Inspired by such associations and remembrances, and by the spirit of
simple truth and sincerity, Peter wrote his first epistle, which he
directed to his Jewish brethren in several sections of Asia Minor,
who had probably been brought under his ministry only in Jerusalem,
on their visits there in attendance on the great annual feasts, which
in all years, as in that of the Pentecost on which the Spirit was
outpoured, came up to the Holy city to worship; for there is no _proof_
whatever, that Peter ever visited those countries to which he sent
this letter. The character of the evidence offered, has been already
mentioned. These believers in Christ had, during their annual visits
to Jerusalem for many years, been in the habit of seeing there this
venerable apostolic chief, and of hearing from his lips the gospel
truth. But the changes of events having made it necessary for him to
depart from Jerusalem to the peaceful lands of the east, the annual
visitors of the Holy city from the west, no longer enjoyed the presence
and the spoken words of this greatest teacher. To console them for
this loss, and to supply that spiritual instruction which seemed most
needful to them in their immediate circumstances, he now wrote to them
this epistle; the main purport of which seems to be, to inspire them
with courage and consolation, under some weight of general suffering,
then endured by them or impending over them. Indeed, the whole scope
of the epistle bears most manifestly on this one particular point,――the
preparation of its readers, the Christian communities of Asia Minor,
for heavy sufferings. It is not, to be sure, without many moral
instructions, valuable in a mere general bearing, but all therein
given have a peculiar force in reference to the solemn preparation
for the endurance of calamities, soon to fall on them. The earnest
exhortations which it contains, urging them to maintain a pure
conscience, to refute the calumnies of time by innocence,――to show
respect for the magistracy,――to unite in so much the greater love and
fidelity,――with many others, are all evidently intended to provide
them with the virtues which would sustain them under the fearful doom
then threatening them. In the pursuance of the same great design, the
apostle calls their attention with peculiar earnestness to the bright
example of Jesus Christ, whose behavior in suffering was now held up to
them as a model and guide in their afflictions. With this noble pattern
in view, the apostle calls on them to go on in their blameless way, in
spite of all that affliction might throw in the path of duty.
_No proof that he ever visited them._――The learned Hug, _truly_
catholic (but not papistical) in his views of these points,
though connected with the Roman church, has honestly taken
his stand against the foolish inventions on which so much
time has been spent above. He says, “Peter had not seen the
Asiatic provinces; they were situated in the circuit of Paul’s
department, who had traveled through them, instructed them,
and even at a distance, and in prison, did not lose sight of
them.” (As witness his epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians,
and Colossians, all which are comprehended within the circle
to which Peter wrote.) “He was acquainted with their mode of
life, foibles, virtues and imperfections; their whole condition,
and the manner in which they ought to be treated.” The learned
writer, however, does not seem to have fully appreciated Peter’s
numerous and continual opportunities for personal communications
with these converts at Jerusalem. In the brief allusion made in
Acts ii. 9, 10, to the foreign Jews visiting Jerusalem at the
pentecost, three of the very countries to which Peter writes,
“Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,” are commemorated with other
neighboring regions, “Phrygia and Pamphylia.” Hug goes on,
however, to trace several striking and interesting coincidences
between this epistle and those of Paul to the Ephesians, to
the Colossians and to Timothy, all which were directed to this
region. (Hug’s introduction to New Testament, volume II. § 160.)
He observes that “Peter is so far from denying his acquaintance
with the epistles of Paul, that he even in express terms refers
his readers to these compositions of his ‘beloved brother,’
(2 Peter iii. 15.) and recommends them to them.” Hug, also,
in the succeeding section, (§ 161,) points out some still more
remarkable coincidences between this and the epistle of James,
which, in several passages, are exactly uniform. As 1 Peter i.
6, 7, and James i. 2:――1 Peter i. 24, and James i. 10:――1 Peter
v. 5, 6, and James iv. 6‒10.
_Asia._――It must be understood that there are three totally
distinct applications of this name; and without a remembrance of
the fact, the whole subject will be in an inextricable confusion.
In modern geography, as is well known, it is applied to all that
part of the eastern continent which is bounded west by Europe
and Africa, and south by the Indian ocean. It is also applied
sometimes under the limitation of “Minor,” or “Lesser,” to that
part of Great Asia, which lies between the Mediterranean and the
Black sea. But in this passage it is not used in either of these
extended senses. It is confined to that very narrow section of
the eastern coast of the Aegean sea, which stretches from the
Caicus to the Meander, including but a few miles of territory
inland, in which were the seven cities to which John wrote in
the Apocalypse. The same tract also bore the name of Maeonia.
