Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
After the dogmatic catechesis of the mysteries and doctrine of Christ, he proceeds to the ethics of the virtues and morals of Christians, instructing the faithful, now reborn through baptism, with what virtues, as with foods, they ought to be nourished and grow into a perfect man in Christ: namely, first, that, like newborn infants, they should desire the rational, guileless milk. Secondly, that they should esteem the greatness of their calling, and live worthily according to it, offering spiritual sacrifices to God, as a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, in verses 4 and following. Thirdly, in verse 11, that as pilgrims they should abstain from carnal desires. Fourthly, in verse 13, that they should show due obedience to their princes and masters, even if Gentiles and froward. Fifthly, in verse 19, that they should patiently endure persecutions and afflictions of every kind after the example of Christ, who, as a lamb, delivered Himself up to the Jews unto the cross and death.
Vulgate Text: 1 Peter 2:1-25
1. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and dissimulations, and envies, and all detractions, 2. as newborn infants, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation. 3. If so be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet. 4. Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and honored by God: 5. be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 6. Wherefore Scripture saith: Behold I lay in Sion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth in Him shall not be confounded. 7. To you therefore that believe, He is honor; but to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner, 8. and a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe whereunto also they are set. 9. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare His virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. 10. Who in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. 11. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires, which war against the soul. 12. Having your conversation good among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, by the good works which they shall behold in you, they may glorify God in the day of visitation. 13. Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the king as supreme: 14. or to governors as sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good: 15. for so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: 16. as free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. 17. Honor all men: love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. 18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. 19. For this is thanksworthy, if for conscience toward God a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully. 20. For what glory is it, if, committing sin and being buffeted, you suffer it? But if doing well you suffer patiently, this is grace before God. 21. For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow His steps. 22. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: 23. who, when He was reviled, did not revile: when He suffered, He threatened not, but delivered Himself to him that judged Him unjustly. 24. Who His own self bore our sins in His body upon the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice: by whose stripes you were healed. 25. For you were as sheep going astray; but you are now converted to the shepherd and bishop of your souls.
Verse 1: Putting Aside Therefore All Malice, and All Guile, and Dissimulations, and Envies, and All Detractions
1. Wherefore laying aside. — The word "therefore" connects these things with the preceding, and as from principles draws a conclusion, as if to say: I said in the preceding chapter, verse 23, that you have been reborn in baptism of incorruptible seed by the word of the living God, so that you have now begun to be new men, namely faithful, Christians, and saints in Christ: therefore studiously be diligent, that, having laid aside the customs and vices of paganism, you may constantly retain the Christian infancy and innocence which you have begun in this heavenly regeneration and birth, and may daily grow up and increase therein. For "laying aside" is in Greek apothemenoi in the aorist, that is, when you have laid aside: because in baptism they had already laid aside every sin and fault, but not every vice, since the former evil habits remained in them. Peter therefore commands that, just as they have already laid aside every sin, so they should also strive to put off and lay aside all its roots and depraved habits: for they cannot possess the contrary virtue of simplicity and innocence unless they first put off all malice. Hence our translator aptly renders "laying aside"; the Syriac, "cause to cease," as if to say: When you have laid aside the fault, lay aside likewise and uproot every inclination and habit toward it. Hence both Pagninus and the Tigurine translate, "having therefore laid aside all malice, etc., desire the rational guileless milk." Wherefore the antistrophe of this saying of Peter is that of Paul, Ephesians 4:22: "Put off, according to your former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error; 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." And St. James, chapter 1, verse 21: "Wherefore, casting away all uncleanness and abundance of malice, with meekness receive the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." Most excellently St. Cyprian, On Zeal and Envy: "We cannot bear the heavenly image, unless in that which we have now begun to be, we show forth the likeness of Christ. For this is to have changed what you were, and to have begun what you were not, that the divine birth may shine in you, that the deifying discipline may answer to God the Father, that God may shine forth in man through the honor and praise of living."
Malice. — "Malice," in Greek kakia, first, is malignity, which is felt in evasion and craftiness, says St. Jerome on chapter 4 to the Ephesians. Secondly, "it is the love of harming, and when one delights in another's evil," says St. Augustine, homily 20 among the 50. From this that famous robber is called Cacus among the poets. For, as St. Augustine says, book 19 On the City of God, 12: "Cacus was of such singular malice that from this his name was invented, for evil in Greek is kakos, by which he was called; and because of his insatiable savagery they preferred to call him a half-man rather than a man." Thirdly, "malice" is internal perversity, from which one deliberately does evil: for from malice arises malefaction, just as from goodness comes benefaction. Malice therefore is depravity of soul, hatred, envy, contrivance of guile, of fraud, and of every evil. Fourthly, kakia may be taken for kakologia, that is, evil-speaking and malefaction. Hence Callimachus the painter was called "kakizotechnos," because he was a continual slanderer of his own work and painting, says Pliny, book 34, chapter 9. So conversely, goodness is sometimes called benignity and beneficence itself, as when we say "good God," "good father," "good master," that is, kind and merciful. Fifthly, "malice" is every vice and sin, says Aristotle, book 7 of the Ethics, just as on the contrary goodness is called any virtue and uprightness, as when we say "good man," "good judge," "good servant," that is, just and performing the duty of his office. In all these ways it can be taken here, but more aptly in the second. For St. Peter is treating of the malice which is opposed to brotherly charity, of which the discourse just preceded, and which begets guile, dissimulations, envies, detractions, as follows.
And all guile. — "Guile" is the contrivance of fraud to circumvent someone, which for that reason overthrows human society. Wherefore Donatus thinks that "dolus" (guile) is so called from "dolando," that is, hewing and diminishing. But guile signifies fraud rather, and disguise and simulation, than injury. Hence too dyers, when they apply another color to wool, are said dolun (to adulterate), and dolones are called daggers and stilettos, with which one strikes another fraudulently and deceitfully. Hence also it is called "evil guile," to which "good faith" is opposed. For there is a good guile, which Paul used saying: "Being crafty, I caught you by guile," 2 Corinthians 12:16. Hear Ulpian, book 1, On Evil Guile: "Servius defines evil guile thus, a certain contrivance for deceiving another, when one thing is done and another is simulated." And below: "Labeo defines it thus, that guile is every craftiness, deceit; a contrivance applied to circumventing, deceiving, beguiling another. Labeo's definition is true: he added 'evil' to 'guile,' for the ancients spoke of a good guile and used the term for cleverness, especially if anyone contrived against an enemy or robber." So too Cicero, book 3 On Duties: "When I asked him (Aquilius) what evil guile was, he replied that it is when one thing is simulated, another is done." And in book 3 On the Nature of the Gods: "Hence the broom of all malices, the judgment on evil guile, which Aquilius brought forth: which guile our friend Aquilius then thinks is held when one thing is simulated, another is done." Wherefore the guileful man seems to have "a double heart, one in which you may see truth, another in which you behold a lie," says St. Augustine, tract 7 on John. Hence Christ praises Nathanael, saying: "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile," John 1:47. Let Christians be such that Christ may say the same of them. For God is "the God of truth," Galatians 2:11. But the devil is "the father of lies," and consequently of guile, John 8:44.
And dissimulations. — In Greek hypokriseis; for Christian truth, sincerity, and simplicity is dove-like, sheep-like, and lamb-like, and abominates every hypocrisy and simulation, says Oecumenius. And, as St. Augustine says on Psalm 63: "Simulated equity is not equity, but twofold iniquity." For truth is the virtue "by which a man both in life and speech shows himself such as he really is," says Aristotle, Ethics 4, chapter 7. Hence Diogenes the Cynic, seeing a certain effeminate man clothed in the skin of a lion, walking as if a second Hercules: "Will you not cease, he said, to dishonor the coverlets of virtue?" So Laertius, book 6, chapter 2. Wherefore Alfonso, king of Aragon, wisely used to say that for this reason God so vehemently rages against hypocrites, that while they deceive men, they interpose God Himself as the mediator of their crime. This is what is said in Job 36:13: "Simulators and crafty men provoke God's wrath." St. Augustine, homily 2 among the 50, translates hypokriseis as adulations, namely putting the most notable species for the genus; for flatterers are the highest and most harmful hypocrites.
Envies. — "Envy is the proper sin of the devil," says St. Basil, in his homily On Anger, Envy and Avarice, and St. Augustine, in the book On Christian Discipline, chapter 1. For the devil in heaven envied the hypostatic union of Christ's humanity revealed to him by God, and on earth envied Adam and his posterity the heavenly glory from which he himself had fallen by sin. Hence "by the envy of the devil, death entered into the world: and they follow him that are of his side," Wisdom 2:25. Again St. Augustine, sermon 18 On the Times, recounting the harms of envy: "This is what cast the angel from heaven, exiled man from paradise, killed Abel, armed brothers against Joseph, sent Daniel into the lions' den, fixed our head to the cross, and lifted up Judas in a noose. My brethren, proclaim from the housetops that envy is that worst beast which removes faith, scatters concord, destroys justice, and begets all evils. This overthrew the walls of Jerusalem, depopulated Rome, destroyed Carthage, devastated Troy." Envy is briefly described by Pindar in Nemean Odes, ode 8: "Words are the food of the envious; but envy always attacks the upright, and does not contend with the worse."
But the same is excellently portrayed by St. Basil, in his Admonition to His Spiritual Son, where he assigns these antitheses of the envious and the peaceable. The first: "He who embraces peace in the dwelling of his mind prepares a habitation for Christ, because Christ is peace, and desires to rest in peace: but the envious man execrates Him in every way." The second: the peaceful man's heart is always in tranquillity; but the envious is like a ship when tossed by the waves of the sea. The third: the peaceful man possesses a secure mind; but the envious is always in disturbance. The fourth: the peaceful is like a noble vine abounding with copious fruit; but the work of the envious is held by want and misery. The fifth: from the abundance of joy the peaceful man is recognized; from a withered face full of fury the envious is shown. The sixth: the peaceful man will merit the company of angels, the envious becomes a partaker of demons. The seventh: as peace illuminates the secret of the mind, so envy blinds the hidden things of the heart. The eighth: peace banishes every discord; but envy heaps up wrath. The same, in his homily On Envy, describes its character through these epithets and similes: "Let us flee, brethren, this intolerable evil. It is the serpent's instruction, the devil's invention, the enemy's seed, the pledge of punishment, the impediment of piety, the way to gehenna, the privation of the kingdom of heaven." For the envious confess this vice with their very mouth: their countenance is dry and dark, the cheek somewhat sad, the brow lowered, the soul itself suffused with disease. Excellently St. Athanasius, Exhortation to Monks: "Suppose your brother is honored more highly by some, do not regard them as less friends, nor look upon him as a rival of the preferred veneration. Rather judge that the increase of his honor accrues to you, knowing that it is written: If one member glories, all the members rejoice with it: but you are the body of Christ, and members."
And all detractions. — For the kind of detraction is manifold and almost infinite, which wounds and destroys all brotherly charity, which St. Peter here urgently commends. Hear St. Augustine summarizing these in few words, homily 20 among the 30: "What is malice, if not the love of harming? What is guile, if not to do one thing and to simulate another? What is flattery, if not seduction by deceitful praise? What is envy, if not hatred of another's happiness? What is detraction, if not a more biting rather than a more truthful reproof? Malice delights in another's evil. Guile doubles the heart, flattery the tongue, detraction wounds reputation."
