The First Letter of Peter is important not only for its own sake but also for the light it throws on the life of the early church. Its author, probably not the apostle Peter, belonged to the central stream of early Christianity and used much of the common tradition; the churches to which he wrote stood under the threat of persecution. This commentary not only deals with the customary difficult question of authorship and date but by a careful exegesis seeks to bring our the characteristic contribution of the Letter to Christian thought, to draw attention to the material common to the early Christian tradition, and to bring out what can be learned of the early church from the Letter.