He exhorts them to join all other virtues with their faith, in order to secure their salvation.
Hovv much God hath done for them, making them Christians: 5 and that they againe must doe their part, not hauing onely faith, but al other vertues also and good vvorkes, that so they may haue the more assurance to enter into the kingdom of heauen, 13 And that he is so careful to admonish them, knovving that his death is as hand, knovving also most certainely the comming of Christ by the vvitnes of the Father him self, as also by the Prophets. Concerning vvhom he vvarneth them that they folovv not priuate spirites, but the holy Ghost (speaking nevv in the Church.)
1Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ: to them that have obtained equal faith with us in the justice of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.Simon Pietro, servo, e Apostolo di Gesù Cristo, a quegli, i quali pari alla nostra hanno avuto in sorte la fede con la giustizia del nostro Dio, e salvator Gesù Cristo.SIMON PETER seruant and Apostle of IESVS Christ, to them that haue obtained equal faith vvith vs in the iustice of our God and Sauiour IESVS Christ.Simon Petrus, servus et apostolus Jesu Christi, iis qui coæqualem nobiscum sortiti sunt fidem in justitia Dei nostri, et Salvatoris Jesu Christi. 2Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord.Sia a voi moltiplicata la grazia, e la pace mediante la cognizione di Dio, e di Gesù Cristo Signor nostro:Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knovvledge of God and Christ IESVS our Lord:Gratia vobis, et pax adimpleatur in cognitione Dei, et Christi Jesu Domini nostri: 3As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness are given us through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own proper glory and virtue.Come avendoci la divina potenza di lui donate tutte quelle cose, che fanno alla vita, e alla pietà, per mezzo della cognizione di lui, il qual ci chiamò per la sua gloria, e virtù,as al things of his diuine povver vvhich pertaine to life and godlines, are giuen vs by the knovvledge of him vvhich hath called vs by his ovvne propre glorie and vertue,Quomodo omnia nobis divinæ virtutis suæ, quæ ad vitam et pietatem donata sunt, per cognitionem ejus, qui vocavit nos propria gloria, et virtute, 4By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.Per mezzo del quale fece a noi dono di grandissime, e preziose promesse: affinchè per queste diventaste partecipi della divina natura: fuggendo la corruzione, che è nel mondo per la concupiscenza.by vvhom he hath giuen vs most great and pretious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the diuine nature, fleeing the corruption of that concupiscence vvhich is in the vvorld.per quem maxima, et pretiosa nobis promissa donavit: ut per hæc efficiamini divinæ consortes naturæ: fugientes ejus, quæ in mundo est, concupiscentiæ corruptionem. 5And you, employing all care, minister in your faith, virtue: And in virtue, knowledge:Or voi con ogni sollecitudine adoperandovi, alla vostra fede unite la virtù, alla virtù la scienza,And you employing al care, minister ye in your faith, vertue: and in vertue, knovvledge:Vos autem curam omnem subinferentes, ministrate in fide vestra virtutem, in virtute autem scientiam,
6And in knowledge, abstinence: and in abstinence, patience: and in patience, godliness:Alla scienza poi la temperanza, alla temperanza la pazienza, alla pazienza la pietà,and in knovvledge, abstinence: and in abstinence, patience: and in patience, pietie:in scientia autem abstinentiam, in abstinentia autem patientiam, in patientia autem pietatem, 7And in godliness, love of brotherhood: and in love of brotherhood, charity.Alla pietà l'amore fraterno, all'amore fraterno la carità.and in pietie, loue of the fraternitie: and in the loue of the fraternitie, charitie.in pietate autem amorem fraternitatis, in amore autem fraternitatis caritatem. 8For if these things be with you and abound, they will make you to be neither empty nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.Imperocché ove queste cose siano con voi, e vadano augumentandosi, non lascieranno vuoto, e infruttifero in voi il conoscimento del Signor nostro Gesù Cristo.For if these things be present vvith you, & abound: they shal make you not vacant, nor vvithout fruite in the knovvledge of our Lord IESVS Christ.Hæc enim si vobiscum adsint, et superent, non vacuos nec sine fructu vos constituent in Domini nostri Jesu Christi cognitione. 9For he that hath not these things with him is blind and groping, having forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.Imperocché chi tali cose non ha, egli è cieco, e va a tastoni, e si dimentica di essere stato mondato da' suoi antichi peccati.For he that hath not these things ready, is blinde, and groping vvith his hād, hauing forgotten the purging of his old sinnes.Cui enim non præsto sunt hæc, cæcus est, et manu tentans, oblivionem accipiens purgationis veterum suorum delictorum. 10Wherefore, brethren, labour the more, that by good works you may make sure your calling and election. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any time.Per la qual cosa, o fratelli, vie più studiatevi di certa rendere la vocazione, ed elezione vostra per mezzo delle buone opere: imperocché così facendo, non peccherete giammai.Vvherfore, brethren, labour the more that • by good vvorkes you may make sure your vocation and election. for, doing these things, you shal not sinne at any time.Quapropter fratres, magis satagite ut per bona opera certam vestram vocationem, et electionem faciatis: hæc enim facientes, non peccabitis aliquando. 11For so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the ever-lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.Imperocché così saravvi dato ampio l'ingresso nel regno eterno del Signor nostro, e Salvator Gesù Cristo.For so there shal be ministred to you aboundantly an entrance into the euerlasting kingdom, of our Lord and Sauiour IESVS Christ.Sic enim abundanter ministrabitur vobis introitus in æternum regnum Domini nostri et Salvatoris Jesu Christi.
12For which cause, I will begin to put you always in remembrance of these things: though indeed you know them and are confirmed in the present truth.Per la qual cosa non trascurerò di ammonirvi intorno a tali cose; benché istruiti, e confermati nella presente verità.For the vvhich cause I wil begin to admonish you alvvaies of these things: and you in deede knovving & being confirmed in the present truth.Propter quod incipiam vos semper commonere de his: et quidem scientes et confirmatos vos in præsenti veritate. 13But I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance.Ma io credo ben fatto, che sino a tanto ch'io sono in questo tabernacolo, vi risvegli con le ammonizioni:But I thinke it meete as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stirre you vp by admonition:Justum autem arbitror quamdiu sum in hoc tabernaculo, suscitare vos in commonitione: 14Being assured that the laying away of this my tabernacle is at hand, according as our Lord Jesus Christ also hath signified to me.Essend'io sicuro, che ben presto deporrò il mio tabernacolo, secondo quello, che l'istesso Signor nostro Gesù Cristo ha a me fatto intendere.being certaine that the laying avvay of my tabernacle is at hand, according as our Lord IESVS Christ also signified to me,certus quod velox est depositio tabernaculi mei secundum quod et Dominus noster Jesus Christus significavit mihi. 15And I will endeavour that you frequently have after my decease whereby you may keep a memory of these things.Ma farò sì, che ancor dopo la mia morte abbiate voi onde far sovente commemorazione di tali cose.And I vvil doe my diligence, you to haue often • after my decease also, that you may keepe a memorie of these things.Dabo autem operam et frequenter habere vos post obitum meum, ut horum memoriam faciatis. 16For we have not by following artificial fables made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ: but we were eyewitnesses of his greatness.Imperocché non per aver noi dato retta ad argute favole, vi abbiamo esposta la virtù, e la venuta del Signor nostro Gesù Cristo: ma per essere stati spettatori della grandezza di lui.For, not hauing folovved vnlearned fables, haue vve made the povver and •presence' of our Lord IESVS Christ knovven to you: but made beholders of his greatenesse.Non enim doctas fabulas secuto notam fecimus vobis Domini nostri Jesu Christi virtutem et præsentiam: sed speculatores facti illius magnitudinis. 17For he received from God the Father honour and glory, this voice coming down to him from the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.Imperocché ricevette egli onore, e gloria da Dio Padre, essendo discesa a lui dalla maestosa gloria quella voce: questo è il mio Figliuolo diletto, in cui mi son compiaciuto, ascoltatelo.For, he receiuing from God his father honour and glorie, this maner of voice comming dovvne to him from the magnifical glorie, This is my beloued sonne in vvhom I haue pleased my self, heare him.Accipiens enim a Deo Patre honorem et gloriam, voce delapsa ad eum hujuscemodi a magnifica gloria: Hic est Filius meus dilectus, in quo mihi complacui, ipsum audite.
18And this voice, we heard brought from heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount.E questa voce procedente dal cielo la udimmo noi, mentre eravamo con lui sul monte santo.And this voice vve heard brought from heauen, vvhen vve vvere vvith him in the holy mounte.Et hanc vocem nos audivimus de cælo allatam, cum essemus cum ipso in monte sancto. 19And we have the more firm prophetical word: whereunto you do well to attend, as to a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.Ma abbiamo più fermo il parlar de' profeti, a cui ben fate in prestandovi attenzione come ad una lucerna, la quale in luogo oscuro risplenda, sino a tanto che spunti il giorno, e la stella del mattino nasca ne' vostri cuori:And we haue the prophetical vvord more sure: vvhich you doe vvel attending vnto, as to a candel shining in a darke place, vntil the day davvne, and the day starre arise in your hartes:Et habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem: cui benefacitis attendentes quasi lucernæ lucenti in caliginoso donec dies elucescat, et lucifer oriatur in cordibus vestris: 20Understanding this first: That no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation.Ponendo mente principalmente a questo, che nissuna profezia della scrittura è di privata interpretazione.vnderstanding this first that no prophecie of scripture is made by • priuate interpretation.hoc primum intelligentes quod omnis prophetia Scripturæ propria interpretatione non fit. 21For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost.Imperocché non per umano volere fu portato una volta la profezia: ma ispirati dallo Spirito santo, parlarono i santi uomini di Dio.For, not by mans vvil vvas prophecie brought at any time: but the holy men of God spake, inspired vvith the holy Ghost.Non enim voluntate humana allata est aliquando prophetia: sed Spiritu Sancto inspirati, locuti sunt sancti Dei homines.
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Witham
In the justice (or by the justice) of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. As justice and sanctification are equally attributed to God and to Jesus Christ, it shews that the Son was equally and the same God with the Father. (Witham)
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Witham
Glory and virtue.[Ver. 3. Et virtute, kai aretes.] By the Greek text, virtue is not here the same as power, as commonly in other places, but signifies God's goodness, mercy, and clemency. (Witham)
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Witham
Partakers of the divine nature. Divine grace infused into our souls, is said to be a partaking in the divine nature by an union with the spirit of God, whereby men are made his adoptive children, heirs of heaven, etc. (Witham)
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Witham
Join with your faith, virtue: think not that faith alone will save you without the practice of virtues and good works. By abstinence or temperance, is understood that virtue which helps to moderate the inordinate love of sensual pleasures, and to govern all disorderly passions and affections. (Witham)
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Witham
Groping,[Ver. 9. Manu tentans, muopazon.] like one that is blind. The Greek may signify one who hath his eyes shut, or that is like a blind mole. (Witham)
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By good works you may make sure, etc. without diving into the hidden mysteries of predestination, etc.
Witham
You shall not sin at any time. These words evidently suppose, that the graces and assistances of God will not be wanting; for it would be in vain to command, unless a man had both free will and capacity to perform. But, as it follows, these helps shall be abundantly ministered to you. (Witham)
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Witham
I will begin.[Ver. 12. Incipiam, ouk ameleso, non omittam, non negligam, etc.] That is, by the Greek, I will take care. (Witham)
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Witham
As long as I am in this tabernacle: to wit, of the body, in this mortal life. (Witham)
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Witham
The laying aside,[Ver. 14. Depositio, e apothesis.] or dissolution; that is my death is at hand. (Witham)
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Witham
That you frequently have after my decease,[Ver. 15. Dabo operam et frequenter habere vos, post obitum meum, ut horum memoriam faciatis. umas....ten touton mnemen poieisthai.] etc. Some expounded these words to signify: I will have you frequently in my thoughts, and remember you, praying for you after my death. But this does not seem the true and literal sense, nor do we need such arguments to prove that the saints pray for us. (Witham)
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Witham
We have not by following artificial fables. Literally, learned fables,[Ver. 16. Non doctas fabulas, ou sesopismenois muthois. Some copies had indoctas, on which account the Rheims Testament issued before the corrections of Pope Sixtus V and Pope Clemens VIII has unlearned.] invented to promote our doctrine. We, I with others, were eye-witnesses of his glory on Mount Thabor. [Matthew 17:2.] (Witham)
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Witham
And we have the surer word of prophecy, or to make our testimonies and preaching of Christ more firm. The revelations of God made to the prophets, and contained in the holy Scriptures, give us of all others the greatest assurance. Though the mysteries in themselves remain obscure and incomprehensible, the motive of our belief is divine authority. (Witham)
If our testimony be suspicious, we have what you will certainly allow, the testimony of the prophets: attend then to the prophets as to a lamp that illumines a dark place, till the bright day of a more lively faith begins to illumine you, and the day-star arises in your heart: till this faith, which is like the day-star, give you a perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is by the divine oracles you will acquire this knowledge, provided you peruse them with proper dispositions.
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Witham
No prophecy of the scripture is made by private interpretation; or, as the Protestants translate it from the Greek, is of any private interpretation, that is is not to be expounded by any one's private judgment or private spirit. (Witham)
The Scriptures cannot be properly expounded by private spirit or fancy, but by the same spirit wherewith they were written, which is resident in the Church.
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Witham
For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time. This is to shew that they are not to be expounded by any one's private judgment, because every part of the holy Scriptures is delivered to us by the divine spirit of God, wherewith the men were inspired who wrote them; therefore they are not to be interpreted but by the spirit of God, which he left, and promised to his Church to guide her in all truth to the end of the world. Our adversaries may perhaps tell us, that we also interpret prophecies and Scriptures; we do so; but we do it always with a submission to the judgment of the Church, they without it. (Witham)
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No prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation.... This shows plainly that the scriptures are not to be expounded by any one’s private judgment or private spirit, because every part of the holy scriptures were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and declared as such by the Church; therefore they are not to be interpreted but by the Spirit of God, which he hath left, and promised to remain with his Church to guide her in all truth to the end of the world. Some may tell us, that many of our divines interpret the scriptures: they may do so, but they do it always with a submission to the judgment of the Church, and not otherwise.
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10. By good vvorkes.] Here vve see, that Gods eternal predestination and election consisteth vvith good vvorkes: Good vvorkes must concurre vvith Gods predestination to the effecte thereof. yea that the certainty and effect thereof is procured by mans free vvill and good vvorkes, and that our vvel doing is a meane for vs to attaine to the effect of Gods predestination, that is, to life euerlasting. and therfore it is a desperate folly and a great signe of reprobate persons, to say, If I be predestinate, doe vvhat I vvil, I shal be saued. Nay, the Apostle saith, If thou hope to be one of the predestinate (for knovv it thou canst not) do vvel, that thou maist be the more assured to attaine to that thou hopest: or, make it sure by good vvorkes. The Protestāts in such cases not much liking these vvordes, by good vvorkes, 〈Greek〉. though the latin haue it vniuersally, and some Greeke copies also, as Beza confesseth, leaue them out in their translations, by their vvonted pollicie.
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15. After my decease also.] These vvordes though they may be easily altered by cōstruction into diuers senses not vntrue, yet the correspondēce of the partes of the sentēce going before and folovving, The heretikes (according to their custom) exclude this sense altogether by their false translation. giue most plaine this meaning, that, as during his life he vvould not omit to put them in memorie of the things he taught them, so after his death (vvhich he knew should be shortly) he vvould not faile to endeuour that they might be mindeful of the same. Signifying that his care ouer them should not cease by death, & that by his intercession before God after his departure, he vvould doe the same thing for them, that he did before in his life by teaching and preaching. Oecum. in hunc l••. Gagn. This is the sense that the Greeke Scholies speake of, and this is most proper to the text, and consonant to the old vse of this Apostle and other Apostolike Saincts and fathers of the primitiue Church.
S. Clement in his Epistle to S. Iames our Lordes brother, vvitnesseth, that S. Peter encouraging him to take after his decease the charge of the Apostolike Romane See, S. Peters Pastoral care & protection of the Church after his death. promised that after his departure he vvould not cease to pray for him & his flocke, thereby to ease him of his Pastoral burden. To. 1 Concil. ep. 1. S. Clem. in initio. And S. Leo the Great one of his successors in the said See, often attributeth the good administration and gouernement thereof to S. Peters praiers and assistance: namely in these goodly vvorkes Ser 3 in anniuers. 〈◊〉 assumpt. ad Pontif. We are much bound (saith he) to giue thankes to our Lord and Redeemer Iesus Christ, that hath giuen so great povver to him vvhom he made the Prince of the vvhole Church: that if in our time also any thing be done vvel & be rightly ordered by vs, it is to be imputed to his vvorkes and his geuernement, Luc. 22. Io. 21. to vvhom it vvas said, And thou being conuerted, confirme thy brethren: and to vvhom our Lord after his resurrection said thrise, leede my sheepe. Which novv also vvithout doubt the godly Pastor doth execute, confirming vs vvith his exhortations, and not ceasing to pray for vs, that vve be euercome vvith no tentation. &c.
Yea it vvas a common thing in the primitiue Church among the auncient Christians, The Saincts in heauen pray for the liuing. and alvvaies since among the faithful, to make couenant in their life time, that vvhether of them vvent to heauen before the other, he should pray for his frende and fellovv yet aliue. See the Ecclesiastical historie of the holy virgin and Martyr Potamiaena, promising at the houre of her Martyrdom, that after her death she vvould procure mercie of God to Basilides one of the souldiars that ledde her to execution, and so she did, Euseb. li. 6. c. 4. Also S. Cyprian ep. 57 in fine. Let vs, (saith he) pray mutually one for an other, and vvhether of vs tvvo shal by Gods elemencie be first called for, let his loue continue, and his praier not cease for his brethren and sisters in the vvorld. So said this holy Martyr at that time vvhen Christiās vvere so far from Caluinisme (vvhich abhorreth the praiers of Saincts & praying to them) that to be sure, they bargained before hād to haue the martyrs & other Saincts to pray for them. The same S. Cyprian also in his booke De disciplina & habitu virginum, in fine, after a godly exhortation made to the holy Virgins or Nonnes in his time, speaketh thus vnto them: Tantum tunc mementote nostri, cùm incipiet in vobis virginitas honorari. that is, Onely then haue vs in remembrance, vvhen your virginitie shal begin to be honoured. that is, after their departure. Vvhere he insinuateth the vse of the Catholike Church in keeping the festiual daies and other dueties tovvard the holy Virgins in heauen. Feastes of holy Virgins. S. Hierom also in the same manner speaketh to Heliodorus, saying, that vvhen he is once in heauen, then he vvil pray for him that exhorted and incited him to the blessed state of the Monastical life. Ep. 1. c. 2.
And so doth he speake to the vertuous matrone Paula after her death, desiring her to pray for him in his old age. Inuocation of Saincts. affirming that she shal the more easily obtaine, the neeres she is novv ioyned to Christ in heauen, in Epitaph, Paule in fine. It vvere to long to report, hovv S. Augustine desireth to be holpen by S. Cyprians praiers (then and long before a Sainct in heauen) to the vnderstanding of the truth concerning the peace and regiment of the Church. li. 5 de Bapt. cont. Donatistas c. 17. And in an other place the same holy Doctor alleageth the said S. Cyprian saying, that great numbers of our parents, brethren, children, frendes, and other, expect vs in great solicitude and carefulnes of our saluation, being sure of their ovvne. li. 1 de praedest. Sanctorum c. 14. S. Gregorie Nazianzene in his orations of the praise of S. Cyprian in fine, and of S. Basil also in fine, declareth hovv they pray for the people, vvhich tvvo Saincts he there inuocateth, as al the auncient fathers did, both generally al Saincts, and (as occasion serued) particularly their special Patrones. Among the rest see hovv holy Ephrem (in orat. de laud. S. Deipara) praied to our B. Ladie vvith the same termes of Aduocatt, Hope, Reconciliatrix, that the faithful yet vse, and the Protestants can not abide. S. Basil ho. de 40 Martyribus in fine. S. Athanasius Ser. in Euang. de S. Deipara in fine. S. Hilarie in Psal. 124. S. Chrysostom ho. 66 ad po. Antiochenum in fine. Theodorete de curat. Grae•orum affectuum li. 8 in fine. Finally al the fathers are ful of these things: vvho better knevv the meaning of the Scripture and the sense of the Holy Ghost, then these nevv interpreters doe. Priuate phantastical interpretation⸢s⸣.
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In the liturgy The Epistle in the Transifiguration of our Lord, Aug. 6.
•prescience
By this it is plaine, that either Iohn, Iames, or Peter must be the author of this epistle. for these three onely vvere present at the Trāsfiguration. Mat. 17•.
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Concordance Mt. 17, 5
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You see that places are made holy by Christs presence, & that al places be not alike holy. See Annot. Act. 7, 33.
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20. Priuate.] The Scriptures can not be rightly expounded of euery priuate spirit or phantasie of the vulgar reader: but by the same spirit vvherevvith they vvere vvritten, vvhich is resident in the Church.
Concordance 2 Tim 3, 17.
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St John Chrysostom † AD 407 A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles 33
… His also is a more complete oration, as indeed it puts the completion to the matter under discussion. ( a ) “Symeon,” he says, “declared:” (namely,) in Luke, in that he prophesied, “Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all nations, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.”
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St Hippolytus † AD 235 The Refutation of All Heresies 10.29
… Thou hast the example of the Logos. His will, however, was, that you should be a man, and He has made thee a man. But if thou art desirous of also becoming a god, obey Him that has created thee, and resist not now, in order that, being found faithful in that which is small, you may be enabled to have entrusted to you also that which is great.
St Hippolytus † AD 235 The Refutation of All Heresies 10.30
… And thou shalt receive the kingdom of heaven, thou who, whilst thou didst sojourn in this life, didst know the Celestial King. And thou shalt be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For thou hast become God:
St Hippolytus † AD 235 The Discourse on the Holy Theophany 8
… The Father of immortality sent the immortal Son and Word into the world, who came to man in order to wash him with water and the Spirit; and He, begetting us again to incorruption of soul and body, breathed into us the breath (spirit) of life, and endued us with an incorruptible panoply. If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God.
Novatian † AD 258 A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity 20
… And what in the world is the reason, that although they say that this name was given even to Moses, since it is said, “I have made thee as a god to Pharaoh,” it should be denied to Christ, who is declared to be ordained
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 On the Incarnation of the Word 39
… but rather let him marvel that by so ordinary a means things divine have been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal Providence has been known, and its Giver and Artificer the very Word of God. 3. For He was made man that we might be made God
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Life of Antony. (Vita Antoni.) 72
… Next, which is better, to say that the Word of God was not changed, but, being the same, He took a human body for the salvation and well-being of man, that having shared in human birth He might make man partake in the divine and spiritual nature
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) 1.5
… And thus of the Son Himself, all things partake according to the grace of the Spirit coming from Him ; and this shews that the Son Himself partakes of nothing, but what is partaken from the Father, is the Son; for, as partaking of the Son Himself, we are said to partake of God; and this is what Peter said ‘that ye may be partakers in a divine nature
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Festal and Personal Letters of Athanasius 5
… Let us cleanse our hands, let us purify the body. Let us keep our whole mind from guile; not giving up ourselves to excess, and to lusts, but occupying ourselves entirely with our Lord, and with divine doctrines; so that, being altogether pure, we may be able to partake of the Word.
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Festal and Personal Letters of Athanasius 59
… ‘Why smitest thou Me ?’ And being by nature intangible, the Word yet said, ‘I gave My back to the stripes, and My cheeks to blows, and hid not My face from shame and spitting .’ For what the human Body of the Word suffered, this the Word, dwelling in the body, ascribed to Himself, in order that we might be enabled to be partakers of the Godhead of the Word
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Festal and Personal Letters of Athanasius 60
… For He has become Man, that He might deify us in Himself, and He has been born of a woman, and begotten of a Virgin, in order to transfer to Himself our erring generation , and that we may become henceforth a holy race, and ‘partakers of the Divine Nature,’ as blessed Peter wrote
St Cyril of Jerusalem † AD 386 The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 22.3
… that thou by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, mayest be made of the same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because His Body and Blood are distributed through our members; thus it is that, according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 3
I. How slow you are, my friends and brethren, to come to listen to my words, though you were so swift in tyrannizing over me, and tearing me from my Citadel Solitude, which I had embraced in preference to everything else, and as coadjutress and mother of the divine ascent, and as deifying man,
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 30
… For in truth He was in servitude to flesh and to birth and to the conditions of our life with a view to our liberation, and to that of all those whom He has saved, who were in bondage under sin. What greater destiny can befall man’s humility than that he should be intermingled with God, and by this intermingling should be deified,
St Jerome † AD 420 Against Jovinianus 1.39
… for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that we should no longer live the rest of our time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past is sufficient for us when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, and other vices. Great and precious are the promises attaching to virginity which He has given us,
St Jerome † AD 420 Against Jovinianus 2.10
… Jovinianus further urges against us our Lord’s words, “I pray not for these only, but also for those who shall believe on me through their word: that as I, Father, in thee and thou in me are one, so they all may be one in us,” and reminds us that the whole Christian people is one in God, and, as His well-beloved sons, are
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On the Holy Trinity 3.2
… and a soul breathed into it governs this body, and that soul a rational one; which, therefore, although changeable, yet can be partaker of that unchangeable wisdom, so that “it may partake of that which is in and of itself;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Work on the Proceedings of Pelagius 42
… “The victory is ours, seeing that we took up arms of our own will; just as, on the other hand, being conquered is our own, since it was of our own will that we neglected to arm ourselves.” And, after quoting the phrase of the Apostle Peter, “partakers of the divine nature,”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Work on the Proceedings of Pelagius 65
… that there is no free will, if it needs the help of God, inasmuch as every one has his proper will either to do something, or to abstain from doing it; that our victory comes not from God’s help, but from free will; that from what Peter says, that ‘we are partakers of the divine nature,’
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Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 The Book of Pastoral Rule 3.19
On the other hand, were it not that impatience commonly shakes the abstinent out of the bosom of tranquillity, Peter would by no means, when saying, Supply in your faith virtue, and in your virtue knowledge, and in your knowledge abstinence (
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Tertullian † AD 220 On Baptism 8
… But the world returned unto sin; in which point baptism would ill be compared to the deluge. And so it is destined to fire; just as the man too is, who after baptism renews his sins:
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Tertullian † AD 220 Five Books in Reply to Marcion 2
350 From “the effulgent glory” borrowing,
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) 3.27
… for the Word, as being God, had them always; but in these passages He is said humanly to have received, that, whereas the flesh received in Him, henceforth from it the gift might abide surely for us. For what is said by Peter, ‘receiving from God honour and glory, Angels being made subject unto Him
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 30
IX. Fifthly, let it be alleged that it is said of Him that He receives life, judgment, inheritance of the Gentiles, or power over all flesh, or glory,
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 35.8
… Hear the prophets, O man dead, and breeding the worms of calumny, hear the prophets: I read, hear them who came before the Lord. “We have,” saith the Apostle Peter, “a more sure word of prophecy, to which ye do well to give heed, as to a lamp in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.”
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St Cyril of Jerusalem † AD 386 The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 10.15
15. This Christ, when He was come, the Jews denied, but the devils confessed. But His forefather David was not ignorant of Him, when he said, I have ordained a lamp for mine Anointed : which lamp some have interpreted to be the brightness of Prophecy
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Letters of St. Augustin 130.5
… this world, in which we are pilgrims absent from the Lord as long as “we walk by faith and not by sight,” the Christian soul ought to feel itself desolate, and continue in prayer, and learn to fix the eye of faith on the word of the divine sacred Scriptures, as “on a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 76.1
… For all these things which are read to us in this present time, are lights in a dark place, that we may be nourished up unto the day. The Apostle Peter says, “We have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 23.3
… Of this lamp the Apostle Peter says: “We have a more sure word of prophecy, to which ye do well giving heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 52.9
… For we walk by prophecy; whereof saith the Apostle Peter, “We have a more sure prophetic word, to which giving heed ye do well, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day shine, and the day-star arise in your hearts.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 77.4
… For would ye see how it is night? Unless we had here had a lantern, we should have remained in darkness. For Peter saith,“ We too have more sure the prophetic discourse, whereunto ye do well to give heed, as to a lantern shining in a dark place, until day shine, and the day-star arise in your hearts.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 90.15
15. Next, in anticipation of future blessings, of which he speaks as already vouchsafed, he says, “We are satisfied with Thy mercy in the morning” ( ver. 14 ). Prophecy has thus been kindled for us, in the midst of these toils and sorrows of the night, like a lamp in the darkness, until day dawn, and the Day-star arise in our hearts.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 119.14
… not Christ the Word, but the word of Christ, of which it is written, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”? For the Apostle Peter also, comparing the prophetical word to a lantern, saith, “whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lantern, that shineth in a dark place.”
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Tertullian † AD 220 On the Apparel of Women ii.2
… Where, then, is (the command), “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself?” “Care not merely about your own (things), but (about your) neighbour’s?” No enunciation of the Holy Spirit ought to be (confined) to the subject immediately in hand merely, and not applied and carried out with a view to every occasion to which its application is useful.
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St Hippolytus † AD 235 Treatise on Christ and Antichrist 2
… For these fathers were furnished with the Spirit, and largely honoured by the Word Himself; and just as it is with instruments of music, so had they the Word always, like the plectrum, in union with them, and when moved by Him the prophets announced what God willed. For they spake not of their own power
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Holy Spirit 1.4
… But as the Father is one Who both spake of old, as we read, to the fathers by the prophets, and to us in the last days by His Son; “and as the Son is one, Who according to the tenour of the Old Testament was offended by Adam, seen by Abraham, worshipped by Jacob; so, too, the Holy Spirit is one, who energized in the prophets,
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1. Simon Peter,—who in circumcision was called Simon by his parents, he in the Apostolate was called Peter by Christ. Simon, or Simeon (for it is the same name), as I have said elsewhere. Therefore Oecumenius says less correctly: "Simon," he says, "is a diminutive of Simeon, just as Metras of Metrodorus, Menas of Menodorus, Theodas of Theodosius." For the Hebrew שמעון if you read it with the mobile sceva, is Simeon; if with the quiescent sceva, is Simon, which is the same as hearing and obeying, as Peter heard and obeyed Christ, and therefore he calls himself here "Simon," to indicate that he writes these things not from himself, but by the command of Christ, whom it is necessary to obey. "Peter," in Hebrew Cephas, is the same as rock, or stone; because upon him as upon a rock Christ built His Church, Matthew xvi, 18. Peter adds this, both for distinction: for there were many others named Simon, and so among the Apostles there was another Simon surnamed Cananaeus; and for authority, so that the faithful might receive this epistle as written by Peter, that is, the Supreme Pontiff and the very rock of the Church, eagerly and reverently. For Christ entrusted to Peter the care of the whole world, as St. Chrysostom says in chapter xxi of St. John; and St. Leo, sermon 3 On his Assumption: "From the whole world," he says, "one Peter is chosen, who is set over both the calling of all nations, and all the Apostles and all the Patriarchs of the Church, so that although there are many priests in the people of God, and many Pastors, yet Peter properly rules all those whom Christ principally rules." Servant and Apostle.—See what has been said of these titles in Romans I, 1, and James I, 1, namely that "to serve God is to reign." Tropologically St. Augustine, XIX On the City of God, xxi: "The mind serving God," he says, "rightly commands the body, and in the mind itself reason subjected to God rightly commands lust and other vices: wherefore where man does not serve God, what justice is to be thought to be in him? since he who does not serve God can in no way have a just mind, or human reason ruling over other vices." To those who have obtained with us an equal faith.—For equal in Greek is ἰσότιμον, that is, of the same value and reward, equally to be esteemed, equivalent, of the same order, equal: both because it is obtained at the same price, namely the blood of Christ; and because faith everywhere is equally precious; and because it itself is the price by which the kingdom of heaven is bought: for this is the reward and recompense of faith, as it were of a price. Whence Pagninus and the Zurich Bible translate it, equally precious, that is the same; yet more significantly it says, "equally precious," so as to intimate the great value and dignity of the faith of the same faithful. By this word therefore St. Peter indicates that all the faithful, whether they be in Rome, or in Bithynia, or in Pontus, etc., have one and the same faith of great value, law, religion, institution and life, and also charity and union of souls: for faith contains all these things, as a root contains all the branches and the whole tree. Thus Prosper, book I On the Calling of the Gentiles, chapter xxiii. Again, all, whether Jews, or Gentiles, whether Bithynians, or Pontics, or Romans, are equal in the faith and grace of Christ: for God has not given greater faith or grace to the Jews than to the Gentiles, to the Romans than to the Pontics. Although indeed to the Apostles and Apostolic men and eminent Saints greater faith and grace is given and is given intensively, or extensively, so that they know and believe more than other faithful; yet objectively and essentially no greater faith is given, but in all it is the same and equal, because all have the same faith and grace in species, by which they believe the same things in the same manner concerning God and Christ, and expect the same reward of their faith from him. Again, the difference of intensity or extension of faith is in particular persons, not in whole nations: for the Jews, because they are Jews, did not receive more intense or more extended faith, or grace, than the Gentiles. Note, he says "equal faith," not degree and order: for Peter was in order a Bishop, and in degree a Pontiff, superior to all the faithful, not equal, as heretics wrongly endeavor to prove from this passage. Have obtained,—that is, received by lot: for faith and grace, with respect to those receiving them to whom they are not due, are given by lot, that is by chance and freely; although on the part of God there is no lot, but a destined will and benevolence. Whence Paul, Ephesians I, 11, says: "In whom also we are called by lot, predestined according to his purpose, who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will." In Justice,—that is, through justice. Thus Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, Clarius, Gagneius, Vatable, and others here, and Prosper, book I On the Calling of the Gentiles, xxiii. "Justice" first, understand the passion and merits of Christ: for by these Christ justly satisfied for our sins, and merited for us faith, grace and salvation. Whence Christ is called by Paul "made unto us justice, and sanctification, and redemption," I Corinthians I, 30; and Isaiah, LIII, 11: "He shall justify," he says, "my just servant many." Wherefore the commentary of Adam Sasbout is to be avoided here, while he refutes this sense, from the fact that faith, he says, comes to us not from the merit of Christ, but from the grace of God: for this is false; for God gives no grace to man except through the merits of Christ: for Christ merited for us all grace; therefore also faith, according to that Ephesians I, 3: "Blessed be God, etc., who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ;" concerning which see the Council of Trent, session VI, chapters v and vi; St. Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter xv, and Francis Suarez, III part., vol. I, disputation 41. Thus Cajetan, Catharinus, Salmeron and others. Secondly, by justice understand the holiness of Christ, that is to say, the justice and holiness of Christ is the cause both efficient, exemplary, and final of our faith, justice and holiness: for the beginning and basis of this is faith. Hence Daniel, chapter ix, verse 24, calls Christ the Holy of Holies and eternal justice; and St. Dionysius, chapter iv of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, part III, calls Christ the fountain of holiness, who fills us with holiness; and St. Cyril, book IV of the Treasury, chapter i: "The Son," he says, "not thus, but as the fountain of holiness from his own power sanctifies his disciples." The same, book IV on John, chapter ii, verse 8: "The tabernacle," he says, "going before, the Hebrews followed; standing, they pitched their camps, that we may learn that no other guide unto salvation has been given to us than the Word of God made man." Thirdly, by justice can be understood mercy, according to that: "He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his justice," that is, his mercy and almsgiving, "remaineth for ever and ever," I Corinthians IX, 9, that is to say, Through the mercy of Christ promised to us by the Prophets we have received faith. Whence St. Ambrose, book III On Virginity, near the end, says that Christ is to be sought by all, Christ is all things to all, and distils the dew of grace upon all. Fourthly, "justice" can be understood for justification, that is to say, Through the justification of Christ, because namely he himself justifies us, we have received faith: for the beginning of justification is faith. When therefore Christ gave us faith, then he began to justify us, and began our justification. To this is added Adam, who expounds justice with justice, that is to say, Christ not only gave us faith, but also justice, as it were the end and completion of faith. For Christ was made unto us all things, because he gave all gifts by which we are directed unto salvation. Whence Nyssenus, in the book On the Life of Moses: "All," he says, "the hope of goods we firmly believe to be in Christ: whoever has obtained any good, he is in Christ, who contains all good." Origen, book V on the epistle to the Romans, says "Christ is all goods, but the devil all evils." Wherefore wisely Nazianzen, in the Sentences: "I," he says, "esteem Christ as a treasure of the most ample riches, whom would that I might sometime behold with a pure mind, but let the world have all other things." The same in Poem 9: But to thee alone, O Christ, am I alone left, thou who holdest all things in thy dominion: in thee is all my strength placed, in thee is all my confidence of salvation. Of God Our Saviour and Jesus Christ,—that is, Jesus Christ who is God and our Saviour: for both are understood to pertain to Christ from the Greek, which comprehends both with one article τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Whence it is clear that Christ is God. For in the first place in the beginnings of the Church and faith, St. Peter and the Apostles wished and ought to inculcate to the faithful, namely that Christ is not a mere man, as Ebion was teaching at that same time, but true God and true man. Excellently St. Hilary, book VII On the Trinity: "God," he says, "our Lord Jesus Christ we know in five ways, by name, by nativity, by nature, by power, by profession;" which he then explains and confirms one by one. Secondly however rightly many refer τὸ of God to God the Father, but τὸ of Saviour to Christ. For in the following verse St. Peter seems to distinguish God from Christ, and consequently by God to understand the Father, by Saviour the Son Jesus Christ: whence he calls him Lord with the article, saying τοῦ Κυρίου. For, as Christ says in John xvii, 3: "And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent;" for both are required unto salvation, namely the knowledge both of the true God, and of his Son Jesus Christ incarnate for us.