Asia Minor, in the modern sense of the term, is also frequently
alluded to in Acts, but no where else in the New Testament
unless we adopt Griesbach’s reading of Romans xvi. 5, (Asia
instead of Achaia.)
In the outset of his address, he greets them as “strangers” in all the
various lands throughout which they were “scattered,”――bearing every
where the stamp of a peculiar people, foreign in manners, principles
and in conduct, to the indigenous races of the regions in which they
had made their home, yet sharing, at the same time, the sorrows and
the glories of the doomed nation from which they drew their origin,――a
_chosen_, an “elect” order of people, prepared in the counsels of God
for a high and holy destiny, by the consecrating influence of a spirit
of truth. Pointing them to that hope of an unchanging, undefiled,
unfading heritage in the heavens, above the temporary sorrows of the
earth, he teaches them to find in that, the consolation needful in
their various trials. These trials, in various parts of his work, he
speaks of as inevitable and dreadful,――yet appointed by the decrees of
God himself as a fiery test, beginning its judgments, indeed, in his
own household, but ending in a vastly more awful doom on those who had
not the support and safety of obedience to his warning word of truth.
All these things are said by way of premonition, to put them on their
guard against the onset of approaching evil, lest they should think
it strange that a dispensation so cruel should visit them; when, in
reality, it was an occasion for joy, that they should thus be made,
in suffering, partakers of the glory of Christ, won in like manner. He
moreover warns them to keep a constant watch over their conduct, to be
prudent and careful, because “the accusing prosecutor” was constantly
prowling around them, seeking to attack some one of them with his
devouring accusations. Him they were to meet, with a solid adherence
to the faith, knowing as they did, that the responsibilities of their
religious profession were not confined within the narrow circle of
their own sectional limits, but were shared with their brethren in the
faith throughout almost the whole world.
From all these particulars the conclusion is inevitable, that there was
in the condition of the Christians to whom he wrote, a most remarkable
crisis just occurring,――one too of no limited or local character;
and that throughout Asia Minor and the whole empire, a trying time
of universal trouble was immediately beginning with all who owned the
faith of Jesus. The widely extended character of the evil, necessarily
implies its emanation from the supreme power of the empire, which,
bounded by no provincial limits, would sweep through the world in
desolating fury on the righteous sufferers; nor is there any event
recorded in the history of those ages, which could thus have affected
the Christian communities, except the first Christian persecution, in
which Nero, with wanton malice, set the example of cruel, unfounded
accusation, that soon spread throughout his whole empire, bringing
suffering and death to thousands of faithful believers.
_Accusing prosecutor._――The view which Hug takes of the scope
of the epistle, throws new light on the true meaning of this
passage, and abundantly justifies this new translation, though
none of the great New Testament lexicographers support it.
The primary, simple senses of the words also, help to justify
the usage, as well as their similar force in other passages.
A reference to any lexicon will show that elsewhere, these
words bear a meaning accordant with this version. The first noun
never occurs in the New Testament except in a _legal_ sense. The
Greek is Ὁ αντιδικος ὑμων διαβολος, (1 Peter v. 8,) in which the
last word (_diabolos_) need not be construed as a substantive
expression, but may be made an adjective, belonging to the
second word, (_antidikos_.) The last word, under these
circumstances, need not necessarily mean “the devil,” in
any sense; but referring directly to the simple sense of its
primitive, must be made to mean “calumniating,” “slanderous,”
“accusing,”――and in connection with the technical, legal term,
αντιδικος, (whose primary, etymological sense is uniformly a
_legal_ one, “the plaintiff or prosecutor in a suit at law,”)
can mean only “the calumniating (or accusing) prosecutor.” The
common writers on the epistle, being utterly ignorant of its
general scope, have failed to apprehend the true force of this
expression; but the clear, critical judgment of Rosenmueller,
(though he also was without the advantage of a knowledge of
its history,) led him at once to see the greater justice of the
view here given; and he accordingly adopts it, yet not with the
definite, technical application of terms justly belonging to the
passage. He refers vaguely to others who have taken this view,
but does not give names.
_The time_ when this epistle was written is very variously fixed
by the different writers to whom I have above referred. Lardner
dating it at Rome, concludes that the time was between A. D. 63
and 65, because he thinks that Peter could not have arrived at
Rome earlier. This inference depends entirely on what he does
not prove,――the assertion that by Babylon, in the date, is meant
Rome. The proofs of its being another place, which I have given
above, will therefore require that it should have been written
before that time, if Peter did then go to Rome. And Michaelis
seems to ground upon this notion his belief, that it “was
written either not long before, or not long after, the year 60.”
