now show that these Christians were, for the most part, of the Gentile stock and original. 1 Peter 1:14: ‘As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.’ This might be very pertinently said to men converted from Gentilism to Christianity; but no such thing is ever said by the apostle concerning the Jewish people, who had been favoured with Divine revelation, and had the knowledge of the true God. And 1 Peter 1:20, 21, he says, that ‘through Christ they did now believe in God;’ therefore they were not worshippers till they were acquainted with the Christian revelation. In like manner, 1 Peter 2:9, St. Peter speaks of those to whom he writes as having been ‘called out of darkness into God’s marvellous light.’ Moreover, they were not once God’s people; 1 Peter 2:10: ‘Which in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.’ Words resembling those of St. Paul, Romans 9:24, 25, where he is unquestionably speaking of Gentile converts. There are also other expressions which plainly show that these persons had been Gentiles, and had lived in the sins of Gentilism; 1 Peter 1:18: ‘Forasmuch as ye know that ye were redeemed from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers.’ And 1 Peter 4:3: ‘For the time past may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles; when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.’ St. Peter does not charge himself with such things, but they to whom he writes had been guilty in those respects; and, by way of condescension, and for avoiding offence, and for rendering his argument more effectual, he joins himself with them. And more, when St. Peter represents the dignity of those to whom he writes, upon account of their Christian vocation, 1 Peter 2:9, as ‘a chosen generation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood;’ certainly the expressions are most pertinent and emphatical, if understood of such as had been brought from Gentilism to the faith of the Gospel, as indeed they plainly were. For he there says, ‘they were to show forth the praises of Him who had called them out of darkness into his marvellous light.’ To all which might be added, what was hinted before, that the persons to whom Peter writes were for the most part the Apostle Paul’s converts. This must be reckoned probable from the accounts which we have in the Acts of St. Paul’s travels and preaching. Whence we know that he had been in Galatia, and the other countries mentioned by St. Peter at the beginning of his first epistle. Moreover he observes, 2 Peter 3:15, that ‘his beloved brother Paul had written unto them.’ We may reasonably suppose that he thereby intends St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, the Ephesians, and Colossians, all in those countries, and for the most part Gentile believers. Nor do I see reason to doubt that if Peter had, before now, seen and read St. Paul’s Epistles to Timothy; and if we should add them, as here intended also, it would be no prejudice to our argument. For those epistles likewise were designed for the use and benefit of the Churches in those parts. To me these considerations appear unanswerable; I shall, therefore, take notice of but one objection, which is grounded upon 1 Peter 2:12: ‘Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.’ Upon the first clause in that verse Beza says, that this place alone is sufficient to show that this epistle was sent to Jews. But I think not. From St. Paul may be alleged a text of the like sort, 1 Corinthians 10:32: ‘Give no offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, (kai eJllhsi,) nor to the Church of God.’ It might be as well argued from that text that the Corinthians were by descent neither Jews nor Greeks, as from this, that the persons to whom St. Peter wrote were not originally Gentiles. In the text of St. Paul just quoted, by Jews, and Gentiles or Greeks, are intended such as were unbelievers. So it is likewise in the text of St. Peter which we are considering as is apparent from the latter part of the verse above transcribed at large. St. Peter had a right to distinguish those to whom he writes from the Gentile people among whom they lived, as he had at the beginning of the epistle called them elect, or choice ones, and strangers; and they likewise went by the name of Christians, as we perceive from 1 Peter 4:16. “St. Peter’s two epistles, then, were sent to all Christians in general, living in those countries, the greatest part of whom had been converted from Gentilism or heathenism.
“Our next inquiry is concerning where these epistles were written. “At the end of the first epistle St. Peter says: ‘The Church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you;’ which text, understood literally, has been thought by some to denote, 1. Babylon in Assyria; or, 2. Babylon in Egypt. 3. By others it is interpreted figuratively, and is supposed to denote Jerusalem; or, 4. Rome. So that there are four opinions concerning the place where this epistle was written.
“If St. Peter had read St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans before he wrote his first epistle, it was written after St. Paul’s journey from Corinth to Jerusalem, described in Acts 20., 21.; for the Epistle to the Romans was written from Corinth. How much later than the time of this journey the First Epistle of Peter was written it is very difficult, for want of sufficient data, to determine. The epistle itself has hardly any marks which can guide us in deciding the year of its composition; and we know nothing of the history of St. Peter from the time of the apostolic council at Jerusalem, Acts 15., which is the last place where St. Luke mentions him, till his arrival many years afterwards at Rome, where, according to the accounts of ecclesiastical writers, he suffered martyrdom. However, a comparison of the first with the second epistle of St. Peter will enable us to form at least an opinion on this subject. St. Peter says, in his second epistle, 2 Peter 3:1: tauthn hdh, agaphtoi, deuteran umin grafw epistolhn. whence we may conclude that his first epistle was written to the same persons as the second. But if the second epistle was written fifteen or twenty years after the first, they who received the one were not the same persons as they who received the other; and we might rather expect that in this case St. Peter would have called his first epistle an epistle which he had written to their fathers. It appears, then, that the interval between the dates of the two epistles could not have been very long; and as the second epistle was written shortly before St. Peter’s death; we may infer that the first epistle was written either not long before, or not long after, the year 60. On the other hand, Lardner assigns this epistle too late a date; for he is of opinion that it was written between 63 and 65. This reason for supposing that it was not written till after 63 is, that an earlier date cannot be assigned for St. Peter’s arrival at Rome; and as he takes the word Babylon, whence St. Peter dates his epistle, not in its proper but in a mystical sense, as denoting Rome, he concludes that the epistle was not written before the time above mentioned. But if we take Babylon in its proper sense, the argument not only proves not what Lardner intended, but the very reverse; for if St. Peter’s arrival in Rome is to be dated about the year 63, an epistle written by St. Peter, in Babylon, must have a date prior to that year. “St. Peter, in the close of his epistle, sends a salutation from the Church in Babylon, which, consequently, is the place where he wrote his epistle. But commentators do not agree in regard to the meaning of the word Babylon, some taking it in its literal and proper sense, others giving it a figurative and mystical interpretation. Among the advocates for the latter sense have been men of such learning and abilities, that I was misled by their authority in the younger part of my life to subscribe to it; but at present, as I have more impartially examined the question, it appears to me very extraordinary that, when an apostle dates his epistle from Babylon, it should ever occur to any commentator to ascribe to this work a mystical meaning, instead of taking it in its literal and proper sense. For, in the first century, the ancient Babylon, on the Euphrates, was still in existence; and there was likewise a city on the Tigris, Seleucia, not far distant from the ancient Babylon, to which the name of modern Babylon was given; but through some mistake it has been supposed that the ancient Babylon, in the time of St. Peter, was no longer in being; and in order to furnish a pretence for a mystical interpretation, it has been denied that Seleucia was ever so called.
