ST. PETER.
OF the twelve Apostles chosen by our Lora to form the nucleus of the Christian Church, not more than three, or at most four, stand out from the New Testament canvas as definite figures. Of these three or four, St. Peter is by far the most striking, and the only one of whom our knowledge stretches over a considerable period of time. The Gospels show us St. Peter during the three years which preceded the Cruci- fixion; in the Book of the Acts we see him again as head of the Christian community at Jerusalem ; and from his own letter to the "strangers scattered abroad throughout Pontus" we may gather the final development of an originally very imperfect but always singularly attractive character. (We are aware that the authenticity of St. Peter's Epistles Las been doubted; but while the Second Epistle is now regarded by almost all modern authorities as not the work of the Apostle, the newest opinion maintains the tradition of St. Peter's authorship so far as the First is concerned, an opinion in which Weiss and Renan were never shaken.) The first time that Peter appears in the Gospel narrative our Lord alludes to this power of attraction, and seizing instantly upon the strong point of a character which had so many weak ones, He exclaims : "I will make you a fisher of men." No one has ever defined charm. Nevertheless it is the most potent of all characteristics, covering in the eyes of the world- more sins than charity, and if the commonplace paradox which- declares that a man may be loved for his faults was ever true of any one, it has for nearly two thousand years been true of St. Peter. But whatever was St. Peter's power, it owed little to his intellect, for, full of sympathy and intuition as he was, he appears, at any rate during the first period of his history, to have been rather deficient in spiritual and intellectual grasp. He was the first to discover our Lord's divine mission, to realise that "He has the words of eternal life " ; yet he asks for explanations of His plainest teaching. "Not that which goeth into a man defileth a man," said Christ, plainly revoking the dietary laws of the Old Testament ; but Peter did not understand Him, and even when a full explanation has been given and be has been assured that nothing which a man eats can affect his moral nature, he still fails to take in the full meaning of the words. Years afterwards we find him declaring himself convinced by a vision of a truth which Christ Himself had twice offered to his reason. Again, with a strange literalness, he tries to set a numerical limit to the duty of forgiveness, suggesting seven times as a number sufficient to satisfy the most rigid demands of clemency. In more purely spiritual matters he does not show greater insight, for, blinded by personal ambition, he cannot understand that "the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation" but "is within," and wants to know what earthly reward the Messiah will bestow on those who have left all to follow Him. He will not listen when our Lord foretells the complete apparent failure which must precede His spiritual triumph, but "took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying This be far from Thee." His devotion to Christ is sincere and personal, be is the adherent of a master rather than of a system, but, above all, he is a creature of impulse. His hot protestations of loyalty do not prevent his cowardly denial, neither does his devotion prevent an occasional very human desire to turn back from the weary pursuit of a continually receding ideal of faith and conduct, to avoid the sharp sense of contrast, to get rid of the struggle ; and in a moment of moral desperation he can exclaim, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." A want of staying power is but too evident in St. Peter's early history. Some sort of moral failure is a foregone conclusion, but it needs no theory of predestination to make us certain that the failure will not be final.
In the beginning of the Book of Acts we find St. Peter at Jerusalem. The crisis of his life is over. He has denied his Master ; he has watched Him die. His patriotic ambition, his dreams of a perfect government in which he will hold a high place, have all fallen about his ears. It must have been a moment in which, if we used the language of our day, we should say that such a man as be might be likely to go to the Devil ; and of which our Lord in the language of His day had spoken when He declared, "Satan bath desired to have thee." But in fulfilment of the prayer of Christ on his behalf, Peter's faith has not failed. He not only knows that he saw his Master die, but he believes that he has seen Him again,—since He is, as he says in his Epistle, "begotten again to a lively hope " ; and it is interesting to trace the admirable skill with which St. Luke presents to his reader the man who has under- gone a great change and yet in a sense remains the same. The Peter of the new society of Christians certainly goes no longer in bodily fear. He defies the authorities and the mob with an almost gratuitous coolness, assuring the high priests who order him not to preach that be shall follow his own conscience in the matter, and leaving them to judge between their own claims to obedience and that of the Almighty. He rebukes the populace who had clamoured for the death of Christ with even more than his old impetuosity, declaring that they had "delivered up the Holy One and just," and insisted on His crucifixion when "Pilate had determined to let Him go," adding with a charity more admirable than appeasing, "Now brethren, I wot • that through ignorance ye did it." Evidently he has not lost his habit of hot speech, for to the sorcerer who offers him money in exchange for his spiritual power he says, "Thy money perish with thee because thou haat thought that the gift of God could be bought with a price"; and apparently this was not all that he said. St. Luke allows us to imagine that there was more of a like nature, for Simon the Sorcerer implores him to "pray the Lord for me that none of these things thou bast spoken come upon me." Intellectually, too, Peter remains unchanged, and draws upon himself the severe rebuke of St. Paul by his tendency to slip back into the bonds of intellectual prejudice after appearing to accept the enlightenment offered to him by logical argument, for Paul, writing to the Galatians, tells us that Peter, in ac,cordanee with the decision of the Council at Jerusalem, had admitted that Jewish rites were no longer binding, and "before that certain came from James he did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come he with- drew and separated himself." Therefore St. Paul, who was naturally, and perhaps on account of his opposite type of mind, somewhat unduly, incensed, "withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed," accusing him, as it seems to us rather hastily, of "dissimulation."
St. Peter's letter gives us one more glimpse of the Apostle. This time we see him as an old man, seeking with all the sympathy and insight which come of bitter experience to uphold those who are endeavouring to stand under a temptation which once proved too much for himself. As he wrote we cannot but imagine him to be remember- ing the words of our Lord : "When thou art turned again strengthen thy brethren." He b Tins neither with sympathy nor exhortation, but by giving thanks to God for the hope of the Resurrection, wherein he assures them he believes that they truly rejoice, though for the moment they cannot but be in heaviness seeing that their faith is being tried by fire. Then, turning deliberately from the subject at issue, he tries
to ease the strain under which they are living by diverting their minds to smaller things. Knowing how destructive to law and order is all violent excitement, and that at such moment ." the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion," he exhorts them at all costs to maintain social discipline among their community. He gives advice to husbands and wives, fathers and children, masters and slaves. He urges them to hold not only by the Christian virtues, but also .by the Christian graces, "to be pitiful, be courteous," and to overthrow no reasonable conventions. Dignified manners are, he seems to suggest, no hindrance to courage, and he reminds the women amongst his hearers of "the holy women of old time," whose "adornment was that of a quiet spirit." They must all strive for sufficient self-control to give a reasonable answer "concerning the hope that is in them," and above all to keep a sound mind. At the very end, after the word "Amen," as a sort of postcript he touches, as if on second thoughts he could not resist touching, on that bitter doubt which must occasionally occur to all their minda,—why are such sufferings allowed by such a God as they worship True to his character, he has no argument to offer, but his sympathetic intuition enables him to lay a soothing band on a sore place. "Beloved," he writes, "think it not strange .concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings that when His glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." The tragedies of life are, he seems to admit, a mystery; but there will be, he is sure, some revelation concerning them hereafter. Meanwhile, still looking back on the past, and thinking perhaps of the effects of years and experience upon a nature once so woefully unstable, he prays that the final result of their present sufferings may only be to "establish, strengthen, settle them."
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