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Learning the news of Paul�s martyrdom, the apostle Peter, writing CE 68 from Babylon in MesopotamiaF1 (I Peter 5:13), sent the epistle of I Peter to the people of God (I Peter 2:10) in the provinces of Asia Minor. This was the general region most influenced by Paul�s teachings. He encouraged them to bear up under their anguish (I Peter 1:6-9; 4:1-2, 4:12-15) and reaffirmed that they were a people established in the truth of God (I Peter 1:22-23; 2:9-10).
The prescript of the epistle at I Peter 1:1 suggests that Peter wrote it to Judeo-Christians who "reside as aliens" (NASB), are "sojourners of [the] dispersion" (Marshall 1986:666),"exiles of the Dispersion" (RSV) or "exiles of the Dispersion" (MLB). They resided in Asia Minor during a time of tremendous travail. Undoubtedly the region received many refugees fleeing the Jewish war with imperial Rome, CE 66-70, then consuming the Jewish homeland.
During this time of upheaval one should expect Nazarene and Hellenistic Judeo-Christians from the Levant and their hosts of Asia Minor to experience local strife with both loyalist Hellenistic Jews and Greco-Roman Gentiles. In a sense they were enemy aliens, who as Judeo-Christians sensitive to the apostles' doctrines, did not involve themselves in violence and war. Moreover, the influx of significant numbers of these refugees into the over-crowded Greco-Roman cities of Asia Minor laden with violence, crime, filth, disease, misery, sexual depravity, and cultural chaos only furthered their suffering, trials and tribulation.
The Greco-Roman cities of this period were small in area and population but densely populated. Most people lived in cubicles and by and large entire families crowded together in smoky single rooms in multistoried tenements absent running water, furnaces, fireplaces, and chimneys. People spent most of their daily life in public subject to a mob mindset. Sanitation systems consisted of chamber pots and open ditches. One can only imagine the noise, air pollution, and general stench of a crowded city whose streets were replete with manure, mud, open sewers, and even rotting corpuses (both animal and human). Infectious disease was commonplace and the life expectancy at birth for Greco-Romans was less than 30 years and a high mortality rate existed throughout the empire (Stark 1996:150-155).
One must remember that within the ethnic neighborhoods of most Greco-Roman cities were the residences and synagogues of millions of Jews. In the first century of the common era over 6,000,000 Jews lived in the Roman empire (Gilbert 1992:12), making up about 10%-15% of the population of every town of any size in the Mediterranean (Meeks 1983:34). There also were homes and meeting places of Christian congregations, known during that period as synagogues and house-churches, as the first Christians arose predominantly out of existing Jewish populations scattered across the empire. As the majority of Christians, 70%-75%, were of Jewish descent at this time the location of most of their meeting places was the crowded Jewish section of the typical Greco-Roman city. The rise of Greco-Roman Christianity, that is Gentile Christianity in its western and eastern counterparts, was a phenomenon of the postwar period after Jerusalem's fall in CE 70. Gentiles did not undoubtedly become the majority in Christianity until CE 135.
This ethnic precinct would have provided some semblance of the cleanliness required by Jewish purity laws but would have produced a situation where every person's behavior would have an impact on other residents. Such proximity aided and abetted the cultural conflict and stress suggested in I Peter and some of the issues Paul discusses in I and II Corinthians. Life was undoubtedly quite difficult for these people of God.
Inspired by the contents of the Pauline epistles and taking note of their powerful doctrinal character, Peter employed some of Paul�s thoughts and expressions in his own epistle. The epistle of I Peter distinctly exhibits the concepts and language of the apostle Paul.F2 Also detectible are reflections of the epistle of James. "Echoes of certain books in particular" writes Alan Stibbs "keep recurring: Romans, Ephesians, Hebrews and James. Some of the resemblances are so singular as to make it most unlikely that they should be accidental" (Stibbs 1959:42).