Verse 2: As Newborn Infants, Desire the Rational Milk Without Guile, That You May Grow Unto Salvation
2. As newborn infants. — The Syriac: "Be as simple infants." He commends to the faithful, now reborn in Christ, even to the old and gray-haired, that they imitate the innocence, purity, humility, obedience, docility, ease, simplicity, and sincerity of infants. For though these things in infants, since they lack reason, are not virtues but only images of virtues, in the baptized they are true virtues, because they are infused through baptism. Hence Lactantius in his Poem On the Resurrection of the Lord sings of them thus: "O sacred King, behold a great part of Thy trophy shines forth, when sacred lavers bless the pure souls. A white army goes forth from the bright waves, and purges old vice in the new river." And St. Paulinus: "Thence the parent priest leads from the sacred font infants snow-white in body, heart, and habit." For the baptized are clothed in white, that those garments may represent the internal whiteness received in baptism. Hence Clement of Alexandria wrote the book Paedagogus, in which he teaches that all Christians in Scripture are called boys, little children, and chicks, because they ought to emulate the childlike sincerity, humility, and purity. For Christ declared: "Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 18:3. Likewise St. Paul: "We became as little children in the midst of you, as if a nurse cherished her children," 1 Thessalonians 2:7. Again, in this life all the faithful are infants in grace and sanctity; but in the future resurrection they will be men. Hence the monks have used cowls of old, that they may profess by their habit the infant-like simplicity and innocence. Hear Cassian, book 1 On the Monk's Habit, chapter 4: "For with very small cowls let down to the bounds of the neck and shoulders, which cover only the heads, they use them constantly day and night, namely that they may be admonished to constantly preserve the innocence and simplicity of little ones, even by the imitation of the very veil; who, returned to the infancy of Christ, at all hours with affection and virtue chant: O Lord, my heart is not exalted, nor are mine eyes lofty."
Rational. — So the Roman: for in Greek it is logikon. Wrongly therefore do some read "rationable." St. Peter therefore commands that the "rational" milk be desired. First, as if to say: Human, not material, but rational, which flows by the dictate of right reason, as if from the breast of the mind. Secondly, as if to say: Prudent, moderate, discreet; for so Paul commands that our service be rational, Romans 12:1. Thirdly, Clement of Alexandria and others render logikon as "verbal": for the word of doctrine and of the mouth flows from the mind. Fourthly, the Syriac renders logikon as "spiritual," as if to say: This milk is not carnal, but spiritual; it feeds the mind, not the belly; it is the food of the spirit, not of the body.
Without guile. — dolou aneu, that is, sincere, as the Syriac translates. St. Augustine, homily 20 among the 50, reads, "innocent milk." For heretics mix gypsum with milk, that is, they sprinkle the poison of error into orthodox doctrine, as Irenaeus says, book 3, chapter 19.
Desire the milk. — You will ask, what then is this milk? I answer first, it is the Gospel doctrine, of which he said a little before: "This is the word which has been preached to you." This is called "milk": first, because of its sweetness and gentleness, since the old law was severe like sour wine or vinegar, according to that of Canticles 1:1: "Thy breasts (giving milk) are better than wine"; so too Psalm 18:11 says the words of God are "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb." Secondly, because it nourishes the soul, as milk does the body; nor does it only nourish, but also fattens, delights, and soothes with wondrous consolations; for milk to infants is not only food but drink: so Clement in the place cited. Thirdly, because it makes the soul shining, beautiful, and bright like milk. Hence of the Nazarites it is said in Lamentations 4:7: "Whiter than milk." Fourthly, because it is pure and sincere, as in milk there is nothing mixed, nothing foreign, nothing counterfeit. Fifthly, because as milk is the delight of children, and brings them sleep, so the doctrine of Christ sweetens, lulls, calms, and inebriates the mind. Hence Pindar, in the third Nemean ode, signifies the sweetness and elegance of his hymns by milk mingled with honey when he says: "I send thee this honey mingled with white milk." Therefore St. Peter commands that the faithful continually draw this milk of Gospel doctrine from the breasts of Mother Church, and by it be nourished, grow up, and increase, living according to it and translating it into deeds and morals. And this is what "desire" signifies: for the hunger and longing for milk makes it be best digested and turned into pure blood.
Secondly, milk is a symbol of candor, sincerity, benevolence. For Peter opposes this milk to guile, simulation, envy. By it therefore he signifies that he wishes that Christians in their conversation be not sour, harsh, and bitter, but honey-like and milk-like — that is, candid, lovable, sweet, kind, beneficent, and fraternally loving one another. Hence Homer, says Clement, calls just men galaktotrophous, that is, milk-feeders. St. Peter alludes to that of Canticles 5:1: "I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk the wine with my milk; eat, friends, and drink, and be inebriated, dearly beloved." Again he alludes to the food which Isaiah 7:15 assigns to Emmanuel, that is, the child Jesus, saying: "He shall eat butter and honey"; and to Christians: "Come, buy, etc., wine and milk." As a symbol of this matter, milk and honey used to be given of old to the newly baptized (and even now the Ethiopians give the same to them), to signify, first, their infancy in Christ; secondly, the sweetness of Christian life; thirdly, infant-like humility and meekness. Hence Tertullian, book 1 Against Marcion, chapter 14: "God suckles His own with the partnership of honey and milk." And in the book On the Soldier's Crown, chapter 3: "Thence, having been received, we taste beforehand the concord of milk and honey." This is what St. Agnes was wont to say: "I have received milk and honey from His mouth."
Thirdly, Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus chapter 6, by "verbal milk" understands the incarnate Word, namely Christ, of whom in explanation he subjoins: "If you have tasted that the Lord is sweet," and that first, because, just as milk flows from the breast, so Christ, as God from the Father, as man from His Mother, proceeds like a milky and suckling child. Secondly, because through Christ as if by milk we have recourse to the breast of the Father, that from it we may suck grace and every good. Thirdly, because the words of Christ were milky, that is, sweet and gracious. Fourthly, by milk is denoted the humility of Christ. Whence St. Augustine, tractate 3 on the Epistle of St. John: "Our milk is the humble Christ." Fifthly, because Christ is milk, that is, the food of little ones and of the humble. Sixthly, because Christ consists of blood: and blood, when concocted, becomes milk. Hear Aristotle, book 4 On the Generation of Animals, chapter 8: "The same matter is that which nourishes, and from which nature constitutes generation: and in things having blood, this is the bloody humor. For milk is blood concocted, not corrupted." Whence he reproves Empedocles for calling milk white pus: for pus is putrefaction.
Fourthly, by "rational milk" some understand the Eucharist, which formerly was given to the baptized, even to infants, immediately after baptism, and that from Apostolic tradition, as St. Dionysius teaches, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 5; whence even now the Greeks give the Eucharist to children. So Salmeron here, Turrianus, book 2 On the Eucharist, chapters 20 and 21, and Clement of Alexandria, book 1 Paedagogus 6, hints at it. Thus St. Peter, when in the Mamertine prison at Rome he had converted and baptized SS. Processus and Martinianus with their family, "made them partakers of the body and blood of the Lord." The same was done for SS. Getulius, Cerealis, Amantius, Primitivus, and Procopius, and other newly-baptized martyrs, as their Acts relate. They prove that here the Eucharist is to be understood by milk. First, because this milk is not dead, nor brute, but living and rational, namely a rational man, that is, Christ in the Eucharist. Secondly, because the Eucharist as to its species has the color of milk; as to taste it is most sweet, like milk; as to its power of nourishing, it most highly feeds and strengthens souls. Whence Peter adds: "That in it ye may grow unto salvation," to which St. Dionysius alludes, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 5: "The priest gives the Sacrament to the infant, that he may be nourished in it and grow with sacred augmentations." Thirdly, because before the Eucharist we must put aside all guile, dissimulation, envy. Fourthly, because milk is the blood of Christ, with which we are nourished in the Eucharist. Fifthly, because to the Eucharist applies the τὸ concupiscite (covet ye): for it, as the food and life of minds, must be received with the highest avidity, says St. Chrysostom, homily 60 to the People. Sixthly, because St. Peter adds: "If indeed ye have tasted, that the Lord is sweet"; which words are taken from Psalm 33, verse 9: "Taste and see, that the Lord is sweet," as if to say: Taste the sweetness of the flesh of Christ in the Eucharist, says St. Basil and Augustine.
This sense seems apt, but partial. Therefore by milk understand adequately every spiritual food which Christ furnishes to His faithful, namely doctrine, grace, the virtues (especially of candor, sincerity, and charity), the Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist. For with these He nourishes them unto eternal life, and makes them grow into a perfect man, Ephesians 4:13.
Tropologically the faithful eat this milk of Christian doctrine and life, that they may communicate the same to others and pour it into them, and so passive milk becomes active. Whence in women milk is a sign of fecundity and motherhood. Wherefore the severed head of St. Paul, the doctor of the Gentiles, gave milk in place of blood. Hence also St. Basil teaches that St. Julitta, going to martyrdom, gave milk to her own — both the spiritual milk of exhortation and the bodily. That you may grow in it (namely, the milk of the Gospel) — that you may grow up and advance in Christian virtue and perfection. He alludes to the use and fruit of milk: for milk not only nourishes children, but also makes them grow to their proper stature. See St. Gregory, book 22 of the Morals, chapter 20, and St. Bernard, epistle 253 to Guarinus, where among other things he says: "True virtue knows no end, is not closed by time. The just man never thinks himself to have attained, never says: It is enough; but always hungers and thirsts after justice." St. Augustine, in sermon 15 On the Words of the Apostle, assigns this mode of growing, saying: "Let what thou art always displease thee, if thou wishest to attain to that which thou art not yet. For where thou hast pleased thyself, there hast thou remained. Always add, always walk, always advance; do not stand still on the road, do not go back, do not stray. The lame man who keeps to the road goes better than the runner who goes off the road." Unto salvation. — The Syriac: "unto life." For the life of grace grows in act through the merits of works, while the life of glory grows by the same in hope and right: for greater merits give a greater right to glory, and to a greater glory. St. Peter indicates that Christians ought to grow in virtues throughout their whole life until death, by which they will pass to salvation — eternal life. Whence Paul commands us throughout our whole life to grow into the perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ, Ephesians 4:13. For, as the Wise Man says: "The path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forward and increaseth even to the perfect day," Proverbs 4:18.
Verse 3: If So Be You Have Tasted That the Lord Is Sweet
3. If indeed. — In Greek eiper, that is, since; eiper can also be taken for epeideper, that is, seeing that, so as to be causal, and then the sentence will be more forceful.
You have tasted. — Some codices have "you taste": certainly under "you have tasted" he understands "you taste" in the Hebrew manner. St. Jerome, on Ezekiel chapter 40, for "you have tasted" reads, "you have believed," because this tasting takes place by faith; nevertheless "you have tasted" signifies more, namely the effect, fruit, and taste of the delights and consolations flowing from faith, which God pours into the faithful.
That the Lord is sweet. — Christ; whence for "sweet" the Greek has chrestos, that is, as St. Jerome on Ezekiel chapter 18 renders it, "pleasant"; Pagninus and Vatablus, "kind"; Clarius, "good"; others, "useful," "upright," "humane," "fruitful," "easy to gratify," "indulgent," "accommodating," "clement." For chrestos signifies all these things, and such was Christ, and such were the first Christians, and such ought their followers and descendants to be, says St. Justin, Apology II. Christos therefore, that is Christ, with iota, that is anointed, was chrestos, with eta, that is kind, sweet, helpful to all. Whence the Gentiles formerly called Christ "Chrestus," and Christians "Chrestians," according to Lactantius, book 4, chapter 7, and Tertullian, Apology III. St. Peter alludes to, indeed cites, Psalm 33, verse 9: "Taste and see, for the Lord is sweet."
Furthermore the faithful have tasted, and even now taste, this sweetness of the Lord, when they are imbued as it were with divine milk by Christian doctrine, and are initiated by baptism and Christian life. This sweetness is produced by purity and security of conscience, trust in God, the hope of glory, and spiritual consolations, which God is wont to pour into novices in faith and religion. A figure of this was the manna, with which He fed the Hebrews following God from Egypt into the desert. Manna, I say, "which had in itself every delight and all sweetness of taste," Wisdom 16:20. St. Peter had tasted this sweetness of God, when, having seen the glory of Christ's humanity on Mount Thabor, he exclaimed as if drunk: "Lord, it is good for us to be here: let us make here three tabernacles, one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias," Matthew 17:4. And the Psalmist: "How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee!" Psalm 30:20. And the Spouse: "He brought me into the wine-cellar, He set in order charity in me. Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love," Canticles 2:5. And St. Paul: "Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation," 2 Corinthians 1:3. And the Wise Man, Wisdom 12:1: "O how good and sweet is Thy spirit, O Lord!" And Isaiah 66:11: "That you may suck and be filled with the breast of His consolation, that you may milk out and flow with delights from the abundance of His glory." And St. Jerome, epistle to Ctesiphon: "Everything good that we have is a foretaste of the Lord: the more I drink, the more I thirst for the fountain of life."