“It is true that the ancient Babylon, in comparison of its original splendour, might be called in the first century a desolated city; yet it was not wholly a heap of ruins, nor wholly destitute of inhabitants. This appears from the account which Strabo, who lived in the time of Tiberius, has given of it: for he says that Alexander (who died at Babylon, and who intended, if he had lived, to have made it the place of his residence) proposed to rebuild there a pyramid, which was a stadium in length, in breadth, and in height; but that his successors did not put the design into execution: that the Persians destroyed a part of Babylon, and that the Macedonians neglected it; but that Babylon had suffered the most from the building of Seleucia, by Seleucus Nicator, at the distance of three hundred stadia from it, because Seleucia then became the capital of the country, and Babylon was drained of its inhabitants. Strabo then adds: at present Seleucia is greater than Babylon, which last city has been desolated, so that one may say of it, what the comic poet said of Megalopolis in Arcadia: ‘A great city is become a great desert.’ If this be not sufficient proof that Babylon was still in existence in the first century, the reader may consult Cellarii Geographia, tom. ii., page 747; and Assemani Bibliotheca Orientalis, tom. iii., par. ii., page 7.
“It will be objected, perhaps, that if Babylon still existed in the time of St. Peter, it was yet in such a state of decay that an apostle would hardly have gone to preach the Gospel there. But I can see no reason why he should not; especially as Babylon was at that time so far from being literally destitute of inhabitants that Strabo draws a parallel between this city and Seleucia, saying, at present Babylon is not so great as Seleucia, which was then the capital of the Parthian empire, and, according to Pliny, contained six hundred thousand inhabitants. To conclude therefore that Babylon, whence St. Peter dates this epistle, could not have been the ancient Babylon, because this city was then in a state of decay; and thence to argue that St. Peter used the word mystically to denote Rome, is nearly the same as if, on the receipt of a letter dated from Ghent or Antwerp, in which mention was made of a Christian community there, I concluded that, because these cities are no larger than what they were in the sixteenth century, the writer of the epistle meant a spiritual Ghent or Antwerp, and that the epistle was really written from Amsterdam.
“It is, therefore, at least possible that St. Peter wrote his first epistle in the ancient Babylon, on the Euphrates. But before we conclude that he really did write there, we must first examine whether he did not mean Seleucia on the Tigris, which was sometimes called the modern Babylon. According to Strabo, Seleucia was only three hundred stadia distant from the ancient Babylon; and it was separated by the Tigris from Ctesiphon, the winter residence of the Parthian kings. At present it is not called Bagdad, as some have supposed, which is a very different city; but, in conjunction with Ctesiphon, is named by Syrian and Arabic writers Medinotho, Medain, Madain, under which name it appears in D’Anville’s maps in the latitude of 33° 7½.
“Since then, the name of Babylon was given actually to Seleucia, it is not impossible that St. Peter thus understood the word Babylon, and that his first epistle therefore was written at Seleucia on the Tigris. But I have shown in the preceding part of this section that there is likewise a possibility of its having been written in Babylon, properly so called, or in the ancient Babylon on the Euphrates. The question therefore is, which of these two senses shall we ascribe to the word Babylon? For one of these two we must ascribe to it, unless we give it, without any reason, a mystical interpretation. In the two last editions of this introduction I preferred the former sense; but after a more mature consideration, I think it much more probable, at present, that St. Peter meant the ancient Babylon. It is true that Lucan, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Stephanus Byzantinus, gave the name of Babylon to Seleucia; but the two last of these writers lived so late as the fifth century; and therefore their authority is perhaps not sufficient to prove that Seleucia was called Babylon in the first century. Lucan, indeed, was a contemporary with St. Peter; but then he uses this word in an epic poem, in which a writer is not bound by the same rules as in prose: and it is not improbable that he selected the word Babylon, because, partly, its celebrity added pomp to his diction; and, partly, because neither Ctesiphon nor Seleucia would have suited the verse. The writer of an epistle, on the contrary, can allow himself no such latitude; and perspicuity requires that in the date of his epistle, he should use no other name for the town where he writes than that which properly belongs to it. If, therefore, St. Peter had really written at Seleucia, he would have hardly called this city by the name of Babylon, though this name was sometimes applied to it: consequently, it is most probable that St. Peter wrote his first epistle in ancient Babylon on the Euphrates.
