Introduction to 1 Peter

Introduction to 1 Peter

Scholarship thrives on debate. Yet in contrast to the case with Paul’s letters, debates exist even concerning the genre of 1 Peter. Is it “a baptismal sermon in the form of an epistle”?1 First Peter includes some common early Christian themes possibly circulated in catechetical materials.2 Evidence is not, however, sufficient to determine that it reflects a paschal vigil (as some have proposed)3 or a baptismal homily or even liturgy;4 dependence on traditional material need not entail that 1 Peter is strictly liturgical5 or a baptismal homily in particular.6 Early baptismal instructions may well have employed images of putting off the old life and putting on the new, and subsequent teaching (such as in 1 Peter) could evoke such familiar images, but this letter mentions baptism explicitly only once (1 Pet. 3:21).

None of these reservations deny the possibility that 1 Peter could include sermonic material converted into epistolary format.7 Since I have friends whose aides converted their sermons into books, the idea seems quite plausible to me in principle.

But most scholars today view 1 Peter as a genuine letter,8 nearly always now as a literary unity.9 The epistolary frame raises issues also treated in the letter, and theories about its prehistory are necessarily speculative.10 This epistolary consensus, with which I concur, succeeds, however, only if we also recognize that letter styles range from rudimentary news updates or business correspondence to letter essays.11 The vast majority of ancient letters were brief, an average of roughly eighty-seven words long, whereas 1 Peter is closer to 1,700 words in length.12 Ancient critics would regard such long letters as more like essays than letters.13 Moreover, the level of Greek in 1 Peter far exceeds the level found in typical papyri.14

Ancient epistolary theorists do not ordinarily discuss public letters such as some of those in the NT.15 In general, ancient letters were supposed to be conversational.16 Yet while some ancient essays or other works have epistolary frames,17 1 Peter is not simply an essay with an epistolary introduction and farewell. It is somewhat more like a letter essay in its length, arrangement, and depth, but it remains tied to the original (or ideal) situation. As a circular letter, however (see 1:1), it is not limited to a local situation in any one city, unless perhaps the author’s own.

First Peter is not simply an essay, but neither is it a private letter to an individual, in contrast to most extant ancient letters.18 Exhortation, which is common in Paul’s letters and in 1 Peter, is much more characteristic of moral philosophy than of the interests addressed in rhetorical handbooks;19 the closest analogy to this particular feature, then, might be letters such as Seneca the Younger’s letters to Lucilius or the pseudepigraphic Cynic epistles.20

A letter this length would have taken several hours to copy,21 plus several hours more to produce the backup copy (and still more if, as is likely, Peter’s secretary or secretaries produced earlier drafts on reusable material).22 As opposed to a short note on a scrap of papyrus or an oral greeting, the composition of 1 Peter constituted a fairly significant task.

Structure

The structure of 1 Peter has been a subject of debate through most of subsequent history;23 the limited perspicuity of the letter’s structure does not match the author’s generally acknowledged facility in Greek grammar. Some elements of the letter’s structure, such as major divisions,24 are more obvious, whereas others are more open to dispute. As one rhetorical critic observes, sections are clear enough, but the material within the sections lacks “a clear sequential development.”25

Yet for oral hearers, the repetition and interweaving of topics would have sufficiently reinforced the message.26 This letter’s focus is paraenetic, and paraenesis “is not determined by its compositional structure”; it varies devices and structure.27 Emphasizing this point, Troy Martin groups three major sections of the body around three metaphor clusters related to Diaspora:28 God’s chosen household (1:14–2:10);29 foreigners and aliens (2:11–3:12);30 and the Diaspora as a context for suffering (3:13–5:11).31 It is not so clear, however, that Peter’s obvious focus on suffering in the last section depends on the Diaspora metaphor.

Outline

Most ancient works lack a table of contents,32 and there are usually multiple possible ways to outline them, depending on one’s approach. (Ancient writers, like modern ones, do not always think in terms of hierarchical outlines.) The following asymmetric, conceptual but hierarchical outline for 1 Peter is one possible way to approach the letter, but it is, as we shall see, by no means the only one.

I. Opening (1:1–12)

A. Epistolary prescript (1:1–2)

B. Praising God for salvation (fitting epistolary thanks, prayers, wishes) (1:3–12)

1. Future of salvation (1:3–9)

2. Background of salvation (1:10–12)

II. Letter body (1:13–5:11)

A. Live for God’s eternal values (1:13–2:3)

B. God’s people (2:4–10)

C. Submit for the sake of witness (2:11–5:11)

1. Submission (2:11–3:12)

a. Behave honorably, refuting slanders (2:11–17)

(1) Introduction (2:11–12)

(2) Submit, honor all (2:13–17)

b. Slaves to slaveholders (2:18–25)

(1) Call to slaves (2:18–20)

(2) Christ’s example (2:21–25)

c. Wives and husbands (3:1–7)

(1) Wives of unbelieving husbands (3:1–6)

(2) Husbands (3:7)

d. General exhortation before God (3:8–12) (applied esp. to 3:7)

2. Suffering for and with Christ (3:13–4:19)

a. Behave honorably, refuting slanders (3:13–17)

b. Christ’s example (3:18–4:6)

(1) Christ suffered and was exalted (3:18–4:2)

(2) No longer living like gentiles (4:3–6)

c. General exhortation: serve fellow believers (4:7–11)

d. Suffering for and with Christ (4:12–19)

3. Elders and younger (5:1–7)

4. General exhortation (5:8–11)

III. Epistolary postscript/closing (5:12–14)

The inadequacy of such a hierarchical outline is evident. One could, for example, retain 2:11–12 as a transitional conclusion to the section on the identity of God’s people (2:4–10). A greater problem is one that characterizes top-down hierarchical outlines in general in works not designed to reflect them: parallel units identified from bottom-up are assigned quite different functions in sections of dramatically different length. For example, Christ’s example dominates both 2:21–25 and 3:18–4:6. General paraenesis appears in 1:13–2:3, but again in smaller units in 3:8–13 (how to treat everyone), 4:7–11 (how to treat fellow believers), and 5:8–11 (how to resist the devil). Behave honorably, refuting slanders describes two sections (2:11–17; 3:13–17).

A more satisfactory bottom-up outline thus might be closer to the following:

1. Epistolary prescript (1:1–2)

2. Praising God for salvation (fitting epistolary thanks, prayers, wishes) (1:3–12)

a. Future of salvation (1:3–9)

b. Background of salvation (1:10–12)

3. Live for God’s eternal values (1:13–2:3)

4. God’s people (2:4–10)

5. Behave honorably, refuting slanders (2:11–17)

a. Introduction (2:11–12)

b. Submit, honor all (2:13–17)

6. Slaves to slaveholders (2:18–25)

a. Call to slaves (2:18–20)

b. Christ’s example (2:21–25)

7. Wives and husbands (3:1–7)

a. Wives of unbelieving husbands (3:1–6)

b. Husbands (3:7)

8. General exhortation before God (3:8–12) (applied esp. to 3:7)

9. Behave honorably, refuting slanders (3:13–17)

10. Christ’s example (3:18–4:6)

a. Christ suffered and was exalted (3:18–4:2)

b. No longer living like gentiles (4:3–6)

11. General exhortation: serve fellow believers (4:7–11)

12. Suffering for and with Christ (4:12–19)

13. Elders and younger (5:1–7)

14. General exhortation (5:8–11)

15. Epistolary postscript/closing (5:12–14)

This arrangement, too, fails to highlight many connections. It is not designed to allow for chiastic connections (such as in 3:17–4:2) or for repetition of motifs throughout the letter. The submission theme that dominates 2:13–3:7 recurs clearly in 5:5; the call to no longer live like gentiles in 4:3–6 echoes 2:11–12; logically somewhat parallel exhortations to follow Christ’s example in suffering (2:21–25; 4:12–19) still fall in different levels of units in the outline, inviting shorter divisions.

Especially since earlier interpreters’ attempts to discern in 1 Peter two letters, one addressing the prospect of persecution and another addressing its current reality, scholars have generally started a new section in 4:12. If one need not parallel suffering with Christ in 2:21–25 and 4:12–19, one might arrange 2:11–3:17 somewhat chiastically:

A Behave honorably, refuting slanders (2:11–17)

B Subordinates (slaves) should submit (2:18–20)

C General exhortation (2:21–25)

B′ Subordinates (wives) should submit (3:1–7)

C′ General exhortation (3:8–12)

A′ Behave honorably, refuting slanders (3:13–17)

But a general relational exhortation also recurs in 4:7–11; Peter raises these after multiple sections.

A Behave honorably, refuting slanders (2:11–12)

B Submission, respect in relationships (2:13–17)

C Subordinates (slaves) should submit (2:18–20)

D Suffering for/with Christ (2:21–25)

C′ Subordinates (wives) should submit (3:1–6)

B′ Submission, respect in relationships (3:7–12)

A′ Behave honorably, refuting slanders (3:13–17)

D′ Christ’s example (3:18–4:6)

B′ Submission, respect in relationships (4:7–11)

A″ and/or D″ Suffering for/with Christ; and, Behave honorably, refuting slanders (4:12–19)

That is, themes recur and therefore multiple points of contact among units are possible, depending on the elements one highlights. No one has yet proposed an outline on which all scholars concur, nor is such concurrence likely in the near future, not least given the rarely unanimous character of scholarship generally in the humanities. The differences among the sorts of outlines arranged by different interpreters reflect the lack of a single objective way to outline the material; Peter’s exhortations are too tightly interrelated throughout the letter to be graphed in a single manner. The letter is not a mere haphazard collection of motifs, such as Proverbs, and it is organized more tightly than 1 John; Peter’s concern is to highlight his exhortations, not to organize his material to fit our outlines.

Some works influenced by rhetoric offer a sort of thesis statement. By usual definition, a thesis offers a theoretical topic, whereas a hypothesis offers a concrete topic with particulars.33 Orators often stated their theses or topics toward the beginning of a speech;34 a rhetorical argument was to begin with a proposition.35 Other skilled writers likewise often stated their topic at the beginning of books;36 Paul probably uses a thesis or hypothesis in his most polished extant letter (Rom. 1:16–17).37 (Because philosophers proposed theses for discussion, their proposals were generally not self-evident statements.)38

First Peter 2:12 or 2:12–13 may introduce the theme for the entire following section. Finding a thesis statement for the entire letter seems more difficult; perhaps it appears in 1:13–16, but it is likelier that Peter simply introduces themes in a more general way toward the beginning. The theme of enduring suffering in light of future salvation already dominates the blessing, just as Paul often introduces some themes in his letters in his thanksgiving sections.39 Some of these themes already appear as early as 1:1–2. One of the rhetorical functions of introductory sections, in addition to building rapport,40 was to introduce a work’s direction.41

Authorship

Here I venture a somewhat contrarian opinion, while aware that many colleagues whom I esteem highly do not share it. While many letters in antiquity are pseudepigraphic, a far greater number are not,42 so by normal standards the burden of proof should remain with those who contest the authorial claim of 1 Pet. 1:1, which if taken at face value at least is more apt to support Petrine authorship than to contest it.43 Nevertheless, the number of pseudepigraphic works is sufficient to invite investigation in a given case, and the evidence needed to surmount a given burden of proof is a matter of degree on which scholars with differing methodological assumptions will debate. My approach, then, will be to ask which side of the debate has stronger evidence.

The widely differing opinions among scholars make clear that not all of us evaluate the evidence the same way. I will offer here my own reasons for why I believe that the external evidence is sufficiently strong to make the case compelling for Petrine authorship. Before turning to such external evidence, however, let me first address some of the objections that many colleagues often raise against Petrine authorship, invariably on the basis of internal evidence.

Some scholars do also offer internal evidence supporting Petrine authorship—evidence consistent with authorship by an early Jewish Christian leader who knew Jesus’s teaching, biblical tradition, and the mid-first-century range of Christian teachings44—some of the very points sometimes argued the other way. Because such evidence can be judged as subjective as the inconsistencies often alleged against Petrine authorship, however, and because it will neither convince detractors nor be needed to convince advocates, I will exclude such discussion here. I focus instead on internal-evidence objections to Petrine authorship, though most of these appear to me no less subjective.

After addressing the most important objective internal argument against Petrine authorship (the style), I will therefore simply survey briefly other internal objections to Petrine authorship before turning to our more concrete external evidence.

Greek Style and Style Assistants

One cannot dismiss Petrine authorship by contrasting the letter’s style with a style that scholars elsewhere universally attribute to Peter, since we lack undisputed Petrine material for comparison. Nevertheless, a large proportion of scholars—indeed, the majority of those publishing in conventional academic venues—doubt that Peter authored 1 Peter.45 Their most important argument stems from their (correct) observation that the style of 1 Peter is fairly eloquent Greek.46

Some defenders of Peter as author respond that a Galilean fisherman could have known Greek. While Peter undoubtedly did know Greek,47 however, it is not likely that he could, without great effort and learning, produce the sophisticated quality of this letter’s Greek on his own.48 There are plausible signs of Semitic interference, suggesting that the author, or at least one of the authors, was bilingual.49 Nevertheless, there are also signs of stronger skill in Greek composition than we would expect of a Galilean fisherman,50 unless we suppose that Peter underwent something like rhetorical training while leading the Jerusalem church.51 Peter’s decades in Jerusalem (Gal. 1:18; 2:1, 9) surely familiarized him further with Greek, but I believe that he would likelier depend on assistants rather than developing his own literary Greek style to this degree.

Since authorship normally was by dictation, however, it did not require writing literacy. The poor used scribes out of necessity and the wealthy did so out of convenience. As a prominent leader, Peter would certainly have ready access to scribal and stylistic assistance.52 Josephus, for example, depended on others for stylistic help in Greek;53 unlike Josephus, Peter would depend on volunteers rather than scribes funded by imperial patronage, but the church was surely large enough by this time to provide such help. Patristic interpreters recognized that Peter could allow his amanuensis some liberty.54 That some early Christians besides Paul possessed this literary skill is evident from this letter itself—regardless of the author(s) to whom we attribute it. Why should we assume this skill possible only later than Peter’s day, when we know that Rome included a flourishing Christian community before Nero’s persecution, and we know that at least some Christians already possessed such skill?55

We have no way to know for certain who may have helped Peter, but among those explicitly present with him are Mark and Silvanus (1 Pet. 5:12–13), both of whom may well have been literate.56 If Mark is the John Mark of Acts, he grew up in a household of some means.57 Silvanus was apparently a Roman citizen (cf. Acts 16:37), a fairly rare privilege for those from the eastern empire, suggesting at least some status and therefore likely higher than usual education. Peter in fact indicates Silvanus’s help at some stage in the process (1 Pet. 5:12), possibly at the stage of actual composition (again see comment on 5:12). However one understands 5:12, there is solid reason to believe that Silvanus was known to participate somehow in composing some apostolic letters (see 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1).

