CROSS The Meaning of 'Baptisms' in Hebrews 6.2 175
sibility carries any weight, it is to be noted that 1 Pet. 5.13 explicitly
associates Peter and Mark and locates them both in Rome, 'Babylon'. If 1
Peter is authentically Petrine,^50 then the plausibility of the connection
between Hebrews and the Gospel of Mark is further enhanced, and even if
1 Peter is pseudonymous, dated c. 112 CE, it is nevertheless evidence of
the existence of a tradition to such an effect.^51
Though persecution was often sporadic and localized, it was a reality for
many Christians in the first 280 years of the Church. During this period the
sayings of Jesus in Mk 10.38-39 and Lk. 12.50 clearly influenced the lan-
guage of Christian suffering and it was '[i]n this atmosphere, [that]
religious confession took on its special meaning of "blood witness'".^521
want to argue that this development was based on these two sayings of
Jesus. If Jeremias and others like him are right and the logia in Mk 10.38-
39 and Lk. 12.50 are authentic, then there is little surprise that this notion
should develop in the earliest Christian communities because such ideas
baptism (through Christ's baptism which meant the cross), and baptism is an epitome
of the Christian doctrine of suffering. There is no context where Christian thought
more naturally takes baptismal shape than the context of persecution.' While D. Hill,
'On Suffering and Baptism in I Peter', NovT 18 (1976), pp. 181 -89, is critical of Moule
(pp. 183-84), he maintains, pp. 184-85, that 'The link between baptism and suffering
(such as would befall Christians in a hostile environment) may be accounted for simply
and adequately by assuming that, since baptism was the occasion and the sign of
voluntary self-commitment to the Christian way, those who offered themselves for the
rite were aware, through their knowledge of what Christians endured, that this way on
which they were embarking would inevitably involve suffering. Acceptance of the con-
sequences of becoming and being known as a Christian was implied in the acceptance
of baptism. In short, a Christian's suffering and his baptism are linked because, in
accepting baptism, he is affirming willingness to share in the known experience of
baptised persons who were commonly, if not constantly, treated with suspicion and
hostility', italics his.
- E.g. Selwyn, First Peter, pp. 7-38, but more cautiously J.R. Michaels, 1 Peter
(WBC, 49; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1988), pp. lxii-lxvii, while J.N.D. Kelly, A Com-
mentary on the Epistles of Peter and ofJude (London: A. & C. Black, 1969), pp. 30-33,
and P.H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990),
pp. 3-7, see the letter as Peter's though written down by an amanuensis, probably
Silvanus (cf. 1 Pet. 5.13). - A point made by C.E.B. Cranfleld, The Gospel according to Saint Mark: An
Introduction and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), pp. 8-
9, who nevertheless believes it to be genuinely Petrine, though Silvanus was Peter's
amanuensis; see his The First Epistle of Peter (London: SCM Press, 1950), pp. 7-10. - E.F. Ferguson, 'Martyr, Martyrdom', in E.F. Ferguson (ed.), Encyclopedia of
Early Christianity (New York: Garland, 2nd edn, 1999), pp. 724-28 (725).