“Before I conclude this section, I must take notice of a passage in Josephus, which not only confutes all notions of a spiritual or mystical Babylon, but throws a great light on our present inquiry; and this passage is of so much the more importance, because Josephus was a historian who lived in the same age with St. Peter; and the passage itself relates to an event which took place thirty-six years before the Christian era, namely, the delivery of Hyrcanus, the Jewish high priest, from imprisonment, by order of Phraates, king of Parthia, with permission to reside in Babylon, where there was a considerable number of Jews. This is recorded by Josephus, Antiq. xv. c. 2, in the following words: dia touto desmwn men afhken, en babulwni de katagesqai pareicen, enqa kai plhqov hn
ioudaiwn. Josephus then adds, that both the Jews in Babylon, and all who dwelt in that country, as far as the Euphrates, respected Hyrcanus, as high priest and king. Now the word Babylon in this passage of Josephus evidently means a city in the east; and it cannot possibly be interpreted in a mystical manner either of Jerusalem or Rome. The only question is, whether he meant the ancient Babylon on the Euphrates, or Seleucia on the Tigris. The former is the most obvious interpretation; and is warranted by the circumstance that, in other places where Josephus speaks of Seleucia on the Tigris, he calls it by its proper name Seleucia.
“The first argument in favour of a mystical and against a literal interpretation of the word Babylon is, that in the whole country of Babylonia there were no Jews in the time of St. Peter; and thence it is inferred that he could not have gone to preach the Gospel there. Now in this argument both the premises and inference are false. The inference is false, because even if there had been no Jews in the whole country of Babylonia, St. Peter might have gone to preach the Gospel there; for he preached to the uncircumcised at Cæsarea, and he himself declared that it was ordained by God that the Gentiles, by his mouth, should hear the word of the Gospel and believe. The premises themselves are also totally unfounded; for if we except Palestine, there was no country in the world where the Jews were so numerous and so powerful as in the province of Babylonia, in which they had their two celebrated seats of learning, Nehardea and Susa.
“The second argument in favour of a mystical interpretation of the word Babylon is, that almost all the ancient fathers have explained it in this manner, and have asserted that St. Peter used it to denote Rome. But we must recollect that an assertion of this kind is not testimony to a fact, but a mere matter of opinion, in which the ancients were as liable to mistake as we are. Nor is it true that all the ancient ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the word Babylon a mystical meaning; for though the Greek and Latin fathers commonly understood Rome, yet the Syriac and Arabic writers understood it literally, as denoting a town in the east; and if we are to be guided by opinion, an oriental writer is surely as good authority, on the present question, as a European.
“The third argument on which Lardner particularly insists is, that, in the accounts which we have on record relative to St. Peter’s history, no mention is made of a journey to Babylon. Now this argument would prove nothing, even if our knowledge of St. Peter’s life and transactions were more perfect than it really is. Let us suppose an instance of some eminent man in modern times, in the history of whose life no mention is made that, during his travels, he paid a visit to Vienna, but that among his letters to his friends, one of them, not withstanding the silence of his biographer, is dated from Vienna. In this case, unless we had reason to suppose that the whole epistle was a forgery, or that the author had used a false date, we should immediately conclude, on the bare authority of this single epistle, that he had actually been at Vienna; and we should hardly think of a mystical or spiritual Vienna. Lardner himself has argued in this very manner with respect to Paul, though his history is infinitely better known than that of St. Peter, and has inferred from the single passage, Titus 1:5, ‘For this cause left I thee in Crete,’ that St. Paul made a voyage into Crete in the year 56, though this voyage is mentioned neither by St. Luke nor by any other historian. No reason therefore can be assigned why we should refuse to argue in the same manner with respect to St. Peter. In fact, Lardner’s argument could nowhere have been more unfortunately applied than in the present instance.
“From the time of the apostolic council at Jerusalem, in the year 49, at which St. Peter was present, till the time of his [supposed] arrival in Rome, which Lardner acknowledges was not before 63, there is an interval of fourteen years, during which we have no history of him whatsoever. How then can we form a judgment of his transactions during that period except from his own writings? And how can the silence of history, in respect to his journey to Babylon, afford an argument that he was never there, in contradiction to his own epistle, when the fact is, we have no history at all of St. Peter during this period? We cannot therefore talk of its silence in respect to any one particular transaction, since every transaction of St. Peter, throughout the whole of this interval, is unrecorded. Lardner indeed conjectures, as the epistle is addressed to the inhabitants of Pontus, Galatia, Ac., that St. Peter spent a part of his time in these countries, though he denies that St. Peter ever was in Babylon, whence the epistle is dated. Now this mode of arguing is nearly the same as if I concluded, from a letter dated from Vienna, and addressed to a person in Venice, that the writer of that letter had been in Venice, but that he never was at Vienna. Lardner supposes also that St. Peter spent a part of this time in Jerusalem. Now it is impossible for us to determine what stay St. Peter made in Jerusalem after the holding of the apostolic council, or whether he remained there at all; but this I think is certain, that he was not at Jerusalem when St. Paul returned thither for the last time, since St. Luke makes particular mention of St. James, and describes him as the head of the Christian community at Jerusalem, but says nothing of St. Peter, whom he would hardly have passed over in perfect silence if he had been there. Now St. Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem happened in the year 60, and since I have shown that the First Epistle of St. Peter was written about this time, it is not at all improbable that St. Peter, who was absent from Jerusalem, was then engaged in preaching the Gospel to the Babylonians.
