And to show how baseless is the objection drawn from Peter's supposed dependence on Paul, it may be added that similarity in some cases may be traced between Peter and John. In many re spects Paul and John are utterly unlike, yet Peter occasionally resembles both, though it is not sur mised that he was an imitator of the beloved disciple. Such accidental resemblance to two styles of thought so unlike in themselves, is surely proof of his independence of both, for he stands mid-way, as it were, between the objectivity of Paul and the subjectivity of John ; inclining some times to the one side, and sometimes to the other, and occasionally combining both peculiarities of thought. Thus, one may compare I Pet. i. 22 with i John iii. 3 in the use of ; i Pet. i. 23 with i John iii. 9 in the similar use of cnropEis and arepAct, denoting the vital germ out of which regene ration springs ; i Pet. v. 2 with John x. 16 in the use of woriajv; I Pet. iii. 18 and i John iii. 7 in the application of the epithet diKaros to Christ ; Pet. iii. 18, John i. 29, in calling him d„uv6s. Such similarities only prove independent authorship. In the resemblances to James, which are sometimes adduced, the chief similarity consists in the use of O. T. quotations. Thus compare I Pet. i. 24 with James i. to ; ii. 5, with James iv. 6, to ; iv. 8 with James v. 20. What, then, do these more frequent resemblances to Paul, and the fewer to John and James prove ? not, with De Wette, the dependence of Peter on Paul ; nor, with Weiss, the depend ence of Paul on Peter (Der Petrie. Lehrbeg., p. 374) ; but that Peter, in teaching similar truths, occasionally employs similar terms ; while the sur rounding illustration is so various and significant that such similarity can be called neither tame re iteration nor unconscious reminiscence. With much that is common in creed, there is more that is distinctive in utterance, originating in difference of spiritual temperament, or moulded by the adap tation of truth to the inner or outer condition of the churches for whom this epistle was designed.
But apart from the style and language of the epistle, objections have been brought against it by Schwegler, who alleges the want of special occasion for writing it, and the consequent generality of the contents (Das Araehapostol. Zeitalt., ii. p. 7). The reply is that the epistle bears upon its front such a purpose as well suits the vocation of an apostle. Nor is there in it, as we have seen, that want of in dividuality which Schwegler next alleges. It bears upon it the stamp of its author's fervent spirit ; nor dues its use of O. T. imagery and allusions belie his functions as the apostle of the circumcision ( \ Viesinger, Einl. 21). If there be the want of close connection of thought, as Schwegler also asserts, is not this want of logical sequence and symmetry quite in keeping with the antecedents of him who had been trained in no school of human learning? Nor is it any real difficulty to say that Peter in the East could not have become acquainted with the later epistles of Paul. For in various ways might Peter have known Paul's epistles ; and granting that there is a resemblance to some of the earlier of them, there is little or none to the latest of them. Schwegler holds that the epistle alludes to the per secution under Nero, during which Peter suffered, and that therefore his writing it at Babylon is in consistent with his martyrdom at the same period at Rome. The objection, however, takes for granted what is denied. It is a sufficient reply to say that the persecution referred to was not, of may not have been, the Neronian persecution, anG that the apostle was not put to death at the sup posed period of Nero's reign. There is not in the epistle any direct allusion to actual persecution ; the droXo-yla (iii. 15) is not a formal answer to a public accusation, for it is to be given to every one asking it (Huther, Kritisch Exesetisch Handbuch iiber den 1 Brief des Feints, Einleit., p. 27). The epistle in all its leading features is in unison with what it professes to he—an earnest and practical letter from one whose heart was set on the well being of the churches, one who may have read many of Paul's letters and thanked God for them—and who,in addressing the churches himself, clothes his thoughts in language the readiest and most natural to him, without any timid selection or refusal of words and phrases which others may have used before him.
Place and Time.—The place is indicated in v. 13, in the clause clo-rciterat iwiris 47 tv papvX@vc QtvEK XEKT47. Babylon is named as the place where the apostle was when he wrote the epistle, as he sends this salutation from it, on the part of a woman, as Mayerhoff, Neander, Alford, and others suppose ; or on the part of a church, as is the opinion of the majority. It is remarkable, however, that from early times Babylon has been taken to signify Rome. This opinion is ascribed by Eusebius on report to Papias and Clement of Alexandria (Hist. Eccles., ii. 15). Jerome and CEcumenius also held it. In later times it has been espoused by Grotius, Cave, Lard ner, Hengstenberg, Windischmann, Wiesinger, Baur, Thiersch, Schott (der I Brief Pet. Erklart., p. 346, Erlangen i861), and Hofmann (Schrift& i. 201). But why discover a mystical sense in a name set down as the place of writing an epistle ? There is no more reason for doing this than for as signing a like significance to the geographical names in i. 1. How could his readers discover the church at Rome to be meant by 47 owercXercrb in Babylon ? And if Babylon do signify a hostile spiritual power, as in the Apocalypse (xviii. 21), then it is strange that Catholic critics as a body should adopt such a meaning here and admit by implication the ascrip tion of this character to their spiritual metro polis. Dr. Brown of Edinburgh puts a somewhat parallel case—' Our own city is sometimes called Athens from its situation, and from its being a seat of learning ; but it would not do to argue that a letter came from Edinburgh because it is dated from Athens ' (Expository discourses on 1st Peter, P. Some, again, think that Babylon may mean a place of that name in Egypt. Of this opinion are Le Clerc, Mill, Pearson, Pott, Burton, Greswell, and Hug. Strabo (Geog., xvii. I. 30) calls it not a town, but a strong fortress built by refugees from Babylon, and a garrison for one of the three legions guarding Egypt. The opinion that this small encampment is the Babylon of our epistle has certainly little plausibility. It is equally strange to suppose it to be Ctesiphon or Selene's ; and stranger still to imagine that Babylon represents Jerusalem, as is maintained by Cappellus, Span heim, Harduin, and Semler. The natural inter pretation is to take Babylon as the name of the well-known city. We have indeed no record of any missionary journey of Peter into Chaldzea, for but little of Peter's later life is given us in the N. T. But we know that many Jews inhabited Baby lon—d -yap 6XI-yoc yvpLdSes, according to Josephus —and was not such a spot, to a great extent a Jewish colony or settlement, likely to attract the apostle of the circumcision ? Lardner's principal argument, that the terms of the injunction to loyal obedience (ii. 13, 14) imply that Peter was within the bounds of the Roman empire, proves nothing ; for as Davidson remarks—' The phrase, the king,' in a letter written by a person in one country to a person in another, may mean the king either of the person writing, or of him to whom the letter is written.' Granting that the Parthian empire had its own government, he is writing to persons in other provinces under Roman jurisdiction, and he enjoins them to obey the emperor as supreme, and the various governors sent by him for purposes of local administration. Moreover, as has been often observed, the countries of the persons ad dressed in the epistle (i. i) are enumerated in the order in which a person writing from Babylon would naturally arrange them, beginning with those lying nearest to him, and passing in cir cuit to those in the west and the south, at the greatest distance from him. The natural meaning of the designation Babylon is held by Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, Lightfoot, Wieseler, Mayerhoff, Bengel, De \Vette, Bleek, and perhaps the majority of modern critics.