But the nobly impartial Hug comes to our aid again, with the
sentence, which, though bearing against a fiction most desirable
for his church, he unhesitatingly passes on its date. From his
admirable detail of the contents and design of the epistle, he
makes it evident that it was written (from Babylon) some years
after the time when Peter is commonly said to have gone to Rome,
never to return. This is the opinion which I have necessarily
adopted, after taking his view of the design of the epistle.
Another series of passages in this epistle refers to the remarkable
fact, that the Christians were at that time suffering under an
accusation that they were “evil-doers,” malefactors, criminals liable
to the vengeance of the law; and that this accusation was so general,
that the name, Christian, was already a term denoting a criminal
directly liable to this legal vengeance. This certainly was a state of
things hitherto totally unparalleled in the history of the followers
of Christ. In all the accounts previously given of the nature of the
attacks made on them by their enemies, it is made to appear that no
accusation whatever was sustained or even brought against them, in
reference to moral or legal offences; but they were always presented in
the light of mere religious dissenters and sectaries. At Corinth, the
independent and equitable Gallio dismissed them from the judgment-seat,
with the upright decision that they were chargeable with no crime
whatever. Felix and Festus, with king Agrippa II., also, alike esteemed
the whole procedure against Paul as a mere theological or religious
affair, relating to doctrines and not to moral actions. At Ephesus,
even one of the high officers of the city did not hesitate to declare,
in the face of a mob raging against Paul and his companions, that they
were innocent of all crime. And even as late as the seventh year of
Nero, the name of Christian had so little of an odious or criminal
character, that Agrippa II. did not disdain to declare himself almost
persuaded to assume the name and character. And the whole course of
their history abundantly shows, that so far from the idea of attacking
the Christian brotherhood in a mass, as guilty of legal offenses,
and making their very name nearly synonymous with criminal, no trace
whatever of such an attack appears, until three years after the last
mentioned date, when Nero charged the Christians, as a sect, with
his own atrocious crime, the dreadful devastation by fire of his own
capital; and on this ground, every where instituted a cruel persecution
against them. In connection with this procedure, the Christians are
first mentioned in Roman history, as a new and peculiar class of people,
called _Christiani_, from their founder, _Christus_; and in reference
to this matter, abusive charges are brought against them.
_Evil doers._――These passages are in ii. 12, iii. 16, iv. 15,
where the word in Greek is κακοποιοι, (_kakopoioi_,) which
means a malefactor, as is shown in John xviii. 30, where the
whole point of the remark consists in the fact, that the person
spoken of was considered an actual violator of known law; so
that the word is evidently limited throughout, to those who were
_criminals in the eye of the law_.
_The name Christian denoting a criminal._――This is manifest from
iv. 16, where they are exhorted to suffer for this alone, and to
give no occasion whatever for any other criminal accusation.
Illustration: BETHLEHEM, AT NIGHT.
A third characteristic of the circumstances of those to whom this
epistle is addressed, is, that they were obliged to be constantly on
their guard against accusations, which would expose them to capital
punishment. They were objects of scorn and obloquy, and were to
expect to be dragged to trial as thieves, murderers, and as wretches
conspiring secretly against the public peace and safety; and to
all this they were liable in their character as Christians. The
apostle, therefore, in deep solicitude for the dreadful condition and
liabilities of his friends, warns those who, in spite of innocence, are
thus made to suffer, to consider all their afflictions as in accordance
with the wise will of God, and, in an upright course of conduct, to
commit the keeping of their souls to him, as a faithful guardian, who
would not allow the permanent injury of the souls which he had created.
Now, not even a conjecture can be made, much less, any historical proof
be brought, that beyond Palestine any person had ever yet been made to
suffer death on the score of religion, or of any stigma attaching to
that sect, before the time when Nero involved them in the cruel charge
just mentioned. The date of the first instances of such persecutions
was the eleventh year of the reign of Nero, under the consulships of
Caius Lecanius Bassus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, according to the
Roman annals. The commencement of the burning of Rome, which was the
occasion of this first attack on the Christians, was in the last part
of the month of July; but the persecution did not begin immediately.