Peter does not specify the degree of dependence, even if (a much-debated point) he implies Silvanus as his scribe in 5:12;58 yet mention of a mere scribe was not typical. (Tertius inserts himself in Rom. 16:22 because he sends greetings as a fellow believer, but this was exceptional, and Silvanus does not directly insert himself.)59

Some scholars even find similarities in style to earlier letters in the composition of which Silvanus participated.60 Although these shared features appear more readily to an observer already optimistic regarding shared influence in these works, style certainly cannot be used against authenticity if, as we would expect, Silvanus or others participated in its composition. Scholars debate whether Silvanus was merely a courier (now the majority view) or also a literary collaborator (contrary to what advocates of the courier view often claim, the wording in 5:12 can have either or both meanings; see discussion there), but whether through Silvanus or not, certainly Peter would have had access to any collaboration that he needed.

While Peter’s authority stands behind the letter, therefore (1 Pet. 1:1), others are likely primarily responsible for the quality of Greek and perhaps even input on some of the Diaspora allusions.61 Thus, in an earlier generation, A. M. Hunter contended, “We may reasonably assume (with most British scholars) that St. Peter’s authority stands behind the first epistle bearing his name.”62 While many scholars today support the letter’s pseudonymity, the self-assurance of some who place the matter beyond debate63 reflects their unwillingness to engage scholarship that comes to different conclusions. Many scholars do in fact continue to support Petrine authorship,64 and to simply ignore their voices by relegating the matter beyond dispute is parochial.

Silvanus or someone else could even have put Petrine preaching into an epistolary frame after Peter’s death,65 allowing for the work’s early acceptance as Petrine even if Peter were deceased. Thus many scholars suggest that a Petrine circle or school in Rome arranged Petrine teachings in this form;66 this is a genuine possibility that cannot be ruled out. Whether authored during Peter’s lifetime or by a Petrine circle afterward, the substance would remain consistent with Petrine teaching and would explain the early external attestation of Petrine authorship.67 Ockham’s razor, however, suggests that the simpler solution is more apt to be correct, and the simpler solution here is that Peter remained alive and composed or directed the letter with significant collaboration or assistance.

Limitations of the Usual Internal Arguments against Petrine Authorship

Where internal evidence is decisive, it should take priority over external evidence. Yet the weight of alleged internal evidence marshaled against Petrine authorship appears to me quite questionable. Although some find it very compelling, even some of its supporters recognize its vulnerabilities. While accepting what he viewed as the consensus of scholarship that someone composed 1 Peter after Peter’s lifetime, Raymond Brown, for example, recognizes that none of the evidence such scholars cite is conclusive against Peter’s authorship.68 Though reticent to commit explicitly to Petrine authorship, James Dunn suggests that it is much likelier Peter than critics often argue, refuting objections against it.69

Arguments that the letter contains little that is distinctively Petrine are circular, begging the question of how to determine what is Petrine. If 1 Peter is not Petrine, we lack undisputed Petrine sources with which to measure it.70 Some characteristics of 1 Peter fit other sources about Peter, such as the substance71 of Peter’s speeches in Acts,72 but scholars often dispute the authenticity of those sources as well.73

Clearly 1 Peter does make use of some common early Christian traditional language,74 but whether this language originated with Peter, Paul, or others we cannot know. Ancient homiletics did not require attribution, especially of commonly used material. Nor does a criterion of double dissimilarity work well here: the letter’s teaching need not be unique to be authentic. This observation should make ready sense to us today: today no less than in other periods, Christian preaching often echoes widely shared motifs within popular Christian culture.

More concretely, some complain that the letter sounds too Pauline; others respond that Silvanus could also account for alleged Paulinisms (cf. 2 Cor. 1:19; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1).75 The question of Silvanus’s participation aside, however, Peter himself knew Paul (Gal. 2:11–14), and they shared some beliefs more widely held among early Christians. This includes some views often deemed distinctively Pauline (see Gal. 2:16).76 Many contend that 1 Peter reflects simply wider pre-Pauline Christian tradition.77 The most common parallels cited for Paul are in Paul’s letter to the Romans.78 Because this letter reached Rome before either Paul or (likely) Peter did, there is no reason to suppose Peter ignorant of such a letter (see comment on 1 Pet. 2:6), which may have been treasured by and circulated among Roman Christians (cf. even 2 Pet. 3:15–16).

Some object that if 1 Peter were authentic, it should echo Jesus, since Peter knew him personally. Aside from the fact that 1 Peter is merely 105 verses long, and that Peter would now have three decades of additional Christian experience following his initial time with Jesus, Peter does echo Jesus’s teachings at various points,79 and in much more space proportionately than we find in Paul’s letters. These echoes themselves raise complaints by scholars who find them too close to the language of the Gospels, suggesting dependence on the finished Gospels.80 Yet oral traditions normally assume a standardized form;81 community memories often quickly assume a standardized form even in witnesses’ own narratives.82 Verbatim is not the norm for recall83—but neither are most of Peter’s allusions to Jesus’s teachings verbatim. Moreover, the one form of material most often recalled close to verbatim, and typically rehearsed and remembered by disciples, was aphorisms.84 A majority of scholars already posit such a tradition, and possibly even a written source,85 before Peter’s death—what we typically call Q.86

In contrast to many of his OT quotations, however (and in contrast to 2 Pet. 3:16 and perhaps even 1 Tim. 5:18), Peter does not yet treat these as citations.87 He also narrates some details about Christ’s passion (1 Pet. 2:21–24), and claims to have witnessed (5:1 [see comment there]) at least some of it. While it is true that Peter may draw disproportionately from material that now appears in two sections of the Gospel tradition,88 the historical Peter was presumably one of the witnesses who frequently recounted such material.89 Moreover, that these two sections would predominate is not surprising when we notice where Peter employed them: Jesus’s ethical teaching in Peter’s paraenetic material and Jesus’s eschatological teaching in Peter’s encouragements.90

Others object that Peter would not use the Septuagint91 but would follow a Hebrew or Aramaic version. Aside from influence from assistants, such an argument is quite weak. When composing in Greek, one will normally use the Greek translation available to one’s audience. In both Rome and Asia Minor this would be the basic text-type that we generally call the Septuagint.92 Granted that Peter’s own memory of Scripture, probably learned especially orally from growing up in the synagogue, would not follow this form, neither should we expect a polished rhetorical document93 to reflect merely free translation. Silvanus and/or other assistants would want to conform to the standard available in Rome and that they could presume in Asia Minor. In the section “Date” below, I treat the objection regarding Peter’s use of “Babylon” for Rome (1 Pet. 5:13).

External Attestation

Whereas the particular sorts of arguments marshaled against 1 Peter from internal evidence reflect what I would consider subjective inferences, external attestation provides concrete benchmarks. Its concreteness need not entail its correctness, but in the case of 1 Peter the attestation is early enough to warrant serious attention. Some commentators who emphasize internal arguments, however, have largely ignored it.

From the beginning, debates surrounded the authenticity of 2 Peter, which most scholars view as quite different in style from 1 Peter.94 Yet such debates did not attend 1 Peter; its attestation “is widespread, early, and clear.”95 Writing in the early second century, Polycarp clearly reflects language from 1 Peter, as might Clement of Rome. It is highly unlikely that early authors would quote from 1 Peter if they believed the letter to be spurious. One cannot suppose, as some do with early allusions to the Gospels, that those who used the work were ignorant of its authorship claim; the claim is explicit in 1 Pet. 1:1.96

As noted, Polycarp already quotes and freely alludes to 1 Peter. The cumulative weight of evocations may be significant, and the weight of fuller quotations is even stronger.97 Thus, for example:

Clearly Polycarp accepted 1 Peter (or at least its first two chapters, where the authorship claim explicitly appears) as authoritative, combining allusions to this letter with allusions to other apostolic sources. Not surprisingly, Eusebius explicitly notes Polycarp’s use of 1 Peter.108

Many scholars date Polycarp’s letter (or at least its later part, for those who hold that it is composite) ca. 120109 or as late as 140. It could, however, date any time after Ignatius’s martyrdom in (most likely)110 108, and some of it from roughly the time that Ignatius flourished. In Phil. 13:1–2 Polycarp seems as yet uncertain as to Ignatius’s fate, although in 9:1–2 it appears that Ignatius has already been martyred; some date the completed letter as early as 110.111 More to the point here, Polycarp was already a bishop during Ignatius’s lifetime (ca. 50 to probably 108),112 so that Polycarp (ca. 69–155) surely reached adulthood and Christian maturity well before the end of the first century. His confidence in 1 Peter, therefore, is telling.

Living memory is normally defined as the period when those who knew eyewitnesses were still living,113 or quantified as a period of eighty to one hundred years.114 It is the essential resource for oral history; that is, it is the kind of information that one could in principle collect from witnesses.115 The major weaknesses of oral tradition are much less relevant within this time frame.116 There is thus quite good reason to assume that Polycarp would be heir to faithful community memory of Peter, albeit probably no longer of Jesus’s Galilean ministry. Indeed, Polycarp was apparently born (ca. 69) within a few years of when 1 Peter was sent to Asia Minor, if it was sent within Peter’s lifetime.117 Polycarp was probably already a church leader by the later dates (esp. ca. 92) often proposed for 1 Peter, and his ministry thus overlapped chronologically with elders who had known Peter personally.118

Possible allusions appear elsewhere as well.119 Epistle to Diognetus 9:2 echoes 1 Pet. 3:18 (just for the unjust).120 Although extant evidence is insufficient to identify the author of this work with confidence, stylistic and other internal considerations allow at least the possibility that Polycarp himself authored this letter to Diognetus.121

More certainly, Eusebius, who had the text of Papias available,122 reports that Papias quoted 1 John and 1 Peter.123 Papias learned from those who knew Jesus’s original disciples (including Peter),124 and he possibly learned personally even from the longest-surviving one;125 some later Christian writers located him in the earliest generation after the original apostles and viewed him as a companion of Polycarp.126 Whatever Papias’s exact dates, his own testimonies quoted by Eusebius show that he was born in the first century and flourished in the early second century.

Less certain are some potential echoes of 1 Pet. 1:10–11 in some other early sources.127 Ignatius speaks of the prophets awaiting Jesus by the Spirit (Magn. 9:2), anticipating the fuller gospel message (Phld. 9:2), possibly on the basis of 1 Pet. 1:10–11. Likewise, Barnabas (70–132 CE) might echo the same passage in its comments about prophets prophesying about Christ because of grace received from him.128

The evidence from Clement of Rome129 (probably ca. 95) is also uncertain.130 It appears suggestive, but it could simply reflect language and ideas popular in the church in Rome at the time. Petrine scholar John Elliott charts an extensive list of twenty-two parallels throughout the entire letter.131 The salutation, for example, may use wording from 1 Pet. 1:2: grace and peace being multiplied (in the rare optative mood) appears in the salutation to 1 Clement, as well as in those of 2 Peter (1:2), Polycarp’s To the Philippians, and Martyrdom of Polycarp. Although Jude 2 is similar, the formula is precisely identical only in 1–2 Peter, of which 1 Peter is presumably our earliest example.132

Beyond the salutation:

Since 1 Clement hails from Rome as (most scholars concur) did 1 Peter, Clement presumably knew of it if it predated his own letter. But whereas Polycarp in Asia Minor (the letter’s destination) may have learned the first two chapters of 1 Peter by heart, Clement may have simply heard or read the letter on occasion, or may have simply been influenced by other Roman believers who had picked up some of its language. One certainly cannot use 1 Clement against the prior circulation of 1 Peter, but neither would one prefer to hang one’s case on it alone.

The Didache probably also stems from the late first century, or possibly from the early second century. Its exhortation to abstain from fleshly passions (Did. 1:4)145 echoes either 1 Pet. 2:11146 or shared early Christian tradition147 earlier attested only in 1 Peter. (I believe that it probably does echo 1 Peter in this case.)

One catch-22 with arguing from apparent Petrine allusions in 1 Clement and the Didache is that the minority of scholars who date 1 Peter later than these sources need not view these parallels as echoes of 1 Peter itself. Polycarp and Papias are more useful precisely because they are late enough to be able to attest 1 Peter for those to whom earlier evidence might appear more suspect!

In the late second century, Irenaeus explicitly attributes a quotation to 1 Peter.148 He also claims that Papias and Polycarp learned directly from the last surviving member of the Twelve.149 (How closely Irenaeus knew Polycarp is open to dispute, but in his youth he did hear him speak.)150 When Eusebius divides documents among “accepted,” “disputed,” and “spurious,” he regards 1 Peter as accepted from the beginning, in contrast to other works attributed directly to Peter.151 To reject Petrine authorship out of hand is therefore to dismiss virtually any weight to external attestation, quite in contrast to the procedure on which classicists depend in deciding authorship. New Testament scholarship evolved differently from classical scholarship in terms of external attestation, probably at least partly because of a long period of Protestant anti-tradition bias that did not have the opportunity to affect classics in the same way.

Quotations would be unlikely if those quoting it considered the letter spurious; yet the letter’s explicit attribution to Peter disallows their ignorance of the source’s putative author. Their authoritative quotations, then, also entail acceptance of its putative authorship, and this acceptance is quite early by ancient standards. Perhaps earliest and most explicit, although its date is by no means certain, 2 Peter provides an explicit reference to 1 Peter (2 Pet. 3:1), taking for granted the acceptance of its authenticity among 2 Peter’s audience at the time of 2 Peter’s writing.152 This attestation is extremely valuable on any date for 2 Peter earlier than Polycarp.153

The external attestation for 1 Peter is thus stronger than for most ancient works accepted by classicists. One might compare, for example, our “best source attesting” Plutarch’s works: “the Lamprias Catalogue, written more than a century and perhaps more than two centuries after Plutarch’s death.” Yet “no one questions Plutarchan authorship.”154 If external attestation counts for anything at all, then, it is strong enough in this case to outweigh arguments from silence regarding internal evidence. It should weight the case in favor of acceptance rather than suspicion.

If we again invoke the principle of Ockham’s razor, it appears much likelier that the letter is authentically Petrine rather than later, and that second-century memories of its authenticity are correct. Such a case is not foolproof (e.g., the second-century church was wrong in some of its other memories). Nevertheless, it seems significantly likelier than not that this letter was authored by Peter—though the style and wording probably reflect the heavy involvement of his assistants. This would also fit other traditions about Peter, such as Mark using Petrine material for his Gospel, rather than Peter dictating or composing it himself.155

Not surprisingly, therefore, Petrine authorship was virtually undisputed until nineteenth-century criticism and was still widely defended afterward.156 It remains a respectable and vigorous minority opinion today and, as I have argued, merits far more attention than it has received in some quarters.