Verse 4: Unto Whom Coming, as to a Living Stone, Rejected Indeed by Men, but Chosen and Honored by God
4. Unto whom (the Lord, namely Christ) coming, a living stone. — St. Peter passes from the metaphor of the new birth and spiritual milk which he assigned to the faithful, to another similar one among the Hebrews, namely that of a building and its stones. For the Hebrews call sons "banim," as it were "abanim," that is stones, out of which Christ "bana," that is, builds His own "binyan," that is, edifice and house, namely the Church. Furthermore we approach Christ not by walking, but by believing in Him through faith, hope, and charity, by hoping in Him, by loving Him; and God is so kind that, whenever we come to Him even in the middle of the night, He offers us His ears and hands, and most lovingly receives us. Thus St. Augustine, on Psalm 86: "Thou art raised up into this building by pious affection, sincere religion, faith, hope, charity: and to build is itself to walk."
Note first: Peter, because he is a rock, delights in the name and metaphor of rock and stone, and at the same time modestly indicates that he was made a rock by precarious gift and freely from Christ, who is the true and first rock, by whom Peter and the rest of the faithful are made rocks. Christ therefore is the first Peter, that is, the rock and stone. First, because He Himself is the corner-stone and foundation-stone of the Church. Secondly, because as a stone by its weight rushes headlong from on high, so Christ by the weight of His love toward us descended from the heavens to the earth. Thirdly, because He is strong and constant, like a rock; the stone therefore signifies the fortitude, humility, and charity of Christ. Fourthly, because as the stone of David struck and killed Goliath, so Christ struck and enervated the demon. Fifthly, because Christ is the rock of refuge for the faithful who hope in Him, according to that of Psalm 103: "The rock is a refuge for the hedgehogs." Hence David, rejoicing, says: "He hath exalted me upon a rock," and: "He set my feet upon a rock," Psalm 39:3, and Psalm 26:5.
For these reasons Christ is many times in the Scriptures shadowed forth under the figure of a stone: first, by the stone of Zechariah 3, when he says: "Upon one stone there are seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord, and I will take away the iniquity of that land in one day"; by the stone on which Jacob, sleeping, saw the ladder reaching up to the heavens; by the stone on which Moses, praying, obtained victory against Amalek; by the stone which gave water to the thirsty people; by the stone of the cave, on which Moses saw the glory of God passing by; by the stone with which David slew Goliath; by the stone of the tables, on which God with His own finger inscribed the Decalogue; by the stone which Joshua set up for a testimony; by the stone on which the ark of the testament was placed; and by the stone of help. All these St. Cyprian collected, book 2 Against the Jews, chapter 16. Furthermore Christ is a stone, not just any stone, but a precious one, as is said in verse 6, namely of marble, of gem, of adamant. For the whole fabric of the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, of the Church, is of gold and of gems, Apocalypse 21:19.
Note secondly: St. Peter calls Christ a stone not lifeless, but animated and living, in Greek zonta, that is, living, because He Himself is God and man, alive. For first, as God, He is living, indeed He is essential and uncreated Life itself. This is what St. John says, Gospel 1:4: "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men"; and 1 John 1:2: "The life was manifested, and we have seen, and do bear witness, and declare unto you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and hath appeared to us." Secondly, Christ as man is living, because He has risen from the dead to immortal and glorious life. Thirdly, Christ is living, that is, vivifying all by His merits and death — namely souls through grace, bodies through resurrection — according to that of John 6:58: "As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, and he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me"; and John 5:25: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." Therefore upon Christ, as upon a living stone, the Church is built, as it were the living body of Christ, vivified by Him.
Furthermore, in the literal sense, that is called a "living stone" which is born in its own rock or vein, and from it is cut out or extracted (whence Christ is called a stone cut out of the mountain, Daniel 2:24). For as there are veins of silver, gold, iron, copper, etc., so there are also veins of stones and gems. Whence Pliny, book 36, chapter 18: "Theophrastus and Mutianus believe that there are certain stones which give birth." Again, the magnet is a "living stone," because it moves and draws iron. For those things have life which move themselves; for the soul is the principle of motion. All these things it is easy to adapt to Christ.
Rejected indeed by men. — For the Jews — the Scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests — despised Christ, and rejected and cast Him out, as a useless, indeed harmful, stone, from the fabric of their Synagogue.
But chosen by God — for the foundation of the Church, through the resurrection, the ascension into heaven, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the celebrity of His name in the whole world subjected to Him. The Greek entimon the Tigurine version renders as both "precious" and "honorable."
Verse 5: Be You Also as Living Stones Built Up, a Spiritual House, a Holy Priesthood
5. And be you yourselves also built up as living stones. — That is, build yourselves upon Christ through charity and His works which quicken faith. Bede says that some read "be ye built upward," namely that you may tend toward heaven. He calls living stones "men strengthened in vigor," says St. Ambrose on Luke chapter 3.
Note the analogies of a stone in a building and of a faithful soul in the Church. First, just as a stone must be polished and squared in order to be fit for the building, so also the faithful must be polished and squared through tribulations and temptations, so as to be fit for the building of Christ, according to that saying of St. Ambrose and of the divine Office at the dedication of a Church: "Polished by blows and pressures, stones are fitted to their places, by the hand of the artificer arranged to remain in the sacred buildings." Secondly, just as a stone and a building have their dimensions, so also the faithful soul, which the Holy Spirit measures out as it were with a plumb-line. Hear St. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Ephesians: "Jesus Christ has founded you upon the rock as chosen stones, fit for the divine building of the Father, raised on high through Christ, who was crucified for us, using the Holy Spirit as a plumb-line; drawn up by faith, and lifted up by charity from earth to heaven." Thirdly, in order that a stone may be placed in a house, it must be hard and strong, so that it may sustain both the mass that rests upon it and the assaults of storms and enemies: so likewise the faithful must be strong and constant; and this fortitude he draws from Christ, as from the rock upon which he rests. Thus St. Bernard, sermon 61 on the Canticles: "On the rock exalted, on the rock secure, on the rock I stand firmly, safe from the enemy, secure from a fall; the world trembles, the body presses, the devil lies in wait, I do not fall: for I am founded upon the firm rock." Fourthly, the lower stone bears the upper: so "in the holy Church each one both bears another, and is borne by another," says St. Gregory, homily 13 on Ezekiel, according to the admonition of St. Paul, Galatians 6:2: "Bear ye one another's burdens." Fifthly, one stone is glued to another with mortar: so likewise one faithful soul is joined to another by charity.
The counterpart to this saying of St. Peter is that of Paul, Ephesians 2:19: "Therefore now ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints and the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone, in whom every building, framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord." St. Peter alludes, equally with St. Paul, to Isaiah 54:11: "Behold, I will lay thy stones in order, and I will found thee in sapphires." And to that saying of Christ: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church," Matthew 16:18.
A spiritual house. — St. Augustine on Psalm 86, and others, read "into a spiritual house," as if to say: Be you built upon Christ, that you may be the house of God — not a material house, of wood or stone, but a mystical and spiritual one through faith, hope, charity, and the religion of God and Christ. Moreover this spiritual house or temple of God is partly universal, namely the Church; partly particular and singular, namely the soul of each faithful and holy person, according to that of St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 3:16: "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" it can here be taken in both senses. The first sense, namely that "spiritual house" be understood as the Church, is more fitting, both because "house" is of singular number, not plural; also because St. Peter calls the faithful stones: but stones are not the house itself, but the parts from which the house rises up and is composed. Heretics object: The Church is a spiritual house of God; therefore it is not visible but invisible. I reply by denying the consequence: for "spiritual house" is here opposed to a material house, which consists of wood and stones — not to a visible one.
A holy priesthood. — St. Jerome and Ambrose read "into a holy priesthood," as if to say: Be you built upon Christ, that you may be a priesthood — not impure, profane, and sacrilegious, such as is that of the idolaters and heretics; but pure, sacred, and holy. Now "priesthood" here can be taken in two ways: first, properly. For just as the Church is a kingdom that Christ rules, and in which He reigns, so it is also a priesthood, in which and through which Christ sacrifices and offers sacrifices to God the Father. Secondly, metonymically: that priesthood may be the same as the assembly of priests; or that, in the Hebrew manner, the abstract may be put for the concrete, "priesthood" for priests. Whence the Syriac renders, "be ye holy priests." In the Church the proper priests are the Apostles and those ordained by them; the improper and mystical priests are the laity. Whence St. Ambrose, book 4 On the Sacraments, chapter 1: "Each one is anointed (in Baptism and Confirmation) into a priesthood, is anointed into a kingdom," that he may be a mystical priest, as he is a mystical king. These things, however, do not prove that the laity are true and properly so-called priests, nor that there are not in the Church properly so-called priests. The faithful layman is called and is a priest, but mystical: first, because he is a member of the Church, which has true priests; secondly, because through true priests he truly offers a sacrifice to God in the Mass; thirdly, because he offers to God the calves of the lips, namely sacrifices of praise, penance, mortification, charity, and the other virtues. In this sense St. Augustine, book 10 On the City of God, chapter 6, says: "A true sacrifice is every work that is done in order that one may adhere to God in holy society, referred to that end by which we can be blessed." Whence St. Leo, sermon 3: "The sign of the cross makes all those regenerated in Christ kings: but the anointing of the Holy Spirit consecrates priests. For what is so kingly as a soul subject to God, ruling its own body? And what is so priestly as to consecrate to the Lord a pure conscience, and to offer the immaculate hosts of piety from the altar of the heart?"
To offer spiritual sacrifices to God — in a spiritual house and temple, namely in the Church. The word "spiritual" is partly opposed to the carnal sacrifices of the Aaronic priests: for Christian priests do not offer carnal sacrifices by slaying, flaying, burning them, but a mystical sacrifice, namely the Eucharist, in which the flesh of Christ is hidden under the species of bread and wine, and is offered, immolated, and consumed whole; and partly opposed to true sacrifices, so that "spiritual" means the same as improper and figurative, such as the lay faithful offer; concerning which Paul says, Romans 12:1: "I beseech you, brethren, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God." And Lactantius, book 6 of the Institutes, chapter 24: "Whoever obeys all the heavenly precepts, he is truly a worshipper of God, whose sacrifices are gentleness of soul, an innocent life, and good deeds."
Acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. — For He Himself is our redeemer and mediator appointed by God, through whom we ought to offer all our things to the Father, so that they may be accepted by Him, pleasing, meritorious, and impetratory. Wherefore the Church concludes all her prayers by saying: "Through our Lord Jesus Christ." This is what the Apostle says, Romans 5:2: "Through Him we have access by faith." And to the Hebrews 7:25, he says that Christ always stands before God, "to make intercession for us."
Verse 6: Wherefore the Scripture Contains: Behold, I Lay in Sion a Chief Corner-Stone, Elect, Precious
6. Wherefore the Scripture contains. — Isaiah 28:16, where, just as also at Ephesians 2:20, I have explained this verse: wherefore I shall not repeat here what was said there.
Verse 7: To You Therefore Who Believe Is Honor; but to Those Who Do Not Believe, the Stone Which the Builders Rejected
7. To you therefore who believe, honor. — As if to say: You, O you who believe in Christ, shall not be confounded, but shall be honored by Christ on the day of judgment, when from Him you shall receive the glory and the crown of the heavenly kingdom, according to that of Psalm 138:17: "Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honorable; their principality is exceedingly strengthened."
