Superior as is this noble exhortation to patient endurance of suffering in the meekness of Christ to the controversial rhetoric of 2nd Peter, immeasurably better as is its attestation in ancient and modern times, even the most conservative modern critics are compelled to regard it as at least semi-pseudonymous. It might be just possible to carry back the conditions of persecution presupposed to the time of Nero. But if it be Peter writing from Rome after the recent martyrdoms of James and Paul, why is there no allusion to either? Again, we might possibly prolong the life of Peter (against all probability) down to the beginning of the reign of Domitian (81-95). In that case the absence of any allusion to the great events of recent occurrence in Palestine would be almost equally hard to explain. Moreover, with any dating the real author remains a literary man, a Paulinist, a Grecian Jew, and the share attributable to Peter personally becomes most shadowy. The simpler, and (as the present writer has come to believe) the more probable view is that 1st Peter, like the later writings which assumed the name, is wholly pseudonymous. If, however, it appeared (as we are persuaded) some twenty years after the Apostle's death, among those perfectly aware of the fact, assuming no other disguise, but frankly dealing with the existing situation, this is a kind of pseudonymity which should be classed with literary fictions and conventions which are harmless because (at the time) perfectly transparent. Letters written under fictitious names were in fact a very common literary device of the age. At all events the Apostle appears as an old man (v. 1) writing from "Babylon"--rightly taken by the fathers to be a cryptogram for Rome. Salutations are conveyed from Mark, his "son" (_cf._ Philem. i. 10). The bearer (writer?) is represented to be Silvanus (like Mark a companion of Paul with relations to Jerusalem as well), and Silvanus is commended as a "trustworthy" disciple. The author states it as his object to "exhort and testify that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand."