Nor is it easy to see reason why St. Peter might not be expected to write a letter to the congregations formed first by St. Paul. No Evangelist or Apostle could publish the message of the Gospel--that is, the life and works--of Christ without telling of His chosen followers; and amongst them, if our Gospels be a true picture, St. Peter must ever have filled a prominent place. The Churches in Asia assuredly had heard much of him, and in a time of persecution or impending trial nothing could be more fit than that the Apostle who had been most prominent amid Christ's companions should write from Babylon or from Rome, it may be, where the signs of the times would proclaim most clearly the sufferings for which the Christian inhabitants of the provinces should be prepared, to encourage the believers in Asia to steadfastness and to remind them that the same afflictions were being accomplished in their brethren that were elsewhere in the world. This was likely enough even had St. Peter never visited the districts to which his letter was addressed. But we seem to find traces of him in Corinth (1 Cor. ix. 5; cf. also xv. 5), and he certainly was not unknown by name to the Christians of that city. And if so, why need we question his journeying through Asia Minor? And he was aware of the labours of his fellow-apostle. From personal intercourse and discussion, especially in connexion with the council at Jerusalem, he would be sure that they were of one mind. It may be that he had learnt something of St. Paul's letters to the Churches. Under such circumstances it is not foreign to St. Peter's character, nay rather quite in harmony with it, that he should fulfil the Lord's command to "strengthen the brethren"; that he should send them an earnest assurance that, spite of sufferings and trials, this was the true grace of God, in which they should rejoice to stand. But there are internal tokens in the Epistle which seem more powerful evidence of its genuineness than anything else. The writer calls himself "Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ"; and he declares his personality by touches and allusions which a forger would never have fabricated. Thus he says, "All of you _gird yourselves_ with humility, to serve one another" (v. 5). The verb which he employs here indicates a sort of girding about with some towel or apron, which a slave put on for doing some menial service. It is almost impossible that the writer had not in his thoughts the act of Christ when He gave His great lesson of humility: "If I have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet." So, too, the Master's exhortation, "Feed My sheep," "Feed My lambs," comes to mind as we read, "Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly" (v. 2). And St. Peter's own words spoken in the house of Cornelius are reproduced when the Father is declared to be One "who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to each man's work" (i. 17).