The Authors Motive for Writing
The Authors Motive for Writing 15 ‘Peter’s’ concern, however, extends far beyond the brief span of life still left to him: he will make the effort (again his favourite verb spoudazein , as at 10a: cf. also 5a) to see that, even after his departure , his correspondents (here he seems to be envisaging the Church generally as well) may be able on all occasions to recall these things . In other words, he plans to leave behind him a permanent testimony to which they can refer; there is perhaps a hint that apostolic writings were not only treasured but read at services. For departure ( exodos ) as a dignified euphemism for death, cf. Lk. 9:31 (Jesus’s death, foreshadowed at the Transfiguration); Wis. 3:2; 7:6 ; Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 1. 1 (of the deaths of Peter and Paul). At first sight the cast of the sentence, with its future tense, seems to imply that he is promising a further work, and on the theory of Petrine authorship commentators have often identified this either as some doc...