“The last argument in favour of the opinion that the Babylon where Peter wrote was not Babylon properly so called, is derived from 1 Peter 2:13, where St. Peter commands obedience to the king, and from 1 Peter 2:17, where he says, ‘Honour the king.’ Hence Lardner concludes that St. Peter must have written in a place which was subject to the same king or emperor as the people to whom he sent the epistle. But these were subject to the Roman emperor, whereas Babylon, with its whole territory, was then subject, not to the Romans, but the Parthians, and therefore, according to Lardner, could not have been the place where St. Peter wrote. Now this argument rests on a supposition which is contradicted by the common usage of every language, the expression, ‘the king,’ in a letter from a person in one country to a person in another country, may, according to circumstances, denote the king to which the reader is subject as well as the king to which the writer is subject.
“It appears, then, that the arguments which have been alleged to show that St. Peter did not write his first epistle in the country of Babylonia are devoid of foundation, and consequently the notion of a mystical Babylon, as denoting either Jerusalem or Rome, loses its whole support. For in itself the notion is highly improbable, and therefore the bare possibility that St. Peter took a journey to Babylon, properly so called, renders it inadmissible. The plain language of epistolary writing does not admit of the figures of poetry, and, though it would be very allowable, in a poem written in honour of Gottingen, to style it another Athens, yet if a professor of this university should, in a letter written from Gottingen, date it Athens, it would be a greater piece of pedantry than ever was laid to the charge of the learned. In like manner, though a figurative use of the word Babylon is not unsuitable to the animated and poetical language of the Apocalypse, yet St. Peter, in a plain and unadorned epistle, would hardly have called the place where he wrote by any other appellation than that which literally and properly belonged to it.”
That many persons both of learning and eminence have been of a different opinion from Professor Michaelis, the intelligent reader is well aware, but Dr. Lardner, of all others, has written most argumentatively in vindication of the mystical Babylon, i.e. Rome, as being the place from which the apostle wrote this epistle. His weightiest arguments however are here answered by Michaelis, and to me it appears that there is a great balance in favour of the opinion that Babylon on the Euphrates is the place intended. The decision of this question, although not an article of faith, is nevertheless of some importance. I am still of opinion that St. Peter did not write from Rome; that he was neither bishop of Rome nor martyred at Rome, in a word, that he never saw Rome.
THE FIRST GENERAL EPISTLE OF PETER.
Chronological Notes relative to this Epistle.
-Year of the Constantinopolitan era of the world, or that used by the Byzantine historians, and other eastern writers, 5568.
-Year of the Alexandrian era of the world, 5562.
-Year of the Antiochian era of the world, 5552.
-Year of the world, according to Archbishop Usher, 4064.
-Year of the world, according to Eusebius, in his Chronicon, 4288. -Year of the minor Jewish era of the world, or that in common use, 3820. -Year of the Greater Rabbinical era of the world, 4419.
-Year from the Flood, according to Archbishop Usher, and the English Bible, 2408.
-Year of the Cali yuga, or Indian era of the Deluge, 3162. -Year of the era of Iphitus, or since the first commencement of the Olympic games, 1000.
-Year of the era of Nabonassar, king of Babylon, 809.
-Year of the CCIXth Olympiad, 4.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 807. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Frontinus, 811. -Year from the building of Rome, according to the Fasti Capitolini, 812. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Varro, which was that most generally used, 813.
-Year of the era of the Seleucidæ, 372.
-Year of the Cæsarean era of Antioch, 108.
-Year of the Julian era, 105.
-Year of the Spanish era, 98.
-Year from the birth of Jesus Christ, according to Archbishop Usher, 64. -Year of the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 60.
-Year of Claudius Felix, governor of the Jews, 8.
-Year of Vologesus, king of the Parthians, 11.
-Jesus, high priest of the Jews, 1.
-Year of the Dionysian period, or Easter Cycle, 61.
-Year of the Grecian Cycle of nineteen years, or Common Golden Number, 4; or the second after the first embolismic.
-Year of the Jewish Cycle of nineteen years, 1; or two years before the first embolismic.
-Year of the Solar Cycle, 13.
-Dominical Letter, it being Bissextile, or Leap Year, FE. -Day of the Jewish Passover, the second of April, which happened in this year on the fourth day after the Jewish Sabbath.
-Easter Sunday, the sixth of April.
-Epact, or age of the moon on the 22d of March, (the day of the earliest Easter Sunday possible,) 3.
-Epact, according to the present mode of computation, or the moon’s age on New Year’s day, or the Calends of January, 11.
-Monthly Epacts, or age of the moon on the Calends of each month respectively, (beginning with January,) 11, 13, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 19, 21, 21.
-Number of Direction, or the number of days from the twenty-first of March to the Jewish Passover, 12.
-Year of the reign of Caius Tiberius Claudius Nero Cæsar, the fifth Roman monarch, computing from Octavianus, or Augustus Cæsar, properly the first Roman emperor, 7.
-Roman Consuls, the Emperor Nero Augustus, the fourth time, and Cossus Cornelius Lentulus.