Date

The three most common datings for 1 Peter are in the reigns of Nero,157 the Flavians158 (usually under Domitian),159 and Trajan.160

Authorship and date are inseparable questions, at least on the traditional view of Petrine authorship. If Peter dictated the letter, it must, of course, have been composed before he died; early tradition assigns his death to Nero’s persecution in Rome, so a date later than the 60s is untenable if Peter composed the letter himself. (Given the limited wording in 1 Clem. 5, however, acceptance of the letter’s authenticity may be attested even earlier than Peter’s death under Nero.)

If, however, someone other than Peter (such as Silvanus) put Petrine preaching into an epistolary frame after Peter’s death, authorship in this form would impose significantly less constraint on the date.161 Valuing arguments both for and against authenticity, many scholars today opt for a “Petrine school,”162 though I would be inclined to describe this scenario as more simply the activity of Mark and Silvanus and perhaps some colleagues around them. Even though I regard this postmortem Petrine approach as less probable than composition under Peter’s more direct supervision, it accounts for the range of evidence (especially the external attestation) much better than does pseudepigraphy. In this case, mention of Mark and Silvanus (1 Pet. 5:12–13) would still likely suggest a relatively early date, probably before Domitian (in contrast to the case of a fully pseudonymous letter, in which case their mention would belong to the authorial fiction).

If authorship imposes only limited constraints on date, the setting revealed by internal evidence probably constrains it even less. One could argue that Peter must write at a fairly early period when gentile converts still recognize that they are joining a Jewish movement (1 Pet. 4:3; as in 1 Cor. 5:1; 1 Thess. 4:5), but this idea does still appear occasionally in early second-century sources.163 One could also argue that the apparent identification of elders, shepherds, and (given the likeliest reading) overseers in 1 Pet. 5:1–2 (see comment there) must significantly predate the era of Ignatius. I believe that such arguments can support an early date when conjoined with the argument for Petrine authorship, but individually these arguments would not carry the weight on their own.

The same should be said for arguments proffered for a late date. While it is true that we can say little about churches in some provinces named in 1 Pet. 1:1 regarding Peter’s day, the same is true for those same churches a generation or two later; we simply lack much information about them, and arguments from the overall silence are not very helpful. If we accept other first-century evidence, however, some believers appear in some of these areas well before Peter’s death (Acts 2:9;164 1 Cor. 16:1, 19; Gal. 1:2). Nor does Peter’s address in 1 Pet. 1:1 provide any indication of how many churches were in any of these regions; there were undoubtedly more in some areas than in others. Moreover, the form of church leadership is clearly pre-Ignatian, and the language is not, pace some scholars, inconsistent with a date in the 60s as some have asserted, especially if one depends solely on actual first-century sources rather than modern reconstructions of how early Christianity must have developed (see comment on 1 Pet. 5:1–2).165

Many scholars doubt that Peter could have called Rome Babylon (1 Pet. 5:13) before the temple’s destruction in 70 CE, contending that Jewish literature recognized the analogy only subsequently.166 But while it is true that Jews after 70 recognized the parallel particularly emphatically,167 it is mistaken to insist that few envisioned this parallel beforehand. Jewish interpreters during the time of the Roman Empire understood Daniel’s fourth kingdom, the ultimate successor of Babylon, as Rome. They did not need to await the temple’s destruction to view Rome as their Babylon-like oppressor (see comment on 1 Pet. 5:13).

Some argue against any large-scale persecution of Christians in Asia Minor before the reign of Trajan, since our first non-Christian documentation for it stems from the governor Pliny the Younger’s correspondence168 at that time.169 But Pliny’s correspondence presupposes an existing situation that both he and the emperor accept rather unenthusiastically;170 the rules that Pliny is enforcing appear to originate earlier than Trajan’s reign.171 He notes the apostasy of many Christians some twenty years earlier (ca. 92–94 CE), coinciding with when some believe that persecutions began under Domitian; this might be when such policies originated.172

Granted, the persecution that the letter envisions may fit the specified regions (1 Pet. 1:1) better after Peter’s time (at least, we have hard evidence for it there only later; still, we can expect only a fraction of “hard evidence” to have survived). Nevertheless, that observation could actually tend toward supporting a Petrine date. One might expect a pseudepigrapher to frame persecution in Asia Minor as a prophecy for the future rather than as a warning that conspicuously took a generation to be fulfilled. The suffering that 1 Peter addresses may not have transpired in Asia Minor in Peter’s lifetime, but it became quite relevant to Peter’s own likely setting in Rome (5:13) under Nero. It also fits the sort of message emphasized in the Gospel of Mark, which might address the same wave of persecution in Rome.173 What began in Rome set precedent for governors abroad, so one suffering persecution there might well expect it to spread (note comment below). Nor can Peter be unaware of persecution elsewhere; the brief persecution that ended the ministry of James, brother of Jesus, ca. 62 CE in Jerusalem,174 could not but be known to him.

Still, 1 Peter does not speak of widespread or outright state persecution in Asia Minor in Peter’s day. While Peter speaks of others facing testing (1 Pet. 5:9), he is not very explicit about its present character.175 The dominant later charges against Christians—atheism (for rejecting the gods),176 infanticide,177 cannibalism (based on a literalistic misunderstanding of the Lord’s Supper),178 and incest (probably based on misinterpreting Christian expressions of “sibling” love)179—are all missing,180 even though these slanders were apparently already circulating in the early second century.181

The opposition so far seems to derive not directly from the state (or at least, not to be initiated by them) but from slanders, private hostility,182 and concerns that Christians are converting slaves and wives of respectable aristocratic men.183 Indeed, the absence of reference to state persecution has been used against a later dating of 1 Peter.184

Expectation of broader coming persecution of a significant magnitude need not reveal the extent of current hostility. Revelation, for example, envisions global persecution (Rev. 13:7) even though it names only a single martyr so far among the seven churches (2:13). Nothing in 1 Peter, then, requires an empire-wide persecution of Christians, which probably did not occur even in Trajan’s day.185 (That it did eventually occur two centuries later186 makes many NT warnings appear surprisingly prescient, but the expectation unfortunately coheres with the sort of marginalization frequently experienced by minority communities and movements.)

Nor would a Neronian setting appear completely irrelevant to Asia Minor. Precedent set in Rome could affect the rest of the empire,187 so it was not unreasonable to suppose that times would become more difficult for Christians elsewhere.188 Moreover, an argument can be made that Nero’s persecution rendered Christian assemblies illegal in a way that made them vulnerable to hostile accusers and thus legal action (though not normally martyrdom).189

In Asia Minor, civic prosecutions depended on individual accusers,190 so personal or group hostility could be expressed toward Christians in various ways and yet have significant potential consequences.191 At least some of this hostility reacted to Christians’ necessary withdrawal from common public activities,192 including civic cults and festivals.

Nor need we assume that 1 Peter could reflect a situation only after the full outbreak of Nero’s persecution. Nero did not choose Christians as scapegoats because they were popular, but because they were despised; the language of the Roman historian Tacitus suggests that they were already potentially suspect in Rome even before Nero’s direct persecution broke out in 64 CE.193 The expulsion of many Jews under Claudius, probably ca. 49 CE, apparently involved debates about the Messiah—probably about Christ.194 Paul’s letter to Roman believers in the mid-50s is careful to work against charges of subversion (Rom. 13:1–7), and by the time he reaches Rome by 60 or as late as 62,195 Christian groups seem already alienated from the safer umbrella of Roman synagogues (cf. Acts 28:22).196 Gentiles often viewed Jews as antisocial,197 a point demanding Jewish apologetic;198 now excluded from the Jewish community and constituting a smaller minority, Christians made easier targets.

On the basis of the limited evidence available, scholars have provided arguments for various dates. Because I regard Petrine authorship as very likely, and the simplest (though not necessary) solution is that it was written during Peter’s life, and because I accept the later tradition that Peter was martyred in Rome, I give preference to a Neronian date.199 As already noted, various other features of the letter, such as the likelier reading in 1 Pet. 5:1–2,200 are also consistent with an earlier date.

Provenance and Destination

If the author and date are heavily disputed, the same is less the case for the letter’s provenance, which scholars typically accept as Rome.201 Some cite in support of a Roman provenance similarities with Mark, 1 Clement, and Paul’s letter to Roman believers.202 Most compelling is the mention of Babylon in 1 Pet. 5:13, alongside traditions that place Peter’s later sphere of ministry in Rome.203 Many of the earliest Christians in Rome probably lived in tenements in Trastevere, across the Tiber and safe from the fire that burned much of the city in 64.204 A number were thus likely fairly poor workers on the Tiber’s docks.205

The audience of the letter as we have it is explicitly believers who are resident aliens in provinces of Roman Asia Minor (1 Pet. 1:1–2), although there is some debate as to what Peter means by resident aliens (see comments on 1 Pet. 1:1, 17; 2:11).206 Many scholars contend that Peter’s audience is predominantly gentile,207 some others that they are Jewish,208 and still others that they included a mixture of Jewish and gentile members.209 Clearly Peter takes for granted some knowledge of (or at least recognition of) Scripture (e.g., 2:6–10),210 but he also seems to presuppose many converts from a pagan background (1:18; 4:3), who came to monotheism through preaching about Jesus (1:21). Gentile converts may not have grown up with Scripture, but over time in the churches they would learn it. Moreover, whoever delivered the letter would also perform it, providing indications of even the unmarked quotations (such as in 2:3).211 Some scholars who see the audience as recently converted gentiles have even compared some of Peter’s language with that used in later sources for gentile proselytes to Judaism.212

Setting

Peter would know his own setting more intimately than the settings of the vast regions of Asia Minor addressed in his letter. The letter’s setting thus bears some relation to its provenance, although the author surely intended the letter to be relevant to its recipients.

Some of 1 Peter’s background is entirely noncontroversial. Although there are debates about the particular setting of 1 Peter (especially whether it comes from the reigns of Nero, Domitian, or Trajan), there is virtually no debate that it comes from Greco-Roman antiquity, reflects knowledge of the OT in Greek (most often in the text-type we summarize as the LXX),213 and that it stems from early Christianity.

Thus readers reticent to follow my opinion on dating or particular setting in the introduction may still profit from most of the following commentary, since it draws on a wide range of ancient sources. With regard to background, I draw not only on non-Christian sources but also abundantly on early Christian background, especially in what became our NT. It would seem incongruent to draw on various polytheistic Greek and Roman backgrounds yet neglect the nearer theological backgrounds for 1 Peter—namely, the Septuagint214 and earliest Christianity.

Whatever the letter’s real setting, a letter attributed to Peter in Rome would presume a setting (fictitious or real) under Nero. While I believe that this is the letter’s actual setting, a fictitious setting under Nero would take even greater account of the Neronian persecution that ultimately erupted and reportedly took Peter’s life. The most detailed sources about Peter’s martyrdom in Rome are from the late second and early third centuries.215 Nevertheless, most scholars accept the basic tradition that Peter was martyred in Rome.216 Tertullian even claims that records of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul were available for public record in Rome’s archives,217 although this claim could be his surmise. Eusebius claims that their tombs in Rome remained identifiable in his day.218 The tradition of Peter’s martyrdom is consistent with recognition of potential persecution beforehand.219

Some see persecution as more remote in the first part of the letter but a present reality by the second part.220 Literary approaches today are more apt to view the letter as a whole,221 although it was possible at times for a writer to add new material to a letter already in process.222

Nero

In Christian tradition, Nero was even more vicious than Domitian,223 although his persecution was more limited in geographic scope (probably restricted to Rome and its environs). Since Nero apparently had started implementing rebuilding before initiating persecution, it is possible that the persecution started somewhat after the fire of 64 CE, perhaps in 65.224 A date for initiating the persecution later than this, however, is excluded by Nero’s tour of Greece in 66.225

Nero’s reign226 seems to have begun more innocuously than it ended.227 Although some scholars seem to argue that the virtually unanimous animosity of later sources228 reflects a bias from which modern interpreters are somehow free, there was probably some historical reason for subsequent generations’ widespread hostility. Granted, later ancient historians probably did accept any negative reports about Nero uncritically,229 but presumably they found such reports plausible precisely because at least a nucleus of such reports fit his known character and abuses. Examples of their hostile evaluations of Nero include the following:

Opinions were more mixed in Nero’s own day.234 Although aristocrats who had more direct acquaintance with Nero rejoiced at his death, much of the larger populace, appreciative of his sponsorship of public entertainments, mourned.235 Nero was a notorious Hellenophile,236 and Greeks reciprocated his benefactions with honor.237 Some Jewish views of Nero were also more favorable,238 shaped by his benefactions through his mistress-then-wife Poppaea239—before he killed her.240

Nero’s alleged crimes were many. He was known for many killings;241 although one writer recounting those killed or exiled under Nero died prematurely, he managed to complete three volumes of his work.242 Nero was particularly reputed for murdering his mother Agrippina243 and his wife and adoptive sister Octavia.244 He was known for neglecting royal duties in favor of his singing245 and acting.246 Critics circulated reports of his crimes associated with sexual passion,247 such as castrating the youth he loved248 and confiscating his friend’s wife.249

Burning Rome

Fires were common in Rome, where most buildings consisted partly or largely of wood.250 Fires were common enough that people even scrawled prayers against them on walls and tried to avert minor “omens” of them at banquets.251

A terrible fire in Rome burned for nine days in July 64 CE.252 Rome’s streets were narrow and disorganized, reportedly because Rome was rebuilt hastily after a Gallic invasion half a millennium earlier.253 The fire destroyed three of Rome’s fourteen divisions and left seven severely damaged.254 Rome’s fire brigades255 were woefully inadequate for this scale of catastrophe,256 and unlike his adoptive father Claudius,257 Nero did not organize the wider populace to assist in putting out fires.

The estates of Nero and Tigellinus, not tightly packed like much of the city, remained unscathed. People began to blame the emperor for the disaster, and he needed scapegoats. The rumor that Nero started the fire258 may have been bitter propaganda;259 leaders often get blamed for social hardships, and scapegoats prove politically useful. Still, some thought the fire convenient for Nero’s urban renovation plans.260

Despite his personal disdain for Christians,261 the Roman historian Tacitus laments that Christians became Nero’s scapegoats.262 The Tiber prevented the fire from reaching Transtiberim, where probably most Christians lived, increasing the plausibility of his target.263

Although Nero burning Christians alive suits an ancient penalty for lower-class arsonists,264 Tacitus’s point may not be suspicion that Christians started the fire, but that their presence in Rome had generated the divine wrath that led to the fire.265 That the majority of Christians were of low social status also would not have aided their cause.266 The mainstream Jewish community had probably worked to distinguish themselves from Christians since Claudius’s edict in 49 CE,267 leaving Christians unprotected by the favor that Nero’s wife showed the Jewish community.268 As such, they lacked the Jewish exemption to the policy against groups meeting more than once a month.269 The movement’s outside label as “Christians,” a lexical formulation (like “Pompeians” or “Neronians”) normally used for political movements, also cannot have helped them (see comment on 1 Pet. 4:16).