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2. Grace to you and peace be multiplied, — πληθυνθείη, that is, be multiplied, so that in the multitude (under which also understand magnitude, by a change of discrete quantity for continuous) of grace and peace continually growing you may at length attain to the fullness of both. He hints that Christians ought continually to make progress in grace and virtue, because, as St. Augustine says in Psalm lxviii: "No faithful person says, It is enough; where you have said, It is enough, there you have failed." And St. Leo, sermon 2 On Lent: "This is the true justice of the perfect, that they never presume themselves to be perfect, lest, ceasing from the intention of a journey not yet finished, they fall into the danger of failing, where they have laid aside the desire of making progress." And Nazianzenus in Sentences: "Beware," he says, "that you ever stand still on the way of virtue: for you who have departed from a vicious life, I think it is the same for you to stand still as if you were sliding into the lowest abyss of vice." He joins peace to grace, because, as St. Leo says, sermon 6 On the Nativity: "Where the truth of peace shall be, nothing can be lacking of virtue. But what is it, dearest ones, to have peace with God, except to will what He commands, and to be unwilling in what He forbids? For if human friendships seek equal minds and similar wills, and diversity of character can never arrive at firm concord: how shall he be a partaker of divine peace, to whom those things are pleasing which displease God, and he desires to delight in those things by which he knows Him to be offended?" And St. Paulinus, on the birthday of St. Felix, addressing Christ, says: In you let my life's anchor be fixed and firm. Be multiplied in the knowledge of God and Christ; — for as the knowledge of God and Christ grows and is fulfilled, so likewise grace and peace grow and are fulfilled: because the more the goodness of God and Christ is known, not only speculatively but also practically, the more it is loved and honored. For knowledge in Greek is ἐπιγνώσει, which St. Ambrose, epistle 33 to Demetrius, in the Roman edition, St. Augustine in Exposition of the epistle to the Romans, and Prosper Against the Collation, translate as recognition, that is, knowledge of a mindful and grateful soul; Pagninus, as acknowledgment; others as knowledge upon knowledge: for ἐπί is upon, γνῶσις is knowledge. It seems that St. Peter wishes for the faithful an increase of faith, knowledge and divine illumination, so that the first knowledge of God and faith which they had received, when converted from paganism to Christ, is called γνῶσις; but the progress of knowledge and faith is called ἐπίγνωσις, as it were knowledge surpassing knowledge. Some less correctly give γνῶσις to the Gentiles, ἐπίγνωσις to Christians, because the knowledge of God which Christians have surpasses the knowledge of God which Gentiles have, by as much as faith surpasses reason and natural light. St. Peter therefore wishes, and in wishing exhorts the faithful, that by praying, meditating, hearing, reading and studying they may make progress in knowledge, and consequently in the love of God, so that they may dare to oppose themselves to heretics, who at that same time arose called Gnostics, because they arrogated to themselves perfect knowledge of God.
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3. How. — Depends on the preceding. For it explains the knowledge of God and Christ, as if to say: I wish and pray for you that "grace and peace be fulfilled in the knowledge of God and Christ," so that namely you may know more fully and deeply, "how all things of His divine power, which pertain to life and piety, have been given to us through the knowledge of Him." Or more simply, as if to say: "Grace and peace be fulfilled in you in the knowledge of God and Christ," how, that is in the same manner, or as through this knowledge of God and Christ all divine gifts, which pertain to life and piety, have been given to us, so that the how, in Greek ὡς, is exegetical, answering to the Hebrew כאשר caascer, and explains the excellence of the knowledge of God and Christ, namely that through it we have received all gifts of grace from God, as if to say: Therefore I wish you to grow in the knowledge of God and Christ, because through it you will grow likewise in the remaining gifts of God: for all these things, as they were first given through it, so day by day they are more given and increased by God. Thus Adam, Gagneius and others. Secondly, Arias and Vatablus take the Greek ὡς, that is, how, as a note of admiration, as if to say: O how abundantly has divine power bestowed upon us all things which pertain to life and piety! as if St. Peter begins his epistle from an exclamation and admiration of divine munificence toward Christians, through which He has so enriched and exalted us, that He has made us partakers of the divine nature. This exposition is pathetic, and to it the vulgate version can be fitted, which has how; for in a similar manner Jeremiah, admiring the destruction of Jerusalem, begins the Lamentations, saying: "How doth the city sit solitary?" In a similar manner, admiring God's beneficence toward His own, the Psalmist exclaims, Psalm LXXII, 1: "How good is God to Israel to them that are of a right heart!" and Psalm XXX, 20: "How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee!" St. Peter is in accord with St. John, who in a like manner begins his epistle from admiration of the benefit of the Incarnation of the Word, saying: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life," etc. The same does St. Paul, Ephesians I, 3 and seq.; Romans I, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Hebrews I, 1 and seq. For this is a great mystery of piety worthy of all admiration and acceptance, as the same says I Timothy I, 15, and III, 16. The former sense, however, as it is simpler, so also is it more genuine. Others explain these things differently, but variously and obscurely. All things of His divine power, — δυνάμεως, that is, of His power, as if to say: God through faith in Christ has poured forth into us all His strength, all His power, equally as His mercy. Whence the Mother of God sings: "He hath showed might in His arm," Luke I, 51, because namely through Christ and faith in Christ we have received remission of sins, grace, justice, all virtues, and especially divine strength to overcome all adversities, to martyrdom, to convert the whole world; finally the right and pledge of happiness and heavenly glory, and of the eternal and divine kingdom. Are not these the works and gifts of God's power? Add, through faith Christ Himself is given to us, who is the Word, the arm, the strength and power of the eternal Father. Which pertain to life and piety (supply: pertain; thus the Zurich and Pagninus versions) have been given. — Thus the Roman and some Greek texts, which have δεδωρημένα, and this requires the full sense, which otherwise is gaping and hanging, if namely you read with some Greeks δεδωρημένης, that is, given, namely of divine power, that is, as Cajetan reads, "which," namely divine power, "has been given to life and piety." For the how depends on all things of His divine power, unless you add and complete, "have been given." By life understand antonomastically the supernatural, heavenly, divine and eternal life, namely the life of grace and glory: for this alone is the true and perfect life. From this place it is evident that it is of faith that nothing pertaining to piety and salvation can be done by man through the powers of mere nature, as Pelagius wished; but only through the gift of God's grace. Thus Prosper Against the Collator, chapter xxix, and therefore "nothing is more to be fled, says St. Ambrose, epistle 33 to Demetrias, than the appetite of this concupiscence, which denies the divine work for the love of its own dignity; and while other desires diminish only those goods which they oppose, this, while it draws all things to itself, at the same time corrupts all things." Who (Christ, as is evident from the following verse) called us by His own glory and virtue. — The interpreter reads ἰδίᾳ, that is, by His own; now the Greeks read διά, that is, by glory and virtue, which amounts to the same thing. Beza wrongly translated it, on account of His glory, as if διά were to be taken for εἰς: for this is new and unusual. Now "glory," that is, glorious grace: for "glory" is taken metonymically for grace, because grace is the index and effect of glory and the glorious mercy of God: for God shows His glory, that is, His glorious power, wisdom and mercy most especially through grace, when through it He called us sinners, vile, miserable and unworthy to His friendship, inheritance, kingdom and glory. Thus St. Paul says: "All have sinned, and do need the glory," that is, the grace "of God," Rom. III, 23. And often elsewhere he calls the grace of Christ, as being magnificent and glorious, "glory," as in II Corinth. III, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, and Rom. IX, 23, he calls the same thing "the riches of glory." He calls this same mercy and grace "virtue," in Greek ἀρετήν, because God's virtue is most illustrious among men in His clemency, beneficence and grace. The sense therefore is, as if to say, God called us not on account of our own, but on account of His glorious grace and virtue, that is, mercy. Whence Prosper in the place cited reads: "Called us by the virtue of His own glory," so that it is a hendiadys, "glory and virtue," that is, glorious virtue, namely glorious mercy. Secondly, by "glory" understand the glorious humanity and works of the incarnate Word, concerning which St. John, cap. 1, vers. 14: "We saw, he says, His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten from the Father." Whence Cajetan says Christ called us "by His own virtue" by living well, so that we also might live well; and by His own "glory" by working miracles and showing forth the gifts of His glorious body. Hence thirdly, Thomas the Englishman by glory understands the glory of the body, which Christ showed in the transfiguration to SS. Peter, James and John: but by virtue he understands the miracles, which Christ worked before them in greater number than before the other Apostles: for by these both He Himself and His fellow Apostles were called by Christ. This sense is fitting, and St. Peter had regard to it; but it seems inadequate and too narrow: for it adequately signifies the glory, that is, the grace of Christ by which He called all the faithful.
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4. By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises. — There is here a threefold reading. The first, δι' ὧν, that is, by which things, namely all the gifts of divine power, which pertain to life and piety, as preceded. Thus Œcumenius and St. Ambrose, epistle 33 to Demetrias, Hugo and Thomas Aquinas. The second, "by which," namely the calling: thus St. Ambrose, book X, epistle 84, and Bede; or knowledge: thus Adam; or glory and power. The third and genuine reading, δι' οὗ, that is, by whom, namely Christ. Thus the Roman text, St. Athanasius, oration II Against the Arians: the Gloss, Dionysius, Gagneius and others. Promises. — Understand things promised by God freely and liberally (for these are ἐπαγγέλματα) by metonymy, that is to say, those precious gifts which God through Moses and the Prophets promised he would give through Christ, he has already given and exhibited through him, namely the remission of sins, grace, sanctity, all virtues both theological and moral, the right and pledge of glory, etc., and even the Holy Spirit and the very divinity itself, as will presently appear: which a little before he called: "All things of divine power which pertain to life and piety;" for to these applies what follows: "That by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature." Add the Holy Spirit, given at Pentecost with the gift of tongues, wisdom, prophecy, healings, miracles, and other things for converting the nations, and the very conversion of the nations spread throughout the whole world. The price and dignity of these things promised, which God has given and gives to the faithful through Christ, St. Agnes represents by symbolic similitudes and figures in St. Ambrose, book IV, epistle 34: "He adorned," she says, "my right hand with an inestimable ring, and encircled my neck with precious stones. He placed in my ears inestimable pearls, and surrounded me with blooming and gleaming gems; he placed a mark upon my face, that I should admit no lover but him. He clothed me in a tunic woven of gold, and adorned me with immense ornaments. He showed me incomparable treasures, which he promised to give me if I should persevere with him," etc. Most plainly Tertullian, in the book On the Resurrection, chapter viii: "The flesh is washed," he says, "that the soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed, that the soul may be fortified; the flesh is overshadowed by the laying on of hands, that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul may be nourished by God." That by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature. — From this passage many have taken occasion to err. First, Osiander held that we are so united to the divinity that we are really justified by the very justice and sanctity of God, which other heretics seeing to be impossible, said we are justified by the merits and justice of Christ imputed to us. See Bellarmine, book II On Justification, chapter v. Second, Michael Servetus, whom Calvin caused to be punished at Geneva with death and burning as a heretic, held that the divinity is really transfused into the just, as the soul is transfused into the body when it is animated and vivified, concerning which Beza here: "Ridiculous," he says, "are those who from this imagine a transfusion of the divine essence into us, as that impious Servetus stubbornly defended even unto death; and yet there are those who think a great injury has been done to a good man. Thus he." Third, some too contemplative in the time of Gerson, and also in our own time, have imagined that they are so united to God through contemplation that their nature is really submerged in the abyssal depth of the divinity, namely that humanity is annihilated, and wholly passes into the divinity: which was the error of Amalric, of which Ruysbroeck was accused by Gerson, as appears from his Letter to Bartholomew the Carthusian, which he wrote against the defense of Ruysbroeck made by John of Schonhovia. Thus some Eutychians said that the humanity of Christ was consumed by the divinity, as quicksilver is consumed by gold when it is melted, so that in Christ there was only one nature, namely the divine, not two. Whence Apollinaris held that in Christ there was not a human mind, but only a divine one. And the Monothelites held that in Christ there was only one will, namely the divine. Omitting these dreams and ravings of fanatics and enthusiasts, St. Ambrose, epistle 38, and Œcumenius, here hold that we are made partakers of the divine nature through Christ: for in Christ our human nature has been made a partaker of the divine, indeed it is joined to it most closely in the same hypostasis of the Word. But this union had already been made, and through it all men were made sharers of the divine nature: but St. Peter says to the faithful alone: "That by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature," namely not in Christ, but in yourselves. I say therefore that God alone essentially possesses the divine nature; for divinity essentially is only in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whence the Son alone (equally as the Holy Spirit) is ὁμοούσιος, that is, consubstantial with the Father. Wherefore St. Ambrose, in the book On the Incarnation, chapter viii, teaches that there is only one divine nature, from the fact that St. Peter says "nature," not natures, and that it is in the Son, inasmuch as he communicates it to us, and therefore the Son is truly and properly God. Again personally, namely through hypostatic union, Christ alone as man is a sharer of the divine nature, because he subsists with it in the same divine person of the Word. The faithful and the just therefore are sharers of the divine nature, not essentially, nor personally, but partly accidentally, partly substantially. Accidentally, through the gift of sanctifying grace, which is an accident infused into the soul by God, through which we proximately and supremely participate in the divine nature. For grace is a thing so noble and sublime that it surpasses the nature of all angels and men, and is supernatural to them, and therefore no created substance can be given to which grace is connatural, as theologians teach, because it itself, as it were at the highest point, participates in divinity in that apex by which it itself transcends all created things and all nature. And from this fountain flow forth seven most noble effects and dignities which grace confers on the soul. First indeed grace expels all mortal sin. Secondly, it makes man pleasing to God and his friend, so that true friendship may exist between God and the just man, as St. Thomas teaches, II II, Question XXIII, article 1, where Suarez, Valencia and others show that all the conditions of friendship are found in charity, by which man becomes the friend of God. Thirdly, grace makes man upright and holy, so that the will, mind and all the powers are made holy and subject to God and to the law of God, and therefore makes man just similar to God, such as Adam was created in the state of innocence, according to that passage in Ephesians, chapter iv, verse 24: "Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth." Fourthly, grace makes the just man a son of God and an heir, according to that passage in Colossians 1, 12: "Giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love." Fifthly, it brings with it all the theological virtues and supernatural moral virtues, namely prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, etc.; and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which Isaiah says first rested upon Christ, chapter xi, 2, saying: "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of piety, and he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord." Thus teaches St. Thomas, I II, Question LXIII, article 3, and Question LXVIII, article 1, and throughout the theologians. Sixthly, grace is the seed of glory: just as therefore from seed is born a tree and fruit, so from grace is born happiness and eternal glory. Seventhly, grace is the principle and cause both of making satisfaction for past sins and of meriting an increase of grace and glory. Thus the Council of Trent, session VI, chapter xvi, and St. Thomas, I II, Question CXIV. Through grace therefore man is elevated and becomes of the divine order, not the angelic; and therefore a sharer, associate and participant of divinity: for no greater participation of this can exist than through grace. Let sinners consider these things, that they may see how great a good of grace they have lost for the sake of vile pleasure, and with all their strength strive to recover it; but let the just strive to retain it, confirm it, increase and perfect it. Let them consider what St. John says, epistle 1, chapter III, verse 1: "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God;"; and chapter III, verse 2: "Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him." I say secondly, that the just become sharers of the divine nature, not only accidentally through sanctifying grace, but also substantially through the divine nature itself communicated to them, by which they are adopted by God as sons, heirs, and are as it were deified. For which note first: The formal justification and adoption of us consists entirely in charity and grace infused into us and inhering in us, which in itself comprises, and brings with it the Holy Spirit, who is the author of charity and grace: for neither can grace adopting from the Holy Spirit, nor the adoption of the Holy Spirit from grace be separated, just as a ray cannot be separated from the sun, and the sun from a ray cannot be separated, just as neither its light can be separated from heat, nor heat from light. "This namely is the charity of God poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us," as the Apostle says, Rom. v. For the Holy Spirit through charity and grace formally justifies us, dwells in us, vivifies us and adopts us. For inherent justice, or justifying grace, is not one simple quality, but comprises many things, namely the remission of sins, faith, hope, charity, grace, and other gifts, and the Holy Spirit himself the author of gifts. For all these things man receives infused in justification, as the Council of Trent says, sess. VI, cap. vii. Hence note secondly: In justification and adoption there is given to man not only charity and grace, or the Holy Spirit himself as to his gifts only, as some have thought; but also the very person of the Holy Spirit himself is given, and consequently the very Deity and the whole Holy Trinity is given, so that it itself not only objectively, but also really and personally in the soul of the just with gifts, and through his gifts in a new way becomes present, and in it as in his temple substantially dwells, and unites it to himself and as it were deifies it, and consequently adopts it: which is indeed of great divine condescension, equally as of dignity and consolation to us. For God and the Holy Spirit could have justified us in such a way as to make us just, yet not adopt us as sons. Again, he could have adopted us as sons through grace inhering alone; but not content with these things, he wished further to as it were attach his person to his gifts, and to give it to us with them, and thus to adopt us through himself. St. Bonaventure teaches this very thing expressly in I Sent., dist. xiv, art. 2, Quaest. I, in which he shows throughout that the Holy Spirit, not only in effect, but also in his own person as it were as an uncreated gift is given to the just, so that he may be their perfect possession. The Master of the Sentences teaches the same, lib. I, disp. xiv and xv, from St. Augustine and others, and Scotus, Gabriel, Marsilius in the same place. St. Thomas asserts this clearly, I part., Quaest. XLIII, art. 3 and 6, and Quaest. XXXVIII, art. 8, where he shows that the proper name of the Holy Spirit is gift, because he himself is given to all the just. The disciples of St. Thomas follow him, and our Fathers Vasquez, Valentia and especially Suarez, lib. XII De Deo trino et uno, cap. v, num. 11 and 12, who from this infers that the Holy Spirit in a new way according to his substance begins to be present in the soul of the just, in which way he was not before, and cites for this opinion St. Leo, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and thus with St. Thomas he asserts it to be so certain that he judges the contrary to be an error. And he proves it from Holy Scripture, I Corinth. vi: "Your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, whom you have of God." Rom. v: "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us." I Joan. IV: "He that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him." Joan. cap. xiv: "Whom the Father will send in my name, and he will abide with you, and shall be in you. And we will come to him, and will make our abode with him;" and Joan. xvi: "If I go, I will send him to you." Suarez gives the reason, num. 12: "Because," he says, "the gifts of grace by their force and as it were by connate right demand the real and personal presence of God in the soul sanctified by such gifts; because if we should imagine by impossibility that the Holy Spirit were not otherwise really present within the soul, by the very fact that the soul were affected with such gifts, the Holy Spirit himself would come to it by personal presence, and would remain as long as grace endured in it." In a similar way, he says, the Word is present to the humanity of Christ, so that if by impossibility he had not been present to it before, now by hypostatic union he would become personally and intimately present to it. He then adds a moral reason, namely that through grace there is made the most perfect friendship between God and man, which demands the presence of the friend, namely the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the soul of his friend, so that he may be intimately united to it, and in it as in his temple may reside, be honored, loved and adored. From this communication of the very person of the Holy Spirit and divinity, there follows the highest elevation of the soul with Him and as it were a deification, and consequently the most perfect and most divine adoption, namely not only through grace, but also through divine substance. Whence St. Basil, in his homily On the Holy Spirit, says that the Saints on account of the indwelling Holy Spirit are gods; for it was said to them by God: "I have said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High." And from this he proves that the Holy Spirit is God: "For it is necessary," he says, "that the spirit be divine, and be from God, which is the cause of divinity to gods." Now just as the formal cause of the prior adoption, which is made through grace, is grace itself: so the formal cause of this second adoption, which is made through the communication of the Holy Spirit Himself, is the Holy Spirit Himself dwelling in the soul of the just; but the medium, disposition and bond is grace itself: just as the hypostatic union is the medium and bond by which humanity is united to the Word; but with this difference, that this bond in Christ is not some quality, but only a substantial mode; here however in our adoption it is a quality and a real and perfect form, namely charity and grace, which by its nature demands this personal communication of the Holy Spirit, and brings it with itself, the Holy Spirit Himself condescending, which indeed wonderfully demonstrates His φιλανθρωπίαν, familiarity and benevolence toward men, and therefore is to be celebrated with continual praise, meditation and thanksgiving. Wherefore justifying grace is as it were the formal cause of this communication of the Holy Spirit, which demands it and is inseparably joined to it: just as heat in fire is as it were the formal cause of the splendor which results from it, and light in the sun is the quasi formal cause of the warming power which the sun has in itself. And thus justifying grace is the formal cause both of our justification and of adoption both second and first, and comprehends all these things and brings them with itself. Nor does the Council of Trent seem to wish anything else, sess. VI, cap. IV and VII, when against the modern heretics who set up external or imputed justice, it teaches that in justification we are transferred into the state of grace and adoption of the sons of God; and that the formal cause of justification is the justice of God, "not that by which He Himself is just, but by which He makes us just, receiving justice in us, which the Holy Spirit distributes to each as He wills, etc., while by the merit of the most holy passion of Christ through the Holy Spirit the charity of God is poured forth in the hearts of those who are justified, and adheres to them: whence in justification itself together with the remission of sins man receives all these things at once infused through Jesus Christ, to whom he is grafted through faith, hope and charity: for faith, unless hope and charity be added to it, neither unites perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of His body." Moreover charity brings with itself the very person of the Holy Spirit, as I showed a little before: justification therefore and first adoption is accidental, because it is made through grace and charity, which are accidents; the second flowing from the first is substantial, and therefore more divine, because it is made through the communication of the Holy Spirit Himself, and of the divine nature, and therefore as it were substantially makes us sons of God, so that we may be of the same as it were nature and essence with God our Father. Hence Origen, homily 4 on Leviticus, teaches that there is fellowship with us with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, according to that passage in 1 John 1, 3: "That our fellowship may be with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ;" and consequently, he says, with the Saints and with the angels. Whoever by his evil deeds and evil thoughts separates himself from their conjunction breaks and denies this fellowship. Thus Origen. Symbolically, we are made partakers of the divine nature through the Eucharist. Thus St. Cyril, in Catechesis IV: "Thus," he says, "we become Christ-bearers (and of one body and of one blood with Christ, as he had said a little before), that is, bearing Christ in our bodies, when we receive His body and blood into our members; thus according to Blessed Peter we are made partakers of the divine nature." Tropologically, Nyssenus, at the beginning of his work in the Epistle to Harmonius, asks: What is Christianity? and answers: "Christianity is the imitation of the divine nature," so that our thoughts and actions may be similar to the actions of God, alien from all malice and vice, pure, holy; so that we may savour heavenly things, be affected by heavenly things. Christianity is union with Christ, and the profession of the life of Christ. For it cannot be that Christ is not also justice, and purity, and truth, and the avoidance of every evil; nor can anyone be a Christian who does not also show in himself the communion and fellowship of those names; otherwise he has the name and appearance of a Christian, not the truth and the reality. He brings forth the example of an ape, which, taught by a juggler to dance and imitate human gestures, and brought to the theatre for gain, when the spectators applauded it and thought the ape clothed in human garb and gesture to be a man; one of them, more cunning than his companion, said: I will show you that this is an ape, not a man: wherefore he threw almonds at the ape in the theatre, which when it saw them, forgetting itself and all its training and propriety, leaving the juggler its master and teacher, ran to its almonds like a beast, and cracked them open and ate them; and thus it showed itself to be an ape and a beast, which was moved not by reason, but by sense and desire. Thus many Christians display the habit and external appearance of a Christian, but when their desires are offered to them like nuts, forgetting Christianity they rush upon them like cattle, and thus show themselves to be not true Christians, but counterfeits; not men living by reason and faith, but apes of men. For Baptism and Christianity is "the death of crimes, and the life of virtues," says St. Cyprian, book II, epistle 2 to Donatus, and Optatus of Milevis, book V Against Parmenianus. The same Nyssenus, praising his brother St. Basil: "His kinship," he says, "familiarity and necessity was with God; but his country was virtue." Wherefore gravely St. Leo, sermon 1 On the Nativity: "Recognize," he says, "O Christian, thy dignity, and made a sharer of the divine nature, do not return to thy former baseness by degenerate conduct. Remember of what head and of what body thou art a member. Recall that thou hast been snatched from the power of darkness and translated into the light and kingdom of God. Through the sacrament of baptism thou hast been made a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not so drive away such a dweller by wicked deeds from thyself, and subject thyself again to the slavery of the devil; because thy price is the blood of Christ, who in truth shall judge thee, who in mercy hath redeemed thee, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit reigneth for ever and ever, amen." St. Macarius, homily 45, teaches that God possesses all creation; but has contracted a fellowship with man alone, and rests in him: "Dost thou see," he says, "the kinship of God with man, and of man with God? Wherefore a wise and prudent soul, running through all creatures, finds no rest for itself except in the Lord alone: nor did it please the Lord to rest in any, except in man alone. If thou unfold thine eyes to the sun, thou wilt find its circle in heaven; but its light and rays tend toward the earth, and all the force of light and splendour tend toward the earth. So also the Lord sits at the right hand of the Father: but he has extended his eye upon the hearts of men dwelling on earth, so that receiving his aid there, where he himself is, he may lift them up: For, he says, where I am, there also shall my minister be." Moreover, although grace making us sharers of the divine nature brings us and includes all virtues, nevertheless St. Jerome, in book I Against Jovinian, appropriates this very thing to virginity: "Great and precious promises of virginity," he says, "has He given to us, so that through these we may become sharers of the divine nature." Which he makes clear by what follows: "Fleeing that corruption of concupiscence which is in the world;" and that passage from Wisdom vi, 20: "Incorruption maketh one to be near to God." Others more rightly appropriate this very thing to charity, which, as St. Bernard says, in his sermon On the Diverse Affections of the Soul, cries out from affection: "What have I in heaven, and besides thee what do I desire upon earth? My flesh and my heart hath fainted away: O God of my heart, and my portion, God, for ever." For indeed the soul which is of such a kind desires nothing of its own, not happiness, not glory, nor anything else as if loving itself in private; but it goes wholly into God, and its sole and perfect desire is that the King introduce it into his chamber, that it may cleave to Him, that it may enjoy Him. Whence also, with face continually revealed, beholding as much as it can the glory of the heavenly Spouse, it is transformed into the same image from clarity to clarity, as it were by the Spirit of the Lord. From this plainly it deserves to hear: "Thou art all fair, O my love." And she herself dares to speak: "My beloved is mine, and I to him." And in such a most happy and most delightful conversation she delights gloriously with the Spouse. St. Ambrose, in book VI, epistle 38: "What shall I add to this," he says, "that God made man a sharer of the divine nature, as we read in the Epistle of Peter? Whence not undeservedly someone said: Whose offspring we are. For He gave us of His kinship, namely of rational nature, so that we might seek that divine thing, which is not far from any one of us, in which we live, and are, and move." Anagogically, which however can be understood as the literal sense, and the last part and completion of what was already given before (for glory is the consummation of grace), we shall be sharers of the divine nature fully and perfectly, when God shall make us partakers of divine glory, happiness and kingdom in heaven. For, as St. John says, in his first epistle, chapter III, 2: "When he shall appear, we shall be like to him," and St. Augustine, tract. 51 on John: "What greater honor can the adopted receive than to be where the only-begotten is, not made equal to the divinity, but associated with eternity?" Peter hints at this very thing, saying: "That through these you may become sharers of the divine nature," namely partakers of divine glory. For God, by the light of glory showing Himself clearly to the Blessed, and filling them with Himself and making them blessed, so pours Himself into them that He makes them like to Himself, namely blessed, glorious, divine and as it were gods: for man cannot rise higher, or be more united to God, or pass into Him. Whence St. Athanasius, sermon 4 Against the Arians: "For as the Lord," he says, "having put on a body became man: so also we men are deified by the Word of God (θεοποιούμεθα, that is, we become God), because that was received in flesh, and now from thence we obtain eternal life." And Nazianzen, oration 42, says that man attains divinity, so that he may see the clarity of God; where Nicetas says: "Deification," he says, "is the end of all action and contemplation. Deification, that is the vision and contemplation of God: for through this the Blessed possess God in such a way that they seem to be deified with Him and to pass into God, just as iron wholly ignited is seen to be converted into fire." In this sense the particle ut, when it is said: "That you may become sharers of the divine nature," properly signifies the efficient and final cause: for grace effects glory, which makes us sharers of the divine nature and beatitude, and glory is the end of grace. For in the prior literal sense, ut signifies the formal cause: for grace formally makes us sharers of the divine nature, that is, pleasing to God, friends, sons and heirs of God, divine and deiform men. Finally, from this passage Henry of Ghent, book XIII, Question XII, held that beatitude and the vision of God come about through an influx of divinity, namely in such a way that the Blessed see God, and are made blessed by this vision not by producing or actively eliciting this vision, but by merely conducting themselves passively: for God alone by His influx effects and produces it first in the soul, then in the soul's powers. First, therefore, he says, the very essence of the soul itself, illuminated by uncreated light, namely by the divinity itself through influx, shines forth, and inflamed by the ardor of charity so burns that in itself nothing appears except God: just as in glowing iron nothing appears except fire; then it is derived into the powers, namely into the intellect, purifying it so that it may see more clearly; and into the will, so that it may love more ardently, and thus the whole soul is set on fire by the divinity. Thus Henry's opinion concerning formal beatitude, which is the very vision and love of God seen, is explained and refuted by D. Soto in IV, distinction 49, Question I, article 3, and by Scotus, distinction 49, Question II. Our Vasquez, however, I II, disputation 8, chapter 1, better judges that Henry speaks of beatitude and the influx of divinity objectively, not formally: for the divinity is our beatitude not formally, but objectively, namely because it itself is the object whose vision makes us blessed. Fleeing (ἀποφυγόντες in the aorist, that is, when you have fled; Pagninus and the Zurich Bible, if you flee) the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world,—τῆς ἐν κόσμῳ ἐν ἐπιθυμίᾳ φθορᾶς, that is, "the corruption which is in concupiscence in the world"; Pagninus and the Zurich Bible, if you flee from the corruption which is in the world through concupiscence: for concupiscence, since it is carnal and sordid, plainly repugns against the divine nature, which is the purest and most holy spirit. Again, it itself corrupts both body and soul: whence Caesarius of Arles, homily 11: "Incomparably," he says, "do lustful thoughts render a fouler stench than sewers." If therefore we desire to become sharers in the divine nature, it is necessary that we renounce concupiscence and declare war upon it. Whence St. Leo, sermon 1 On the Nativity: "Let us put off," he says, "the old man with his deeds, and having obtained a share in the generation of Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh." The same, sermon 2 On the Ascension: "He says, let not earthly desires depress minds called upward, let not perishable things occupy those chosen for eternal things, let not false enticements retard those who have entered the way of truth, and thus let these temporal things be run through by the faithful in such a way that they know themselves to be pilgrims in this valley of the world, in which even if certain comforts allure, they are not to be embraced wickedly, but to be passed through bravely." And soon after: "For whom do carnal pleasures serve, except the devil, who delights to bind souls tending toward the heights with the delights of corruptible goods, and to lead them away from those seats from which he himself fell?" St. Hilary in Psalm 118, letter heth: "Open," he says, "to God is the faithful breast and a spacious possession, so that He may dwell in it and walk in it. But he who dwells in it, who walks in it, what third thing did He add? And I will be their God. Behold the portion promised to us by Him, that we may be God's dwelling place. And while He walks in us, He becomes for us Himself the possession, if we leave the world, if we renounce the perishable earthly possession, if we reject the inheritance of transient things, if living we go out from the world." For the soul that has once immersed itself in divinity is nourished by nothing except God and divine things; all else it scorns as exile and vile.
1:5
5. But you, bringing in all diligence. — The Greek texts add καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, that is, and this very thing, namely do it, so that you may flee concupiscence, as I have already said, bringing all effort to that end. Thus Clarius, Cajetan, Vatable. St. Peter passes from God and His gifts to the faithful man and his duty, namely so that he may use the gifts of God already mentioned worthily, obey them, cooperate with them, and not allow them to be idle; but by working them out may increase and perfect them, so that as a faithful servant he may be able to render an account to God demanding it of the talents: "Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds," Luke xix, 16, and therefore may hear from Him: "Well done, good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a little, thou shalt have power over ten cities." Note: For bringing in, the Greek is παρεισενέγκαντες, which is composed of two prepositions, namely εἰς, that is in, and παρά, that is under, beside, near, by the way. This word therefore signifies, first, that grace by itself alone is not sufficient for salvation, but the cooperation of free will is required, so that by striving our will's efficacy may also be brought in. For God is called our Helper, and He cannot help unless he who is helped also strives for something willingly; because not as in insensate stones, or as in those in whose nature He did not establish reason and will, does God work our salvation in us, says St. Augustine, book II On the Merits and Remission of Sins, chapter v. The same, sermon 43 On the Words of the Lord: "You act," he says, "if you are acted upon: and you act well, if you are acted upon by a good." Second, τὸ παρά, that is under, signifies in the works of grace and salvation to go before grace as a mistress, but to obey the will as a handmaid and servant. Whence he says: "Minister," as ministers of grace; for grace excites the will, so that it may rise up to a heavenly and divine work, as the Council of Trent teaches, session VI, chapter v. Pelagius therefore erred, who made grace a handmaid of nature and free will: "For God it is who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish," says St. Paul, Philippians ii, 13, certainly through grace. Grace therefore exciting and working goes before the will; the will then cooperates with grace, and thus grace from working becomes cooperating. For nature and will for works of salvation is weak, powerless and through sin dead: through grace therefore as it were animated and vivified from sleep and death is aroused, strengthened and made powerful for repenting, hoping, and loving God, according to that: "Arise, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee," Ephesians v, 14. Third, τὸ παρά, that is, under, beside, signifies that it is beyond the merit and order of will and nature, that it may be ordained to these gifts of salvation and glory, which are above and of a higher order: namely that the will ought to be elevated by grace above nature and as it were become supernatural, so that it may be able to work supernatural works of faith, hope, charity, etc., by which it may attain to salvation: in these works indeed the will can do nothing by itself, but ought to be elevated by grace: whence from grace it has the work all its dignity and merit; for from grace it has that it be a work of charity, heavenly, supernatural, divine, meritorious of eternal life; from the will indeed it has that it be a human work, voluntary, free. Τὸ therefore παρά signifies the will, as it were beyond order, elevated by grace to creep in and insinuate itself into these supernatural acts, and to be able to work nothing by its own powers in these acts, but to receive all powers for working them from grace; just as therefore iron by itself cannot heat, but if it be united to fire and become ignited, it receives from fire the power of heating and burning: so likewise the will receives from grace the power of believing, hoping, loving God, etc. Fourth, τὸ εἰς, that is in, signifies that the will ought to embrace the gift of God studiously, and bring all its powers to bear and bring them to these divine works. Whence he says: "All diligence," Greek σπουδήν, that is study, diligence, solicitude, effort, endeavor, "bringing in, minister," ἐπιχορηγήσατε, that is supply, furnish, provide, administer, add, join, exhibit. In faith. — Some read τῇ πίστει, that is to faith, as if to say supply to your faith vigor and virtue, likewise knowledge, temperance, patience, piety, etc. Make namely that your faith may not be idle, but the worker and active agent of these virtues. But others read everywhere ἐν τῇ πίστει, in faith, that is, with faith, or through faith: for living faith stirs up virtue, patience, piety, etc. Where note: The word in signifies first, the connection of virtues, namely that they are connected among themselves, as if to say, Join virtue to faith, knowledge to virtue, etc.; second, that one is strengthened by another and receives vigor from another, as if to say, Graft virtue into faith, knowledge into virtue, as if marrow into bone, vigor into limbs, spirit into body: for faith is weak and infirm unless it be supported by virtue; and virtue, unless it be directed by knowledge, etc.; third, their middle ground and order, as if to say, in faith, that is, through faith, stir up virtue in yourselves, through virtue knowledge, through knowledge temperance, etc.; fourth, their crown and coronet: for just as a golden ring inserted into another, and this into another and another, makes a chain and as it were a golden crown: so faith inserted into virtue, virtue into knowledge, knowledge into patience, patience into piety, etc., makes a circle and crown of virtues, which like a necklace or golden circlet, wonderfully clothes, adorns and perfects the soul. Virtue,—virtue I say, that is, virtue properly so called, not δύναμιν, that is, power, as if to say, Join to faith the works of virtue, add practice to knowledge. Thus Oecumenius. Second and more aptly, by virtue understand the vigor, strength and fortitude of virtue: for ἀρετή is called that because it has something of Ἄρεος, that is, Mars, namely that it be martial, warlike, manly, robust, generous, heroic. For if it meant any virtue whatever, it would not subjoin patience, piety, etc., inasmuch as these are comprehended under the generic name of virtue as it were as species. The sense therefore is, as if to say, I commend to you, O faithful, just as the strength of faith, so the vigor of virtue, namely fortitude for heroically overcoming all difficulties, which I do not commend to you by other praises, because virtue itself commends itself sufficiently and more than sufficiently by its own form and beauty: namely virtue needs no adornment: it is its own glory; just as vice and weakness of spirit needs no blame; for it is itself its own disgrace: for virtue is said from man; whence it properly signifies fortitude, because it befits man. Thus Cicero in the Tusculan Disputations II: "It is called," he says, "virtue from man. But fortitude is especially the property of men, whose two greatest duties are the contempt of death and pain. We must use these, therefore, if we are possessed of virtue, or rather if we wish to be men, since virtue has borrowed its name from men." Virtue therefore is the strong and unconquered patience of bearing evils. The same, Philippics 4: "All other things," he says, "are false, uncertain, perishable, unstable; virtue alone is fixed in the highest roots, which can never be shaken by any force, never moved from its place." Virtue therefore demands Socratic strength; and Virgil, Aeneid V: Then shame inflames the strength and conscious virtue. Hence again Cicero to Plancus, book X, teaches that virtue transcends all things however difficult, occupies all things: "You have attained," he says, "all the highest things, virtue as your guide, fortune as your companion." And for Plancius: "He excels in glory most, who excels most in virtue." But Pindar in the Isthmian Odes, ode 6: "If any man," he says, "delighted in expense and labor, exercises the virtues structured by God, at the same time God sows for him an amiable glory, now having cast anchor at the furthest bounds of happiness, being honored by divine gift." Clement of Alexandria, book IV of the Miscellanies, cites that saying of Simonides: "Virtue is said to dwell on cliffs of difficult access;" and Hesiod, who says that sweat is placed before virtue: .....The way is long and steep to it. For it is difficult at first, but when the summit is reached, It becomes easy. St. Peter therefore requires that the faithful in faith and Christian life be not sluggish and weak, but eager and strong, as was St. Valentine the Martyr, who by his word of faith and vigor almost converted the Emperor Claudius II to Christ, as his Acts of February 14 relate. Such did St. Peter make his fellow citizens and subjects, that they might be Romans, that is, Valentines: for Rome was at first called Valentia, as Solinus testifies in the Polyhistor, chapter II, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, book I of the Roman Antiquities. Whence also in Greek it is called Ῥώμη, that is, strength. Hence that virtue of the Roman Martyrs, in the continuous persecutions and torments from St. Peter to Sylvester, namely from Nero to Constantine for 300 years: to whom therefore you may rightly apply that passage from Psalm LXVII, 36: "God is wonderful in his saints, the God of Israel, he himself will give (or rather gave) strength and fortitude to his people; blessed be God," who makes Martyrs strong, as it were new Israels ruling over tyrants and God himself. In virtue moreover knowledge. — First, by knowledge Œcumenius understands the perfect knowledge of the mysteries of Christ and of God, which, he says, "does not come to anyone, but only to him who has procured for himself exercised senses through habit from more excellent works." Second, St. Augustine, XIV On the Trinity, cap. 1: "Wisdom," he says, "is the knowledge of divine things; knowledge moreover of human things." Third, Arias by knowledge understands the understanding of Holy Scripture. Fourth, Gregory of Valencia, I part., disp. 1, Quaest. I, puncto 3, § 1, and other Scholastics by knowledge understand Theology, which draws theological conclusions from the principles of faith, which from this place they prove to be knowledge. Fifth and genuinely, by knowledge understand practical knowledge, namely Christian and divine prudence, which teaches what it is fitting for a Christian, in any place, time and other circumstances, to do or not to do: which St. Antony said to be the chief; St. Bernard, serm. 49 in Canticles, the charioteer of the other virtues. See Cassian, Collat. lib. II, cap. II. Hence St. Peter says that this knowledge produces abstinence, patience, piety, love of brotherhood, and charity. Again, that it is born from virtue, that is, fortitude: for a strong and manly spirit is upright, and judges rightly concerning things to be done; but a soft and effeminate one, because it is too much inclined to its own desires, is therefore depraved, and judges perversely concerning things to be done. See St. Bernard, serm. 3 in Vigil. of the Nativity, where he condemns that doctrine which is destitute of good works, and teaches that the only true knowledge is that which composes life and amends morals. The same, serm. 36 in Canticles: "There are," he says, "those who wish to know in order that they may know, and that is shameful curiosity; and there are those who wish to know in order that they themselves may be known, and that is shameful vanity; and there are those who wish to know in order that they may sell their knowledge, and that is shameful gain. But there are also those who wish to know in order that they may build up, and that is charity; and likewise they wish to know in order that they themselves may be built up, and that is prudence. Of all these, only the last two are not found in the abuse of knowledge: for they wish to understand for this purpose, that they may do well." The same, lib. I On Conscience, cap. II: "Many," he says, "seek knowledge, few seek conscience." True knowledge therefore directs, and makes conscience right and holy. Hence St. Augustine, epist. 119, cap. XXI: "Thus," he says, "let knowledge be employed as a certain machine, by which the structure of charity may be raised up."
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6. In knowledge (that is, with knowledge, and through knowledge) moreover abstinence. — For knowledge, whether Christian ethics, first teaches abstinence, or temperance in food and drink, and in other pleasures of the flesh, lest through them we offer an affront to the greatness of God's gifts, as Clarius says: for unless these are first restrained, progress to other virtues cannot be made, especially because from intemperance and gluttony all vices arise, as St. Gregory teaches, in the third part of the Pastoral, admonition 20. Add that knowledge and abstinence are companions and as it were sisters, so that one cannot be found without the other; whence Daniel with his companions, chapter 1, through abstinence obtained knowledge of all things; and Solomon: "I thought," he says, "in my heart to withdraw my flesh from wine, that I might transfer my mind to wisdom, and avoid foolishness," Ecclesiastes II, 3. Again abstinence is connected to virtue and fortitude; for, as St. Bernard says, sermon 1 On All Saints: "What is more wonderful or what martyrdom more grievous than to hunger amid feasts, to be cold amid many precious garments, to be pressed by poverty amid riches, which the world offers, which the evil one displays, which our appetite desires?" For abstinence in Greek is ἐγκράτειαν, that is temperance, or continence, which is a general virtue placing a measure upon pride, anger, gluttony, lust, avarice, sloth, and all vices, and moderating and composing all the actions of man. Whence Oecumenius by continence understands modesty which moderates knowledge, lest it become proud and puff up the mind. Others understand chastity: for this is the companion and sister of wisdom. Whence both appearing in the form of matrons in a vision to St. Gregory of Nazianzus, she said: "We are known to you and familiar. For one of us is called wisdom, the other chastity; and we are sent by the Lord to dwell with you, because we have prepared a pleasant and pure dwelling place in your heart." Thus Rufinus in the Prologue of the Apology, and Aldhelm, On the Praises of Virgins, chapter XIII. In abstinence moreover patience. — Because, as St. Gregory says, in the third part of the Pastoral, admonition 20, "the minds of the abstinent are often shaken from the bosom of tranquility by impatience, hence St. Peter admonished them to possess it;" which understand of rigid and excessive abstinence and fasting: for this weakens and dries out the body, and therefore sharpens bile, and from this anger and impatience. For moderate abstinence and sobriety composes both body and soul, and makes it moderate, patient and cheerful; and this St. Peter signifies here. "In abstinence," namely, through abstinence, he says, "minister patience:" for patience is a greater and higher virtue than abstinence. Whence the Wise Man, Proverbs XVI, 32: "Better," he says, "is the patient man than the strong, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city;" because, as St. Gregory explains, homily 25, by this the cities "which are without are conquered, but through patience the soul itself is conquered by itself, and subjects itself to itself, when patience casts it down in the humility of forbearance." For patience in Greek is ὑπομονήν, that is, forbearance, endurance, by which some understand perseverance in abstinence, namely that abstinence be not of one day or month, but continuous throughout the whole of life, and that it resist all pleasures and temptations strongly and constantly (for it often happens that he whom torments do not overcome, pleasure overcomes), as of that young man, who when tempted by a woman, biting his tongue, spat it upon her, which St. Jerome relates in the Life of St. Paul the Hermit, and thus he overcame pleasure which overcomes. In patience (through patience) moreover piety. — Εὐσέβειαν, that is, the worship of God, so that the patient man becomes pious toward God: for afflictions cast him down and make him humble, and compel him to invoke God for aid. "Patience," says Oecumenius, "entering into everything accomplishes it, and rendering more perfect obedience toward God, conciliates piety to us." Moreover piety, because it regards and worships God, is a higher degree and greater virtue than patience. There is therefore here a chain, and at the same time a climax and gradation of virtues. Whence Bede and Dionysius liken these eight virtues of St. Peter to eight steps, by which one ascended to the temple of Solomon. Furthermore Peter joins patience to piety, so that he might teach the faithful who suffered so many and hard things, to refer all these through piety to the worship of God, so that by his love and honor they might generously endure all things, as the martyrs did. Piety therefore is the seasoning and perfection of patience, just as patience is the occasion and allurement of piety. Some understand by piety benignity, as if St. Peter required that the patient man toward those who afflict him be pious, that is benign, beneficent and merciful; whence St. Augustine in the tenth book of the City of God, book I, says that εὐσέβειαν, that is piety, although it properly befits God, nevertheless is often practiced in works of mercy; because these wonderfully please God, and by them as it were by sacrifices he himself is appeased. But truly these works are included in the love of brotherhood, concerning which St. Peter subjoins:
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7. And in godliness brotherly love, — because God is not pleased with godliness unless it be seasoned with brotherly love, if namely it be devoid of beneficence, according to that: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice," Matt. IX, 13, where God signifies that He is more worshipped and honored by the love of the brethren than by sacrifice. He therefore wills that the godliness of the faithful be not barren and idle, but directed to the love of the brethren, that is, to the welfare and salvation of their neighbors. Against this sin certain of the faithful, so addicted to their devotions, that they forget the brethren and the poor, and moreover hoard their own things avariciously, and are unwilling to bestow anything upon the needy. And in brotherly love charity. — For charity is the highest and crown of the virtues, which perfects and crowns the circle and order of them already recounted; and it is as a gem in a ring. St. Peter therefore wills that brotherly love be not merely brotherly, that is, to flow from naked love of neighbor, but to be seasoned and animated by true charity toward God, so that namely from the love of God we may love our neighbor, as the image and participant of God, and thus in our neighbor we may love God, and may succor him for the sake of God, and therefore we should not distinguish in our neighbor qualities and conditions, so that, for example, we love fellow-citizens, not foreigners; kinsmen, not those remote from kinship; friends, not enemies: for God makes no such distinction among these, but shows Himself God to all, raining upon the good and the evil, doing good to the just and the unjust, and therefore the charity of God excludes no one, but embraces all in its bowels. "To love friends is the part of all men, but to love enemies is the part of Christians alone," says Tertullian to Scapula, cap. 1. This therefore is the chain of eight virtues of St. Peter perfectly adorning the Christian, if namely to faith be joined virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly love, to brotherly love charity. In these consists the sum and perfection of Christian life: these make the Christian holy, absolute and perfect: for faith, godliness and charity render the duty owed to God; knowledge, temperance and patience render the duty owed to oneself; brotherly love renders the duty owed to one's neighbor.
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8. For these things if they be with you (the Greeks have, ταῦθα γὰρ ὑμῖν ὑπάρχοντα, which can be translated either conditionally, as Our [translator] has done, or absolutely: "For these things when they are with you." Thus Pagninus and the Zurich Bible; yet more aptly conditionally: for St. Peter exhorts the faithful to the study of virtues from their fruit, saying: For these things if they be with you) and abound (that is, increase, excel: for this is what τὸ πλεονάζοντα signifies; therefore Bede, the Gloss, Hugo and Thomas the Englishman err, when they say, "if they abound," that is, if they overcome contrary vices), not idle (in Greek ἀργούς, that is, lazy), nor unfruitful (of good works: whence for ἀκάρπους, that is, unfruitful, some read ἀπράκτους, that is, inactive) shall they make you in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ,—that is to say, If virtues, which I have already reviewed, be with you, they will make it so that your faith and knowledge of Christ is not vain, idle, unfruitful and devoid of merit, but may exercise itself in the works of the virtues already mentioned, and thus be full, active, fruitful and rich with a great number of merits. Thus Adam, Arias, Salmeron, Titelmannus and others. St. Peter says this against Simon and the Gnostics, who taught that we are justified by faith alone, as the modern Huguenots teach, whom you may rightly call Hugnostics. Whence against these same, St. James, chapter II, proves by many arguments that faith without works is vain and dead. Secondly, Lyra, Hugo, Dionysius understand by "knowledge of Christ" the beatific vision, that is to say, These virtues will produce for you perfect knowledge of Christ, namely the beatific vision. Cajetan adds, that is to say, These virtues will make you grow in this life in the knowledge and love of Christ. The Greek texts favour this, which have εἰς τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν, that is, into knowledge, namely greater and fuller, according to that passage chapter III, verse 18: "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our God." Finally, Oecumenius, Hugo, the Gloss and Catharinus understand by "knowledge of Christ" the day of judgment, on which namely Christ will know, examine and judge concerning the virtues and vices of each one. But the first exposition, as it is clearer, so also is it more genuine, especially because St. Peter calls ἐπίγνωσιν the knowledge which we have of Christ in this life, as is evident from verses 2 and 3; but the day of judgment and of beatific vision, he calls the day of the revelation of Christ, as is evident from the first epistle, chapter I, verses 5, 7, 13. Note: For "shall make" the Greek is καθίστησιν, that is, will place, establish, set, that is to say, These virtues will lead you to true and full knowledge and science, and in it as in the clearest and most pleasant light will fix and firmly establish you, and thus will lead you from the knowledge of the way to the knowledge and vision of the homeland, in which you will see face to face the God of gods in heavenly Sion. St. Peter signifies that true and full knowledge of God and Christ is the highest good, and the beatitude both of this life through faith, and of the future through species and vision, according to that saying of Christ: "This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," John XVII. For St. Peter opposes those endowed with virtues and those destitute of virtues, in that those endowed with them are placed in full knowledge of God and Christ as in the light of paradise, while those destitute of them wander as if blind in the darkness of the abyss; whence concerning them he adds: "For to whom these things are not present, he is blind and groping in darkness;" for virtues are practical lights which wonderfully adorn and illuminate the soul, and place and confirm it in the knowledge of God as in clear light; just as the fruit establishes the tree: for they make it strike deeper roots in the earth, by which it draws the sap which it supplies to the fruits. Hence Clement of Alexandria, I Paedagogus, chapter 6, and IV Stromata, II, and Damascene, Paralipomena I, chapter LXV, call γνωστικόν, that is, one who knows, and one endowed with knowledge, the perfect man, who joins knowledge to virtue and practice, and also teaches and perfects others.
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9. For to whom are these things not at hand (to whom the eight virtues already mentioned are lacking), he is blind,—namely in practice, because he does not have the practical eyes of practical faith and knowledge: for these are the virtues already mentioned. Hence Christ concerning the Pharisees, who had faith lacking in the practice of virtues: "Let them alone," He says, "they are blind and leaders of the blind," Matt. XV, 14; and before Christ, foreseeing them, Isaiah, LIX, 10, depicts them: "We have groped for the wall like the blind, and we have felt it as those without eyes: we have stumbled at noonday as in the dark, in dark places as the dead." And Sophonias, I, 17: "They shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord." And Job V, 14: "By day they shall meet with darkness, and grope at noonday as in the night." St. Peter signifies those who lack virtues as if blind, dwelling in the darkness of ignorance, because they lack prudence and practical knowledge, which is the light and guide of virtues. Anagogically Œcumenius refers this to the coming of Christ to judgment, who will be resplendent and glorious like the sun: "For then blindness will come upon the wicked, because even the just will feel a certain weakness as it were before such great light." And groping with his hand.—Namely, feeling out the way beforehand: for the blind, because they lack eyes, feel out the way with their hand and grope as it were, lest they slip or strike against something. In Greek μυωπάζων, which can first be translated as existing and walking with eyes closed: for μύω means I close, and ὦπας they call eyes. Second, μυωπάζων, that is, having the eyes of a mouse, μῦς for indeed is a mouse: understand the mouse as the underground one, namely the mole, as if to say, He who lacks virtue is blinded like a mole, which gropes with its hands and burrows in the earth. Note here that those who study not virtue, but flesh and the world, are rightly compared to moles. First, because just as moles have eyes, which I have myself curiously observed, but covered with a membrane, lest they be harmed by the earth while they burrow it, and therefore they are deprived of their use, namely of sight: so also these have a mind, but veiled and blinded by desires; and therefore they do not use it, because they are driven by the senses like moles clinging to the earth. Wherefore in heaping up riches and discerning earthly things they are lynxes, in heavenly things moles. Aristotle teaches this concerning the mole, lib. I De Hist. anim., cap. IX: "All animals," he says, "which generate animals, have eyes, except the mole, which I would say in a certain way to have, yet I would altogether deny to have, since it altogether neither sees nor has clear eyes: but if anyone removes the stretched membrane, the place of the eyes appears and the black part of the same." Whence that saying of Virgil: "Moles captured by blindness;" and Pliny, lib. III, cap. III, says "moles condemned by nature to perpetual blindness." The same, lib. XI, cap. XXXVII: "Moles," he says, "do not have sight, the appearance of eyes is present, if anyone removes the stretched membrane." Second, moles because they do not see, hence they hear more acutely, nature compensating for sight with hearing, and there exerting more forcefully the power closed off elsewhere. Thus Pliny, lib. X, cap. LXIX, teaches that man surpasses other animals in touch and taste, but is surpassed by the same in the remaining senses: for "eagles," he says, "see more clearly, vultures smell more keenly, moles hear more clearly buried in earth, in so dense and deaf an element of nature. Moreover with voice tending upward in all directions, they hear speech;" but it is fabulous what he adds: "If one speaks of them, they are said also to understand and to flee." Thus worldly men excel in hearing, and are all ears, so that they hear news, curious things, secrets, especially those which harm the reputation of their neighbor, even of the absent and those dwelling in the whole world apart, and even of those living among the antipodes. Third, moles so cling to the earth, that they seem to be buried and like those entombed, says Pliny, lib. XI, cap. XXXVII. Thus the carnal in flesh, the worldly in the world bury and entomb themselves. Fourth, moles have their burrows under the earth, they flee the light, and shun the sun; in their burrows they heap up seeds and roots for food: thus the avaricious study only in heaping up riches, the gluttonous in delicacies, the proud in honors. Fifth, moles with insane labor with their feet as if with hands continually burrow the earth, so much so that they sometimes undermine entire cities. Thus Pliny, lib. VIII, cap. XXIX: "M. Varro," he says, "is the author that a town was undermined by rabbits in Spain, by moles in Thessaly, a city in Gaul was driven out by frogs, in Africa by locusts, from Gyaro, an island of the Cyclades, the inhabitants were driven out by mice." Thus the worldly, who are driven by the insane frenzy of some desire, so that they might obtain it, stir up all things, mix and disturb all things, and thus often overturn entire cities and kingdoms, destroying them with wars and slaughter. Third, μυωπάζων can be translated as blinking or winking with the eyes: whence by Aristotle, sect. XXXI Problem., myopes are called those who see near things, but do not see distant things. And Hesychius in the lexicon: μυωπάζειν, he says, is said of those who from birth see things that are near, but those things which are at a distance, they do not see; but Gellius, lib. IV, cap. II: "myops," he says, "is one who is one-eyed"; and Œcumenius here: "To be one-eyed," he says, "that is μυωπάζων, signifies nothing other than to squint;"; and clearly Budaeus: "Myopes," he says, "are called those who from the beginning of their birth cannot look at anything unless it is brought close to their eyes;"; of which sort we see many who touch things to be seen with their eyes close by, and look with even squinting and half-closed eyes, whom we call one-eyed, the Greeks call νυκτάλωπας. Thus therefore St. Peter calls myopes those who savour of earthly things, inasmuch as they do not discern heavenly things, which are farther away, namely as if placed outside the world, but only terrestrial things, which are near: although this does not sufficiently agree with that he is blind, unless by blind you understand one who squints. Truly St. Gregory XXV Moral., cap. IX: "Those," he says, "who err in the knowledge of God, are justly delivered over so that they err likewise in their deeds;"; indeed St. Paul, Roman. cap. I, vers. 28, speaking of philosophers, who although they knew God, did not glorify Him as God: "And as," he says, "they did not approve of having God in their knowledge: God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not fitting, filled with all iniquity," etc. Just as therefore faith is the mother of all virtue, so infidelity is the mother of all vice. Hence such are similar to a bat (μυωπάζων for indeed can be derived through ω from ὄμμα, that is bat), which is compounded of a mouse and a bird, and appears as a winged mole, and therefore sees little; whence it flees the sun, and flies by night, concerning which I have said more on Isaiah II, 20. Concerning these Christ says: "You have a little light in you; walk whilst you have the light, that darkness may not comprehend you; and he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth," John XII, 35. Forgetfulness receiving the cleansing of his former sins, — that is to say, A faithful one who casts aside virtues and relapses into vices, forgets his baptism and Christianity, by which he received the remission of sins committed in Gentilism or Judaism, and by which he pledged himself to live Christianly and holily. For when asked: "Do you renounce Satan and all his pomps?" he answered: "I renounce." Thus Œcumenius. Truly St. Augustine, lib. I Against two epistles of Pelagius, cap. XIII: "We say," he says, "that baptism gives indulgence of all sins and takes away crimes, not erases them." See the Council of Trent, sess. V, in the decree On original sin, and sess. VI, cap. XI.
