But if Peter wrote from Babylon on the Euphra tes, at what period was the epistle written ? The epistle itself contains no materials for fixing a pre cise date. It does not by its allusions clearly point to the STeronian persecution ; it rather speaks of evil and danger suffered now, but with more in pro spect. Suffering was endured and was also impend ing, and yet those who lived a quiet and blameless life might escape it, though certainly trials for righteousness' sake are implied and virtually pre dicted. About the year 60 the dark elements of Nero's character began to develope themselves, and after this epoch the epistle was written. The churches addressed in it were mostly planted by Paul, and it is therefore thought by some that Paul must have been deceased ere Peter would find it his duty to address them. Paul was put to death about 67 A.D. ; but such a date would be too late for our epistle, as time would not, on such a hypothesis, be left for the apostle's going to Rome, according to old tradition, and for his martyrdom in that city. It may be admitted that Peter would not have intruded into Paul's sphere had Paul been free to write to, or labour in, the provinces specified. Still it may be supposed that Paul may have withdrawn to some more distant field of labour, or may have been suffering im prisonment at Rome. Davidson places the date in 63 ; Alford between 63 and 67. If the Mark of v. 13 be he of whom Paul speaks as being with him in Rome (Coloss. iv. Jo), then we know that he was purposing an immediate journey to Asia Minor ; and we learn from 2 Tim. iv. 11 that he had not returned when this last of Paul's epistles was written. It is surely not impossible for him to have gone in this interval to Peter at Babylon ; and as he must have personally known the churches addressed by Peter, his salutation was naturally in cluded by the apostle. Sylvanus—by whom the apostle was sent, if the same with the Sylvanus mentioned in the greetings 1 Thess. i. I ; 2 Thess. i. I—seems to have left Paul before the epistles to Corinth were written. He may have in some way become connected with Peter, and as the Silas of the Acts, he was acquainted with many of the churches to whom this epistle was sent. The terms, a faithful brother as I suppose,' faithful brother as I reckon,' do not imply any doubt of his character, but are only an additional recommenda tion to one whose companionship with Paul must have been known in the provinces enumerated by Peter.
But Schwegler ascribes the epistle to a later period—to the age of Trojan ; and of course denies • its apostolic authorship (Nachapostol. Zeitalt., 22). The arguments, however, for so late a date are very inconclusive. He first of all assumes that its language does not tally with the facts of the Neronian persecution, and that the tone is unim passioned (leidenschaftlose Ton)—that Christians were charged with definite crime under Nero—that his persecution did not extend beyond Rome—that it was tumultuary, and not, as this epistle supposes, conducted by regular processes, unter rechtlichen Formen, and that the general condition of believers in Asia Minor, as depicted in the epistle, suits the age of Trojan better than that of Nero. The reply is obvious—that the tranquillity of tone in this epistle would be remarkable under any persecution, for it is that of calm heroic endurance, which trusts in an unseen arm and has hopes undimmed by death ; that the persecution of Christians simply for the name which they bore was not an irrational ferocity peculiar to Trajan's time ; that in the provinces Christians were always exposed to popular fury and irregular magisterial condemnation ; that there is no allusion to judicial trial in the epistle, for the word etroXcryta does not imply it ; and that the sufferings of Christians in Asia Minor as referred to or predicted do not agree with the recorded facts in Pliny's letter, for according to it they were by a formal investigation and sentence doomed to death (Huther, 1st Peter, Einleit., p. 28). The
persecutions referred to in this epistle are rather such as Christians have always to encounter in heathen countries from an ignorant mob easily stirred to violence, and where the civil power, though inclined to toleration in theory, is yet swayed by strong prejudices, and prone, from position and policy, to favour and protect the dominant super stition.
Persons for whom the Epistle was addressed.— From some expressions in the epistle many have thought that it was meant for Jewish Christians. The words of the salutation are—e,cXeKrOis rrape irt34ktoms &coTapas II6vrou, etc.— ' to the elect strangers of the dispersion,' etc. Viewed by them selves the words seem to refer to Jews—Siacrwopd, being often employed to designate Jews living out of Palestine. This opinion is held by many of the fathers, as Eusebius, Jerome, and Theophylact, and by Erasmus, Calvin, Reza, Grotius, Bengel, Hug, and Pott. A modification of this extreme view is maintained by Gerhard, Wolf, Jachmann, and Weiss, viz., that Jewish converts were chiefly regarded in the mass of Gentile believers. The arguments of Weiss need not be repeated, and they are well met by Huther, 1st Peter, Einleit., p. 21. But there are many things in the epistle quite irre concilable with the idea of its being meant either solely or principally for Jewish believers. He tells his readers that sufficient was the past for them to have wrought out the will of the Gentiles—as in deed ye walked in lasciviousness, wine-bibhing, revellings, drinking-bouts, and forbidden idolatries' —sins all of them, and the last particularly, which specially characterised the heathen world. Similarly does he speak (i. 14) of former lusts in your ignorance ;' (iii. 6), of Sarah ` whose daughters ye have become '—e-yEvijOve—they being not so by birth or blood. In ii. 9, so, they are said to be ` called out of darkness,' to have been ` in time past not a people, but now the people of God.' The last words, referring originally to Israel, had been already applied by Paul to Gentile believers in Rom. ix. 25. The term Staaropci may be used in a spiritual sense, and such a use is warranted by other clauses of the epistle—i. 17, the time of your sojourning ;' ii. I1, ` strangers and pilgrims.' Peter, whose prepossessions had been so Jewish, and whose soul moved so much in the sphere of Jewish ideas from his very function as the apostle of the circumcision, instinctively- employs national terms in that new and enlarged spiritual meaning which, through their connection with Christianity, they had come to bear. Besides, the history of the origin of these churches in Asia Minor shows that they were composed to a large extent of Gentile believers. Many of them may have been proselytes, though, as \Vieseler has shown, it is wrong in. Michaelis, Creduer, and Neudecker, to apply to such exclusively the terms in the address of this epistle. Nor is it at all a likely thing that Peter should have selected one portion of these churches and written alone or mainly to them. The provinces (i. included the churches in Galatia which are not named in Acts, as Ancyra and Pessinus, and the other communities in Iconium, Lystra, the Pisidian Antioch, Miletus, Colosse, Laodicea, Philadelphia, Thyatira, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Troas, etc. (Steiger, sec. 6). That the persons addressed in the epistle were Gentiles is the view of Augus tine, Luther, \Vetstein, Steiger, Bruckner, Mayer hoff, Wiesinger, Neander, Reuss, Schaff, and Huther.