In any case, Nero quickly began persecuting Christians in Rome.270 While this policy did not directly shape policy in provinces such as those in Asia Minor, imperial precedent did offer incentive and implicit permission to act accordingly in provinces.271 Certainly word would spread quickly about events in the imperial capital (cf. Rom. 1:8), raising the expectation of persecution elsewhere.272

Tacitus’s description of executions suggests that hundreds or even a few thousand Christians died.273 As in the case of the Bacchic “conspiracy” of 186 BCE, accusations may have multiplied the numbers suspected.274 Slanders against Christians may have evoked paranoid Roman social memory of the Bacchic incident.275

Hope in Suffering

As scholars usually and rightly emphasize, 1 Peter often focuses on suffering (2:19–20; 3:9, 14, 17; 4:1, 13, 15, 19; 5:9–10),276 including that of Christ (1:11; 2:21, 23; 3:18; 4:1, 13). It does so in light of hope (1:3, 13, 21; 3:15). Because the English word “hope” is ambiguous, we might better render the underlying Greek term as “expectation” (as I have done in my translation).277 Believers’ hope of future “inheritance” in Christ (1:4; 3:9) is secure because it is grounded in the already fulfilled resurrection of Christ (1:3, 21; 3:21) and believers’ consequent experience of new birth (1:3, 23). This hope is also associated with eschatological glory (1:7; 2:12; 4:13; 5:1, 4, 10) and described as ultimate salvation (1:5, 9, 10; 2:2). Embracing such an expectation should affect how believers live (3:9; 4:7).

Enduring unmerited suffering for the sake of subsequent glory also follows the model, and shares the experience, of Christ (1:11, 21; 2:21; 3:17–18; 4:1, 13; 5:1).278 Like Christ, believers submit themselves to unjust sufferings when they cannot avoid them, depending on God’s vindication (2:18–25; 5:6). Suffering could honor Christ so long as one suffered for doing right rather than for doing wrong (2:12, 19–20; 3:13–18; 4:14–18; cf. 2:15).

A CLOSER LOOK

Some Ancient Jewish Views of Suffering

Some gentile thinkers believed that many sufferings are simply the result of nature, whereas others are divine punishments.279 Better to expect hardships, some advised, so one would not be so disturbed by them when they come.280 Suffering tests character (as in Rom. 5:3–4; cf. 1 Pet. 1:6–7; 4:12).281 It can serve educational purposes, training a person.282 Some also believed that the nature of the universe required that all sufferings were deserved for some reason.283

Jewish thinkers sometimes emphasized that suffering is common to all,284 and they recognized that God is sovereign over suffering.285 They often attributed sufferings to sins,286 and even thought that people suffered punishments appropriate to their particular sins.287 Sufferings could merit God’s favor;288 God gave Israel good gifts after, and because, they had suffered.289

In Jewish as well as gentile sources, suffering could train a person. Thus in Psalms of Solomon, God destroys the wicked but disciplines the righteous and turns them from their sins done in ignorance.290 Thus it is well with those who endure the Lord’s discipline, training them with the whip.291 After God had disciplined his people for a time, he would again bestow grace on them (Wis. 3:5).

Many deemed suffering meritorious and atoning,292 potentially even when experienced by a decomposing corpse.293 Many allowed for hardship or suffering to compensate or atone for sin, whether individual294 or corporate;295 thus it could even hasten redemption.296 Once punished, Israel could be forgiven.297 Jews valued martyrdom,298 and such suffering could atone for sin,299 making up some of the suffering due God’s people.300

Sometimes only eschatology could provide hope and make sense of how the suffering of God’s people comported with God’s justice. The righteous, God’s people, suffer now so they will not in the future time; the wicked and the nations are rewarded for their few good deeds now so they will lack merit in the future time.301 That was why God’s people experienced most of the world’s present sufferings.302 God judges his own people most strictly (cf. 1 Pet. 4:17).303

Although later rabbis developed such ideas in greatest detail, many are already present in 2 Maccabees. God used suffering to discipline Israel without destroying them (2 Macc. 6:13). Unlike his punishment against other nations, God punished his people little by little, to keep them repentant and spare them later judgment (6:13–17). Some of God’s own children might suffer because of the nation’s sins (7:18), but God was punishing them just a little in the present in order to spare them greater judgment to come (7:32–33). A martyr could thus pray for his death to atone for his people’s sins (7:37–38).304

Suffering thus invited a range of theological considerations, many that Peter could take for granted without explaining them explicitly in this letter. Nevertheless, Peter often is explicit in how he addresses suffering. He reframes his audience’s suffering and potential suffering theologically.

Note: I draw on a wide range of potential sources from antiquity to construct the most complete available context, seeking to fill lacunae in our knowledge. Not all individual sources are of equal weight. The nearest context, of course, is supplied by the rest of 1 Peter, and then by what we can know of early Christianity and its most explicit theological sources in the LXX and, insofar as we can reconstruct it, Jesus tradition. The most prominent early Jewish traditions from the era, known to us from sources such as 1 Enoch, Sirach, and, for Peter’s Diaspora audience, Wisdom of Solomon or Philo, remain invaluable. So are sources that help us reconstruct the wider Greco-Roman culture. Later sources, such as Tannaitic rabbinic collections (and, less relevant, later rabbinic collections) supplement these by potentially filling some gaps in our knowledge, though more tentatively. Early Christian interpreters provide valuable conversation partners more familiar with the Greco-Roman world than are most modern readers. By critically comparing various sources, I try to map 1 Peter in its ancient context in ways that help us best hear it in its first-century context, so we can more faithfully translate its message for us today.

1. Reicke, Epistles, 74; Robinson, Trust, 66–67. In 1897 Adolf von Harnack first proposed that 1 Peter was an earlier homily framed as a letter ca. 90 CE (Chronologie, 451–65, as cited in Elliott, Peter, 7).

2. Selwyn, Peter, 363–466; Davies, Paul, 123–28; much more cautiously Best, Peter, 29–32. Pace many (Beare, Peter, 192–96; Mitton, Ephesians, 18; Best, Peter, 35–36), the shared material does not require dependence on Ephesians (see, e.g., Brox, “Petrusbrief”), any more than similarities require dependence on 1 Clement (which most recognize as improbable; e.g., Best, Peter, 36). Moreover, although the authorship of Ephesians is heavily disputed, if Paul genuinely wrote it from Rome ca. 62, its content would certainly be known in Rome afterward (Hort, Peter, 5; writers of significant letters normally retained a backup copy: cf. Cicero, Fam. 7.25.1; Att. 9.11; 9.13a; 9.14; 10.3a; 13.29; Seneca Y., Lucil. 99; Richards, Letter Writing, 158–60 [including some poorer letter writers, 159]; Schmidt, “Letter,” 437).

3. Cross, Peter, 23–27; more tentatively, Selwyn, Peter, 62.

4. Cross, Peter, 28–35; Reicke, Epistles, xxxi–xxxii; Brooks, “Clue”; cf. Boismard, “Liturgie”; Gryglewicz, “Liturgia.”

5. Kelly, Peter, 15–20; Best, Peter, 21–23.

6. Best, Peter, 24–27; Kistemaker, Peter, 22–23; Marshall, Peter, 20; Grudem, Peter, 40–41; Prasad, Foundations, 48–58; Feldmeier, Peter, 28–30; Witherington, Peter, 47. Peter explicitly mentions baptism only in 3:21.

7. Cf., e.g., Cranfield, Peter, 13 (prior sermonic material in 1:3–4:11 with material for the present situation in 1:1–2; 4:12–5:14).

8. With, e.g., van Unnik, “Christianity”; France, “Exegesis,” 265; Thurén, Strategy, 79–88; Feldmeier, Peter, 30–32; see esp. Martin, Metaphor, 41–78; summary of consensus in Horrell, Peter, 8. Greek letters assumed their essential form half a millennium before Peter’s time, and secondary grammatical education introduced students to elementary letter-writing form (Malherbe, “Theorists,” 12–13). Often students learned by imitating model letters (Stowers, Letter Writing, 33).

9. See, e.g., Michaels, Peter, xxxvii–xxxix; Guthrie, Introduction, 788–93; Achtemeier, Peter, 58–62; Senior, 1 Peter, 10; fuller discussion in Prasad, Foundations, 53–61.

10. Elliott, Peter, 9–10.

11. With, e.g., Best, Peter, 13.

12. Cf. Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 113. Even Cicero’s letters average roughly only three hundred words (Morris, Romans, 1).

13. See Demetrius Phalereus, Style 4.228, noting this for many of Plato’s and Thucydides’s letters.

14. Cf., on Paul, Judge, First Christians, 710–11; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 113–14; cf. Malherbe, Social Aspects, 54–58; Smit Sibinga, “Serta Paulina.” The rhetorical level of 1 Peter is at least as sophisticated as Paul’s.

15. Forbes, “Comparison,” 151.

16. So Seneca Y., Lucil. 75.1–3. Weima (“Theory,” 328–29) notes that Pseudo-Demetrius, On Style 223–35, prefers somewhat more attention.

17. E.g., 2 Macc. 1:1–6; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.1; Rev. 1:1–5; cf. Cicero, Brut. 2.11 (noted in the preliminary narrative).

18. Cf. Hansen, Abraham, 23, on Paul’s letters.

19. Stowers, Letter Writing, 52. The rhetoric of 1 Peter (on which see, e.g., Campbell, Honor; Thurén, Strategy) is undoubtedly deliberative (Campbell, Honor, 30) and reflects some features characteristic of the so-called Asianic rhetoric (Witherington, Peter, 42–45). “The dramatic accumulation of synonyms for effect” (Elliott, Peter, 65, citing 1:3–5, 7, 18; 2:6, 9; 3:3bd, 8; 4:3b, 15; 5:2c–3a, 10d) fits flowery Asianic flourishes, though Asianism was sometimes simply an Atticist pejorative title (Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 283) for grand, eloquent Koine (Calboli, “Asianism”). Nevertheless, rhetorical structural analyses (treating 1 Peter as a speech; e.g., 1:13–16 as the propositio, in Campbell, Honor, 58–59) seem forced (Horrell, Peter, 18, noting also Martin, “Inventing”). Heil (Peter) suggests a different but sophisticated literary structure in terms of microchiasms focused on the center of each section (5–19) and a larger macrochiastic structure (20–23).

20. Seneca’s letters average about one thousand words (Morris, Romans, 1).

21. Richards, Letter Writing, 165.

22. For production of second copies of important letters for personal records, see Richards, Letter Writing, 158–59.

23. See Martin, Metaphor, 3–39, concluding (39) that no structural proposal had yet carried the day.

24. Most scholars recognize the division between 1:13–2:10 and 2:11–4:11 (Thurén, Strategy, 90–91). For the address agapētoi (2:11; 4:12) as a structural marker, dividing the letter into three parts (1:1–2:10; 2:11–4:11; 4:12–5:14), see, e.g., Michaels, Peter, xxxiv.

25. Watson, “Peter,” 11.

26. Watson, “Peter,” 12.

27. Martin, Metaphor, 102–3. Thurén (Strategy, 94) recognizes the paraenesis and its potential deliberative function, but (less plausibly, in my opinion) connects the letter as a whole with the epideictic genre (96–100), though rightly highlighting the dimension of honor and shame.

28. Martin, Metaphor, 160–61.

29. Martin, Metaphor, 161–88.

30. Martin, Metaphor, 188–208.

31. Martin, Metaphor, 208–66.

32. For exceptions, see, e.g., Pliny E., Nat. bk. 1; cf. Pliny’s explanation in Nat. pref. 33; see also Aulus Gellius, Att. pref. 25.

33. Aelius Theon, Progymn. 1.60; 2.91–104; 11.2–6, 240–43; Hermogenes, Progymn. 11. On Thesis 24–25; Aphthonius, Progymn. 13. On Thesis, 49S, 41R; Nicolaus the Sophist, Progymn. 12. On Thesis 71–72; see further Anderson, Glossary, 63–65 (esp. on Quintilian, Inst. 3.5.5–18; Cicero, Or. Brut. 125; for the use of thesis in first-century school exercises, Quintilian, Inst. 2.4.24–32; Aelius Theon, Progymn. 2.p.120,12ff. Sp.; on hypothesis, Cicero, De or. 2.133–47; Top. 80; Or. Brut. 45–46); more briefly, Aune, Rhetoric, 459–60; Schenkeveld, “Philosophical Prose,” 247; Mitchell, Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 198–99. For developing a hypothesis (a sample declamation theme), see, e.g., Hermogenes, Inv. 1.1.93–100.

34. E.g., Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.11; 38.5–6.

35. Quintilian, Inst. 4.4.1–2.

36. E.g., Thucydides, Hist. 1.23.6; Pliny E., Nat. 8.1.1; 18.1.1; 33.1.1; 34.1.1; 36.1.1; 37.1.1; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 7.1; 8.1. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Thuc. 10–11) critiques Thucydides for inadequate arrangement (Moessner, “Arrangement,” 161).

37. E.g., Tobin, Rhetoric in Contexts, 104; Johnson, Romans, 26; Aune, Rhetoric, 430 (as the prothesis); Jewett, Romans, 135. Others are less certain here (Keck, “Pathos,” 86; Elliott, Arrogance, 17).

38. Schenkeveld, “Philosophical Prose,” 247.

39. Keck, Paul, 19; Stowers, Letter Writing, 21–22. Despite some distinctive characteristics (Arzt, “Thanksgiving”; cf. Thiselton, Corinthians, 87; Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 207n44), Paul’s resemble other ancient epistolary thanksgivings (Aune, Environment, 163, 186; Reed, “Thanksgivings”).

40. See, e.g., Rhet. Alex. 29, 1436b.17–36; 36, 1441b.36–1442b.27; Cicero, De or. 1.31.143; 2.80.322–23; Inv. 1.15.20; Quintilian, Inst. 3.7.23–24; 4.1.16, 23; Menander Rhetor, Treat. 2.3, 378.4–9; cf. further Calboli Montefusco, “Exordium,” 272; Heath, “Invention,” 103; Aune, Rhetoric, 176; Gärtner, “Prooemium,” 16; examples include Aeschines, Ctes. 1; Cicero, Sest. 1.2; Rosc. com. 3.7; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 34.7–8; 39.1; 41.1; Chariton, Chaer. 5.7.1; Sipre Deut. 343.1.2; in other genres, Cicero, Fam. 13.66.1; Statius, Silv. 2.pref.; Heraclitus, Hom. Prob. 59.7.

41. Rhet. Alex. 29, 1436a, lines 33–39; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias 24; Cicero, Or. Brut. 40.137; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 38.8; cf. Seneca E., Controv. 1.pref. 21. This practice is not limited to speeches; in histories, see Polybius, Hist. 3.1.3–3.5.9 (note esp. 3.1.7; 11.1.4–5); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 19; Velleius Paterculus, Comp. 2.129.1; Lucian, Hist. 53; elsewhere, e.g., Virgil, Aen. 1.1–6; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.2; Soranus, Gynec. 1.intro.2; 2.5.9; Philostratus, Vit. apoll. 7.1; 8.1; Hippolytus, Ref. 1.proem.