Joseph Benson
Preface
BEN_VOL8.PDF, source PDF p. 731
FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF
PETER
PREFACE
No person, who has read with attention the four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, can be unacquainted with the character of St. Peter, whether as a follower of Christ, or as an apostle. He and his brother Andrew were the first two that were called by the Lord Jesus to be his disciples, John 1:41; Matthew 4:18-20. And in all the passages in which the names of the twelve apostles are recorded, Peter is mentioned first. He was one of the three whom Jesus admitted to witness the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter; before whom he was transfigured, and with whom he retired to pray in the garden, the night before he suffered. And although afterward, in an hour of sore temptation, termed by Jesus “the hour and power of darkness,” Peter gave a sad proof of human weakness, in denying three times, and that with oaths, that very Master with whom, a few hours before, he had declared his readiness to go to prison and to death; yet in consequence of the deep remorse he felt for his crime, Jesus, having pardoned him, ordered the women, to whom he first “showed himself alive after his passion,” to carry the news of his resurrection to Peter by name; and appeared to him before he appeared to any other of his apostles. And at another appearance, (John 21:15-17,) he confirmed him in his apostolical office, by giving him a special commission to “feed his sheep;” and soon after judged him worthy, under the impulse and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, to open the gospel dispensation in all its glory, and first to preach salvation through a crucified Redeemer to Jews (Acts 2.) and Gentiles, Acts 10. When he and John were brought before the Jewish council, to be examined concerning the miracle wrought on the impotent man, Peter boldly testified that the man had been healed in the name, and by the power of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had crucified, but whom God had raised from the dead; assuring them that there was salvation in no other. It was Peter who questioned Ananias and Sapphira about the price of their lands; and for their lying in that matter punished them miraculously with death. And, what is yet more remarkable, although by the hands of all the apostles many signs and wonders were wrought, it was by Peter’s shadow only, that the sick, who were laid in the streets of Jerusalem, were healed as he passed by. Soon after, when, to please the Jews, enraged at his zeal and success in preaching the gospel, Herod Agrippa, who had lately killed James, the brother of John, with the sword, had cast Peter into prison, intending to put him to death also, he was delivered by an angel. From these and many other facts, recorded in the gospel history, and well known to every Christian reader, it appears that Peter was very early distinguished as an apostle, and that his Master highly esteemed him for his courage, zeal, and various other good qualities, and conferred on him various marks of his favour, in common with James and John; who likewise distinguished themselves by their fortitude, zeal, and faithfulness in the execution of their apostolic office. But, that Peter received from Christ any authority over his brethren, or possessed any superior dignity as an apostle, as the Romanists contend he did, there is no reason for believing. All the apostles were equal in office and authority, as is plain from our Lord’s declaration, “One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.” And it appears, from Peter’s epistles, that he did not think himself superior in authority to the other apostles; for if he had entertained any imagination of that sort, insinuations of his superiority, if not direct assertions thereof, might have been expected in his epistles, and especially in their inscriptions; yet there is nothing of that sort in either of his letters. On the contrary, the highest title he takes to himself, in writing to the elders of the churches, is that of their “fellow-elder,” 1 Peter 5:1.
In the history of the Acts, no mention is made of Peter after the council of Jerusalem. But, from Galatians 2:11, it appears that after that council he was with Paul at Antioch; after which, it is generally supposed that he returned to Jerusalem. What happened to him after that is not said in the Scriptures; but, according to Eusebius, Origen, in his exposition on Genesis, wrote as follows: “Peter is supposed to have preached to the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; and at length, coming to Rome, was crucified with his head downward, himself having desired that his crucifixion might be in that manner.” Lardner thinks, that when he left Judea he went again to Antioch, the chief city of Syria, and thence into other parts of the continent, particularly those mentioned in the beginning of this epistle; and that, when he left those parts, he went to Rome; but not till after Paul had been in that city and was gone from it. If the reader wishes to see the evidences from antiquity, on which Peter’s having been at Rome rests, he will find them fully set forth by Lardner, (Can., vol. 3. c. 18,) who concludes his inquiry as follows: “This is the general, uncontradicted, disinterested testimony of ancient writers, in several parts of the world — Greeks, Latins, Syrians. As our Lord’s prediction, concerning the death of Peter, is recorded in one of the four gospels, it is very likely that Christians would observe the accomplishment of it; which must have been in some place. And about this place there is no difference among Christian writers of ancient times. Never any other place was named besides Rome; nor did any other city ever glory in the martyrdom of Peter. It is not for our honour, nor for our interest, either as Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained by early and well-attested traditions. If any make an ill use of such facts, we are not accountable for it. We are not, from a dread of such abuses, to overthrow the credit of all history, the consequence of which would be fatal.”