After various contrivances to avert the indignation of the people from
their imperial destroyer, the Christians were seized as a proper
expiatory sacrifice, the choice being favored by the general dislike
with which they were regarded. This attack being deferred for some
time after the burning, could not have occurred till late in that
year. The epistle cannot have been written before its occurrence, nor
indeed until some time afterwards; because a few months must be allowed
for the account of it to spread to the provinces of Asia, and it must
have been still later when the news of the difficulty could reach
the apostle, so as to enable him to appreciate the danger of those
Christians who were under the dominion of the Romans. It is evident,
then, that the epistle was not written in the same year in which the
burning occurred; but in the subsequent one, the twelfth of Nero’s
reign, and the sixty-fifth of the Christian era. By that time the
condition and prospects of the Christians throughout the empire were
such as to excite the deepest solicitude in the great apostle, who,
though himself residing in the great Parthian empire, removed from
all danger of injury from the Roman emperor, was by no means disposed
to forget the high claims the sufferers had on him for counsel and
consolation. This dreadful event was the most important which had ever
yet befallen the Christians, and there would certainly be just occasion
for surprise, if it had called forth no consolatory testimony from
the founders of the faith, and if no trace of it could be found in the
apostolic records.
_Committing the keeping of their souls to God._――This view of
the design of the epistle gives new force to this passage, (iv.
19.)
_First mentioned in Roman history._――This is by Tacitus, (Annals
xv. 44,) who thus speaks of them:――“Nero condendae urbis novae
et cognomento suo appellandae gloriam quaerere, et sic jussum
incendium credebatur. Ergo abolendo rumori subdidit reos,
et quaesitissimis poenis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos,
vulgus Christianos appellabat,” &c.――“It was believed that Nero,
desirous of building the city anew, and of calling it by his
surname, had thus caused its burning. To get rid of this general
impression, therefore, he brought under this accusation, and
visited with the most exquisite punishments, a set of persons,
hateful for their crimes, commonly called Christians. The name
was derived from Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was
seized and punished by Pontius Pilate, the procurator. The
ruinous superstition, though checked for a while, broke out
again, not only in Judea, the source of the evil, but also in
the city, (Rome.) Therefore those who professed it were first
seized, and then, on their confession, a great number of others
were convicted, not so much on the charge of the arson, as on
account of the universal hatred which existed against them. And
their deaths were made amusing exhibitions, as, being covered
with the skins of wild beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs,
or were nailed to crosses, or, being daubed with combustible
stuff, were burned by way of light, in the darkness, after the
close of day. Nero opened his own gardens for the show, and
mingled with the lowest part of the throng, on the occasion.”
(The description of the cruel manner in which they were burned,
may serve as a forcible illustration of the meaning of “the
fiery trial,” to which Peter alludes, iv. 12.) By Suetonius,
also, they are briefly mentioned. (Nero, chapter 15.) “Afflicti
suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae et
_maleficae_.”――“The Christians, a sort of men of a new and
pernicious (_evil doing_) superstition, were visited with
punishments.”
That this Neronian persecution was as extensive as is here
made to appear, is proved by Lardner and Hug. The former in
particular, gives several very interesting evidences, in his
“Heathen testimonies,” especially the remarkable inscription
referring to this persecution, found in Portugal. (Collection
of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, chapter iii.)
From the uniform tone in which the apostle alludes to the danger as
threatening only his readers, without the slightest allusion to the
circumstance of his being involved in the difficulty, is drawn another
important confirmation of the locality of the epistle. He uniformly
uses the second person when referring to trials, but if he himself had
then been so situated as to share in the calamity for which he strove
to prepare them, he would have been very apt to have expressed his own
feelings in view of the common evil. Paul, in those epistles which were
written under circumstances of personal distress, is very full of warm
expressions of the state of mind in which he met his trials; nor was
there in Peter any lack of the fervid energy that would burst forth in
similarly eloquent sympathy, on the like occasions. But from Babylon,
beyond the bounds of Roman sway, he looked on their sufferings only
with that pure sympathy which his regard for his brethren would excite;
and it is not to be wondered, then, that he uses the second person
merely, in speaking of their distresses. The bearer of this epistle to
the distressed Christians of Asia Minor, is named Silvanus, generally
supposed to be the same with Silvanus or Silas, mentioned in Paul’s
epistles, and in the Acts, as the companion of Paul in his journeys
through some of those provinces to which Peter now wrote. There is
great probability in this conjecture, nor is there anything that
contradicts it in the slightest degree; and it may therefore be
considered as true. Some other great object may at this time have
required his presence among them, or he may have been then passing on
his journey to rejoin Paul, thus executing this commission incidentally.
This view of the scope and contents of this epistle is taken
from Hug, who seems to have originated it. At least I can
find nothing of it in any other author whom I have consulted.
Michaelis, for instance, though evidently apprehending the
general tendency of the epistle, and its design to prepare its
readers for the coming of some dreadful calamity, was not led
thereby to the just apprehension of the historical circumstances
therewith connected. (Hug, II. §§ 162‒165.――Michaelis Vol. IV.
chapter xxvii. §§ 1‒7.)