42. One can respond by selectively appealing to later Christian pseudepigrapha, but these are all pseudepigraphic by virtue of being later and therefore do not allow us to predict what proportion of first-century works (which I believe we have strong reason to accept as 1 Peter’s century) are pseudepigraphic.

43. Michaels (Peter, lxii–lxvii) tentatively supports Petrine authorship, partly because the burden of proof lies with those who contest it.

44. See, e.g., Stibbs, Peter, 31–39. Some also suggest that a later first-century author would have also granted Peter a more exalted status than what appears in 1 Pet. 5:1 (Moffatt, Introduction, 340); moreover, the probable reading of 5:2 fits an earlier rather than later form of church government.

45. E.g., Beare, Peter; Best, Peter; Schmidt, “Garderobe.”

46. Krodel, “Peter,” 54–55; Best, Peter, 49–63 (arguing instead for a Petrine school, 63). On the high quality of the letter’s Greek, see also Aune, Rhetoric, 351; on its rhetoric, Aune, Rhetoric, 352; Thurén, “Writings,” 596–98.

47. Bilingualism was common in Lower Galilee (Porter, “Papyri, Palestinian,” esp. 766; Mussies, “Vehicle”; Millard, Reading and Writing, 102–17; Fiensy, “Composition,” 230; van der Horst, “Funerary Inscriptions”), though Aramaic was the dominant mother tongue (Wilcox, “Influence,” 1094; Horsley, Galilee, 247–49), and most bilingual speakers are stronger in one language (Horsley, Documents 5, 23–24; for significant modern exceptions with full competence, see Grudem, Peter, 30–31). Cf. Wuellner, Fishers, 57–59.

48. One should not, however, rest this observation on Acts 4:13; see Johnson, Acts, 78; Barrett, Acts, 233–34; Keith, “Claim,” 63–64; Keener, Acts, 2:1154–57.

49. See the thorough treatment in Jobes, Peter, 325–38; note esp. charts on 333, 336. Cf. the oft-cited proposal of the imperatival participle, although scholars have proposed alternative explanations; see discussion in the note at 1 Pet. 1:14. Cf. Wifstrand, “Problems.”

50. See esp. Elliott’s thorough treatment of 1 Peter’s vocabulary (Peter, 41–64) and style (68–80, 83), including “literary refinement,” such as “the near-Classical employment of the definite article and exact use of tenses” (64). It is not comparable to a Polybius or a Josephus, and may include some Semitic features (Jobes, “Syntax”; Jobes, Peter, 7; cf. Elliott, Peter, 68, on such exceptions), but it is still of a higher register than typical NT Koine.

51. Unlikely as I consider this solution, it is not impossible. Johnson (Writings, 432–33) points out that “two of the great English stylists of the twentieth century (Conrad and Nabokov) learned and mastered English only as adults.”

52. Kelly, Peter, 31–32; Sevenster, Greek, 191. For varying levels of scribal involvement in composition, see esp. Richards, Secretary; Richards, Letter Writing.

53. Cf. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.50.

54. See Jerome, Ep. 120.11 (Wikenhauser, Introduction, 506; Williams, Persecution, 26n58).

55. Paul could not have been the only one; cf. Paul’s rivals in 2 Cor. 11:5–6; see Keener, Corinthians, 227–28.

56. For Mark, cf. Papias, Frag. 3:14–15; 21:1–2.

57. Acts 12:12–13 (see comments in Keener, Acts, 2:1892–906); cf. also Col. 4:10 with Acts 4:36–37. For Mark as a contributing amanuensis to 1 Peter, see Moon, Amanuensis. For those who dismiss as uncritical any argument based on Acts, see my response in Keener, Acts, 1:51–401; more concisely, Keener, Cambridge Acts.

58. Correctly noted in Moffatt, General Epistles, 86; Zahn, Introduction, 2:150–51.

59. Scribes do appear sometimes; see, e.g., P.Hercul. 1426, the more polished version of a work, noted in Larsen, Gospels, 71.

60. Selwyn, Peter, 7–17. On matters of Greek rhetorical scale, see Barr, “Structure”; Barr, “Dependence”; Barr (“Impact”) argues for possible associations between Silvanus’s potential authorship of Hebrews and the Petrine epistles.

61. With, e.g., Cranfield, Peter, 14, 18, 137; Reicke, Epistles, 70; Skaggs, Peter, 3; pace Grudem, Peter, 23–24, 199–200; see comment on 1 Pet. 5:12.

62. Hunter, Message, 22.

63. Or speak of a consensus (e.g., Boring, “Recent Study”). Contrast scholars more respectful of the range of views (sometimes also noncommittal regarding authorship)—e.g., Hagner, New Testament, 699; Powell, New Testament, 481–82, 493–94.

64. See, e.g. (I borrow some examples from Williams, Persecution, 24–25n54; Jobes, Peter, 19), Heard, Introduction, 169–72; Congar, Mystery, 175; Wikenhauser, Introduction, 501–6; Stibbs, Peter, 15–30; Ketter, Petrusbriefe, 191; Reicke, Epistles, 69–71; Dalton, “Faith,” 265; Robinson, Redating, 169; Martin, Letters, 330–34; Drane, Early Christians, 109–11; Kistemaker, Peter, 5–9; Michaels, Peter, lxii–lxvii (tentatively); Carson, Moo, and Morris, Introduction, 421–24; Spicq, Pierre, 17–26; Thiede, Peter, 177; Holmer and de Boor, Briefe, 13–18; Bénétreau, Pierre, 33–41; Davids, Peter, 3–7; Marshall, Peter, 21–24; Hillyer, Peter, 1–3; Wendland, “Grace,” 25; Miller, Rock, 57–75; Green, Peter, 6–10; Jobes, Peter, 5–19; Burge, Cohick, and Green, New Testament, 401–2; Charles, “Peter,” 277–79; McKnight, Peter, 26–28; Schreiner, Peter, 21–36; Gäckle, “Grüsse”; Mosser in Paul, Rosner, and Mosser, “Letters,” 254–55; Watson, “Peter,” 3–5; Edwards, Peter, 18–19; and myself. Many note the detailed case in Guthrie, Introduction, 762–81.

65. Cf. Longenecker, Exegesis, 85, mentioning the Jewish practice of compiling characteristic teachings of prominent religious leaders.

66. See, e.g., Elliott, Peter, 118–30 (esp. 127–30); Knoch, “Petrusschule.” Cf. Chatelion Counet, “Pseudepigraphy.” Contrast Horrell, “Petrine Circle.”

67. Goppelt (Peter, 51–52, 370) argues that the Roman church may have used tradition shaped by Peter and Silvanus and therefore usefully attributed to them. Cf. Elliott, Peter, 130: “ascribed to Peter the Apostle because the group responsible for its composition knew that they were expressing not primarily their own ideas but rather the perspectives and teaching of their foremost leader, the Apostle Peter.”

68. Brown in Brown and Meier, Antioch and Rome, 129–30; likewise Feldmeier, Peter, 38.

69. Dunn, Jerusalem, 1148–53.

70. Green, Peter, 7.

71. Parallels sometimes cited (here from Drane, Early Christians, 109) include the execution “tree” in Acts 5:30; 10:39; 1 Pet. 2:24; the highlighting of the Isaian servant in Acts 3:13, 26; 4:25–30; 1 Pet. 2:21–25; the cornerstone in Acts 4:11; 1 Pet. 2:7; and the approach to the fulfillment of OT prophecies in Acts 3:18–24; 1 Pet. 1:10–12.

72. See, e.g., Ridderbos, “Speeches of Peter”; Smalley, “Christology Again,” 92; Elliott, Peter, 25–26 (a lengthy list of affinities); Thiede, “Scriptures”; Green, “Narrating”; Himes, “Word”; cf. also Combet-Galland, “Susciter” (suggesting that 1 Peter develops the Petrine traits). Ishodad of Merv, Commentaries 38 (Bray, Peter, 66), considered Petrine speeches in Acts rhetorically superior to this letter; by Greek rhetorical standards, I would argue the opposite.

73. On the nature of the speeches in Acts (Luke’s compositions but probably based on some knowledge of various speakers), see the range of approaches in Cadbury, “Speeches”; Bruce, Speeches in Acts; Bruce, “Speeches Thirty Years After”; Schweizer, “Speeches”; Gasque, “Speeches”; Horsley, “Speeches”; Porter, “Thucydidean View?”; Soards, Speeches; Padilla, Speeches; Plümacher, “Missionsreden”; other sources and discussion in Keener, Acts, 1:258–319.

74. See clearly and concisely Davies, Paul, 123–28. Ancient readers also recognized this; on similarities to James, cf. Andreas Presbyter, Catena (CEC 41–42); esp. Oecumenius, Comm. 1 Pet. (PG 119:513), in Bray, Peter, 65–66.

75. E.g., cf. already Moffatt, Introduction, 331–32. Davids (Peter, 5) suggests that a pseudepigrapher advancing Paulinisms in Asia Minor would likelier attribute the letter to Paul himself than to Peter.

76. See Dunn, Galatians, 134; Hays, Conversion, 71; Hays, “Galatians,” 236; deSilva, Readings, 128; Das, Galatians, 240–41; Riesner, “Rechtfertigung,” 207–11; Sumney, Steward, 78–81; de Boer, “Justification”; de Boer, Galatians, 143; Keener, Galatians (2019), 171–72; Barr, “Preaching.”

77. E.g., Taylor, Atonement, 34; Achtemeier, Peter, 15–19; Elliott, Peter, 40. Differences (emphasized, e.g., in Elliott, Peter, 37–40) cannot demonstrate independence (rightly noted by Williams, “Intertextuality”), but as a control alleged parallels should also be tested by word usage in clearly independent works from the same circles, where possible. Before surveying parallels between 1 Peter and other NT writings, Powell (New Testament, 482–84) rightly observes that 1 Peter reflects “mainstream Christianity.”

78. Best (Peter, 32–34) argues for such dependence; Kelly (Peter, 11–15) argues fairly persuasively against it. Peter’s adaptation of Isaiah reflects a form earlier attested in Rom. 9:33 (Koch, “Quotations”), possibly originally from that letter; adaptations toward the Hebrew text appear especially in Isaian texts in Romans (Marcar, “Quotations”).

79. See commentary; also Gundry, “Verba Christi”; Gundry, “Further Verba”; Maier, “Jesustradition.” Thus cf. Drane, Early Christians, 109: “Much of its teaching is exactly what we would expect from a disciple of Jesus,” given how much it echoes Jesus. Despite weaker connections, many of Gundry’s allusions are strong; dismissing Johannine ones (such as John 3:3–5; 20:29 [“Verba Christi,” 337–38]) presupposes more skepticism about John than is necessary today (see, e.g., Hengel, Question; Anderson, Just, and Thatcher, John, Jesus, and History; Anderson, Quest; Charlesworth, “Shift”; Charlesworth, Mirrored in John; Charlesworth with Pruszinski, John in Inquiry; Wright, “Reliability”); complaints that Peter follows Luke’s redaction of the tradition (Best, “Tradition”) are as debatable as whether Matthew or Luke reflects the earlier form of Q in a given instance.

80. Achtemeier, Peter, 11–12, following Best, “Tradition,” 95.

81. Rodríguez, Structuring, 87.

82. See Kirk, “Nexus,” 148, and Kirk, “Memory Theory,” 835, following Malkki, Purity and Exile, 56, 106, 244.

83. Finnegan, Oral Poetry, 140; Ong, Orality, 56–57; Rubin, Memory, 7, 319; Small, Wax Tablets, 7, 192; McIver, Memory, 120; see further Hunter, “Recall”; Keener, Christobiography, 385–88. For exceptions, see Finnegan, Oral Poetry, 73–86, 142; Finnegan, Literacy, 90, 158, 166–67, 172–73 (although she defines accuracy more generally than do her detractors); Ong, Orality, 61–63; Byrskog, Teacher, 323–24; Keener, Christobiography, 388–90.

84. McIver, Memory, 176–80; McIver and Carroll, “Experiments”; McIver and Carroll, “Characteristics”; cf. Bailey, “Tradition” (Themelios), 6–7; Bailey, “Tradition” (ExpTim), 365; Dunn, Tradition, 238; Keener, Christobiography, 389–90, 426–27. Against those who might suppose that I cite Bailey here uncritically, see Keener, “Weeden’s Critique.”

85. For Q being perhaps as early as the 40s, see Theissen, Gospels, 220–21, 230–32.

86. Michaels (Peter, xli) sees Q material here. That some sayings appear to follow Matthean form (Best, “Tradition,” 109–10) is a problem only if we assume that Luke always preserves the original form. Moreover, some find parallels with both Matthean and Lukan forms (Michaels, Peter, xli). Further, some scholars even argue that the earliest form of Q is Papias’s Matthew (Papias, Frag. 3:16; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.16; see Filson, History, 83; Hill, Matthew, 23–27, 53; Bruce, Documents, 40; Trevijano Etcheverría, “Obra”; Edwards, “Genre,” 55; Knight, “Problem”), which could have been developed into the discourses of our current Matthew, to which Mark’s narrative structure was added. Peter would not need to be author of Q material to accept it as a valid source if he trusted its authors and it remained consistent with his recollections; we need only compare how two intimate colleagues, both students of a revered professor, might recall different but (they could expect) complementary elements of her life and teaching.

87. Horrell, Peter, 35–36.

88. Best, “Tradition”; Michaels, Peter, xli. On the likely reliability of one of these sections, coextensive with much of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, see Allison, Jesus, 353–63, 374.

89. See discussion in Keener, Christobiography.

90. Davids, Peter, 26–27.

91. Allusions to Daniel (Dan. 4:1; 6:26 in 1 Pet. 1:2; Dan. 6:27 in 1 Pet. 1:23) appear closer to proto-Theodotion (Feldmeier, Peter, 26), but this may simply reflect the scrolls or traditions most available.

92. What NT scholars typically employ as the LXX actually is a composite of recensions and variations; it is, however, the familiar form among NT readers today, and will suffice for most ordinary purposes in this commentary.

93. The quality of Greek in 1 Peter does not suggest spontaneous composition, as with typical letters, but probably drafts and reworking. This was, after all, a circular letter to a wide swathe of churches (1 Pet. 1:1).

94. Selwyn, Peter, vii; Sidebottom, James, Jude & 2 Peter, 96–97 (though perhaps overestimating the simplicity of 1 Peter’s style). This commentary does not take a position on the author or date of 2 Peter, as those are questions distinct from the case of 1 Peter. Jerome (Ep. 120.11) explained the stylistic differences between the two letters on the basis of an amanuensis (Wikenhauser, Introduction, 506; Williams, Persecution, 26n58).

