Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The first part of this chapter, from verse 1 to verse 13, is dogmatic; the latter part, from verse 13 to the end, is ethical. For at the beginning, after a salutation has been prefixed, he blesses God because He has regenerated the faithful through Christ and destined them for an eternal inheritance: in the hope of which he teaches that the Christian must rejoice in any tribulations whatsoever; and that all these things were foretold by the Prophets. Then, at verse 13, he incites them to a pure and holy life, by which they may imitate Christ and obtain His inheritance and glory.
Vulgate Text: 1 Peter 1:1-25
1. Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect strangers of the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2. according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you. 3. Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4. unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5. who by the power of God are kept through faith for the salvation prepared to be revealed in the last time. 6. Wherein you shall rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you must be made sorrowful by various temptations: 7. that the trial of your faith, much more precious than gold (which is tried by fire), may be found unto praise, and glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8. Whom having not seen, you love: in whom also now though you see Him not, you believe: and believing shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified: 9. receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 10. Of which salvation the Prophets have inquired and diligently searched, who prophesied of the grace to come in you, 11. searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, foretelling the sufferings that are in Christ, and the glories that should follow: 12. to whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto you they ministered those things which are now declared unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you, the Holy Spirit being sent down from heaven, on whom the angels desire to look. 13. Wherefore, having the loins of your mind girt up, being sober, hope perfectly for that grace which is offered you in the revelation of Jesus Christ: 14. as children of obedience, not fashioned according to the former desires of your ignorance: 15. but according to Him who has called you, the Holy One: and you yourselves be holy in all conversation. 16. Because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy. 17. And if you invoke as Father Him who, without respect of persons, judges according to every man's work, converse in fear during the time of your sojourning here. 18. Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers: 19. but with the precious blood of Christ, as of an unspotted and undefiled lamb: 20. foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times for your sakes; 21. who through Him are faithful in God, who raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. 22. Purifying your souls in the obedience of charity, in the love of brotherhood, with a sincere heart love one another more earnestly: 23. being born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God who lives and remains forever. 24. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass: the grass is withered, and the flower thereof is fallen away. 25. But the word of the Lord endures forever: and this is the word which has been preached unto you.
Verse 1: Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the Elect Strangers of the Dispersion
1. Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ. — The Syriac reads: "The Epistle of the Apostle Peter, Simon Cephas," since the Syriac translates from the Greek, in which Cephas is called Peter; whence the name of Peter passed to the Syrians and other nations and languages, because it was most commonly used in the Greek and Latin churches. Note: Peter was first called Simon Bar Jona, that is, son of Jonah; for Peter's father was named John, in Hebrew Joanan, and by contraction Jonan and Jona. Whence Christ says to him in John 21:15: "Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?" Then by Christ he was called in Syriac Kepha (in Hebrew Keph), that is, as the Greeks and Latins pronounce it, Cephas, which is rock, or Peter: for Petros is the same as petra (rock): for if it were different and derived only from petra, he would have to be called Petreus, not Petrus, as St. Augustine notes in retracting in his Retractations, ch. 29, and Sermons 16 and 29 On the Saints. Furthermore, Christ gave Simon the name Cephas, that is Peter, because He was destining him to make him His Vicar in the Church, and therefore He gave him His own name (for Christ is called the rock and cornerstone of the Church, according to that of 1 Corinthians 10:4: "And the rock was Christ"), and along with the name He communicated to him the firmness and constancy of His faith and spirit. Whence Joseph was a type of him, who in Genesis 49:24 is called the shepherd and rock of Israel, because, as Ecclesiasticus 49:17 explains, "he was prince of his brothers, the firmness of his nation, ruler of his brothers, and the stability of his people."
Peter therefore is the same as rock and foundation of the Church. "For he is called rock," says St. Augustine in his sermon On the Chair of Peter, and St. Ambrose, sermon 47, "because he was the first to lay the foundations of faith among the nations, and like an immovable boulder he contains the structure and mass of the entire Christian work. Therefore Peter is called rock for his devotion, and the Lord is called rock for His power. He rightly merits a share in the name who merits a share in the work." Likewise St. Hilary, canon 16 on Matthew: "O happy foundation of the Church in the conferring of the new name," he says, "and rock worthy of building upon Him, which would dissolve the laws of hell, and the gates of Tartarus, and all the bars of death." And St. Chrysostom on Psalm 50: "He was called Peter," he says, "who was endowed with rock-like faith." St. Leo, Epistle 89, ch. 1: "You," He says, "are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, that the building of the eternal temple, by the wonderful gift of God's grace, might rest on the solidity of Peter." St. Gregory, Register, Book VI, Epistle 37: "Who does not know," he says, "that the Holy Church is established on the solidity of the Prince of the Apostles? Because he drew firmness of mind into his name, that Peter might be called from petra (rock)." St. Germanus of Constantinople, in his Contemplation of the Ancient Church: "The summit of the adornment and the crown of the twelve little stones," he says, "are the Apostles: but the rock is the most holy Apostle, the first of the Hierarchs of Christ." The same is taught by Tertullian, Origen, St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Epiphanius, Nazianzen, St. Paulinus and others, whom Bellarmine cites in Book I On the Roman Pontiff, chapters 10 and 11.
Hence the Syriac Kepha aptly alludes to and agrees with the Greek kephalē, that is head, because Peter is the head of the Church. So the Hebrew Pascha (Passover) agrees with the Greek paschein (to suffer), because at Passover Christ suffered. And the Hebrew Jesus with the Greek iasis, that is healing, health: because Jesus is the physician and healer of all infirmities. Whence St. Anacletus, Epistle 3, and Optatus of Milevis, Book II Against Parmenian, interpret Kepha as kephalē (head), although this is not its genuine etymology, as is evident. Perhaps Christ, when imposing on Simon the name Cephas, was looking to the rocky and very lofty hill near Jerusalem, from which the whole city could be seen, which was called Kepha, and later by a varied dialect Kipho, of which Josippus Gorionides speaks in Book II of the Jewish War, ch. 25. For what this hill is to Jerusalem, that Peter is to the Church.
Apostle, — par excellence, because he is the chief of the Apostles; but Peter passes over this in silence out of modesty and humility: whence the Roman Pontiff succeeding St. Peter is called Apostolic, and his chair the Apostolic See. Furthermore, Apostle is the same as legate of Christ. Hear Clement, Book II of the Recognitions: "We Apostles," he says, "have been sent to expound the words of Him who sent us: but we have no commission to say anything of our own, but, as I said, to open up the truth of His words."
To the elect, — supply, he writes this epistle, and prays every good thing for them, saying: "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you." Take the elect as elect to faith and grace, not to glory: for St. Peter did not wish to say that all the faithful are efficaciously elected to glory; much less did he wish to make them all certain and secure of this their election, since many have fallen away not only from grace, but also from faith, and have become heretical followers of Simon Magus, Menander, Cerinthus, etc. That this is so is clear from what St. Peter adds: "Unto sanctification of the Spirit," as if to say: I write to those elect not immediately for glory, but for holiness and grace; and 2 Thessalonians 2:13: "But we ought to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of God, that God has chosen you as firstfruits unto salvation, in sanctification of the Spirit, and in faith of the truth." The counterpart in St. Peter is that of Paul, Ephesians 1:4: "As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity."
Great is this election, because it is to a great good, namely to faith and grace, which is the seed of glory and eternal happiness. Whence in chapter 2, verse 9: "You," he says, "are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of acquisition, that you may declare the virtues of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."
To strangers. — First, Lyranus: "strangers," he says, that is, proselytes, namely those who from paganism had been converted to Judaism, and thence to Christianity. But in Greek it is not prosēlytois (proselytes), but parepidēmois (sojourners). Secondly, Maldonatus, on chapter 7 of St. John, verse 35, by "strangers" understands the Gentiles; for these, because they were scattered throughout the world, were called the dispersion, and the dispersed, according to that of St. John in the same place: "Will He go into the dispersion of the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?" while the Jews lived in Judea collected and united. Thirdly, St. Jerome, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, in his entry on Peter; St. Athanasius in the Synopsis; Didymus, Oecumenius, Catharinus, Cajetanus and others here take "strangers" to mean the Jews who were coming to Christ and converted. Fourthly and genuinely, "strangers of the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia," etc., are called the Jewish Christians, who both at other times and recently, on account of the persecution stirred up by the Jews from the killing of Stephen, Acts 8:1, having been dispersed from Judea, had fled into Pontus, Galatia, etc., and were therefore there as guests and strangers, not as natives and tenants, even if they had fixed their seat and home there. Whence St. James, writing to the same persons, says in chapter 1, verse 1: "To the twelve tribes which are in the dispersion, greeting." For these are called in Greek parepidēmois, that is, inhabitants who are strangers and have their dwelling in a foreign land: for parepidēmeō means the same as "I sojourn abroad, I arrive as a stranger, I am a guest."
Mystically, St. Peter tacitly admonishes and hints that the faithful in this world, wherever among the nations they may be, ought to think themselves guests and pilgrims, so as not to fasten their heart on any place or thing; but as strangers may pass through to the heavenly fatherland, and say with David: "I am a stranger with You and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were," Psalm 38:13; and may meditate on that of Paul: "Brethren, you are no longer guests and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with the Saints and members of the household of God," Ephesians 2:19. Christians therefore are citizens of heaven, guests and strangers on earth. Truly St. Augustine, Question 91 on Leviticus: "Every man," he says, "is a stranger by being born, because he is compelled to migrate by dying." See the same in Sermon 32 On the Words of the Lord.
From what has been said, it is clear that these strangers were Jews by nation and birth, Christians by faith and religion: for they were exiles and fugitives from Judea; but under these he understands all the faithful of Pontus, even citizens and tenants converted from paganism to Christ, both because the first who brought the faith of Christ into Pontus, etc., were Jewish strangers: for these converted both Jews and Gentiles dwelling in Pontus. Rightly therefore are they reckoned by the name of strangers, as it were of their parents in Christ, especially since the particular care of the Jews was incumbent upon St. Peter, as that of the Gentiles upon Paul, Galatians 2:7; and because few citizens of Pontus had at this time been converted to Christ. For this Epistle was written shortly after the door of faith was opened to the Gentiles through Cornelius, in the year of Christ 43. The greater part of Christians in Pontus, therefore, were of strangers: wherefore St. Peter by synecdoche calls them all strangers.
To the strangers of the dispersion of Pontus. — That is, to the strangers of Pontus from the dispersion: for the proscription brought forth dispersion, the dispersion made exiles and strangers of Pontus; or, as if to say, To strangers dispersed through Pontus; for the Hebrews often use abstract nouns for concrete ones.
Of Pontus. — "Pontus" is a region of Asia Minor neighboring the Euxine Sea (Pontus Euxinus): whence it received its name. The king of Pontus was Mithridates. From Pontus came the heresiarch Marcion; whence by Tertullian, Book I Against him, ch. 1, "he is called the Pontic mouse who gnawed away the Gospels." A Pontic also was Aquila, the early interpreter of the Scriptures. Pontus is placed here in first position. Whence Tertullian, Cyprian, Jerome, and Cassiodorus, when citing this Epistle, call it the Epistle to the Pontians, just as they call the first of St. John the Epistle to the Parthians. Moreover St. Leo, sermon 1 On St. Peter and Paul, asserts that St. Peter filled Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia with the laws of evangelical preaching. Peter therefore preached in Pontus, and converted the Pontians to the faith. Note here the efficacy of the Gospel and of St. Peter's preaching, in that he led wild and barbarous men to the Christian law and holiness.
How barbarous the Pontians were, Tertullian teaches in Book I Against Marcion, ch. 1: "Pontus," he says, "which is denied to be hospitable (Euxinus) by nature, is alluded to by name. Moreover do not estimate the hospitable Pontus from its location: it has so withdrawn from our more humane straits, as if from a kind of shame at its own barbarity; most ferocious nations inhabit it, if indeed it is inhabited at all — they live in wagons. Their dwelling is unstable, their life raw, their lust promiscuous and largely naked, even when they conceal themselves, with quivers hanging from the yoke as warnings, lest anyone rashly intervene: thus they are not even ashamed of their weapons. The corpses of their parents, slaughtered with the cattle, they devour at a banquet. Those who do not so depart as to be edible, theirs is an accursed death. Nor are the women softened by their sex according to modesty: they expose their breasts, do their tasks with axes, prefer to fight than to marry. The harshness comes also from the sky: the day is never bright; the sun never free; the air is one fog; the whole year is winter; whatever wind blows, it is the North Wind. Liquids return only by fires, all are denied by ice, mountains are heaped up with frost. Everything is numb, everything stiff; nothing there is warm except savagery — that, namely, which gave subjects to the stage: the sacrifices of the Tauri, the loves of the Colchians, the crosses of the Caucasians. But nothing is so barbarous and sad about Pontus as that there Marcion was born — fouler than a Scythian, more unstable than the wagon-dweller, more inhuman than a Massagete, more daring than an Amazon, more obscure than a cloud, colder than winter, more fragile than ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more abrupt than the Caucasus." Again, in Pontus Pluto and Proserpina, gods of the underworld, were appeased with human victims: there too was the cave from which Cerberus was drawn out, and the descent of Hercules to the lower world, and the city itself was called Cerberion, and to the Pontic or Bosphoran kingdom the name of hell was given. The inhabitants were called Tauri Cimmerii (whence "Cimmerian darkness"), or Cimbri, or Cerberii, Heniochi, Colchi, Cappadoces, Paphlagonians. Was not the region of the Cimmerii a hell, sacred to the gods of the underworld, where screech-owls, where the swamp of Acheron, where Cerberus? See Suidas, Strabo and other Cosmographers.
Verse 2: According to the Foreknowledge of God the Father, Unto Sanctification of the Spirit
2. According to the foreknowledge of God the Father. — "Foreknowledge" signifies the providence and predestination of God, by which He chose the Pontians for the faith and grace of Christ and of Christianity, by providing for them preachers and other suitable means, by which He foreknew that they would listen and obey, and would freely embrace the offered faith and grace of Christ. Whence this foreknowledge is partly inchoate and conditional, partly perfect and absolute. It is inchoate, insofar as through it God foreknows what any man under this or that condition (e.g. calling and grace) will do and freely choose. It is perfect, insofar as, the condition having been posited by God's predestination and decree (such as a particular calling), God absolutely sees the will of man freely consenting, believing, and obeying Him. The first foreknowledge is called by Theologians "of simple intelligence"; the latter, "of vision": hence also the election of the elect according to the former is only inchoate and conditional, but according to the latter is perfect and absolute. The former is signified by the phrase "unto sanctification" (in sanctificationem), as the Latin reads; the latter by the phrase "in sanctification" (in sanctificatione), as the Greek reads, of which more presently.
Furthermore, Peter preferred to say "foreknowledge" rather than predestination, because foreknowledge extends more broadly and implies more: namely first, that this predestination of the faithful to faith and grace was made most wisely, inasmuch as it comes from the eternal foreknowledge and providence of all-knowing God. Secondly, that it is hidden and inscrutable, inasmuch as it was made by the hidden counsel and foreknowledge of the divine mind. Thirdly, that it is sweet equally as much as it is efficacious and infallible. Sweet, because it did not coerce free will, but sweetly enticed it to faith, by providing those means by which it foreknew and foresaw that free will would freely consent and use them for its salvation; efficacious and infallible, because since the providence of God foresees and provides all things, by what reasons the will of man must be moved, when it suggests them to him, it efficaciously and infallibly moves it, and bends it to consent freely. This is what the Wise Man says of God's eternal Wisdom, chapter 8, verse 1: "It reaches mightily from end to end, and orders all things sweetly." Fourthly, that it precedes our works and merits, and is therefore liberal and gratuitous, and worthy of all praise and thanksgiving. For this is what the prefix "prae-" and "pro-" signify in "foreknowledge" (praescientia) and "providence" (providentia). Fifthly, that this providence of God toward His elect as toward sons is paternal, supreme, and divine: for that is what the phrase "of God the Father" signifies. Sixthly, that this foreknowledge of God is not only speculative, but also practical: for it includes the will, love, and decree of God to give grace, by which we may be led to faith, righteousness, and salvation.
Furthermore St. Cyril, in the book On the Right Faith to the Queens, and Oecumenius here, refer "foreknowledge" to Peter and Peter's apostolate, as if it itself were conferred through God's foreknowledge, that is providence; and thus he is inferior to Jeremiah not in dignity but only in time, who in chapter 1 heard from God: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." Better, others everywhere refer "foreknowledge" to the phrase "to the elect," as if to say: I write to the elect, who have been chosen by God for the faith and directed by His sweet foreknowledge and providence. The counterpart in Peter is that of Paul: "God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew," Romans 11:2. "Whom He foreknew He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son," Romans 8:29. "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor?" Romans 11:34.
Of God the Father. — "Father" here can be taken either notionally, so as to signify the first person of the Holy Trinity, who begot the Son; or essentially, so as to signify God, who is common to the three persons. For He is Father with respect to men, angels, and all creatures.
Unto sanctification of the Spirit. — Oecumenius refers this to the word "Apostle." Whence he weaves and explains everything thus: "Peter, sent from the foreknowledge of God the Father as an Apostle to set apart for Himself in the Spirit, and to render obedient those who admitted the expiatory sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, to you the elect pilgrims from the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, may grace and peace be multiplied." Others better refer this to "to the elect," as if to say: You are chosen by God for the sanctification of the Spirit, both active, namely that the Holy Spirit may sanctify you through infused grace; and consequently passive, namely that your soul and spirit may be sanctified by God, through the Holy Spirit sent into you; therefore the word "Spirit" signifies first, that this sanctification is the proper work of the Holy Spirit, yet so that the other two persons of the Holy Trinity are not excluded, but rather are included in it through the divine perichōrēsis, that is, circumincession, as Damascene says. Whence St. Peter here names the mystery of the Holy Trinity and its three persons: namely the first, by saying "of God the Father"; the second, by saying "of Jesus Christ"; the third, by saying "of the Spirit." Again, fittingly he attributes to the Father election, foreknowledge, and predestination; to the Holy Spirit sanctification; to the Son the sprinkling of blood: for by it He redeemed us and washed us from our sins. Secondly, the word "Spirit" signifies that this sanctification is not of the flesh, as that of the old Law was, but of the spirit. Thirdly, that in sanctification a spirit is infused into us, namely the habit of grace, of charity, and of the other virtues, with which our mind being imbued may become spiritual, indeed spirit itself; that, like the angelic spirits, it may with spiritual and angelic purity and holiness please and serve God. Furthermore we draw and partake of this spirit from God and from the Holy Spirit, and through Him are made like Him, according to that saying: "He who adheres to the Lord is one spirit," 1 Corinthians 6:17.
Note: For "in sanctificatione" the Greek has en hagiasmō, which is "in sanctification," or also "unto sanctification": for ἐν is often put for εἰς: both are true and fitting to this passage. For God chose us inchoately for sanctification, when He destined us from eternity, and called us in time to holiness; but perfectly He chose us in holiness, when He now loves and chooses for His grace, friendship, sonship, and inheritance those already freely believing, baptized, and sanctified. Paul says the same thing, Ephesians 1:4, and 1 Thessalonians 5:23: "And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all things, that your whole spirit, and soul, and body may be preserved without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Morally let Christians here learn how much sanctity is to be esteemed, inasmuch as they have been chosen by God from eternity for it, who for this sent Christ into the world, namely that "we may serve Him in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days," as Zechariah sings, Luke 1:75. "For this is the will of God, your sanctification," says Paul, 1 Thessalonians 4:3. Christians therefore should think that God and Christ say to them that word of God through Moses: "You shall be holy to Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other peoples, that you should be Mine," Leviticus 20:26; and 22:32: "I am the Lord who sanctify you." Therefore let them pray assiduously with David: "Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your face, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and confirm me with a princely spirit."
Unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. — The preposition "in" (unto) can first signify the meritorious cause, so that it is the same as "through," as if to say: We have been chosen for holiness through Christ's obedience unto death, and through His blood shed on the cross, with which we have been sprinkled and cleansed in baptism. Thus Lyranus and Cajetanus. For the Hebrew ב, that is "in," is taken for "through," "because of," "from," and so signifies every kind of cause, as I have shown in Canon 25 on St. Paul.
Secondly, the word "in" signifies the final cause, as if to say: The faithful have been chosen by God for holiness, with this fruit and end: that they may obey His commandments, and daily obtain in heaven a greater fruit of the shedding of Christ's blood, namely perseverance and eternal life: for this is unlocked for us through the sprinkling of Christ's blood, as Paul says, Hebrews 9:11. By metonymy therefore and metalepsis, the blood of Christ is put for the unlocking of heaven and heavenly glory, just as the cause is put for the effect, the merit for the reward: so that St. Peter assigns three effects of divine predestination, namely election, obedience, and eternal life through the merits of Christ's blood, just as St. Paul assigns the same, when he names them calling, justification, and glorification, Romans 8:30.
Thirdly, "in" can signify the material cause, as if to say: They have been chosen by God who showed themselves obedient to Christ, and having embraced through faith the blood of Christ shed for them, sprinkled and purified themselves with it. Thus St. Cyril, On the Faith to the Queens, and Oecumenius.
The second sense is profound, but obscure and novel: for nowhere else is the sprinkling of blood so taken. The first therefore is plain and customary; yet if anyone prefers to follow the second with the many, let him say that the sprinkling of Christ's blood is put metonymically for the fruit of the sprinkling of Christ's blood, in this sense, as if to say: You have been called to holiness, with this end, that by obeying Christ, and by following His holy precepts and admonitions, and by daily commemorating His redemption, blood, and death, you may more and more perceive the fruit of it; namely, that you may daily grow and advance in every virtue and holiness, even to the end of life, and so obtain the treasures of heavenly glory.
Note: St. Peter here sets forth the blood of Christ to the faithful as a certain most precious bath for sanctification, that is, for healing all the diseases of the soul, and most efficacious for procuring and increasing all virtues (which are nothing other than the soul's healings), which therefore we ought frequently and at every day and hour to use. He alludes to the sprinkling of the blood of the victims of the Old Testament, in which all the purification and sanctity of that age consisted, as I have shown in Leviticus 1; but most of all he alludes to the sprinkling of the leper to be cleansed: for he on the eighth day was sprinkled with the victim's blood, and by it was cleansed from legal uncleanness, which kept him as it were irregular from the temple and from association with men, by which up to this time he had been kept apart on account of leprosy, Leviticus 14. For the leper typically figured the sinner, who is cleansed from the leprosy of sin through the sprinkling, that is, the application of Christ's blood, which takes place through baptism and the other Sacraments, also through faith, contrition, and good works. This is what Isaiah foretold, chapter 52:15: "He shall sprinkle many nations," as if to say: Christ by His blood through the water of baptism shall wash many from sins, shall justify and sanctify them. This is what David prays in Psalm 50: "You shall sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed," as if to say: As once the leper was typically cleansed through the sprinkling of hyssop dipped in the victim's blood, so by the sprinkling of Christ's blood, who truly is the bloody hyssop of the immaculate Lamb cleansing sins, wash and cleanse my guilt of murder and adultery. For he prays that, through the blood and merits of Christ to come, prefigured by hyssop, blood, and lamb, sins may be forgiven him.
Thus St. Ambrose, On the Apology of David, ch. 12. So the Apostle, Hebrews 10:22: "Sprinkled," he says, "in our hearts from an evil conscience," that is, in our hearts cleansed and purged from sins by the blood of Christ through baptism. Whence in explanation he adds: "And our body washed with pure water" of baptism. The sprinkling of blood therefore is the same as the cleansing and purification from sins, which takes place through the blood of Christ.
Furthermore this sprinkling, that is, the application of Christ's blood, is applied to the soul, first, through baptism and the other Sacraments, especially the Eucharist: for in it we really eat the body and drink the blood of Christ. Secondly, through faith and prayer, namely by beseeching that God, through the merits of Christ's blood, may forgive us our sins, give grace, bestow and increase virtues. So the Church is accustomed to conclude all prayers and collects by saying: "Through our Lord Jesus Christ," etc. Thirdly, through remembrance and meditation on Christ's Passion; for by this we show ourselves grateful to Christ, and celebrate His precious redemption, and through it we hope for, ask, and obtain benefits. And for this cause Christ instituted the sacrifice of the Mass and the Eucharist, that in it we might continually call to mind so great a condescension of His Passion, and celebrate it with all thanksgiving, according to that: "Do this in commemoration of Me." And: "As often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall declare the death of the Lord, until He comes," 1 Corinthians 11:26. Fourthly, by uniting our operations and passions to the actions and passions of Christ: for this is most honorable to Christ, most pleasing to the Father, most useful to us: for when we offer to God the Father our slight works, united to the divine works of Christ, and as it were clothed and gilded with them, and crimsoned with His blood, we win His eyes (that He may look upon the face of His Christ) and His grace, and we obtain what we beseech. Hence pious and wise men assiduously practice this very thing. This is what Paul says in Hebrews 12:24: "You have come... to the mediator of the new Testament, and to the sprinkling of blood that speaks better than Abel," because the blood of Abel cries out for vengeance, that of Christ for mercy.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you. — Understand grace both as the uncreated grace in God, and the created grace in us. The uncreated is the benevolence, love, favor, by which God pursues His own; the created is the grace and gifts which God out of love freely infuses into the soul. The effect and companion of grace is a threefold peace, namely peace with God, with ourselves, and with our neighbors. Thus St. Peter prays that both peace and grace may be increased and perfected in the faithful, by the example of Christ, who, greeting His disciples after the resurrection, says: "Peace be unto you," especially because He Himself not only promised it, but also gave it, saying: "Peace I leave unto you, My peace I give unto you," John ch. 20; whence St. Cyril, Book XII on John, chs. 53 and 54, and Book X, ch. 7: A certain law, he says, has been handed down to the Church: for in the holy congregations we say these things to one another quite often. For to have peace both toward ourselves and toward God is the fount and origin of all good things. Wherefore Paul also, wishing every good thing for the faithful, says: "Grace and peace to you." Furthermore Cyril judges that the peace which Christ desired and left to the Apostles is the Holy Spirit, because indeed He is the causal peace; for He causes peace. So Christ is said to be our peace, Ephesians 2:14, that is, our peacemaker, who reconciled peace between us and God.
Verse 3: Blessed Be God and the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who Has Regenerated Us Unto a Living Hope
3. Blessed be God. — He begins with blessing, thanksgiving, and praise of God, because he celebrates the immense benefit of Christ's redemption, and of our calling through Him to grace and eternal glory. Paul does the same throughout chapter 1 of Ephesians, in which he wonderfully extols, examines, and admires this benefit of God. Indeed even some of the Gentiles begin their epistles and books with God. Thus Aratus begins his Phaenomena: "From Jove the beginning," etc., as I have noted on Acts 17:28. Furthermore this praise and blessing of God is an angelic voice, and the beginning of the blessed life. For the blessed in heaven, absorbed into the sea of divinity, do nothing but praise and glorify God, Apocalypse 4:8 and 10.
Morally note that the hearts and mouths of the Saints are as it were the altar of incense, which continually breathes forth the incense of divine praise, and as it were an apiary, or rather honeycombs, which perennially distill the honey of doxology, so that with St. Job, as much in prosperity as in adversity, they may say: "Blessed be the name of the Lord"; and with the Psalmist in Psalm 33: "I will bless the Lord at all times"; and with the three children in the fiery furnace: "Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever," Daniel 3; and with Zechariah: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He has visited and wrought the redemption of His people," Luke ch. 1; and with the Blessed Virgin: "My soul magnifies the Lord." So Paul begins almost all his Epistles with thanksgiving, or with blessing of God.
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, — both as regards His divinity, by the generation communicated to Him from eternity; but rather as regards His humanity, which He formed for Him in time by the operation of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, by which reason the whole Holy Trinity is said to be Father of Christ and of Christians: for the name Jesus is the name of Christ's humanity, not of His divinity. For the Apostles everywhere celebrate the mystery of Christ's incarnation, both because it is new, and because through it our redemption was accomplished: for we are justified and saved only through His faith and merits.
Who according to His great mercy. — He gives the cause why he blesses God: His great mercy shown to us through Christ. He alludes to that of Psalm 50:1: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, and according to the multitude of Your mercies blot out my iniquity." And Psalm 144:9: "His tender mercies are over all His works." And Psalm 107:5: "Great is Thy mercy above the heavens." With St. Peter, Paul agrees, 2 Corinthians 1:3: "Blessed be God, etc., the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation." And Ephesians 2:4: "But God, who is rich in mercy, by reason of His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us."
Furthermore, the mercy of God is great, that is, supreme and immense: first, from its efficient cause, because it flows from God and from His immense love for us; therefore it is as great as the deity itself, with which it is one and the same. Second, from its object, since He gave us His only-begotten Son, so that in Him He seems to have poured out His very bowels upon us, according to that saying of Zechariah: "Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high has visited us," Luke 1. It is therefore great, because the immense God emptied Himself even unto death, even the death of the cross, so that He might have mercy on man, His most bitter enemy, and free him from eternal misery. Third, from its subject, because He summoned us human beings — vile worms, as it were, full of sins and every misery — to Himself, and raised us up to His grace and glory, according to that saying: The abyss of human misery calls upon the abyss of divine mercy, Psalm 41:8. Fourth, from the abundance of His gifts, because He has bestowed innumerable benefits, graces, and gifts upon us, and does not cease to bestow them. Whence St. Augustine, sermon 2 on Psalm 58: "All that I am, O Lord, is from Thy mercy; for that I might exist, what did I do? That I might be one who called upon Thee, what did I accomplish? Since therefore no one is more lavish toward me in mercy, from whom I received that I might exist, from Him I received that I might be good — my God, my mercy." Fifth, it is great in place and time, because it extends to all men of all places, times, and ages, according to that saying of Psalm 32:5: "The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord." Furthermore, in the saints it endures forever. Sixth, from its end, because it leads us to His great kingdom, and makes us sharers and partakers of His inheritance and immense glory, according to that saying of the Psalmist: "I cried to Thee, O Lord; I said: Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living," Psalm 141:6. It is therefore great: first, because it flows from the great God; second, because it is given through the great Christ; third, because it relieves great misery; fourth, because it gives great gifts; fifth, because it embraces great peoples, places, and times; sixth, because it blesses us with great Heaven and great God.
He has regenerated us unto a living hope. — Regeneration is twofold: The first is justification and sanctification, by which we are raised from the death of sin and called back to the life of grace lost in the fall of Adam. This is called regeneration, that is, a repeated and second generation, because the first generation was in Adam, by which God created Adam and in him all his posterity in grace, and through it made them His sons, and therefore begot them in spirit. The second generation, that is, regeneration, is that by which we, fallen and dead, are called back through Christ to the original life and grace which we had in Adam before the fall. The second regeneration is the resurrection: for by it we are raised from death and as it were regenerated into a new life — namely heavenly, blessed, and eternal. This is called regeneration in respect to the first generation, by which we were begotten by our parents into this natural and mortal life. In either sense the word can be understood here.
According to the first, the sense will be, as if to say: God through Christ, and through Christ's baptism and grace, has regenerated us, that is, justified us and called us back to the life of grace, "unto a living hope," that is, with this end and fruit, namely that through grace we may hope to obtain glory and eternal life.
According to the second, the sense will be, as if to say: Christ, by sprinkling, purifying, sanctifying, and vivifying us with His blood, has regenerated us, that is, raised us up to glory and the blessed life, "in," that is, through a living hope. "For by hope we are saved"; for this hope, on the part of God who promises, is so living, certain, and efficacious that it is as if He were already in fact giving us the thing hoped for — namely the blessed life — and placing it in our hands. In which sense Paul says: "Through faith we have access to this grace in which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God," Romans ch. 5, v. 2; and: "He has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places," Ephesians 2:6 — as if to say: Christ, by rising and ascending into heaven, has carried us up with Him and made us sit with Him in heaven; for we are so certain, if we cleave to Christ, that we will sit with Him in heaven, that it is as though we already sat with Him: "for where the glory of the Head has gone before, there the hope of the body is also called," says St. Leo. Whence St. Augustine in Meditation 15: "This is my whole hope, all my confidence is in Jesus Christ Himself, who is the portion of each one of us, our flesh and our blood. Where then my portion reigns, there I believe that I reign; where my flesh is glorified, there I know myself to be glorified; where my blood holds dominion, there I sense myself to hold dominion."
Third, it can be expounded thus: that the living hope is called the regeneration itself, as if to say: He has regenerated, that is, generated us anew and given us life, by giving us not the thing itself — namely glory — but a living hope of it. For this living hope is, as it were, the soul and life of the Christian, by which he lives and flourishes amid labors and tribulations for Christ, because he hopes from Him for eternal life. For by hope he anticipates that life, so that he seems already to possess it and to live by it, and consequently through hope already seems regenerated and raised up. Hence he calls the hope "living," because it rewards and vivifies the faithful; of which more shortly. Note here that the "in" in Hebrew idiom signifies an increase of the living hope, as if to say: God regenerates us and makes us daily more living and vigorous in Christianity through hope, which He stirs up daily greater and more living in us by new aids and reinforcements of grace, by continual help, direction, and protection, by the various consolations which in the midst of tribulations and desolations He daily suggests and inspires in us greater and more abundant ones.
Unto a living hope. — It is called a living hope, first, because it hopes for eternal life. Whence St. Jerome, in book I Against Jovinian, reads "unto the hope of life." Others, as cited by St. Augustine, book I On the Merit of Sins, ch. 27, read "unto the hope of eternal life." Metonymically, then, "living hope" is put for the life hoped for, or for the living thing to be obtained through hope. Significantly, however, he says "living," to indicate that the present life is mortal and dead, and is more death than life. For, as St. Gregory says in Homily 37 on the Gospels: "Temporal life, compared with eternal life, ought rather to be called death than life. For what else is the daily decay of corruption itself, but a certain prolongation of death?"
Second, because this hope is not deceitful and doubtful, such as is the hope of worldly men hoping for wealth and honors, but truthful and certain, so that, unless it stand undone through our own fault, we shall certainly attain the glory we hope for, says Bede. Third, because this hope never dies nor perishes, but always lives, until it brings us to the thing hoped for. Fourth, hope is called "living," because it sustains the life of the faithful, so that in the midst of tribulations they live joyfully in a living hope of glory: hope therefore gives them life and courage, and makes them live and flourish amid any adversities whatsoever. Whence Philo, in his book That the Worse Plots Against the Better: "For what," he says, "can be more proper to man than hope and expectation of receiving good things from God alone, the most bountiful? This kind of men, if we will speak the truth, is properly human; whereas those who do not hope in God may be reckoned outside rational nature." So too Paul: "That which I now live in the flesh," he says, "I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me," Galatians 2:20. For the man who despairs languishes like one dead, but he who hopes lives and is strong, as in that line of Tibullus, book II:
Trusting hope cherishes life,
And ever says that tomorrow will be better.
Hope feeds the farmers, hope entrusts seeds to the ploughed furrows.
Hope also strongly comforts him bound with a stout fetter.
See St. Bernard, sermon 7 on the Psalm Qui habitat: "In hope, brethren, we live, nor do we fail in tribulation, because we are in expectation of unspeakable joys. For this expectation does not seem vain to us, nor this hope doubtful, since it rests upon the eternal promises of Truth. Furthermore, from the perception of present gifts, the expectation of future ones is firm; and the power of present grace bears all-too-credible witness that the felicity of the promised glory will undoubtedly follow. Indeed, the Lord of hosts is Himself the King of glory; the Lord will give grace and glory. Let piety, therefore, manfully sustain the struggle in this world, and patiently endure whatever persecution may come."
Fifth, hope is called "living," that is, vigorous and verdant. For just as Ezekiel, chapter 37:4, represents the despair of the Jews in Babylon concerning their liberation and return to Jerusalem under the figure of dry bones, so likewise he stirs up and quickens their hope by the vision in which he sees these bones come to life again. Whence St. Gregory, book XXXI of the Morals, ch. 34 or 18: "The hearts of men are dry which, planted in the perishable hope of this world, have no confidence of eternity; but those flourish which cling to that inheritance. For Thou, O Lord, hast set me singularly in hope," Psalm 4:10, and: "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me not be confounded forever," Psalm 30:1.
Sixth, just as stagnant, standing waters are called dead, while fountain and flowing waters are called living — because life, that is, vital operation, consists in action and motion — so a living hope is one which rouses a man to living and heroic acts of the virtues, by which he may attain the glory he hopes for. Hence St. Paul says: "The saints by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered strength from infirmity, became valiant in battle, put to flight the armies of foreigners; women received their dead raised to life again. Others were stretched out, not accepting deliverance, that they might find a better resurrection, etc. They were stoned, were cut asunder, were tempted, were put to death by the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins," etc.
Finally, Clement of Alexandria, in book I of the Paedagogus, chapter 6, holds that hope is called "living" because the hope of faith gives life, and is, as it were, the soul of faith. "The Church," he says, "consists of body, namely faith, but of soul, namely hope, just as Christ consists of flesh and blood. For indeed the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is contained, as it is in the soul. But when hope expires, just as if the blood had flowed out, the vital power of faith is dissolved."
By this living hope St. Martin excelled. When he answered Julian the Apostate, who reproached him with cowardice: "I, protected by the sign of the Cross, not by shield or helmet, will safely penetrate the wedges of the enemy"; and when he was captured by robbers and said that he feared nothing at all: "For I know," he said, "that God is the more present to those who trust in Him, the greater the dangers." And when at the moment of death he said to the devil: "What standest thou here, cruel beast? thou shalt find nothing deadly in me"; and to his own: "Suffer me to look upon heaven rather than earth, that my spirit, already about to set out on its journey, may be directed to the Lord." I have collected more on this in Jeremiah ch. 1:18 and 17:8.
By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. — Refer this first to "unto a living hope," as if to say: Our hope is living, or hoping for eternal life, because Christ our Head has gone before us into it through the resurrection, that He might bring us with Himself as members into the same. For living hope says: I hope to rise, because Christ my Redeemer has risen, not only for Himself, but also for me, namely that He might raise me from death to life and glory. Second, refer it to "He has regenerated," as if to say: God has regenerated us, that is, raised us up both from sin to grace and from death to eternal life through the resurrection of Christ. For this was the cause not only exemplary but also efficient of our resurrection — and that, first, because Christ by His Passion and death, whose end and term was the resurrection, merited for us both kinds of being raised up.
Second, because Christ in rising completely conquered death, and routed it not only in Himself, but also in us, as its tamer and victor. Hence Paul says in Romans 4:25: "Who was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification." See also chapter 6, verse 4: "That as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."
Third, because Christ, who rose, on the day of judgment will raise us up — partly by Himself, partly through the angels — according to that saying of Philippians 3:20: "But our conversation is in heaven, whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowliness, made like to the body of His glory."
St. Jerome speaks splendidly to Heliodorus, in the Epitaph of Nepotian: "He," he says, "who once threatened thee sternly through Hosea: I shall be thy death, O Death; I shall be thy bite, O Hell — by His death thou art dead, by His death we live: thou hast devoured, and hast been devoured; and while thou art enticed by the bait of the assumed body, and with greedy jaws think it thy prey, thy entrails were transfixed by His curved tooth. We give Thee thanks, Christ our Saviour, we Thy creatures, that being slain Thou hast slain so mighty an adversary of ours."
Our hope, therefore — as well as the love and jubilation of our heart — is Christ. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 9 on the Psalm Qui habitat: "For Thou, O Lord, art my hope. Whatever then is to be done, whatever to be avoided, whatever to be endured, whatever to be wished for, Thou, O Lord, art my hope. This is for me the one ground of all promises, this is the whole reason of my expectation. Let another claim merit, let him boast that he has borne the burden of the day and the heat, let him say that he fasts twice on the Sabbath, let him glory that he is not as the rest of men: for me it is good to cleave to God, to place my hope in the Lord. Let others hope in others: perhaps one trusts in literary learning, another in the cunning of the world, another in nobility, another in dignity, another in any other vanity whatsoever; for Thy sake I have suffered all losses and count them as dung, because Thou, O Lord, art my hope. If rewards are promised me, I will hope to obtain them through Thee. If battles rise up against me, if the world rages, if the wicked one growls, if even the flesh lusts against the spirit — in Thee will I hope. Brethren, to be wise in this is to live by faith; nor can anyone else truly say: For Thou, O Lord, art my hope, etc. For why, if we are wise in this, do we delay to cast off all wretched, vain, useless, seductive hopes, and to cleave with the whole devotion of soul, with the whole fervor of spirit, to this one hope so solid, so perfect, so blessed?"
From the dead. — From the number, state, and place of the dead — namely, from the sepulchre and from hell.
Verse 4: Unto an Inheritance Incorruptible, Undefiled, and Unfading, Reserved in Heaven
4. Unto an inheritance. — Refer this to "He has regenerated," as if to say: God has regenerated us in baptism and made us His sons, that He might make us partakers and heirs of His inheritance. For parents beget children precisely so as to have them as heirs. It could also be referred to "a living hope," as if to say: He has regenerated us unto a living hope, which by hoping tends toward an inheritance, or which is the hope of an incorruptible inheritance. For the Hebrews often by ב (bet), that is "in," with the accusative, signify the genitive relation.
Furthermore, this inheritance, which God will give to His beloved and chosen sons, is the kingdom of heaven, and God Himself, whole as great as He is. For the blessed, by seeing and contemplating God, enjoy Him, rejoice and are made happy in Him forever. So St. Augustine, sermon 19 On Time: "We have," he says, "one city with the holy angels, we shall be possessed by the Lord, we shall be His inheritance, and He will be our inheritance; for even now we say: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance. And of us it is said: Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance."
Incorruptible. — By nature and substance. He sets this epithet in opposition: first, to the inheritance of the Jews, whose inheritance in the promised land flowing with milk and honey — namely Canaan — was corruptible, since it was perishable and of short duration. Second, to the inheritance of the Chiliasts or Millenarians, who said that the saints would reign only a thousand years in this life, of which sect Cerinthus, contemporary and opponent of St. Peter, was the author: of whom more in Apocalypse ch. 20, v. 4. Third, to the error of Origen, who taught from Plato that after the great year — namely after twelve, or, as others say, thirty-six thousand years — all things must revolve and return to their original or primeval state; and therefore that the blessed in heaven would return to the present life. So Didymus. Fourth, to the earthly inheritance, which parents leave to their corruptible children as something corruptible; for the Christian inheritance is immortal, incorruptible, eternal, which is not changed nor corrupted by death, nor by old age, nor by any time whatsoever; because this inheritance is the empyreal heaven, which is incorruptible — indeed it is God Himself immortal, as I said a little before. For an immortal inheritance and felicity is owed to the immortal soul, and is also fittingly proportioned to it. Truly St. Augustine, on Psalm 149: "God," he says, "will be our inheritance — an inheritance which is not diminished by the abundance of those who possess it, nor made narrower by the multitude of co-heirs: but it is as great for many as for few, as great for each as for all" — whereas in a created inheritance the contrary far otherwise occurs. Then likewise this corruptible body shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, as the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 15:53.
And undefiled. — He opposes this to the error of the Jews, of the Chiliasts, of Muhammad and the Saracens, who look forward to a paradise in which they may enjoy every pleasure of the flesh, and defile themselves with every kind of luxury and lust. Again, against the error of Origen, who said that the souls of the blessed, after the great year, would return from the heavens and the company of the angels to this miserable and contaminated flesh. Against these Peter says that the heavenly inheritance will be incorruptible, and likewise always pure and undefiled from every — not only fault, but also any kind of filth, vice, and blemish. Wherefore in Apocalypse 21:27, it is said of it: "There shall not enter into it anything defiled." And Psalm 23:3: "Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place? The innocent in hands, and clean of heart, who hath not taken his soul in vain."
For "undefiled" the Greek is amianton, that is, unpolluted, refined, uncontaminated, immaculate, pure. Hence the stone called amianthus is so named, which grows in Cyprus, similar to fissile alum, from which — being pliant — they weave cloths that, when cast into the fire, are indeed kindled and produce flames, but lose nothing of their parts and emerge brighter, as Dioscorides testifies, book V, chapter 113, and Pliny, book XXXVI, chapter 19, who says: "Amianthus, similar to alum, loses nothing in fire." Whence the same author, book XIX, chapter 1, calls the same stuff "living flax," but he is mistaken when he holds that it is truly flax, which grows in India, since it is a stone, or alum. Therefore amianthus is the image and symbol of the divinity, as being most pure; for which reason the Brahmins used to make garments for themselves of amianthus, that they might display in themselves a sample of divinity. From it also the funeral garments of kings were woven, so that, the bodies thrown upon the pyre being covered with them, the ashes of the bodies might be separated from the ashes of the wood, as Matthioli says in his commentary on Dioscorides, book I, chapter 113, and Pliny, book XIX, chapter 1.
Note secondly, "undefiled," that is, undefilable, as Pagninus and the Tigurina version translate it; for this is what the Greek amianton means, just as amaranton means "unfading" rather than merely "not fading." For the heavenly inheritance is pure and undefiled not only actually, but also habitually and potentially, because it cannot be defiled, nor be infected by the stain of anything whatsoever. Thus in Haggai 2 it is said: "The desired," that is, the desirable, "of all nations shall come." For the Hebrews often use passive participles in place of verbal forms in -bilis, which they lack — as in Zephaniah 2:1: "A nation not amiable," Hebrew, "not loved." 2 Kings 1: "Saul and Jonathan, lovely," Hebrew, "loved." Psalm 136: "Wonderful are Thy works," Hebrew, "wondered at." The Greeks and Latins do the same, as in Galatians 2: "Because he was reprehensible," Greek kategnōsmenos, that is, "had been reproved." Virgil, Aeneid VII: Where the wealthy daughter of the Sun has groves "inaccessos," that is, "inaccessible." The same, book VIII: "He clings, weeping unsated," that is, "insatiably."
It therefore signifies that "undefiled" means: that the heavenly inheritance will be entirely pure — first, from every sin even the lightest, indeed from every power of sinning; second, from every defilement and danger of defilement; third, from every carnal pleasure, indeed from every concupiscence, according to that saying of Christ: "In the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the angels of God," Matthew 22:30.
For the inheritance and beatitude of the faithful in heaven will be spiritual, angelic, divine: which therefore St. John in Apocalypse 21:19 saw represented under the figure of gold, emerald, beryl, jasper, and other purest and most precious gems. Whence St. Augustine, in his Meditations, describing the heavenly paradise: "With gems alone is this structure knit together; the street of the city is paved with pure gold as if with glass, no mud is there, no dung is wanting, no plague is seen."
Tropologically, Bede: "The faithful," he says, "that they may attain the heavenly inheritance, in this life make God's inheritance 'incorruptible,' that they may not be corrupted by any deadly crime; 'undefiled,' that they may not be soiled by middling faults; 'unfading,' that they may not wither under the lightest and daily faults; finally, 'kept in heaven,' because, endowed with this holiness, they will without any doubt — if they persevere unto the end — be gathered into the company of the Blessed."
This undefiled and immortal inheritance St. Casimir aspired to — son of Casimir king of Poland — who, falling into illness, when he heard from the physicians that he could not be relieved unless he took a wife, and his parents urged him to do so, replied nobly: "I know no other life save that heavenly, undefiled immortality, for the sake of which I choose to die a virgin," after the manner of the ermine, which, when surrounded by a wall of mud, will not pass through it nor flee, lest it stain itself with mud, but suffers itself to be taken by the hunters, and thus silently says: "I had rather die than be defiled." So a virgin, and a victim of virginity, he died in the 24th year of his age, in the year of Christ 1484, deservedly inscribed into heaven and into the heavenly choir of mystical Virgins and Martyrs.
Unfading, — amaranton, that is, that which cannot fade. Whence St. Augustine, book I On the Merit of Sins, ch. 27, reads "flowering." For it is a metaphor taken from flowers, leaves, and fruits, which, as soon as the plants have flowered and ripened, immediately fade, droop, and decay. Hence, in contrast to these, the "amaranth" flower takes its name from immortality, because it does not fade: of which Pliny, book XXI, chapter 8: "By the amaranth," he says, "we are undoubtedly outdone. It is in fact a purple spike rather than a flower, and itself without scent; and remarkable in that it rejoices to be plucked, and is reborn more joyfully. It comes forth in the month of August, and lasts the autumn. To the Alexandrian belongs the palm which, when plucked, is preserved. And it is wonderful that, after all the flowers have failed, when soaked in water it revives, and forms winter crowns." But Clement of Alexandria, in book II, chapter VIII, teaches that the full amaranth is found only in heaven: "A beautiful crown of amaranth," he says, "is laid up for him who has conducted himself rightly: this flower the earth cannot bear; only heaven can bear it." According to which the sense of St. Peter will be, as if to say: In heaven at last it will be permitted to attain the crown of amaranth; for the earth produces no unfading flower. The inheritance and crown of the saints, therefore, will be amarantine and unfading, because it will be incorruptible not only as to substance, but also as to quality, appearance, and delight, ever remaining in the same flower, vigor, and beauty.
It is otherwise with marbles and gems, which though they be incorruptible, when polished only flourish and shine for a time; for with time they lose that splendor and appearance, become dim and as it were grow old. On the contrary, in heaven the glory and happiness of the Saints will always be fresh, always flowering, always green: hence after hundreds of thousands of years it will be as sweet, as joyful, and will delight the mind of the Blessed as much as it delighted them on the first day when they received it. The cause of this is that this glory and delight is in every direction constant, immutable, ever like itself, unfading and infinite, as it were a certain sea of joys. This is what St. Augustine sings of it in his Meditations: "Dread winter, scorching summer never rage there. The perpetual flower of roses keeps perpetual spring. The lilies are white, the crocus blushes, the balsam exudes; meadows are green, fields sprout, rivers of honey flow in, the fragrance of pigments breathes forth, and the liquor of aromatics, apples hang from the flowering groves, never to fall."
It is otherwise with earthly joys, which though all may seem very great, nevertheless by long use produce weariness and nausea; indeed the more they are tasted, the less they savor: in them, therefore, to taste produces to lose taste, as St. Gregory notes, homily 36 on the Gospels. This is what the Wise Man says, Ecclesiasticus 24:29: "Those who eat me will yet hunger, and those who drink me will yet thirst." And St. Peter, ch. 1:12: "On Whom the angels desire to look."
The Blessed therefore are so satisfied by the vision of God that nevertheless they ever equally pant after it, and continually desire to behold Him. In nothing therefore is their happiness diminished, whether as to the thing possessed, or as to its appearance and beauty, or as to its sense, taste, and delight; for it affects the Blessed with so great a sense, taste, and delight after a thousand years as it affected them on the first day. Therefore it is unfading. First, because it does not grow old with age. Second, because it does not fade with time. Third, because it does not droop in appearance. Fourth, because it does not wither in flavor. Fifth, because it does not decay through ripeness. Sixth, because it does not shrink with wrinkling. Seventh, because it does not become cheap in estimation. On the contrary, every pleasure of this life, says Seneca, in book De Vita beata, VI, "is extinguished even when it most delights, and has not much room: therefore it quickly fills up, and produces weariness, and after the first onset withers: nor is anything ever certain whose nature is in motion: thus there can be no substance to that which comes transitively, perishing most swiftly in the very use of itself: for it arrives where it ceases; and while it begins, it looks toward its end."
Reserved in heaven for you, — eis hymas, that is, for you. Hence the Syriac, which is prepared for you. St. Jerome, book I Against Jovinian: "which is reserved in heaven in you, that is for you." Hence Paul says it is "hidden in God," Colossians ch. 3, vers. 3. Hence too Christ will say to the elect on the day of judgment: "Come, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," Matthew ch. 25, 34. This inheritance therefore is certainly prepared and reserved for us as children by God, that we should not doubt about it, provided however that we constantly retain unto death the sonship, grace, and friendship of God; and this the Gloss thinks is signified by the word conservatam, as if by it our cooperation and that of our free will were signified. But less correctly: for in Greek it is tetērēmenēn, that is reserved.
Note: St. Peter explains the heavenly inheritance through four categories: Substance, Quality, When, and Where, that is, of time and place. For he says it is incorruptible in substance, undefiled in quality, unfading in time, heavenly in situation and place: for it is reserved for us in heaven. Moreover, among these four there is an apt connection and order; for from the first the others follow in order. For because the inheritance is aphthartos, that is incorruptible, by its nature, hence in quality it is amiantos, that is undefiled: for those things which are incorruptible by essence are likewise unmixed, uncomposite; and therefore pure, simple, and undefiled, as God, heaven, angels, the rational soul; whereas those things which are corruptible are likewise mixed, composite, and therefore impure and defiled, as are all bodies compounded of elements. Again, because this inheritance is amiantos and undefiled, therefore it is also amarantos and unfading: for those things which fade have in themselves something of stain, dregs, filth, and impurity, which while they gradually expel and as it were vomit forth, is the cause of fading; but those things which are wholly pure have nothing in themselves which could expel or boil out fading. Finally, because it itself is amarantos and unfading, therefore it is also heavenly and free from earth: for earth and earthly things, because dreggy, fade; but heaven, because it is pure and bright, is unfading, and consequently all heavenly things are likewise such. Rightly therefore St. Augustine, Sermon 2 De omnibus Sanctis: "So great," he says, "is the beauty of justice, so great the joy of eternal light, that is, of unchangeable truth and wisdom, that, even if it were not permitted to remain in it longer than the delay of a single day, for this alone the innumerable years of this life full of delights and the affluence of temporal goods would rightly and deservedly be despised." For truly the Psalmist said: "For better is one day in Thy courts above thousands," Psalm 83:11. But now no longer for one day, but for thousands, indeed for infinite, and so unto eternity, we shall remain in it and enjoy its delights. How then is that to be sought after, and all other things to be despised! How are we to pant after it, and to say with our St. Ignatius: "How vile the earth seems to me, when I look upon heaven!"
Verse 5: Who by the Power of God Are Kept Through Faith Unto Salvation
5. Who by the power of God (in Greek dynamei, that is power, strength) are kept through faith unto salvation. — The sense is, as if to say: For whom does God Most High preserve that unfading inheritance? For you, whom as children, as a father, He has not only begotten, but also with a strong and powerful hand guards against all the assaults of unbelievers, the devil, the world, and the flesh, educates, and leads through faith to eternal salvation, which is that unfading inheritance. Hence for custodimini in Greek it is phrouroumenous, which word properly pertains to military watches, and to the guards of citadels and cities: for these God provides for His own, as He provided for Hezekiah and Jerusalem when besieged by Sennacherib, according to the promise of Isaiah, ch. 38, vers. 6: "From the hand of the king of the Assyrians I will deliver thee and this city, and I will protect it." And of Zechariah, 2:5: "I will be unto her," says the Lord, "a wall of fire round about, and I will be in glory in the midst of her." And Psalm 26:1: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? If armies should rise up against me, my heart shall not fear." And Psalm 33: "The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear Him, and shall deliver them." He shall send forth, namely Himself and His protection, His battle lines and camps, His legions of angels subject to Him, His weapons and thunderbolts. Hence in Hebrew it is chone, that is, he shall encamp; St. Jerome, surrounds; the Chaldean, dwells. Where St. Basil rightly notes that the angel by reason of greatness is compared to a whole army, by reason of strength and fortitude to a wall, which round about guards and protects us. Such were the camps of the guardian angels of the patriarch Jacob, who therefore called the place where they appeared to him Mahanaim, that is, twin camps, Genesis 32:2. Such was "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha," namely of angels, that they might defend Elisha against the battle lines of the Syrians, 2 Kings 6:17. Similar watches and guards God most kindly displays to His other faithful and saints, so that the Psalmist rightly sang of them: "The Lord guards all their bones, not one of them shall be broken," Psalm 33:21. Hence he also asks the same for himself: "From them that resist Thy right hand," he says, "keep me as the apple of an eye," Psalm 16:8. God therefore guards His own both through Himself, and through His angels. Hence we learn that no one ought to trust in himself or in his own custody, but to ascribe it to God. For He Himself is the guardian of His Church and flock. "For unless the Lord guards the city, in vain does he watch who guards it," Psalm 126:1. This is what the Lord says through Isaiah, 43:2: "If thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee; when thou shalt walk in the fire, thou shalt not be burned, and the flame shall not burn in thee." And Psalm 90: "His truth shall encompass thee with a shield, thou shalt not fear from the terror of the night, from the arrow flying in the day, from the affair walking about in the darkness, from the assault and the noonday demon." And presently: "I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him."
Through faith. — Faith therefore is the guard of the faithful; faith, I say, not bare and dead, but living and animated by grace and charity, as I said on James 2:14. Hence St. Chrysostom and Bede understand by faith the Christian religion and the grace of Christ which justifies us. Faith therefore and grace is the instrument, and as it were the military guard, by which God guards the faithful, both lest they slip back into their former heathenism and errors; that they may resist the temptations of the flesh and the devil; that they may bravely sustain persecutions for Christ and the truth; and that they may produce Christian and heroic works of faith and virtues, such as Paul recounts as wrought by the ancient heroes of faith, Hebrews 11. For the faith by which one believes that, if he serves God and labors and suffers for Him, he will be rewarded by Him with eternal and very great rewards, excites the faithful one to dare and to endure all things. The faithful therefore through faith resist the devil, 1 Peter 5:9; and they extinguish his fiery darts with the shield of faith, Ephesians ch. 6, vers. 16. Hence: "This is the victory which conquers the world, our faith," says St. John, 1 epist. 5:4. By which he at the same time admonishes the new faithful that they constantly hold the faith and grace of Christ recently received, whole and inviolate, and persevere in it, if they desire to attain these fruits of faith, the help and salvation of God, and the heavenly inheritance. So Oecumenius; for Christ protects from heaven the faithful constant in His faith, as He prayed for them when living on earth: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one even as We are." And presently: "While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name: those whom Thou hast given Me, I have guarded, and none of them has perished, except the son of perdition," John 17:11.
Unto salvation. — Salvation is the eternal life and glory of the Blessed; the word in signifies the end, fruit, and reward of faith, as if to say: Faith tends and leads to salvation, and salvation is the term, fruit, and reward of faith. For faith and grace is salvation begun, while glory is salvation consummated.
Prepared to be revealed (which is prepared to be revealed: thus Pagninus) in the last time. — This salvation of each faithful soul, fully purified, is revealed immediately at death, secretly in the particular judgment; but in the last time, namely on the day of judgment, it will be publicly revealed before the whole world, not only in the soul, but also in the body of each blessed one: for then the body together with the soul shall rise to immortal glory. Indeed this salvation is the incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading inheritance, to which God from eternity destined and chose the Saints, and which He prepared and reserves for them in the heavens.
Note: The word revelari signifies that the heavenly salvation and glory is obscure to us, and is seen by us through faith only as through a shadow and an enigma; but on the day of judgment it will be revealed, when faith will turn into vision, hope into the thing, promise into donation, expectation into possession. This is what St. John says, 1 epist., ch. 3, vers. 2: "Now we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be: we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." And from Isaiah, St. Paul: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him," 1 Corinthians 2:9.
Verse 6: Wherein You Shall Rejoice, Though Now for a Little You Must Be Saddened in Various Temptations
6. In which you shall exult. — Some think the pronoun in which refers to the last time which immediately preceded, as if to say: In the last time, namely on the day of judgment, you shall exult, when you shall see yourselves blessed and endowed with eternal glory in return for the slight temptation which you sustain in this life. Hence the Syriac translates: "you shall rejoice forever."
Better do others think the in quo refers to all that precedes, as if to say: "In which," that is, in which thing, namely if you reflect that God has regenerated you into a living hope of the eternal inheritance, to be revealed in the last time, you will indeed exult in this regeneration and living hope of the heavenly inheritance, even in the midst of temptations; because, since they are slight and brief, they merit that inheritance, and lead you to it by a straight path. So Oecumenius. The future exultabitis can also be taken in the Hebrew manner for the imperative exult, or for the indicative you ought to exult, or for the subjunctive it is fitting that you exult. Hence in Greek it is agalliasthe, which is partly indicative, signifying you exult, as Pagninus and the Tigurine translate; partly imperative, signifying exult. Thus Christ "for the joy set before Him endured the cross," Hebrews 12:2. So too St. Agatha and the Martyrs went to fires, racks, and torments, as to feasts, weddings, and triumphs. It is therefore Christian to rejoice in every tribulation, temptation, and sadness. For although tribulation afflicts the body, the senses, and the lower portion of the soul, and causes pain and sadness in it, nevertheless the same causes joy, and that immense, in the higher portion of the soul, namely in reason, mind, and spirit, while it considers that tribulation will produce for it an eternal crown. In the hope therefore and merit of this crown it rejoices, while in tribulation and sadness; and this hope changes sadness into joy, as Christ at Cana changed water into wine, so much so that in it for joy it leaps and exults, and refuses to be without it, indeed wishes that it would last and increase. The Greek agalliasthai, that is to exult, is said as if agan hallesthai, that is, to leap mightily; just as St. John the Baptist for joy at Christ being incarnate, leapt in his mother's womb, Luke 1.
St. Paul agrees with St. Peter, saying 2 Corinthians 7:4: "I am filled with consolation, I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation." And St. James, ch. 1, vers. 1: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations," where I recounted many causes of this joy.
A little now if need be to be saddened. — Pagninus: now afflicted for a brief time, if it be necessary, as if to say: You shall exult now afflicted and saddened for a little time, if necessary, namely if affliction and sadness presses and rushes in, as often happens in this life to all, especially to the faithful. For our life is besieged with troubles, persecutions, and temptations, which necessarily produce sadness, and therefore to be saddened in it is one of those things which must be (as is commonly said), which cannot be avoided; but it must be borne, according to that saying: "Whatever it be, every fortune is to be overcome by bearing."
He alludes to what Christ, about to depart, foretold to His own, saying: "A little, and you shall not see Me, and again a little, and you shall see Me. Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall weep and wail, but the world shall rejoice; you indeed shall be saddened: but your sadness shall be turned into joy," John 16:19. For all the pains and griefs, as well as the joys of this life, are a little now, that is, something slight, both in quantity and in duration, like a point and a moment, according to that saying of Paul: "That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, beyond measure in sublimity works for us an eternal weight of glory," 2 Corinthians 4:17.
Note first: The individual words have emphasis, and suggest a new reason for endurance and exultation, as if to say: Exult in temptations. First, because they are slight in respect to the immense glory and crown which Christ prepares for them in heaven, according to that of Wisdom 3:5: "Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded." Second, because they are brief; for they last one now, that is, a moment. For this "life is a moment on which eternity hangs." Third, because it is fitting and necessary that they be borne. Who does not submit himself to necessity? who fights against fate? Fourth, he adds if, saying if it be needful, as if to say: Tribulations do not always, nor to all, but sometimes now to these, now to those, befall: willingly therefore take up your lot, your turn, and your portion. So Oecumenius. Fifth, because they are temptations, that is exercises and trials, by which God exercises and explores your patience and virtue.
Note second, that the word si can be taken in four ways. First, properly, that it may note a condition, as if to say: I do not say absolutely that you must be saddened, but conditionally, so that if you must be saddened, you should patiently bear that very thing. Second, causally, that it may be the same as because, as if to say: Because you must in this life be often saddened, beset with so many troubles, therefore endure that very thing, and out of necessity make a virtue. Third, accompanyingly, so that it is the same as when, as if to say: I do not say you must always be saddened, but if, that is, when it is needful, namely when it presses in. Fourth, by way of concession, for be it so, as if to say: You will exult in the hope of glory, be it that you must be saddened a little now.
Morally, this little of sufferings, to which is owed an eternity of rewards, ought to excite us to display in them all alacrity of mind, fortitude, and constancy. For, as St. Eucherius says to Valerius: "Nothing is great in reality, which is small in time; nor is anything spread out with long joys, that is concluded by a narrow end." St. Basil, in book De Leg. Gentil., praises Bias for saying that he was zealous for virtue, so that he might possess it as a viaticum for old age. "But thou," he says, "O Christian, for the possession of the future age, of which there is no end, prepare a viaticum, namely the virtues: for compared to it all times are nothing."
St. Augustine on Psalm 36: "For an eternal rest," he says, "an eternal labor was to be undergone. About to receive eternal happiness, you ought to sustain eternal sufferings: for even if they were of a thousand years, weigh a thousand years against eternity, what do you weigh with the infinite however finite? Ten thousand years, a million, and millions of millions, which have an end, cannot be compared with eternity. The whole life of man is of a few days: even if the joyful were not mixed with the hard, which surely are more numerous and longer than the hard; and therefore the hard things are briefer and fewer, that we may be able to endure. If therefore through his whole life a man were in labors and in troubles, in pains and in torments, in prison and in stripes, in hunger and thirst, on all days, at all hours, through his whole life until the age of old age, few days are the whole life of man: with which labor accomplished, an eternal kingdom shall come, happiness without end shall come, equality of the angels shall come, the inheritance of Christ shall come, Christ a co-heir shall come: for how great labor how great a reward do we receive?" And St. Chrysostom, homily On Lazarus: "If anyone in a hundred years had seen for one night a sweet dream, and having enjoyed many delights through the dream, were then tortured for a hundred years, would he wish to equate the one night which he dreamed with a hundred years? Think this of the future life. For what is one dream to a hundred years, this is the present life to the future, indeed much less: what is a tiny drop to an immense sea, this is a thousand years to that future enjoyment; and as great as is the difference between dreams and real things, so great is the difference between the state of this life and that."
Thus St. Anthony commended the consideration of the brevity of sufferings and the eternity of rewards, as it were a sharp goad to progress, to his disciples. Hear him in St. Athanasius: "Let this be the first command to all in common, that no one grow weary in the vigor of his undertaken purpose, but that as one beginning he ought always to increase what he has begun, especially since the spans of human life compared to eternity are very brief." And presently: "The promise of everlasting life is procured for a cheap price. For it is written: The days of our life are seventy years: but if in mighty men, eighty. When therefore we have lived eighty or a hundred years laboring in the work of God, we shall not reign for an equal time in the future, but for the aforesaid years the kingdoms of all ages shall be given to us. We shall not inherit the earth, but heaven; and leaving the corrupt body, we shall receive that very thing with incorruption. Therefore, little children, let neither weariness exhaust you, nor the ambition of vain glory delight you." And again: "Why therefore do we not make a virtue of necessity? Why for the sake of gaining the heavenly kingdoms do we not voluntarily leave that which must be lost at the end of this light?"
To be saddened. — Gagneius and Hesselius think it should be read contristati: for in Greek it is lypēthentes, that is afflicted, saddened: but the meaning comes to the same, and you may translate it more clearly and softly, if with Our author you unfold and unfold the sentence thus: "If it be needful to be saddened," as if to say: I do not say absolutely, nor do I bid you always to be saddened, but if it be needful for you to be saddened, bear it patiently. Again, as if to say: You shall exult in the hope of glory, if (be it so) it be needful for you a little now to be saddened: by which he insinuates that persecution and tribulation are not to be sought after or pursued, but rather to be declined and fled by the weak: if however it presses in, it must be patiently and bravely sustained. "What need is there," says Seneca, epist. 24, "to summon evils, and to anticipate things to be suffered soon enough when they come, and to lose the present time through fear of the future? It is undoubtedly foolish, that, although you are going to be miserable, you should already be miserable."
In various temptations, — peirasmois, that is in temptations and trials, as the Tigurine translates, as if to say: Various tribulations, by which one is now attacked by disease, now by poverty, now by calumny, now by persecution, now by desire, and with which he struggles, are temptations and trials, by which God explores how much virtue and constancy there is in us, and excites, sharpens, strengthens, and hardens it: all therefore must be borne nobly. The wise man, says Seneca, offers himself to fate, as flint to the striker. "The hardness of flint," says he himself in De Vita beata, 27, "is known to none more than to those who strike it. I offer myself not otherwise than as some rock set in the shallow sea, which the waves do not cease, from whatever quarter they are moved, to lash, nor for that reason do they either move it from its place, or through so many ages consume it by their frequent assault."
Verse 7: That the Trial of Your Faith, Much More Precious Than Gold, May Be Found Unto Praise and Glory
7. That the proof of your faith much more precious than gold. — The word ut explains the oportet: for it gives the reason why it is needful for us to be afflicted and saddened in various temptations. For the reason is that our faith and constancy may be proved, strengthened, celebrated, and crowned. Hence for probatio in Greek it is dokimion, that is the testing, experiment, the proven of faith, that is, faith proved and tested: for this is praised, not the proving of faith itself, which is done by the demon and the tyrant, and often drives many into lapse and ruin. Again this is more precious than gold proved by fire and refined from the dross. For as gold is proved not only by the touch of the Lydian stone, but much more and more certainly by fire in the furnace, for fire separates pure gold from the dross: so the faith of the Christian is proved by the fire of tribulation, which separates the faithful and constant from the unbelieving and inconstant; again, it tears the faithful from their blemishes and lusts, and presents them pure to God. Moreover this faith is not alone and bare, as is clear, but formed by charity and armed with constancy: for because by solid charity it loves God and Christ, hence constantly by His love it sustains temptation, otherwise it would succumb to it. But this faithful and constant charity is by far more precious than gold; the Greek adds apollymenou, that is perishing and destroying; for if gold which perishes and destroys many (for it is pernicious to many, and the cause of death of soul and body, present and eternal) is proved by fire, much more must faith formed by charity, which will endure for all ages, and will preserve and save the faithful eternally, be proved and tested by tribulation. What therefore fire is to gold, this tribulation is to the just man: fire does not destroy gold, but preserves it, and makes it pure and splendid; so also tribulation does not destroy the just man, but strengthens and illustrates him.
Hear Pliny recounting the qualities of gold, book 33, ch. 3: "Neither in weight," he says, "nor in ease of material has it been preferred to the other metals, since it yields to lead in both; but because of all things it alone loses nothing by fire, the material enduring safely even in conflagrations and pyres. Indeed, the more often it has been burned, it improves toward goodness. And it is the test of fire for gold, that it should glow with a color similar to that of fire. And they themselves call it obryzum. The first proof of its goodness is that it is most difficult to ignite. Second: It is wondrous, that one untamed by the most violent fire of coals burns most quickly with chaff; and to be purified, is cooked with lead. Third, another greater cause of price is that very little wear diminishes it. Fourth, nor is anything else more amply spread out, or more numerously divided. Fifth, above the rest there is no rust, no verdigris, no other thing from itself that consumes its goodness, or diminishes its weight. Sixth, against the juices of salt and vinegar, the conquerors of things, it stands firm. Seventh, above all it is spun and woven in the manner of wool, and without wool."
These things are easy to apply to the just man: for first, by fire, that is tribulation, nothing of virtue perishes in him, but rather it increases. Second, it is wondrous that the just man resists the fire of tribulation, and burns with the chaff of human misery through compassion. Third, no conversation with worldly people takes anything of virtue from him, but he himself exerts his own power and spirit upon them by rubbing against them. Fourth, he extends the depths of his charity upon all most widely and most minutely. Fifth, no rust of envy or sadness comes forth from him, which would diminish his goodness. Sixth, he constantly resists salt and vinegar, that is, anger and bitterness. Seventh, he is flexible, and allows himself to be inserted into any things, however vile and troublesome, that he may benefit others and adorn them. So St. Job, ch. 23, vers. 10: "He (God) knows my way, and has proved me as gold which passes through the fire." And David the King: "Thou hast proved us, O God, Thou hast tried us by fire: as silver is tried, etc. We have passed through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us out into a refreshment," Psalm 65:10. So St. Lawrence roasted on the gridiron: "Thou hast proved my heart," he says, "and visited me by night: by fire Thou hast tried me, and iniquity has not been found in me," namely unfaithfulness, because in the midst of the fire I faithfully and constantly clung to Thee, Psalm 16:3. So it is said of the Martyrs and the patient ones, Wisdom 3:6: "As gold in the furnace He has proved them, and as a victim of holocaust He has received them." And Ecclesiasticus 27:6: "The furnace tries the potter's vessels, and the temptation of tribulation just men." Thus the three companions of Daniel were proved whether they were faithful to their God, in the fire of the Babylonian furnace, Daniel 3. Thus the Maccabees, fried in the frying pan by Antiochus, proved their faith to God, 2 Maccabees 7. Thus the Saints at the end of the world will be afflicted by the fire of the most acute persecution of Antichrist, "that they may be melted down, and chosen, and made white," Daniel 12:36. Hard therefore is this proving, hard the testing, hard the trial, but slight and brief in respect to the eternal crown which God prepares for them in heaven. Thus St. Sebastian, when SS. Mark and Marcellian were keenly tempted and afflicted, that they might fall away from the faith of Christ, encouraged them by this reasoning, and confirmed them to martyrdom: "Torments," he said, "are either light, or heavy and sharp. If light, they are tolerable; if sharp, they do not last, but drive the patient one to death, and through death transmit him to immortality. Therefore endure both the sharp and the light, because those are brief, these are slight; those will quickly be extinguished, these will be extinguished in a short time." That you may become a Lawrence, you must undergo fire; that you may become a Vincent, you must cheerfully suffer the rack; calamity of every kind shaped Job, blindness formed Tobias, calumny formed Joseph, persecution David, lions Daniel, frying pans the Maccabees.
May be found unto praise and glory and honor, at the revelation of Jesus Christ. — "May be found," namely to have been and to have proved for you unto praise, etc., because, namely, your faith proved by so many temptations has made you praiseworthy and glorious in heaven and on earth. For the angels beheld it, and praised it: men have seen and heard, and have celebrated and admired it. Second, "may be found," that is may be, or may turn out, as if to say: That your faith thus proved may be for praise to you, and may turn out for you unto glory and honor on the day of judgment, when Christ the judge will declare it to the whole world, will praise it, and will give it an eternal crown. For inveniri is often put by metalepsis for esse, because that which is, can be found; that which is not, cannot be found. Thus it is said of the angels falling from heaven with Lucifer, Apocalypse 12:8: "Neither was their place found any more in heaven," that is, there was no longer any place for them in heaven, but in hell. Thus Ecclesiasticus 31 it is said: "Blessed is the man who has been found without spot"; was found, that is, was unspotted, that he might be found such. Hence explaining he adds: "Who has not gone after gold," etc.
Note: Christ on the day of judgment will praise the faith and virtue of the just: which praise will surely be the greatest, both because it will be done before all angels and men, who ever were, are, or will be; and because it will be done by Christ, who is eternal truth and majesty: for He is King of kings and Lord of lords; and because this praise will endure through all eternity in the eternal reward and laurel, which Christ will give to each one according to his merits. "He will therefore say: Come, 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. Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many: enter into the joy of your Lord," Matthew 25:21. Come, Peter, who founded the Roman Church by your labor and blood: receive the crown of your labor and sweat. Come, Paul, who taught all nations: receive the crown of your doctorate and apostolate. Come, Stephen, who received stones for love of Me, and esteemed them sweet: receive the crown owed to your martyrdom. Come, Francis, who humbled yourself to the utmost: receive the highest throne of glory. Come, Thecla, who so generously sustained so many and so great sufferings for Me. Come, Agnes, who for chastity contended beyond your years and strength. Come, Cecilia; come, Agatha; come, Catharine, who individually so heroically performed and endured these and those: receive each of you the laurel of chastity, the laurel of martyrdom, each her own and equal to her struggle and victory. Then therefore will be fulfilled that of Jeremiah 30:19: "There shall go forth from them praise and the voice of those who play; and I will multiply them, and they shall not be diminished; and I will glorify them, and they shall not be lessened." For all the angels and Saints will approve and celebrate the praise of Christ with common voice and acclamation. And that of Isaiah 61:3: "He shall give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the cloak of praise for the spirit of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty of justice, the planting of the Lord to glorify Him." That is represented by the praise of David, because he chose for himself thirty most valiant men of his army, praised them, and gloriously placed them next to himself in the house of the mighty, 2 Kings 23:8. For similarly Christ will praise and glorify His mighty ones in heaven, which is the city of the mighty.
Moreover this praise of Christ will not only give a reward to each according to his merits, but also honor, according to that of John 12:26: "If anyone shall minister to Me, My Father will honor him," by calling him His faithful servant, friend, son, heir, by exalting him from earth to heaven, by giving him an honored and lofty seat next to Himself, according to that which He promised to the Apostles and apostolic men: "Amen I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," Matthew 19:28.
Again, this praise will give glory not only beatific, which consists in the vision of God, but also that which is placed in the brightness of name and fame, and makes men celebrated and glorious, namely so that all the angels and men may proclaim and glorify the glorious deeds of each saint. "Glory," says Quintilian, "is the consenting praise of the good." And Cicero pro Marcello: "Glory," he says, "is the illustrious and widespread fame of many and great merits, whether toward one's fellow citizens, or toward one's country, or toward every kind of men." What greater, what more numerous than the angels and Blessed who shall celebrate any saints whatsoever, and their virtues. Here therefore let us learn that of Statius, book I: "Thou alone burnest through soul and mind, O Glory." And that of Mucius Scaevola burning his hand: "So vile is the body to those who look upon glory." Again, this glory will not only be verbal, but also real; because it will consist and endure in a glorious kingdom, which Christ will give them, according to that of Wisdom 5:16: "They shall receive a kingdom of glory and a crown of beauty from the hand of the Lord." Therefore Christ will honor and glorify the elect when He creates them kings, and will bestow on them the heavenly and eternal kingdom, according to that of Apocalypse 5:10: "Thou hast made us a kingdom and priests to our God, and we shall reign upon the earth." Oh how glorious is the kingdom, in which all the Saints, here afflicted and despised, reign with Christ! clothed in white robes they follow the Lamb wherever He goes.
In the revelation of Jesus Christ, — that is, on the day of judgment: for this is called the day of revelation, both because on it Christ will be revealed, who is now hidden and invisible to us; and because on it the works and merits of each one will be revealed, which here are hidden, indeed often blackened, obscured and defamed by the malicious through calumny. For the impious here decry the pious as hypocrites, alleging that they simulate piety and seek its empty shadow and the praise of men. Therefore Christ the just judge will reveal their piety, virtue, integrity and sincerity, and will make it manifest and celebrate it before the whole world.
Verse 8: Whom Having Not Seen, You Love; In Whom Believing, You Shall Rejoice With Joy Unspeakable
8. Whom having not seen, you love. — For although some traveling into Judaea might have seen Christ there, many however remaining at home had not seen Him: these therefore believed in Christ unseen, but heard of, and loved Him supremely. This is indeed the nature of faith and the love which follows upon it. "For what is faith, but to believe what you do not see?" says St. Augustine, tract 40 on John. "But the work of faith is love," says the same on Psalm 31. Oecumenius judges these words to refer to stirring up the hope and strength of the faithful in adversities. "For if not having beheld Him with the eyes of the flesh, you love Him from hearing alone, consider what love you will bear toward Him when you shall see Him, especially when He shall be revealed to you in glory. For if His passion has so drawn you, when He shall appear to you in unsurpassable splendor, in what manner will He affect your soul." Hence St. Augustine, in book 1 On the Merit of Sins, ch. 27, reads thus: "Whom you knew not, in whom now not seeing you believe, whom when you shall see, you shall rejoice with unspeakable joy."
Moreover, marvelous was the affection and love of the first faithful toward Christ, so that for His sake they rejoiced not only to be despoiled of goods, afflicted with insults, beaten, flogged, but even punished with death. Hence that saying of Ignatius, in the epistle to the Romans: "My love is crucified." And who, thinking of Jesus, that is, God incarnate for him, suffering, crucified, would not love Him with his whole inward being? Who does not love love itself? who does not cherish charity? For Jesus, first, as God, is supreme goodness, supreme wisdom, supreme power, supreme clemency, supreme majesty; therefore supremely worthy of love, according to that of Matthew 22: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind." Secondly, as man He is full of grace, truth and virtue, and indeed in Him all the treasures of wisdom and grace are stored up, and from Him as from the head they are derived to us as to His members. Therefore we ought to love Him as our head and the fount and parent of every good. Thirdly, through our humanity assumed by Himself, He has most closely joined us to Himself and to God, and has made us His kinsmen and brothers: for by descending to our nature, He has caused that same nature to ascend to the throne of the Godhead. Excellently Blessed Peter Chrysologus, sermon 150: "Christ," he says, "came to take up our infirmities, and to confer on us His virtues; to seek human things, to bestow divine things; to receive injuries, to render dignities; to bear weariness, to give back health: for the physician who does not bear infirmities knows not how to heal; and he who has not been weakened with the weak cannot confer health on the weak." What sick man would not love so great a physician? Fourthly, He has bound us to Himself by the highest benefits, when as our redeemer, savior, teacher and lawgiver, He announced to us the will of God the Father, taught us His faith, confirmed our hope, proved it with miracles, kindled charity by the examples of His most holy life, formed our morals, washed and expiated our sins by His blood, satisfied the Father for us by His many and most bitter torments, by His own death overcame our death, and finally by His resurrection and ascension into the heavens opened to us the entrance of eternal life. Fifthly, add to these the particular benefits, graces and gifts, which He has lavished on each of the faithful and daily lavishes many and great ones. Who, turning these things over in his mind, weighing and considering them, is not kindled with the love of Jesus, melted and dissolved? So that he may say with the bride in the Canticle: "My beloved to me, and I to Him, who feedeth among the lilies, till the day breaks and the shadows incline. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; He shall abide between my breasts; all manner of fruits, my beloved, new and old, I have kept for Thee. Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love." Wherefore Clement of Alexandria, book 4 of the Stromata, ch. 7, teaches that the perfect man is filled with the greatest joy when for his Christ, whom he does not see, he suffers many things.
In whom also now not seeing you believe: and believing you shall exult. — The word "believe" is not in the Greek, but is included in "believing," as if to say: "Whom though you see not, yet you believe." Our Turrianus, tract 2 On the Eucharist, ch. 16 and following, and from him Salmeron, take these words literally of the Eucharist, as if to say: In the Eucharist, which you receive after baptism, you do not see Christ; yet you believe Him to be really present, and therefore eating Him you exult with unspeakable joy, just as in His sacred communion St. Monica exulted, saying: "My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God," and St. Francis, St. Catherine of Siena and other Saints, according to that of Psalm 33:9: "Taste and see how sweet is the Lord." Hence also there follows: "Into whom the angels desire to look"; and: "Wherefore having girt up the loins of your mind," etc. For by these words He seems to allude to the typical Lamb, which they ate girt up for the journey to the promised land, which was a type of the Eucharist, which is the food and viaticum of those journeying to heaven. To this same thing St. Thomas adapts these words, opusculum 58 On the Sacrament of the Altar, ch. 15. But this sense is rather an accommodative or mystical one than a literal one. For Peter speaks absolutely of faith in Christ, whom we have not seen with our eyes, but by faith believe to be our Redeemer. For, as St. Gregory says, homily 26 on the Gospel: "Faith has no merit, where human reason supplies experiment."
You shall exult — not only in the future blessed life, but also in the present, full of troubles and tribulations. Hence the Greek has agalliasthe, that is "you exult," according to that of Paul agreeing with Peter: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice," Philippians 4:4. See what is said there, and James 1:1. Furthermore, Catharinus wrongly infers from this that the Saints are certain that they are in the state of grace: for the exultation of the Saints in this life is not pure, but mixed with fear and trembling, Psalm ch. 2, vers. 11.
With unspeakable joy, — both because of the hope of the future glory promised to the faithful by Christ, which is unspeakable, according to that of Psalm 35:9: "They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house, and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure"; a torrent, not a glass, not a chalice, not a cup; a torrent, with which Thou shalt inebriate them, indeed overwhelm and bury them, as in an ocean of joys: for such is the divinity, by the vision and fruition of which we shall be made blessed. Thus St. Ephrem, book 1 On the Resurrection and Judgment, ch. 2: "Having these ineffable promises, let us exult with unspeakable and glorious exultation." For so great is the joy of the Blessed in the heavens, that Christ says of it to His own in Matthew 25:23: "Enter into the joy of thy Lord," as if to say: This joy is so great that it cannot be contained by your heart, and therefore not it into you, but you into it shall enter, both because by faith and grace we possess Christ, whose sweetness is unspeakable; and because Christ supplies and instills into the heart of His own ineffable consolations and joys, as a kind of foretaste of heavenly beatitude, so that with St. Xavier they say: "It is enough, Lord, it is enough. For the narrowness of the little vessel of my heart cannot contain such great joys." And with the Psalmist: "I rejoiced in the things that were said to me, we shall go into the house of the Lord," Psalm 121:1. And with St. Francis: "So great is the glory which awaits me, that every pain delights me." Again: "In the cross alone is perfect joy." Furthermore, the same one used to say to the brothers of his Order: "That if the servant of God strive always to preserve spiritual joy interiorly and exteriorly, which arises from purity of heart, and is fostered by exercises of devotion, demons can do him no harm; rather, confounded they will say: Since this man is fortified with joy as much in adversity as in prosperity, we shall find no entrance to him. But then demons exult, when they can extinguish or impede this spiritual joy." Again: "Blessed is that religious who draws joy and gladness only from the holy words and works of the Lord; and through these very things provokes others to the love of God with joy and gladness. But woe to the religious who delights in idle and useless words provoking others to laughter." Finally this is "the hidden manna which no man knows except him who receives it. Not learning teaches it, but unction: nor does knowledge comprehend it, but conscience; it is wisdom whose price man does not know: it is drawn from hidden places, nor is this sweetness found in the land of those living pleasantly. Doubtless it is the sweetness of the Lord," says St. Bernard, On Conversion to Clerics, ch. 21.
Glorified, — that is, glorious, both because of the thing itself and because of the hope of heavenly glory. Hence it is called "glorified," as if to say: This your joy is clothed and suffused with glory, because for the sake of the heavenly glory, which you hope for, you rejoice, and so this joy is a foretaste of that glory. Hence Cajetan: "glorified," he says, it is called, both on the part of the matter, because it is concerning the glorified Jesus, whom you love, and in whom you believe; and on the part of the form, because it is a certain participation of the glorious joy of the Blessed. Otherwise Hugh: "Glorified," he says, that is, reputed glorious by Christ, or gloriously given to us by Him. And Thomas Anglicus: "Glorified," he says, that is, praised by God, as if to say: The impious laugh at the joy of the faithful for the hope of future glory, but truly God in judgment will praise and glorify it.
Verse 9: Receiving the End of Your Faith, the Salvation of Your Souls
9. Receiving the end (namely the reward) of your faith, the salvation of your souls. — "Receiving," both in the present, and rather in the future, that is, about to receive, namely when you shall exult in heaven, as preceded: for in the present we receive the salvation of souls begun through grace and justice; in the future we shall receive full salvation, through felicity and glory, as if to say: From the faith by which you believe in Christ whom you do not see, and love Him supremely, you have partly attained, and partly will attain the end of faith, which is the salvation of your souls: for you have attained inchoate salvation through grace, which has made you sons and heirs of God, and therefore gives certain hope, indeed a right, to beatitude and the heavenly kingdom, but consummate salvation through glory you shall attain after death in the heavens. Stand therefore in faith, and for it bear constantly whatever adversities, knowing that your faith and endurance will not be in vain in the Lord, but will lead you to the most desired and most blessed end of eternal felicity. Deservedly therefore St. Augustine, book 1 of the Confessions, ch. 1: "Thou hast made us, O God, for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." And in the Soliloquies, ch. 12: "Every abundance which is not my God is poverty." For, as the same one says in ch. 30: "There is nothing which can fill the soul, except Thou, O God, to whose image it was created." And in book 13 of the Confessions, ch. 8: "Thou showest sufficiently how great a rational creature Thou hast made, for which in no way is whatever is less than Thee sufficient for blessed rest, and through this not even itself for itself."
Verse 10: Of Which Salvation the Prophets Inquired and Diligently Searched
10. Of which salvation they inquired and diligently searched. — Exezētēsan kai exēreunēsan, that is, carefully, diligently, solicitously, with great striving and zeal they sought after and searched out. He proves that the faith and grace of Christ and of Christianity is not a recent human invention, but the ancient decree of God revealed to all the Prophets, who studiously investigated it, seriously foretold it and most eagerly awaited it, as Jacob, Genesis 49:18: "I will look for Thy salvation, O Lord"; and soon he calls Him "the desire of the everlasting hills." Moses, Exodus 4:13: "I beseech Thee, Lord, send whom Thou wilt send." Isaiah 45:8: "Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just." Habakkuk 2:4: "I will stand upon my watch, that I may see what may be said to me." Daniel, throughout ch. 9, etc. Hence Irenaeus, book 4, ch. 13; Eusebius, book 1 of the History, ch. 4, and at length St. Augustine, books 12, 13 and 19 Against Faustus, chs. 13, 16 and 17, teach that all the Patriarchs, Prophets, and ancient Saints from Adam to Christ were Christians, not in name, but in faith and profession, because they believed in Christ as about to come, just as we believe in the past, namely already born and crucified, and by this faith they were justified and saved, and therefore with great hope and love they panted after Him, according to that of Christ: "Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see My day: he saw it and was glad," John ch. 8, 56. Where St. Thomas rightly notes that the nearer and closer each of the Saints, whether before or after Christ, was to Him, the more was he enlightened by Him with the rays of faith and grace: hence the Apostles and the first faithful are said to have received the first-fruits of the spirit from Christ, Romans 8:23. Thus before Christ, the Blessed Virgin, John the Baptist, Zacharias, Anna, Simeon, Joachim and Anna, parents of the Blessed Virgin, etc., excelled others more remote in the faith, grace and sanctity of Christ: for the nearer one is to the sun and to fire, the more is he illuminated and warmed by it. I speak ordinarily and commonly. For that some, like Abraham, Moses, David and Isaiah, were more inspired by His faith and spirit than many nearer to Christ, is clear from Genesis, the Psalms and their prophecies.
Verse 11: Searching What or What Manner of Time the Spirit of Christ in Them Did Signify
11. Searching what or what manner of time (edēlou, that is, declared, demonstrated this grace of Christ and Christianity to come) the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, — to en autois pneuma Christou, that is, the Spirit of Christ who was in them, both by indwelling through grace, and by inspiring through prophecy. For "holy men of God spoke inspired by the Holy Spirit," says St. Peter, epistle 2, ch. 1, v. 21. Thus Daniel, ch. 9, understood that in the middle of the 70th week, that is, in the year 487, Christ was to be killed; Jacob, after the scepter was taken away from Judah, Genesis 49:10; Malachi, ch. 3, v. 1, soon after the advent and preaching of St. John the Baptist.
Foretelling those sufferings which are in Christ. — In Greek ta eis Christon pathēmata, that is, into Christ, or the sufferings and blows about to befall and be inflicted on Christ. Hence certain Latin codices read, which were to be in Christ. For "foretelling" the Greek is more significantly promartyromenon, that is, pre-testifying, or testifying before it happened, as if to say: God gave the Prophets as witnesses to Christ, and lest anyone should say they had been suborned by Him, He sent them before Christ, that by their oracles as by divine testimonies they might pave the way for Christ to come, and obtain certain faith.
And the glories that should follow. — "Following," that is, those things which were to follow after the passion as the wages and reward of the sufferings, such as were the resurrection, the ascension into heaven, the sending of the Holy Spirit, the conversion of the Gentiles: for Christ "was crowned with glory and honor on account of the suffering of death," Hebrews 2:9. Peter says this in order to remove the scandal of the cross: for many at that time laughed at it, and even now Pagans and Turks laugh at Christians, because they believe in a crucified God. To these Peter responds in two ways: First, that these sufferings of the cross were decreed by God as a ransom for our crimes, and lest they should be a scandal to anyone, were foretold by the Prophets long ago. Secondly, that these sufferings of Christ ceased and were compensated by immense and eternal glory, both in the heavens with God and the angels, and on earth among all the nations, which have believed in Christ crucified, received Him and adored Him. This is what Christ says to His unbelieving disciples: "Did not Christ have to suffer these things, and so enter into His glory?" Luke 24:26. This is what Paul says with a full voice: "The Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God," 1 Corinthians 1:23. Beautifully St. Cyril explains this glory of Christ, On Faith to the Queens: "Humility," he says, "is the merit of the passion of exaltation." And St. Augustine, tract 104 on John: "Humility is the merit of brightness, brightness is the reward of humility." Therefore let the Christian suffer and be humbled with Christ, that he may be glorified and exalted with Him. "For if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified with Him," Romans 8:17. Christ "tasted honeycombs after gall," says Tertullian, book 2 On the Soldier's Crown, ch. 14: thus also let Christians think themselves after gall about to taste honey; but the impious after a drop of honey, will drink an ocean of gall in Gehenna.
Verse 12: To Whom It Was Revealed That Not to Themselves but to You They Ministered
12. To whom it was revealed, that not to themselves, but to you they ministered those things. — As if to say: The Prophets did not prophesy for themselves, but for posterity: namely not for the Jews, but for Christians; for they foretold the advent of Christ, the calling, grace and salvation that would come to Christians, not to the Jews. Hence the Syriac translates: "they prophesied our things to us," which is what Paul says: "Now all these things happened to them in figure: but they were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world have come," 1 Corinthians 10:11, as if to say: Therefore it is fitting that we embrace these things as great benefits of God conferred on us long ago with great thanksgiving and devotion, and that you, O Jews, believe and obey the Apostles, just as you believed and obeyed the Prophets: for both preach the same thing of Christ by the same spirit, and what the Apostles announced, the Prophets foretold. So Oecumenius. St. Peter foresaw Marcion the heresiarch, who would teach that one God was the author of the Old Testament, another of the New, and he refutes him (as also did Tertullian afterwards in the five books written against Marcion), as Bede says: "The same spirit of Christ was in the Prophets earlier, who afterwards was in the Apostles; and therefore both peoples preached the same faith, those Christ as still to come, these as already come; and through this one Church, of which one part preceded the carnal coming of the Lord, the other part followed."
They ministered these things. — Hesselius takes "ministered" neutrally, as if to say: They served you, they accommodated you, they ministered to your benefit those things which the Prophets foretold of Christ. But others better take it actively, as if to say: The Prophets supplied you with their oracles. Hence they themselves were as it were ministers and deacons both of the Apostles and of Christians: for this is what the Greek diēkonoun signifies; therefore "they ministered" is the same as "they prophesied": for by their prophecy they ministered to us. Therefore the Prophets were deacons of Christ and of Christians, and the Apostles are their Evangelists, because they evangelized the Gospel to them, that is, the most joyful announcement concerning the advent of the Messiah, the redemption and salvation. See 2 Corinthians 3, where the Apostle calls Moses and the Prophets ministers of death and damnation, because they promulgated the old law, which made the transgressing Jews guilty of death, and condemned them; but the Apostles he calls ministers of life, grace and glory: for they brought this through Christ's Gospel.
By those who evangelized, — namely the Apostles, of whom I am one, indeed the chief. Therefore some less rightly think that St. Peter here excludes himself, and did not evangelize the Pontians, Galatians, Cappadocians, etc., when rather he modestly joins and includes himself with the rest.
The Holy Spirit being sent from heaven. — Refer to "they evangelized," as if to say: Just as the Prophets through the spirit of Christ (of which v. 11) foretold Christ to come, so the Apostles evangelized to you the same one now present, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whom they received at Pentecost in the form of fiery tongues, so that He through their tongues might send forth burning sermons, as fiery arrows, by which He might kindle the hearts of those listening with the knowledge and love of God and of Christ. So Oecumenius.
Into whom the angels desire to look. — For "whom" the Greek has eis ha, that is "into which," namely the mysteries of Christ, especially of salvation and of beatific glory the angels desire to look upon, namely that they may see them perfected and completed. So the Syriac, Didymus, Oecumenius, Gagnaeus, Cajetan, Catharinus, Vatablus here and Irenaeus, book 4, ch. 67, and book 2, ch. 29; St. Ephrem, treatise On the Spiritual Armor, ch. 1; Cyril, book On the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten, ch. 28. Where note: the pronoun properly refers to Christ's pathēmata, that is, sufferings, and the subsequent glories, which immediately preceded. Hence you may gather that the angels are wonderfully delighted with the vision of Christ's humanity and of His sacred wounds and stigmata, and with the glory both of body and of soul, in which He far transcends all angels. Hence Sophronius, Patriarch of Constantinople, oration 1 On the Nature of Christ, takes "into which" of Christ's nativity, Bethlehem and the manger, into which the angels desire to look. Hence at Christ's birth "from abundant joy they sang: 'Glory to God in the highest,'" says Oecumenius. In like manner the angels are incredibly delighted and eager to behold martyrdom, contests and any sufferings of the faithful, while they generously bear them for the love of Christ, and to behold their crown and glory, that they may fill among the angels the seats from which the demons fell. Hence the Apostle: "We have been made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men," 1 Corinthians 4:9. And St. Cyprian, epistle to the Tibaritani: "God beholds us battling and fighting in the contest of faith, the angels behold us, Christ also beholds us. How great is the dignity of glory, how great is the felicity to engage in the presence of God and to be crowned with Christ as judge!"
But our Interpreter reads eis ho, namely pneuma, that is the spirit, which immediately preceded; or eis hon, namely Christ, who more remotely preceded. First, therefore, to the Holy Spirit these things are referred by St. Thomas; Isidore; Peter Damian; and also St. Basil and Didymus, On the Holy Spirit, and Athanasius, Epiphanius and Cyril of Alexandria. Secondly, to Christ these things are referred by Bede, the Gloss, the Author of the book On the Spirit and the Soul, in St. Augustine; St. Bernard, sermons 1 and 4 On All Saints, where he calls Christ the delight of the angels; Hugh, Thomas Anglicus, Titelmann. For St. Peter seems to allude to the Cherubim of Moses, who continually gazed upon the propitiatory, which represented Christ the propitiator, Exodus 25:20. Moreover, that the angels marvelously desired to see Christ born, suffering and rising again, is clear from Isaiah 53, Psalm 23, and elsewhere. For Christ, as man, is the head not only of men, but also of angels, Colossians 1:16. Hence some Theologians with Clement of Alexandria, book 7 of the Stromata, and Origen, homilies 1 and 2 on Leviticus, judge that not only men, but also angels owe their grace and glory to Christ and to Christ's merits. Hence St. Bernard, sermon 22 on the Canticle: "He who raised up fallen man, gave to the standing angel that he should not fall, thus rescuing the one from captivity, as preserving the other from captivity; and by this reason there was redemption for both, freeing the one and saving the other."
The prior exposition concerning the Holy Spirit seems more likely, both because He immediately preceded, and because the slip from ho, namely pneuma, into ha was easy, in the way the Greeks and Greek manuscripts read. Furthermore, the angels desire to look, first, into the Holy Spirit Himself: for by seeing Him, they equally see the Father and the Son, for of all there is one essence, and by this vision they are made blessed. Secondly, into the works and gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which He adorns the faithful and the Church; for these the angels bear, procure, promote and direct, as ministering spirits of the Holy Spirit concerning the governance of the Church and the salvation of the faithful. So Cyril of Alexandria, sermon "That the Word of God Was Made Man"; St. Basil and Didymus, book On the Holy Spirit; St. Athanasius, epistle to Serapion; St. Ambrose, book On Isaac, ch. 5; St. Epiphanius, heresy 74, and others, who from this place against Macedonius prove the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Hence also the beatitude of angels, equally as of men, consists in the vision of God and of the Holy Spirit: for this satisfies and fulfills all their desire. Hence the incorruptible inheritance to which St. Peter said we are called through Christ, v. 3, he here explains, and asserts that it is situated in the contemplation and vision of the Holy Spirit, that is, of God. St. Peter could have said, the Angels desire to look into God, but He preferred to say, into the Holy Spirit, because a little before he had said that the Holy Spirit had foretold through the Prophets, and announced through the Apostles the sufferings and glories of Christ; and because this whole work of Christ's economy, of our redemption, calling, sanctification and salvation, which Peter here celebrates, was the work of the highest divine grace and love, which is appropriated to the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul says: "Evidently great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, appeared to the angels, was preached to the Gentiles, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory," 1 Timothy 3:16.
Furthermore, the angels desire to look into the Holy Spirit, that is, they look with desire and eagerness, by desiring they are satisfied, and by being satisfied they desire. Hear St. Gregory, book 18 of the Morals, ch. 28: "God the angels see, and desire to see, and thirst to behold, and they behold. Lest however there be anxiety in desire, desiring they are satisfied; and lest there be tedium in satiety, satisfied they desire. And they desire without labor, because satiety accompanies desire; and they are satisfied without tedium, because that satiety is always kindled from desire." And Bede: "The contemplation of the divine presence so beatifies the angels that, having always seen His glory, they are satisfied, and they always insatiably hunger for His sweetness as if it were new." This is what the Greek parakypsai signifies, that is, with head bent down and forward, to look and look into studiously and exactly. For the Blessed fix all the eyes of the mind, all the gaze, all the mind in contemplating God, and indeed go out as it were beyond themselves, that they may wholly depart and pass over into God.
Mystically our Turrianus, treatise 2 On the Eucharist, chs. 16, 17 and 18, and from him Salmeron (indeed they themselves judge this to be the literal sense): "into whom," namely Christ in the Eucharist, they say. For in it we do not see Christ, yet we believe Him to be really present, and into Him there the angels desire parakyptein, that is, studiously, carefully, solicitously, with fixed eyes to look in, both in order to look on Him, and on the manner of His being (which is angelic, so that the whole body of Christ is in every point of the host whole and entire), and to look on His condescension and grace, which He copiously bestows on those standing by and communicating. To this St. Mark looked in the Liturgy, saying: "After the consecration Thou conferrest benefits in the soul, and to those who place their trust in Thee Thou bestowest those things, which in themselves the angels desire to look upon." Wherefore the choirs of angels assist the celebrating priest, that they may with reverence behold, honor and venerate such great mysteries. "For what one of the faithful," says St. Gregory, book 4 of the Dialogues, ch. 58, "can have any doubt, that in the very hour of the immolation, at the priest's voice the heavens are opened, that in that mystery of Jesus Christ the choirs of angels are present, the lowest things are joined to the highest, the earthly things are united to the heavenly, and one whole is made of the visible and the invisible?" And St. Ambrose, on chapter 1 of Luke: "Do not doubt that the angel is present when Christ is present, when Christ is immolated." Furthermore, St. James in the Liturgy: "Let mortals be silent, and stand with fear and trembling, thinking of nothing earthly. For the King of kings, Christ the Lord our God, comes forth that He may be slain, and given as food to the faithful, and indeed the choirs of angels precede Him." Wherefore St. Chrysostom exclaims, in the homily On the Sacred and Divine Table: "O miracle, a table so magnificently set, on which the Lamb of God is slain for thee, at which the Cherubim assist, the Seraphim descend, who, endowed with six wings, lower their faces, where all the angels with the priest perform an embassy on thy behalf!"
Verse 13: Wherefore, Having the Loins of Your Mind Girt Up, Be Sober and Hope Perfectly
13. Wherefore, having girt up the loins. — Here is the other part of the chapter, namely the ethical part (for the prior was dogmatic), in which he forms the morals of the faithful, that they may be worthy of Christ and of a Christian. The phrase "wherefore" connects this with what precedes and as from principles draws a fitting conclusion, as if to say: Since the incorruptible inheritance and heavenly goods preached by me and the Apostles are prepared for you through Christ, O Christians, and are so great that not only the Prophets, but also the angels desire to see them, what remains except that, treading down earthly thoughts, as it were having girt up the loins of the mind, with all the affections of the soul, as it were with full strides, you may strain toward heaven? Let the avaricious like moles pursue earthly riches, the proud like chameleons aspire to the breath of honor, the gluttonous like pigs gape after food: but you, citizens, indeed kings of heaven written down and destined by God, seek with far more ardent zeal, and girded, that is, unencumbered, strive toward the eternal kingdom, that, all the enticements of the world, riches, threats, hatreds, persecutions being despised, you may hope for and attain the grace, that is, that glory to be revealed on the day of judgment.
Note first: We gird up the loins for four uses: first, for a journey; second, for work; third, for war; fourth, for service. Hence St. Augustine on Psalm 92: "To be girt up belongs to one about to set out on a journey; to be girded, to one about to do some work; to be belted, to one about to fight; to be cinctured, to one about to minister." All these apply to Christians; for first, as pilgrims they make a journey to heaven; second, as workers they perform the work of God; third, as soldiers of Christ they fight with the world, flesh and devil; fourth, as servants they minister to Christ: therefore they ought to be girt up in the loins of the mind, that is, they ought to be in mind and soul not impeded, but ready, free and unencumbered for the four things just set forth.
It is first, a catachresis: for the girding up of the loins makes a man unencumbered, and therefore signifies him. Secondly, it is a metaphor, and that twofold, the former drawn from the dress of the Jews and the ancients: for they used very long garments and tunics; whence about to do work, or to make a journey, they girt them up. Hence to the faithful who would meet Him in death, Christ says in Luke 12: "Let your loins be girded." "For he who is ungirded," says Haymo, "is impeded by his own garments, that he may not walk freely; but he who is girded, can run wherever he wishes." The latter, that he attributes loins to the mind, by which he signifies that Christians ought, all impediments being removed, to present a mind ready, eager and keen to undertake this work and journey. Therefore he girds the loins of the mind, who drives errors, especially perverse practical principles, and harmful thoughts and desires from the mind. So Oecumenius, Gagnaeus and Thomas Anglicus, who beautifully says that the interior man, that is, the soul, is in its way proportioned to the exterior man. For it is said to have a foot, that is, affection; an eye, that is, reason; a hand, that is, operation; a nostril, that is, discretion; loins and reins, that is, delights.
St. Peter therefore by the loins of the mind understands the powers, faculties, affections, loves and desires of the mind, and orders them to be girt and restrained, lest they flow freely, and delay the proposed course into heaven to God. Secondly, that being unencumbered they may respond to God when calling, to evangelize, to suffer many things with Him, and whatever else: "My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready," Psalm 56:8. Thirdly, that the mind may rule its loins, that is, powers and affections, and not allow them to wander at pleasure, but govern and direct them both to its own salvation and to God's service and glory. For the mind ruling itself and its affections is a queen fully and widely dominating, more than a King or Emperor of the world, according to that of Horace: "More widely shalt thou reign by subduing thy greedy spirit, than if thou shouldst join Libya with remote Gades, and both Carthaginians serve one."
Note secondly: The belt is, first, a symbol and cause of fortitude and constancy: wherefore the Gentiles dedicated the belt to Mars. And Cicero gives this precept to the orator: "Let him gird his sides with a tighter belt, that they may be stronger and more vigorous for speaking." Thus in Proverbs 31:17, it is said of the strong woman: "She has girded her loins with strength, and strengthened her arm." And God is said to be "girded with power," Psalm 64:7. Whence David says: "Thou hast girded me with strength for the battle," Psalm 17:13. Therefore Peter signifies that Christians must not act sluggishly, but must direct their minds and incline themselves strongly and constantly to Christ, to Christianity, and to salvation and eternal glory, to which they are called by Christ. So Oecumenius. Hence among the Greeks euzōnos, that is, well-girt, is the same as strong and vigorous. On the contrary, ungirt among the Latins means dissolute and unwarlike: for it was considered the greatest disgrace, if an Emperor should command a slothful soldier to spend the day ungirt, says Suetonius in Augustus, ch. 24. To this purpose pertains that of 3 Kings 20:11: "Let not him who is girded boast equally as one who is ungirded," that is, one about to fight, equally as one already resting from the fight, having gained the victory.
Secondly, the belt is a symbol of chastity, both because it itself restrains the loins, and consequently lust, which has its origin in the loins; and because to safeguard chastity is an act of great fortitude. Hence that saying of Christ: "Let your loins be girded," many expound thus, as if to say: Mortify lust, pursue chastity. So St. Augustine, homily 23 on the Gospel; St. Basil, on chapter 15 of Isaiah; St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, and others. So also some here expound the words of St. Peter. Whence also follows: "Hope perfectly with sobriety," for sobriety is the companion, indeed the mother of chastity. Thus Bede: "He girds the loins of the mind who restrains it from impure thought. And he who, chaste in mind and body, awaits the coming of the Lord, deservedly hopes when He is revealed." And St. Gregory, Morals 32, ch. 2: "To gird the loins of the flesh is to restrain lust from its effect; but to gird the loins of the mind is to restrain it even from thought." And Peter Chrysologus: "Girded with the belt of chastity, which is the insignia of the Christian army, let us cut off the sloth of fluctuating flesh, etc. The Lord commands our loins to be tightened with the belt of chastity, and commands the whole pendulous, fluid, dissolved part of our flesh to be constrained with the continuous girdle of virtue, so that with the flesh girded, the gait of our mind may be made free, swift, and unencumbered for meeting the Lord."
Thirdly, the belt is a sign of an honest, modest, and composed spirit; for as the outer man is, namely his clothing and attire, such also is the inner man. Hence Sulla was noted for walking ill-girt, as if this were a sign of an undisciplined and intemperate spirit. Such a man therefore girds the loins of the mind, because he masters all the affections, loves, and fears of the mind, so that he can tighten and loosen them at will, like a hunter his dog, a fowler his hawk. Thus also concerning Julius Caesar, while still a boy, there was an omen, "Sulla warning the nobles to beware the ill-girt boy. For he would be the ruin of the noble party: for there were many Mariuses in Caesar," says Suetonius in his Life of Julius Caesar, chs. 1 and 45.
Fourthly, the belt is a sign of fidelity: for spouses are girded with the conjugal belt, so that they may be reminded mutually to preserve conjugal fidelity. Fifthly, of continence and mortification of the appetites toward worldly and fleeting things. So St. Augustine, Sermon 39 On the Words of the Lord, and St. Gregory, Morals 34, ch. 35. He girds the loins and breasts, "who restrains all the movements of changing thoughts, by the bonds of love alone," that he may say with the Psalmist: "For what have I in heaven, and besides Thee what have I desired upon earth? God of my heart, and God my portion forever," Psalm 72:25.
You will ask, with what belt are the loins of the mind to be girded? I answer, with truth. For Paul assigns this belt of truth, Ephesians 6:14. To which add the exposition of St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 42: "I ask what the loins have in common with truth, and what was Paul's intention when he said: Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth; was it perhaps because contemplation restrains concupiscence, and does not allow it to be carried elsewhere? For it cannot be that one who burns with love of any thing should have equal force toward other pleasures"; that is, as Nicetas explains: "The contemplation of Christ constrains our loins and concupiscence, and does not allow it, wholly transfused and derived to the love of divine things, to be diffused and scattered." For Christ is the truth, 1 John 5:6. Therefore prayer and contemplation of Christ and heavenly things diminishes and breaks all concupiscence which resides in the loins. Wherefore prayer is the mother of mortification, continence, chastity. And in turn mortification purifies and kindles prayer. The same Nazianzen, Oration 40: "What are the loins, what are the kidneys? Let your loins be girded, and restrained by continence, as Israel once eating the Passover by the precept of the law: for no one purely and perfectly departs from Egypt, nor flees the destruction, unless he has subdued and bridled these things. But let the kidneys feel a praiseworthy change, transferring the whole force of desire to God, that we may say: Lord, before Thee is all my desire; and: I have not desired the day of man. For it befits us to be men of spiritual desires. For only thus shall we have crushed that dragon, whose greatest strength is placed in the navel and loins, namely by extinguishing and overturning that power which it holds in these parts." The reason is that the soul in man is one and the same; wherefore since it is of limited virtue, if it expends and exerts all its powers in the contemplation and love of heavenly things, it has nothing further to expend in the love and contemplation of carnal things. Hence we see men devoted to meditation and prayer scarcely feel the stings of the flesh.
Thus our Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga was so continually intent on prayer and meditation, that he felt no wandering or distraction of mind in it, and marveled that a man conversing with God in the presence of such great majesty could be distracted, or turn his mind elsewhere; and from this he obtained the excellent gift of chastity, so that, like St. Thomas Aquinas, he felt no impure motions of flesh or soul, and seemed insensible to them, as if he were an angel, not by nature, but by virtue.
Sober. — First, as if to say: Not drunken, nor indulging in wine, gluttony, and the belly. For "wines prepare the spirits for Venus," and vice versa, "without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus grows cold." Whence St. Jerome, epistle 83 to Oceanus: "Drunkenness belongs to buffoons and revelers, and the belly fired with unmixed wine easily foams over into lust." See what is said on Ephesians 5:18, on that passage: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury." For just as drunkenness, and a belly full and stuffed, is unfit for a journey, for work, for battle, for service: so for all these things the sober man is prepared, and sobriety prepares him. Truly Origen, homily 3 on Leviticus: "Sobriety is the mother of all virtues, just as on the contrary drunkenness is the mother of all vices." And shortly after: "In the sickness of drunkenness, body and soul are corrupted together, the spirit is corrupted along with the flesh, it weakens all members, loosens the foot, the hand, the tongue, darkens the eyes, oblivion veils the mind: so that a man does not know nor perceive that he is a man." And St. Basil, homily 14: "The souls of the drunken are submerged in wine." And shortly after: "You deprive yourself of the light of the mind through drunkenness, you can be numbered among beasts lacking reason." And St. Chrysostom, homily 58 on Matthew: "No one is a greater friend to the devil than he who is stained with delights and drunkenness," etc.
Secondly, Oecumenius and the Syriac connect the word "sober" with "perfectly"; as if St. Peter required from Christians not a half-full sobriety, such as was that of the Jews, but a full and perfect sobriety, which makes their mind girt and ready for the heavenly journey: but full sobriety is abstinence not only of the flesh, but also of the mind, namely continence and moderation of soul, by which it masters all desires. Of which Seneca, epistle 39: "It is the mark of a great soul to despise great things, and to prefer the moderate to the excessive: for those are useful and life-giving, but these, in proportion as they are superfluous, are harmful. Thus excessive abundance lays low the harvest, thus branches are broken by their burden, thus excessive fecundity does not come to maturity. The same happens also to souls, which excessive happiness ruptures."
Thirdly, the Greek nēphontes can be translated as "watching," as Vatablus and St. Jerome translate it, book 1 Against Jovinian; whence the Syriac also translates: "be perfectly aroused." For sobriety is the mother of vigilance, just as drunkenness is the mother of sleep and idleness. Wherefore St. Peter joins these two as inseparable companions in chapter 5, verse 8, saying: "Be sober and watch." For the life of the faithful is a vigil: for they must keep watch among so many enemies, by which they are surrounded on all sides. Again the lofty doctrine of Christ, equally as His grace and glory, demands a vigilant, attentive, sharp, studious, and industrious mind.
Perfectly hope in that grace which is offered to you. — St. Peter requires from the faithful not just any kind of hope, but perfect hope, and he indicates that it is prepared by sobriety: for abstinence from carnal pleasures makes us hope for heavenly ones, and makes the mind apt, sharp, and eager to grasp and foretaste them. For "is offered," the Greek has pheromenē, which St. Jerome and others translate, "is brought": because, namely, God not only promises this grace, but also offers it, brings it, and as it were places it into our hand and lap; in such a way, however, that He does not compel, but leaves it free to the will to accept or reject it, as the Council of Trent defines, session 6, chapter 5.
For "grace," Greek charin, others read charan, that is, "joy." So the Syriac; for although "grace" here can be properly understood, as if to say: Hope in faith and grace, because that will lead you to salvation; yet better you may take "grace" for glory, for this the faithful and just hope for; and this brings full joy, according to that of Christ: "Enter into the joy of thy Lord," Matthew 25:26. This also is grace, because although it is itself the reward of good works, yet these have their origin from grace. Whence Romans 6:23, it is said: "The grace of God is life eternal."
This full hope drove and stirred up St. Peter, St. Andrew, Philip, and Simon, to mount the cross with exultation, James and Paul to embrace the swords and axes, St. Lawrence to tread the gridiron, Sebastian to the arrows, Stephen to the stones, Ignatius to the lion, Clement to shipwreck, Polycarp to the fire, Thecla to overcome serpents, bulls, racks, and all kinds of torments bravely and cheerfully. Truly Tertullian, in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh: "The confidence of Christians is the resurrection of the dead."
Unto the revelation of Jesus Christ. — So the Roman, as if to say: Hope for this grace, that is, glory, until the day of the revelation of Christ, namely until the day of judgment comes: for then by Christ the judge it shall be given to you, as the reward of your labors and patience. Or, hope in the revelation of Jesus Christ, that is, in Jesus Christ, because in the revelation of His glory and judicial power, namely on the day of judgment, He will hand over this grace, that is, glory, to you. Or, hope in the day of the revelation of Christ, because that day will bring this grace to you. The Greek has en apokalypsei, that is, "in the revelation," as if to say: Hope in this grace now, when it is revealed to you through my preaching and that of the Apostles. Or rather, as if to say: Hope that this grace will be given to you in the revelation of Christ, namely on the day of judgment. The word "revelation" signifies that we live this life in faith, that is, in enigma and obscurity, in which the things believed and hoped for by us do not appear, are not seen, but are as it were secret and hidden with God: for all these things and their dignity and majesty will be revealed on the day of judgment, that then we may contemplate them face to face, and enjoy them. Thus Paul says: "You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory," Colossians 3:3.
Verse 14: As Children of Obedience, Not Fashioned According to the Former Desires of Your Ignorance
14. As children of obedience. — These depend on what precedes, as if to say: Stand with girded loins, that is, expedite and constant, and soberly hope for the future glory, as it befits children of obedience, that is, obedient to the precepts of Christ, mine and the Apostles', such as you are. For it befits children to obey their parents. St. Peter therefore requires from the faithful obedience, not just any kind, but filial obedience from filial love and reverence. Again, those are called "children of obedience" who are devoted and wholly given over to obedience, so that, born as it were of obedience as a mother, they may seem to have wholly drawn in and imbibed the disposition and nature of obedience. Moreover "children of obedience," as if devoted and consecrated to obedience; just as Religious are called children of obedience, because they have devoted themselves to it, and have made the vow of it to God. And such were the first Christians, namely most obedient to Christ and the Apostles, and even made a vow or profession of obedience to the Apostles, as I have shown on Acts 5:1. Thus are called children of perdition, of unbelief, of distrust, that is, those wholly lost, unbelieving, distrustful. Likewise children of wrath, of death, of Gehenna, that is, given over to vengeance, to death, and to Gehenna.
Morally St. Peter signifies that Christians ought to be most obedient, as children of obedience, children of Christ and of the first Christians, who were most obedient. For Christ "became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," Philippians 2:8. Likewise as brothers of the angels: for the angels are "mighty in strength, executing His word, hearkening to the voice of His commands," Psalm 102:20. Hence they are painted as winged and fiery, because they execute God's commands most swiftly and effectively, according to that: "Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire," Psalm 103:4.
Not fashioned according to the former desires of your ignorance. — He shows what kind of obedience He requires from the faithful as from children, namely not only of faith, that they may believe in Christ, as the heretics will; but also of works, that they may not pursue the former desires and lusts which they pursued in heathenism, but may strive for holiness, that they may be holy in all their conduct. Whence the Syriac translates: "Do not any longer share in those former concupiscences, with which you lusted without knowledge." Note "fashioned," that is, conformed; for he who follows desires, conforms and fashions himself to them, so that he seems to put on their form and figure. Do you see a drunkard? You see the form, manners, and gestures of drunkenness. Do you see a glutton? You see the figure, the gaping mouth, and the voracity of gluttony and lust. Do you see an ambitious man? You see the figure, the swelling, and the gestures of ambition. On the contrary, those who fashion and conform themselves to Christ and His virtues, put on His form, manners, and acts. For just as a sheet of paper pressed to the press, and configured to the plate on which the image of Christ is engraved and sculpted, is configured to it, and puts on its image, so as to reproduce and express the form and appearance of Christ: so exactly he who applies his mind and will fully to Christ as to a norm, rule, and example, configures himself to Him, and expresses His form, manners, and virtues in himself. This is what Paul commands, Ephesians 4:22: "That you put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error." For which St. Peter says, "of ignorance," to signify that in heathenism they had been in the deep darkness and night of unbelief, gluttony, lust, pride, etc., which the Gentiles thought to be honorable, right, and beautiful, and even gloried in them: but now through Christianity they have been led across to the bright day and light of faith, of the knowledge of God, of sobriety, of chastity, and of every virtue. St. Paul adds: "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth."
Verse 15: But According to Him Who Has Called You, the Holy One, Be You Also Holy in All Conversation
15. But according to Him who has called you (to faith, grace, and salvation), the Holy One (God and Christ, who is "the Holy of holies and everlasting justice," Daniel 9:24), be you also holy in all manner of conversation. — An ancient saying of one of the Seven Sages was: "Follow God"; more ancient is God's saying through Moses: "You shall be holy, because I am holy," Leviticus 11:45. More recent, but fuller, is Christ's: "Be ye therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect," Matthew 5:48; and Paul's, Ephesians 5:1: "Be ye therefore imitators of God, as most dear children."
Now He opposes holiness to desires, that is, concupiscences; by which He signifies that holiness consists in purity, which is acquired by fleeing and mortifying carnal and earthly desires, so that as God is holy, that is, separated from the earth and the dregs of the earth, so likewise the faithful one may be holy. Whence Origen, homily 11 on Leviticus: "The holy one is in Greek called hagios, which signifies him to be as it were outside the earth; for whoever has consecrated himself to God, will deservedly seem to be outside the earth and outside the world." But clearly St. Dionysius, chapter 12 On the Divine Names: "Holiness is purity free from every crime, perfect and on every side uncontaminated: which so eminently exists in God, that He is deservedly called the Holy of holies, and is celebrated by the most famous Trisagion hymn by the blessed minds in heaven." And St. Basil, On the Holy Spirit, chapter 9: "The soul, purged from the disgrace by which malice had contaminated it, and returned to its native beauty, and as it were rendering the old form by purity as a royal image, in this one way alone can it approach to the Paraclete. He indeed, like the sun finding a pure eye, will show you in Himself the image of Him who cannot be seen." And shortly after: "He (the Paraclete) shining upon those who have been purged from the tumult of desires, through the communion they have with Him, makes them spiritual. And just as bright and translucent bodies, when touched by the ray of the sun, themselves become exceedingly splendid, and pour forth another brightness from themselves: so souls breathed upon by the Spirit, and illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual, and emit grace upon others."
Furthermore, St. Peter requires from the faithful full and universal holiness; for he says: "Be holy in all manner of conversation." For some in the temple seem angels, but in the house are devils. He therefore requires the continual exercise not of one virtue, but of all virtues, and that they may acquire solid and intense habits of them. For habit gives to virtue not only facility, but also constancy, so that one endowed with it may stand firm and consistent against any temptations whatsoever, and may exercise virtue in all conversation, and from it may do all that is to be done. The sense therefore is, as if to say: All your conversation, O Christians, in heathenism was impure, stained, and often bestial. For many of you in the temple were superstitious, in the senate-house contentious, in the forum ambitious, in the street insulting, in the workshop fraudulent, in the field rapacious, in the house quarrelsome; many at table were wolves, in the bedroom foxes, at work asses, at home peacocks, abroad hawks, in bed pigs, in the tribunal tigers, in social gatherings dogs, in the streets lions. But now in Christianity it is necessary that all your conversation in acting, speaking, walking, eating, studying, disputing, sleeping, working, ruling, etc., be pure, Christian, holy, angelic; that in the temple you may be ardent in prayer like Seraphim; in the school and bedroom contemplating like Cherubim; in judgment placid and equitable like Thrones; in bridling desires elevated like Dominations; in governance prudent like Principalities; in trampling the temptation of the world generous like Powers; in struggle with the demon strong like Virtues; in duty and public work faithful like Archangels; at table, in the street, in the forum, in bed, etc., honest, modest, composed, holy like Angels. See St. Bernard, treatise On the Manner of Living Well, to his sister, where he shows what kind of conversation his ought to be in the temple, bedroom, at table, in conversation, in reading, in sleep, etc.
This the first Christians performed, who therefore by their own name were commonly called Saints, as St. Paul everywhere calls them. Hear St. Justin philosopher and martyr graphically describing the life and morals of the Christians of his age, that is, in the year of Christ 150, in his epistle to Diognetus, 1: "They inhabit their own native lands, but as it were as resident aliens. They participate in all things as citizens; and they suffer all things as foreigners. Every foreign region is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign. They marry as do all others; and they procreate children, but they do not cast away their offspring. They set out a common table, but not common to the impure. They are in the flesh; but they do not live according to the flesh. They live on earth; but they have their conversation in heaven. They obey holy laws, and by their manner of life surpass the laws. They love all, and are hated by all. They are unknown, and they are condemned. They are put to death, and they are given life. They are poor, and enrich many. They lack all things, and abound in all things. They are afflicted with ignominy, and are celebrated in their ignominies. They are blasphemed, and they justify. They are cursed, and they bless. They are assailed with insults, and they show honor. They do good, and are reckoned as wicked. When punished they rejoice, as though made alive. By the Jews they are attacked as foreigners, and by unbelievers they suffer persecution: nor can those who hate them allege any cause of their hatred."
Such were the Essenes, namely the first Christians of Alexandria under St. Mark. For how holy the Essenes were in all their conversation, learn from Porphyry under oath — an enemy and detractor of Christ and Christians — admire and imitate. For thus he himself depicts them in Eusebius, Book IX of the Preparation of the Gospel, chapter 1: "The Essenes are Jews by race: they love one another more than other men do; and they spurn all pleasure as vicious, holding continence and integrity of soul, removed from every disturbance, to be the chief virtue. They do not take wives; but they adopt other men's children while still tender and apt for every kind of instruction, and rear them as their own and confirm them in their own customs. They so despise riches that there is among them a certain wonderful community of goods. None of them possesses anything beyond the rest; all things are common to them. No one is richer or poorer than another. There is one fellowship among them all, as among brethren. They always clothe themselves in white; by common election they create for themselves stewards and governors, and their goods are undivided among all. They do not inhabit one city, but easily migrate from one to another, and always set out to those of their own sect; by whom they are so received that you would say they had always lived together: whence it comes about that as they set out they carry no expense with them."
Then he describes their prayers, works, and meals thus: "Toward God they exercise the greatest piety. For before the sun rises, no profane word is spoken among them, but they use the ancestral prayer by which they pray for the sun to rise; thereafter they are sent forth one by one by the prefects to their fields and to their works: and after they have labored five hours, they are gathered again to one place: and thoroughly washed with cold water, they come into a house into which it is permitted no one to enter except of the same sect. So they come, as it were into a temple, to the dining-room, where, as they sit in great tranquillity, bread is set before all in order, and one dish for each. The chief of all the priests, after prayer is offered, begins to eat; and they consider it absolutely impious to taste anything before prayer. And when they have dined, they pray much more diligently. So beginning and ending the praises of God, they sing them carefully." Then he adds: "They use such scantiness and paucity of things that scarcely more than once in seven days do they need a purgation of the bowels. From which continence they attain to such patience and strength of soul, that neither by the rack, nor by fire, nor by any other kind of torture can they be moved either to defame the lawgiver in words, or to eat anything unlawful, as they showed especially in the war which was waged against them by the Romans: for they used no flattery toward their torturers, nor did they who were tortured shed any tears; but pleasantly laughing in their pains, and mocking those by whom they were tormented, so they expired most gladly, as if they were returning to their fatherland." These things Porphyry has testified concerning the piety and philosophy of the Essenes.
In this mirror behold yourself and your manners, O Christian, and if you find yourself far removed from them, strive to follow and overtake them; lest that saying of Salvian, Book IV On Providence, fit you and those like you: "In vain do we flatter ourselves with the prerogative and name of Christianity, who so act and live that this very thing — that we are called a Christian people — seems to be a reproach to Christ." And shortly after: "Where is the Catholic law in which they believe? Where are the precepts of piety and chastity which they learn? They read the Gospels, and are unchaste; they hear the Apostles, and become drunken; they follow Christ, and plunder; they live a wicked life, and say they have an upright law, etc. In us Christ suffers reproach, in us the Christian law suffers a curse, while it is said: 'Behold what manner of men they are who worship Christ': what they say, that they learn good things, is plainly false. For if they were learning good things, they would be good. Such surely is the sect, as are also the followers: they are without doubt that which they are taught: holy things would be done by Christians, if Christ had taught holy things. He who is worshipped, therefore, may be judged from His worshippers."
Verse 16: Because It Is Written, You Shall Be Holy, for I Am Holy
16. Because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy. — This is written in Leviticus 20:26. The sense, says Didymus, is, as if to say: "As I am the fountain of holiness, existing as holy by My substance, so do you whom I love strive to participate in holiness, that you may be such as I am." Wherefore Nazianzen excellently, in Iambic 15: "What is holiness? To grow accustomed to God." Thus Noah and Henoch, walking with God, were made holy, Genesis 5:24, and 6:9.
Verse 17: And If You Invoke as Father Him Who Without Respect of Persons Judges
17. And if you invoke as Father Him who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work, in fear pass the time of your sojourning. — St. Peter goes on to urge the faithful that in all their conversation they may be holy, and may continually walk in the holy fear of God, by various reasonings and goads. The first is in this verse, namely that He Himself, the Holy One who called them, is their God, Father, and Judge whom they adore and invoke; as if to say: Therefore worship Him as God in holiness; obey Him in holiness as obedient sons obey a father; fear Him in holiness as a Judge: for He judges without respect of persons, nor does He regard the rich more than the poor, the master more than the slave, the noble more than the lowly, but judges each one according to his merits, according to his works. Wherefore, while you dwell in this life, this flesh, and this earth as foreigners and pilgrims, walk in holy fear, and either fear and reverence God as a Father with filial love, or surely as a Judge with servile fear, that you may shun all His offenses and sins, and do everything that is pleasing to Him, and what is commanded by Him and sanctioned by His law, and so escape Gehenna and obtain from Him an eternal inheritance in the heavens, as fearful servants and obedient sons. This is what Malachi ch. 1, vers. 6, says: "The son honors the father, and the servant his master. If then I am a Father, where is My honor? And if I am Lord, where is My fear? saith the Lord of hosts."
Note: He calls God "Father," which is common to the three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For He is Father, that is, Creator, Preserver, Provider, Governor of angels, of men, and of all creatures. Thus Christ in the Lord's Prayer commanded us to pray and to begin: "Our Father, who art in heaven," Matthew 6:9. From which place Calvin and the Calvinists wrongly contend that God is to be invoked by us only by the name of Father, and not at all of the Holy Trinity, by saying: "Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us." Hence they themselves have expunged the name of the Holy Trinity from their calendars, prayers, and litanies. Wrongly, I say: for Christ commanded us to baptize by invoking the Holy Trinity, by saying: "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Hence St. Dionysius invokes the Holy Trinity, On Mystical Theology, ch. 1; St. Augustine, last book On the Trinity, last chapter, and others everywhere; indeed, the whole Church on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and often elsewhere. See Feuardent, dialogue 1 Against Calvin. Not without cause did wise men charge Calvin with Arianism and Judaism, so that Hunnius wrote a book with this title: Calvin Judaizing. For if it is not lawful to invoke the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity; then the Son is not God, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the Holy Trinity. For whoever is true God, Him we not only can but ought to adore and invoke.
Note secondly: The Son alone, as man, will be the personal Judge judging all men; yet the Father and the Holy Spirit will also be judges, because they will judge through Christ the man, just as a king judges through his prefect. Thus St. Augustine, tract 21 on John.
A great spur to holy conversation is the fear of God, who sees all things, judges all things, and avenges all things. Whence the Apostles continually inculcated it, and preachers ought frequently to inculcate it. St. Clement reports that St. Peter often used to say: "Who can sin, if he always sets the judgment of God before his eyes?" St. Paul vehemently feared this very thing: "Lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway," 1 Corinthians 9:27; and: "With fear and trembling work out your salvation," Philippians 2:12; and: "We must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil," 2 Corinthians 5:10. "Let us serve, pleasing God with fear and reverence: for our God is a consuming fire," Hebrews 12:28. And Apocalypse 22:12, where Christ says: "Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to his works." Deservedly therefore the royal Prophet: "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling," Psalm 2:11. Who would not tremble before God, before the supreme Judge, before the rigid Avenger, who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna, in whose hands are our lots, life and death, heaven and hell, our eternal salvation and damnation? "I feared all my works, knowing that Thou wouldest not spare him that offendeth," says St. Job ch. 9, 28. Jerome, epistle 3: "I, defiled with the squalor of sins, day and night work with fear to repay the last farthing, and what may be said to me: 'Jerome, come forth.'" And to Eustochium, recounting his tears, fastings, and penances in the desert: "I, for fear of Gehenna had condemned myself to such a prison." The same, inviting Heliodorus to his desert, says he will overcome all delays, "if love of God and fear of Gehenna occupy his mind."
Note thirdly: By "sojourning" he understands the pilgrimage of this life. Whence in Greek it is paroikias chronon, that is, the brief time during which in this life and on this earth we travel as guests and foreigners; as if to say: On earth you are pilgrims, and through it as guests you pass to heaven; do not therefore be caught and cleave to the allurements of earth, but despising them, journey on to your fatherland and pass through. Hence paroeci were called dwellers, paroecia the neighborhood of inhabitants, or assembly of the faithful, who belong to one and the same temple; and Parochus was called he who presides over them, or who administers to them the Sacraments and the bread of the Eucharist. For Parochus among the Romans was he who supplied to guests bread and the rest necessary for sustenance, as Cicero testifies, Book III to Atticus, epistle 2.
Thus David was always mindful of his sojourning, saying in Psalm 119:5: "Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged; I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar; my soul hath been long a sojourner!" Thus Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the Patriarchs and Prophets dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign land, "confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims upon the earth," Hebrews 11:9 and 13. "Daily," says St. Jerome to Heliodorus, "we die, daily we change, and yet we believe ourselves to be eternal." Seneca, Book VI Natural Questions, ch. 32: "Time flows on, and deserts those who most greedily desire it; nor is what shall be mine, nor what has been; in a point of fleeting time I hang, and it is much to have been a little."
Verse 18: Knowing That You Were Not Redeemed With Corruptible Things, as Gold or Silver
18. Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things. — Here Peter applies a second goad to the faithful, that in all their conversation they may be holy, namely that they were bought, redeemed and led across to it from the vain and impure conversation in heathenism by an inestimable price, namely the blood and death of Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. Let them therefore see to it that they remain in it, lest, if they return to their former vices, they trample upon the blood of Christ, provoke His wrath and vengeance, who will most sharply punish and avenge this contempt of His blood and injury done to it. Thus Bede: "The greater is the price by which you have been redeemed from the corruption of carnal life, the more ought you to fear lest by returning to the corruption of vices you offend the soul of your Redeemer."
From your vain manner of life handed down by the fathers. — In Greek patroparadotou, that is, handed down from the fathers, namely concerning conversation under the law of Moses, likewise in Gentilism: for he speaks alike to Jews and Gentiles converted to Christ. The tradition and conversation of Judaism was vain, because it placed purification and holiness in victims and corporeal lustrations; and because it excluded the faith and grace of Christ, who placed holiness in interior virtue; and because, the law of Christ being now promulgated, it was useless, indeed deadly. Thus Cajetan and Gagnaeus. The tradition of the Gentiles was vain, because they worshipped wooden and stone idols, and from them sought and expected salvation and every good, and because they pursued the vain and impure allurements of the flesh and the world.
Verse 19: But With the Precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb Unspotted and Undefiled
19. But with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb unspotted. — The blood of Christ, being God's, is of infinite price; therefore we have been redeemed with an infinite price. "You are bought with a great price; glorify and bear God in your body," says Paul 1 Corinthians ch. 6, 20. This great price is "Christ Himself, given wholly to us, wholly expended for our use," says St. Bernard, sermon 3 On the Circumcision. Furthermore, he calls Christ "as a lamb," that is, like a lamb in purity, innocence, chastity, mansuetude, obedience: by which as a lamb He was offered for our sins. He alludes to the lamb commonly offered by the Jews at Passover, which was a type of Christ likewise to be offered at Passover. For this had to be amōmos, that is, irreprehensible and unspotted, Exodus 12:5. The wool of this Paschal Lamb signifies example, the milk doctrine, the flesh the Eucharist, the blood redemption, says Thomas Anglicus. St. Paulinus excellently, epistle to Florentius: "The same Lamb and Shepherd shall rule us forever, who made us sheep from wolves, and is now Shepherd of those sheep for guarding, for whom He was Lamb for sacrifice." Again, he alludes to Isaiah 53:7: "He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and shall not open His mouth." And Jeremiah 11:19: "And I was as a meek lamb that is carried to be a victim, and I knew not." But he most closely alludes to the testimony of John the Baptist concerning Christ: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world," John 1:29. In this name "Lamb" the other St. John the Apostle rejoices, and so calls Christ everywhere, Apocalypse 5 and following, by all of which he signifies that from Christ the Lamb all Christians ought to be lambs and to imitate lamb-like ways, as St. Agnes did both in deed and in name: for Agnes is so called as if from agna, a ewe-lamb, says St. Augustine, sermon 101 On Various Subjects. Truly St. Ambrose, Book VII on Luke, ch. 12: "Well is the blood of Christ called precious, because it is the blood of an immaculate body, because it is the blood of the Son of God, who has redeemed us not only from the curse of the law, but also from the perpetual death of impiety."
Moreover, He redeemed us not only by paying a ransom for sins committed, but also from the vices and state of a depraved life, transferring us to virtues and to the state of a holy life, by changing our mind and imbuing it with His grace, which moves and impels us to every good. This is what Paul says, Galatians 3:13: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." And 1 Corinthians 1:30: Christ "is made unto us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption." Whence elegantly and piously St. Ambrose, Book III On the Faith, ch. 3, showing how much Christians owe to Christ: "My wisdom is the cross of the Lord; my redemption is the death of the Lord: for we have been redeemed by precious blood, as the Apostle Peter said; with His own blood the Lord redeemed us as man, and as God forgave sins." Excellently St. Leo, sermon 3 On the Passion: "Among all the works of God's mercy, nothing is more wonderful and nothing more sublime than that Christ was crucified for the world."
Hence theologians teach that the blood of Christ shed in the passion was not separated from the divinity, as Francis Mayronis thought; but that it remained with it, equally as with the body, hypostatically conjoined; for the blood of Christ was a just and sufficient price for our sins, by reason of being the blood of a divine Person, namely the Word, which is of infinite dignity. Therefore the blood of the Word remained; therefore it remained hypostatically conjoined to the Word. For if it had been separated from it by being shed, it would have ceased to be a worthy price for our sins: for then it would have been the blood of a mere creature, and so of limited and slight dignity, and consequently insufficient to satisfy for sins, which contain the immense offense of the immense God. Here belongs the axiom of the theologians from Damascene, Book III, ch. 27: "What God has assumed, He has never put off." Therefore, having once assumed the blood, He has not put it off.
Morally, St. Ambrose, Book On Isaac, ch. 3, beautifully teaches how great a servitude we owe to Christ our Buyer and Master: "Do you not know that Christ has redeemed you, that He has bought you not with gold, and not with silver, but with the precious blood of the lamb. Therefore you have been redeemed by the Lord; you are a servant by being created, you are a servant by being redeemed; and you owe servitude as to a master, and as to a Redeemer." For not just any redemption, but the copious redemption of Christ, Psalm 129:7. Whence Urban VI, in the Extravagant Unigenitus, treating of the price and treasure of the blood of Christ, from which Indulgences and Jubilees are drawn, thus says: "He has redeemed us with the precious blood of the immaculate Lamb, who, sacrificed innocent on the altar of the cross, is known to have shed not a small drop of blood (which yet, on account of the union with the Word, would have sufficed for the redemption of the whole human race), but copiously as a certain stream." For the blood of Christ was the blood of a divine Person, namely the Word, sustaining hypostatically this flesh and blood. Therefore wholly we are and ought to be Christ's, not only by the title of creation, but much more by that of redemption. So "we are not our own, but Christ's, who bought us and saved us," says Cyril, Book IV on ch. 45 of Isaiah. For He "bought us not with brass, but with blood," says St. Ambrose, Book VII on ch. 12 of Luke.
As, therefore, the Portuguese buy Ethiopian slaves, and the Italians Turkish ones, and they are wholly the master's, and whatever they do and accomplish, all of it falls to the master: so Christ has bought us not with gold, but with His own blood, and therefore we are slaves of Christ, and whatever we have and can do, all of it is His and is to be expended in His service. "Christ gave Himself wholly to thee; do thou give thyself wholly to Christ." Christ expended all His resources, strengths, labors, spirits for thee; do thou expend the same of thine for Him. "Happy is he who buys Christ with all his fortunes," says St. Nazianzen in his poem. Thus St. Paul everywhere calls himself the servant of Christ. Thus St. Mary Magdalene devoted herself wholly to Christ. Thus St. Francis dwelt wholly in Christ crucified, and Christ in him. Thus St. Elzear wrote back to his wife seeking him by letter: "I dwell in the side of Christ crucified; there you will find me; in vain will you seek elsewhere."
Again learn here how precious the soul is: for its price is the blood, soul, and life of Christ the Son of God; for with that as a price He bought it: how greatly therefore ought we to study the fishing and salvation of souls, as of most precious gems, which Christ valued so highly? being indeed those for whom Christ descended from heaven, labored, sweated for 34 years, died and was crucified; for whom He expended His body, soul, all His labors, and Himself wholly. Do you wish to see how great a price your soul is worth, and that of any man, even a beggar, an Indian, an Ethiopian? It is worth Christ, it is worth God: for the life of Christ, as a price, has been valued and weighed in the balance of divine justice. For neither an Angel, nor an Archangel, nor the Seraphim, nor the Cherubim, nor even the Blessed Virgin herself was able to satisfy this debt of your soul, but Christ alone; for the blood of Christ alone was a sufficient ransom and worthy price for paying our debts and sins.
More soundly and wisely St. Chrysostom, homily 11 on 2 Corinthians: "Since through Jesus Christ's death we live, surely we ought to live for Him for whom we live." And St. Ambrose, On Elias and Fasting, ch. 20: "Say, if perchance you see the temptations of the devil fighting against you: 'What have I to do with thee, Belial? I am a servant of Christ, redeemed by His blood, to Him I have wholly enslaved myself. What have I to do with thee? I do not know thy works: I seek nothing of thine, I possess nothing of thine, I desire nothing of thine.'" And St. Bernard, Treatise On Loving God: "If I owe my whole self for being made, what shall I add now for being remade, and remade in this manner? For I was not so easily remade as made. For He who once and merely by speaking made me, in remaking me certainly both said many things, and did wonders, and bore hard things, and not only hard, but unworthy things. What shall I render to God for Himself? For even if I could repay a thousand times, what am I to God?"
Of an unspotted Lamb. — He looks back to the Paschal lamb, which had to be without blemish, not of color, but of vice, namely to be whole and perfect, not lame, not blind, not maimed, not mutilated, that it might signify Christ in every respect to be whole and perfect in wisdom and virtue, without any defect of error or stain and blemish of sin: for this signifies the Hebrew mum: whence the Greek amōmos, that is, immaculate, innocent, inviolate, unblamed, irreprehensible, greater than any reprehension.
And undefiled. — Some think Christ is called "immaculate" because He was pure from the stain of original sin; "undefiled" because He was pure from every stain of actual sin. But these two seem to be synonyms, which St. Peter heaps up by way of amplification, to show that Christ was plainly and in every way immaculate and pure. Yet if anyone wishes to distinguish them, let him say that Christ was "immaculate" in Himself and in His interior acts; "undefiled" in habit, conversation, and exterior garments. For the stain which the Paschal lamb had to lack consisted in an interior vice of the body, as I have already said; but aspilos, that is, undefiled, properly is a stain of color in a garment from wine or grease. Wherefore Christ was far purer than the Paschal lamb: for that was amōmos, but not aspilos; for it could have spots of white, black, or red color; but Christ was as aspilos as amōmos, that is, plainly pure, lacking every spot both of color and of body; both external and internal; both of manners and of mind; both of actions and of thoughts.
Verse 20: Foreknown Indeed Before the Foundation of the World, but Manifested in the Last Times
20. Foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world. — "Foreknown," that is, predestined, as the Syriac and the Tigurine translate. For the knowledge of God here, as also in St. Paul, is often understood as practical, namely conjoined with the will, decree, and predestination of God. Peter says this, both that he may strike down the haughtiness of the Jews who, as St. Cyril says, Book 2 on John, ch. 28: "always cling to the law of Moses, and think the virtue of our mystery devised by a recent counsel of the Father"; and that he may declare the antiquity and greatness of God's love toward men; as if to say: God the Father not yesterday, not from the beginning of the world, but before its creation, from all eternity thought of us, loved us, willed to bless us, and therefore predestined the incarnation and death of Christ, that through it He might reconcile us to Himself and save us.
Some extend these words of Peter to that opinion of Scotus and his followers, which thinks that Christ would have been incarnated even if Adam had not sinned, namely so that God might show through Christ to angels and men the riches of His goodness, wisdom, and power; but that Christ would then have been impassible: for the cross and death of Christ were decreed by God after the foreseen sin of Adam, as a remedy for it. Their reason is, because otherwise, they say, if Christ were predestined and incarnated precisely for our sake, He would surely have to give thanks to us, and we would be prior to Christ before God in His mind and predestination, and consequently Christ would be our glory, just as the woman is the glory of the man, as St. Cyril argues, Book III of the Thesaurus, ch. 2. But these things seem out of place here. For St. Peter only says that Christ was predestined before the foundation of the world, not however before the foreseeing of Adam's sin, nor before the foreseeing and predestining of the foundation or creation of the world, because this is false. For God predestined Christ for the adornment of the universe; therefore He did not predestine Christ before the universe, but after, or rather together with a certain mutual interdependence: for God decreed to create such a world, in which, when Adam fell, Christ would be born who would raise him up, and so celebrate the glory of God throughout the whole world; so that He would not have wished to create the world except with Christ and on account of Christ, and conversely He would not have wished Christ to be incarnate except with the world and in the world. For where would Christ have been incarnate, except in the world? Where would He have made known His glory through Christ, except in the world, to angels and men? St. John supports St. Peter, who in Apocalypse 13:8, calls Christ the lamb "who was slain from the foundation of the world." And St. Paul, who calls this mystery of Christ kept silent in eternal times, and predestined before secular times, "which is now made manifest by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the precept of the eternal God, unto the obedience of faith," Romans 16:26, and to Titus 1:2.
But manifested, — through Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension into heaven, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of the Apostles.
In the last times, — namely after about four thousand years had elapsed from the creation of the world. The causes of this delay of Christ were various. The first is the dignity and majesty of Christ, which Abraham, Moses, and all the Patriarchs, Prophets, and the ceremonies of the Law had to precede and prefigure. The second, that the more delayed, the more eagerly He might be received. The third, that through so many thousands of years the disease and corruption of human nature might vomit out all the venom of sins, and so it might be clear how great was the necessity of Christ, who would cure all this evil. Whence St. Paul says that Christ came in the fullness of times, that is, when the times preordained by God for His incarnation were unrolled and fulfilled, Galatians 4:4.
For you, — for all Christ was predestined and was born, but first, on account of the primitive faithful: for these were the first to share in the fruit and grace of Christ. St. Peter pricks the faithful of his age, that they may ardently love in return God and Christ who so loves them and is so near to them: for He, out of so many ages, and out of hundreds of thousands of that age, chose few Jews and Gentile believers, on whom He bestowed this new and recent benefit of Christ the Savior, namely grace and salvation. Whence Paul, expressing the delights of his love for Christ, Galatians ch. 2, 20: "I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me." As if Christ had been delivered up and crucified for Paul alone. For the death of Christ profited Paul as much as it would have profited if for him alone Christ had died. Piously and truly St. Augustine, Book III of the Confessions, ch. 2: "O Thou good, Almighty One, who so carest for each one of us as if Thou caredst for him alone, and so for all as if for individuals."
Verse 21: Who Through Him Are Faithful in God, Who Raised Him From the Dead and Gave Him Glory
21. Who through Him (the immaculate Lamb Christ, namely through the passion of Christ, His merits, calling, preaching, and grace) are faithful in God. — The Greek pisteuontas eis Theon, you believe in God (so the Syriac), namely in the living and true God, when previously you had believed in the false gods of the Gentiles, namely in idols and demons (whence St. Prosper, Book I On the Calling of the Gentiles, ch. 23, reads: "Who through Him are faithful in God," that is, by faith you believe in God): he declares what he had said, "for you," namely Christ has been made manifest, because indeed He has made you faithful and worshippers of the true God. Hence it is plain that faith is not from us nor from the powers of our talent and nature, but is the work and gift of the grace of Christ: as after the Council of Orange and that of Mileve the Council of Trent defines, sess. 6, can. 3. For Christ is the author and parent of the whole economy of grace, which embraces faith as its principle, hope, charity, and the other virtues, and all the gifts by which we are led to salvation and eternal glory, as to the end and term of Christ's redemption.
Who raised Him up from the dead. — As if to say: Lest anyone reject Christ as though hanged, slain, and crucified for our sins, behold, He Himself was soon raised by God to glory, and made Lord of heaven and earth, of angels and of men; nay, through Him God will raise all His faithful to the same glory. This is what Paul says: "Wherefore (because He humbled Himself even unto the death of the cross) God also exalted Him, and gave Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth," Philippians 2:9. This is what Christ, about to go to His Passion, prayed to the Father and obtained: "Glorify Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was," John 17:5.
That your faith and hope might be in God. — As if to say: God raised Christ to glory with this fruit and end in view, that you, seeing and hearing that He as your head has risen, has overcome death, and has gone before His own from death to life, might believe with firm faith and hope with sure hope that you also, as members of Christ, will through Him attain to the same glory, and rise unto it, and therefore by the same grace, gifts, and all means necessary or expedient unto glory will obtain it. Truly St. Leo, Sermon 8 On the Passion: "Thy Cross is the fount of all blessings, the cause of all graces, through which strength is given to believers out of weakness, glory out of reproach, life out of death." And after some intervening words: "When therefore the Lord bore the wood of the Cross, which He would convert into the scepter of His power, it was indeed in the eyes of the impious a great mockery, but to the faithful was made manifest a great mystery: because the most glorious vanquisher of the devil, and the most powerful subduer of hostile powers, in the fair show of His triumph carried His trophy, and on the shoulders of unconquered patience bore to all kingdoms the adorable sign of salvation." And Sermon 1 On the Resurrection: "From this the beginning of resurrection in Christ has been made for us, from whom in Him who died for all, the form of all our hope went before," especially because Christ raised Himself by the power of His divinity: "For the deity, which did not depart from either substance of the assumed manhood, joined again by power what it had divided by power." And St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word: "He came back to life by the life that was in Himself."
Verse 22: Purifying Your Souls in the Obedience of Charity, in Brotherly Love
22. Purifying your souls in the obedience of charity, with brotherly love, simply, from the heart love one another more earnestly. — By all these words he says nothing else than: love one another earnestly with chaste, that is pure, brotherly love, serve and obey one another; but he amplifies and represents the purity of this love with many words. I assume all these depend on that "wherefore" of verse 13: for there begins the other part of the chapter, namely the ethical part, which extends thus far, indeed to the end of the chapter, in which St. Peter, according to his custom, gives various precepts or admonitions of virtues, as if to say: "Wherefore," or therefore, in order that you may obtain the incorruptible inheritance of which I have spoken, gird up the loins of your mind, and purifying your souls love one another, etc.
First, "purifying," in Greek hēgnikotes, which alludes to the word for lamb, as if to say: Begotten of Christ the spotless Lamb, be ye spotless lambs, and act as lambs, that is, purify and cleanse your souls. Hence Christ said to St. Peter: "Feed My lambs," John 21:15. Now this chastity is taken by many properly for the virtue of chastity, which represses lust. Hence nuns, on account of their profession of chastity, are called "Castimoniales" by St. Augustine on Psalm 73. Secondly and properly, this purification is the purification of the affections of the soul, especially of love, which is effected through charity, or divine love. Chastity therefore is here called the purity of affection, of intention, and of love, as is clear from what follows, as if to say: Purify, that is, chastise and cleanse your love and affection from every impurity, make your love pure and sincere, not seeking its own, but the goods of God and of neighbor. This is what John says, 1st Epistle, ch. 3, v. 3: "Everyone who has this hope in Him sanctifies himself, even as He is holy." Hence St. Augustine, tract 5 on the Epistle of St. John, renders it: "purifies himself, as He Himself is pure."
Secondly, "obedience of charity," in Greek alētheias, that is of truth: first, it can be taken for the faith and obedience by which we believe and obey the Gospel as the law of truth and charity. Hence Vatablus translates, "who have purified your souls by obeying the truth"; and the Syriac, "when you shall have sanctified your souls through obedience to the truth, and shall be full of charity." So Paul says, Galatians 3:1: "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth?" Secondly, "obedience of charity" is filial obedience from love, not servile from fear: "For this is of necessity, that of charity," says St. Bernard, treatise On Precept and Dispensation, ch. 9, "which, not bound by fixed limits of vow and profession, is borne with broader will into the breadth of charity, and to everything that is enjoined with the spontaneous vigor of a liberal and eager spirit, considering no measure, extends itself into infinite liberty." The same, sermon On St. Andrew: "Charity alone makes obedience pleasing, and commends it as acceptable to God." Moreover this obedience purifies the soul, because when the soul through humble obedience submits itself to God and to the law, it deserves that the body in turn be subjected to it. So St. Augustine on Psalm 143: "You belong to God, the flesh to you. What is more just? what more beautiful? You to the greater, the lesser to you: serve thou Him who made thee, that what was made for thy sake may serve thee: but if thou despisest God, will the flesh be subjected to thee? Thou who dost not obey the Lord, art tortured by thy servant."
Thirdly, "obedience of charity," more properly and pertinently to St. Peter's purpose, is the obedience and submission by which the faithful in all things subjects himself to the law, dictate, and impulse of charity, so that whatever he does, he does by the dictate and guidance of charity; and especially that by which one through fraternal charity subjects himself to his brother, accommodates himself to him, takes pains to look out for him, follows his bidding, seeks his benefit, so that to obey charity is the same thing as "by charity of the spirit to serve one another," Galatians 5:13, and: "Subject to one another in the fear of Christ," Ephesians 5:21. Thus St. Peter explains himself, ch. 2, v. 13, saying: "Be subject therefore to every human creature for God's sake." For to this law of charity, being the law of Christ, every Christian subjected himself in baptism, when he embraced Christianity: for this is the law and profession of charity. Wherefore if anyone asks: What is the Christian religion? you will rightly answer: It is the religion and obedience of charity, in which all profess to strive after and obey charity. To this then tends the whole sentence of St. Peter, namely that he may impress on the faithful brotherly charity, by which one may serve, submit to, and obey another, that he may look out for his benefit and salvation.
Hence it is clear that charity is a castration, namely a purification of all loves and appetites, and the true and full chastity of the soul: for charity castrates and cuts away self-love, and love of the flesh and of the world, namely the love of one's own honor, gain, pleasure, which is the impurity of the soul, because it stains and defiles it with many vices. Again, charity measures all things by the love of God, orders all things and works from the love of God: wherefore every action of it is pure, holy, spiritual, and deiform, as flowing from the love of God, and directed and regulated by it. Therefore the Greek adds dia Pneumatos, that is, through the Spirit, because charity poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit makes a man spiritual and pure, and all his works spiritual and pure. Some, joining "spirit" with "brotherhood," which follows, translate "through the spirit of brotherhood": because the spirit of brotherly love purifies and cleanses all our works toward our neighbor, and all our intercourse with him. Rightly therefore St. Leo, Sermon 8 On Lent: "Charity is the strength of faith, faith is the fortitude of charity"; for faith strengthens charity, and charity strengthens faith.
Thirdly, "in brotherly love," in Greek en philadelphia, that is, in fraternal charity, because Christians ought to love one another, as sons of Christ and brothers, with brotherly love among themselves: this philadelphia Christ left to His own, John ch. 13, v. 34. In Greek it is eis philadelphian anhypokriton, that is, in fraternal love not hypocritical, not feigned and counterfeit, but free from pretense, simple, true, and sincere. The sense is, as if to say: When you have purified, that is, cleansed your souls, by obeying charity through sincere fraternal love. For this sincere love will scour away from the soul all hypocrisy, all pretense, all greed, all self-love, all cupidity, all ambition, and will purely seek that which is pleasing to God, and useful and salutary to one's neighbor.
Truly Isidore: "He who is cut off from brotherly love is deprived of divine participation." And St. Ambrose (or rather St. Maximus), Sermon 9: "Greater is the brotherhood of Christ than that of blood: for the brotherhood of blood reflects only a likeness of body, but the brotherhood of Christ shows oneness of heart and soul, as it is written: The believers were of one heart and one soul. Truly then he is a brother, who is a true brother both in body and in oneness of mind. He is, I say, a true brother whose same spirit and will is in his brother. Better therefore is the brotherhood of Christ than the brotherhood of blood: for sometimes the former is hostile to itself, but the brotherhood of Christ is unceasingly peaceful." This brotherly love therefore is the center, foundation, pillar of the Church, and as it were the soul of Christianity; its hatred and envy are the destruction and ruin of both.
Fourthly, "simply": many refer the word "simply" to the heart, so as to correspond to the Greek katharas, that is pure; whence they translate, "love one another from the heart." With simple love, then, he loves, first, who loves without hypocrisy, not feignedly, but truly and from the heart. For that is called simple which lacks composition, partition, and mixture. A simple heart, then, is one which carries and reflects in the heart the love which the tongue professes; for he who professes love with words, but in his heart cherishes hatred, has a folded and as it were double heart, one in his mouth, the other and contrary one in his breast. Secondly, he who does not accept persons; that is, one who does not prefer the rich to the poor, the friend to the stranger, the noble to the ignoble, but loves all equally, however according to the law and order of charity. Thirdly, he who seeks not his own benefit, but his brother's: for simple love tends straight to the beloved, and is not bent back or turned upon itself. To do this is "a transaction, not friendship," says Seneca, Epistle 9. Fourthly, he who is candid and open, not painted, so that if anything in his brother displeases him, he speaks openly, and admonishes him candidly. Fifthly, he who loves his brother for good, and in good, not in evil; who does not favor or foster his vices, but his virtues; who does not flatter his cupidities, but reproves them and resists them, and strenuously procures his neighbor's salvation and perfection in all things. Sixthly, he who shows in deed what he says in words, according to that saying of St. John 1, ch. 3, v. 18: "Little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth." For truth is simple, falsehood is double. Seventhly, he who not only is free from envy, but liberally shares all his goods, according to that saying of Paul: "He who gives, in simplicity," Romans 12:8; and: "That being enriched in all things, you may abound unto all simplicity," 2 Corinthians 9:11. For, as St. Leo says, Sermon 10 On Lent: "They grow rich by their own increase, who rejoice in another's progress."
Hear St. Bernard variously defining simplicity, treatise On the Solitary Life: "Animal nature turned to God becomes holy simplicity, that is, a will always the same about the same thing, as was in Job, who was called simple and upright, and one who feared God. For properly simplicity is a will perfectly turned to God, asking one thing of the Lord, seeking this, not striving to be multiplied in the world. Or there is simplicity in conversation, true humility, namely embracing the consciousness of virtue more than its fame, when the simple man does not refuse to seem foolish in the world, that he may be wise in God."
Fifthly, "love more earnestly"; in Greek ektenōs; Vatablus, "earnestly"; Clarius, "intensely"; others, "continuously"; others with the Syriac, "vehemently." Turrianus, book 4 On the Dogmatic Character: "extensively," namely so that our love may extend itself to another world, as to the souls in Purgatory, that we may help them with our suffrages. Again, that it may extend itself to whatever condition and lot of men, and that it may love its neighbor as much in adverse circumstances as in prosperous ones; nay, that it may help him then more, when he more needs help. Such charity therefore toward the brethren does St. Peter demand. Truly St. Leo, Sermon 1 On the Fast of the Tenth Month: "The breadth of Christian grace has given us greater reasons for loving our neighbor, which extending itself through all parts of the whole world looks down upon no one, while it teaches that no one is to be neglected, etc., whether they be enemies, or companions, or free, or slaves. For one Maker fashioned us, one Creator gave us soul, we all use the same heaven and air, the same days and nights." The reason is that a simple and pure heart, endowed with Christian charity, beholds in his neighbor one God and the image of God, and loves him as something of God, as God's work and special possession, as God's son and heir predestined with him from eternity to behold His heavenly inheritance, and in time called, elected, and adopted.
The sense therefore of this whole verse is, as if to say: "Purifying," that is, partly you have purified, that is cleansed, your souls in baptism, partly day by day you ought to purify them more by obeying charity, and its law, dictate, and impulse, through brotherly love, and that simple, that is, pure and sincere, not feigned and counterfeit, and so from a true and inmost heart love one another earnestly, intensely, and extensively.
Verse 23: Being Born Again, Not of Corruptible Seed, but Incorruptible, by the Word of God
23. Born again not of corruptible seed. — He gives the reason why Christians ought to love one another with brotherly love, as I said in the preceding verse, namely because all are brothers, born again from the same seed of the word of God and the Gospel of Christ, and consequently as sons of Christ all hope for His incorruptible inheritance, of which he spoke at the beginning of the chapter, and aspire to it; and they will in fact attain it, if they preserve this filiation and love of brotherhood, as if to say: Remember, O Christians, that you have been regenerated in the baptism of Christ, and through a new mystical and spiritual birth have been born again and made sons of God: therefore live worthily of so great a birth and divine filiation, and earnestly love one another as brothers in Christ, in faith, the Church, grace, and glory. So then you have been born again not of human and corruptible seed, "but" divine and "incorruptible," namely "by the word of the living God."
This incorruptible seed therefore is the word of God, namely the Gospel and its preaching; or more precisely, this seed is divine inspiration, or prevenient grace, by which God stirs the mind, while it hears the word of God by ear, to faith, repentance, and new life: for these acts being placed as it were as dispositions in the soul, God immediately infuses sanctifying grace, by which we are regenerated and become sons of God, just as when the requisite dispositions are placed in the embryo, God immediately infuses the rational soul, by which a man is generated and born. So Matthew ch. 13, Christ in many parables teaches that the word of God is seed. Now the word of God is incorruptible, both in respect of the efficient cause, namely the speaker, because God and Christ who utter it are incorruptible; and by reason of the subject, because, namely, He makes incorruptible the man whom He regenerates, so that as a son of God he may approach His incorruptible inheritance, according to that saying of Christ, John ch. 3, v. 6: "That which is born of the flesh, is flesh: that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit."
Secondly, some by "the word of the living God" understand the word or form of the sacrament of Baptism: "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," and of the other Sacraments. For in baptism the water is the matter, as it were the mother, the word is the form, as it were the father, which regenerate the baptized into a Son of God. Hence baptism is called "the laver of regeneration and of renovation of the Holy Spirit," Titus 3:5; and Ephesians 5:26: "The laver of water in the word of life," that is by the word, namely the form of baptism vivifying, and breathing the life of grace into the baptized. This is what Christ says, John 3:5: "Unless a man is born again of water and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Hence St. Chrysostom, homily 25 on John: "What the womb is to the embryo, that is the water to the believer, since in water he is fashioned and formed." And homily 6 on Colossians: "In baptism man is fashioned and put together by the Holy Spirit, as Christ in the womb of the Virgin." Splendidly truly St. Leo, Sermon 5 On the Nativity: "He was made a man of our race, that we might be partakers of the divine nature. The origin which He took in the womb of the Virgin, He placed in the font of baptism. He gave to the water what He gave to the mother: for the power of the Most High and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit which made Mary bear the Savior, the same makes the wave regenerate the believer." But the former sense is the more genuine. For the word of God absolutely placed signifies the Gospel; but the word of the laver or of baptism signifies the form of baptism, according to that saying of St. Augustine, tract 80 on John: "The word is added to the element, and it becomes a sacrament; not because it is said, but because it is believed."
Thirdly, some by "the word of God" understand Christ, who is the Word of the Father remaining eternal; for through Christ and the grace of Christ by baptism we are regenerated into sons of God: but this regeneration is accomplished by means of preaching and faith. Wherefore this sense is included in the first, and is genuine and sublime, especially because in this heavenly regeneration and adoption not only is the grace of Christ given to us, but also personally Christ Himself, equally as the Father and the Holy Spirit, that we may truly be "partakers of the divine nature" through that very deity which is communicated to us, and dwells in our soul as in a temple, on which see more at 2 Peter 1:4.
Morally note how great is the dignity of this regeneration by which we are reborn as sons of God. Hear Christ, John ch. 1, v. 12: "But to as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made sons of God, to those that believe in His name, who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Hear St. Chrysostom on ch. 6 to the Galatians: "Our nature which had grown old with the age of sin, was suddenly renewed by the laver of baptism, no otherwise than if it had been founded anew." Hear St. Cyril of Alexandria, book 2 on John, ch. 43: "We say that the spirit of man is born of the Spirit, not because it is from Him according to nature, but because through Him being reformed unto God and marked with His own character, we are transformed in soul, so to speak, unto His own quality." Hear St. Basil, homily On Baptism: "As what is born according to the flesh from someone is such as that from which it is born: so we also being born of the Spirit become spirits."
Wherefore let Christians, now reborn by baptism and made sons of God, consider themselves dead to sins, and bound to live to God according to the spirit after the manner of angels. "By the operation of baptism," says St. Ambrose on ch. 23 of Numbers, "men die to old guilt and to the works of the wicked, that being transfigured into newness of life in the fellowship of the just, they may rise into their manners." And Optatus of Milevis, book 5 Against Parmenian: "Baptism is the life of virtues, the death of crimes, an immortal birth, the gaining of the heavenly kingdom, the harbor of innocence, the shipwreck of sins." St. Cyprian, book 2, epistle to Donatus: "After by the aid of the regenerating wave the stain of former age was wiped away, and the light from above poured itself into the cleansed and pure breast, after a second birth restored me into a new man by the Spirit drawn down from heaven, in a wonderful way doubtful things began straightway to confirm themselves, closed things to lie open, dark things to shine; capability was given for what before seemed difficult; that could be done which was thought impossible to be."
And remaining forever. — As if to say: As God is eternal, and remains forever, so also is the word of God, and from it our regeneration, adoption, and filiation is eternal, and remains forever. Hence St. Paulinus, on the second Birthday of St. Felix, addressing Christ says: "In Thee may the anchor of my composed life be fixed for me." And Gregory Nazianzen in his Distichs: "Like a statue in the midst of thy breast let God, free of body, dwell; build for Him a temple with thy mind."
Verse 24: For All Flesh Is as Grass, and All the Glory Thereof as the Flower of Grass
24. Because all flesh is as grass, etc., but the word of the Lord remains forever. — He proves what he has said, namely that the word of God is incorruptible and remains with God and in God forever, from Isaiah, who in ch. 40, v. 6, says that all flesh and every man withers and dies like grass, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Peter says this in order to call the faithful away from the love of the flesh and of the world, and of all earthly things, and so to transfer them to the simple love of God and of neighbor.
His incentive is that earthly things continually flow on, and pass away at once, according to that of Psalm 101, v. 12: "My days have declined like a shadow, and I have withered like grass; but Thou, O Lord, endurest forever." Truly St. Augustine, tract 7 on John, says: "The joy of the world is vanity; with great expectation it is hoped to come, and cannot be held when it has come. That day which is glad, will not be tomorrow. All things pass away, all fly away, and like smoke vanish. Woe to those who love such things! For all flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. Sons of men, why do you love vanity, and seek lying?" Pliny the Younger saw this through a shadow, but a thin and obscure one, who in book 2, epistle 1, lamenting the death of Virginius Rufus the consul: "If, however, it is right either to weep, or to call that death by which the mortality of so great a man is rather ended than is life. For he lives, and will live always in the memory of men": would that of God, if he be capable of salvation!
Verse 25: But the Word of the Lord Endures Forever; and This Is the Word Which Has Been Preached Unto You
25. This is the word which has been preached unto you, that is, to you. So the Syriac, as if to say: This word of Isaiah is the word of the Gospel concerning Christ, and His redemption, calling, faith, grace, salvation, and glory which He has brought to you. Truly concerning the efficacy of the faith of this word believed, St. Leo, Sermon 2 On the Ascension: "This faith, increased by the Lord's ascension, and strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, no bonds, no prisons, no exiles, no famines, no fire, no rending of beasts, no exquisite torments of cruel persecutors terrified. For this faith throughout the whole world not only men, but also women; nor only unmarried boys, but even tender virgins, contended unto the shedding of their blood. This faith cast out devils, drove away sicknesses, raised the dead."