The only other place that could in any way be proposed as the Babylon of Peter, is Seleucia on the Tigris; but Michaelis has abundantly shown that though in poetical usage in that age, and in common usage afterwards, this city was called Babylon, yet in Peter’s time, grave prose statements would imply the ancient city and not this. He also quotes a highly illustrative passage from Josephus, in defense of his views; and which is of so much the more importance because Josephus was a historian who lived in the same age with Peter, and the passage itself relates to an event which took place thirty-six years before the Christian era; namely, “the delivery of Hyrcanus, the Jewish high priest, from imprisonment, with permission to reside in Babylon, where there was a considerable number of Jews.” (Josephus, Antiquities, XV. ii. 2.) Josephus adds, that “both the Jews in Babylon and all who dwelt in that country, respected Hyrcanus as high priest and king.” That this was the ancient Babylon and not Seleucia, appears from the fact, that wherever else he mentions the latter city, he calls it Seleucia.
Wetstein’s supposition that Peter meant the province of Babylon, being suggested only by the belief that the ancient Babylon did not then exist, is, of course, rendered entirely unnecessary by the proof of its existence.
Besides the great names mentioned above, as authorities for the view which I have taken, I may refer also to Beza, Lightfoot, Basnage, Beausobre, and even Cave, in spite of his love of Romish fables.
To give a complete account of all the views of the passage referring to Babylon, (1 Peter v. 13,) I should also mention that of Pott, (on the cath. epist.,) mentioned by Hug. This is that by the phrase in the Greek, ἡ εν Βαβυλωνι συνεκλεκτη, is meant “the woman chosen with him in Babylon,” that is, Peter’s wife; as if he wished to say, “my wife, who is in Babylon, salutes you;” and Pott concludes that the apostle himself was somewhere else at the time. For the answer to this notion, I refer the critical to Hug. This same notion had been before advanced by Mill, Wall, and Heumann, and refuted by Lardner. (Supp. xix. 5.)
HIS FIRST EPISTLE.
Inspired by such associations and remembrances, and by the spirit of simple truth and sincerity, Peter wrote his first epistle, which he directed to his Jewish brethren in several sections of Asia Minor, who had probably been brought under his ministry only in Jerusalem, on their visits there in attendance on the great annual feasts, which in all years, as in that of the Pentecost on which the Spirit was outpoured, came up to the Holy city to worship; for there is no proof whatever, that Peter ever visited those countries to which he sent this letter. The character of the evidence offered, has been already mentioned. These believers in Christ had, during their annual visits to Jerusalem for many years, been in the habit of seeing there this venerable apostolic chief, and of hearing from his lips the gospel truth. But the changes of events having made it necessary for him to depart from Jerusalem to the peaceful lands of the east, the annual visitors of the Holy city from the west, no longer enjoyed the presence and the spoken words of this greatest teacher. To console them for this loss, and to supply that spiritual instruction which seemed most needful to them in their immediate circumstances, he now wrote to them this epistle; the main purport of which seems to be, to inspire them with courage and consolation, under some weight of general suffering, then endured by them or impending over them. Indeed, the whole scope of the epistle bears most manifestly on this one particular point,——the preparation of its readers, the Christian communities of Asia Minor, for heavy sufferings. It is not, to be sure, without many moral instructions, valuable in a mere general bearing, but all therein given have a peculiar force in reference to the solemn preparation for the endurance of calamities, soon to fall on them. The earnest exhortations which it contains, urging them to maintain a pure conscience, to refute the calumnies of time by innocence,——to show respect for the magistracy,——to unite in so much the greater love and fidelity,——with many others, are all evidently intended to provide them with the virtues which would sustain them under the fearful doom then threatening them. In the pursuance of the same great design, the apostle calls their attention with peculiar earnestness to the bright example of Jesus Christ, whose behavior in suffering was now held up to them as a model and guide in their afflictions. With this noble pattern in view, the apostle calls on them to go on in their blameless way, in spite of all that affliction might throw in the path of duty.