95. Selwyn, Peter, 38; cf. also the contrast in McDonald, New Testament, 259–60. Earlier, Hort (Peter, 1) notes that “ancient tradition uniformly attributes the Epistle to St Peter,” contrasting (in n. 1) James, 2–3 John, Jude, and esp. 2 Peter. Note Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.3.1–2 (Foster, “Relationship,” 179). Those unimpressed by the relative earliness of the citations would also be those least cognizant of the slenderness of surviving evidence from ancient sources in general, with which scholars of the period must work.

96. Some suppose that Polycarp must have had an anonymous copy, without 1:1–2, since he does not name Peter as the author. Polycarp cites Paul by name in Phil. 11:2–3, but usually he does not name early Christian sources, including Paul, when he quotes them.

97. For one list of fourteen possible, probable, or certain citations, see Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 201–2.

98. Polycarp also uses Eph. 2:8 and Acts 2:24 in the immediate context. Tenses and forms differ, as is common in quotations from memory and adaptations to context (for adapting authoritative quotations to context, see Hermogenes, Method 30.447; Stanley, Language of Scripture, 290–91, 305–6, 322–23, 334–37). We may, however, safely rule out coincidence; even by itself, the term translated inexpressible appears only here in the NT and only twice in the Apostolic Fathers.

99. Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 40, on Polycarp, Phil. 1:2–3. Berding (41) also finds an allusion to 1 Pet. 1:12 in Polycarp, Phil. 1:3.

100. The two key terms appear also in Prov. 31:17, but both the sense and the syntax are quite different; they appear together nowhere else in the LXX, Philo, or Josephus. Perizōnnumi commonly appears with osphus in the LXX and twice in the NT, but anazōnnumi is a NT hapax.

101. The allusion is clear, merely reshaped syntactically to fit “Polycarp’s sentence” (Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 46). “Raise” (egeirō), “dead” (nekros), “give” (didōmi), and “glory” (doxa) appear nowhere else all together in the NT, LXX, Apostolic Fathers, Philo, or Josephus. Polycarp, Phil. 2:1, also mentions the judge of the living and the dead, as in 1 Pet. 4:5 (although that title also appears in Acts 10:42, which is also attributed to Peter; 2 Tim. 4:1).

102. Berding (Polycarp and Paul, 78) suggests that conflation with Gal. 5:17 accounts for the transformation of Peter’s “soul” to Polycarp’s “spirit.”

103. Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 106: “almost certainly a loose, compressed citation of 1 Pet. 2:12,” given conduct, among the gentiles (keeping in mind that Polycarp is a gentile), “praise for good deeds,” and “not being slandered.”

104. Here Berding (Polycarp and Paul, 102) prefers a loose rendering of Rom. 12:10, but a blending is likelier. The Vulgate of 1 Pet. 3:8 also shares the wording of Polycarp’s Latin text here.

105. The conjunction of Jesus’s bearing sins on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24) and the lack of deceit in his mouth (2:22) makes the dependence of Polycarp, Phil. 8:1, here “an almost certainty” (Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 95), even aside from their other shared use of Isa. 53 here. Cf. also Jesus’s death “on behalf of you” and “bore sins” in 1 Pet. 2:21 and 3:18 alongside Polycarp, Phil. 1:2; 9:2; Mart. Pol. 17:2; Diogn. 9:2–5, with specifically Petrine elements (Hill, Lost Teaching, 139–40).

106. Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 95–96, noting other Petrine language in Polycarp, Phil. 8:2.

107. Berding, Polycarp and Paul, 50: “an almost certain true citation.”

108. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.14.9.

109. Feldmeier, Peter, 39. Berding (Polycarp and Paul, 13–24) makes a strong case for this date.

110. The majority position. Some date it much later, but, as with much of the other information debated here, only by inference from secondary evidence after dismissing the concrete claims of ancient sources.

111. See Kruger, Canon Revisited, 216.

112. Ignatius, Magn. 15:1; Pol. salutation; 8:2; cf. Eph. 21:1; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.36.5, 10.

113. Most scholars consider the case of such living-memory recollections (e.g., of survivors’ lives before internment in Nazi concentration camps [e.g., Schwartz, Living Memory; Jilovsky, Remembering Holocaust, 103], or of apartheid-era forced relocations in South Africa [e.g., Field, Communities; Field, Oral History]) fairly stable and reliable (Vansina, Oral Tradition, 192–93, 197; cf. 158–59; Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word, 161–88; Kirk, “Nexus,” 144).

114. Galinsky, “Introduction,” 12. See Assmann, Cultural Memory, 6, 19, 35–38 (esp. 36); Assmann, Religion and Memory, 3–30; Assmann, “Memory and Culture,” 331, 334, 338; Keith, “Prolegomena,” 170; Kirk, “Memory Theory,” 840–41; Dunn, Tradition, 236.

115. See, e.g., Morrison, “Perspective,” 2; Hamilton and Shopes, Oral History, xi; Field, “Dialogues,” 269.

116. Vansina, Oral Tradition, 173, 192–93, 197.

117. Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna (Ignatius, Magn. 15:1; Pol. salutation; Mart. Pol. 16:2; 23:1; Papias, Frag. 1:1; 2:1; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.14.3; 5.24.4; cf. Ignatius, Eph. 21:1; Mart. Pol. salutation; 12:2; 19:1) in the province of Asia (e.g., Pliny E., Nat. 5.31.120), one of the provinces addressed in 1 Pet. 1:1.

118. For his reported apostolic connections, see Irenaeus in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.20.5–6; Hill, Lost Teaching, 171–77.

119. Cf. prophets preaching Christ beforehand and apostles afterward in 1 Pet. 1:10–12 and Polycarp, Phil. 6:3; being self-controlled (from nēphō) for prayer in 1 Pet. 4:7 and Polycarp, Phil. 7:2 (Berding [Polycarp and Paul, 92–94, 195] regards this as probable); glorifying God/Christ if one suffers for his name, in 1 Pet. 4:15–16 and Polycarp, Phil. 8:2 (and Herm. 105:5); mutual submission in 1 Pet. 5:5 and Polycarp, Phil. 10:2, though I think an echo of Eph. 5:21 (or blending) is likelier; faint echoes of verbs in 1 Pet. 1:10–11 in Herm. 40:4; probably 1 Pet. 5:7 in Herm. 19:3; 23:4–5 (though they could draw independently on LXX Ps. 54:23 [ET 55:22]).

120. Brought to my attention by Charles Hill (July 23, 2019). See discussion in Hill, Lost Teaching, 139–40.

121. See Hill, Lost Teaching, esp. 168–70.

122. E.g., Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.1. For further information on Papias, see esp. Shanks, “Papias and Witness”; Shanks, Papias.

123. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.17; Papias, Frag. 3:17.

124. Papias, Frag. 3:4; 7:3.

125. Papias, Frag. 5:1; 7:3; 9:1; 12:1; 13:1; 14:6; 16:1; 18:3; 19:1; 26:1; 28:1; cf. 3:4, 7. Some claims (e.g., that Papias was John’s scribe for the Gospel [Papias, Frag. 20:1]) seem fictitious in light of others (he merely saw or heard John [Papias, Frag. 1:1; 6:2–3]), but that Papias learned from John likely stems from Papias’s own preface (as quoted in Papias, Frag. 3:3–4). Eusebius’s argument for two Johns (Papias, Frag. 3:2, 5–6; 7:5–6; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.2, 5–7) probably reflects his own discomfort with the Apocalypse (Papias, Frag. 3:12–13; 7:7); it is not the simplest understanding of Papias’s phrase as quoted by Eusebius. This matter is no less disputed today than 1 Peter’s authorship, but I have offered my own argument in Keener, John, 91–100.

126. See Papias, Frag. 3:1; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.1; cf. similarly “ancient time” in Papias, Frag. 3:13 (though this instance includes also Irenaeus); “ancestral glory” in 22:1. He was a contemporary and companion of Polycarp, also reputed to have learned from John (Papias, Frag. 1:1; 2:1; 3:1), and said to be “apostolic” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.36.10; 4.15.46) and ancient (3.38.5). For early dating of Papias’s information, see, e.g., Yarbrough, “Date”; Gundry, Mark, 1027–33; Crossley, Date, 13; Stein, Mark, 2; Garland, Theology, 53–55; Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 13–14; Riesner, Messias Jesus, 427–28.

127. Already noted briefly was Polycarp, Phil. 6:3.

128. Compare Barn. 5:6 with 1 Pet. 1:10–11.

129. E.g., Elliott, Peter, 138–40, who does find attestation here.

130. As often noted—e.g., Michaels, Peter, xxxiii; Schreiner, Peter, 22.

131. See Elliott, Peter, 139. In addition to parallels, he cites vocabulary, much of it rare elsewhere in the NT.

132. Clement’s salutation also includes paroikeō, which appears as a Petrine synonym (1 Pet. 2:11) for a title for believers in Peter’s salutation (1:1).

133. See here Hagner, Clement, 239. Apart from the quite different LXX Ezek. 21:34, this is the only passage in biblical Greek that includes both mataios and a cognate of paradosis. Davies (“Hagner”) views Hagner’s treatment favorably, apart from his work with the LXX.

134. Hagner, Clement, 239–40. Both replace the LXX philia with agapē and place it first; both add plēthos and include hamartiai (agapē kaluptei plēthos hamartiōn), so that only one word remains from the LXX (kaluptei), which has a very different sense.

135. Elliott, Peter, 139. James 4:6 and subsequent sources (including Ignatius, Eph. 5:3; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 3.49.2) also share this form, against the dominant LXX version.

136. Hagner, Clement, 240–42, though concluding (241–42) that Clement is probably using 1 Peter. James 5:20 (kalupsei plēthos hamartiōn) reflects part of the same tradition in using Prov. 10:12 but omits the term for “love,” so is not Clement’s direct source. The Petrine form appears in 2 Clem. 16:4; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4.3.3; Paed. 3.12.91; Quis div. 38.1; Didascalia Apostolorum 2. But regarding Prov. 3:34, James 4:6 and 1 Pet. 5:5 are identical.

137. James omits agapē, the key term in the 1 Peter and 1 Clement passages.

138. Hagner (Clement, 242–43) notes that in both, believers should pursue holiness because they belong to the Holy One (1 Pet. 1:15–16; 1 Clem. 30:1); they should therefore abandon vices (1 Pet. 2:1; 1 Clem. 30:1), exemplified by a list that includes slander (katalalia, which appears only three times in biblical Greek) and other vices (the more common epithumia and some synonyms appear in 1 Pet. 4:3; 1 Clem. 30:1). Although the precise wording differs, one should especially compare clothing themselves (1 Clem. 30:3; 1 Pet. 5:5, the passage in question; cf. putting off in 2:1) with harmony (1 Clem. 30:3; cf. 1 Pet. 3:8), being humble-minded (1 Clem. 30:3; 1 Pet. 3:8, both using tapeinophron- roots).

139. 1 Clem. 16:3–14 also cites Isa. 53 at length, the other passage that 1 Peter engages at greatest length (2:22–25), albeit not all as quotation and nowhere as long as 1 Clement.

140. “Darkness to light” language appears also in Acts 26:18 (cf. Rom. 13:12; 2 Cor. 4:6; Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:12–13), but appears nowhere else in the NT with kaleō (nor does either darkness or light appear with it elsewhere there).

141. 1 Clem. 21:7 includes hagneia and prautēs (for Peter’s hagnos and praus) and synonyms such as sigē (for hēsuchios) and ēthos (for anastrophē), plus a similar term from 1 Pet. 2:18 (epieikēs). The verse also includes language of impartiality and fearing God (cf. 1 Pet. 1:17; 2:17).

142. Among early Christian texts known to us from the NT, potential sources for Clement’s hagneia regarding women could also include Titus 2:5, but this is the likeliest of any prior text for prautēs; silence could also reflect 1 Cor. 14:34–35; 1 Tim. 2:11–12, but this is the likeliest of any prior text for “behavior” with respect to women.

143. Hagner (Clement, 243) finds this parallel less persuasive because the words are common.

144. See Hagner, Clement, 245; many of these examples may be blended with other citations.

145. Apechou tōn sarkikōn . . . epithumiōn. 1 Pet. 5:5 is the only NT (or LXX) text with both key terms (nor do they appear together in Philo or Josephus); fairly soon after 1 Clement, the admonition appears also in Polycarp, Phil. 5:3.

146. Apechesthai tōn sarkikōn epithumiōn.

147. The context in the Didache plainly recalls Jesus’s teachings, some from the same section of Jesus’s ethical sermon (or the apostolic collection of Jesus’s ethics blended into a sermon) that is also echoed in 1 Peter.

148. Irenaeus, Haer. 4.9.2: “as Peter says in his epistle,” citing 1 Pet. 1:8, which, as noted above, was already cited in Polycarp, Phil. 1:3, and thus might reflect a commonly used line from the letter. Irenaeus cites Peter for this again in Haer. 5.7.2; and in Haer. 4.16.5 he cites 1 Pet. 2:16, preceding it with “and for this reason Peter says.”

149. Papias, Frag. 1:1; 3:1; Irenaeus, Haer. 3.3.4; 5.33.4. See also Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.28.6; 3.36.1; 4.14.3; 5.24.16.

150. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.5.8; quoting a letter of Irenaeus in 5.20.4–6. For Irenaeus as a disciple of Polycarp, see Hill, Lost Teaching, 173–74; cf. Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 35.

151. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.3.1, 4; 3.25.2. He notes serious doubts about 2 Peter (3.3.1; 3.25.3) and rejects entirely the Acts of Peter, Gospel of Peter, and Apocalypse of Peter (3.3.2; 3.25.4).

152. Kelly, Peter, 28.

153. Those of us who find parallels especially to Hellenistic Judaism usually date 2 Peter earlier (often in the first century [e.g., Richard Bauckham, Daniel J. Harrington, Ruth Anne Reese]) than do those who find its milieu especially in Gnosticism.

154. Licona, “Historically Reliable,” 5.

155. See Papias, Frag. 3:14–15; 21:1–2. See discussion in Hengel, Mark.

156. Jobes (Peter, 19) cites as defenders after such questions “Weiss, Zahn, Lightfoot, Hort, Hatch, Moffatt, and Schlatter” (for Moffatt, see Moffatt, Introduction, 318–44; for Zahn, see Zahn, Introduction, 2:146–58; cf. also Hart, “Peter,” 7–38, all answering many of the same objections raised today). Questions seem first raised by J. S. Semler, a fairly lone voice in the eighteenth century.

157. Dating it before the outbreak of Nero’s persecution, Selwyn, Peter, 56–63; Watson, “Peter,” 6; cf. the pre-70 date in Janse van Rensburg, “Context.”

158. Ramsay, Church, 279–88 (excluding Trajan’s time in 288–90); Elliott, Peter, 138; Elliott, Home, 84–87.

159. E.g., Best, Peter, 63–64; Parker, “Domitian”; Boring, Peter, 33–34. Some question whether Domitian actually persecuted Christians much; see Harrison, “Persecution,” 291–95.