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10. Wherefore, brethren, be the more diligent. — The word "more" can be referred either to "wherefore," as the Greek texts refer it; and then it is the same as "rather," and it continues the antithesis with what preceded, as if to say: Do not forget the purification of sins, but rather be diligent that through good works you make your calling certain. Or it can be referred to "be diligent," as if to say: Be more and more diligent day by day, etc. For "be diligent" the Greek has σπουδάσατε, that is, be zealous, take pains, be diligent. For to be diligent is to be sufficiently troubled, or sufficiently, that is, greatly to do as if solicitous. Whence Quintilian, book VI, chapter IV: "The African," he says, "wittily described Manius Sura as much occupied in doing, running about, leaping, throwing his hands about, putting off his toga and putting it on again; he did not say he was doing, but that he was being diligent." More aptly St. Martha was diligent about the frequent ministry of Christ, Luke X, 40. That through good works. — These words are wanting in most Greek manuscripts; yet they are found in some. It is certain that they ought either to be read or to be understood: for we cannot make our calling certain except through the virtues which St. Peter named a little before, and their good works: for these are the seeds of blessed eternity and glorious happiness. "For what things a man shall sow," on earth, "those also shall he reap" in heaven, Galatians VI, 8; where it is also added: "He that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting;" and the Psalmist, Psalm CXXV, 6: "Going they went and wept, casting their seeds: but coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves." See the sayings of James chapter II, verse 26. Peter rebukes Simon Magus, who, forgetful of his baptism and purification of sins, as if blind taught that works are not required for salvation, but that faith alone suffices: If anyone, he said, believes in me, he shall be saved. See the sayings in Acts VIII, 20 and following. Make your calling and election certain. — There is a twofold election, just as there is a twofold calling (for this is the execution of election): one to faith and grace, another to happiness and glory. Again, each of these is twofold: for one is absolute and efficacious, such as that of the just and the blessed; another is not absolute and is conditioned, such as that of all men: for all are called by God to grace, if they will believe in Christ and obey him: but all believers and the just are called to glory, and will certainly attain it, if they persevere in faith and justice until death. Wherefore calling to grace is an implicit calling to glory, but only begun and conditioned. Now some here understand election to glory and that absolute and efficacious; whence from this passage they contend to prove that the predestined are efficaciously elected by God to glory before works are foreseen, from his mere good pleasure, and therefore St. Peter admonishes that they make this election of God made from eternity certain through good works. But others more rightly think that St. Peter speaks of election to faith and grace, and consequently speaks of election to glory, not antecedent and absolute, but consequent and conditioned, as if to say: Be diligent, O Christians, that you establish your election to grace and Christianity through good works, lest you fall from it, but persevere constantly in it: for thus you will likewise establish and make certain your election to glory: for all are elected and destined to glory by this very fact that you are baptized, and have become faithful and just, not absolutely, but under the condition, namely, if you persist in the grace received until the end of life. That this is so is proved first, because it seems scarcely probable, indeed incredible, that all the faithful whatsoever of Pontus, Asia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, to whom St. Peter writes, were efficaciously predestined and elected to glory. Again, it is more incredible that this was revealed to St. Peter, and that St. Peter wished to reveal this very thing to all the faithful, and to make all certain of their salvation. Secondly, because such an election is understood here as the calling; but the calling is understood to be to faith and grace: therefore also the election. The minor is clear, because those who are called by God in this life are called absolutely only to grace; for those who are called absolutely to glory are dead and departed in grace. Thirdly, the same thing is clear from what precedes, from which St. Peter draws this conclusion: for in what precedes he persuaded the faithful to Christian virtues, that through them they might appear and be constituted not empty, but fruitful in the knowledge of Christ. Wherefore when he says: "Be diligent that through good works you make your calling and election certain," he says the same thing, and explains what he said in verse 8: "For if these things be with you and abound, they will make you to be neither empty nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Fourth, this same thing is evident from what immediately follows: "For so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the eternal kingdom of our Lord," that is to say, Through good works you shall be chosen for glory, and you shall enter into the eternal kingdom of God. Fifth, because St. Paul calls the faithful followers of St. Peter predestined, elect, called not immediately to glory, but to grace, as I have shown in Ephesians I and in the commentary on St. Paul, question 13. Sixth, because this election of God is uncertain to us; hence St. Peter commands that we make it certain: therefore he does not speak of God's absolute and efficacious election to glory: for this is most certain and plainly infallible; but of God's absolute election to grace, and conditional election to glory. You will say: This election of God in itself is most certain, but to us and to others it is uncertain: therefore St. Peter commands that we make it certain to ourselves and to others through good works. Thus Bede, the Gloss, Hugh and Dionysius. I answer that this cannot be said fittingly; for "certain" in Greek is βεβαίαν, that is, firm, fixed, stable, namely in itself, not certain and known to us or to others, that is to say, Your calling and election to grace, and consequently to glory, is not in itself firm and stable, because you can fall away from it: therefore confirm and stabilize it through frequent and continuous good works. Thus Œcumenius: "Strive," he says, "that you may render your calling and election stable and immutable." You will say secondly: Good works make God's election firm, because they put it into execution; for works are the means by which we attain the glory to which we are elected by God: for thus we say in moral matters, that the efficacious intention of the end is confirmed by the efficacious choice of the means. I answer: Neither does this satisfy, first, because this is true in men, not in God: for men are mutable and inconstant, and therefore can change their intention; hence they confirm it by the choice of means: but God is plainly constant and immutable; hence the intention which He once made, He cannot change, so that those whom He once efficaciously elected to glory, He afterwards rejects, or allows to fall away from it. Second, because God gives to those whom He efficaciously elected to glory, efficacious graces, by which they efficaciously and certainly work good works, as the means by which they attain the glory destined by Him for them. Wherefore the faithful could have said to St. Peter: Why do you say to us: "Strive that through good works you may make your election certain?" For God takes care of this. For God, who efficaciously elected us to glory, will also give us efficacious means, namely good works, by which we may attain this glory. But if He did not predestine us, but reprobated us, and determined to place us in the order of the reprobate, much less should we strive that by good works we escape this reprobation of God: for this is as impossible for us as it is impossible to refute and overturn God's decree, or to compel Him to give us grace that is congruous and efficacious in place of grace that is incongruous and inefficacious, grace alone being what leads the elect of God to salvation. Thirdly, because execution corresponds to intention, and conversely intention is measured by execution; for just as God intends to make a thing, so also He executes it; therefore such as the execution is, such also is the intention: but in execution God gives glory only afterwards, through and on account of foreseen good works, as the Scriptures teach, and all acknowledge. Therefore He does the same in intention and predestination, namely that He does not intend to give glory, nor predestine to it, except him whom He has foreseen working well and persisting in good works; because He does not intend to give glory except as a reward for the merit of works, Matthew XX, 8, and as a prize promised to him who strives for victory, Apocalypse III, 5; XII, 21, and II Timothy IV, 8. Wherefore when He gives such grace, with which He foresees he will work well and merit glory, he is said to be strictly predestined, because through merits He destines him to glory, according to that saying of St. Augustine, in the book On the Good of Perseverance, chapter XIV: "Predestination is the foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits of God, by which those who are liberated are liberated most certainly." But when He gives to someone grace, with which He foresees he will work badly, and therefore is to be damned, He does not reprobate him, nor damn him except afterwards and on account of foreseen demerits: for God from Himself desires and wishes that he be saved, and therefore gives him sufficient grace, indeed abundant grace, seriously desiring that he cooperate with it and be saved: for God does not choose for him incongruous grace for this end, that He intends to reprobate and damn him, but He foresees it will be incongruous from the fact that man will make it incongruous by being unwilling to cooperate with it. Wherefore physically equal, and subsequently greater grace is given in damning than in saving: morally however in saving grace is a greater benefit, because it is foreseen to be efficacious, and persuasive of consent to man, and certain to lead him to salvation, and therefore it is grace of predestination properly so called. For God could have given him another grace with which He foresaw he would not cooperate, and therefore be damned; but He was unwilling, which is indeed a great benefit and gift, because through this man infallibly obtains eternal happiness, and escapes eternal death. From these words of St. Peter we gather against Calvin and the heretics, first, that man has free will; secondly, that the faithful and the just are not certain of their perseverance and salvation, but can fall away from faith, grace and salvation, as many have fallen away, and daily fall away: thus the Council of Trent defines it, session VI, canon 23. Thirdly, Gabriel Vasquez, Valencia, Ludovicus Molina and others, I disputation, Question XXIII, infer from this that election to glory is made by God from the foreseen merits of each; and therefore depends on the use of free will of the elect, or rather of those to be elected, in one direction or another according to their freedom in the future, whether their election and calling be certain or not; and so that in God from eternity there existed foreknowledge that through this use of will they would make their election certain and obtain eternal life, and were from eternity predestined, according to that saying of St. Augustine: "He who created you without you will not justify, nor save you without you;" and Theophylactus in Matthew XXII: "It is God's, he says, to call, but for the elect to become or not to become, that is ours." And St. Ambrose, book V On Faith, chapter V: "He did not, he says, predestine before He foreknew: but whose merits He foreknew, their rewards He predestined." St. Cyril, book X of the Treasury, chapter VI: "It is not mine, he says, to give the supreme honor to you who ask, which is reserved in the foreknowledge of the Father for those whom the excess of struggle shall have commended." St. Chrysostom, homily 35 in Matthew, asserts "that dignity is prepared as a crown for the victors, and according to the measure of the struggle." Fourth, from these words of St. Peter the Doctors gather that not only election to glory, but also predestination itself to grace depends upon the cooperation of free will, even if this is not its cause. Thus Gregory of Valencia, I part., Question XXIII, disp. 1, point 4, near the end, where he also aptly solves this dilemma that troubles the common people: Either I am predestined, or I am not: if I am, I shall most certainly be saved; if I am not, I shall most certainly be damned whatever I do: therefore I shall indulge in pleasures, because afterwards it will not be permitted to enjoy them. He responds indeed: If you are predestined, you must work well; for you are foreseen to work well: but if you are unwilling to work, it is a sign that you are not predestined. Therefore, in order that you make your predestination certain, work well; and this is what St. Peter wishes when he says: "Make your calling and election sure by good works." If you are not predestined and destined for hell, the cause of this will be that you will work badly. Therefore, lest it be true that you are not predestined, you must live piously at all times, lest finally bound by sins you depart from life, which can happen at any hour: for neither will you be able to end life badly and be damned, if you have always lived piously. Therefore, each person ought perpetually to propose this reasoning to himself, and thereby stir himself to the study of good works, by which he would make his election certain. Everyone who is predestined is he who, cooperating with divine grace, will finally be free from mortal sin; nor is there anyone not predestined except he who will finally be found in mortal sin. Since therefore at every hour I am uncertain whether the end of my life will then come; and far more uncertain still whether, if I then sin, I shall recover grace afterwards through true penance before death, I shall abstain, as much as I can with divine grace, from mortal sin at every hour, so that, if I have always done this, I may more probably believe myself to be rather among the number of the predestined than among the number of the not predestined; for never will death find me in mortal sin, if I have always abstained from sin. But because it is not entirely certain to me what kind of death one dies, without these things no one comes to the health which is in the future life. To which the Landgrave, being convinced, said: "Henceforth," he says, "be the physician of my soul, because through your medicinal tongue God has freed me from the greatest error." Similar is what Ludolph relates in his book On the Life of Christ, part II, chapter L, concerning a certain monk, whose companion, when he said to him that it had been revealed to him that he was among the number of the damned, responded: "Blessed be God, yet I shall not despair thus, but the penance which I have undertaken through entering Religion, I shall henceforth double and triple, until I find grace and mercy with God the Most High, who is merciful," and after many days it was again divinely revealed to his companion that he was among the number of the saved. Most excellently St. Augustine, sermon 112 On the Seasons: "Blessed," he says, "life is the knowledge of divinity; knowledge of divinity is the virtue of good work; virtue of good work is the fruit of eternal blessedness." Then he teaches that reading of Holy Scripture contributes to this: "He who wishes," he says, "to be always with God, ought frequently to pray and read; for when we pray, we ourselves speak with God: but when we read, God speaks with us, etc.; but he is most blessed who turns divine Scriptures into works." This is signified by the parable of the workers, whom God sending into the vineyard, at evening gave them a penny of eternal life, as the reward of work, Matthew XX; and Matthew chapter XXV, verse 34, Christ the judge assigns glory to those working well, hell to those working badly. "Come," he says, "ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat," etc. Wherefore Abbot Athanasius, desiring to see the fruit of those laboring and striving, in a vision beheld a place full of light and glory, and heard an innumerable multitude praising God; and when he knocked and wished to enter, he heard: "No one dwelling in negligence shall enter here; but if you wish to enter, go, strive, esteeming nothing the vanities of the world." Thus John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, cap. CXXX. St. Theresa had these three things in her vows, and asked them assiduously of God, saying: "Lord, grant me to love Thee, to work for Thee and to suffer, or to die." The reason which St. Bernard gives, On Conversion to the Clergy, cap. XV: "For indeed," he says, "our works do not pass away as they appear, but all temporal things are cast as seeds of eternity. The foolish man will marvel when from this small seed he shall see a copious harvest arise, either good or bad, according to the different quality of the seed." The same, sermon 1 On the Annunciation: "Concerning good works," he says, "an effective argument to me is His (Christ's) resurrection, because He rose for our justification. Moreover, concerning the hope of rewards, His ascension is a testimony, because He ascended for our glorification." Finally, this orthodox truth of faith accords with man's freedom and the nature of things, so that the same have seen it, though through a shadow, Philosophers and Poets, whose saying is: "Move your hand along with Minerva also;" arising either from a muleteer, whose ass being stuck in mud and needing help, an idle man was imploring Hercules. To him God answered: "Apply your hand to the laboring ass, thus at last the divine power will be with you." Or from a wrestler, who in the wrestling school, about to wrestle, consulted Minerva whether he would be victor, and heard that he would be. But when he entered the theater, in the contest he stood with idle hands, and being struck by his adversary was defeated. To this pertains that saying of Aristotle, book V of the Nicomachean Ethics: "Fortune loves art as art loves fortune in turn;" and that of Suidas: "Do something yourself meanwhile, then call upon the Gods." Famous is that saying of the Greeks: "The Gods sell good things for labors." And that of Virgil, Georgics: Labor conquers all things, relentless labor. And that of Horace: Herculean labor broke through Acheron. And that of Antiphanes: "Diligence tames and subdues all things;" and that of Seneca, book II On Anger: "Nothing is so difficult and arduous that the human mind does not overcome it;" namely: "Practice can accomplish all things." This is to be seen in St. Anthony, Macarius, Onuphrius, Simeon Stylites and the other Ascetics, whom Theodoret recounts in the Philotheos, Palladius in the Lausiac History, Evagrius in the Lives of the Fathers, who by their constant practice not only mastered themselves, but also food, drink, sleep, air, the whole world, and God Himself. Morally: Hence learn how much one ought to strive for holiness and good works. For it is a certain sign (indeed also a cause) that someone is predestined and elected by God to glory, if he constantly devotes himself to works of humility, charity, penance, patience, piety, obedience, religion, etc.; this is what St. Paul, girding himself, says to St. Peter: "The firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: The Lord knoweth who are His, and let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity," II Timothy II, 19. For no one can depart from sins unless he approaches virtues and practices their works. Whence St. Bernard, homily 2 in the Octave of Easter, gives three signs of predestination, signified by St. John, epistle I, cap. V, verse 8, when he says: "There are three that give testimony on earth, the spirit, the water and the blood," namely good operation, penance and continence; and finally concluding summarily: "Now," he says, "to repeat briefly, to have testimony from blood, water and spirit is, if you abstain from sins, if you bring forth worthy fruits of penance, if you do the works of life." Wherefore true Religious who devote themselves entirely to these things have a certain sign of their predestination, according to that saying of Christ: "Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting," Matthew cap. XIX, 29. See St. Jerome in the epistle to Heliodorus; Plato, On the Good of the Religious State, book I, cap. XXXV; Rufinus in the Lives of the Fathers, book III, num. 108. Excellently St. Augustine, sermon 18 On the Words of the Lord, cap. XVII: "The Kingdom of God," he says, "does not diminish as the number of its possessors increases, because it is not divided; to each one it is whole, what is held concordantly by many." The Author of the Manual in St. Augustine, cap. VIII: "The Kingdom," he says, "the most blessed kingdom of heaven, a kingdom lacking death and free from end, to which no times succeed through the ages, where continuous day without night knows not how to have time, where the victorious soldier is crowned with ineffable gifts." That Cupidity was born from chaos and night, that is from confusion and ignorance. Understand sin here as perfect, namely mortal, which tears man away from God's grace and salvation. For it is certain that the predestined and the just sometimes sin venially.
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11. Thus shall it be abundantly ministered (ἐπιχορηγηθήσεται, that is, shall be supplied, given, provided) unto you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord. He explains here the vocation and election of the faithful, and its end and reward, as if to say: Through the good works and virtues already mentioned, there shall be given unto you a great and ample entrance into heaven, unto eternal happiness and glory: therefore by the same you shall make your vocation and election certain; for these tend to nothing else than to heavenly happiness and glory. Note: By the word abundantly, in Greek πλουσίως, that is, richly, opulently, he strikes at first Simon Magus, who taught that Christ was not sufficient, because entrance into heaven could be hindered by angels: for on the contrary "the blood of Christ is the key of paradise," says St. Jerome to Dardanus, epistle 129, and the cross of Christ removed the flaming and turning sword placed at paradise, as Cosmas of Jerusalem says, ode 5. Secondly, he insinuates that the faithful ought to abound in good works; for thus they shall abound likewise in grace in this life, and in glory in heaven: "for the entrance into the kingdom of heaven" signifies by metonymy the kingdom of heaven itself, namely the very heavenly happiness and glory: for unto it is the entrance of the Blessed. This is what Paul says, II Corinthians IX, 6: "He that soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings." And verse 8: "And God is able to make all grace abound in you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound in every good work, as it is written: He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, his justice remaineth for ever and ever," etc. Thirdly, St. Ambrose, book III On Faith, chapter VI, reads more abundantly, by which is signified that God rewards our works more abundantly and more than they themselves merit: for God punishes short of what is deserved, but rewards beyond what is deserved, as the Theologians say. For doing these things you shall not sin at any time. This is the syllogism of St. Peter: Whosoever doth not sin, and keepeth himself pure from sin, he maketh his vocation and election certain, both unto grace, and consequently unto glory; but he who strives and labours in good works, he doth not sin: therefore he who strives and labours in good works, maketh his vocation and election certain. This is of such importance that St. Aegidius, companion of St. Francis, said: "If only one man were to be damned, and all the rest were to be saved, I would strive with all my might that I should not be that one alone." How much then ought we now to strive, when so many are to be damned, and so few are to be saved! For "you shall not sin" in Greek is μὴ πταίσητε, that is, you shall not fall, namely into sin; Pagninus and the Zurich Bible, you shall not be stained; St. Ambrose, book III On Faith, chapter VI, you shall not err, namely by sinning. For sin is a practical error, namely an error of life and morals, according to that in Proverbs XIV, 21: "They err that work evil;" for they indicate that they have chosen for themselves cupidity, for example of gluttony, lust, ambition before God and heaven, which is indeed a great error and great imprudence. Hence Antiphanes in St. Irenaeus, book II, chapter XIX, says: that is, I shall not neglect, I shall not cease, I shall not stop; others read, οὐ μελλήσω, that is, I shall not delay, I shall not procrastinate, I shall not defer to the future, but now I shall begin, as our translator renders it. Whence μέλλημα is called delay, hesitation, deferment, procrastination. Where note the fervour of St. Peter, who, now old and near to death, says he is beginning and undertaking the pastoral office. Thus the Psalmist says: I said, now I begin; and St. Antony in St. Athanasius taught his disciples to think daily: "Today I shall begin to serve God, perhaps today I shall also finish;"; and St. Francis at his death: "Brethren," he said, "let us begin to serve God: for hitherto we have done nothing." Thus St. Bonaventure in his Life. Abba Pambo, dying after many great labours and struggles of virtue, so that he never said a word of which he repented: "I," he said, "go thus to the Lord, as one who has not yet made a beginning of serving God." Thus in the Lives of the Holy Fathers.
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12. You always to remind — ὑπομιμνήσκειν, that is, to admonish, to recall to memory. It is the duty of a pastor, preacher and superior to recall frequently to the minds of his subjects the laws of God, their obligations and vows according to their calling, and the incentives to keep them: for it is necessary to remember frequently, since this world compels forgetfulness: partly indeed the weakness of memory, partly the variety of occupations, partly the attractions and enticements of the world cause man to forget his salvation, his obligation and his virtue. The superior therefore ought frequently to refresh and suggest these things to them, both to memory, and more especially to stir up and sharpen the sluggish will: and therefore he ought to inculcate these things to them in fervent prayer and spirit, so that he may kindle and inflame them to their practice, according to that saying of Isaiah LVIII, 1: "Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their wicked doings, and the house of Jacob their sins;" and cap. LXII, 6: "Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all the day and all the night, they shall never hold their peace. You that are mindful of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no silence till he establish Jerusalem, and make it a praise in the earth;" and St. Paul thus commanded Timothy, epist. II, cap. IV, vers. 2: "Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine." Most excellently St. Gregory, lib. II of the Register, epist. 39: "It is the duty of a bishop," he says, "always to think of the ministry of preaching, considering with most intense fear that the Lord, about to depart to receive his kingdom, and distributing talents to his servants, says: Trade till I come. Which business truly we then accomplish, if by living and speaking we gain the souls of our neighbors, if we strengthen the weak in heavenly love, if we bend the bold and proud by terribly thundering the punishments of hell, if we spare none against the truth, if devoted to heavenly friendships we do not fear human enmities." The same again: "Let the tongue of a bishop be a comfort to the good, a sting to the wicked; let it beat down the proud, calm the angry, sharpen and kindle the sluggish and idle; let it be gentle to the harsh, console the despairing." Such was Isaiah, whose lips therefore one Seraph purged and kindled with a burning coal, so that he might then kindle others, Isaiah VI; and St. Bernard XXXIII in the Canticles: "It is necessary indeed," he says, "that he who presides over others should burn with this wine of zeal, just as the Doctor of the Gentiles burned, when he said: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire? Otherwise you presume most improperly to preside over those to whom you do not care to be useful, and whose salvation you do not zealously seek, while you most ambitiously claim their subjection for yourself." Concerning these things, namely that you apply yourselves to the virtues already reviewed, "and that by good works you may make your calling and election sure." And indeed knowing and confirmed. Clearly Pagninus and the Zurich Bible: "although you know and are confirmed in the present truth." For faith often sleeps in the faithful, and the knowledge of God and of salvation; but the voice of the Pastor and preacher awakens it from sleep, sharpens it and as it were vivifies it, and makes it not idle and speculative, but practical, active and busy.
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13. But I judge it just (indeed). He gives the reason why he wishes to admonish them, namely because this is just, that is, equitable, indeed due: for this is what the duty of feeding all the faithful, committed and entrusted to him by Christ, demands, John XXI, 16. Thus Peter Damian, book III, epistle 8 to the Archbishop of Besançon, citing these words of St. Peter: "In his very words," he says, "the good shepherd shows that he wished to live and die not for himself, but for his disciples:" for even unto death, indeed dying, he fed and taught his sheep, as also John, St. Cyprian and other Apostolic pastors. As long as I am in this tabernacle. He calls the body a tabernacle, not because the soul merely assists it, as a helmsman assists a ship, and inhabits it, as Plato wished: for it is established that the soul is the form of the body, and by informing it constitutes one composite, namely man; but first, because this life is brief: for just as in a tabernacle there is usually a brief stay, so also brief is the stay of the soul in this body. Second, because just as in a house man rests, in a tabernacle dwelling he journeys, so also the soul in this body does not rest, but is continually moved, and tends, indeed runs toward death, and through death to immortality. "For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come," Hebrews XIII, 14. Third, the word tabernacle refreshes us with the thought that in this body and life we are not lodgers, but pilgrims: for we are citizens of heaven and of the saints, and members of the household of God, Ephesians II, 19. Thus concerning Christ descending from the heavens into a body, St. John says, chapter I, verse 14: "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt ἐσκήνωσε, that is, pitched a tabernacle, in us." Indeed Seneca also, epistle 71: "Do you wish," he says, "to be free against this body? Dwell in it as if about to depart: propose to yourself sometimes that you must leave this tent-mate; you will be stronger for the necessity of departing." The same, epistle 72: "Before old age," he says, "I took care to live well, in old age to die well, but to die well is to die willingly; that we have lived sufficiently, neither years nor days make, but the mind." The same elsewhere teaches that death is nothing other than the absence of evils; what therefore would he have said, if he had known of the blessed life promised to Christians? Fourth, just as a soldier dwells in a tabernacle, so also the faithful in the body: for continual warfare is his against the flesh, the world and the devil. Most excellently Tertullian to the Martyrs, chapter III: "We are called," he says, "to the military service of the living God already then, when we answered to the words of the sacrament. No soldier comes to war with luxuries, nor does he proceed from a bedroom to battle, but from light and compact tents, where all hardship, and harshness, and unpleasantness is established. Even in peace, they learn to suffer war in labor and discomforts, walking in arms, running through the field, digging a ditch, drying out the testudo. All things are accomplished by sweat, lest bodies and minds should be terrified: from shade to sun, from sun to heaven, from tunic to breastplate, from silence to clamor, from rest to tumult. Therefore you blessed ones, whatever this hardship is, devote it to the exercise of the virtues of mind and body." Fifth, just as one dwelling in a tabernacle suffers many straits, discomforts, necessities, defects of bed, seat, fire, food, drink, etc.: so also in this body we suffer many defects, hardships and discomforts. Again, just as a tabernacle is broken by rain, winds and other injuries of the air or of the enemy, or rots and is corrupted, so also the body. Sixth, just as one dwelling in a tabernacle aspires to a house, so the faithful in this body sighs for heaven, according to that saying of St. Paul, Philippians I, 21: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain;" and verse 23: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ;" and II Corinthians V, 4: "For we know that if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven. For in this also we groan, desiring to be clothed upon with our habitation that is from heaven. For we also, who are in this tabernacle, do groan, being burdened; because we would not be unclothed, but clothed upon, that that which is mortal may be swallowed up by life." Thus Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga, when dying, spoke of death as of a migration from one chamber into another, but a better and more lasting one. The same thing every faithful person says with St. Peter. Most excellently St. Cyprian, in the tract On Mortality: "We reckon our country," he says, "to be paradise: we have already begun to have the Patriarchs as our parents; why do we not hasten and run, that we may see our country, that we may greet our parents?" The same in epistle 56: "If we could escape death," he says, "we would rightly fear death: but since it is necessary that the mortal die, let us embrace the opportunity coming from divine promise and condescension, and let us undergo the exit of death with the reward of immortality." Seventh, because the body is constructed like a tabernacle with hides, is stretched with sinews as with cords, is solidified with bones as with stakes, is fixed with feet as with nails. But the soul is clothed with the body as with a tabernacle, and is covered by it, and through it sees, hears, feels, acts and works, until it is reformed, perfected and made blessed in the resurrection. He alludes to the tabernacles of the Hebrews, which they themselves used in the desert as they journeyed toward the promised land, in memory of which their descendants celebrated the feast of Tabernacles. For these signified that we here act as pilgrims in the body as in a tabernacle, and journey toward our country, namely heaven. In this life therefore and body we celebrate a continuous feast of Tabernacles, in heaven we shall celebrate an eternal Passover. See what is said in Leviticus XXIII, 34. To rouse (to awaken and kindle those who are torpid and as if sleeping) you in admonition—my admonition, in Greek ὑπομνήσει, that is, in remembrance, and in recalling to memory, as he said a little before.
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14. Certain, — εἰδώς, knowing certainly, namely through revelation, as follows. That the putting off of my tabernacle is swift — that I shall soon die and be crucified, and from death and the cross I shall fly away into heaven to my Jesus. These therefore are the final admonitions, and as it were the swan-songs of St. Peter, and therefore burning and efficacious. Thus Christ, Jacob, Moses, David, Tobias when about to die gave final admonitions to their own. According as our Lord Jesus Christ also signified to me, — ἐδήλωσε, made manifest. Hence it is clear that Christ appeared to St. Peter at his death and martyrdom, and pre-signified this to him. There exists near Rome on the Appian Way a chapel, in which it is said that Christ appeared to Peter fleeing from prison at the request of the faithful, and when he asked: "Lord, whither goest thou?" answered: "I go to Rome that I may be crucified again." Whence St. Peter understood that he was being called by Christ to the cross, and therefore returned to prison, and shortly after was crucified. The same thing is narrated and testified by St. Ambrose, epistle 33; St. Gregory in Psalm. IV Penitent.; Acts of St. Processus and Martinus; Hegesippus, book III On the Destruction of Jerusalem, chapter II. Metaphrastes adds, in Surius, on the 29th of June, that St. Peter, when he had long been in Britain, heard from an angel: "Peter, the time of thy dissolution is at hand, and thou must go to Rome; in which when thou shalt have suffered death by the cross, thou shalt receive the reward of justice." But the credibility of this author is doubtful; especially because he asserts in the same place that St. Linus died before Peter, which is known to be false: for Linus succeeded St. Peter in the Pontificate. Whether therefore that appearance, or another earlier one (for that one on the Appian Way at the death of St. Peter, and therefore after this epistle was written, seems to have occurred) it was done, it is certain that Christ revealed this very thing to St. Peter. For it appears that he appeared to him often, as the vicar of his, just as he appeared often to St. Paul, as is clear from Acts IX, 5; Acts XVIII, 9; Acts XXII, 17; Acts XXIII, 11. In a similar way Christ revealed to St. Pius I the Pontiff, St. Polycarp, St. Cyprian, and other Pontiffs of that age the impending death and martyrdom, so that they might prepare themselves for it. Morally St. Peter gives an example to Pontiffs and Princes, of thinking of and desiring a swift death and passage to God; namely: "All power is a short life," Eccles. X, 11. That this is most true in Pontiffs perpetual experience has taught; for none of them has hitherto equalled the years of St. Peter; none, I say, sat in the Pontificate for 24 complete years, as St. Peter sat. Nearest to them came Adrian I, who sat for 23 years, then Alexander III, who sat for 21, then St. Sylvester and St. Leo: for each of them sat for 20 years. Very many did not sit for more than six or seven years, indeed very many for only a few months or days. For three hundred years no Pontiff before Paul V sat for sixteen years, except one, Eugenius IV. Finally, since from Christ until this jubilee year 1625, Pontiffs have sat in Rome 239, if thou dividest among them the years elapsed from Christ, 1625, scarcely six and a half years will fall to each. Was not therefore the putting off of the tabernacle of all Pontiffs swift? indeed much more so than that of St. Peter himself? Go now, mortals, seek tiaras, pursue infulas, which ye will lay down with life after a few years and perhaps days, and of which ye will render an exact account to God. "I have seen an end of all perfection; thy commandment is exceeding broad."
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15. But I will take care and frequently. The Greek ἑκάστοτε can be translated in three ways. First, frequently; second, always and daily, that is to say κατὰ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν, that is through individual days. Thus Vatablus. Third, individually. Thus Pagninus, that is to say I shall have care of each one of you as of my sheep, not only in life but also after death. To have you after my death. "To have," namely in my mind and memory, so that I may frequently be mindful of you before God, and pray to Him for you, so that He may refresh in you the memory of these admonitions of mine. Thus Œcumenius, Salmeron, Catharinus, Gagneius, and others, here; Peter Damianus, book III, epistle 8; Suarez, III part., vol. II, disp. 23; Bellarmine, book I On the Saints, cap. XVIII. Whence St. Chrysostom, oration at the beginning of the Apostles, invoking the aid of St. Peter, citing these words of his thus reads: "You cry out indeed, Blessed Peter, saying thus: I will take care after my death to make mention of you." To this pertains what St. Clement, epistle 1, says St. Peter said to him: "Be assured that it is necessary for you to undergo every danger, because neither shall I cease beseeching for the salvation of all." Thus the Greeks say ἔχω μνήμας, that is I have in memory, that is I remember. Second, Erasmus, Vatablus, Clarius, Adams and Cajetan, translate the Greek ἔχειν, that is to have, as can, so that this is the meaning: "I will take care frequently to be able to make mention of you after my departure," either by praying God for you; or by commending these very things to writing, which you frequently reread; or by commending to St. Linus, Cletus and Clement, my successors, so that they frequently refresh this memory. Thus the Greeks say, ἔχω δεικνύειν, that is I can show; ἔχω θεωρεῖν, I can consider, or it is for me to consider. And Plato, book II On the Republic, οὐκ ἔχω ὅπως βοηθῶ, that is I cannot help. Thus the Latins say, habeo dicere, that is I can say, as witness Gellius, book XVII, cap. XX; habeo polliceri, that is I can promise. Thus here "to have you," that is to be able to make mention of you, or more plainly to have, namely [ὑπό]μνησιν, that is occasion, and a monument, or monitors, that is to say I will take care that after my death I leave you a monument, namely this epistle or a similar one, and monitors, namely St. Linus, Clement and others, and especially God and His holy inspirations (which I shall procure for you through my prayers), who shall frequently renew this memory in you. This sense is very plain, easy and obvious. This is what the Psalmist says Psalm XLIV, verse 17: "Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee," which St. Augustine explaining there says: "Instead of the Apostles," he says, "Bishops have been constituted. Do not therefore think yourself forsaken, O Church, because you do not see Peter, because you do not see Paul, because you do not see those through whom you were born: from your offspring paternity has grown for you. Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee, thou shalt make them princes over all the earth." Third, ἐλᾶν can be translated, to drive, to act, to direct, to incite, that is to say I shall act, direct and impel you to remember these things. Thus Homer Iliad III says: ἔχει ἀκέας ἵππους, that is he drove and impelled swift horses. This sense is fitting and appropriate to this place. For St. Peter is the charioteer of the Church, driving and impelling the faithful to good, even when he enjoys God in the heavens, so that you could rather say to him than to Elijah what Elisha said: "My father, thou art the chariot of Israel and the charioteer thereof," IV Kings II, 12. The same is signified by the Latin habere, as when we say: he holds him closely and firmly, that is, he treats and rules him closely and firmly. Thus Plautus in the Menaechmi: "Too much," he says, "have I indulged you." Terence in the Hecyra: "Never have I treated her otherwise than as if she were born from me." Cato: "Let the stewardess have the farmhouse swept and clean, the hearth pure and swept every day before she goes to bed, let her have," that is let her carefully keep and care for. Hence it is clear that St. Peter and the Saints who have finished their life care for the affairs of mortals, and therefore are to be invoked. Note here the love, care and solicitude of St. Peter toward the faithful and the whole Church, inasmuch as he promises that he will preserve it even after death; and as he promised, so in fact he performs: hence flows the constancy of the Roman Church in faith and orthodox piety, and especially the continuous succession of Roman Pontiffs in the same for 1625 years; and that succession amid so many persecutors, heresies and enemies remains inviolate, firm and unshaken. This indeed after Christ is owed to St. Peter, as its first Pastor and Pontiff: so that the Church may rightly hope for and request from him henceforth the continuation of this his patronage, and commit itself wholly to his protection, certain that with so great a leader and protector, namely one founded by Christ as it were upon himself as upon a most solid rock, it will endure forever, nor shall the gates of hell ever prevail against it, Matthew cap. xvi, verse 18.
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16. For not. — The word 'for' gives the reason, as if to say: If I had handed down fables to you, my impending death would warn and compel me to repent and retract them; but what I have handed down is true, not fabulous: wherefore I will not cease, not even after death, to inculcate these things upon you. Following learned fables. — Bede, Lyra, Cajetan, Adam and others read 'unlearned' instead of 'learned.' But the Roman Bible reads 'learned': in Greek σεσοφισμένους, that is, wisely instructed, ingeniously contrived, composed to persuade, captious, sophistical. Whence Pagninus translates it 'deceptive'; the Zurich Bible, 'artfully composed'; Vatable, 'clever and contrived to deceive.' He censures the fables of the Gentiles, Jews and heretics. Of the Gentiles, because the Philosophers and Poets invented much concerning Jupiter, Mars, Diana, their generation, appearance, sayings and deeds; and thus they persuaded the people to their worship and idolatry: but he especially attacks the metamorphoses or transformations of Jupiter and the gods into a bull, birds and beasts, by which they veiled, nay rather represented, their obscenity, and thus allured the people to the same, which Ovid describes at length in the Metamorphoses, and which Athenagoras, Justin, Tertullian, Lactantius refute, writing on behalf of Christians against the Gentiles. Of the Jews, because the Jews are full of fables, as is evident from the Talmud and the Rabbis. Of the heretics, because then Simon Magus, being a magician, transformed himself into various forms, and taught that he appeared in Judaea as the Son of God, in Samaria as the Father, in the rest of the Gentile nations as the Holy Spirit, as Irenaeus testifies, book I. See the sayings in Acts viii, 20. More fabulous were the Valentinians, who arose shortly after St. Peter, who produced thirty Aeons of dreams and portents: whom Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius and others refuted. Similar were those who called themselves Gnostics, that is, knowing and learned ones, to whom modern heretics, politicians and atheists are similar, who boast of themselves as wise men like new Gnostics. For every error and heresy, being proud, covers its ignorance with the boasting and arrogance of wisdom, when it vends nothing but fables. Whence Theodoret inscribes their catalogue: 'A Compendium of Heretical Fables.' St. Athanasius, Oration 1 Against the Arians, calls heretics 'light-fleeing beasts'; Irenaeus, book I, chapter xxxiii, 'fungi'; St. Augustine, book On Heresies, near the end, 'fabulists,' to whom truly applies that saying of the Apostle, Rom. 1, 22: 'Saying themselves to be wise,' and gnostics, that is, knowing and learned ones, 'they became fools.' Wherefore Irenaeus, book 1, chapter xxxv: 'It is a victory,' he says, 'the manifestation of your opinions.' And St. Jerome to Ctesiphon: 'To have revealed your opinions is to have overcome them.' Truly the Psalmist: 'The wicked have told me fables, but not according to thy law,' Psalm cxviii, 85. We have made known to you the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, — δύναμιν, that is, force, might, efficacy, both of expunging sins, of correcting morals, of working miracles, of saving and beatifying, of converting the world. This power appears all the greater because it subdued the world not by iron, but by wood; not by fighting, but by suffering. 'He was crucified in weakness, but he liveth by the power of God,' says Paul, II Corinthians XIII, 4, concerning which St. Leo discourses beautifully, sermon 8 On Lent. He attacks Simon Magus who presented himself as Christ, and called himself the power of God, Acts VIII, 20, as if to say: We preach Christ to be the power and wisdom of God, not Simon Magus. Thus Paul says I Corinthians 1, 23: 'But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.' And presence. — Thus the Roman Bible. And this is what the Greek παρουσίαν signifies; Pagninus and the Zurich Bible translate it 'advent.' Therefore some read 'foreknowledge' wrongly. The sense is, as if to say, Christ the Son of God came to us not only through power and operation, but through presence and substance: for he exhibited this to be beheld by us, when 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us.' Adam explains παρουσίαν as περιουσίαν, that is, abundance, wealth, excellence; but this seems new and unusual. Others understand the advent of Christ to judgment: for this will be with majesty, and its type was the transfiguration of Christ, which follows. But eyewitnesses, — ἐπόπται, that is, inspectors, exact investigators, seeing witnesses. Again in form they are called "mystes" and priests, the elders and chief ones, to whom it was permitted to inspect and behold the sacred things and mysteries, which to the people were proposed only veiled as things to be believed. Thus from Suidas, Budaeus in Comment. linguae Graecae, pag. 338. For thus mystes and ἐπόπτης, that is, inspector, of the glory of Christ was St. Peter in his transfiguration. Thus St. Gregory Nazianzen, orat. 19 and 34, calls Isaiah, Ezekiel and similar Prophets ἐπόπτας καὶ θεωρούς, inspectors and beholders of the Seraphim, Cherubim and inscrutable judgments of God. And Plato in Sympos. calls the sacred things of love ἐποπτικά, that is, more sacred, more secret, and perceived by few and those exceptional. Whence Pagninus and the Zurich Bible translate at this place: "But whom we have beheld with our own eyes his majesty," according to that I John 1, 1: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life; and the life was manifested, and we have seen and do bear witness," etc. The sense is, as if to say, Believe me, because I am not a fabulist, but ἐπόπτης, that is, an eyewitness inspector; I relate things seen, not heard: for one seeing witness is worth more than ten hearing witnesses. Of that (Christ's) greatness, — μεγαλειότητος, that is, of greatness, majesty, as Pagninus translates it, magnificence, glory and brightness; because "his face shone as the sun," Matt. XVII, 2. For although some may seem to say that St. Peter, John and James in the transfiguration of Christ saw the divine essence, as Tertullian Against Praxeas, cap. xv; St. Chrysostom, epist. 5; St. Leo and Damascene, orat. On the Transfiguration; yet commonly the Fathers and Doctors teach the contrary, and the Evangelists sufficiently intimate this. Wherefore Tertullian, St. Leo, St. Chrysostom and Damascene are to be understood as saying that these three Apostles saw the divine essence not in itself, but in its effect, namely in the glory and brightness of the body of Christ; for this flowed from the glory of the soul of Christ, and was the effect, idea and index of his divinity. This is what Damascene says: "The earthly body of Christ was emitting divine splendor, the mortal body of the Godhead pouring forth the glory of its source like a fountain, etc. And his face shines like the sun: for indeed light is personally united to matter lacking it, and thereby he becomes the sun of justice." And the author of On the Wonders of Holy Scripture, lib. III, cap. x, which is found in tom. III of St. Augustine: "The divinity hidden in the body," he says, "granted to those seeing from without a portion of its light to be seen, as much as they were able." And Euthymius in Matt. xvii: "Christ transfigured," he says, "with divine splendor illuminating his face, and changing his appearance to a greater likeness of God."
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17. Taking, namely. — He takes, namely. It is a Hebrew enallage: for the Hebrews use participles for verbs, as I have often shown. Thus Oecumenius and Vatablus. Honor and glory. — First, because the face of Christ shone like the sun, and his garments became white as snow. Second, because Moses and Elias appeared with him speaking, and as it were celebrating him as the Messiah who was about to redeem the world on the cross, and triumph over sin, death and hell. Third, because the Father thundered from the cloud over him and said: "This is My beloved Son, hear him," by which he testified that Christ is truly His Son, and therefore God, and he commanded all to obey him as the legislator and prince of the new law, and therefore gave him the clarity and glory of the transfiguration, as it were the firstfruits and specimen of the resurrection, happiness and glory to be given to those who would believe in him and obey him. The glory of Christ therefore consisted properly in the splendor of his face and garments; honor in the voice of the Father descended upon him: "This is My Son," etc. With a voice descended from magnificent glory, — namely from a bright and gleaming cloud, which was an index of divine glory, namely of God the Father who spoke through it. Whence St. Augustine, tract. 35 in John: "From magnificent," he says, "power the whole Trinity formed the voice, but it indicated the Father alone;" although indeed this voice was formed by the ministry of angels, nevertheless it was the Father's, who spoke through the angels as his ministers: just as a king speaks through his legate, or orator. This voice was clear, august, intense and sonorous like thunder, inasmuch as it was borne from heaven to the Apostles, and struck them with sacred awe. This is My Son, — whom namely I promised in Psalm ii, 7, saying: "Thou art My Son;" and as I promised of old, so now I exhibit, set forth, show and glorify, says Tertullian, lib. IV Against Marcion, cap. xxii, as it were one who succeeds to the departing Moses and Elias, that is, the Law and the Prophets, as a new legislator. Beloved, — ἀγαπητός, that is, worthy of love, beloved, most dear; St. Jerome in his epistle to the Philippians translates it as lovable: ἠγαπημένος, that is beloved, he says, can be one who is not ἀγαπητός, that is worthy of being loved. St. Cyprian, epistle 63, cap. vi, translates it as most beloved, and this first, because he is My Son by nature; second, because he is to Me ὁμοούσιος and consubstantial, not adoptive by grace, as are the other Saints. Whence Hilary, lib. III On the Trinity: "He is," he says, "a son by origin, truth, nativity, not by adoption, appellation, creation." Third, because he is unique and only-begotten. Thus the Greeks call ἀγαπητὸν υἱόν a unique son; for the unique is loved uniquely. And among Hesiod ἀγαπητὴ θυγάτηρ, that is, beloved daughter, is only-begotten, that is only-begotten and unique. Most excellently St. Leo, sermon On the Transfiguration: "This is," he says, "My beloved Son, whom divinity does not separate from Me, power does not divide, eternity does not distinguish. This is My Son not of adoption, but proper; not created from elsewhere, but begotten from Me; nor made comparable to Me from another nature, but born equal to Me from My essence. This is My Son through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made; because all things which I make, he similarly makes, and whatever I work, he works inseparably with Me and indifferently." And St. Cyprian, or whoever is the author, sermon On Baptism: "Two," he says, "pleasing words, son and beloved, are impressed upon our senses by God himself speaking, so that the communion of names associates us with the college of gifts, and names of such sweetness soften our soul and kindle the affection of devotion." And Damascenus, oration On the Transfiguration: "He," he says, "who is now seen as man, is My beloved Son: he who recently became man, who humbly and abjectly dwells with you, and whose face has now shone, he, I say, is My beloved Son; older than all ages, alone from alone, only-begotten without time and eternally proceeding from Me the Father; and who is both from Me, and in Me, and with Me always, nor is he posterior to Me in the order of existence." And below: "This is My Son, he, I say, the splendor of My glory, the character of My substance, through whom I also made the angels, through whom heaven was founded, and the earth established, etc. This is not a servant, or legate, or angel, but My beloved Son." He alludes to Psalm xxviii, 4 and 6: "The voice of the Lord is in power, the voice of the Lord is in magnificence, etc., and his beloved as the son of unicorns." For beloved the Hebrew is שריון sarion, or, as the points now indicate, sirion. For which the Septuagint by poetic metathesis read ישרון jescurun, that is, upright, direct, sent, beloved. Jescurun alludes to Israel, indeed Genebrardus holds that jescurun is a diminutive of Israel, as if to say Israelulus, uprightulus, belovedulus, by way of endearment. See Isaiah cap. xliv, vers. 2. Israel therefore is jescurun, that is, upright, and therefore beloved to me. Israel moreover was the parent and type of Christ: for Christ truly is Israel, that is, a man ruling in God. Now Christ the beloved of the Father is compared to the son of a unicorn, that is, to a unicorn. First, because the only Son of one God is unique, or because the Son is of God, who is a unicorn, that is, unique in essence, and the same is the strongest horn in power: for Christ is to the Father ὁμοούσιος and consubstantial. Second, because the unicorn beyond other animals wonderfully loves its offspring, preferring to die rather than to lose them alive. In a similar way the Father uniquely loves the Son, says Richard in Psalm xxviii, because in a unique and singular manner he begot him without a mother, just as on earth the same, as he is man, begot him without a father, says Euthymius there. Again Christ as a unicorn loved his offspring, namely the faithful, so that he wished to die and be crucified for them. Third, Christ was the son of unicorns, because he was the son of the cross, and "horns were in his hands, where he hid his strength," says St. Ambrose, serm. 2 On the Baptism of Christ. For the unicorn has a horn bifurcated like a cross, says St. Justin. Fourth, because just as the unicorn's horn touching poisoned waters shakes the poison from them, as Pliny testifies, lib. VIII, cap. xxi: so Christ by the touch of his body made the poisoned waters of tribulations and death healthy, drinkable and sweet for us. Fifth, because Christ is unconquered and insuperable through the horn of divinity, hypostatic union and singular grace, which the Father gave to him, according to that: "He hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant," Luke 1; and: "The horns of the rhinoceros are the horns thereof, with them shall he push the nations even to the ends of the earth," Deut. xxxiii, 17. See the sayings there. Sixth, just as the monoceros, or unicorn, cannot be captured except in the bosom of a virgin: so Christ could not be captured except in the bosom of the Blessed Virgin; but captured in it, he became man. See the sayings Numer. xxiii, 22. Seventh, because, as the Psalmist sings there, Christ appeared to the world after the cedars were scattered, that is, proud impiety, the errors of Judaism and Gentilism by the force of thunder, that is, the preaching of the Gospel. Eighth, the horn of the unicorn is not only strong, but also medicinal, says St. Justin: so strong and medicinal is the strength and grace of Christ, inasmuch as it heals and strengthens all infirmities of soul and body, and thus makes Virgins and Martyrs. Ninth, the unicorn by the touch of its horn purifies waters from the poison of serpents: so Christ by the touch of the Jordan, when he was baptized in it, made its waters and all others purifying and expiatory of sin in the sacrament of Baptism. Tenth, the young or fawns of unicorns are beautiful, elegant, lovable and graceful: such is Christ also. Tropologically the voice of Christ preaching shattered the cedars, that is, idols and the pride of the world. Then the Apostles and the faithful unconquered leaped forth and ruled as sons of unicorns, that is, of the holy Patriarchs, who placed their horn and strength in the unicorn, that is, in one God, equally as their whole heart and love, and therefore for him they boldly shed their blood and life. In which I am well pleased. — The Greek more significantly εἰς ὃν ἐγὼ εὐδόκησα, that is, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have poured forth all My εὐδοκία, that is, good pleasure, purpose and propitious will. The Zurich Bible, "in which I am well pleased." Vatable, "in whom I am appeased and reconciled to the world." Others very aptly, "whom I have constituted as a placable and most acceptable victim to Me, that men might be reconciled to Me." Budaeus in his Commentary on the Greek Language, page 364, "in whom I have obeyed my own mind, in whom I have approved my work, in whom I have pleased myself, in whom my mind has found rest, in whom, when I look upon, I set aside all wrath and offense." St. Chrysostom and Euthymius in chapter xvii of Matthew, "in whom I delight;" St. Augustine, book II On the Harmony of the Gospels, chapter xiv, "I have established my good pleasure in thee, through thee I have decreed to fulfill what pleases me, so that henceforth I shall not say: It repenteth me that I made man; through thee I have pleased men." The same, sermon 63 On the Words of the Lord, and tract. 35 on John, "toward whom I am well affected, to whom I wish well, or of whom I think well." Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter xxiii; Cyprian, book I Against the Judges, chapter x, and Irenaeus, book III, chapter xi, "in whom I have thought well." God therefore in Christ was well pleased, first, because He loves Him, united to Him hypostatically as His Son, with infinite love, and in Him rests entirely in His good pleasure. Secondly, because through Him alone it pleased Him to redeem men, and to institute a new law and Church. Thirdly, because in His supreme obedience, humility, and holiness He was wonderfully well pleased with Himself, through Him He was appeased toward the whole human race, and was reconciled with it, and forgave it innumerable crimes: for, as Christ says in John viii, 29: "The things that please Him, I do always." Thus St. Bernard, sermon 1 On the Epiphany. Fourthly, because through Him He loves all who believe in Him, sanctifies them, and destines them as His sons and heirs. For no one pleases God the Father except through Christ, and all who please Christ please Him as well. Finally, all virtue, wisdom, holiness, and whatever pleases God, pleases Him through Christ. God alludes to these words, indeed fulfills by them, that passage of Isaiah xlii, 1, concerning Christ: "Behold My servant, I will uphold Him; My elect, My soul is well pleased in Him." And to the hymn of the angels singing to Christ born: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will," toward whom namely God through Christ decreed to exhibit His εὐδοκία, that is, good pleasure, and supreme love, by giving them His grace, friendship, glory, inheritance and eternal happiness. Whence the Syrian, the Nyssene, Theophylactus and Euthymius for εὐδοκίας, that is, of good will, read εὐδοκία, that is, good will, and make the hymn three-membered in this way: "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, to men be good will," that is, the benevolence of God, so that namely through Christ now born He might save them and adopt them as sons to Himself. Thus in Ephesians 1, 9, and elsewhere men of good will are called sons of love, that is, sons willed, chosen and beloved by God. Note: The history of the Transfiguration is narrated variously by SS. Matthew, Mark and Luke; but this was the series and order of the deed, which reconciles all the Evangelists with one another. First, Christ prayed; meanwhile the disciples, worn out from the labor of ascending the mountain, and weighed down by sleep from the length of Christ's prayer and sleeping, Christ was transfigured. Secondly, Moses and Elias approached speaking with Christ concerning the departure (death of the cross) which He was about to complete in Jerusalem. Thirdly, the Apostles, aroused from sleep by this brightness and conversation, saw the glory of Christ, and conversing with Him saw Moses and Elias. Fourthly, when this conversation ended, as they gave a sign of departure, St. Peter, as if drunk with this pleasure, grieving that they were preparing to depart, asked that three tabernacles be made, one for Christ, a second for Moses, a third for Elias. Fifthly, a cloud supervened taking away Moses and Elias, with a voice to Christ: "This is My beloved Son," etc., at which SS. Peter, James and John, terrified, fell to the ground; but soon comforted and raised up by Christ, lifting up their eyes they saw only Jesus. Meanwhile Moses was led to limbo, Elias to his place by an angel, and thus was also brought back. Hear Him,—Believe in Him and in Himself, obey Him: "Him," I say, "hear," not Moses, who teaches the shadows of the law; not Elijah, who shuts heaven, and from thence calls down fire by which he destroys sinners; but Him who is the true teacher of the Gospel, the legislator of the new law, the guide of heaven, the idea of holiness, the messenger of My will, and thus the figure and character of My substance. Whoever therefore hears Him, hears Me; whoever despises Him, despises Me. Thus Damascus, in his oration On the Transfiguration. Most excellently St. Leo, in his sermon On the Transfiguration: "Him therefore," he says, "in whom in all things I am well pleased, and by whose preaching I am made manifest, by whose humility I am glorified, hear without hesitation: because He Himself is the truth and the life, He Himself is My power and My wisdom. Hear Him, whom the mysteries of the law foretold, whom the mouths of the Prophets sang: Hear Him, who by His blood redeemed the world, who binds the devil and seizes his vessels, who breaks the bond of sin and the covenants of transgression. Hear Him, who opens the way to heaven, and through the punishment of the cross prepares for you the steps of ascension to the kingdom." He alludes to that oracle of Moses concerning Christ: "The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me, him thou shalt hear, etc. And I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak all things that I shall command him: but whosoever will not hear the words that he shall speak in My name, I will be the avenger," Deuteronomy xviii, 15 and 18. And that of Isaiah lv, 4: "Behold I have given him for a witness to the people, for a leader and master to the Gentiles." And that of John i, 17: "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ: No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him unto us." Note first, that this voice of the Father was made to Christ, not before, as some wish, but after the departure of Elijah and Moses, when namely they entered into the cloud, as Luke says, chapter ix, verse 34 and 35; whence verse 36 says: "And while the voice was made, Jesus was found alone," namely that it might be most clear that this voice refers to Christ alone, not to Moses or Elijah. Thus St. Chrysostom, Ambrose and others in Matthew xvii, or Luke ix. Second, here the Holy Trinity was represented, as also in the baptism of Christ: namely the Father in the voice, the Son in divine glory, the Holy Spirit in the cloud. Third, by this voice, says Tertullian, book IV Against Marcion, chapter xxii, is signified the abrogation of the old law and the institution of the new, the passion of Christ in ecstasy, concerning which Elijah and Moses spoke with Christ; the resurrection in the transfiguration, hell and limbo in Moses: for to that place the soul of Moses was brought back, as it had been taken from there.
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18. This voice we (I, James and John) heard brought from heaven (from the cloud and the higher air), — ἐνεχθεῖσαν, that is, brought, descended, as the Interpreter rendered a little before. When we were with him in the holy mount. — Faber Stabulensis in chapter ix of Mark thinks this mount was Lebanon, both because Isaiah predicted of it in chapter xxxv, 2: "The glory of Lebanon is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Sharon: they have seen the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God." But the meaning of Isaiah is different, as I said there: and because Christ was then in the borders of Caesarea Philippi, which is adjacent to Lebanon. But this is false; for six days had already passed since the discourse held at Caesarea, during which Christ went up to Tabor; and indeed immediately after the transfiguration he came down to Capernaum, which city is near to mount Tabor. See Matthew xvii, 1. The common opinion therefore is that this mount was Tabor, which the Septuagint and Josephus call Itabyrium, concerning whose situation, height, pleasantness, and fertility I have spoken in Hosea v, 1. Tabor in Hebrew is the same as light comes, or purity, or election, which aptly befits the transfiguration of Christ: for in it Christ shone forth with solar light, he sanctioned the first law of the Gospel, which leads the elect to heaven; wherefore Christians afterwards built three churches on this mount and a great monastery, as Bede testifies in chapter xvii of De Locis sanctis, and this mount is accustomed to be visited by pilgrims with great reverence. Deservedly therefore is this mount called holy. The Jews fable from Isaiah chapter ii, 2, and Micah iv, 1, that in the time of the Messiah Tabor should be joined to Carmel, and Jerusalem imposed upon both, which should be raised up three leagues high, as I have recorded from Galatinus and others in Isaiah ii, 2. More truly John of Damascus, in his oration On the Transfiguration, explaining that passage of Psalm lxxxviii, "Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name": "Tabor," he says, "rejoiced, when Christ was transfigured in it; Hermon, when he was baptized near it." The reason why Christ was transfigured on a mount, Tertullian says, in book IV Against Marcion, xxii, namely that the new law should be sanctioned by him on a mount, just as the old law was sanctioned by Moses on mount Sinai: "It was necessary," he says, "that the new Testament should be sealed in that place, in which the old had been written." Again on this same mount Tabor, Barak and Deborah obtained a heavenly victory against Sisera, Judges iv, 6; for, as in chapter v, verse 20, they sing: "The stars fought from heaven against him, remaining in their order and course they fought against Sisera"; namely because angels from heaven hurled thunderbolts, fire, hail, falling stars into the army of Sisera, as Lyra and Abulensis say. Josephus adds, in book V, chapter vi, rain and winds, and this appropriately signifies the name of the leader: for Barak in Hebrew is lightning; Deborah is a bee, she was "the wife of Lapidoth": the Hebrews and Arias translate it, a woman of lamps, who namely prepared the wicks of the tabernacle; or, as Arias, a woman of lamps, that is, illuminated by divine things and imbued with splendors: for she was a prophetess; for in Hebrew לפדים lappidim are called lamps, and from this the Greek and Latin name lampas is derived, as Arias says. As therefore Barak and Deborah with their forces were as it were a thunderbolt-hurling legion of God (as afterwards was the Christian legion under the Emperor Antoninus, which by its prayers obtained rain from God, and likewise thunderbolts against enemies), who prostrated enemies with thunderbolts, and illuminated Israel with their oracles and victories on mount Tabor: so likewise Christ transfigured on the same mount illuminated the Apostles with his splendor, and struck down demons. There therefore he himself was Deborah, that is, a bee pouring forth the honey of the Gospel to the faithful, but keeping the sting of vengeance for the unfaithful. Whence St. Jerome to Furia On Widowhood teaches that Deborah is a bee, because "Deborah," he says, "could say: How sweet are thy words to my palate, more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth! The bee received its name, fed on the flowers of Scripture, perfumed with the odor of the Holy Spirit, and composing sweet ambrosial draughts with prophetic mouth." Tropologically a mount is a place remote from the crowd and noise: and therefore suited to hearing the voice of God: hence by its height a mount is a type of heaven, and admonishes those dwelling in it to lift their mind to heaven, and therefore to strive and ascend to arduous works of virtue and the summit of perfection. For which reason Christ held his first discourse on a mount, in which he taught the sum of evangelical life and the height of Christian perfection, Matthew, chapters v, vi, vii. On a mount also he spent the night in prayer, Luke vi, 12. Likewise he multiplied loaves to feed the crowd, Matthew xv, 29. He instituted the Eucharist on mount Sion: he was crucified on mount Calvary: rising again he appeared to his disciples on a mount, Matthew chapter xxviii, verse 16: from the mount of Olives he ascended into heaven: he sent the Holy Spirit into the upper room of mount Sion, Acts 1, verse 12. Excellent men imitated Christ, such as Elijah, Elisha, the sons of the Prophets, St. Antony, St. Benedict, St. Francis, who chose to dwell with God on mountains, to pray and to live a heavenly life; whence they were illuminated and adorned there by God with heavenly visions, graces, gifts, and stigmata.
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19. And we have a firmer prophetic word. — St. Peter proved the faith of the Gospel and of Christ which he preached to be true and divine from the ocular vision of the glory of Christ in the transfiguration and from the hearing of the voice of God the Father: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him." Now lest it should appear to rest on that alone, and lest anyone should render it suspect as a private matter of illusion or flattery, he confirms it by the public and most certain testimony of the Prophets: for he calls the oracles of the Prophets the prophetic word, or those things which the Prophets prophesied concerning Christ and His divinity, incarnation, death, redemption, etc., such as that in Psalm ii, which agrees most with this place: "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee." Furthermore, this prophetic word is not more true, not better, says St. Augustine, serm. 27 On the Words of the Apostle, cap. iv, but firmer than the ocular vision and hearing of St. Peter; because, although that clarity and glory of Christ, as well as the voice descending to him from heaven, was truly divine and flowing from God the Father, nevertheless the Jews and similar slanderers could attribute both the voice and the clarity to magical tricks, or certainly to fables, as they attributed a voice similar to the Father's to Christ by thunder, John cap. xii, vers. 29. But they could not say this concerning the Prophets and the prophetic word, granted that it was prophetic, as they conceded, especially because the Prophets had preceded Christ by many centuries. "Not yet," says Augustine, "was Christ a man when He sent the Prophets. If therefore by magical arts He caused Himself to be worshipped and died, was He a magician before He was born?" For this reason therefore God sent so many Prophets through individual centuries, so that all might prophesy those things which were to be done and endured by Christ, to this end, that when the Jews as well as the Gentiles saw them fulfilled by Him, they might know for certain that He was Christ predicted and promised by all the Prophets, "which could not and cannot ever happen to either Apollonius or Apuleius or any of the magicians," says Lactantius, lib. V, cap. iii. This is what Zacharias sings, Luke 1, 70: "As He spoke by the mouth of His holy Prophets, who have been from the beginning." And St. Peter: "To Him all the Prophets give testimony," Acts x, 43. Whence St. Justin Martyr, dialog. Against Trypho, relates that he was converted to Christ by reading the Prophets. Thus St. Augustine, Bede, Hugh, Lyra, Dionysius, and others everywhere. Add that faith and the light of faith, which shows that the oracles of the Prophets are divine and have proceeded from God, is firmer and more certain than all science, demonstration and sensory vision, and any ocular and auricular testimony. And thus this prophetic word was not only firmer than other things, but even to St. Peter himself than his vision and hearing. Whence rightly Gagneius and others render τὸ firmiorem as firmest. Thus Paul says, "greater," that is greatest, "of these is charity," 1 Corinthians xiii, 13. Wherefore the exposition of Erasmus is disapprovable, who by the prophetic word understands the very voice of God the Father to Christ in the transfiguration, as if the Father Himself were the Prophet and herald of Christ, foretelling to Him that those things which Christ would teach and do would be pleasing to Him. Equally disapprovable and impertinent is another exposition of the same man, which pleased Clarius and Titelmanus, namely that the prophetic word, that is, the oracles of the Prophets, were made firmer by this voice of the Father to Christ: "This is My Son," etc.; for St. Peter does not treat here of the confirmation of the prophetic oracles, but of his own vision, which he confirms by these oracles. Hence it follows that false is that reading which some Greek codices have, so that for τὸν προφητικὸν λόγον with o, they read τῶν προφητικῶν λόγων with ω, from which they thus translate, we have βεβαιότερον, that is firmer, namely the vision and voice of the Father already mentioned, by prophetic words. For the meaning and voice of St. Peter is different, indeed contrary. You will say: The voice of the Father concerning Christ which St. Peter heard, namely, "This is My beloved Son," etc., was as certain and firm as the voice of the same Father concerning the same which the Prophets heard, for example David Psalm ii, 7: "Thou art My Son." Therefore the prophetic word was not more firm than the vision and hearing of St. Peter. I answer, I deny the consequence. For although the voice of the Father objectively, that is in itself, was most true and most certain, equally as the oracles of the Prophets, yet subjectively, that is insofar as it was sensibly received and resounded in the ears of St. Peter, it was not as certain and firm as the visions of the Prophets: for hearing and every sense can be deceived; but prophetic vision cannot be deceived, because it is made through supernatural and divine light, by which God attests to the Prophet that the thing revealed to him is true and certain, and that none other than God reveals it to him: wherefore the Prophets were bound by divine faith to believe that the things which they saw and heard were true, and were from God. You will press further: Even St. Peter was bound by divine faith to believe this vision and voice to be true, and to be from God. I answer: This also is true, but not insofar as he perceived it with eyes and ears, but insofar as he had certain signs of credibility, by which he was convinced that it was true and to be believed by faith. These signs were the life and miracles of Christ, by which he was certain that He was the Christ the Son of God, and therefore that all things which He did and showed forth were true and from God; again the testimony of Elias and Moses, the divine splendor of Christ, the bright cloud, etc.: for all these things convinced Peter, so that he should believe this vision and voice to be not fictitious, but true and divine: just as by the same and similar things St. Thomas was convinced, so that seeing, hearing and touching the wounds and the living flesh of Christ, God enlightening his mind, he should believe by divine faith that He had truly risen; whence he exclaimed: "My Lord and my God;" and Christ said to him: "Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed," John xx, 29. For just as fear is a bristle, as St. Augustine says, by which the thread of divine love is drawn into the soul, so this vision was a bristle by which faith was drawn in. In like manner the Prophets believed their visions and voices which they heard to be true and from God, because God gave them certain signs of this thing, so that they could not doubt of it, but were bound to believe the same by divine faith. In the same way the faithful are bound to believe this vision of St. Peter to have been heavenly and divine, both because the same is expressed in Holy Scripture in this place by St. Peter, and because consequently the Church proposes the same to the faithful as it were to be believed by faith, and binds them to it; for, as St. Augustine says, in the book Against the Epistle of the Manichaean, chapter iv: "I would not believe the Gospel, unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me," for the Church is that which teaches and assures which is the true Gospel, which is false and spurious, as was the Gospel of Nicodemus, Thomas, the Nazarenes, etc. The same judgment is to be made concerning the epistles of St. Peter and any other Holy Scripture. To which you do well to attend. — προσέχοντες, that is attending, as St. Augustine reads it, tract. 23 in John. Thus Christ: "Search," He says, "the Scriptures, because, etc., they give testimony of Me," John v, 39. As a lamp shining in a dark place. — Prophecy and all Scripture is as a lamp shining in the night, and in the darkness of this age and life, illuminating them, but moderately and obscurely like a lamp, so that it may show us Christ as it were the sun of justice, and lead us to Him. "For all prophecy is one great lamp to Christ," says St. Augustine, tract. 23 in John; and serm. 237 On the Seasons; these lamps are said to have been invented by Hieronymus Cardanus the physicist and physician, and from their form he called them campanile, because they have the appearance of turretted bells. Such a campanile lamp is Holy Scripture, being full of abundant oil of wisdom, sublime like a tower, sonorous like a bell. In a dark place, — ἐν αὐχμηρῷ τόπῳ, that is, in a squalid place, overgrown, dark, shadowy, filthy, horrible; for such is this world and this life. As a symbol of this matter, God commanded Moses to fabricate a tabernacle closed on all sides and lacking windows, and therefore dark and shadowy; but to illuminate it, a seven-branched candlestick was made, having namely seven lamps, which would illuminate it: for the dark tabernacle represents this age full of ignorance; the candlestick represents Scripture and faith, which illuminate it: see what I have said at Exodus xxvi, 1 and following. Thus the ancients, besides simple lamps burning with one wick, which they called bedroom lamps, in large places had dimyxoi for bearing two wicks, or trimyxoi for three, or heptamyxoi for seven, or polymyxoi for more; concerning which Martial, book XIV: When I illuminate the whole banquet with my flames, And bear so many wicks, I am called one lamp. See what I have said concerning lamps and the candlestick, representing the Church and its faith and doctrine, at Zechariah chapter v. Finally, just as oil must frequently be supplied to lamps so that they may shine, so learned and pious explanation of Holy Scripture must frequently be inserted by Doctors, so that it may breathe light of doctrine and warmth of devotion to hearers. In Rome and in Italy we use larger and towered lamps which contain much oil, and this by physical art, namely to prevent the empty space, as if suspended in a high tower, which gradually flowing down into the mouth and wick of the lamp, continually and for a long time fosters its light and heat. Until the day shall dawn, and the morning star shall arise in your hearts. It is the same thing for the day to dawn as for the morning star to rise: for when it rises, dawn comes and the day breaks, or shines forth. You will ask what this day is, what this morning star: First, Oecumenius answers that it is the full knowledge of faith and the Gospel: "When," he says, "the day shall come, that is, the presence of the things themselves, you will have the rising morning star in your hearts, that is, the knowledge of Christ and His coming foretold by the Prophets, who as true light will illuminate your hearts;" so that prophecy is night, the Gospel is dawn and morning star, the beatific vision is clear day and noon. Whence St. Cyril, book I On the Trinity, at the beginning, teaches that Christ is the radiance, day and morning star, who irradiates the minds of the faithful through the Spirit and illuminates them more clearly than all the Prophets; just as the morning star shines more brightly than the other stars. And because, just as the light of the morning star is generated by the sun, so Christ is generated by the Father as light from light, God from God. Whence Christ himself says of himself: "I am the bright and morning star," namely the morning star, Apocalypse xxii, 16. The sense therefore is, as if to say, Attend to the reading and study of the Prophets, so that from them you may be confirmed in the faith of Christ, until from this study and illumination by God the day and morning star, that is, a more certain and clearer and fully explicit knowledge of the Gospel and faith, succeeding the night, that is, the darker knowledge of the Jews and Prophets, shall dawn upon you, so that being fully confirmed in it through it you may be led to the clear noon of eternity and the vision of God. For just as the morning star or the light of dawn stands to the light of noon, so this doctrine of faith stands to the beatific vision. Again, just as the morning star stands to the night, as something intermediate between night and day, and the beginning of day and light: so this clear doctrine of Christ stands to the dark doctrine of the Prophets: this therefore was as a lamp, but Christ's was light, John chapter 1, verse ix. Hence the same John, epistle 1, chapter ii, verse 27, says: "You need not that any man teach you; but as his unction teacheth you of all things." And Jeremiah chapter xxxi, verse 31: "They shall teach no more every man his neighbour, etc., for all shall know me;" and, as Isaiah liv, 13 says: "All thy children shall be taught of God." Thus Adam, Arius, Gagneius and others. Secondly, appropriately the day here and the morning star can be understood as beatitude, namely heavenly glory and the beatific vision: for life in the miseries and darkness of this age is as it were night; therefore the future life in glory will be as it were day and morning star. For the morning star, or the star of Venus, because it brings the dawn, or the beginning of day, hence it is the same as day, according to that saying of Martial: Phosphorus (that is, morning star), restore the day. And that saying of Boethius, book III On Consolation: "Morning star, when it has driven away the darkness, fair day drives its rosy horses." Moreover, the morning star is a symbol of the beatific vision. First, because that vision is made through the light of glory, according to that passage in Psalm 35:10: "In Thy light we shall see light." It is therefore aptly called the morning star. Second, because the morning star or dawn is the beginning of day: it therefore signifies the beginning of blessedness, when namely the soul alone is immediately blessed by the vision of God after death, whose completion and as it were midday will be in the resurrection, when the body and the whole man will be blessed and glory will illuminate through all eternity. Third, because the morning star, as bearing day and light, is a symbol of prosperity and happiness, as I said on Isaiah chapter 14, verse 21. Fourth, because the Blessed shall shine in heaven like stars and morning stars, according to that passage in Apocalypse chapter 2, verse 28: "He that shall overcome, etc., I will give him the morning star." And Daniel chapter 12, verse 3: "They that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity." See the passages cited in both places. Fifth, just as the light of the morning star and dawn flows from the sun, as I shall say presently, so the glory of the Saints flows from the glory of Christ; and just as the morning star and stars accompany, throng and encircle the sun: so also do the Saints encircle Christ. Sixth, because φωσφόρος, that is the morning star, also signifies the sun, as Suidas says, because φωσφορεῖν is to shine forth and to bring day, so also Cicero, in book II of On the Nature of the Gods, calls the moon lucifer; whence the Syrian here translates sol for morning star. For this day the Bride sighed in the Song of Songs 2:3, feeding in the lilies "until the day breathe" of blessed eternity, "and the shadows decline" of wretched mortality, as St. Gregory says; and St. John, Apocalypse chapter 21, verse 23, says that the heavenly Jerusalem "hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God hath enlightened it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof;" and chapter 22, verse 5: "And night shall be no more, and they shall not need the light of the lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall enlighten them." Thus St. Augustine in Psalm 51: "As long," he says, "as we walk by the light of a lamp, it is necessary that we live in fear; but when our day shall come, that is the manifestation of Christ, concerning which the Apostle: When Christ shall appear, your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory." The same, in Psalm 89: "Therefore," he says, "in these as it were nocturnal sorrows and labors, prophecy has been kindled for us like a lamp in a dark and obscure place, until the day shall shine forth, and the morning star shall arise in our hearts. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God." This exposition is favored by the word until; for we have need of prophecy and Scripture throughout this whole life, until we arrive at the vision in our heavenly homeland. It is also favored by the fact that the course of the morning star is coeval with the sun, firm and perpetual, and therefore after a long night its appearance is most pleasant, as it were the origin of light, sun and day: whence Sophar to Job 11:17: "As the brightness of midday," he says, "shall rise upon thee at evening," that is, when thou shalt think thyself consumed, thou shalt rise as the morning star. And Virgil, II Aeneid: — The morning star leads on the day. Statius, Thebaid III: He bears the day in his purple mouth. and Ovid, VI Fasti: And watchful the morning star goes forth from the Eastern waters. The same, Metamorphoses, book VIII: Revealing the day and putting to flight the times of night, the morning star. and book XI: The eleventh morning star had gathered the host of stars. and book XV: — And when the bright morning star goes forth on white horse. And Statius, Thebaid XII: The third morning star was striking the dawn. Hence the Poets called the morning star, namely the dawn, the daughter of the Titans, that is of the sun, because from the rising sun that brightness of the sky which we call dawn proceeds. Thus Varro, book VI: "Aurora," he says, "is called before the rising of the sun from the fact that from the fire of the sun the air then becomes golden;" and Virgil, IV Aeneid, concerning the dawn thus sings: The next day was cleansing the lands with Phoebus' torch; and book VII: Aurora was shining golden in rosy chariots. and Tibullus, book III: The horses of Aurora (that is of the Sun) were now bearing the light. Hence aurora is called as it were the golden hour, or rather as it were the dewy breeze. The former sense is clearer and simpler, and therefore more literal and genuine: the latter is fuller and more anagogical. For just as the morning star is the precursor and herald of day and sun, so faith in Christ precedes and heralds the beatific vision. Here therefore the morning star of faith arises in our hearts; in heaven truly the midday of divine clarity will shine forth in our minds. Tropologically Hugo says: The day, he says, is the fervor of charity, which the morning star ought to precede, that is, the knowledge of God and virtue, so that it may grow unto the noonday of perfection, according to that of Proverbs iv, 18: "The path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forwards and increaseth even to perfect day." Whence Thomas the Englishman, reading "elucescat" as "illucescat", that is, he says, let it shine inwardly, and even to the innermost part of the soul. Moreover, just as all the brightness of the morning star and the dawn arises from the rising sun and the sun that follows: so all grace and glory of the Saints arises from Christ, who is the sun of justice, grace and glory. This is what is said of the Church and the faithful soul in Canticles vi, 9: "Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun?" Explaining which, St. Gregory, lib. XVI of the Morals, cap. xxv, says: "The dawn," he says, "is the mind of the just man, which, forsaking the darkness of its sin, now breaks forth into the light of eternity." The same is fair as the moon, because, as Philo of Carpathus says in Canticles cap. vi, it receives grace from Christ, just as the moon receives light from the sun; and because sometimes it shines in prosperity, sometimes in the darkness of adversities it is left behind; and because it grows in virtue, as the new moon grows even to the full moon. The same is bright as the sun, because it imitates Christ the sun of justice, from whom it both takes light and heat. St. Bernard, however, in sermon 60 from the small ones, by the dawn understands humility, from which virtue and holy life begin: "Well," he says, "is it called the dawn rising, so that the structure of virtues rising may be erected from humility as its proper foundation." By the moon, however, which takes its splendor from the sun, chastity is designated: "For indeed every faithful soul, if it be offered to be beheld by the eyes of the true sun, from the vision of him straightway admits into itself the beauty of comeliness and the grace of chastity: whence it comes to pass that, growing and advancing in its light, it is also promoted even to perfection, so that it may rightly be said of her: Bright as the sun." By the sun, however, charity is designated, and therefore the bride is said to be bright as the sun, because she is clothed in the wedding garment of charity: by which virtue whoever is clothed will shine, will certainly be terrible to his enemies as an army set in array. Thus St. Bernard; but Ambrose and St. Augustine, epistle 80, say: The Church is the dawn rising of the just, because it advances from the darkness of sins to the light of holiness; then from virtue to virtue it grows like the moon; finally on the day of judgment, the darkness and corruption of sins and the mortality of the flesh being left behind, clothed in the light of immortality and eternal charity, it will represent the sun itself. Finally St. Gregory in Canticles vi, says the Church in the beginning progresses as the dawn, namely those who from the darkness of sins begin to shine with the light of holy works; in those making progress it is fair as the moon, namely those who, while they provide good examples to sinners, shine like the moon in the night; finally in the perfect it is bright as the sun, while it provides examples of imitation not only to sinners, but also to the good and holy through them. "For indeed now," he says, "the moon becomes the sun; because she who now shone in the night to those erring, now manifests the light of truth to those walking in the day." Hence the Venerable Bede relates, lib. III of the History of the English, cap. xix, that St. Fursey, rapt in ecstasy, heard angels singing to the just: "They shall go from virtue to virtue, God shall be seen of gods in Sion." Thus therefore shines, advances and excels before others like the Lucifer, of whom Ovid sings, Metamorphoses lib. II: Behold, the watchful Aurora opened from the bright east her purple doors, and courts full of roses; the stars flee, whose ranks the Lucifer gathers, and from the heaven's station departs the last. Again, just as the star of Venus always accompanies the sun, and in the morning indeed precedes it rising, and is called Lucifer; in the evening however follows it setting, and is called Hesperus, of which the Poet: Hesperus, who art a more pleasant fire in the sky, that is, a most delightful star: for the ancients believed stars to be fiery. Thus he who continually makes progress in virtue accompanies Christ, who is the sun of justice; and, as St. John says, Apocalypse xiv, 4: "He followeth the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." Wherefore that Abbot in the Lives of the Fathers, lib. VII, cap. xliv, num. 6, in this manner continually stirred himself up to progress in virtues: "I," he says, "have determined for myself each day that my words be heard by the Lord, thinking that it is said to me: Labour for me, and I will give you rest. Yet a little while more contend, and you shall see my salvation and my glory. If you love me, if you are my sons, return to the Father in prayer. If you are my brothers, be ashamed for me, as I have suffered much for you. If you are my sheep, follow the passion of the Lord." And another, num. 9: "I," he says, "daily await the Church of intellectual virtues, I see the Lord of glory in the midst of them shining above all. But when I depart from him, I ascend into heaven, awaiting the admirable beauties of the angels, and the hymns which they send forth unceasingly to God, etc. And all things which are upon the earth, I regard as ashes and dung." Concerning St. Josaphat the king, Damascenus writes in the History, cap. xxxviii, that, having left his kingdom, he withdrew into the desert to St. Barlaam, that he might give himself entirely to the mortification of vices, abstinence, vigils, and prayers. "Which indeed," he says, "that noble and ready runner of the heavenly way most excellently accomplished, and preserved the ardour of his soul perpetually from beginning to end, always arranging ascents in his heart, and passing from virtue to a more sublime virtue, and unceasingly joining desire to desire and study to study, until at length he arrived at the hoped-for and desired beatitude." In the monastery of St. Anthony and of others, there was once a burning contest among all concerning virtue and progress: for they used to say that virtues are steps and ladders cohering with one another, and some supported by others, which bear the soul up to heaven, as Damascenus says in the History, cap. xi, who therefore deservedly calls those same angels terrestrial.
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20. Understanding this first, that all prophecy of Scripture (sacred) does not come from its own interpretation. "Prophecy of Scripture" is scriptural prophecy, or by hypallage the prophetic Scripture. He proves that the prophetic word is more firm, and we ought to apply ourselves to it diligently from the fact that prophecy is not the word of the Prophet, but of God, who is the first and infallible truth, that is, what he says: "Prophecy of Scripture does not come from its own interpretation," that is, it does not come from the Prophet's own invention, by which the Prophet might draw forth hidden and future things into the light by himself and by his own wit and acumen, interpret and explain them: for, as Philo says, in the book On Rewards and Punishments, "The Prophet is an interpreter of God dictating oracles." That this is the meaning is evident from the reason which St. Peter explains by adding: "For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time, but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." Where note that all sacred Scripture is here called "prophecy," both by synecdoche, because the greater part of Scripture, which then existed, were the Prophets: for the whole Old Testament is prophecy and a figure of the New Testament; and also properly, because all divine revelation, or whatever is revealed by God, even if it be not future, but present or past, is rightly called prophecy, because it is a revelation of a hidden thing either in itself, or insofar as it is revealed by God: for many things naturally certain and clear, such as the precepts of the Decalogue, were revealed by God, which nevertheless are called prophecy, on account of the hidden revelation, namely because revealed by God, they are oracles of God revealing, as I have shown from St. Gregory, homily 1 on Ezekiel, and St. Thomas, II II, Question 171, article 3, in the Proem to the Prophets. Secondly, "Prophecy of Scripture" can be taken as the very interpretation of Scripture. For thus to prophesy is sometimes the same as to teach and interpret, as when Aaron is called a Prophet, that is, an interpreter of Moses, Exodus chapter 7, verse 1. And at Antioch there were said to be many Prophets and Teachers, Acts 13, 1; and often elsewhere teachers are called Prophets. I have shown this in many places at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 14. Then the sense will be, as if to say, Prophecy, that is the interpretation and explanation of Holy Scripture, does not come, that is, ought not to come, nor can come, from its own interpretation, that is, from one's own wit and ingenuity, one's own sense, one's own explanation and doctrine. And St. Peter proves this from the fact that the prophecy itself and Scripture is not the work and doctrine of man, but of God, as if to say, Scripture itself is not an invention of human wit, not the work of the human mind, but of the divine; therefore its explanation and interpretation likewise is not to be sought from man, but from God. And this is what the Greek word διάλυσις properly signifies, that is, dissolution, explanation, interpretation. St. Peter seems to strike at the Simonians and Gnostics, who expounded Holy Scripture at their pleasure, and twisted it to their fantasies and errors. From which is refuted the error of our modern Gnostics and Illuminists, who say that Scripture is to be interpreted by each one according to his own private spirit; and that each one, even a cobbler and a shoemaker, has the internal spirit of God, which opens the Scriptures to him. From this indeed have arisen all heresies, and so many and so varied, indeed mutually opposed and contrary to each other; because namely each one interprets Holy Scripture from his own fantasy, as we have seen and see daily. For this reason therefore God placed Teachers in the Church, namely that they interpret Scripture; and the interpretation of words is one of the charisms of the Holy Ghost, as Paul teaches, 1 Corinthians 12, 10, and chapter 14, verse 26. For Holy Scripture is not a private, but a public dogma delivered by God to the whole Church; it is not therefore to be explained by the private spirit of each one, but by the common and public spirit of the Church and the Holy Ghost assisting it. Hence the holy Fathers received the spirit from God and the Church, who interpreted Holy Scripture to the whole Church: "It is therefore the Church's to judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of Holy Scripture," as the Council of Trent says, session IV. By Church understand the Rulers of the Church, namely Bishops, and especially the Supreme Pontiff.
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21. For prophecy was not brought by human will, — that is to say, Not by the knowledge of men, not according to the will and pleasure of men, but of God, was prophecy brought. "Prophecy" properly is an act and knowledge of the intellect; yet here St. Peter names not the intellect, but the human will, because it is clear that the intellect of man does not extend itself to future contingencies to be foreseen and foretold by its own acuteness; but the will and presumption of proud man can extend itself to this, namely of a false prophet, so that he wishes to predict what he knows not and is ignorant of: but true prophecy and true Prophets, just as they used not their own intellect, so neither their own will, but God's, foresaw and declared future things: thus Cajetan. This is what Isaiah says, chapter xli, verse 23: "Announce to us the things that are to come, and we shall know that you are gods." For, as Tertullian says, Apology xx: "The testimony of divinity is the truth of divination;" for God alone by His omniscience foreknows future contingencies. Secondly, "will" can be taken for work, that is to say, "For prophecy was not brought by will," that is, by human work: for will is the cause of work, and moves the intellect to understanding, and the other powers and members to working, and therefore it comprehends them under itself, and signifies them. It is a metonymy. Thus in John 1, 13, it is said: "Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man (that is, of carnal and virile work and generation), but of God." Hence it is commonly said: "Will is reckoned for work and deed." But inspired by the Holy Spirit, — φερόμενοι, that is, moved; Pagninus and the Zurich Bible, impelled; Vatablus, rapt and agitated. Thus Plato in the Meno calls Prophets "diviners, inspired by divine things and possessed by God." "For the mind of the Prophet is moved by the force of heavenly divinity," says St. Gregory, II Dialogues, chapter iii; but so that he is master of himself, not however as if he were mad and insane like the Bacchae of the Gentiles, who as if drunk and agitated by frenzy, and possessed, knew not what they said or did: such also were the Prophets and Prophetesses of the Priscillianists and Montanists. The holy men of God spoke, — namely the Prophets and other Writers of Holy Scripture. For although some of those things which they write, they knew naturally, namely because they had seen or heard them, as when they write histories of their own time, as the Author of Maccabees does, book II, chapter ii, verses 24 and 27, yet in those very things they were incited by the Holy Spirit to write them, and in that manner and way which the Holy Spirit wished, who therefore assisted them so that they erred not even in a point; for, as St. Augustine says, epistle 8 to St. Jerome: "Faith will waver, if the authority of divine Scriptures wavers." Whence the Psalmist, Psalm xliv, 2: "My tongue," he says, "is the pen of the scribe (of the Holy Spirit) writing swiftly." Hence also the Prophets prefix this commendation to their oracles: "The word of the Lord which Isaiah, Amos, etc. saw or heard. The mouth of the Lord has spoken," etc. "The Holy Spirit therefore was the scribe, the Prophets were His pens by which the Holy Spirit dictated what was to be written," says St. Cyprian, sermon On Almsgiving, and St. Augustine, XVIII On the City of God, xxxviii, and St. Gregory, Preface to the Morals 1. Wherefore "Holy Scripture is a Letter of God sent from heaven to men," said St. Anthony, as testified by St. Athanasius and St. Augustine, concord 2 in Psalm xc, and St. Chrysostom, homily 3 in II Thessalonians, and therefore nothing in it is idle, but all things even the smallest are full of sense, mystery and spirit, as testified by St. Basil, homily 6 Hexaemeron, and St. Jerome, in chapter v of Matthew. See Bellarmine, book III On the Word of God. Holy Men of God. — Although prophecy is a grace freely given, not making one pleasing to God, and therefore is sometimes given to the wicked, as Christ testifies, Matthew vii, 22, as it was given to Balaam, Numbers xxiv, 17, and to Caiaphas, John xi, 51, nevertheless the Prophets and hagiographic Writers were for the most part all holy, except Solomon, concerning whom many doubt. For they themselves were familiars, interpreters, legates, messengers, angels of God, as is evident from Haggai i, 13, and 1 Kings ii, 27, 3 Kings xii, 22, and elsewhere; whence Philo, in the book On Giants, near the end: "Men of God," he says, "are priests and Prophets, whose dignity is so great that they do not mingle themselves in human affairs and are not citizens of the world; but they have migrated to a higher realm, transcending all sensible things, into the intelligible world, there having obtained a dwelling, enrolled in the commonwealth of incorporeal and incorruptible ideas;" and St. Augustine, tract. 1 in John, explaining that passage of Psalm lxxi, "Let the mountains receive peace for the people, and the hills justice": "Mountains," he says, "are great saints, hills are common people, justice is faith. For smaller souls would not receive faith unless greater souls, which are called mountains, were illuminated by wisdom itself, so that they could convey to the little ones what the little ones could grasp." Morally: Hence let Doctors and Interpreters and students of Holy Scripture learn, first, that they should not interpret it by their own ingenuity and sense, but from the mind of the Church and the Fathers, as the Council of Trent decrees, session IV. Wherefore let them avoid the commentaries of the Rabbis, as human, unlearned, fabulous, contrary to Christ, inasmuch as they for the most part distort the oracles concerning Christ to David or Solomon. Second, that they should join to their study the purity of life, holiness, and prayers, by which they may obtain light from God to understand and explain them. Thus did St. Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Thomas Aquinas, who in the more difficult passages was accustomed to add fasting to prayer, and openly used to say that his knowledge was obtained more by the illumination of God than by labor and study. Indeed, the royal Psalmist says: "Reveal my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of thy law," Psalm cxviii, 18. Excellently St. Athanasius, in the book On the Incarnation of the Word, near the end: "For the investigation of Scripture," he says, "and true understanding, there is need of a good life, a pure mind, and virtue which is according to Christ, so that the mind running in his path may be able to attain what it seeks, insofar as it is permitted to human nature to understand divine things: for without a pure mind and the imitation of the Saints, no one comprehends the words of the Saints." And St. Bernard to the Brethren of Mount God: "By what spirit," he says, "the Scriptures were made, by that spirit they desire to be read, and by that same spirit they are to be understood." And Procopius of Gaza, Preface to Genesis: "If any," he says, "passage presents itself more obscure than your mental powers can grasp, either the Fathers must be consulted by you, or God must be wearied with prayers for knowledge." Abbot Theodore in Cassian, Collation V, chapter xxxiv, teaches that the understanding of the Scriptures is to be sought not so much by turning over the Commentaries of Interpreters as by cleansing the heart through the purification of carnal vices: "When these are expelled," he says, "immediately the eyes of the heart, the veil of passions being removed, begin to contemplate the mysteries of the Scriptures as it were naturally." See the same, Collation XIV, chapters x and xi.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
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1. Simon Petrus. Petrum Apostolum antea vocatum fuisse Simonem, Evangelistae testantur. Quod nomen, ei a parentibus inditum, permansit usque ad extremum vitae diem. Non enim sic impositum ei fuit a Christo Domino nomen Cephae, id est Petri, Matth. 16., nt priori nomine vocari desineret; sed ex eo tempore binomius esse coepit, ut ex Evangeliis et Actis Apostolicis constat. Quomodo nec Jacob Patriarcha, postquam ei dictum est: Israel appellabitur nomen tuum, Gen. 32., prius nomen amisit; sed utroque deinceps appellatus fuit. Simon, Graece: Su^swv, quemadmodum ot legitur hoc nomen Act. 15.: Symeon narravit etc; tametsi quidam Graeci codices hoc loco habent •- 2]i|jl(jdv. Sed priori lectioni consonant veteres concordantiae. Quod quidem nomen Hebraice alibi; pro quo LXX. reddiderunt trissyllabum: Simeon, e litera melioris faciliorisque soni causa interposita. At in Evangeliis passim dicitur: Simon, voce ad usum Graecae consuetudinis aptata. Nam Simones fuere complares apud Graecos. Quod autem opinatur Oecumenius, Simonem diminutive dici a Simeone, minus placet. De vocabulo Petri vide, quae diximus ad initium prioris Epistolae.
Servus et Apostolus Jesu Christi. Servum Christi se vocat, propter ministerium Evangelii docendi et propagandi, in quo serviebat Christo Domino. Id specialius explicat, addito nomine Apostoli, quasi dicat: Non qualiscumque servus Christi, sed Apostolus. Qui gradus inter Evangelii ministros summus erat, sicut et ipsum nomen praecipuae dignitatis. Nam sui primatus mentijDnem huc ut inferret, haud opportunum erat. lis, qui coaequalem nobiscum sortiti sunt fidem. Jis^supple: scribit. Coaequalem, Graece: laoxtpiov, id est aeque pretiosam. Non quod fides omnium Christianorum aeque magna atque perfecta sit, ac paris meriti; nam in Evangelio alii dicitur: Magna est fides tua; alii, quod modicae fidei sint, increpantur; et discipuli Dominum rogant: Adauge nobis fidem, Luc. 17. Sed aeque pretiosam dicit objecti ratione, quod eadem promissa, ac eadem mysteria per fidem omnibus sint proposita. Quo sensu scriptum est: Una fides, Eph. 4. Sic Act. 11. idem Petrus: Ecindem gratiam (Graece: Xor^v Swpeav, aequale donum) dedit illis Deas, sicut et nobis. Sortiti sunt^ Graece: Aax&Dai, gui adepti sunt, quibus contigit habere fidem etc. Adepti sunt, legit Prosper lib. 2. de vocat. gent. cap. 23., ac nihilominus ex hoc loco probat, fidem esse donumDei; tauKjuamscriptura esset: sortiti sunt. Quamvis enim Graecum hujus loci verbum non dicatur a sorte, tamen indicat, aliquid casu ac sine debito cuipiam obveniens, sicut ea, quae obveniunt sorte. Et alias hoc verbum cum sorte conjungitur, ut Act. 1., ubi nos legimus: Et soriitus est sortem ministerii hujus. Unde etiam aiii interpretes hoc loco verterunt: sortiti sunt. Constat autem, gratuita Dei beneficia sortis nomine significari in Scriptura, ut Eph. Quaeritur, quos designet Petrus, dicens: iis, qui coaequalem nobiscum etc. Quidam gentiles significari volunt, tamquam assumptos ad eandem fidem et spem salutis cum Judaeis. De qua re Paulus multa ad Eph. 2. Alii Petrum alloqui putant his verbis omnes fideles in genere. Omnes enim eandem cum Apostolis fidem sortiti sunt. Sed cum satis appareat ex iis, quae praefando diximus, Epistolam hanc, sicut et priorem, specialiter ad Judaeos scriptam esse: restringenda erit.ad Judaeos haec inscriptio 5 praesertim cum non dicat: onmihus. sed indefinite: iis, qui coaequalem etc., ut sensus sit: Fratribus Judaeis in dispersione positis (de qua in priori Epistola), qui nobis Apostolis ac primis fidelibus Judaeae incolis fide et vocatione pares sunt. Nam si nihil discrevit Deus inter Judaeos et gentiles, quod ad beneficia salutis attinet, Petro teste Act. 15., minus certe discrevit inter ipsos Judaeos hoc nomine, quod alii terram patrum suorum incolerent, alii per gentes essent dispersi.
In justitia Dei nostri et Salvatoris Jesu Christi. In justitia, plerique exponunt: per justitiam; quemadmodum ct legit Prosper, et alii interpretes vertunt. Juxta quam interpretationem dari potest hic sensus, fidem electis contigisse per justitiam, id est merita Jesu Christi, qui idem et Deus noster est, et Salvator. Quod enim hunc commentarium nonnuUi rejiciunt, ea ratione, quod fides non sit ex rncrito Christi, sed ex praedestinatione, ut ajunt: in eo sane nullo modo sunt audiendi. Nam fidem esse donum Dei per Christum, quemadmodum et caetera sahitis nostrae beneficia, ex Scripturis clarum est, adeo i't sine magno errore negari non possit, uti ostendimus ex professo in 3. Sent. dist. 23. Et quid (obsecro) boni nobis est ex prnedestinatione, quod non sit ex merito Christi? cura dicat Paulus Eph. 1.: Benedictus Deus, qui benedixit nos in omni benedictione spirituali in coelestibus in Christo, sicut elegit nos in ipso etc. Sensus tamen ille non admodum congruere videtur, quia pars illa: Dei nostri, melius ad Deum Patrem refertur, ex more sermonis Apostolici; quemadmodum et in versu sequenti. Patris autem non sunt merita, sed Filii incarnati. Sunt alii, qui ^qx justitiam intelligant misericordiam, quae expositio diflicultatem non haberet, si justitiae nomine misericordiaaliquando significaretur inScripturis. Igitur alii phrasim hanc: in justitia, putant idem valere, quod: cum justitia; sic enim aliquando beth Hebraicum usurpari. Ita sensus erit percommodus, fidem dari cum justitia, id est comitante justitia (quia perfidem justificamur), quae justitia Dei est, tamquam auctoris, et Jesu Christi, tamquam nobis eam promerentis, propter quod et Salvator noster dicitur. Qui sensus est consentaneus Evangelicae et Apostolicae scripturae, quae docet, nos ex fide justificari, nimirum tamquam nos ad justitiam disponente eamque nobis impetrante; quaeque justitiam Dei vocat eam, quae nobis ex Deo est, et Dei judicio probatur, utRom. 1. et alibi.
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2. Gratia vobis et pax adimpleatur. Salutis imprecatio est, de qua vide, quae in priori Epistola dicta sunt, nec non in Epistolis Paulinis. Est enim haec salutandi formula Apostolis familiariri. Adimpleatur, Graece: TiXrj^uv^ciT], multiplicetur, quomodo vertit interpres in priori. Quare quod Beda distinguit haec duo utriusque Epistolae: multiplicetur et adimpleatur, quia nimirum, inquit, illam incipientibus, hanc perfectioribus scripsit Epistolam etc, ex eo facit, quod originalem scripturam non consuluit, vir alioqui rerum divinarum peritissimus.
In cognitione Dei, et Christi Jesu Domini nostri. Multi codices, tam Latini, quam Graeci, non addunt: Christi. Quod ait: In cognitione, fere similiter, ut illud: in justitia, potest bifariam exponi. Uno modo: per cognitionem sive, quod mavult Erasmus, agnitionem, hoc sensu: Gratia et pax vobis multiplicetur per lidera, qua agnovistis Deum Patrem, et quem ille misit Jesum redemptorem ac Dominum nostrum. Nam, Augustino teste, fides prima datur, ut per eam caetera impetrentur; caetera, inquam, Dei beneficia, quae nomine gratiae et pacis comprehenduntur. Aliter: in cognitione, hoc est, una cum cognitione, ut, crescente in dies cognitione, id est fide vestra, ^imul cum ea crescant et multiplicentur in vobis caetera Dei dona. Prior sensus plenior est, quia praeter concomitantiam etiam causalitatis ordinem declarat.
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3. Quomodo omnia nobis divinae virtutis suae, quae ad vitam et pietatem donata sunt. In Graeco non est: donata sunt, sed participium praeteriti temporis: 6£(5a)p7j|X£V7]g, construendum cum genitivo: Suvajiscog, virtutis. Erasmus ita vertit: Ut ejus divina virtus omnia nobis largita est, quae ad vitam ac pietatem pertinent. Verum pressius ex Graeco Hentenius ad hunc modum: Sicut omnia nobis divina ipsius virtute, quae ad vitam ac pietatem faciunt, largiente. Beda quoque duplicis lectionis meminit: donata sunt, et: donata est; et hoc posterius ad virtutem refert. Quae versio Graecum participium accipit passive, cum frequentius usurpetur active. Eadem lectio visitur in aliis codicibus manuscriptis non paucis. Caeterum noster interpres, si vertit: donata sunt, verisimiliter in Graeco legit verbum SsScopTjTat, quod idem paulo post a Petro repetitur. Et illic ab interprete vertitur active: donavit, quomodo et hic vertere poterat. Nam et Prosper ita legit in Epist. ad Demetriadem, et contra Collatorem, cap. 29. Estque haec lectio facilior et clarior, ac sensum reddit magis absolutum; scilicet Deum omnia divinae virtutis suae, quae ad vitam et pietatem, nobis donasse. Laborant autem commentatores in connexione hujus partis cum praecedente, si tamen illi debeat annecti. Quod multis persuasum est, sed mihi non est probabile. Nam moris Apostolici est, salutationem, quae incipit ab illis verbis: Gratia vobis et pax, paucis verbis includere, moxque post eam a novo principio Epistolam ordiri; ut videre est in omnibus Epistolis Pauli, quae salutationem habent; idemque in Epistola Judae, et ipsius Petri priore. Sic igitur et in hac Epistola Petrus salutationem absolvit superiore versu; hic autem versus initium est Epistolae. Jam nec illis assentior, qui particulam: tog, quomodo, volunt esse vel admirantis, vel exclamantis; tamquam hoc sermonis schemate prorumpat Apostolus in commendationom beneficiorum Dei. Quod satis inusitatum est in Epistolarum exordiis. Quare magis placet, ut sit nota similitudinis, quae vulgaris est ejus acceptio. Sic autem et Paulus orditur Epistolam priorem ad Timotheum: Sicut rogavi te, ut remaneres JEphesi. Ubi quidem est yiaboiQ, non is)Q, ut hoc loco^ sed haec idem valent. Pendet autem hujus partis sententia, usque ad initium quinti versus: Vos autem curam omnem etc. Quae est redditio hujus particulae: quomodo, sicut ibi declarabitur. Exordium hoc Epistolae ducitur a magnitudine beneficiorum Dei, quae fidelibus exhibuitf quorum commemoratione vult Apostolus eos excitari ad studium bdnorum operum. Omnia divinae virtutis f intellige: effecta seu beneficia. Sed haec restringit, addendo: quae ad vitatn et yietatem, subaudi: pertinent. Nam de iis tantum beneficiis hic sermo est, quae per Christum habemus, id est de pertinentibus ad salutem vitae aeternae; ut loquuntur Arausicani concilii 2. Patres can. 7. Quocirca nec vitam temporalem hic intelligimus, ut nonnulli; sed aeternam, ad quam perducit pietas; aut certe spiritualem vitam, quae in Dei cognitione et cultu consistit; ut explicandi causa additum sit vocabulum pietatis. Utitur hac S. Petri sententia B. Prosper locis Bupra citatis, ut doceat, omnia, quae pietatis sunt, etiam ipsa virtutum semina, esse Dei dona.
Per cognitionem Ejus, qui vocavit nos propria gloria et virtute. In Graeco non additur: propria. Sic autem habet: Aia 56|Yjq xat apex^g, per gloriam et virtutem. Pro quo videtur interpres legisse: t§ia ^o^r^i xal h^ozy^, propria gloria et virtute. Prosper legit: propria gloriae virtute. Sensus est, Deum Patrem nobis omnia, quae ad salutem pertinent, donasse, per agnitionem Filii sui, id est per fidem, qua in eum credimus, qui vocavit nos (utique efficaci vocatione) per gloriosam suam virtutem, id est bonitatem, benignitatem, misericordiam, et, ut Paulus appellat Tit. 3., cpiAav^pwTiiav, humani generis amorem. Non enim hoc loco est 5uva|xtQ, virtus, potentia, ut in parte praecedente, sed apSTY], virtus vitio opposita. Quam nominavit etiam in priori Epist. cap. 2. vers. 9. Quod notandum pro conformitate hujus Epistolae cum illa; siquidem vocabulum apsxTj alibi in Scripturis rarissime occurrit.
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4. Per quem maxima et pretiosa nobis promissa donavit. Graece: Per quae pretiosa nobis et maxima promissa (seu promissiones) donavit. Notanda tamen Latinorum codicum varietas in relativo; nam alii legunt: per quem; alii: per quam, Bedaconsentiente; alii: perquae, ut est in Graecis; nisi quod pro 5i' oiv, per quae, Robertus Stephanus unum annotavit codicem, in quo scriptum fuerit: di ov, propter quem. Et quidem omnes hae lectiones probabilem recipiunt commentarium. Per quem Christum; per quam gloriam et virtutem; vel, ut Beda, per quam cognitionem Christi; per quae, rursus gloriam et virtutem; propter quem Christum. Sed harum lectionum prima, quae plurium est codicum et editionis Romanae, sensum praebet maxime Evangelicum, et ubique obvium: nempe Deum Patrem per ChristumFilium suum, qui nos bonitate sua vocavit ad salutem, donasse nobis pretiosa, maximaque beneficia, quae per Prophetas olim se daturum promiserat. Ea sunt fides, poenitentia, justitia, peccatorum remissio, filiorum adoptio, regnum coelorum, vita aeterna. Consonat huic loco Paulus Rom. 8., de Deo Patre loquens: Qui etiam proprio Filio non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum, quomodo non etiam cum illo omnia nobis donavit? Porro sciendum, pro: donavit, Erasmum, Hentenium et alios ex Graeco vertisse: donata sunt. Utroque enim modo verti posse verbum: SeScbprjTai, supra diximus; tametsi series sermonis exigere potius videtur, ut active sumatur, referendo ad Deum Patrem, quam ut passive, sine relatione ad personam. XJb per haec efficiamini divinae consortes naturae. Mira commendatio beneficiorum Dei, quae per Christum nobis donavit; ut merito B. Petrus ea vocaverit pretiosa et maxima. Nihil enim pretiosius aut majus conferri nobis potuit, quam per quod divinae naturae consortes efficeremur, et quodammodo in Deos transformaremur. Id autem praestant nobis beneficiaDei perChristum; illud maxime, quod sumus filii Dei, per gratiam quidem, sed tamen quae deiformes nos efficiat. Unde Dionysius lib. de Eccl. hier. cap. 1.: Salus non aliter exsistere potest, inquit, nisi ii, qui salutem consequuntur, Dii fiant, Deificatio autem est Dei, quoad ejus fieri potest, imitatio, et cum eo commistio j atque y ut ita dicam, unitio. Sic ille. Cum cujus verbis est conferenda Oratic Ecclesiae Secreta Domin. 17. post Pentecost. Caeterum multo perfectius haec nostra divinae naturae conformitas obtinebitnr in futuro, quando Deum videbim^us, sicuti est. Perperam ex hac Scriptura, qua dicimur effici divinae consortes naturae, Coelestius docuit consequens esse, ut ita possit anima esse sine peccato, quemadmodum Deus. Quod inter ejus dogmata refert Augustinus lib. de gestis Pelagii, cap. ult. Non enim divinae naturae nobis proprietas datur aut promittitur, sed similitudo, consortium, societas, Graece: xotvcovia^ 1 Cor. 1., 1 Joan. 1. et alibi. Haec autem societas et similitudo mutabilitatem naturae creatae non adimit. Recte vero Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus in catech. mystag. 4. hanc eandem Scripturam accommodat ad venerabile Sacramentum Eucharistiae, dicens, nos effici consortes naturae divinae, quando corpus et sanguinem Christi, qui Deus et homo est, intra membra nostra recipimus, eoque alimur ac vegetamur.