To those who do not believe. — The interpreter reads apistousi; now they read apeithousi, that is, "to the disobedient," namely those who refused to obey Christ, whether by believing in Him or by submitting to His law.
Is become the head of the corner. — He has become the chief, corner, principal and foundational stone of the house of God, namely the Church.
Verse 8: And a Stone of Stumbling and a Rock of Scandal to Those Who Stumble at the Word
8. And a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal. — He cites Isaiah 8:14. See what was said there. This is what Simeon sings: "This child is set for the ruin and for the resurrection of many in Israel," Luke 2:34.
To those who stumble at the word. — Many explain, as if to say: Those who sin through speech, namely by contradicting and resisting Christ with their words, and by blaspheming Him. So Hugo, Lyranus, Thomas the Englishman, and Dionysius. But the Greek is proskoptousi to logo, that is, those who strike against the word, namely those who are offended and scandalized by the word of the Gospel. Hence the Syriac translates, "those who strike against the rock, because they do not acquiesce in the discourse." Hence Peter, explaining, adds: "Nor do they believe in that whereunto they were also set"; for to the Jews the preaching of the crucified Christ was a scandal, to the Gentiles foolishness, 1 Corinthians 1:23.
Nor do they believe in that whereunto they were also set. — First, Beza from this passage contends that the reprobate, before the foresight of works and sins, were destined by God to disobedience and rebellion, just as the elect were destined to faith, obedience, and salvation by God alone before the foresight of merits. So says he, but impiously and ignorantly: for first, if God destines them to disobedience and rebellion, then He Himself is the first author of sin, namely of disobedience and rebellion, which is blasphemous. Secondly, some Catholics explain thus, as if to say: The unbelievers were destined to not believing by themselves, by their own will and malice, and then they were set by God in the order of the reprobate. Thirdly, Erasmus, Vatablus, Cajetan, and Titelmann explain thus, as if to say: "Nor do they believe," namely in the foundation, or the corner stone, in which they had been set and placed, namely in Christ. Fourthly, and genuinely, for "in which" the Greek is eis ho, that is, into which, to which, namely to believing, or that they should believe in Christ and the Gospel, as if to say: They are set to believe in Christ, and yet do not believe, because they will not believe. For all men, and especially the Jews, are set, that is, are created and ordained through the Law and the Prophets to this end, that they should believe in Christ, prefigured by the Law and the Prophets. So Bede and Lyranus. For God created and ordained men for good, namely to believe so that they may obtain salvation, not however for evil, namely to disbelieve and to rebel, so that they may go into Gehenna.
Verse 9: But You Are a Chosen Generation, a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a Purchased People
9. But you. — The pronoun "you," first, can be taken collectively, as if to say: You, O faithful, gathered into one assembly, you, O congregation of Christians, you, O Church of Christ, are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Secondly, distributively, as if to say: You, O each individual faithful, are a chosen race, whom God chose for Himself, and who in turn have chosen God, by consenting and cooperating with His election and calling, as Moses teaches, Deuteronomy 26:17 and 18. Just as God formerly chose the Jews, so now He has chosen Christians for His own people and Church, and through them blesses and does good to the whole world. Hence beautifully St. Justin, in his epistle to Diognetus, teaches that Christians are in the world as the soul is in the body: "The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians through all the cities of the world. The soul indeed dwells in the body, yet is not of the body: and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world. The flesh hates and assails the soul, though in no way harmed, because it is forbidden to enjoy pleasures: the world also hates Christians, because they resist pleasures. The soul, when ill-treated by food and drink, becomes better; and Christians, when daily punished with sufferings, are the more multiplied."
A royal priesthood. — He cites Exodus 19:6, where Moses calls the Synagogue of the Jews "a priestly kingdom," or, as the Hebrew has it, "a kingdom of priests": for in a similar way Peter and the Septuagint, elegantly and prudently inverting the words of Moses, calls it "a royal priesthood." The reason for this inversion, namely that in the Synagogue of the Jews the kingdom was preeminent over the priesthood, but in the Church of Christ the priesthood is preeminent over the kingdom. Hence the Syriac translates, "you are a priesthood unto a kingdom." The Church therefore is the kingdom of Christ, not temporal, lay and profane, but heavenly, priestly and sacred. The same, vice versa and rather, is Christ's priesthood — not legal, not gentile, not plebeian, but royal, distinguished, illustrious, magnificent, heavenly and divine: and that, first, because its first priest and founder, namely Christ, was the High Priest and King, indeed God and the Son of God. Hence His type was Melchisedech, king and priest, to whom St. Peter here alludes, Hebrews 7:1. Secondly, because His victim is royal, distinguished and divine, namely Christ, who on the altar of the cross offered Himself for us as a royal sacrifice. Thirdly, because the manner of offering is royal. Fourthly, because its fruit is royal: for it abolishes sins, appeases God, obtains all graces and virtues, and finally merits and leads to the kingdom of heaven. Let priests therefore remember when they celebrate, that they are exercising a royal priesthood, and let them offer it to God with a royal spirit, love, and religion.
Secondly, not only the Church, but also the individual faithful are a priestly kingdom, and a royal priesthood, or, as the Chaldaic version translates, Exodus 19:6, "kings and priests." Kings, both because they rule their senses, members, powers, passions, and dominate them; and because they are intimates, indeed sons of Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who reigns in us with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Hence a crown was once placed on the head of the baptized, as if they were kings raised up to God's household. Hence Theodore the Studite: "They lift up the baptized to the altar, and give them the mysteries, the Eucharist, and crown them with garlands." St. Chrysostom, in his homily to the Baptized: "Remember me when you feel upon your head a crown brighter than the rays of the sun." And St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Procatechesis: "Now you are gathering spiritual flowers to weave heavenly crowns; now you have stood about the portico of the royal palace: would that you might be brought in by the King Himself!" Again, this kingdom and priesthood is represented by the anointing with which the faithful are anointed in Baptism and Confirmation. Hence Tertullian: "After the imprinted seals of oil upon the forehead, through which the royal Unguent is given, and the chrism."
In like manner the faithful are priests, because, being devoted to the worship of God, they offer Him mystical and metaphorical sacrifices of praise and virtues. Wrongly therefore do heretics conclude from this that all Christians are properly priests: for they are priests in the same way that they are kings (for St. Peter says both of them). But kings are mystical and metaphorical, not true and proper kings. Therefore they are priests in the same way. Cajetan, Catharinus, and Salmeron add a third reason: that the Christian priesthood is royal because it directs and commands kings; for Pontiffs are spiritual kings and preside over kings, because they direct their temporal power to a spiritual end. The priestly kingdom of the Church is seen first of all in Bishops and the episcopate. "This priesthood is the chief of all goods that exist among men," says St. Ignatius in his epistle to the Smyrnaeans; and again: "Let the Caesars themselves obey the bishop." But it is seen most of all in the Supreme Pontiff and the Papacy, whose power is supreme and most ample in every direction, extending throughout the whole world, by which it commands even kings. The insignia of this priestly kingdom is the miter, or tiara, which is carried upon the head girt with a triple crown; for this signifies the full and supreme kingdom of Christ, which the Pontiff administers as Christ's vicar.
Truly royal was the voice of St. Vigilius, when, urged by the Emperor Justinian to the Eutychian heresy, he intrepidly resisted him to his face, and said: "I desired to come to Justinian the Most Christian Emperor, but I have found a Diocletian." Similar was the voice of St. Martin to the Monothelite Emperor Constans, when captured by him: "Sooner will I let myself be torn into a thousand pieces, than that I should subscribe to your heresy in a single point." Moreover, in such a great height, the Pontiff preserves the glory of humility, calling himself the servant of servants. Hence it is something like a marvel: "The servant of servants, ruling over the lords of lords."
Morally, let the faithful here contemplate the dignity of their calling to the Kingdom and Priesthood of Christ, and live worthily of it, doing and ordering all things to the glory of God. "All sons of the Church are priests," says St. Ambrose: "for we are anointed unto a holy priesthood, offering ourselves to God as spiritual sacrifices." Most elegantly Leo: "For the sign of the cross makes all those reborn in Christ kings, but the unction of the Holy Spirit consecrates them priests, so that besides that special service of our mystery, all spiritual and rational Christians may recognize themselves to be of royal race, and partakers of the priestly office." In like manner Seneca says, epistle 37: "If you wish to subject all things to yourself, subject yourself to reason: you will rule many, if reason rules you."
Above all the rest, martyrdom is a royal priesthood, because the Martyr with a royal soul and burning charity offers himself and all his goods, his life and his death to God as a holocaust. Again, the Religious life is a royal priesthood, because in it Religious offer themselves wholly to God as voluntary victims, indeed as holocausts. As St. Augustine says in book 10 of the City of God, chapter 6: "Man himself, consecrated and devoted in the name of God, insofar as he dies to the world that he may live to God, is a sacrifice." And St. Gregory, in book 9 of the Morals: "For we offer ourselves as a sacrifice to God when we dedicate our life to divine worship."
A holy nation. — First, because just as the Synagogue of the Jews of old, so now the Church of the Christians has been set apart, consecrated, and sanctified to God out of all nations. Secondly, because she has had and has very many Saints — Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins. Thirdly, because all are called to holiness, according to that text of Hebrews 12:22: "You have come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels, and to the Church of the firstborn." Fourthly, because the religion, faith, doctrine, Sacraments, and sacrifices of the Christians are holy. Fifthly, because its author Christ is the Holy of Holies, Daniel 9:24, and its ruler is the Holy Spirit. Sixthly, because true sanctity is found nowhere except in the Church. Seventhly, because their law, and their life conformed to the law, is holy. Hear St. Basil in the Morals, rule 80: "What is the property of a Christian? Faith that worketh through charity. What is the property of a Christian? That he be born again through baptism, of water and the Spirit, that he may become one spirit with Christ. What is the property of a Christian? To be cleansed from all defilement of flesh and spirit, and to perfect sanctification in the fear of God and the charity of Christ, and to have no spot or wrinkle. What is the property of a Christian? To set the Lord always before his sight. What is the property of a Christian? To watch every day and every hour, and to be continually ready for that perfection by which he may please God."
A people of acquisition, that is, acquired. The Syriac: "a redeemed congregation," namely that which Christ acquired, redeemed, and bought with His own blood. Less correctly Vatablus and Erasmus translate, "that which has accrued to Christ as gain." For granted that this is true, nevertheless that is not precisely what peripoiesis means, but rather acquisition and purchase, from which not so much to Christ as to those very persons who were bought there has accrued an immense gain of grace, glory, and heavenly inheritance. Hence Paul says the faithful are appointed to the acquisition of salvation through Christ, and he calls them sons of the faith unto the acquisition of the soul, Hebrews 10:39, and 1 Thessalonians 5:9. To Christ, however, an immense glory accrued from the same. For, as St. Bernard says in the Sentences: "This is the portion of Christ which He took from the hand of the Amorite by the sword of preaching and the bow of incarnation." For this reason Christ loves us supremely, because we cost Him dearly: for He bought us with His own blood. St. Augustine and St. Ambrose read, "a people in adoption," rendering the sense rather than the words: for peripoiesis does not signify adoption, but vindication, or the claim to liberty, acquisition, possession, preservation, salvation. The sense is, as if to say: Christians are a peculiar people, that is, the possession, peculium, and treasure of God. Hence Oecumenius also interprets "acquisition" as "possession and inheritance." St. Augustine, sermon 35 On the Words of the Lord according to Luke, at the end: "A great matter, brethren: we are both His inheritance, and He is our inheritance; because we both worship Him, and He cultivates us. I am the vine, says Christ, you are the branches, My Father is the husbandman, John 15. Therefore He cultivates us; but, if we yield fruit, He prepares the granary." Hence St. Basil in his Morals teaches that the faithful are sheep, branches, brides, temples, victims, sons of Christ, and therefore ought to live in such a way that they may be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
That you may declare His virtues. — What virtues? First, as if to say: That you, as the royal priests of Christ, may narrate, preach, and celebrate His immense clemency toward us, His wisdom, patience, humility, charity, justice, and the other virtues which Christ displayed in His life and death for our redemption. He alludes to the Hebrews, who, having crossed the Red Sea and giving thanks to God, celebrated His mighty works, saying: "Let us sing to the Lord: for He is gloriously magnified, the horse and the rider He has cast into the sea," Exodus 15:1. Secondly, arete, that is virtue, signifies industry: for Christ with great industry assumed flesh capable of suffering, and was crucified in it, that He might deceive the devil, and by the wood by which we had fallen redeem us. Hence the Church sings in the hymn of the Lord's Passion: "Grieving over the deception of our first parent, the Maker Himself then marked the wood, that He might undo the harm of the wood." Thirdly, arete signifies warlike valor and fortitude; for it is derived from Ares, that is, Mars. For Christ with immense fortitude conquered the devil, the world, the flesh, and all tyrants and Gentiles, not with iron, but with wood; not by striking, but by dying. Fourthly, virtue signifies an excellent and magnificent work, which produces remarkable praise and honor: whence the Syriac translates "His praise and glory." Fifthly, the "virtues" of Christ can be taken not passively, but actively — those, namely, which He Himself acts and works in us; that is, the wondrous, indeed divine, humility, charity, patience, chastity, constancy, breathing them into us. He alludes to the oracle of David, Psalm 22:31: "A generation that is to come shall be declared to the Lord, and the heavens shall declare His justice to the people that shall be born." And that of Isaiah 43:21: "I have formed this people for Myself; they shall declare My praise."