160. E.g., McCaughey, “Persecution Documents”; Beare, Peter, 9–19.

161. The epistolary form does not seem ideally suited for such posthumous recirculation, however (despite various probable exceptions), and I regard it as less likely than circulation during his life. Even so, Peter could have commissioned others to draft the letter for him (Davids, Peter, 6–7).

162. See, e.g., Prasad, Foundations, 36–46.

163. See Polycarp, Phil. 10:2; 11:2, though the first of these references echoes 1 Peter. Later sources instead seem to supplant Jewishness (cf. the true, spiritual Israelite in Justin, Dial. 11).

164. Bede (Commentary, 69) envisioned the proselytes from these regions in Acts 2:11.

165. While we must approach sources critically, I believe that scholars have often uncritically accepted the hypotheses of other scholars over the actual primary sources. Modern reconstructions too often support their hypotheses by first eliminating evidence that does not fit—and arguing the opposite of that evidence on the basis of the silence that remains, a particularly perverse form of the argumentum ex silentio. It carries a hermeneutic of suspicion to lengths that, if practiced more self-critically, could lead to near epistemic nihilism about the past.

166. E.g., Best, Peter, 178. See most extensively Hunzinger, “Deckname”; but contrast, helpfully, Thiede, “Babylon.”

167. It seems implied in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. Some references in the Sibylline Oracles may be earlier, although they are difficult to date with precision; Collins (Sibylline Oracles) dates the important Sib. Or. 5:143 to probably the late first or early second century CE.

168. Pliny Y., Ep. 10.96–97; Pliny may have lacked opportunity to edit bk. 10 (Bell, “Note on Revision”). Note also the expectation of martyrdom in Ignatius’s letters—e.g., Rom. 1:1–2:2; 4:1–5:2; 6:1–3. Shaw (“Myth”) doubts Neronian persecution, but Jones (“Historicity”) answers Shaw persuasively (cf. also van der Lans and Bremmer, “Persecution”), as others (Bond, Biography, 9n20; Dijkstra and Raschle, Violence, 57n56) also note, despite Shaw, “Response.”

169. Downing, “Prosecutions.”

170. For the emperor’s ambivalence, see Pliny Y., Ep. 10.97; Jones, Empire, 324; for Pliny’s, Ep. 10.96.2.

171. Neither Trajan nor Pliny initiates the policy against Christians, which must precede them (Hort, Peter, 3; Ramsay, Church, 212–13; cf. Feldmeier, Peter, 3–4, noting arguments in Molthagen, “Cognitionibus”; Molthagen, “Lage”; esp. in Rome, Incigneri, Gospel to Romans, 107–8). Pace Reichert, “Konfusion,” Pliny’s letter reads like a preexisting policy.

172. See Reicke, Era, 293; Elliott, Home, 87; Elliott, Peter, 135; Boring, Peter, 33–34.

173. This is my current view, as I have begun work on a Mark commentary. (For Rome, cf. also, e.g., Mansfield, Spirit and Gospel, 146–53; Matera, Mark, 15; synthesizing the evidence helpfully, see Collins, Mark, 7–8.) Like 1 Peter’s date, however, the setting and date of Mark are strongly debated.

174. Josephus, Ant. 20.200–203 (for this passage’s usually accepted authenticity, see, e.g., Hare, Persecution, 32–33; Feldman, “Methods,” 591; Paget, “Observations”; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 185–89). On James’s martyrdom, see further Martin, James, lxii–lxix; cf. Regev, “Concerns,” 77–79.

175. So also Moule, “Nature and Purpose,” 8; Moule, Birth, 113–14; Best, Peter, 39–42; Davids, Peter, 9–10; Green, Peter, 8–10; Donelson, Peter, 11.

176. Mart. Pol. 3:2; 9:2; Athenagoras, Leg. 3–4; 10–11; 30; Justin, 1 Apol. 6; 13; 70–71; 2 Apol. 3; probably Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 3.16.1. Christians returned the charge (Ignatius, Trall. 10:1; Mart. Pol. 9:2). Epicureans were similarly denounced as atheists and haters of humanity (Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 12), so critics associated Christians with them (Lucian, Alex. 38; 46; Alexander, “IPSE DIXIT,” 124; Whittaker, Jews and Christians, 189–90); for the same charge against Jews, see Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.148. On genuine ancient atheists, see Sextus Empiricus, Pyr. 3.218; Cicero, Inv. 1.29.46; Winiarczyk, “Atheist.”

177. Minucius Felix, Oct. 9.5.

178. Athenagoras, Leg. 3; 35; Theophilus, Autol. 3.15; Minucius Felix, Oct. 9.5; Tertullian, Apol. 2.5, 20; 4.11; 7.1; cf. Justin, 1 Apol. 26; Macarius Magnes, Apocrit. 3.7–18; Rives, “Sacrifice.” It was a useful political slander (cf. Sallust, Catil. 22.1–3). Mainstream Greco-Roman culture abhorred cannibalism, attributing it to barbarians (Herodotus, Hist. 3.99; Thucydides, Hist. 3.94.5; Apollodorus, Epit. 7.4; Pseudo-Tibullus 3.7.144–45; Pliny E., Nat. 6.20.53; 7.2.9; Aulus Gellius, Att. 9.4.6; Lucian, Funerals 21; Philostratus, Her. 57.9; Bowersock, Fiction as History, 130–32; cf. Pliny E., Nat. 28.2.7), deception (Galen, Foodstuffs 3.1.663), or starvation conditions (Polybius, Hist. 1.85.1; Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 1.84.1; Tacitus, Hist. frg. 1; Plutarch, Luc. 11.1; Appian, Hist. rom. 12.6.38; later, cf. Garnsey, Food, 37); its practice by deities was best allegorized (Cornutus, Summary of Greek Theology 6, §6.20–7.5; Macrobius, Sat. 1.8.10). By contrast, Stoics found cannibalism and incest potentially justifiable (Sextus Empiricus, Pyr. 3.207; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.1.121; 7.7.188; Hook, “Oedipus”).

179. Athenagoras, Leg. 3; Theophilus, Autol. 3.4; Tertullian, Apol. 2.5, 20; 4.11; 7.1; Minucius Felix, Oct. 31.1; cf. the story in Bamberger, Proselytism, 235. Christians’ appreciation for celibacy also seemed strange (Justin, 1 Apol. 29; Grant, Paul, 107–8). For ancient disgust against incest, see, e.g., 1 Cor. 5:1; Hesiod, Op. 328–29; Xenophon, Mem. 4.4.20–21; Lysias, Or. 14.41, §143; Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 5.55.6–7; Cicero, Leg. 2.9.22; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 1.8.ext. 3; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 66.6; Gaius, Inst. 1.59–64; Plutarch, Rom. Q. 108, Mor. 289D; Par. Stor. 19, Mor. 310BC; Juvenal, Sat. 2.32–33; 4.8–9; Tacitus, Ann. 14.2; 16.8; Suetonius, Cal. 23–24; Nero 28; Robinson, Criminal Law, 54–57; Ebner, “Incestus.”

180. Moffatt, General Epistles, 159; cf. Reicke, Epistles, 72; Chadwick, Early Church, 25–26.

181. See Harrison, “Persecution,” 297, for echoes of the cannibalism and immorality stereotypes in Pliny Y., Ep. 10.96.7–8. Several of these charges recur in later Jewish anti-Christian polemic (Visotzky, “Overturning,” on b. Šabb. 116ab). For some early pagan ridicule of Christians, see Nock, Conversion, 212–53; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 472–80; Cook, Interpretation, passim.

182. Van Unnik, “Christianity”; Kelly, Peter, 10; Elliott, Peter, 97–103.

183. Balch, Wives, 95, 109; see the commentary on 1 Pet. 2:13–3:6.

184. Kelly, Peter, 29. Even the later persecutions were not, however, universal.

185. The first clear “empire-wide, state-sponsored persecution” was under Decius (249–51 CE) (Smith, “Revelation,” 344). Interestingly, Tacitus, governor in Asia, though anti-Jewish (Hist. 5.5), does not think Christians worthy of death (Ann. 15.44), whereas his friend Pliny Y. in Bithynia proved somewhat less hesitant (Ep. 10.96).

186. As just noted, under Decius in 250 CE. The rise in religious intolerance globally makes it a plausible prospect for the future even today.

187. Cf., e.g., Acts 18:14–15 with Acts 18:2; see Hort, Peter, 2.

188. Selwyn, Peter, 55; Goppelt, “Church in History,” 194.

189. See Williams, Persecution, esp. 179–236.

190. See Williams, Persecution, esp. 131–78.

191. Not least, social ostracism (Williams, Persecution, 323–25) and often consequent economic marginalization (322–23).

192. See Williams, Persecution, 240–97.

193. Tacitus, Ann. 15.44 (esp. 15.44.2; Feldmeier, Peter, 2–5), on which see also Lund, “Verbrennung”; Harrison, “Persecution,” 287–90. Despite some detractors (Fau, “Authenticité”), the authenticity of this passage has long been almost universally accepted (Mattingly, Christianity, 31–32; Harris, “References,” 348–50), not least on philological grounds (Goguel, Life, 94–95).

194. Suetonius, Claud. 25.4. See discussion of this in Keener, Acts, 3:2697–710, esp. 2708–10; Keener, “Edict.” Luke’s apologetic history naturally omits such associations (Acts 18:2).

195. Lack of mention of Peter in Acts 28 and perhaps of Paul in 1 Peter suggests that these works depict their presence in Rome at slightly different times; if Paul was executed within two years of arrival, or, as I think more likely, released and pursued ministry elsewhere at that time (see Keener, Acts, 4:3764–71), the lack of overlap makes sense. The clearest (albeit not indisputable) early evidence for Peter in Rome is the cryptic “Babylon” in 1 Pet. 5:13.

196. On this passage, see Keener, Acts, 4:3737–38, 3747–48; Harrison, “Persecution,” 285.

197. Whittaker, Jews and Christians, 115–16; Josephus, Ant. 20.77, 81. Such behavior was deemed outrageous (Pliny E., Nat. 6.20.54, complaining about China).

198. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.148, 257–61.

199. With, e.g., Cranfield, Peter, 17.

200. The identification of elders, shepherds, and the function of overseers is more characteristic of the first century than of the institution of bishoprics that had already been widely instituted by the time of Ignatius.

201. E.g., Boring, Peter, 38; Elliott, Peter, 131–34; Edwards, Peter, 19–20.

202. E.g., Best, Peter, 64–65.

203. Kelly, Peter, 33; Best, Peter, 64. Such traditions include Irenaeus, Haer. 3.1.1; 3.3.2.

204. Jewett, Romans, 62–63.

205. Jewett, Romans, 62.

206. There I argue, with a majority of scholars, that the figurative sense appears; this need not rule out, but prevents any certainty of, a literal background alongside it.

207. The majority view; see, e.g., Best, Peter, 19–20; Michaels, Peter, xlv–xlvi; Harrington, God’s People, 83; Schreiner, Peter, 38–39; Hockey, Role of Emotion, 50.

208. Lyall, Slaves, 236; cf. observations in Longenecker, Christology, 21, 77; Judge, First Christians, 453. Calvin and “most ancient exegetes except Augustine and Jerome” viewed the audience as Jewish believers (Jobes, Peter, 23); Bray (Peter, 65) lists as examples “Eusebius of Caesarea, Didymus, Andreas, Oecumenius.”

209. Selwyn, Peter, 42–44 (cf. 305–9); Elliott, Peter, 95. Some mixture seems likely, with gentiles predominating (with Elliott, Home, 65–67).

210. See thoroughly Elliott, Peter, 12–17.

211. Cf. here Green, Peter, 5–6. For lectors’ performance, see, helpfully, Shiell, Reading Acts.

212. Van Unnik, “Christianity.” If this is correct, however, the language is employed figuratively (see Seland, “πάροικος”).

213. Longenecker, Exegesis, 190 (viewing Peter’s exegesis as more like pesher [201]).

214. Cf. Feldmeier, Peter, 26: “Only in Hebrews and the Apocalypse do we find a comparable density of Old Testament citations and allusions.”

215. Finegan, Apostles, 22–25, surveys the sources (esp. the presbyter Gaius of Rome [199–217 CE; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.25.6]; Origen [in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.1]; Tertullian, Praescr. 36; Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.29; cf. Acts Paul 11:3); Culpepper, John, 249; for excavations under the Vatican, see Finegan, Apostles, 26–28. 1 Clem. 5:4 does not specify the location (unless one infers it from paralleling Paul in 5:5–7); but cf. Mart. Isa. 4:2–3; Apoc. Pet. 14:4; Tertullian, Scorp. 15.3 (in Williams, Persecution, 32); and esp. Eusebius’s understanding of Clement in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.25.2.

216. With, e.g., Latourette, First Five Centuries, 94–95; Dudley, Civilization, 233; Bruce, History, 403; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 471; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 163; Placher, Mark, 7. See Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.25.5–8, citing much earlier sources; cf. Chadwick, “Peter”; Falasca, “Peter’s Bones”; Bockmuehl, “Peter’s Death”; Barnes, “Gird” (attributing Peter’s death in Rome to burning). The tradition of Peter as founder of the Roman church, however (e.g., Gennadius of Constantinople, Pauline Commentary from the Greek Church on Rom. 15:20) is later (see Patzia, Emergence, 137).

217. Tertullian, Scorp. 15, noted in Yamauchi, “Archives,” 80.

218. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.25.5; 3.31.1.

219. Cf. his many hardships due to others’ hostility (1 Clem. 5:4).

220. E.g., Longenecker, Exegesis, 85; Bruce, Message, 92. Moule (“Nature and Purpose,” 10) viewed it as originally two distinct letters.

221. Kelly, Peter, 7, 21; Best, Peter, 24–28.

222. Explicit in Cicero, Fam. 12.12.5, although it does not appear to be common.

223. Tertullian, Apol. 5.3–4. Some question whether Domitian actually effected much persecution of Christians; see Harrison, “Persecution,” 291–95. The two despised emperors were sometimes compared (Pliny Y., Ep. 1.5.1).

224. Robinson, Redating, 145–46; Robinson, Trust, 66.

225. Robinson, Redating, 149.

226. On Nero in more detail, see, e.g., Momigliano, “Nero”; Griffin, Nero; briefly, Benko, “Early Empire,” 56–60.

227. See Momigliano, “Nero,” 702–10; Aurelius Victor, Caes. 5.2–4 (Sherk, Empire, §74, pp. 113–14).

228. For historians, see, e.g., Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 61.2.1–63.4; for others, see, e.g., Pliny Y., Ep. 6.31.9; Juvenal, Sat. 4.136–39; Epictetus, Diatr. 4.5.17; Sib. Or. 12:78–94. For his alleged impiety, cf. Suetonius, Nero 56; Pausanias, Descr. 10.7.1; though cf. Klauck, Context, 306.

