TJieodore W. Jennings, Jr. The Meaning of ... - Quarterly Review

Rome, taking with him the Petrine brand of Christianity. There he
was killed in the Neronian persecution. In the capital city of the
empire, he and his disciples had a great influence on Roman
Christianity, especially in the conservative Jewish-Christian wing.
d. Another kind of Christianity made its way to Rome, one
represented by Paul, who had not known the historical Jesus
personally, but who had been called by the risen Christ to be an
apostle. This kind of Christianity emphasized the cosmic Christ
rather than expressing its faith by telling stories about the earthly
Jesus and handing on his sayings. This more liberal understanding of
the faith was oriented not to the Jewish past but to the Gentile
mission, emphasizing freedom from the law. Paul himself finally
managed to get to Rome where he, too, was killed in the Neronian
persecutions.
e. During the lifetime of Peter and Paul, they and their followers
had sometimes opposed each other (Gal. 2:1-21; but cf. 1 Cor.
3:21-23; 15:1-11). But the Roman church made an important
ecumenical move in adopting both Peter and Paul as legitimate
apostles, blending the traditions from both apostles into that
inclusive ecumenical Christianity sponsored by Rome that became
the catholic mainstream.
In the latter part of the first century, the churches in what is now
western and north-central Turkey (1 Pet. 1:1: Pontus, Bithynia,
Cappadocia, Galatia, and Asia) had to go through some trying times.
Past interpreters have often thought the distress of the church
reflected in 1 Peter represented an official persecution by the state,
with Christians being arrested simply because they were Christians.
This did happen later. 6
More recent study 7
indicates that these
Christians were not under direct pressure from the government but
were experiencing harassment as a suspect minority group out of
step with the culture in general. It was not the Roman police but
their neighbors who lived by other value systems and religions who
were giving them a hard time. Christians were not yet literally being
thrown to the lions (cf. 5:8), but they daily faced the cultural
pressures to conform that made life difficult. This is not something
extraordinary but the normal state of the church in the world when it
is being faithful (4:12).
After the devastating war of 66-70 in Palestine, a war that had left
Jerusalem in desolation and the mother church scattered, the church
92 QUARTERLY REVIEW/SPRING 1993