Learned men are not agreed to whom chiefly this epistle was addressed, whether to the converted Jews of the dispersion only, or to the converted Gentiles, or to both conjointly; or (which was Lord Barrington’s opinion, embraced and defended by Dr. Benson) to the converted proselytes of the gate. In this diversity of opinions, the only rule of determination, as Dr. Macknight observes, must be the inscriptions, together with the things contained in the epistle itself. Now from 2 Peter 3:1, it appears that both St. Peter’s epistles were sent to the same people; wherefore, since the inscription of the latter epistle is, “To them who have obtained like precious faith with us,” both epistles must have been addressed to believers in general. Accordingly the valediction in the first epistle is general, “Peace be with you all who are in Christ Jesus,” 1 Peter 5:14. So also is the inscription, Εκλεκτοις παρεπιδημοις διασπορας Ποντου, &c., “To the elect sojourners of the dispersion of Pontus,” &c. For the appellation of “sojourners” does not necessarily imply that this letter was written to none but Jewish believers. In Scripture all religious persons are called “sojourners and strangers,” because they do not consider this earth as their home, but look for a better country: therefore, in writing to the Gentile believers, Peter might call them “sojourners,” as well as the Jews, and exhort them to “pass the time of their sojourning here in fear;” and, beseech them “as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts,” 1 Peter 2:11. Further, he might term them “sojourners scattered” through those countries, although none of them were driven from their native countries, because the expression may merely signify, that they lived at a distance from each other, in the widely-extended regions mentioned in the inscription, and because they were few in number compared with the idolaters and unbelievers among whom they lived. Many other arguments might be drawn from divers passages in the epistles, to prove that they were written to the whole body of Christians residing in these countries, and that whether they were of Jewish or Gentile extraction. Respecting the design of this epistle it may be observed, that it was intended, 1. To explain more fully the doctrines of Christianity to these newly-converted Jews and Gentiles. 2. To direct and persuade them to a holy conversation, in the faithful discharge of all personal and relative duties, in the several states, both of the civil and the Christian life, whereby they would secure their own peace, and effectually confute the slanders and reproaches of their enemies, who spoke against them as evil-doers. 3. To prepare them for, and comfort and confirm them under, the various sufferings and fiery trials which they already endured, or were likely to endure. This seems to be the apostle’s principal intention, for he brings this subject forward, and enlarges less or more upon it, in every chapter; encouraging and exhorting them, by a great variety of arguments, to patience and perseverance in the faith, lest the persecutions and calamities to which they were exposed should cause them to apostatize from Christ and his gospel.
“St. Peter’s style,” says Blackwall, “expresses the noble vehemence and fervour of his spirit, the full knowledge he had of Christianity, and the strong assurance he had of the truth and certainty of his doctrine; and he writes with the authority of the first man in the college of the apostles. He writes with that quickness and rapidity of style, with that noble neglect of some of the formal consequences and niceties of grammar, still preserving its true reason and natural analogy, (which are always marks of a sublime genius,) that you can scarce perceive the pauses of his discourse, and distinction of his periods. A noble majesty, and becoming freedom, is what distinguishes St. Peter: a devout and judicious person cannot read him without solemn attention and awful concern. The conflagration of this lower world, and future judgment of angels and men, in the third chapter of the second epistle, is described in such strong and terrible terms, such awful circumstances, that in the description we see the planetary heavens and this our earth wrapped up with devouring flames, hear the groans of an expiring world, and the crashes of nature tumbling into universal ruin.” It is not very easy to assign the date of this epistle with exactness. The most commonly received opinion is, that it was written about the seventh of the emperor Nero, or A.D. 62.
Respecting the place where this epistle was written, from Peter sending the salutation of the church at Babylon to the Christians in Pontus, &c., it is generally believed that he wrote it near Babylon. But as there was a Babylon in Egypt, and a Babylon in Assyria, and a city to which the name of Babylon is given figuratively, (Revelation 17., 18.,) namely, Rome, the learned are not agreed which of them is the Babylon meant in the salutation. Pearson, Mill, and Le Clerc, think the apostle speaks of Babylon in Egypt: but if Peter had founded a church in the Egyptian Babylon, it probably would have been of some note; yet, if we may believe Lardner, there is no mention made of any church or bishop at that place, in any of the writers of the first four centuries; consequently it is not the Babylon in the salutation. Erasmus, Drusius, Beza, Lightfoot, Basnage, Beausobre, Cave, Wetstein, think the apostle meant Babylon in Assyria; in the remains, or vicinity, of which city, a Christian church had probably been planted, consisting principally of the descendants of the Jews, who remained in those regions after the Babylonish captivity: and in support of this opinion Dr. Benson observes, that the Assyrian Babylon being the metropolis of the eastern dispersion of the Jews, Peter, as an apostle of the circumcision, would very naturally, when he left Judea, go among the Jews at Babylon, and that it is not probable he would date his letter from a place by its figurative name. For which, indeed, no satisfactory reason could be assigned: language of that kind, however well it might be suited to the nature of such a book as St. John’s Revelation, (a book almost wholly figurative and emblematical,) being entirely unsuitable to the date of a letter.
Joseph Sutcliffe
The First Epistle of Peter.
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THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER.
OF St. Peter’s history the gospels are full, and St. Paul has placed him as the first apostle, and effectual minister to the circumcision. Galatians 2:8. Peter was with Paul at Antioch, which became the chief seat of christianity in Asia. When Peter was liberated from prison by the angel of the Lord, he deemed it not prudent to remain in the territories of Herod Agrippa; yet he was at the council held in that city. Acts 15:7. After this he travelled in proconsular Asia, as Origen on Genesis modestly asserts, “and preached to the scattered [jews and proselytes] in Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia and Asia. Afterwards, on coming to Rome, he was crucified with his head downward, having himself requested that his crucifixion might be in this manner.” He is supposed to have laboured about seven years in Antioch, and the adjacent provinces. F. Sixtus, a learned preacher at Sienna, in his Bibliotheca Sancta, anno 1626, mentions five books attributed to Peter, but which Pope Gelasius had accounted either suppositious or interpolated. These are,
1. On Preaching.
2. The Gospel.
3. The Acts.
4. The Revelation.
5. The Judgment.
Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome, as Linus writes, during the second year that he was bishop of that city. 2 Timothy 4:21. This epistle was written from Babylon, that is, from Rome, figuratively called Babylon, because she oppressed the church as ancient Babylon oppressed the jews. To think otherwise is a provocation; for before the apostles’ times Seleucia had drawn off the inhabitants from old Babylon, and left it an execrated ruin.