Who has called you out of darkness (of unbelief, of ignorance of God and salvation, of errors and sins) into His wonderful light, namely, of faith, of the knowledge of God, of prudence and the virtues: by which words St. Peter alludes to Isaiah 9:2: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen." And Isaiah 60:1: "Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." By this sentence St. Peter tacitly admonishes the faithful, that they should follow this light and Sun of justice which has shone upon them from heaven, and walk and live in His light, according to that of Paul, Ephesians 5:8: "You were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord: walk then as children of the light." Moreover, he calls this light "wonderful," both because it reveals and shows wonderful mysteries about God, the Holy Trinity, Christ, predestination, the calling of the Gentiles; and because it teaches wonderful things about the duties of virtues; and because the Saints by it have wrought heroic and wonderful works of virtue. Thus wonderful was the love of Christ in St. Peter, wonderful the love of the Cross in St. Andrew, wonderful the power of preaching in St. Paul, wonderful the purity in St. John, wonderful the fortitude in St. Stephen, wonderful the constancy in St. Athanasius, wonderful the penance in St. Mary Magdalene, wonderful the contemplation in St. Anthony, wonderful the religion in St. Basil, wonderful the humility in St. Francis, wonderful the fervor in St. Dominic, wonderful the candor in St. Bernard, wonderful the ardor in St. Lawrence. All these things show forth and proclaim the virtues and glory of Christ: for from Him as from a head and fountain they have flowed into the Saints. And this will be evident on the day of judgment, "when He shall come to be glorified in His Saints, and to be made wonderful in all them who have believed," says St. Paul, 2 Thessalonians 1:10.
Verse 10: Who in Time Past Were Not a People, but Now Are the People of God
10. Who in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God. — He cites Hosea 1:6 (actually 2:23). See what is said there.
Verse 11: Dearly Beloved, I Beseech You as Strangers and Pilgrims to Refrain Yourselves From Carnal Desires
11. Dearly beloved. — In Greek "agapetoi," that is, lovable, amiable, worthy of love, dear, beloved.
I beseech. — In Greek parakalo, that is, I exhort, or I beseech. Note the modesty of St. Peter, the Supreme Pontiff, in that he does not command his subjects, but beseeches them. This is to be imitated occasionally by Prelates, as St. Bonaventure teaches in his treatise On the Six Wings of the Seraph.
As strangers (St. Cyprian, in book 1, epistle 5, reads "guests") and pilgrims. — For our soul, heavenly and created by God, comes into the earth and this mortal body, and there is a stranger; and from there as a pilgrim it tends and desires to return to heaven. Again, the heavenly Jerusalem, of which we are enrolled as citizens, comes down from heaven, in order to take her faithful with her as she ascends into heaven, Apocalypse 21. Moreover, we were placed by God in paradise as His tenants; thence expelled because of sin, we wander as exiles and pilgrims on the earth. So St. Augustine on Psalm 118. Wherefore Christ, in order to recall us from this exile to the homeland of paradise, descending to the earth, was born in an inn, lived as a guest, died on a gibbet. What then is a Christian? He is, like Christ, a pilgrim on earth and a citizen of heaven. Moreover, St. Francis used to say, "it is the office of a pilgrim to gather himself under another's roof, to pass through peacefully, and to long for the homeland." Whence St. Basil in his Ascetics: "Have your eyes cast down to the earth, but your mind raised to heaven."
The first condition, dowry and virtue of a pilgrim is that he knows himself to be a pilgrim. For many pilgrims, lured by the delights of the road, cling to them and forget their homeland, because they love the inn — indeed the stable — as if it were their home and homeland, says St. Gregory. How many and how great are the mortals who here build houses, estates, gardens, palaces; heap up gold, silver, and revenues without end; accumulate servants, horses, offices, benefices, as if they were going to abide here forever? Truly the Poet exclaims: "O souls bent down to the earth, and empty of heavenly things!" And Seneca, epistle 99, mocking such men: "They are so wicked and so forgetful of where they go, that they marvel at losing something — they who in one day shall lose everything. Whatever it is that you are inscribed master of, is with you, not yours. Nothing is firm to the infirm, nothing eternal to the fragile, nothing unconquered." But more briefly, clearly, and sharply St. Augustine, Question 91 on Leviticus: "Every man is a stranger by being born, since he is compelled to migrate by dying."
Secondly, a pilgrim sees all things as if from abroad, esteeming them as foreign and alien to himself: whence he does not fix his heart upon them, but glances at them in passing as if not pertaining to him. So also a Christian esteems all things in this world as foreign and alien to himself, since he is a pilgrim. "For we are pilgrims before Thee, and strangers, as were all our fathers: our days upon the earth are as a shadow, and there is no stay," says David in 1 Chronicles 29:15. Thirdly, a guest who has stayed one night at an inn departs, and leaves it to other guests who will come: so does man also do. Hear St. Augustine, sermon 32 On the Words of the Lord: "Each one is here even in his own house a guest; if he is not a guest, let him not pass through it; if he is going to pass through, willingly or unwillingly, he is a guest. For he leaves it to his sons, a guest to guests." Fourthly, St. Bernard, sermon 7 On Lent: "A pilgrim goes straight along the way, content with food and clothing, without superfluous baggage; he attends to his own one journey, not to others' affairs." So let the Christian also do.
Fifthly, a pilgrim pants for his homeland. Let the Christian do the same. Hear St. Cyprian, treatise On Mortality: "We reckon paradise to be our homeland: a great number of dear ones awaits us there, a copious throng of parents, brothers, and children desires us, now secure of their own safety, and still anxious about our salvation. Why therefore do we not hasten, that we may see our homeland and salute our parents?" And St. Augustine on Psalm 148: "He who does not groan as a pilgrim, will not rejoice as a citizen, because the desire is not in him." Sixthly, a pilgrim bears bravely and constantly the labors of the journey, the heats, the colds, hunger, thirst, and all the inconveniences of roads and inns. So let the Christian bravely bear all the hardships of this life and pilgrimage. Such was Abel, the first pilgrim of the world, but a citizen of heaven, whom Cain killed. Seventhly, a pilgrim conducts himself decorously, honestly, and justly, is injurious to no one, behaves cautiously in all things. Wherefore St. Paul, whose words are an antistrophe to those of St. Peter: "There hath appeared the grace of God our Saviour to all men, instructing us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Eighthly, a pilgrim regards any men whatsoever, whether natives or those he encounters, as though pilgrims: his heart is in his homeland. So the Christian man regards all men and women of this age as pilgrims; he holds his heart with God, with the angels and the Saints. Whence St. Basil: "The soul burning with heavenly desire is joined to the love of Christ when, while living on earth, it constantly meditates on heavenly things: it tramples upon the pleasures of the world, and no care of the world separates it from the love of Christ." Hence St. Bernard, On the Way of Living Well: "All things that are in this world are contrary to the servants of God, so that while they feel those adverse things, they may sigh with the highest desire for the heavenly kingdom. Holy men are pilgrims and guests in the world: whence Peter is reproved, because he wished a tabernacle to be made on the mountain; since for the holy in this world there is no tabernacle, whose homeland and home are in heaven."
Ninthly, a pilgrim prepares and equips himself for the journey with shoes, a cloak, and waxed garments to ward off the rain, a staff to lean upon: so let the faithful arm himself against all difficulties and temptations with solid humility, patience, prayer, and above all with Christ and His cross and death. Again, a pilgrim prepares for himself viaticum for the necessary journey: so the faithful uses the Holy Eucharist as viaticum. Excellently St. Basil: "For the possession of the future age, of which there is no end, prepare viaticum for yourself," that is, the holy Sacraments, virtues and merits, by which you may live forever. Tenthly, a pilgrim is laughed at by the natives, especially by children, as a barbarian on account of his unfamiliar dress, speech, and gestures; but he despises it and passes by. So also is the Christian laughed at by the world and by worldly men; but he equally laughs at them, and says with the Apostle: "We are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all even until now," 1 Corinthians 4:13. Therefore the first "virtue of a Christian is to despise and to be despised," says St. Jerome.
Pilgrims are to abstain from carnal desires. — First, because a pilgrim abstains from these; for he does not weigh himself down and fill himself with food and drink, but takes them lightly and moderately, that he may be unencumbered and agile for the journey. For to pilgrims belongs that maxim of Epictetus: "Bear and forbear." Secondly, because the faithful person esteems as foreign to him not only the earth, but much more carnal concupiscence, because he desires spiritual and eternal delights. Thirdly, because carnal concupiscence is to him not only an impediment to the way, but also a poison to life. By "carnal desires" understand not only those of gluttony and lust, but also those of anger, envy, pride. For all these are works of the flesh, that is, of concupiscence, which resides not only in the flesh, but also in the soul and mind, as the Apostle teaches in Galatians 5:19. By "abstain" therefore understand "to contain" and "continence." The early Christians excelled in continence. Famous is the continence of St. James the son of Alphaeus, who, abstaining from wine, meat, baths, and other delights, led an austere life. Similar was that of St. Peter, St. Paul, and the other Apostles. John the Hermit was of such great continence that for 40 years he did not see a woman. St. Anthony, when the abbot Pambo asked him for a counsel of salvation and perfection, gave this: "Do not be confident in your own righteousness, nor regret what you have done, and be continent in your tongue and your belly." St. Arsenius, when a woman who had secretly crept up to him asked his prayers, that in them he would remember her, replied: "I pray my God to blot out the memory of you from my heart." Famous is the maxim of Abba Pastor: "Unless Nabuzardan the chief cook had come, the temple of the Lord would not have been burned with fire: so likewise, unless ease, gluttony, and the belly come into the soul, the mind by no means falls while fighting against the enemy." Moreover, St. Gregory prudently warns: "It is necessary that each one hold to the art of continence in such a way that he kills not the flesh but the vices."
Which war against the soul. — For the flesh "lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh," Galatians 5:17; whence: "The life of man upon earth is a warfare," says Job, 14:4. This warfare and struggle St. Augustine excellently depicts in himself in book 8 of the Confessions. Vigorously Tertullian, To the Martyrs, chapter 3: "There stands as the Master of the Games of the conflicts and victories of His own, the living God; as Xystarch, the Holy Spirit; as Trainer, Christ Jesus; the crown is of eternity; the prize, the citizenship of angelic substance in heaven; the glory, unto ages of ages."