229. Some were subsequent political propaganda (though not always entirely inaccurate propaganda); see, e.g., Kragelund, “Nero’s luxuria,” on Tacitus, Hist. 1.16.2. For Tacitus highlighting Nero’s guilt, see Mattingly, Christianity, 31–34; Murgatroyd, “Fire”; Murgatroyd, “Deaths.”

230. Plutarch, Div. V. 32, Mor. 567F.

231. Pliny Y., Ep. 3.5.5; also Suetonius, Nero 57.

232. Pliny Y., Ep. 8.6.17. He did allow for the moral rehabilitation of some of Nero’s allies (Ep. 3.7.3).

233. Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 3.16.

234. Josephus (Ant. 20.154) accuses both Nero’s supporters and detractors of bias, which Josephus promises to avoid.

235. Tacitus, Hist. 1.4, reflecting the aristocratic perspective. Suetonius, however, speaks of general celebration (Nero 57).

236. Griffin, Nero, 208–20.

237. E.g., IG II2 3277; 7.2713 (Sherk, Empire, §71, pp. 110–12; §78A, p. 115).

238. Cf. Soramuzza, “Policy,” 297. Later Jewish tradition even made him a proselyte (b. Giṭ. 56a; for discussion of the tradition, see Bamberger, Proselytism, 231; Bastomsky, “Nero”; esp. Cohen, “Meir”).

239. Josephus, Ant. 20.195; Life 16; Bailey, “Matriarchs,” 155–56; Barclay, Jews in Diaspora, 308. She may have been merely sympathetic, not an actual God-fearer (Williams, “Θεοσεβὴς”; Das, Romans Debate, 199–200), but she may have had contact with Jews present at her residence (Grüll and Benke, “Graffito”). For her as Nero’s mistress, see, e.g., Tacitus, Hist. 1.13; on Poppaea further, including her intelligence and extravagance, see Goffin, “Poppaea” (citing Pliny E., Nat. 28.182–83; 11.238; Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 62.28.1). Claudius’s wife had also helped the Jewish cause (Josephus, Ant. 20.135).

240. He was not the only figure reputed to have killed a pregnant wife in anger (Philostratus, Vit. soph. 2.1.555–56; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.94). Nero later dedicated a temple to her (Kragelund, “Temple”).

241. Epictetus, Diatr. 1.1.19–20 (cf. 1.25.22); Tacitus, Ann. 16.19 (on which, cf., e.g., Haynes, “Tyrant Lists”). Granted, he was far from alone in this among emperors (even Vespasian, in Epictetus, Diatr. 1.2.19–24). Cf. persecution of outspoken philosophers (Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.35, 42).

242. Pliny Y., Ep. 5.5.3–5.

243. In 59 CE; see, e.g., Juvenal, Sat. 8.211–30 (cf. also 10.15–18); Lucian, Nero 10; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.38; Josephus, Ant. 20.150, 153; for the topographic setting, cf. Keppie, “Murder.” Aveline (“Death”) doubts foul play in the demise of Claudius, but subsequent events, such as Brittanicus’s sudden death, do make foul play seem quite plausible.

244. Josephus, Ant. 20.150, 153.

245. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 3.134; cf. Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.39.

246. For Juvenal’s satire on Nero’s acting in Sat. 8, see Cowan, “Nero.”

247. Tacitus, Ann. 16.19–20.

248. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 21.6 (noting the youth’s vengeance in 21.9). On Tigellinus as Nero’s corrupter, see, e.g., Tacitus, Hist. 1.72; on his compatriot in crimes, cf. Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.42–44.

249. Plutarch, Galba 19.4–5; Tacitus, Hist. 1.13; Ann. 13.46; Suetonius, Otho 3.1–2. The sources differ regarding the voluntary character of Poppaea’s involvement.

250. Tacitus, Ann. 6.45; Hist. 1.2; Galen, Grief 2–12; Carcopino, Life, 32–33; Packer, “Housing,” 81–82. In Asia Minor, cf. Pliny Y., Ep. 10.33.1; 10.39.4. For reportedly planned civic arson, earlier, during the republic, see Sallust, Catil. 24.4; 27.2; 32.1; 43.2; 48.4; 52.24, 36.

251. Pliny E., Nat. 28.4.19; 28.5.26.

252. See CIL 6.826; ILS 4914 (Sherk, Empire, §99, p. 141). Cf. the later three-day fire in Suetonius, Tit. 8.3.

253. Plutarch, Cam. 32.3. The dates of the two burnings supposedly coincided (Rüpke, Religion, 104, citing Tacitus, Ann. 15.41.2). Crowded and narrow streets were common in antiquity (Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City,” 135).

254. Bruce, Apostle, 441.

255. On which see Suetonius, Aug. 30.1; Friedländer, Life, 1:191; Clarke, “Italy,” 473; Rapske, Custody, 250–51; Freis, “Fire-brigades”; in Asia Minor, see Pliny Y., Ep. 10.33.3 (suggesting 150 firemen for Nicomedia); Jones, Empire, 244. Firefighters used “bucket relays, axes, fire-beaters and vinegar-soaked matting” (Purcell, “Vigiles,” 407).

256. Daugherty, “Cohortes Vigilum.”

257. Suetonius, Claud. 18.1; equipping locals to suppress fires was apparently a wider practice (Pliny Y., Ep. 10.34.1). Without organization, people might simply watch (Pliny Y., Ep. 10.33.2).

258. Suetonius, Nero 38 (citing officials in 38.1); Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. 62.16.2; 62.18.1.

259. Appealing especially to the aristocracy (Reicke, Era, 242). Bohm (“Nero”) speculates that the rumor originated from Nero further burning remains to clear them out.

260. White, Origins of Architecture, 1:28. Rulers had been known to create disasters to persuade populations to move (Lysimachus in 281 BCE Ephesus; see Trebilco, “Asia,” 302–3, citing Strabo, Geogr. 14.1.21), or others to achieve power (Lentulus, in the late republic, had sophisticated plans to burn down Rome; Plutarch, Cic. 18.1–2).

261. Probably related to his disdain for Jewish “superstition” more generally; see, e.g., Tacitus, Hist. 2.4; 5.5. Anti-Jewish propaganda was widespread (see, e.g., Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 34.3; Quintilian, Inst. 3.7.21; Sib. Or. 3:271–72; Josephus, Ag. Ap. passim; Sevenster, Anti-Semitism; Gager, Anti-Semitism; Meagher, “Twig”; Daniel, “Anti-Semitism”; Yavetz, “Judeophobia”; Friedheim, “Jérusalem”; Keener, Acts, 3:2472–77), and some of it was transferred directly to Christians (see Tertullian, Apol. 16.1–4; Yarbrough, “Shadow,” 245–51). For the Christian movement as a “superstition,” see Wilken, “Christians,” 104–6; Lührmann, “SUPERSTITIO” (on Pliny Y., Ep. 10.96–97; Tacitus, Ann. 15.44.2–5; Suetonius, Nero 16.2).

262. Tacitus, Ann. 15.44. On scapegoats after major historical fires (e.g., 1666, 1842), see Giovannini, “Incendium.” Seeking scapegoats to deflect suspicions was already common practice (Cicero, Verr. 2.4.45.101).

263. Clarke, “Italy,” 464. By contrast, Estryn (“Incendie”) supposes some Christians actually guilty; but while he accepts Suetonius for imperial slaves starting the fire, he selectively rejects the same source regarding Nero’s complicity.

264. Table 8.10 of the Twelve Tables, 450–51 BCE (Schiemann, “Death Penalty”; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 36); capital punishment for urban arsonists in Robinson, Criminal Law, 35–36. Reicke (Era, 249) associates this penalty with their public burning and (in 1 Clem. 6:2) possible dismemberment. Frend (Martyrdom, 162, as cited in Collins, Mark, 99) contends that the Christians in Tacitus, Ann. 15.44.4 were covered with pitch for the burning.

265. Harrison, “Persecution,” 288. Giovannini (“Incendium”) suggests that Christians’ eschatological anticipation surrounding the fire made them scapegoats.

266. Gray-Fow, “Why Christians?”

267. Walters, “Impact,” 180–81. Ironically, this distinction may have worked in Christians’ favor after the revolt of 66–70 CE (Walters, “Impact,” 184–88).

268. But despite the favor secured by Poppaea, noted above, countervailing influences also affected Nero (Josephus, Ant. 20.183). Smallwood (Jews, 217–18) suggests Jewish hostility rather than the fire as the cause because Tacitus alone makes the connection with the fire (cf. also Keresztes, “Nero”); but Christian sources lacked incentive to raise a charge no longer current, and Suetonius (Nero 16.2) relocates this persecution among Nero’s good deeds (cf. Griffin, Nero, 83). The idea of Jewish instigation might owe too much to later Christian polemic (Hare, “Relationship”).

269. Winter, Left Corinth, 134–35.

270. As widely recognized, e.g., Koester, Introduction, 1:313; Lane, Mark, 13; Brown in Brown and Meier, Antioch and Rome, 99; Heid, “Romanness,” 406. Cf. Suetonius, Nero 16.2; for continuing antipathy toward Christians under Titus, see Tacitus, Hist. frg. 2 (LCL, 2:221).

271. Selwyn, Peter, 55; Goppelt, Times, 106.

272. Cf. Skaggs, Peter, 63.

273. With Jeffers, World, 108; Tobin, Rhetoric in Contexts, 35; Jewett, Romans, 61–62 (noting Tacitus’s multitudo ingens in Ann. 15.44.4 and its parallel usage in 14.8).

274. The initial thousands (Livy, Hist. 39.15.8) turned out to be over seven thousand (39.17.6). Livy may have embellished his description with stock slanders (Nilsson, Mysteries, 15), as did critics of Christians (Harland, Associations, 74–75).

275. Grant, Paul, 82–84; cf. Nagy, “Superstitio.”

276. E.g., Oecumenius, Comm. 1 Pet. (PG 119:573–76; Bray, Peter, 125); Hall, “Called”; France, “Exegesis,” 265; Davids, Peter, 30–41; Wendland, “Grace”; Steenberg, “Solution”; Skaggs, Peter, 12–14; Steuernagel, “Community”; Powell, New Testament, 486–89. Goppelt (Theology, 2:164) admits persecution as the occasion for writing but views “Christian responsibility in society” as the theme (see 2:13–3:6).

277. I thank Jürgen Moltmann for this insight.

278. Like Israel and Jesus, Peter’s audience is chosen, suffers for a limited time, and will experience vindication; see Joseph, “Reading,” esp. 95–251.

279. Hierocles, Gods (Stobaeus, Anth. 1.3.54).

280. Euripides, frg. 964 (LCL, 8:555).

281. On this point in peristasis catalogues, see Fitzgerald, Cracks, 43.

282. Seneca Y., Dial. 1.1.5–6; Let. Aris. 208; Eccl. Rab. 7:23, §4; Coste, “Notion greque”; Talbert, Romans, 134.

283. Judge, Athens, 185, on (later) Plotinus, Enn. 3.2 (47) 13.1–17.

284. Ps.-Phoc. 27; 1 Cor. 10:13.

285. Montefiore and Loewe, Anthology, 541–55.

286. E.g., L.A.B. 63:1; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 24:17; Sanders, “Suffering.”

287. 2 Macc. 4:38; 9:5–6; 13:7–8; L.A.B. 44:9–10; m. ʾAbot 2:6 (Hillel). Cf. gentile judgment miracles appropriate to wrong acts in Theissen, Miracle Stories, 109–10.

288. 1QpHab 8.2; Mek. Bah. 6:136–43 (Lauterbach, 2:247); Sipre Deut. 32.5.8; b. Ber. 63a; Num. Rab. 9:24; Song Rab. 4:6, §1; Marmorstein, Names, 60.

289. Sipre Deut. 32.5.10; b. Ber. 5a; Exod. Rab. 1:1.

290. Pss. Sol. 3:4; 7:8; 13:6–8; 18:4.

291. Pss. Sol. 10:1–3. This chastening (Pompey’s desecration) applied to Israel, to whom God is faithful (10:4–8).

292. ʾAbot R. Nat. 29 A.

293. b. Sanh. 47b; b. Ḥag. 15a. Cf. stoning a coffin in b. Ber. 19a.

294. Sipre Deut. 32.5.2, 5; b. Ber. 5ab; 17a; b. ʿErub. 41b; Gen. Rab. 62:2; Pesiq. Rab. 22:5; cf. Bonsirven, Judaism, 114–16. Greeks also understood atonement by suffering (Hengel, Atonement, 28).

295. 1QS 8.3–4; Sipre Deut. 311.1.1; b. Taʿan. 8a; y. Sanh. 11:5, §4; Gen. Rab. 96:5, MSS; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 24:9; 26:11; Pesiq. Rab Kah. Sup. 2:7; cf. Bonsirven, Judaism, 111. Patriarchs allegedly prayed for sufferings, because of their atoning value (b. Sanh. 107b, bar.; Gen. Rab. 65:9; 97 MSV).

296. Cf. Laytner, “Suffering.”

297. 2 Bar. 13:10; Ruth Rab. proem 7; Lam. Rab. 4:22, §25; cf. Isa. 40:2. Punishment of individual transgressors was also necessary for Israel to be forgiven (Jub. 30:14–17; cf. Deut. 21:6–8). A few rabbis, however, felt that the single sin of the golden calf merited enough punishment “to punish Israel from now until the dead are resurrected” (ʾAbot R. Nat. 34 A).

298. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.190–93; y. Soṭah 5:5, §4; Bamberger, Proselytism, 244; Avemarie, “Aporien”; Baslez, “Martyrs”; in later Babylonian sources, Kalmin, “Traditions”; among Christians, cf., e.g., Mart. Pol. 2:2; 14:2; 17:3; 18:3; 19:1; 22:1.

299. Individually, 4Q183 f1.2.7; Sipre Deut. 307.4.2; Eccl. Rab. 4:1, §1.

300. y. Kil. 9:3, §4; Grappe, “Intérêt” (plus glorification). Cf. Col. 1:24. Silberman (“Challenge”) sees Pesiq. Rab Kah. 26 as a response to Christian claims.

301. Pss. Sol. 8:26, 33; 4 Ezra 7:14–16; Sipre Deut. 307.3.2; 310.4.1; b. Šabb. 30b; b. Qidd. 40b; y. Sanh. 6:6, §2; y. Ḥag. 2:2, §5; Lev. Rab. 9:1; 27:1; 32:1; Deut. Rab. 5:5; Lam. Rab. 1:5, §31; 3:3, §1; ʾAbot R. Nat. 28, 39 A; 44, §123 B; Midr. Ps 90:11; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 24:2; Tg. Eccl. on 8:14; cf. Sib. Or. 5:384–85; Büchler, Atonement, 178; Marmorstein, Names, 193; Bonsirven, Judaism, 29; Urbach, Sages, 1:355.

302. ʾAbot R. Nat. 48, §132.

303. Sipre Deut. 43.10.1.

304. Schenker, “Martyrium”; Thoma, “Martyrer.”

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