As Peter left Rome to go with Mark to Alexandria, about the year forty three or forty five, it is generally inferred, but with no certain evidence, that he wrote to the scattered flocks about that time. The epistle is full of excellence of doctrine, purity of morals, and fervour of exhortation. The opening chapter is generally allowed to be written in a style of great magnificence. See more on Acts 28.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction
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1 PETER.
INTRODUCTION
THE Apostle Peter, until his acquaintance with our Lord, was known simply as Simon, son of Jonas, and, like his father, was a fisherman of Bethsaida, in Galilee. He was a disciple of John the Baptist, and became, in order of time of selection, the third disciple of Jesus. It was in their memorable interview at the Jordan, near where John was continuing his ministry, that Jesus gave him the new name of Κηφας, Cephas, the Aramaic form of the Greek Πετρος, Peter, (John 1:42,) significant, doubtless, of what he would afterward become. As a married man he resided at Capernaum, and at his house Jesus seems to have made his home. His first call, and perhaps his second, (Matthew 4:19,) left him intervals for his trade of fishing; but the third (Luke 5:10) induced his leaving it permanently for the service of Christ, and being finally chosen one of the twelve apostles. Matthew 10:2. In that select company his natural promptness gave him an especial prominence. While he was in some sort a representative of the body, his over-confidence and impulsiveness sometimes led him into blunders, and exposed him to pointed rebukes from his Master. Yet with his prominence was no superiority or headship, but official equality with his fellow-apostles. His leadership in the Pentecostal Church is specially bold and marked; but he is always only primus inter pares; and nowhere does any papacy appear. To him was given the high honour of opening, against all his former ideas, the door of the Church to the Gentiles, (Acts 10:48,) although his special mission was to be to the Jews. And it is chiefly from his speeches in the Acts that we learn the full gospel as preached by the twelve apostles. After St. Peter’s deliverance from prison, and from Herod Agrippa, A.D. 44, “he went into another place,” (Acts 12:6-17,) and appears afterward in the Acts only at the Jerusalem Council, some six or seven years subsequently, (Acts 15:7-11,) where he gives his opinion, but neither presides nor pronounces the decree. A few months later he was at Antioch for a little time, (Galatians 2:11,) where he received a severe rebuke from St. Paul. The mention of his name in 1 Corinthians 1:12, etc., does not prove that he was ever at Corinth; and the account of Dionysius, making him joint founder with St. Paul of the Corinthian Church, is not confirmed by other good authority. Aside from these two notices, we have no certain knowledge of him after the year 44, except in the date of this epistle at “Babylon.”
Eusebius makes St. Peter founder of the Antioch Church, and afterward Bishop of Rome for twenty years. Jerome, following and enlarging, tells us that after he was Bishop of Antioch, and had preached in Pontus, Galatia, etc., in the second year of Claudius he journeyed to Rome to oppose Simon Magus, and was Bishop there for twenty-five years, until, in the last year of Nero, he was crucified with his head downward. That St. Peter founded the Antioch Church is contrary to the account in Acts 11:19-26; and that he was Bishop there is not sufficiently authenticated. The statement of his preaching in Pontus, etc., is taken from Origen, who only supposes it; and that about Simon Magus is probably based on Justin Martyr’s misreading of the inscription on a statue to the god Semo. The story of a twenty-five years’ Roman episcopate assumes that St. Peter left Palestine before the Council in A.D. 51, which is alike improbable, and inconsistent with Galatians 2:7-9. His position at the Council was evidently not that of head of the Church. It is not conceivable that, had he been at Rome, St. Paul could have written an epistle rich in salutations to the Roman Church with no greeting for him, or that the epistles sent by him while a prisoner should have no message from his fellow-apostle, or even mention of his name. We, therefore, reject the theory of the Roman residence and episcopate.
It is quite probable that St. Peter, after his release from prison, pursued his missionary work in Palestine until the time of the Council; that after a brief visit at Antioch he went “to the circumcision” in Pontus and the countries westward, visiting Churches already existing, and perhaps planting others; and that at length he turned his steps toward Babylon, on the Euphrates. The DISPERSION consisted of three great branches—the Babylonian, the Asiatic, and the Egyptian; the first of which was the most numerous, (more than two millions, according to Josephus,) wealthy, learned, and noble. It was truly a fitting field. From this place St. Peter wrote his first epistle. 1 Peter 5:13. Eusebius, however, writes: “Peter mentions Mark in his first epistle, which, they say, he wrote in Rome itself, and that he signifies this in calling that city figuratively Babylon.” But the authority is too weak. Besides, that St. John, thirty-five years later, so used the name in his highly-wrought symbolic diction, is no reason for the unpoetic Peter’s using it in the same way. Babylon in Egypt, and two or three other places of the same name, have had advocates, but there is no good ground to doubt that the Assyrian Babylon is meant. The fact that the countries to which the epistle is addressed are named in the order in which a writer at Babylon would naturally view them, confirms this conclusion. The epistle was universally accepted as authentic in the early Church, unless by one or two unimportant exceptions. It is quoted by Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Theodotus, Tertullian, and Eusebius; and, though not found in the Muratorian Canon, it is in the Peshito. Modern critics have objected to it as lacking originality or definite purpose, or as being too like in its expressions to those of St. Paul. That both apostles drew from the same fount cannot be doubted; and it were therefore absurd to expect their disagreement. The Pauline and Petrine theologies are opposed in no respect, save in the minds of the Tubingen critics. St. Peter was unquestionably familiar with most of the writings of his illustrious collaborator, and perhaps all of them, except First and Second Timothy and Titus; and it is not difficult to imagine, with Wordsworth, that in writing to persons who had been told of a disagreement between them in order to undermine St. Paul’s authority, he purposely used some of the latter’s thoughts and almost his expressions. Yet in treating the same topics it is inevitable that close resemblances should have occurred, but they are accompanied by such differences in thought and expression as prove both originality and independency. The style of our apostle is his own. His Judaic mind is full of Old Testament truth and imagery, but he subordinates it to the kingdom and glory of Christ. His purpose in writing is to encourage his readers to fidelity and endurance in view of their severe trials, and to confirm them in the broad truths of the gospel. 1 Peter 5:12. The suffering and the glory of both Christ and his people are the central point of his doctrine, encouragement, and exhortation for practical life.