Verse 12: Having Your Conversation Good Among the Gentiles, That They May Glorify God in the Day of Visitation
12. Having your conversation good among the Gentiles (Syriac: "in the sight of all the sons of men"). — "For we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men," 1 Corinthians 4:9. And: "To our neighbor we owe a good name, to God we owe and provide a good conscience," says St. Bernard, sermon 71 on the Canticle. Let Christians here note that they ought to conduct themselves in such a way that they may draw both the faithful and the unbelievers, and even heretics, by their holy conversation to God, faith, and sanctity. For the force of example is greater than that of word, of life than of voice, of morals than of words. Wherefore St. Paul before King Agrippa: "In this also do I myself endeavor to have a conscience without offense toward God and toward men, always," Acts 24:16. Indeed Cicero in Lactantius: "It goes badly with me, if my speech purifies me more than my life." And Aristippus, when asked what was admirable in this world, replied: "A virtuous and temperate man: because although he lives among many impious men, yet he is not perverted."
That whereas they detract (slander, disparage, calumniate) against you as evildoers. — For they were saying that Christians were despisers of princes, of the divinity, and of the gods, voluptuaries, that they practiced promiscuous unions (because the Gnostic heretics, sprung from Christians, were doing this), that they fed on human flesh (namely on the flesh of Christ in the Eucharist, the rumor of which the Gentiles had heard, but the manner and mystery they did not understand), to such an extent that they attributed all the disasters and calamities of the world to the impiety of the Christians. Tertullian, Apology 40: "If the Tiber rises to the walls, if the Nile does not rise over the fields, if the earth moves, if there is famine, if pestilence, immediately 'the Christians to the lion!'" Wherefore for the innocence of the Christians grave and learned Apologies were written by St. Justin, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Tertullian, Arnobius and others.
From your good works considering you (epopteuontes, that is, looking into, plainly and thoroughly inspecting) may glorify God. — Thus St. Blandina, atrociously tortured that she might confess the crimes already mentioned which were charged against the Christians, by constantly and eagerly proclaiming: "I am a Christian, and among us nothing evil is done," astounded her torturers. She added: "You err greatly, O men, in thinking that those feed on the bowels of infants, who do not even use the flesh of many animals." Wherefore Pliny the Younger, Proconsul of Asia, after an inquiry made into the life of the Christians, wrote to Trajan that he had detected no crime in them, except that they sang hymns to Christ before dawn. To whom Trajan wrote back that they were indeed not to be sought out, but those brought forward should be punished. Whence Tertullian exclaims, Apology 2: "O sentence confounded by necessity! it denies that they are to be sought out as innocent, and orders that they be punished as guilty." By the perceived sanctity of the Christians Justin Philosopher and Martyr was converted. Many judges and torturers also were converted. Conquered by the same, Porphyry, although a sworn enemy of Christ, wrote a book On the Essenes, in which he describes and praises their angelic morals. So powerful is virtue, that from enemies it extorts not only testimony, but also encomium and praise.
In the day of visitation. — First, by "visitation" Oecumenius and Arias understand investigation and inquiry, as if to say: When Pliny and other Governors and Gentiles inquire about you, seeing that all your things are holy, they may glorify God. Whence Tertullian, Apology, last chapter: "Crucify, torture, condemn, grind us down: for your iniquity is the proof of our innocence: every more refined iniquity of yours is rather a lure to the sect. We become more numerous, the more we are mowed down by you. The blood of the Christians is seed." Secondly, others take "visitation," Greek episkopen, in a mystical sense through illumination and grace, as if to say: That the Gentiles may glorify God, when God has visited them with the light of His grace, that they may see the truth and sanctity of Christianity and embrace it. Thirdly, Hugh and Thomas Anglicus take it of the visitation by which God visits and chastises the faithful, that from their patience He may extort praise from the infidels. Fourthly, Bede understands by the day of visitation the day of judgment. Then the wicked, especially judges and persecutors, seeing the glory of the Martyrs and of the Saints, will glorify God, saying: "These are they whom once we had in derision. Behold, how they are numbered among the sons of God, and their lot is among the Saints," Wisdom 5.
Verse 13: Be Ye Subject Therefore to Every Human Creature for God's Sake: Whether to the King as Excelling
13. Be ye therefore subject. — The word "therefore" draws forth this as a kind of conclusion from those things which he has said about good conversation, as if to say: I have commanded you good conversation, therefore I likewise command subjection and obedience. For the Christian religion was ill spoken of by some, as if it taught Christians, as sons of Christ and appointed heirs of the kingdom of heaven, that they should not be subject to princes, especially Gentile and unbelieving ones, says Oecumenius. There was added the fact that the first Christians were Jews by origin, who at this time began to rebel against the Romans. The Apostles were Galileans: at that time there had arisen the sect of the Galileans from Judas the Galilean, who taught the Jews, as the people of God, that they ought to be free from tribute, and not subject themselves to the Roman Emperor, as a Gentile and infidel. Wherefore the Apostles and the Christians were charged with this error, and therefore they zealously write and command the contrary. So even now the Anabaptists on the other hand say that all Christians are equal and free, and therefore that one Christian ought not to lord it over another, and consequently that there should be among them no magistrates, no tribunals, no courts of justice. Against all of these Paul writes in chapter 13 to the Romans. Truly says St. Basil: "Progress of soul in virtue is progress in humility, and on the contrary, to be left in the last places is begotten from no other source than from elation. For the knowledge of piety is the knowledge of humility and meekness."
To every human creature. — First, the Syriac translates, "to all the sons of men," as if Peter would have Christians be supremely humble, so that they should subject themselves to any man whatsoever. For the first degree of humility is to subject oneself to a superior; the second, to an equal; the third, to an inferior, according to that of Paul in Galatians 5:13: "By the charity of the spirit, serve one another"; and Philippians 2:3: "In humility esteeming one another better than themselves." But this is of counsel and perfection, not of precept. Secondly and genuinely, by "every human creature" Peter calls every man, namely a superior, to whom subjection is due. He says "every," lest anyone except infidels and the impious. "Human creature" therefore he calls princes and magistrates created by men, namely kings and dukes, as he adds in explanation. So Oecumenius. For the Greek ktisis, that is creature, is put for ordering, government and the disposition of civil rule. So we say that the Pontiff, the Cardinals, kings, princes, consuls are "created," when by votes such men are elected and constituted: indeed Cardinals are called creatures of the Pontiff. Furthermore these are called "human creature," either because created by men, or rather because they themselves are human creatures, that is, men created princes by God; therefore they are creatures of God, because from among men they have been elected and raised by God to this dignity, and because beyond others they are themselves the living image of the Creator God.
St. Peter speaks directly of civil princes, and commands the faithful to be subject to them, lest through Christ they think themselves exempt from their dominion; nevertheless by an argument from the equal or the lesser, St. Basil concludes from this passage the same of Ecclesiastical princes, namely that any laymen whatsoever ought to be subject to them in spiritual matters. Indeed Christ in Matthew 10:40: "He that heareth you heareth Me; he that despiseth you despiseth Me." And St. Paul, Hebrews 13:17: "Obey your prelates, and be subject to them. For they watch as being to render an account of your souls." And St. Paul's disciple St. Ignatius, epistle 9 to the Philadelphians: "Let princes obey Caesar, soldiers princes, Deacons the Presbyters; let Presbyters, Deacons and the rest of the Clergy together with all the people, soldiers, princes, and Caesar obey the Bishop himself, the Bishop Christ, as Christ obeyed the Father." Wherefore aptly St. Bernard, epistle 183 to the Emperor Conrad: "I have read: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; which sentence I desire that you keep in showing reverence to the vicar of Peter, as you wish it to be kept toward you by the whole Empire."
Politically learn here that the sign and effect of true faith is humility, subjection, obedience of subjects toward magistrates; but the effect of unbelief and heresy is pride, disobedience, rebellion, as we have seen by the Lutherans, and more by the Calvinists in Scotland, England, Germany. Indeed Luther, the parent of all these, by his rebellion and heresy through his disciples armed a hundred thousand peasants against the princes, and stirred up the peasants' war. On the other hand the Catholics for the first three hundred years obeyed the pagan Emperors, even persecutors, in all things except faith and religion; nor did anyone plot murder or rebellion against them under pretext of faith. Indeed the whole most valiant Theban legion, with St. Maurice as its leader, could have resisted Maximian; but it would not, and the whole legion, having laid down its arms, on bent knees allowed itself to be slaughtered for the cause of the faith. Even now many pagan princes among the Indians, Japanese and Chinese love and cherish the Christians and the Christian religion, because they see that the Christians obey them more than the pagans do.
The orthodox faith is the support of the commonwealth as much as of the Church, whose plague is infidelity and heresy. Whence Solon, the lawgiver of the Athenians, when asked, "By what means can a state hold together?" replied: "If the citizens obey their magistrates, and the magistrates the laws."
For God's sake. — First, because God sanctioned magistrates and commanded that they be obeyed. "For there is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God," Romans 13:1. Whence St. Peter immediately adds: "For so is the will of God." Secondly, because the king and prince is the living image of God on earth, and is as it were the vicar of God, indeed a sort of earthly god. Wherefore he who violates him, violates God. "And so he who resists the power, resists the ordinance of God," says Paul in Romans 13:2. Thirdly, because God Himself appoints individual kings and princes. Whence Tertullian to Scapula, chapter 2: "A Christian is the enemy of no one, much less of the Emperor, whom, knowing him to be appointed by his God, he must necessarily love, revere, and honor." Fourthly, Didymus and Oecumenius: "for God's sake," that is, in the manner which God prescribes; namely, that they be obeyed when they command nothing against God and God's law: for if they do command such things, one must say with St. Peter: "We ought to obey God rather than men," Acts 4:19; and with the Maccabee: "I do not obey the command of the king, but the command of the law," 2 Maccabees 7:30. For the king himself is subject to God, and must obey His law. This is what Christ ordained: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," Matthew 22:21. Fifthly, "for God's sake," that is, out of love and reverence for God be subject to the magistrates: obey them not as compelled by fear of their sword and vengeance, but willingly and freely out of love of God. Sixthly, "for God's sake," namely so that the Gentiles, seeing your obedience, may glorify your God, and may be drawn to the faith and worship of God. Seventhly, "for God's sake," so that kings and princes may remember that they are subject to God, and that they rule and command for His sake. Such was Constantine, Theodosius, Charlemagne, St. Louis in France, St. Stephen in Hungary, St. Leopold in Austria, St. Wenceslaus in Bohemia, St. Hermenegild in Spain, St. Henry in Germany, St. Casimir in Poland, who lavishly cherished and defended the Church and the Roman Pontiff.
Verse 14: Or to Governors as Sent by Him for the Punishment of Evildoers, but for the Praise of the Good
14. Or to governors. — The Zurich version: "or to presidents"; the Syriac: "to judges." For in Greek hegemones are called prefects, presidents, and other magistrates, who are dependent upon a higher authority and are as it were his vicars.
For the punishment of evildoers, but for the praise of the good (agathopoion, that is, of those acting rightly). — For this is the end of royal power and of every magistracy: namely, by punishing the wicked, to protect the upright; and so to preserve the civil society of men, which is accomplished through justice, by which reward is meted out to the good and punishment to the evil. Whence Socrates used to say: "States are best governed when the unjust pay penalties." Cicero, writing to Brutus, praises Solon's saying, who when asked, "By what means is a Republic best governed?" replied: "If the good are invited by rewards, and the wicked are restrained by punishments." Theophrastus, when asked, "What would preserve human life?" replied: "Beneficence, honor, and punishment." Cato used to say: "An injury, even if it brings no danger to the one committing it, is yet dangerous to all. Therefore magistrates who do not restrain evildoers should be stoned, lest neglect of punishment undermine the safety of the Republic." Hence the philosopher Archytas said that magistrates are like an altar to which those wronged may flee for refuge. Furthermore, rightly among the Egyptians the Pontiff, when praying publicly for the king, would beseech this for him among other things: "That he might inflict lighter punishments than offenses deserved, and render greater favors than benefits demanded."
