Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Peter 2:12

"having your behavior seemly among the Gentiles; that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." — 1 Peter 2:12 (ASV)

Conversation: A favourite word with St. Peter, occurring (substantive and verb) seven times in this Epistle, and three times in the second—that is, as often as in all the other New Testament writings combined. It means the visible conduct of the daily walk in life. This conduct, as among Gentiles—that is, heathen (the words are synonymous, though St. Paul generally says “those without” when he means heathen as opposed to Christian)—is to be “honest.” We have no word adequate to represent this charming adjective. It is rendered “good” immediately below and in John 10:11 (the Good Shepherd), “worthy” in James 2:7, and “goodly” in Luke 21:5. But it is the ordinary Greek word for “beautiful,” and implies the attractiveness of the sight, the satisfaction afforded by an approach to ideal excellence.

That whereas: The marginal version is more literal, and in sense perhaps preferable, “wherein.” It means that the very fact of the heathen having slandered them will make their testimony “in the day of visitation” all the more striking, as (by way of illustration) the doubts of St. Thomas tend to “the more confirmation of the faith.” So in Romans 2:1, wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself; or Hebrews 2:18 (literally), wherein He Himself has suffered, being tempted.

They speak against you as evildoers: This is a significant phrase. St. Peter asserts distinctly that slanders were really widespread concerning some particulars of Christian morality at the time this letter was written. It is a mark of a late date, for at first the Christians had not attracted sufficient notice, as a body, to be talked about in either praise or blame. The heathen at first regarded them as merely a Jewish sect (Acts 18:15; Acts 25:18–20), and as such they received from the Roman Government a contemptuous toleration. The first state recognition of Christianity as a separate religion, with characteristics of its own, was the Persecution of Nero in the year 64.

Now, it so happens that we have almost contemporary heathen documents which bring out the force of this passage. Suetonius, in his life of Nero (chapter 16), calls the Christians by the very name St. Peter uses: “the Christians, a kind of men of a new and malefic superstition.” Only about forty years later, we have Pliny’s famous letter to Trajan, written actually from the country in which St. Peter’s correspondents lived. This letter refers to some of the very persons (probably) who received the Epistle as having apostatized at the time of the persecution under Nero. In it, Pliny asks whether it is the profession of being a Christian which is itself to be punished, or “the crimes which attach to that profession!”

The Apologists of the second century are full of refutations of the current lies about the immorality of Christian assemblies. The Christians were a secret society and held their meetings before daylight. The heathen, partly from natural suspicion and partly from consciousness of what happened in their own secret religious festivals, imagined all kinds of horrors in connection with our mysteries. From what became known about the Lord’s Supper, they believed that the Christians used to kill children and drink their blood and eat their flesh.

Here, however, the context points to a different scandal. They are warned against fleshly lusts, so that the heathen may find that the Christians’ great glory lies in the very area where they are slandered. “Evildoers,” therefore, must mean chiefly offenses in that regard. It is historically certain that such charges against Christian purity were extremely common. Even as late as the persecution under Maximin II., in the year 312, it was reported that these meetings before daylight were a school for the vilest of arts.

By your good works which they shall behold: More literally, they may, in consequence of your beautiful works, being eye-witnesses of them—the “good works” are not what are commonly so called—that is, acts of benevolence, etc. Rather, their “works” are contrasted with the current report and mean scarcely more than the “conversation” mentioned already. The present passage is, no doubt, a reminiscence of Matthew 5:16, where the word has the same force.

Glorify God in the day of visitation: This “glorification” of God will be like that of Achan in the book of Joshua (Joshua 7:19), an acknowledgment of how far they had been from the glorious truth. Some commentators understand the day of visitation to mean the day when the heathen themselves actually come to look into the matter. This is possible, and it came true when Pliny tortured the Christian deaconesses and acquitted the poor fanatics (as he thought them) of all immoral practices. But from the ordinary use of the words, it would more naturally mean the day when God visits. This will not mean only the great last day, but any occasion when God brings matters to a crisis. The visitation is a visitation of both Christians and heathen alike, and it brings both grace and vengeance, depending on how people choose to receive it. (See Luke 19:44, and compare to Luke 1:78.)