When Peter wrote, he obviously felt the impact of Paul�s writing, and he needed to make no conscious attempt to copy or quote the apostle Paul. Peter's use of phrases reminiscent of Paul conveyed the compelling character of Paul�s writing and assisted in the mission of the epistle to comfort "the chosen sojourners of [the] dispersion of Pontus, of Galatia, of Cappadocia, of Asia, and of Bithynia."F3 The latter is Alfred Marshall's literal rendering of the Greek text at I Peter 1:1 (Marshall 1986:666). Paul�s writings, making an impression on Peter, reflect strongly in I Peter, evidence that they were fresh on his mind when he wrote the epistle. The epistle underscores the unity of the Petrine-Pauline theology or, as some would put it, the unity of the faith.
Stibbs concludes:
Whatever view is taken as to the Hellenistic or Hebraic background of the author all students of the Epistle agree that his theology is thoroughly Pauline. Not only so, but his forms of theological expression are much closer to Paul�s than they are, say, those of John and James. And this fact remains whether or not we postulate a literary dependence upon Paul. (Stibbs 1959:39.)
This demonstrates the harmony and solidarity present in the affairs, doctrines, and understanding of first-century church leadership. Nearly two decades after Paul had made his private trip to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus to confer with Peter, John, and James, for confirmation that the gospel which he preached among the Gentiles was the apostles� doctrine, the Petrine-Pauline theology remained indistinguishable (Galatians 2:1-10).
A demonstration of the unity present in Petrine-Pauline theology is found in the decrees of Acts 15 and Paul's instruction to the congregation at Corinth just a few months later. Usually these scriptures become proof-texts to show that Paul instructed the Corinthian congregation in contradiction to the statement of James who, as pastor of the Jerusalem mother church, spoke for Peter and himself at Acts 15 in regard to idol meat (eidolothuton). To properly explicate these texts an exegete must establish their cultural context at their time of writing. Ben Witherington undertook this task.
Writing in the Bible Review, Witherington holds that in the cultural context of the Greco-Roman world, it was the social setting of meals and not what Christians consumed that was of concern to James and Paul in the immediate context of Acts 15. The issue was avoiding idolatry not clean and unclean meats. He argues that in context the reference to idol-meat in Acts 15:29 prohibits attending pagan temple meals and it is not a discussion of the food laws of the Hebrew Scriptures (Witherington 1994:43). He writes:
If eidolothuton means food sacrificed to idols and eaten in a pagan temple, then one must reconsider what Acts 15 really claims. Acts 15 records that James said Gentiles must do the following to maintain table fellowship with Jewish Christians. Christians must avoid eidolothuton; sexual immorality; things strangled; and blood. James, like Paul, is arguing that Gentile Christians should avoid a venue where sacrificial meat and immorality are both found-namely, pagan temples, where, indeed, all four of the items listed on Acts 15:20 and 29 were available. The issue is not where we might find these four items separately, but where we might find all four of them together.
If this is correct, then James is not imposing food laws on Gentile Christians, any more than Paul was. James, like Paul, wants Gentiles to avoid pagan temples and the things found there. (Witherington 1994:43.)
So the mother church apostles, James, Peter, and John, held as did Paul that the Mosaic Code did not apply to Christians of Gentile descent including its ceremonial demands concerning food and circumcision (Galatians 2:9-10; Acts 15:1, 15:5). Early Judeo-Christianity, seeing itself as �a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God� (I Peter 2:9), rejected not only the Oral Torah and Jewish halakhic customs but denied that the Church of God, as the new Israel of God, was subject in any way whatsoever to the Law of Moses. The apostles taught that the first covenant, the Mosaic one, ended in order to establish the second, the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:7, 8:8, 8:23; 9:10, 9:15; 10:9). For them the Written Torah became null and void as a legal code but the Hebrew Scriptures, inspired by God, are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness (II Timothy 3:16). They argued that any continuing relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, required faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth and not reliance on the onetime covenant mediated through Moses (Galatians 2:16; 3:11).