Verse 15: For So Is the Will of God, That by Doing Well You May Put to Silence the Ignorance of Foolish Men
15. Whether to the king as excelling. — The Syriac: "to kings on account of their dominion." The excellence of the king therefore is his dominion and royal power: wherefore under the term "king" understand the Emperor, such as the one then at Rome, and absolute generals and princes who are subject to no one. For the king far excels his subjects in dignity and power, and ought also to excel them in wisdom, beneficence, and virtue. For he is as it were the sun in the kingdom. This was noted by Athalaric, king of the Goths, who in Cassiodorus speaks thus: "We owe so much the more to the divinity, as we have received greater things than other mortals; for what comparable thing can he render to God, who possesses an empire?"
For so is the will of God, that by doing well (agathopoiountes; or, "by bestowing benefits") you may put to silence (phimoun, that is, you may stop up, obstruct, plug) the ignorance of foolish (aphronon, that is, of the senseless; for, as St. Jerome says, "without knowledge of the Creator every man is a beast") men. — Syriac: "that by your good deeds you may stop up the mouth of those fools who do not know God." For, as Oecumenius says: "When they slander us as though we were arrogant, insolent, and disobedient, if they see us to be humble and obedient in those things wherein we ought to be, they are the more put to shame and silenced." St. Athanasius wisely warns: "Let us so guard ourselves against everything that can be feigned, as though it could also be believed, lest in any wound of our reputation there creep in a suspicion born from the occasion. Let the very seeds of rumor perish before they are nourished by tongues."
Verse 16: As Free, and Not as Having Liberty as a Cloak for Malice, but as Servants of God
16. As free, and not as having liberty as a cloak for malice. — The word "as" is not one of likening, but of asseverating, as if to say: Obey the princes freely and liberally as free and noble sons of Christ and of obedience. It is an anticipation: for it meets the objection: Christ has made us free: therefore we ought not to be subject to and serve any prince. Again: therefore it is lawful for us to do whatever we please. Thus the Gnostics formerly (and now the Libertines) used to abuse this Christian liberty for every disgrace and crime. St. Peter answers: You have been made free by Christ, but from sin, not from the law of God, nor from obedience to rulers: do not therefore use the liberty of Christ as a pretext for your disobedience, baseness, and malice: for this is not liberty, but the servitude of wickedness. The same warning St. Paul gave to the Galatians, 5:13: "You have been called unto liberty: only do not use liberty as an occasion for the flesh." For he also says in 2 Corinthians 3:17: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Moreover, as Oecumenius says: "If we sin, having lost liberty, we are made slaves of disobedience" and of sin. And St. Augustine, book On the Quantity of the Soul, chapter 34: "He (God) sets all free; whom to serve is most useful for all, and in whose service to please Him perfectly is the only liberty." The same, in Tractate 21 on John: "This is our hope, brothers, that we may be set free from the free man, and that by setting us free He may make us His servants. For we were slaves of cupidity; being set free, we are made slaves of charity."
But as servants of God — who freely and liberally serve and obey not only God, but also all magistrates, whom God has appointed as His vicars and our superiors: for to serve God is to reign.
Verse 17: Honor All Men: Love the Brotherhood, Fear God, Honor the King
17. Honor all men, — according to the state of each, and the honor due to him. This is what Paul says, Romans 12:10: "With honor preventing one another." Secondly, "honor," that is, follow up all men with the offices and benefits of charity. For honor includes not only reverence and obedience, but also love, sustenance, and every kind of help, as when it is said: "Honor thy father and mother," Exodus 20:12.
Love the brotherhood ("fraternitatem," that is, the brothers, namely the Christians; or rather, the assembly and union of brothers, that is of Christians). — For He commands not only union, but also that they love and frequent the assembly of the faithful and gathering for common prayers, sermons, and synaxes, according to that of Paul, Hebrews 10:23: "Not forsaking our assembly, as the manner of some is."
Fear God — not with a servile, but with a filial fear, by which sons out of love fear to offend their father, and diligently take care that they do nothing displeasing to Him. This fear is therefore as it were a tribute and debt proper to God, according to that of Psalm 2:11: "Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling." And Malachi 1:6: "If I am the Lord, where is My fear?" And Psalm 33:10: "Fear the Lord, all His Saints, for nothing is wanting to them that fear Him." As the Poet says: "Fear first made gods in the world." Hence Clement of Rome, epistle 1, says: theos is so called as if from deos, that is fear, because He is most to be feared, worshiped, and loved. So Jacob calls God "the fear of his father Isaac," that is, Him whom Isaac feared and worshiped, Genesis 31:42.
Honor the king — with the honor due to the king, that is to the supreme civil power. Honor here includes obedience and prayer, namely that subjects should pray for kings, as St. Paul commands in 1 Timothy 2; for it is most useful to pray for princes, both civil and ecclesiastical: for upon the former depends the welfare of the commonwealth, and upon the latter that of the Church. Whoever therefore prays for them prays for the whole commonwealth and Church. Tertullian wisely says in Scorpiace: "The King is to be honored when he confines himself to his own affairs, when he stands far from divine honors," when, namely, he turns away from those things which many kings have aspired to.
Verse 18: Servants, Be Subject to Your Masters With All Fear, Not Only to the Good and Gentle, but Also to the Froward
18. Servants, be subject in all fear to your masters. — First, Lyranus and Hugo: "in all," that is, with whole, full and perfect fear, which includes love. Secondly, "all," because fear is manifold, namely first, of punishment, lest they be punished by their masters if they are disobedient. Secondly, of fault, lest they offend God by disobedience. Thirdly, of scandal, lest by their disobedience they provoke their masters to hatred of the faith; "but in all things showing good faith, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things," says Paul to Titus 2:9. Paul gives the same precept to slaves at length in Ephesians 6:5. For this proverb was commonly bandied about: "We have as many enemies as we have slaves"; and Plato, in book 6 On the Laws, says that "Jupiter has taken away half their understanding from slaves."
Not only to the good and gentle (epieikesi, that is fair, modest, kind, upright, clement), but also to the froward, — that is, the ill-tempered, in Greek skoliois, that is depraved, crooked, twisted, rough, peevish, difficult, severe, and savage. Wrongly Hugo and the Gloss render "dyscolos" as one rustic, rude, unlearned: for in Greek the word is Dyskolos, and it signifies a peevish and difficult man, who creates weariness and disgust both for himself and for others.
Morally St. Peter here teaches that obedience ought to extend itself to patience, and embrace it, just as Christ extended it, having been made obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross; therefore the perfection of obedience is patience, if namely one bears humbly and cheerfully the harshness of one's Superiors, their rebukes, scoldings, even threats and blows. For patience and humility, and humble obedience are the two wings by which one flies up to heaven, as one of the Saints says. Cassian, Collations 19, celebrates the obedience and patience of a certain religious, who being publicly struck on the cheek by Abbot Paul in the assembly of the brothers, gave no sign of disturbance, much less of grumbling. St. Stephen, says St. Gregory, had grown to such patience that he would call him a friend who had inflicted any annoyance upon him. "He returned thanks for insults, considered damage inflicted upon him as the greatest gain, and esteemed all his adversaries as nothing other than helpers." The same praises Libertinus, who having had a footstool dashed in his face by his angry Abbot, bore it swollen and livid, and said that this was his own fault, not the Abbot's cruelty: and so he led the Abbot to great gentleness, and "the humility of the disciple became the teacher of the master." Similar was the obedience and patience of St. John Damascene, who being rejected by his elder for a poem he had composed, and ordered to clean the sewers and latrines, did so cheerfully. Thus St. Monica, called a wine-bibber by a maidservant, renounced from herself every desire for wine, and "the maidservant's insult became the mistress's medicine," says St. Augustine, book 9 of Confessions. Catherine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII King of the English, being repudiated by him, bore the repudiation steadfastly, saying that she preferred a most sad fortune to a most flattering one: because in the former consolation is not lacking, while the latter robs the fortunate of their wits.
Verse 19: For This Is Thankworthy, if for Conscience Toward God a Man Endures Sorrows, Suffering Wrongfully
19. For this is thankworthy (literally, grace). — As if to say, This is an illustrious effect of divine grace, or this is very pleasing to God. Whence the Syriac translates: "for they have grace with God." Or thirdly, and more vigorously, as if to say, This is grace, that is, your glory. Whence explaining he adds: "For what glory is it." So Paul says it is his glory not to evangelize: for to this the necessity of God's precept obliged him; but to evangelize without cost, that is gratis: for this was a liberal and illustrious work of supererogation and counsel, not of precept, 1 Corinthians 9:16. The sense therefore is, as if to say: This is the glory of the Christian, in this consists exceptional Christian virtue and perfection, this is the illustrious office, praise and honor of Christ's disciples, if for God's sake they suffer many sad things.
If for conscience toward God anyone endures sorrows. — You will ask, what is the conscience of God? I answer first, it is conscience according to God, by which a man studies and strives to please God alone, even with the offense of men, and therefore that he may please God, he patiently endures the harsh manners of his master and obeys his harsh commands. For he does this so as to satisfy his own conscience and God: for conscience dictates that such men should be obeyed for God's sake, who has commanded that subjects should obey their masters. This conscience is called God's, both because it is most approved of and pleasing to God, and because it is undertaken for God's sake: for St. Peter is speaking of slaves, whom he commanded to obey their masters, even the froward. Secondly, Gagneius: "for the conscience of God," that is, for God's sake, who is conscious of your patience and of your masters' cruelty and wickedness, and will be the judge and avenger of both, that He may crown your obedience and patience with heavenly rewards, and punish your master's cruelty with the flames of Gehenna. Therefore the conscience of God is that which is open to God alone, "to whom," as Seneca says in epistle 8, "nothing is closed. For He is present to our souls, and comes between our intervening thoughts." The conscience of God therefore is innocence before God, as St. Peter explains by Christ's example in verse 22, which in hardships is a wall of bronze, namely when innocent servants, who have committed no sin, are punished by perverse masters. For these, since they are not punished for fault which they have not committed, are surely punished for their innocence. For the greatest consolation and glory is the testimony of a good conscience, says the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 1:8 and following. Thirdly, the conscience of God is that which looks to the honor and glory of God alone. Fourthly and most perfectly: many slaves of old, having become Christians, were punished by infidel masters out of hatred for Christ and the faith with scourgings, blows, chains, hunger, and often death and martyrdom: these clearly and fully suffered for the conscience of God.
Endures sorrows, — that is, sad and bitter things: in Greek lypas, that is, troubles, pains, sorrows, griefs; for every trouble and pain begets sorrow. For sorrow is sickness and a contraction of the soul on account of present evil. On the occasion of slaves afflicted by harsh masters, St. Peter says these things, but his discourse is general, and therefore pertains to all who suffer innocently in any way, and animates and consoles them to bear bravely.
Suffering wrongfully, — because he is innocent, and much more if he suffers for righteousness.
Verse 20: For What Glory Is It if Sinning and Being Buffeted You Bear It? But if Doing Well You Suffer Patiently, This Is Grace Before God
20. For what glory is it? — Poion kleos, that is, what kind of honor, what kind of praise, what is illustrious, what is great. Tertullian in Scorpiace, chapter 12: "How great is the glory?" as if to say, Small or no glory is it to bear blows and stripes for crime; but great is it to bear them for innocence and righteousness.
Buffeted. — This is the penalty proper to slaves: for upon these masters strike slaps or buffets either on the face or on the back. Whence that line in Terence's Adelphi: "To a wretched man, he broke more than five hundred buffets upon me." Hence buffets were inflicted on the Martyrs, even noble ones, e.g. on St. Symphorosa, St. Torpetus, courtier of Nero, St. Marcellinus, and others, both as a punishment, and still more for insult, that they might be chastised as it were slaves with a servile penalty.
