semi-Christian Jews who lived in Palestine in the 2nd century represented St. Peter's {239} type of Christianity, or that the teaching of St. Peter excluded the deep teaching of St. Paul. He was susceptible to external influences, and he may have caught the tone of St. Paul while living in a community which St. Paul had so profoundly influenced. This tone seems to mark 1 Peter. But a further point must be mentioned in this connection. Modern writers have too readily adopted the habit of labelling certain expressions and doctrines as Pauline and assuming that St. Paul _originated_ them. No doubt the apostle of the Gentiles possessed a mind as original as it was fertile. But it is at least reasonable to suppose that a common creed and a common training produced similar habits of thought in many cultivated and eager minds. St. Paul himself frequently writes as if his readers, even those who had not seen his face, were quite familiar with a treasury of words and ideas which he employs. We cannot legitimately argue that he was the first and only coiner of such words and ideas. For instance, the phrase "in Christ," which we have quoted above, is often said to have been directly borrowed from St. Paul. But the idea of abiding in Christ is implied in Matt. and Mark, and expounded in John. It reaches back to the Old Testament idea of abiding "in God" (Ps. lvi. 4; lxii. 7; Isa. xlv. 25). It would be quite natural in any Christian who had adequately realized the truth of the Incarnation. We can therefore repudiate without hesitation the assertion that the writer is more affected "by the teaching of Paul than of Jesus." The imagery employed by the writer is of a distinctive character. It is almost entirely derived from the Old Testament, and is narrower in its range than that of St. Paul. The figures are drawn from birth and family life (i. 3, 14, 17, 22; ii. 2), nomadic life (i. 1, 17; ii. 11), temple and worship (ii. 3; iii. 15), building (ii. 4), fields and pastoral life (i. 4; v. 2, 8), military life (i. 5; ii. 11, iv. 1), painting (ii. 21), working in metals (i. 7; iv. 12). Some of these figures suggest that the author was a Jew by birth, and also that he was not a mere copyist of St. Paul. {240}