The elect strangers of the dispersion would, of itself alone, indicate that the epistle was addressed to Jewish Christians, as was held by Eusebius, Jerome, Theophylact, Grotius, Bengel, and others; but such passages as 1 Peter 1:14; 2:10; and 4:3, 4, conclusively show that both Jewish and Gentile Christians are included.
Plan of the Epistle.
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As to the proper date of the epistle, we place it as late as A.D. 63, on account of the manifest acquaintance with St. Paul’s epistles, written during his first imprisonment. Mark was at Rome in A.D. 62, and was about going to Colosse, (Colossians 4:10;) and in A.D. 67 or 68 he was in Asia, perhaps at Ephesus. 2 Timothy 4:11. He was at Babylon at the time of this writing, (1 Peter 5:13,) and probably in this interval. It was in a time of persecution, but plainly not so severe as that under Nero; and it was after the epithet “Christian” (chap. 4:16) had become familiarly and widely known. The most probable time is early in A.D. 64. That St. Peter suffered martyrdom we know from John 21:18, 19, written after his death. The universal testimony of antiquity, east and west, is, that he was martyred at Rome by the order of Nero. So much of historic error and evident fable surrounds this testimony that it inevitably falls under heavy suspicion; but, on the other hand, there is no contrary statement, as might have been expected if it were without foundation. Tertullian first mentions his crucifixion, and says he was tied to the cross with cords; Origen, that he was fastened to the cross κατα κεφαλης, by the head, which Eusebius follows, only using the word “crucified;” and Jerome, expanding, says: “He was affixed to the cross, and crowned with martyrdom, with his head turned to the earth and his feet raised aloft, asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified as was his Lord.” Touching as is the story, the simple fact appears that he was crucified, not “head downward,” but fastened to the cross by the head. It seems most probable that the apostle was pursuing his work in Babylon when he was arrested by order of Nero, who had already seized St. Paul, that he was carried prisoner to Rome, and there executed in the last year of the tyrant’s reign. PLAN OF THE EPISTLE.
I. THE BLESSEDNESS AND GLORY OF THE GOSPEL SALVATION 1 Peter 1:3-2:8
1. Hope looking toward the heavenly inheritance 1 Peter 1:3-5
2. Joy in the blissful prospect in contrast with severe temporary trial 1 Peter 1:6, 7
3. Joy in present blessedness 1 Peter 1:8, 9
4. The prophets studying their predictions of Messiah’s sufferings and glory 1 Peter 1:10-12
5. Angelic interest in the great salvation 1 Peter 1:12
6. Exhortations based upon the foregoing 1 Peter 1:13-1 Peter 2:8
a. To firm, enduring hope 1 Peter 1:13
b. To obedience after the pattern of Christ 1 Peter 1:14-16 c. To fear in view of the judgment 1 Peter 1:17-21 d. To fervent love to one another 1 Peter 1:22-25 e. To growth in spiritual life 1 Peter 2:1-8
II. THE HIGH CALLING, DIGNITY, AND DUTIES OF THE NEW AND SPIRITUAL ISRAEL 1 Peter 2:9-1 Peter 3:12
1. The Christian Israel described 1 Peter 2:9, 10
2. Conduct becoming among the heathen 1 Peter 2:11, 12
3. Subjection to civil authority 1 Peter 2:13-17
4. Patience of servants under ill-treatment 1 Peter 2:18-25
5. Wives and husbands 1 Peter 3:1-7
6. General counsels 1 Peter 3:8-12
III. THE BEARING PROPER FOR CHRISTIANS UNDER PERSECUTION 1 Peter 3:13-5:14
1. The blessedness of sufferers for righteousness 1 Peter 3:13-15
2. Readiness for a suitable defence of their faith 1 Peter 3:15, 16
3. The excellence of suffering innocently, stated, and illustrated in the suffering and triumph of Christ 1 Peter 3:17-22
4. Christ’s example of holiness to be followed 1 Peter 4:1-6
5. The law of holiness enforced by the coming end of all things 1 Peter 4:7-11
6. Special consideration of the persecution then immanent, with warnings 1 Peter 4:12-19
7. Exhortations to the elders, and also to the Church 1 Peter 5:1-9
8. Benedictions, salutations, and conclusion 1 Peter 5:10-14