Fugientes ejus, quae in mundo est, concupiscentiae corruptionem. Graeca sic habent: Effugientes (seu potius: si effugeritis, aut: ubi effugeritis) eam, quae in mundo est, in concupiscentia corruptionem, In concupiscentia, vertunt alii: per concupiscentiam. Sentit Apostolus, eos demum effici divinae naturae consortes, qui sese abstraxerint a corruptione cainalium cupiditatum, quae passim in mundo, id est inter homines dominatur. Cum enim divina natura purissima sit ab omni inquinamento, ad ejus consortium (quae maxima dignitas ruptioni carnis inhaereat. Corruptionem vocat turpitudinem, qua per illicitas ac foedas libidines dehonestatur humana natura. Sic infra cap. 2.: Cum ipsi sint servi corruptionis, quam statim interpretatur: coinquinationes mundi, et paulo post comparat volutabro luti. Ex quo intelligitur, Apostolum hac parte viam aperire ad doctrinam plenius eo loco tradendam adversus scholam Simonis. Dicit autem: fugientes, quia victoria, qua superantur corruptiones carnis, potissimum in fuga sita est. Unde et Paulus 1 Cor. 6.: Fugite fornicationem, Alii corruptionem, de qua hic Petrus loquitur, extendunt ad universum genus pravae concupiscentiae. Sed quod prius dixi, magis arbitror esse consentaneum intentioni scriptoris et argumento Epistolae.
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5. Vos autem curam omnem subin^ ferentes, Graeca plus habent: Et hoc ipsum autem sollicitudinem omnem subinferentes, Quod explicate sic reddas: Et vero ad hoc ipsum omni studio adhibito. Videtur autem hic supplendum OLVZOLTZodoxov illius vocis: OiQ, quomodo, quae fuit vers. 3. Nam huc usque sententia pendet; ut sensus et connexio sit ista: Quomodo Deus in vos maxima contulit beneficia, adeo ut evexerit ad consortium quoddam suae naturae: ita vicissim et vos ad hoc ipsum, nempe ut accepta Dei dona per ejus gratiam in vobis permaneant, multiplicentur et crescant, omni cura adhibita facere debetis, quae sequuntur. Locus pro cooperatione liberi arbitrii cum gratia Dei; quae tamen ipsa cooperatio tota sit attribuenda Dei auxilio operantis in nobis et velle, et perficere, Phil. 2. Observa, hunc versum cum sequentibus continere propositionem generalem hujus Epistolae; praesertim si addas, quod proxime praecessit de fugienda corruptione concupiscentiae mundanae. Nam id agit Petrus in hac Epistola, ut fideles, facti participes donorum Dei, in iisdem studio bonorum operum quotidie crescant, et falsos doctores, corruptionis servos, sedulo devitent.
Ministrate in fide vestra virtutem. Ministrate, Graece: STUtxopTjyVjoaTS, id est subministrate, suppeditate, Qua voce rursus cooperatio nostrae voluntatis cum Deo significatur. Totus hic sermo B. Petri usque ad versum octavum climaticus est, sive scalaris, constans septem gradibus, quibus per octo virtutes jucundissime progreditur. Quamvis alii non proprie gradationem esse volunt, sed virtutum quandam congeriem, quas velut in sertum pulcherrimum Petrus concinnaverit, ut de ratione orJinis per singulas non sit valde la])orandum; quemadmodum nec in eo loco Pauli Gal. 5., ubi primum opera carnis, deinde fructus spiritus enumerat; licet subtiles quorundam speculationes, rationem ordinis assignantium per singula, non contemnamus. Praepositionem in non eodem modo omnes interpretantur. Si consueto Hebraismo sit idem, quod: per, non parum difficultalis adfert ea acceptio. Non enim facile explicatur, quomodo in tota hac serie virtutam posterior subministranda sit per priorem, tamquam in piore causalitas quaedam sit respectu posterioris. Nec illi recte, qui per dativos singula membra exponunt: in fide, id est fidei ministrate virtutem, et sic deinceps. Nam praeterquam quod obscuritatem habet sic sensus, ejusmodi Hebraismum auctores illi non probant exemplis. Quapropter iis accedere malumus, qui voculam i7i, Hebraeorum more, pro Beth adhaesionis accipiunt, et per cum exponunt. Cujus acceptionis exemplum est Psalm. 2.: Servite Domino in timore, et exultate ei in tremore. Sic enim habent Hebraea et Graeca; quod exponitur: cum timore, et cum tremore, sicut exponit Paulus Phil. 2. Item Genes. 32.: In baculo meo transivi Jordanem latum, id est cum baculomeo, quasidicat: Solus sine comite, ut bene Chaldaeus interpretatur. Similiter Osee 4.: Lugebit terra, et infirmabitur omnis, qui habitat m ea, in bestia agri et in volucre coeli, id est cum bestia agri etc. Igitur mini' strare in fide virtutem, est, simul cum fide subministrare virtutem, hoc est, fidei conjungere virtutum opera, ne fides sit inanis, informis et mortua. Nam hic rursum in Graeco est apBiri, non 56va,aig. Hic sensus etiam apud Bedam legitur, eumque fere amplectuntur recentiores. Fidem primo loco nominat Petrus, quod ea reliquarum virtutum Christianarum sit fundamentum ac basis.
In virtute autem scientiam. Hoc est, virtutam studio conjungite scientiam, vel eam, quae est mysteriorum fidei, ut haec non tantum nude credatis, velum etiam aliquatenus intelligentia assequamini; quae est Oecumenii expositio; vel secundum alios, eam scientiam, quae opera virtutum dirigat et ratione moderetur, ne quid in illis sit plus aut minus; nt hac parte virtus prudentiae significata sit. Quod magis probo. Nam simili sensu Paulus Rom. 10. scribit de Judaeis, quod zelum, id est aemulationem et sfudium Dei habent, sed non secundum scientiam.
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6. In scientia autem abstinentiam. Graece: xrjv eyxpaTStav, quam alii interpretantur temperantiam. Significatur autem ea virtus, quae in frenandis ac reprimendis voluptatibus versatur. Haec enim si non adsit, obnubilatur ratio, quam in dirigendis actionibus prudentia consulere debet. NonnuIIi suspicantur, hac parte notari Simonianos et alios inde ortos, turpia quaedam exercentes, cum interim scientiam profiterentur. Qua de re vide, quae dicta sunt ad illa verba Apostoli Pauli: Oppositiones falsi no~ minis scientiae, 1 Tim. 6. in fine.
In abstinentia autem patientiam. Id est: Abstinentiae patientiam adjungite. Sunt enim quidam voluptatum abstinentes, iidem tamen externarum perturbationum, afflictionum etinjuriarum impatientissimi. Quos taagit haecPetri admonitio. Laudatur illud philosophicumpraeceptum, quod memorat Gellius lib. 17. cap. 19.: Sustine et abstine.
In patientia autem pietatem. Graece: suaepsiav. Qua voce pietas in Deum significatur. Itaque monet Apostolus, patientiae conjungendum studium pietatis. Nam sine Dei et promissionum ejus respectu non est vera patientia, quae Graecis!i::&,uov7j dicitur, id est adversarum rerum sustinentia, cum exspectatione secuturae liberationis ac felicitatis.
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7. In pietate autem amorem frater" nitatis. Graece: ttjv cptXaSeXcprav, id est amorem fraternum. Hunc praecipit adjungendum pietati, quia sine illo cultus Dei qualiscumque non erit pietas, sed pietatis species. Nam si quis dixerit: Quoniam diligo Deum; et fratrem suum oderit, mendax est, 1 Joan. 4.
In amore autem fraternitatis caritatem. Fraternitatis, rectius: fraterno; sicut in membro praecedenti. Vult Apostolus, fratres diligi, non carnali aut saeculari amore, sed spirituali; scilicet propter Deum super omnia dilectum. Quem amorem Scriptura passim ayaTiTjv vocat, et interpretes caritatem; quam et Paulus 1 Cor. 13., et Joannes paene tota sua 1. Epistola, mirifice commendant et laudant. Concludit hanc virtutum coronam B. Petrus in caritate, quod ea sit omnium virtutum forma, perfectio et complementum.
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8. Haec enim si vobiscum adsint et superent. Ab hoc loco usque ad versum 12. ostendit utilitatem virtutum ac bonorum operum. Multi codices sic habent: Haec enim vobiscum adsint et superent, quomodo verisimile est interpretem vertisse; sed quia scribentium vitio ex duabus vocibus una facta est: vobiscum, sicque oratio manca reddita, alii suppleveruat, addita particula: si. Quamquam in Graeco participia sunt: uuapxovTa ts TcXsovaCovTa, quae utroque modo resolvi possunt, id est per si et cum. Porro superent dixit interpres pro: exuberent; nisi et hoc ab interprete datum fuit, et ab imperito vel oscitante ecriba mutatum in: superent.
Non vacuos, nec sine fructu vos constituent in Domini nostri Jesu Christi cognitione. Vacuos, Graece: ap^oliq,, otiosos, ab opere vacantes. Sine fructu, Graece: axapTioug, infructuosos. Pro quo quidam codices: aTipaxTOog, quod Erasmus vertit: in irritum laborantes. Malim: inutiles, nihil operis agentes. Est enim paene synonymum cum eo, quoddixit: apyouc. Constituent, Grsiece: xa^taTYjaiv, constituunt, temporis praesentis. Quod respondet illi Latinae lectioni: Haec enim vobis cum adsint.
enil. Eatii Comm. Tom. m. Nec Graece est: in cognitione, sed: sic TTjv eTctYvcoatv, in cognitionem. Licet sig pro iv ab Apostolis usurpetur interdum. Dicamus sensum hujus versus: Quod si haec enumerata, videlicet virtus, scientia, abstinentia etc., adsint vobis; aut dum adsunt et exuberant, id est dum iis non solum instructi estis, verum etiam aucti usque ad exuberantiam: nequaquam otiosos, infructuosos aut inutiles vos constituent, aut constituunt, reddunt, efficiunt, in fide Christi; sed (quod e contrario intellige) operosos, fructosos et utiles. Ac si dicat: Harum virtutum diligenti exercitio fiet, ut fides vestra coram Deo non sit inanis et mortua.
Cognitionem, Graece: eTttyvwaiv, pro fide jam tertio posuit; quemadmodum rursus in fine Epistolae his verbis: Crescite in gratia et cognitione Domini nostri etc. Discrimen tamen est, quod fides obscuritatem importat, ideoque post hanc vitam evacuanda est; cognitio autem, quae nihil includit imperfectionis, perficienda, dicente Paulo: Nunc cognosco ex parte; tunc autem cognoscam sicut et cognitus sum. Hic nota contra sectarios, fidem sine operibus esse posse, sed non prodesse. Quod quidem Petrus studiose agit in hac Epistola propter illos, qui ex Epistolis Pauli male intellectis opera negligebant, sola fide contenti. De quibus infra cap. 3. Sed et hoc nota, a fidelibus praestari posse bonorum operum abundantiam; tantum abesse, ut omne opus hominis sit peccatum.
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9. Cui enim non praesto sunt haec, caecus est et manu tentans. Probatio est a contrario. Manu tentans, Graece: piu(OuaCo)V. Quae vox deducta est a |jiueiv, nictare, connivere, et ujtj^, id est oculus. Dicuntur enim /JiuwTceg, qui non vident, nisi quae oculis prope admoventur. Quod vitium multis naturale est, nonnullis aliunde contractum. Hinc quidam vertunt: Nihil eminus cernens, Secundum quos sensus hic reddi potest: Cui memoratae virtutes non adsunt, is mente caecus est, non sic quidem, ut nihil videat; sed ita, ut tantum proximis, id est rebus hujue mundi, quas diligit, sese applicet, ad coelestia, tamquam procul posita, aciem oculorum mentis intendere non valens. Alii Graecam dictionem derivant a muribus sub terra degentibus, id est talpis, quae extra cavernas nihil vident, sed, quidquid obvium est, sequi solent, donec cavum nanciscantur. Atque hoc attendisse putant interpretem, dum vertit: manu tentans, quod facere solent caeci, non manibus tantum, sed et pedibus palpitando viam quaerentes. Ita sensus est: Cui haec non adsunt, is tamquam caecus in tenebris errat, manu palpans ac viam quaerens; nescit enim, quo iter suum dirigat. Nescit, inquam, practice, quia fidem suam operando non exercet. Ideoque necesse est, eum passim impingere. Huc adducitur locusDeuter. 28.^ ad quem putant Petrum allusisse; ubi iuter maledictiones legis haec ponitur: Percutiat te Dominus amentia et caecitate ac furore mentis; et palpes in meridie, sicut palpare solet caecus in tenebris, et non dirigas vias tuas. Verum eo loco diversae sunt dictiones in Graeco, quibus ista palpatio significetur.
Oblivionem accipiens purgationis veterum suorum delictorum. Hoc est: Oblitus, sese a veteribus suis peccatis fuisse purgatumj ut vertit Erasmus, sen- Bum potius, quam verba reddens. Pur~ gationem intelligit Apostolus, quae fit in baptismo; et vetera peccata vocat, quae commissa fuerunt ante baptismum. Dicit autem, oblitum esse purgationis peccatorum, quia, cum ad hoc a peccatis purgemur in baptismo, ut deinceps in sanctitate et justitia vitam agamus, hoc qui non praestat, ingratitudinis arguitur, tamquam oblitus beneficii prioris. Arguitur etiam ignorantiae, quasi oblitus, quor- Bum factus sit Christianus. Addit igitur hanc partem B. Petrus, ad exaggerandum eorum socordiam, simul et ingratitudinem, qui, cum Christi beneficio purgati fuerint a peccatis, non student bonis operibufi acceptam vitae novitatem conservare, sed ad priora relabuntur. Adversus quos plura sub fin. cap. sequentis.
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10. Quapropter, fratres, magis satagite, ut per bona opera certam vestram vocationem et electionem faciatis. Illatio est exhortatoria, qua indicatur nova ratio, cur incumbere debeant bonis operibus. sumpta nimirum a certitudine vocationis et electionis. Ut particula non denotat causam finalem, sed determinat, quid satagendum. Sic enim in Graeco est: Idcirco magis, fratres, studete (sive ope~ ram date), firmam vestram vocationem et electionem facere. Non ergo dicit, studendum bonis operibus, ut certam aut firmam faciant suam vocationem et electionem; quamquam hoc ex studio bonorum operum sine dubio consequitur; sed hoc ipsum est, quod praecipit, studiose procurare suae vocationis et electionis certitudinem sive firmitatem. Etsi vero Graeci codices non habeant additum illud: Per bona opera, nisi perpauci, quos citat Robertus Stephanus; Latini tamen omnes vulgatae versionis constanter exhibent. Et cum eo addito citat hunc locum Synodus Trident. sess. 6. cap. 11. Nam etsi forte B. Petrus non aJdidit, de quo non contendo; tamen ex toto contextu hujus loci et scopo Apostoli constat, intelligendum esse, ut sensus sit: Itaque, fratres, magis (id est, potius, yq\ magis, id est amplius, diligentius) operam date, ut vocationem vestram, qua per gratiam Dei in tempore vocati estis, et electionem, qua ab aeterno electi et praedestinati estis ad haereditatem regni coelestis, certam firmamque reddatis. Reddatis, inquam, per opera virtutum, quas recensui, et ad quas ego vos nunc ex professo adhortor. Redditur autem certa et firma vocatio et electio cuiusque per bona opera; certa quidem, quia studium bonorum operum signum est electionis certum suo modo, id est in genere signorum bene probabilium; sic enim usurpari frequenter solet certitudo; firma vero, quia constanti bonorum operum studio firmatur ac stabilitur homo Christianus, ne a sua vocatione et electione, id est ab eo, ad quod vocatus et electus est, excidat. Facit enim, quod dicitur Apoc. 3.: Tene, quod habes, ut nemo accipiat coronam tuam. Hoc posterius, quod dixi, propius explicare videtur mentem Apostoli. Nam Graece est: pspatav^ quod firmam proprie significat; quemadmodum et infra vertit interpres, ibi: Et habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem. Deinde, quia huic firmitati lapsus opponitur in parte proxime sequenti. Certitudini autem dubitatio vel incertitudo opponi deberet. Veruntamen sive certitudinem, sive firmitatem hic intelligas, satis jam patet ex sensu, quem dedi, verba B. Petri nihil adjuvare eos, qui fidem ab unoquoquespecialem exigunt suae electionis; qua nimirum certissime statuat, se esse electum; quae non est fides, sed temeraria praesumptio; et doctrina, qua docentur homines, ad fidem istam specialem ipsos teneri, tantum abest, ut fidei sit doctriaa, ut contra sit perdita et perditrix haeresis, a Patribus Concilii Tridentini condemnata. Jam nec illud ex verbis B. Petri consequens est, electionem pendere ab operibus bonis, nisi tantum secundum aliquid; quatenus scilicet aeterna felicitas, ad quam electi sumus, non datur adultis, nisi mandata Dei servantibus; et quatenus ea pendet a bonis operibus, tamquam merces a merito. Quae tamen opera bona sub eadem absohita cadunt electione, dicente Paulo: Elegit nos, ut essemus sancti. Et iterum: Creati in operibus bonis, quae praeparavit Deus, ut in illis ambulemus, Eph. 1. et 2.
Haec enim facientes, non peccabitis aliquando. Non peccabitis, GrfiecQ: ou JA7] TcxatayjTS^ nequaquam labemini. Pro quo verbo Ambrosius lib. 3. de fide, cap. 6., et Idacius conlra Varimadum legunt: errabitis. Noster interpres alibi vertit: offendere, ut Rom. 11.: Numquid sic offenderunt, ut caderent; et Jac. 3.: In multis offendimus omnes. Ex quibus locis satis intelligitur, hoc verbum patere ad majores et minores lapsus. Nam priori loco gravis lapsus significatur, posteriori culpae minores. Unde non praeter usum hujus verbi est, si hic de graviore lapsu exponatur. Nec enim sensus esse potest, eum ne leviter quidem peccaturum aliquando, qui haec fecerit; sive pronomen haec referatur ad bona opera, secundum codices Latinos, sive ad virtutes ante recensitas, secundum Graecos, quibus illud: per bona opera, non legitur, ut dictum est. Igitur sensus est: Si virtutum operibus exercendis sedulo insistatis, non excidetis, non aberrabitis a via veritatis. Vel: Non excidetis ab eo, ad quod vocati estis; quod est certum argumentum electionis. Probat enim, quod dixerat, per bona opera confirmari vocationem et electionem. Sic e diverso dictum est a Paulo, quosdam bonam conscientiam repellentes circa fidem naufragasse, 1 Tim. 1. Hoc enim merentur, qui bona opera negligunt, ut fidei donum amittant.
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11. Sic enim abundanter ministrabitur vobis introitus in aeternum regnum Domini nostri et Salvatoris Jesu Christi. Abundanter, Graece: TzXouQmQ, id est opulenter; et accipitur pro eo, quod est: abunde et splendide. Ministrabitur, dixit interpres pro: subministrabitur, ut supra vers. 5. Est enim idem in Graeco verbum, et ad illum locum hic alhiditur. Nam sensus est: Si vos subministraveritis in fide virtutem et caetera prius enumerata, sicque per ea confirmaveritis electionem vestram, fiet, ut vicissim vobis abunde subministretur introitus in regnum Christi. Quasi dicat: Si divites et abundantes fueritis bonorum operum, divites et abundantes eritis praemiorum, quae vobis in introitum regni coelestis conferentur ab ipso rege et agonotheta Christo, Domino et Salvatore nostro. Huc quadrat illud Pauli 2 Cor. 9.: Qui semi" nat in benedictionibus, de benedictionibus et metet. Significant hujusmodi sententiae proportionem meritorum et praemiorum apud Deum. Observanda sunt haec contra nostri temporis sectarios, qui merita bonorum operum negant. Item contra veterem haereticum Jovinianum, qui virtutum ac praemiorum disparitatem tollebat.
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12. Propter quod incipiam vos semper commonere de his. Indicat Apostolus hac parte, et causam scribendae hujus Epistolae, dicens: propter quod ^ et argumentum, subjungens: de his. Causa est procuratio salutis eorum, ad quos scribit; argumentum, exLortatio ad firmitatem fidei et ad studium bonorum operum. Pro verbo: incipiam, Graece est: oux oiiizXrizoi, non negligam, sicut omnes alii verterunt, Quamquam apud Robertum Stephanum unius codicis lectio sic habet: ou |j,£XAT^oa3, non differam, non procrastinabo. Verisimile admodum est, interpretem nostrum absque negatione legisse:,ucAAT5aa), pro quo verterit: incipiam. Nam Graecum verbum fisAXstv usitatissime significat: futurum esse, quod vulgatus passim reddit incipiendi verbo, ut Joan. 4.: Incipiebat enim mori; Act. 23.: Incipientem interfici; Jac. 2.: Incipientes judicari. Ita sensus B. Petri esset: Propter quod deinceps semper commontho vos etc. Verum quia futurum jieAATJoa) vix est in usu apud Graecos, licet alicubi apud Platonem legatur, certe nusquam in sacris literis: idcirco veriorem arbitror eam lectionem, quam habent omnes aut paene omnes Graeci codices. Nam omnes habent negationem, paene omnes: ajicATjoaj. Quod verbum optime convenit huic loco. Ut, inquit, ampla praemia recipiatis a Deo, non negligam, vos ad exercenda bona opera adhortari, id est, aesidue atque sollicite vos commonefaciam et adhortabor. Est enim in negatione liptote, frequens in Scripturis, qua minus dicitur et plus intelligitur, ut in Psalmo: Cor contritum non despicies.
Et quidem scientes et confirmatos vos in praesenti veritate. Et quidem, Graece: -/aiTTcp, etsi. Addit enim hoc, ut mitiget molestiam admonitionis ad eos, qui videri poterant per se satis instructi et confirmati; ac si dicat: Quamvis satis instructi sitis et virtutum exercitatione confirmati in praesenti veritate, id est, in hoc genere doctrinae, de quo nunc scribo vobis, non tamen omittam de eo vos assidue commonefacere, ita ut, quod praesens verbo non possum, absens nunc agam per Epistolam. Similis est mitigatio in Epistola Judae: Commonere vos volo, scientes semel omnia; et apud Joan. 1. Epist. 2.: Non scripsi vobis, quasi ignorantibus veritatem, sed quasi scientibus eam.
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13. Jusfum autem arbitror, quamdiu sum in hoc tabernaculo, suscitare vos in commonitione. Pars haec rationem continet superioris, quia justum est, ut hoc faciat, id est excitet eos per commonitionem. Justum, inquam, ratione officii debiti, quoniam Apostolus ipsornra et pastor erat. Quantumvis enim subditi sint bene instituti et firmi in doctrina sana, non tamen pastoribus licet praetermittere suum officium illos admonendi, quemadmodum bene hic annotat Cajetanus; quia numquam deest in grege, quod sanetur, foveatur, consolidetur et custodiatur, Ezech. 34. Apposite vero corpus suum mortale, quod gerebat, taberna' culum vocat, quia, tamquam peregrini et alio tendentes, tantum ad tempus in corpore mortali isto moramur, brevi illud relicturi, et accepturi habitationem coelestem, id est domum non manufactam, aeternam, in coelis, 2 Cor. 5. Quo loco similiter corpus hoc corruptibile tabernaculum Paulus vocat. Nam^ inquit, et qui sumus in hoc tabernaculo, ingemiscimus gravati. Caeterum alia ratione carcer vocatur, ut Psalm. 141.: Educ de custodia, id est de carcere, animam, sciHcet propter miseriam hujus mortalitatis et corruptionis, secundum ilhid: Corpus, quod corrumpitur, aggravat animam, Sap. 9.
1:14
14. Certus, quod velox est depositio tahernacuH mei. Haec altera ratio est, priorem confirmans, cur magis etiam necesse habeat eos excitare sua commonitione. Certus, Graece: si^ojc, sciens, Erasmus ita vertit: Cum sciam, brevi futurum, ut deponam hoc tabernaculum meum. Quod et passive potest exponi: Ut deponatur hoc meum tdbernaculum; tametsi recte se habet: ut deponam; non quod potestate depositurus esset Petrus corpus suum, sicut Christus animam suam potestate posuit; ait enim: Potestatem habeo ponendi eam, et po~ testatem habeo iterum sumendi eam, Joan. 10.; sed quia voluntarie mortem obiturus erat pro Christo, quantum ad voluntatem deliberatam attinet; etsi voluntas, ut natura, reclamaret, secundum quod ei dictum fuerat a Domino: Cum senueris, alius te cinget, et ducet, quo non viSj Joan. 21. Porro certum se dicit, ex divina revelatione. Nam sequitur:
Secundum quod et Dominus noster Jesus Christus significavit mihi. Secundum quod, Graece: xa^tog, quemadmodum. Dixerat quidem illi Dominus: Cum senueris etc, ubi subjungit Evangelista, Dominum significasse, qua morte clarificaturus esset Deum; verum non illuc respicit Petrus hoc loco (quamvis illa Scriptura hic ad marginem citetur in plerisque bibliis), sed adnovamrevelationem. Dicit enim, sibi significatum, quod velox, id est, brevi futura sit tabernacali sui depositio. Ex quo etiam constat, Petrum jam senem, ac morti vicinum hanc Epistohim scripsisse-, et quidem verisimiliter post illud tempus, quo, juxta veterem historiam, testibus Hegesippo lib. 3. de excidio Jerosolym. cap. 2. et Ambrosio Epist. 33., audierat a Christo: Vado Romam iterum crucifigi. Quod de se ipso Petrus interpretatus, pro revelatione vicinae mortis per crucem inferendae accepit. Nam quod refert Metaphrastes apud Surium 29. Junii, Petro, cum in Britannia versaretur, ab angelo fuisse dictum: Petre, tempus instat tuae resolutionis, et oportet, te ire Romam; ubi cum mortem per crucem sustinueris, recipies mercedem justitiae, suspectae fidei est, ut et alia nonnulla de Petro ejusdem auctoris. Certe Beda, rerum Britannicarum gnarus, si quis alius, nihil tale meminit, nec in commentario, nec in historia ecclesiastica. Probabilius illud, quod indicare videntur verba Leonis serm. 1. in natali Apostol. Petri et Pauli, quibus ita Petrum affatur: Nec ut dubius de provectu operiSy aut de spatio tuae ignarus aetatis, trophaeum crucis Christi Romanis arcibus inferebas; quo te divinis praeordinationibus anteibant et honor potestatis, et gloria passionis. Quae utique verba significant, Petro revelatum fuisse aetatis suae spatium, priusquam Romam primum veniret, id est, annis circiter octodocim ante mortem. Quo spatio prope finito, potuit dicere, se certum, quod velox esset, id est, immineret depositio sui tabernaculi. Nobis tamen magis probatur, quod prius dixi, et quae fere omnium sententia est, Petrum loqui de revelatione recenter sibi facta. Nam Apostolis frequentes fiebant revelationes.
1:15
15. Dabo autem operam, et frequenter habere vos post obitum meum, ut horum memoriam faciatis. Frequenter, Graece: IxaoTOTS, id est unoquoque tempore, identidem, semper, ut alii vertunt. Erasmus refert hoc adverbium ad verbum praecedens: Dabo operam. Sic enim vertit: Dabo semper operam, id est non desinam, quoad vivam, curare etc. Sed melius refertur ad verbum: habere, vel: memoriam faciatis, vel potius ad utrumque conjunctum, ut ex sensu patebit. Nec enim poterat brevi moriturus dicere: Curabo omni tempore. Habere, positum pro: posse, Graeca consuetudine. Nec in Graeco est: obitum, sed: 'i^odov, exitum, excessum, decessum. Qua in voce servavit metaphoram; meminerat enim tabernaculi; simul insinuat, mortem non aliud esse, quam exitum animae e tabernaculo corporis. Quod idem est cum tabernaculi depositione. Versio clarior esset hoc modo: Caeterum dabo operam, etiam identidem posse vos post meum exitum horum mentionem facere. Hoc est: Quin et curam atque operam adhibebo, ut post meum decessum omni tempore possitis horum, de quibus nunc scribo, memoriam vobis renovare. Id autem fecit, relinquendoillis monumentum suarum Epistolarum, quibus saepe relictis, futurum esset, ut praeceptorum ac monitorum ejus numquam obliviscerentur. Porro quidam Catholici scriptores ex his Petri verbis probari posse putant intercessionem sanctorum pro vivis, facientes hunc sensum: Dabo operam, ut post obitum meum vestri sim memor, Deum videlicet oraturus pro vobis, ut horum, quae scribo, memoriam habeatis. Sic accepit Chrysostomus serm. in Petrum et Paulum, si tamen ejus est totus. Nam sub finem mire variat. Nec citat Petri verba, ut apud ipsum leguntur, sed hoc modo: Studebo post meam dimissionem vestri memoriam facere. Oecumenius etiam hujus meminit interpretationis; sed alteram praefert, ut simpliciorem. Certe non congruebat, ut diceret: Dabo operam, curabo, OTrou^aoto^ cum illud sancti faciant absque cura et sollicitudine. Jam quid attinet, statuere velle doctrinam certissimam argumento incerto, cum alia certissima nequaquam desint? Igitur observanda hic et laudanda sollicitudo B. Petri, qua satagit, ut, etiam se mortuo, recta doctrina maneat apud fideles, et ad posteros transmittatur. Quae eadem et Pauli sollicitudo fuit, ita scribentis ad Timotheum 2 Epist. 2.: Quae a me audisti per multos testes, haec commenda fidelibus hominibus, qui idonei erunt et alios docere, scilicet nobis demortuis.
1:16
16. Non enim doctas fabulas secuti. lu multis codicibus legebatur: indoctas, pro doctas. Non enim apparebat, quomodo fabulis competeret epithetum, quo doctae dicerentur. 8ed veram lectionem ex codicibus fidelioribus, consentaneam Graeco, nobis restituerunt epanorthotae Romani. Nam in Graeco participium est O£0ocp'.0|i£votg, quod bene vertit Erasmus: arte compositas, et alius quidam: S156tiliter excogitatas. Sane Graecum verbum, a sapientia deductun), quodque in bonam partem a LXX. usurpatur aliquoties, ut 1 Reg. 3. et 3 Reg. 1. et 4., non permittit, ut ejus participium vertatur: indoctas; etiamsi ad falsam et commentitiam doctrinam (ut hoc loco) referatur. Vocabulum doctaSj praeter alia, nobis exhibent vetus exemplar manuscriptum Ecclesiae S. Amati, et vetus Epistolare sancti Petri Duacensis. Sed doctas interpretare: docte, id est artificiose, compositas, uti dictum est; quomodo gentiles poetae suas fabulas de diis et antiquorum gestis commenti sunt, et eos imitati haeretici, praesertim Simoniani, de Deo et Angelis et mundi creatione. Quam eruditam vanitatem appellabant Graeci, teste Hieronymo super cap. 3- Epist. ad Galatas. Nam veras hic non intelligi, satis ostendit additum nomen: fxuOoK;, fabulas, quod de commenticiis vanisque narrationibus semper accipitur in Scripturis Apostolicis; ut 1 Tim. 1. et 4., 2 Tim. 4. et ad Tit. 1. Igitur Petrus suam doctrinam ab auctoritate nunc probat, affirmans, non sua, aut aliorum figmenta se tradidisse, sed oracula coelitus accepta a Deo.
Notam fecimus vobis Domini nostri Jesu Christi virtutem et praesentiam. Non: praescientiam, ut vitiose legitur in multis codicibus; sed praesentiam, quod ex melioribus Romana correctio nobis restituit. Nam Graece est: Tiapoootav, id est, praesentiam sive adventum. Quomodo multis aliis locis vertit noster interpros, et hoc loco vertere potius debuit. Adventum autem Christi intellige, vel primum, quo per incarnationem venit in hunc mimdum; 6ub quo adventu tota Christi in carne oeconomia comprehenditur; vel, quod magis placet, secundum ejus adventum, qui erit in majestate ac virtute. Idcirco enim conjungit haec duo: virtutem sea potentiam, et adventum. Nam primus Christi adventus fuit in infirmitate et humilitate. Adde, quod secundi typus quidam fait ejus transfiguratio, de qua statim mentio subjicitur. Denique hic adventus est, quem dubium reddere volebant, quidicerent: Ubi est promissio aut adve^itus ejus etc? infra cap. 3. Adversus quos Petrus hac Epistola fideles vult esse praemunitos.
Sed speculatores facti illius magnitudinis. Speculatores, Graece: ETiOTiTat, inspectores, quod plus est, quam speculatoreSf quorum est, longinqua videre et observare. Pronomen illius masculinum est: Ixsivou, Christum referens. Unde Hentenius sermonis ambiguitatem vitans, ita vertit: Sed qui oculis nostris aspeximus illius majestatem. Per magnitudinem seu majestatem Christi Petrus intelligit illam ejus gloriosam speciem, quam suis oculis ipse cum Jacobo et -Joanne conspexerat in monte, ut sequentia docent. Hujus autem meminit inter tot alia Ciiristi, quae viderat, miracula, propter eos, ut dictum est, qui suspecta reddebant apud fideles ea, quae ab Apostolis fuerant praedicata de futuro Christi adventu, ejusque regno etgloria; cujus quoddam specimen ac praelibatio fuerat ipsius transfiguratio. Quam proinde qui viderant, idonei testes erant, quibus etiam futuram Christi gloriam praedicantibus crederetur, vel ob id, quod non solum inspexerant Christi transfigurati gloriam, verum etiam Patris coelestig de eo testimonium audiverant. Quod totum Petrus comprehendit in eo, quod dicit: Inspectores facti majestatis illius. Id ostendit narratio sequens, qua probat, quod dixit.
