Volume IV
The First Epistle General of Peter.
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. IV, p. 487
Peter had been originally a fisherman in Galilee, but was among the first called by Jesus Christ to be one of his attendants and missionaries. About A.D. 6? or 66 he wrote this first epistle to the Jewish converts scattered through Lesser Asia, or other parts of the Roman empire, and the second about two years after. The scope of the first is, (1) To establish them in the faith of Christ, and to comfort them under their severe persecutions, ch. i.; 2. 1-8. (2) To direct and animate them to an honourable, conscientious, and edifying behaviour in a faithful discharge of all the duties of their civil or family relations, ch. 2. 9-25; 3. 1-7; and to the exercise of brotherly love, personal holiness, and a faithful discharge of their respective duties in the church, ch. 3. 8-22; iv. v. The scope of the second is to represent how gospel privileges and revelations ought to be improved in a growth in holiness of heart and life, ch. i.; to warn them against the seduction of false teachers, and all apostasy from the truth, ch. ii.: and to represent the proper preparation for Christ's appearance to destroy the Jewish nation, and to judge the world, ch. iii.
[That Simon Peter, or Cephas, the son of Jonas,—originally a fisherman of Galilee, and called to be an apostle of our Lord—was the author of this epistle has always been admitted; and its genuineness and canonical authority are confirmed by its being referred to or quoted by Polybius, Clemens Romanus, the Martyrs of Lyons, Theophilus of Antioch, Papias, Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Tertullian. It is addressed to 'the strangers scattered abroad,' more literally to 'the strangers of the dispersion,' which seems peculiarly to point to the Jews (see also ch. 2. 9-12; 4. 3, 4) as the special objects of his ministry, Ga. 2. 7, 8. In matter and object it is nearly akin to the epistle of James; adverting to the persecutions by which the Christians were assailed, and exhorting to patience, perseverance, and holiness. Of the history of Peter, subsequent to his residence at Antioch, A.D. 46, nothing is related in the New Testament. Jerome, however, states that he suffered martyrdom at Rome, in the end of the reign of Nero, A.D. 67 or 68; and that his remains were interred in that city, near the triumphal way;—a statement corroborated by Procopius, Hist. p. 195. On the other hand it has been argued, from the internal evidence of the Acts and Epistles, as well as from the want of sufficient external authority from early history, that Peter never was at Rome. But such historical questions are of little importance to him whose 'religion is the Bible,' and who seeks for the marks and authority of the true church of Christ, not in the 'vain traditions' of uninspired men, but in the imperishable records of inspired evangelists and apostles. See Jn. 20. 30, 31; 1 Ti. 3. 16, 17. In the course of the epistle, the apostle alludes to the following portions of the Old Testament:—Ge. 6. 7; 18. 12; Ex. 19. 5, 6; De. 7. 6; Is. 10. 12; 28. 16; 40. 6, 8; 48. 9, 10; liii.; 57. 15; 61. 6; Je. 23. 22; Eze. 9. 6; 34. 4; Da. 2. 44; 8. 13; 9. 26; Ho. 1. 9, 10; Hag. 2. 7; Zec. 13. 9. C.]