The late John A. T. Robinson perceived the Petrine-Pauline unity. He wrote that J. B. Lightfoot:
...succeeded in establishing the authenticity of the first epistle of Clement, which he dated at 95-6, and of the seven genuine epistles of Ignatius, between 110 and 115. In each of these both Peter and Paul are celebrated in the same breath without a trace of rivalry,... (Robinson 1976:4.)F4
The internal evidence of the New Testament provides an understanding of how the apostles brought it into being through the collaboration of the apostles Peter, John, and Paul. There was no great theological rift between these apostles of God. Those who argue to the contrary not only fail to recognize the Judeo-Christian character of the first Christians and the Christianity in the Apostolic Period (CE 30-135) but the underlying Semitic thinking of the entire New Testament.
The Gentilization of Christianity did not become a fact certain until after CE 135. The period CE 135-380 is that of the second great epic in the history of Christianity, The Period of the Great Separation, when ancient Christianity polarized into the church of the circumcision (Judeo-Christianity in its Hebrew and Greek divisions) and the church of the Gentiles (Greco-Roman Orthodox Christianity in its Latin and Greek counterparts). Unfortunately, most works dealing with this topic are not objectively based in scientific and exegetical inquiry, but are simply offers of proof of particular denominational paradigms and agendas.
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F1The first epistle of Peter identifies its place of writing as Babylon. In the first century CE Babylon had a significant Jewish population. For Peter to be writing from there is consistent with his ministry to the Jews. The use of the word Babylon as a cipher for Rome did not occur until the writing of the book of Revelation. Other than the single reference to "Babylon" by the apostle John, ca. CE 96, there is no biblical or other literary evidence of the use of this symbolism until the second century. The argument, put forth by Paul Stenhouse, but advanced by others as well, that the reference to Babylon by Peter proves that he wrote from Rome because the "custom was part of a movement hostile towards Rome which took its origins in the Jewish community," is a myth. Stenhouse writes that "by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. hostility would turn to implacable hatred, and Jews (Peter among them) would have been familiar with this usage" (Stenhouse 1988:20). He provides no evidence for this falsifiable statement.
F2Beare maintains that as I Peter exhibits knowledge of several, if not all of the Pauline epistles, its author must have had access and familiarity with the entire collection (Beare 1947:195). Mitton regards I Peter as drawing significantly from Ephesians (Mitton 19n, see also Mitton 1951:176-197 and especially Mitton 1950:67ff). For criticism of Mitton�s opinion concerning the time of writing of I Peter refer to Manson 1956:286ff. "It is true, of course," writes ca. L. Mitton, who argues for a second century writing of I Peter, "that if I Peter could be confidently ascribed to Peter�s lifetime, the fact of the priority of Ephesians would be an almost conclusive argument for its Pauline authorship" (Mitton 1951:196).
F3This is a curious expression. Peter referred to the people of God in Asia Minor as "the chosen sojourners of [the] dispersion of Pontus, of Galatia, of Cappadocia, of Asia, and of Bithynia." While on the surface this statement suggests an influx of refugees from the Levant into Asia Minor, in a deeper sense it reflects the Judeo-Christian character of the congregations of Asia Minor where in Christ there was neither Jew nor Greek but only the Church of God" (I Corinthians 10:32). They were collectively part of the Israel of God known as the qehal'el (the Church of God). Gentiles became members of the Israel of God and part of the Dispersion (Diaspora) made up of Judeo-Christians who lived outside the Jewish homeland. At this time people of Jewish descent made up the majority of Christians and that appears to be the case in the churches of Asia Minor. In CE 68 the number of Christians of Gentile stock in the Roman empire was probably not more than 25%-30% and fewer than 3,000.
F4See I Clement 5, Clement of Rome 1987:xxx, Roberts and Donaldson 1987:xxx; Ignatius of Antioch, Romans 4.3, Roberts and Donaldson 1987:xxx.
Taken from The First Christians by
Michael P. Germano and edited for the world wide web.
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1995, 1996, 2000 by Michael P. Germano. All Rights Reserved.
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