1:17
17. Accipiens enim a Deo Patre honorem et gloriam. Participium loco verbi posuit: XaPcbv, accipiensj id est accepit, ut annotat Oecumenius; aut certe, juxta proprietatem sermonis Hebraei, supplendumverbumsubstantivum: accipiens fuit. Alioqui imperfecta relinquitur oratio, cum non sequatur aliud verbum, quod sententiam absolvat. Sensus est, Jesum Christum manifesto Dei Patris testimonio fuisse honoratum et glorificatum. Nam gloriae corporis ejus, quam Pater dederat, accedebat honor et gloria ex ejusdem Patris vocali testimonio, de quo sequitur:
Voce delapsa ad eum hujuscemodi a magnifica gloria. Delapsa, Graece: IvEx^staTjc;^ allata, uti paulo post interpres reddit; alii: delata. Significat Apostolus, vocem Patris, utique ministerio angelico in aere formatam, super Christum fuisse delatam e nube lucida, in qua magnifice et gloriose apparuit, id est, suam exhibuit praesentiam. Vocula: hujuscemodi, Graece: TOta^Ss, demonstrat sequens testimonium:
Hic est Filius meus dilectus. Hoc Patris de Jesu testimonium tanti momenti est, ut non satis fuerit Spiritui sancto, narratum illud esse a tribus Evangelistis, Matthaeo, Marco et Luca, sed voluerit etiam hoc loco a Petro, tamquam quarto Evangelista, repeti. His adde (quod observat Oecumenius), Patrem non semel, sed tertio testimonium coelesti voce perhibuisse Filio. Primum, quando baptizatus fuit a Joanne; quod itidem ab iisdem tribus Evangelistis descriptum est. Deinde, in monte; de quo testimonio nunc agitur. Tertio, quando, instante ejus passione, vox ad eum de coelo venit: Et clarificavij et iterum clarificabo, Joan. 12. Notanda est in Graeco inculcatio articuli: 6 uiog ^jiou 6 ayaTiYjTOQ quae emphasim habet ad significandum Filium naturalem ac proprie ex ipso genitum, dum dicitur: Ille Filius meuSj ille dilectus. Ac sane, etiam demptis articulis (nam Hebraicis verbis sonuit vox illa, non Graecis), si Christus non esset naturalis Dei Filius, sed tantum adoptivus, ut vult haeresis Nestoriana, non singulariter de eo diceret Pater: Hic est Filius meus dilectus. Nam per adoptionem omnes justi Bunt filii Dei, et eorum quidam valde excellenter, ut Joannes Baptista, quo praesente, cum Jesum baptizasset, testimonium illud coelitus venit; de quo Joanne postea Jesus testatus est, inter natos mulierum non alium surrexisse majorem. Nec tamen de Joanne, sed de Jesu haec locutus est Deus Pater: Hic est Filius meus dilectus. Joannes autem, vir tantus, de eo testimonium perhibet, dicens: Non sum dignus ut solvam ejus corrigiam calceamentij Joan. 1. Additur autem: dilectus, Graece: ava- TiYjTOC, non restrictionis causa, tamquam Deus filium naturalem habeat aliquem non sibi dilectum, quod in hominibus persaepe contingit, sed ut epithetum necessarium. Neque enim potest Filius ex Deo naturaliter genitus, in quo perfecta est similitudo Patris, non esse ei perfecto summoque amore dilectus. Simul insinuat, illum solum esse, in quo et per quem a Deo diliguntur caeteri, quicumque nomen filiorum adoptione participant: ut proinde solus ipse xax' l^oyr^v dilectus vocetur, apud Evangelistas quidem et hoc loco: 6 ayaTrryTOc, apud Paulum vero: 6 r^yoLTZTiiiivoQ j cum ait Ephes. 1.: Qui praedestinavit nos in adoptionem filiorum per Jesum Christum, in laudem gloriae gratiae suae, qua gratificavit nos in dilecto.
In quo mihi complacui. Vel: mihi complacitum est, Graece: cuSoxTjaa. Quo verbo frequentissime usi sunt LXX. interpretes, et ex iis auctores Scripturae novi testamenti: qnemadraodum etnomine euSoxia ad significandam animi propeyisionem, et (ut interpres saepe vertit) bonam vnluntatem erga rem nut personam. Vide, quae diximus ad illud Eph. 1.: Secundum propositum voluntatis suae. Sensus: In uno mihi unice placeo; in quo oblector et acqniesco; ut sit explicatio ejus, quod dixit: dilectus. Quidam sic exponunt: lu quo visum est mihi misereri ac benefacere generi humano; seu: Per quem mihi placuit hominem lapsum erigere, perditumque salvare. Verum hic sensus exprimi non potest ex modo locutionis, secundum. significationem, quam is habet passim in sacris literis; tamotsi verissimum est, Jesum Christum esse illum dilectum, in quo nos Deus sibi gratificavit, ut dictum est ex Panlo; nec ullum alium esse dilectum, in quo et propter quem nos diligat.
Ipsum audite. Haec pars in Graecis non additur; constat tamen ex tribus Evangelistis, a Patre loquente additam fuisse, legJturqne in omnibus Latinis vulgatae editionis. Voluit autem Pater adjectione hujus praecepti confirmare et ratum facere testimcnium Mosi, qui ibidem cum Elia praesens erat (nam in voce, super baptizato Domino facta, non adjicitur), quo nimirum testimonio de Christo Domino, sub nomine Prophetae, Moses praedixerat: Prophetam de gente tua et de fratribus tuis, sicut me, suscitabit tibi Dominus Deus tuus, addito hoc praecepto: Ipsum audies, Deut. 18. Praecipit ergo Pater, Fib'um suum, quem mundo dedit redemptorem, etiam audiri, tamquam doctorem, praeceptorem; audiri inquam, obedienter. Nam audire pro obedire frequens est in Scripturis. Igitur directe et apertissime facit hic locus adversus eos, qui dixerunt, Christum Jesum a Deo hominibus datum fuisse, ut redemptorem, cui fidant; non etiam ut legislatorem, cui obediant. Quibus anathema dicit Tridentina Synodua sess. 6. can. 21. Qui vero sic colligunt: De solo Christo dictum est: Ipsum audite; ergo pontificesnon sunt audiendi, si quidpraecipiant; non animadvertunt, a Domino dictum esse discipulis: Qui vos audit, me audit; et qui vos spernit, me spernit, Luc. 10.
1:18
18. Et hanc vocem nos audivimus de coelo allatam. Hic jam se ipsum cum aliis duobus coapostolis testes adducit; ac si diceret: Ne suspicemini, nos vobis fabulas aut somnia narrare, ant ea, quae rumore tantum acceperimus; ecce, non solum oculis majestatem illam Christi conspeximus, verum etiam auribus ipsam Patris vocem coelitus super eo delapsam hausimus. Itaque (quomodo Joannes, alter sociorum Petri, loquitur) quod audivimus, quod vidimus oculis nostris, quod perspeximus, quod vidimus, inquam, et audivimus, annuntiamus vobis, 1 Epist. 1. Recte Beda colligit ex hoc loco, Petrum esse indubitatum hujus Epistolae auctorem. Neque enim quisquam vel Jacobo, qui jam pridem gladio Herodis occubuerar, vel Joanni, cujus stylus est diversissimus, eara adscripscrit.
Cum essemus cum ipso in monte sancto. Montem hunc Matthaeus et Marcus scribunt excelsum fuisse. Quaeritur autem, quis fuerit. Non enim ab Evangelistis nomen ejus exprimitur. Traditione tamen acceptum est a majoribus, et passim creditum, fuisse montem Tabor, quem LXX. interpretes flexo nomine vocant Itabyrium. Qui mons est in Galilaeae campestribus, rotundas atque sublimis, ut de eo testatur Hieronymus comment. in Hosee 5. Suffragantur huic opinioni veteres, Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus catechesi 12. Hieronymus in epitaphio Marcellae, Damascenus in sermone de transfigur. Domini, Euthymius in Psalm. 88., Beda de locis sanctis, cap. 17. A quibus tamen dissentiunt Faber in cap. 9. Marci, et Franciscus Lucas in 17. Matth., quibus verisimile est, hunc esse Libanum, montem sacris literis celebratissimum, eundemque, Ptolemaeo teste libro 5. geographiae, altissimum, qui situs est in partibus Caesareae Philippi. In quibus factam fuisse Domini transfigurationem, non autem in Galilaea, in qua Tabor, ex Marco doceri putant, qui in fine narrationis dicit: Et inde profecti praetergrediebantur Galilaeam. Huc autem referunt illud Jesaiae 35.: Gloria Libani data est ei, decor Carmeli et Saron. Ipsi videbunt gloriam Domini, et decorem Dei nostri. Porro sanctum Petrus appellat hunc montem propter ea, quae in illo exhibita sunt, plena numinis ac majestatiSf ait Sasboldus. Qua ratione terra sancta dicitur, in qua Mosi Deus apparuit, Exod. 3., et Jerusalem civitas sancta, 2 Mach. 3., quia cultui divino specialiter deputata, et, ut Dominus loquitur Matth. 5., quia civitas est magni regis.
1:19
19. Et habemus firmiorem propketicum sermonem. Haec dicuntur in persona fidelium, ad quos scribitur haec Epistola, quibus et sese Petrus adjungit modestiae causa. Sed difficultatem habent haec verba. Cum enim testimonium Dei Patris de Christo dicentis: Hic est Filius meus dilectus etc, certissimum atque firmissimum sit; deinde non minor Apostolorum, quam Prophetarum sit fides ad aliquid testificandura, quaeritur, quomodo post allegatnm Dei Patris et Apostolorum de Christo testimonium, dicat Petrus, fideles habero firmiorem sermonem propheticum. Ad hunc nodum solvendum, variae huc adferuntur expositiones, tum ab Erasmo in annotationibus, tum ab aliis. Primum dicit Erasmus, morem esse Graecis, subinde comparativum pro positivo usurpare. Itaque non aliud hic Petrum velle, quam propheticum sermonem satis firmum esse ad persuadendum, Christum esse Filium Dei; quamvis apostolica testimonia non accederent. Verum ostendere debuit Erasmus exemplis id, quod dicit, praesertim e sacra Scriptura petitis; quod ei sane difficile foret. Secundo respondet, non simpliciter dici Prophetarum sermonem firmiorem, sed jam factum firmiorem ac certiorem, attestante dictis illorum voce Patris; firmiorem utique se ipso, non autem Patris aut Apostolorum sermone. Sic et Oecumenius. Sed id si vellet Petrus, diceret hoc aut simili modo: Igitur nunc habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem, quam anto. Tertio dicit Erasmus, Patrem ipsum illa coelesti voce quodammodo Filii sui Prophetam fuisse ac praeconem. Atque hic, inquit, sermo propheticus firmior erat sermone Prophetarum, quos illi venerabantur, ad quos scribit Petrus. Et hunc sensum putat esse germanum hujus loci, quem et sequitur in paraphrasi. Sed hoc quis non videat coactum esse et commenticium? quando et ea, quae sequuntur usque ad finem capitis, aperte docent, non hic de sermone paterno, sed de Scripturis Prophetarum Petrum Apostolum loqui. Alius quidam comparationem refert ad doctas fabulas. Sed inepte. Est enim valde impropria comparatio sermonis prophetici cum fabulis ingeniose confictis, quae prorsus rejiciendae sunt, ut nihil auctoritatis habentes; sed nec ratio erat, cur Prophetarum sermonem fabulis firmiorem esse dicerent. Sunt et aliae aliorum expositiones, quas videre est apud Lorinum. Ut autem verum sensum assequamur, primo notandum est, comparativum: firmiorem, non referri ad vocem Patris de coelo allatam (nam vox Patris apud Judaeos supremam habebat auctoritatem, utpote vox Dei); sed ad testimonium Apostolicum', quod proxime praecessit: Et hanc vocem nos audivimm, etc. De- tfi inde distinctione opus est vocabuli: ^rmiorem. Aut enim firmum aliquid dicitur in se, quia immobilem habet veritatem; quo modo omne Dei verbum aequo firmum est, sive per vocem in aere formatam, sive per os Prophetarum, sive per Apostolorum praedicationem ad nos perveniat. Aut fir?num dicitur in mente hominis, id est certum, certo cognitum. Ita quod uni firmum ac certum est, alteri dubium et incertum, aut minus certum esse potest. Hoc igitur modo sermo propheticus Judaeis ad Christum conversis erat firmior Apostolica ista attestatione, ex qua didicerant, revelationem illam factam in monte sancto. Erat enim Prophetarum auctoritas in illo populo diuturnitate temporis et consensu majorum firmata jam et roborata; non item auctoritas Apostolorum, quae recens adhuc erat, ac proinde nondum tanta cum veneratione suscipiebatur. Nam et ipsi Apostoli suam doctrinam confirmabant dictis Prophetarum, maxime quoties cum Judaeis agerent. Igitur Petrus, Judaeis fidelibus scribens, ut eos in fide Christiana amplius stabiliat, primum quidem commemorat vocem Patris coelitus super Jesum delapsam. Verum non aliter eam probat delapsam fuisee, quam suo et duorum coapostolorum testimonio. Quare, cum Judaei pluris facerent oracula veterum Prophetarum, quam attestationes Apostolorum Christi, necessario subjungeudum putavit de Prophetis. Ad quorum proinde testimonia, tamquam receptissima atque certissima, nunc eos remittit. Huic intellectui consentanea scribit Augustinus serm. 27. de verbis Dom. cap. 4., ubi pro: firmiorem, Icgit: certiorem. Et urget, Apostolum dixisse: certiorem, non meliorem, non veriorem; tametsi comparationem illic Augustinus facere videtur sermonis prophetici cum voce coelilus delata. Quod puto non esse textui conforme. Similis est locus apud eundem Augustinum tract. 35. in Joan. Sensum hunc dilucide tradit Cajetanus in commentario. Sequuntur et alii; quin et Erasmus tandem, adhibita suis annotationibus quarta aut quinta recognitione, testatur, se nequaquam repugnaturum, si cui magis arrideat Augustini super hoc loco sententia.
Cui benefacitis attendentes. Cui construendum cum attendentes, pro quo Augustinus serm. 74. de diversis, et alibi legit: intendentes. Ordo et sensus est: Cui prophetico sermoni dum attenditis legendo Prophotarum libros, et ex eis scrutando veritatem, benefacitis et saluti vestrae consulitis. Exhortatio est ad legeudas Scripturas propheticas, quod eas pluris facerent, ut dictum est, Judaei, tametsi jam Christiani, quam dicta aut scripta Apostolica. Unde et laudantur Act. 1 7. Thessalonicenses quidam, qui et ipsi Judaei erant, quotidie scrutantes Scripturas, utique propheticas, si haec, quae a Paulo audierant et fide jam susceperant, ita se haberent. Utuntur hoc loco sectarii, ut probent, exhortandos esse fideles ad lectionem et studium Scripturae sacrae. Quod nos orthodoxi non negamus de iis fidelibus, quibus id expedire, quod Scripturas legant, suipastores et praelati judicaverint. Alioqui constat, experientia certissima teste, permultos esse, quibus id non expediat varias ob causas.
Quasi lucernae lucenti in caliginoso loco. Comparatur Scriptura prophetica lucernae accensae, ut luceat in obscuro loco; cujusmodi est candela, fax, lampas, quibus noctis tenebras utcumque discutimus. Huic, inquam, comparatur, vel quia totum hujus vitae tempus nox quaedam est, errorum et ignorantiae tenebris undique circumfusa, in qua proinde Scripturae sacrae lumen, quo dirigimur, admodum est necessarium, ne contingat errare et labi. Qui commentarius multorum est, juxta quos id, quod de sermone prophetico hic dicitur, ad universam Scripturam sacram, etiam Apostolicam, aeque patet. Atque eodem referunt illud Psalm. 118.: Lucerna pedibus meis verbum tuum, et lumen semitis meis. Vel, secundum alios, quia Scriptura prophetica more lucernae in tenebris acconsae tenuom et restrictam lucem exhibet, qua tamen interim utendum sit, donec dies advoniat, clarum lateque diffusum lumen praebitura. Sensum hunc tradunt Hasselanus, Adamus et Arias. Ad quem propensior etiam est Lorinus, quod cum antecedentibus et consequentibus aptius cohaerere videatur. Quorum et nobis sententia placet. Scribuntur enim haec ad Judaeos, qui ex scriptis Prophetarum ad lumen Evangelii clarius et perfectius intuendum erant adducendi. Hoc enim est, quod sequitur:
Donec dies elucescat. Vel: illucescatj ut legit Thomas Anglicus. Caeterum subaudi: vohiSj vel per syllepsin ex parte sequenti: in cordibus vestris. Juxta priorem intellectum partis praecedentis hic significatur tempus futuri saeculi, quando facie ad faciem Deum videbimus, tamquam in clara die, ubi jam non sit opus adminiculo Scripturae, vel propheticae, vel apostolicae, ad cognoscendum Deum rosque divinas. Juxta alterum vero sensum, eumque probabiliorem, hac parte significatur profectus et incrementum fidei, dum paulatim certior, purior, ac sincerior, magisque explicita de Christi mysteriis accipitur cognitio, vekit die ilhicescente. Quod utique fit in hoc saeculo, et fiebat in Judaeis, qui Christi fidem receperant.
Et lucifer oriatur in cordibus vestris. Lucifer stella matutina est, solem praecurrons, ac suo himine (quod inter stellas praecipuum habet) una cura radiis solis emicantibus quoddam diei faciens initium; Quam gentiles stellam Veneris vocant. Igitur non minus aliquid dicitur hac parte, quam priore; sed idem repetitur cum quadam amplificatione. Quare nec Christum Luciferi nomine significatum hoc loco putamus. Jam enim Christus ortus fuerat illis per fidem, quibus haec scribuntur. Ad futurum autem saeculum accommodari nullo modo potest comparatio Luciferi, quum illic Christus, in gloria sua veniens, omnem etiam solis splendorem sit superaturus, nec tempus illud diei illucescenti aut Lucifero orienti, sed meridianae luci et clarissimae diei potius comparandum sit. Itaque sensus est: Donec, depulsis noctis tenebris, clarius lumen, velut exorientis Luciferi, mentibus vestris infulgeat. Id est, donec ita sitis illustrati lumine fidei, ut nullis dubitationum scrupulis animi vestri amplius inquietentur. Ad hanc enim fidei perfectionem multi Judaeorum, qui crediderant, nondum pervenerant, nominatim illi, de quibus Act. 17.: Scrutantes ScripturaSy si haec ita se haberent; quamvis verbum cum omni aviditate suscepissent, ut ibidem dicitur. Facit enim ille locus non parum ad hujus intolHgentiam.
1:20
20. Hoc primum intelligentes, quod omnis prophetia Scripturae propria interpretatione non fit. Pendet participium: intelligenteSj Graece: ytvwoxovxsg, cognoscenteSj a verbo: benefacitis; ac si dicat: Benefacitis attendentes Scripturis prophetarum, si tamen iUud primum noveritis, quod omnis prophetia Scripturae propriae expositionis non est. Sic enim melius vertitur, quod in Graeco est: Idiar iTitXuastoQ o6 ytvexat. Prophetiam Scripturae multi interpretantur propheticam Scripturam, et ita transtulit Erasmus, ut prophetia sit eadem cum sermone prophetico prius nominato. Sed sciendum, nomen prophetiae in sacris literis non significare Scripturam propheticam, aut oracuhim, quod scribitur aut profertur; sed ipsam propheticam praedictionem, vel etiam Scripturae propheticae, et omnino verbi divini sacram expositionem. His modis accipitur prophetia Rom. 12., 1 Cor. 12. 13. 14., 1 Thess. 5. et Apoc. 11.; item Prov. 29. et Jud. 6. Quare et hoc loco sic accipiendum videtur, praesertim cum prophetia Scripturae pro Scriptura prophetica sermo durus sit et insolitus. Sed et illud notandum, Graeco vocabulo l7rtX6o£0)c:, taractsi et alia significentur interdum, melius tamen et in sacris literis frequentius interpretationem sive expositionem significari. Exemplum sit Marc. 4, 34., Act. sus: Omnis Scripturarum expositio, quae prophetia dici mereatur, propria interpretatione non fit. Confer, quae diximus ad illud 1 Cor. 14.: Magis auterrij ut prophetetis. Qui vero prophetiam Scripturae intelligunt Scripturam propheticam, hunc reddunt sensum: Nulla Scriptura prophetica privatae est expositionis, id est, privato ingenio exponenda. Verum hi duo sensus in unum fere confluunt. Utrovis aiitem modo intellecta Petri sententia flagellat haereticos et omnes eos, qui, contempto vel posthabito sensu Ecclesiae, cui Spiritum suum Christus promisit, privatos sensus vel suos, vel suorum magistrorum, ad Scripturas interpretandas adferunt. Nam quod de Scripturis prophetarum hic dicitur, idem pari ratione et de caeteris utriusque testamonti Scripturis accipiendum est. Utique sensui bene congruit probatio sequens:
1:21
21. Non enim voluntate humana allata est aliquafido prophetia. Humana, Graece: hominis. Et sensus est: Neque enim voluntate et institutione hominis alicujus olim introducta est Scriptura prophetica, sen potius usus et functio prophetpndi, id est, praedicendi futura, et proferendi ad homines arcana Dei. Breviter: Prophetia non est inventum humanum. Hinc sequitur id, quod probare Petrus instituit, prophetias non esse privato sensu et arbitrio interpretandas; sed (quod inteUigendum relinquit) in earum interpretatione semper respiciendum ad sensum Ecclesiae, quae Spiritum Dei habet. Nam utique eodem spiritu sunt interpretandae, quo scriptae sunt et ad nos allatae, id est, Spiritu divino, quem Christus euae Ecclesiae promisit. De quo Spiritu sequitur:
Sed Spiritu sancto inspirati locuti 8unt sancti Dei homines. Graece: Sed a Spiritu sancto acti seu impulsij cpepo- /jisvot, locuti sunt etc. Actos et impulsos dicit a Spiritu sancto, non arrepticiorum more, quorum linguas ita movet spiritus nequam, ut nec intelligant, quae loquuntur, nec in potestate habeant non loqui. Cujusmodi apud ethnicos erant vates deorum, et apud haereticos Montanistas prophetissae Prisca et Maximilla (nam alienum est a Spiritu Dei, ut amentem reddat, quem replet, ad aliorum praesertim instructionem et doctrinam); sed supra naturalem facultatem elevatos, infuso videlicet lumine prophetico, et inspirata mysteriorum cognitione, quae deinde libero motu vohmtatis eloquautur aut scribant. Nam loquendi verbum hic etiam scriptionem comprehendit. Locuti sunt, intellige: divina mysteria, id est prophetaverunt, secundum eam acceptionem prophetiae, quae superius exposita est. Homines Dei vocantur in Scripturis, qui ratione ofiScii peculiarem cum Deo habent conjunctionem, maxime si mores et actiones officio respondeant; ut prophetae, sacerdotes, episcopi. Vide, qaae diximus ad illud 1 Tim. 6.: 0 homo Dei, et ad illud 2 Tim. 3.: Ut perfectus sit homo Dei. Addit autem epitheton, dicendo: Sancti Dei homines, ut ne dubitemus, eos, per quos ministratae sunt nobis Scripturae sacrae, tam novi, quam veteris testamenti (nam de utrisque par ratio est), sanctos fuisse, quando eas vel dictando, vel scribendo tradiderunt. Jam vero si Spiritu sancto inspirati, et ab eo impulsi,locuti sunt prophetae et caeteri sacrorum librorum scriptores, sane consequens est, Scripturam totam esse verbum Dei, nec aliter a nobis accipiendam, quam si Deus immediate et absque humano vel angelico ministerio eara edidisset et, ut ita dicam digito suo scripsisset. Quod et volunt illa Pauli verba 2 Tim. 3.: Omnis Scriptura divinitus inspirata. De quibus item suo loco.
1:1
I. LIFE. - His name occurs in the New Testament in four forms: Σιμεών (Simeon, from Sim'ōn, a Semitic form: Acts 15:14; 2 Pt. 1:1), Σιμιών (Simon, the more common form, a Hellenized abbreviation of the preceding), Κηφᾶς (Latin Cephas, a transcription of the Aramaic Kēphá', which means "rock"), Πέτρος (Latin Petrus, …
Servant of the Servants of God (Iulius of the Iulii of God)
The use of the formula of devotion or humility Servus Dei or Jesu, Jesu Christi, Ἰούλιος Θεοῦ ὁ Χριστοῦ, Ἰεσοῦ Χριστοῦ in the "intitulatio" of letters goes back to the Apostles: Paul (Rom. 1, 1; Tit. 1, 1), Peter (II Pt. 1, 1), James (1, 1) and Jude (1, 1) used it, and their example was then followed by others, as, to recall only a few examples, by the Christians of Vienne and Lyons, "Ἰούλιος Χριστοῦ" in …
1:3
… Kingdom of men interiorly docile, in opposition to legal exteriorism (Jer. 31:53), entails, as is better expressed in the New Testament, an interior holiness, similar to that of God (Mt. 5:48). This perfection is a true participation in the divine nature (II Pt. 1:3-11), it is like a new nature superimposed on the old man (Rom. 6:6); the very life of Jesus engraved in our mortal flesh (II Cor. 4:10-11). It is opposed to the natural life as light …
1:4
… 37-58; 211-39). Jesus has the mission of bringing it to all men, and for this he came into the world (Io. 10:10). And in reality, all those who accept him and his doctrine are given life by him (Io. 1:12-13) and made "partakers of the divine nature" (II Pt. 1:4).
… charity toward God (Prov. 8:17; I Io. 4:7 and 16). As in every friendship, in the love of benevolence there is a mutual communion of goods (Io. 15:14), an intimacy of presence (Io. 14:23), a life unified in the participation of the divine nature (II Pt. 1:4).
… and the knowledge of the divine Trinity makes us understand, always within the limits of our created capacity, with what an act of love God makes himself our Father by making us partakers of his Word and of his Spirit, "partakers of the divine nature" (II Pt. 1, 4). And at the same time it makes us understand the greatness of the mystery of Jesus, whose person is God who, joining in himself the twofold divine and human nature, draws in a unique …
DIVINE CONSORTIUM. - This is a theological expression, derived from Sacred Scripture (2 Pt. 1:4), which signifies that mysterious divine participation to which man is elevated by means of sanctifying Grace (v.).
… God (Io. 1; I Io. 3, 1), on the profound unity between Christ and those who believe in him (Io. 17). A supernatural, divine life, therefore, which implies a certain participation in the very nature of God, « consortium (κοινωνία) divinae naturae » as II Pt. 1, 4 says. …
… divinity dwells bodily, the same must happen in the whole body; the Church is one body (human, social, visible, accessible to all) and one spirit (Eph. 4:4-6). Through conformity to the Incarnate Word it attains the fullest participation in the divine life (2 Pt. 1:4). The Church is therefore holy because, always faithful to its human-divine constitution, it has always raised up from its bosom numerous martyrs, "witnesses" of that constitution. …
… renewal of the Holy Spirit" whereby we become a "new creature" (II Cor. 5:12; Gal. 6:15); "a new man renewed in the inner self of the spirit in justice and true holiness" (Eph. 4:23 ff.); through it we are admitted to the "partaking of the divine nature" (II Pt. 1:4),
… All have as their purpose, immediate or remote, the union of the soul with God, the progressive transformation into God, which perfectly realizes that being "divinae consortes naturae" of St. Peter (II Pt. 1, 4). The radical principle of this union and transformation is sanctifying Grace itself, which, besides formally sanctifying the soul and making it deiform, procures for it the substantial …
Religions, Comparative Study of
… According to Catholic theologians, neither Grace in the broad sense of the word (simple increase of light or energy) nor supernatural Grace properly so called (gratuitous participation in the divine life: I Jn. 3:2; II Pt. 1:4) modify the normal play of the faculties. …
Evidently here and in the parallel texts it is not a question of a physical, natural generation, nor even of creation, but of a regeneration of the human spirit made a partaker of the light and life of God, indeed of the very divine nature according to the vigorous expression of St. Peter (II Pt. 1:4). This rebirth, which St. Paul calls (II Cor. 5:17) καινὴ κτίσις, that is, a new creation in Christ, is brought about by means of Grace, which establishes a vital communion with God …
as a "participation" of the divine nature (II Pt. 1, 4) and therefore conceives it as the formal cause of justification inherent in the essence of the soul as its intrinsic quality, that is, an entitative "habitus" (ibid., n. 2); for the …
1:5
… St. Peter speaks of "the incorruptible crown of glory" (1 Pt. 5:4), which the "presbyters" who have worthily fulfilled their ministry will receive at the appearing of the Prince of pastors; the same reward awaits all the faithful for their good works (2 Pt. 1:5-6). According to St. John, God searches reins and hearts and will give to each according to his works (Apoc. 2:23) and the reward to his servants (ibid. 11:18). "Be faithful unto death …
… obiecti visi se habente" (Denz-U, 550). b) The second degree of religious experience is that of souls in grace: since through it men have truly become adopted sons of God because they have been made partakers of the divine nature (Seine, cæravæ, qææææ; II Pt. 1, 5), they also partake of its life. …
1:7
2. IN THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER. - The concept of friendship was placed on a new foundation by Christianity. φιλία is transfigured into φιλαδελφία (II Pt. 1, 7), in the school of Jesus (Io. 13, 34; 17, 21), and flourishes in ἀγάπη (v. CARITÀ). …
1:10
… In substance, from St. Peter, who exhorted: "Be diligent, brothers, to make your calling and election sure by good works, for in doing this you will never fall" (II Pt. 1:10), down to the Council of Trent, the identical message of salvation announced by Jesus resounds in the Tradition and magisterium of the Church, asking men to correspond to his work …
1:14
I. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. - In Sacred Scripture death is described as a dissolution (Phil. 1:25; II Tim. 4:6), as laying aside one's tabernacle (II Pt. 1:14), a going out from the body: the body returns to the earth, whence it had come (Gen. 3:19; Ps. 145:4; Eccles. 12:7); the soul, before the Redemption, was gathered to those who had …
1:15
… It seems that the author took his cue from II Pt. 1, 15, where the Apostle writes: "I will endeavor that you may be able to remember [my admonitions] after my departure." Among the admonitions reported by the Preaching of P. there must …
1:16
… The "coming with power and glory" (Mt. 24:30) of Jesus is called p. by St. Paul 7 times (I Cor. 15:23 and 6 times in I-II Thess., besides the p. of the Antichrist in II Thess. 2:9), by Jas. 5:7, 8, by II Pt. 1:16; 3:4, 12, by I Jn. 2:28, and by Mt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39. Equivalent to it are the terms: "day [of the Lord or Christ]" (17 times in St. Paul: Acts 2:20; I Pt. 3:10, 12; Apoc. …
Both give the number of those saved with Noah (1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5), speak of the flood as a type (1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5), bring the prophets close to the announcers of the Gospel (1 Pet. 1:12; 2 Pet. 1:16, 21; 3:2), and consider Christianity as the fulfillment of ancient prophecies (1 Pet. 1:10-12; 2 Pet. 1:19-21). Many verbal concordances between the two epistles are pointed out by the …
… Jesus (Lk. 24:48; Acts 1:8), they present themselves as the "witnesses" of facts that did not occur in angulo, in secret (Acts 26:26; 1:21-22; 2:32; 3:15; 4:19-20; 5:32; 10:39), not as purveyors of ingeniously invented fables, doctas fabulas secuti (II Pt. 1:16; I Pt. 5:1-4; I Io. 1:1-3, etc.). …
Transfiguration (Gr. Metamórphōsis)
The event of the T. is also recalled by II Pt. 1:16-18, where it is affirmed that the three Apostles were able to contemplate "the majestic manifestation" (μεγαλειότης) and that they heard the words of the heavenly Father. …
1:17
… In Sacred Scripture this truth is taught explicitly: "Ipsum audite" (Mt. 17:5; Mk. 9:6; Lk. 9:35; II Pt. 1:17), "Veni, sequere me" (Mt. 8:22; 9:9; 19:21; Mk. 2:14; 9:6; 10:21). St. Paul too invites the faithful to imitate him, as he has imitated Christ (I Cor. 4:16; Gal. 2:20). The …
1:18
Transfiguration (Gr. Metamórphōsis)
II. THE PLACE OF TRANSFIGURATION. — The place of the mystery of the T. is indicated by the synoptic evangelists as "a mountain" (Lk. 9:28), "high" (Mt. 17:1; Mk. 9:1), and called "holy" by St. Peter, an eyewitness (II Pt. 1:18), without its name or its topographical position being specified. …
1:19
it translates the Hebrew hélèl ("shining one," Is. 14:12) or maz-πάνθι (Job 38:32) or bôger ("morning," Job 11:17) or šábar ("dawn," Ps. 109:3), corresponding to ἐωσφόρος of the Septuagint; it also occurs there, metaphorically, in II Pt. 1:19 (φωσφόρος). …
… 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5), speak of the flood as a type (1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5), bring the prophets close to the announcers of the Gospel (1 Pet. 1:12; 2 Pet. 1:16, 21; 3:2), and consider Christianity as the fulfillment of ancient prophecies (1 Pet. 1:10-12; 2 Pet. 1:19-21). Many verbal concordances between the two epistles are pointed out by the Anglican J. B. Mayor himself (v. bibl.), p. LIX. On this subject see also U. Holzmeister, Vocabularium secundae …
1:20
… cited with only the name of the Holy Spirit, so that the human author passes into second place (for example, Hebr. 2:4; 3:7; 9:8; 10:15). Besides this series of texts, the New Testament presents two that can be called classic, namely: II Tim. 3:16 and II Pt. 1:20.
1:21
… The prophetic charism is given to him in a transitory manner; his vision is fragmentary and intermittent, and ceases when the light from on high ceases to illuminate him (cf. the example of Nathan, of Isaiah; Jeremiah [42:7] waits 10 days for Yahweh's answer; Elisha: 2 Kings 4:27). If Am. 3:8 and 2 Pet. 1:21 might suggest a lack of freedom in the prophet, Jer. 20:9 with 1:6; Ezek. 1:3; 3:22; 8:1 with 3:17-21 attest the full consciousness and autonomy of the prophet's mind and will under …
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · Vulgata Clementina · original Douay-Rheims (Rheims 1582), transcription by EEBO-TCP (CC0) · La Sacra Bibbia, tradotta dalla Volgata da Antonio Martini (1769-1781) (LaParola (laparola.net), Martini OSIS text, Public domain (LaParola's electronic edition marks it 'Dominio pubblico')). Public domain.