368 Benjamin W. Bacon, 



nearly all authorities agree that it must be placed, is just that where 

 light is most needed, the dark subapostolic age from Nero to Trajan. 

 Again the field addressed is just that whose history we most need 

 to trace, the mission field of Paul in Asia Minor. The type of 

 teaching (so far as it is not simply Paul's) comes under the name 

 of Peter, tempting us to correlate it with other sources claiming 

 relationship to this Apostle, in the attempt to define a " Petrinische 

 Lehrbegi-iff " or " Petrinische Stromung." 



These Uterary relations are undeniably present, and in ^ degree 

 of abundance which few, we think, will have realized who have 

 not been brought face to face with the facts by some such statis- 

 tical survey as the following pages afford The data then are before 

 us. The solution of the problem depends simply on the degree of 

 critical acumen with which we can pronounce upon extremely de- 

 licate questions of Hterary employment, more especially of priority 

 in emploj/ment. Fortunately evidence of relationship becomes 

 rapidly cumulative, and even the question of priority is not hope- 

 less when real impartiality holds the scales. 



We bespeak the careful attention of students of New Testament 

 origins to the data presented by Dr. Foster ; first, because of the 

 importance of the subject, whose ramifications extend even beyond 

 what we have already so briefly indicated ; second, because of the 

 pecuhar hopefulness of the effort in view of the superabundance 

 of material ; third, because of the scholarly reserve, caution, and 

 objectivity of Dr. Foster's method ; which allows the reader full 

 liberty to form his own judgment, and aims only to let the facts 

 speak for themselves. 



The present writer gladly acknowledges his own indebtedness 

 to the careful comparisons and statistics of Dr. Foster. The out- 

 come, a date not far from 90 /4I>., with dependence of First Peter 

 on Ephesians, Romans and Hebrews, and conversely of James, 

 Clement of Rome, and other writers on First Peter, tallies indeed 

 very closely with results previously attained by an important group 

 of scholars. But the evidence, much of which, though available, 

 has hitherto been scattered, acquires far more convincing power 

 when exhibited in due order and classification. The inferences 

 appeal, even to one who has traversed the field before, with new 

 freshness and urgency. To not a few, we beheve, the conviction 

 will be brought home that now, at last, we have a definite, fixed 

 point in the sub-apostoHc age, a datable hterary product of the 

 Pauhne mission-field twenty years after Paul's death ; instead of 

 a floating, indeterminate possibility. To others the problem will 