No proof that he ever visited them.——The learned Hug, truly catholic (but not papistical) in his views of these points, though connected with the Roman church, has honestly taken his stand against the foolish inventions on which so much time has been spent above. He says, “Peter had not seen the Asiatic provinces; they were situated in the circuit of Paul’s department, who had traveled through them, instructed them, and even at a distance, and in prison, did not lose sight of them.” (As witness his epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians, all which are comprehended within the circle to which Peter wrote.) “He was acquainted with their mode of life, foibles, virtues and imperfections; their whole condition, and the manner in which they ought to be treated.” The learned writer, however, does not seem to have fully appreciated Peter’s numerous and continual opportunities for personal communications with these converts at Jerusalem. In the brief allusion made in Acts ii. 9, 10, to the foreign Jews visiting Jerusalem at the pentecost, three of the very countries to which Peter writes, “Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,” are commemorated with other neighboring regions, “Phrygia and Pamphylia.” Hug goes on, however, to trace several striking and interesting coincidences between this epistle and those of Paul to the Ephesians, to the Colossians and to Timothy, all which were directed to this region. (Hug’s introduction to New Testament, volume II. § 160.) He observes that “Peter is so far from denying his acquaintance with the epistles of Paul, that he even in express terms refers his readers to these compositions of his ‘beloved brother,’ (2 Peter iii. 15.) and recommends them to them.” Hug, also, in the succeeding section, (§ 161,) points out some still more remarkable coincidences between this and the epistle of James, which, in several passages, are exactly uniform. As 1 Peter i. 6, 7, and James i. 2:——1 Peter i. 24, and James i. 10:——1 Peter v. 5, 6, and James iv. 6–10.
Asia.——It must be understood that there are three totally distinct applications of this name; and without a remembrance of the fact, the whole subject will be in an inextricable confusion. In modern geography, as is well known, it is applied to all that part of the eastern continent which is bounded west by Europe and Africa, and south by the Indian ocean. It is also applied sometimes under the limitation of “Minor,” or “Lesser,” to that part of Great Asia, which lies between the Mediterranean and the Black sea. But in this passage it is not used in either of these extended senses. It is confined to that very narrow section of the eastern coast of the Aegean sea, which stretches from the Caicus to the Meander, including but a few miles of territory inland, in which were the seven cities to which John wrote in the Apocalypse. The same tract also bore the name of Maeonia. Asia Minor, in the modern sense of the term, is also frequently alluded to in Acts, but no where else in the New Testament unless we adopt Griesbach’s reading of Romans xvi. 5, (Asia instead of Achaia.)
In the outset of his address, he greets them as “strangers” in all the various lands throughout which they were “scattered,”——bearing every where the stamp of a peculiar people, foreign in manners, principles and in conduct, to the indigenous races of the regions in which they had made their home, yet sharing, at the same time, the sorrows and the glories of the doomed nation from which they drew their origin,——a chosen, an “elect” order of people, prepared in the counsels of God for a high and holy destiny, by the consecrating influence of a spirit of truth. Pointing them to that hope of an unchanging, undefiled, unfading heritage in the heavens, above the temporary sorrows of the earth, he teaches them to find in that, the consolation needful in their various trials. These trials, in various parts of his work, he speaks of as inevitable and dreadful,——yet appointed by the decrees of God himself as a fiery test, beginning its judgments, indeed, in his own household, but ending in a vastly more awful doom on those who had not the support and safety of obedience to his warning word of truth. All these things are said by way of premonition, to put them on their guard against the onset of approaching evil, lest they should think it strange that a dispensation so cruel should visit them; when, in reality, it was an occasion for joy, that they should thus be made, in suffering, partakers of the glory of Christ, won in like manner. He moreover warns them to keep a constant watch over their conduct, to be prudent and careful, because “the accusing prosecutor” was constantly prowling around them, seeking to attack some one of them with his devouring accusations. Him they were to meet, with a solid adherence to the faith, knowing as they did, that the responsibilities of their religious profession were not confined within the narrow circle of their own sectional limits, but were shared with their brethren in the faith throughout almost the whole world.
From all these particulars the conclusion is inevitable, that there was in the condition of the Christians to whom he wrote, a most remarkable crisis just occurring,——one too of no limited or local character; and that throughout Asia Minor and the whole empire, a trying time of universal trouble was immediately beginning with all who owned the faith of Jesus. The widely extended character of the evil, necessarily implies its emanation from the supreme power of the empire, which, bounded by no provincial limits, would sweep through the world in desolating fury on the righteous sufferers; nor is there any event recorded in the history of those ages, which could thus have affected the Christian communities, except the first Christian persecution, in which Nero, with wanton malice, set the example of cruel, unfounded accusation, that soon spread throughout his whole empire, bringing suffering and death to thousands of faithful believers.