But if doing well. — The Greek adds, kai paschontes, that is, "and suffering," which our Interpreter rendered by an adverb, but with the same sense, translating: "you bear patiently, this is grace with God." The Syriac: "then your glory grows with God."
Verse 21: For Unto This Are You Called, Because Christ Also Suffered for Us, Leaving You an Example That You Should Follow His Steps
21. For unto this you are called. — "Unto this," for this purpose, as if to say: The vocation of Christians is to the cross and patience, according to that of Lamentations 3:12: "He hath set me as a mark for the arrow; He hath sent into my reins the daughters of His quiver." Where I have shown that any Christian is as it were another St. Sebastian, set namely as the target of archers, at whom all aim and shoot the darts of their slander and malice.
Because Christ also suffered for us. — It is an argument from Christ's example, as if to say: Do not wonder, O Christians, that you are called to the cross: for Christ also, your leader and standard-bearer, was called to the same, and bore it on His own shoulders, and was hung and slain upon it. Come then, follow Christ as your leader cheerfully and fearlessly: for through the cross with Him you will enter into glory.
To you, — O servants. He speaks directly to servants, but through these to all others. He therefore proposes Christ to servants as a leader, because Christ took on the form of a servant, and like a servant and worthless slave was condemned to the gibbet. "Look and do according to the pattern that was shown to thee on the mountain" of Calvary by Christ, Exodus 25:40. St. Cyprian splendidly, in tract On the Passion: "Christ, having laid aside fear, as if using a more powerful authority, amid spittle and buffets, and the other mockeries, by His patience and gentleness troubles the senseless minds of the persecutors, and by the very fact that He feels Himself despised by Jewish malice amid injuries and revilings, He is more vehemently provoked, and Christ's sweetness and piety triumphs over impiety and malice."
Leaving an example. — For Christ came into the world for three reasons: first, that by His death He might redeem us; secondly, that by His preaching He might teach us; thirdly, that by His life He might give us an example of holy life, indeed a most perfect exemplar. This is no doubt the duty of the prince and superior, to set forth his own life to his subjects as a painted tablet of virtue, which by imitating they may follow and express. Hence St. Basil calls Christ our exemplar, type, archetype, and program: the more we gaze upon Him, and express Him in life and morals, the more we become like Christ, holier, and more pleasing to God. St. Augustine excellently: "He taught us by the example of His passion, with how much patience we should walk in Him, and confirmed us by the example of His resurrection, what we ought patiently to hope from it." And St. Leo, sermon 2 On the Passion: "Let us embrace the wondrous Sacrament of the saving Pasch, and let us be renewed to the image of Him who was made conformable to our deformity. Let us be raised up to Him who made the dust of our abjection the body of His glory; and that we may merit to be partakers of His resurrection, let us in all things conform to His humility and patience."
That you should follow (Tertullian, Scorpiace ch. 12, reads "obey") His footsteps — marked with His blood, and therefore easy to find, plain, and certain. Thus St. Stephen followed in Christ's footsteps by suffering and by praying for those stoning him, says St. Augustine.
Let the soft heretics note this, who wish to follow Christ's faith, not the footsteps of the passion, saying that faith alone in Christ suffices for salvation. Let them hear what St. Peter here thunders, and after him St. Gregory on 1 Kings 9:24: "It remained, because Christ has not fulfilled all our things: by His cross indeed He redeemed all; but it remained that whoever strives to be redeemed and to reign with Him, must be crucified." This residue surely he had seen, who said: "If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him," 2 Timothy 2:12; and: "I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh," Colossians 1:24. For granted that Christ by suffering paid the full price of our redemption, yet He wishes us also to suffer, both because God wishes us to follow Christ as our leader given by Him; and because it is not fitting that under a head crowned with thorns the members should be delicate, says St. Jerome, but rather it is fitting that the members be conformed to the head, "that we be conformed to the image of the Son of God," says Paul to the Romans 8:29.
Verse 22: Who Did No Sin, Neither Was Guile Found in His Mouth
22. Who did no sin — because His humanity, hypostatically joined to the Word, was so guarded and directed by Him that He could not sin. For if this man (namely Christ) had sinned, the Word would also have sinned, which was His hypostasis and supposit. For actions belong to supposits, and originally proceed from supposits. Thus the Theologians, and among them Suarez. Wherefore the blasphemy of Calvin is horrendous, who says that Christ was truly a sinner and guilty of damnation, that out of fear of the passion He fled the cup, and despaired on the cross. Far otherwise does Paul call Christ, "a Pontiff innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners," Hebrews 7:26; and: "He who knew no sin, for us was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him," 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Here St. Peter declares what he had called, in verse 19, "to suffer for the conscience of God," namely to suffer for innocence, that is, to suffer as innocent. For so Christ, who did no sin, suffered as innocent, because He said that He was the Son of God, which was no falsehood nor fault of blasphemy, but a confession of truth and innocence.
Nor was guile found in His mouth, — even by the Scribes and Pharisees, who were striving to catch Him in His speech, that they might accuse and kill Him, Matthew 22:13. St. Peter cites Isaiah 53:8, which entire chapter is about Christ's passion, lamb-like patience, obedience, and innocence. "As a sheep He shall be led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearer He shall be silent, and shall not open His mouth."
Verse 23: Who When He Was Reviled, Did Not Revile; When He Suffered, He Threatened Not, but Delivered Himself to Him Who Judged Him Unjustly
23. Who when He was reviled (called a wine-bibber; a Samaritan, possessed by a demon, seditious, an enemy of Caesar, a subverter of the nation), did not revile, — ouk anteloidorei, did not revile in return, as St. Jerome reads, as if to say: Christ did not return like for like, did not weigh curse against curse, did not in turn curse those cursing Him, but kept the deepest silence, so that Pilate marveled. Which was a sign of a soul not only innocent, but also lofty. Nay, He commanded His disciples: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who calumniate you." And: "To him who strikes thee on one cheek, offer also the other," Luke 6:28. How great here in Christ are innocence, patience, charity, loftiness of soul! The Greek adds: "When He was struck He did not strike back, when He was reviled He did not revile in return, when He suffered He did not threaten." For although He often threatened the Jews and Scribes with the woe of eternal malediction, and the judgment of God both in life and in death, as in Matthew 23, yet He did not do this for His own sake, nor out of impatience or appetite for vengeance, but for their sake and out of charity, namely that by announcing to the wicked the divine wrath and eternal fires, He might call them away from wickedness and hell.
Hence aptly St. Ambrose paints the Christian thus on Psalm 37: "To His (Christ's) likeness and image the just man, desiring to form the institutions of his life, when accused is silent, when injured forgives, when provoked dissembles, and does not open his mouth, that we may imitate Him who, like a lamb led to the victim, did not open His mouth; so that when he might have something to reply, he prefers to be silent rather than to speak." An illustrious example of this virtue was recently given by the most illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine, who, when by a certain rival he was carped at and refuted in nearly all his opinions, and that constantly, was continually silent; and when others wondered and asked why he did not defend himself, he replied: "Better is an ounce of charity and peace than a pound of victory."
But He delivered Himself to Him who judged (Pilate) unjustly, — both because innocent He was condemned by him, and Pilate acknowledged this innocence, when washing his hands he said: "I am innocent of the blood of this just man, see you to it," Matthew 27:24. Whence St. Leo, sermon 3 On the Passion: "With washed hands, and polluted mouth, with the same lips he sent Jesus to the cross with which he had pronounced Him innocent." Also because Christ even as man, inasmuch as He was hypostatically united to the Word, was subject neither to Pilate nor to any prince or judge, but He Himself was the judge and prince of all. The Greek codices read on the contrary: "But He delivered Himself to Him who judges justly." Whence the Syriac: "He delivered His judgment to the judge of righteousness," namely "to God the Word indwelling in Himself," says Oecumenius, or rather to God the Father. First, as if to say: Christ did not avenge His own cause and injury, but left its vengeance to God the Father, according to that: "Vengeance is mine: I will repay, says the Lord," Romans 12:19. Secondly, as if to say: Christ commended His persecutors, torturers, and executioners to God the Father, by praying for them and saying: "Father, forgive them: for they do not know what they do," Luke 23:34. Thirdly, and more aptly and genuinely, as if to say: Christ like a lamb of His own accord and freely delivered Himself to God the Father unto death and the cross, so as to obey Him, and that by obeying, suffering, and dying He might satisfy for the sins of all men, and reconcile them to Him: and so He gave us an example, that when we are unjustly afflicted by men, we should not look to their injustice and grow angry with them, but receive these things from the hand of God justly judging, saying with St. Job: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." But our Latin reading is truer and more apt. This is what Christ says, Jeremiah 11:19: "And I was as a meek lamb that is carried to be a victim; and I did not know that they had devised counsels against me, saying: Let us put wood into his bread, and let us root him out of the land of the living." And Isaiah 50:6: "I have given My body to the strikers, and My cheeks to those who plucked them."
Wherefore for bearing whatever injuries, calumnies, reproaches, mockeries, contradictions, slights, troubles, pains, and hardships, the most efficacious remedy, "and singular refuge," says St. Bernard, sermon 22 on the Canticle, is the passion of Christ, if it be attentively ruminated upon and invoked. Thus did St. Elzear, count of Ariano. For when asked how he had attained such great gentleness and patience of soul, he replied: "Through meditation on the passion of Christ. As often as I feel any disturbance of soul toward anger or impatience, I think of Christ's passion and patience, nor do I cease from thinking and ruminating upon it, until through it every fervor and disturbance of soul subsides." St. Francis Xavier daily meditated for at least half an hour on the passion of Christ. Abbot Stephen in the Spiritual Meadow: "By day and night I look on nothing else than our Lord Jesus Christ hanging upon the wood." The same did St. Augustine. For thus he speaks in the Manual: "Safe and firm rest there is for the weak and for sinners in the wounds of the Savior; there I dwell secure, His inmost parts lie open to me through His wounds. Whatever is lacking in me from myself, I take for myself from the inmost parts of my Lord, since they overflow with mercy. When some shameful thought assails me, I run to the wounds of Christ. When my flesh oppresses me, I rise again by the remembrance of the wounds of my Lord. When the devil prepares snares for me, I flee to the inmost parts of the mercy of my Lord. In all adversities I have found no remedy so effective as the wounds of Christ; in them I sleep secure, and rest fearless: Christ died for us. Nothing is so bitter unto death that it is not healed by the death of Christ. My whole hope is in the death of my Lord. His death is my merit, my refuge, salvation, life, and my resurrection."
Verse 24: Who His Own Self Bore Our Sins in His Body Upon the Tree, That We, Being Dead to Sins, Should Live to Justice; by Whose Stripes You Were Healed
24. Who Himself bore our sins in His body upon the tree of the cross, as a scapegoat, on which the Hebrews would lay all their sins, Leviticus 16:21. The Syriac: "He bore all our sins, and took them up in His body to the cross." Athanasius: "Carrying our sins to the cross together with His own body." He alludes to Isaiah 53:4: "Surely He hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows." Our sins — that is, the punishments owed for our sins: it is metonymy. For the guilt is put for the punishment due for guilt, as the wage for the work. This is what Paul says in Colossians 2:14: "Blotting out the handwriting of the decree which was against us, fastening it to the cross." "For this handwriting," says Origen, homily 13 on Genesis, "was the bond of our sins. For each of us, in the things in which he offends, becomes a debtor, and writes the document of his sin." Again St. Peter signifies here that Christ has fastened our sins to the cross with Himself and crucified them, that being dead to them we may live to righteousness. Hence Clement of Alexandria: "As a boundary of sin and as it were a limit to sinning, we have the cross of the Lord, to which we are crucified, and from our former sins we are restrained." And Origen, homily 8 on Joshua: "Visibly indeed the Son of God was crucified in the flesh, but invisibly on that cross the devil with his principalities and powers was fastened to the cross. That cross was a trophy of the devil, on which he was both crucified and triumphed over." For on the cross Christ, "despoiling the principalities and powers," as Paul says, Colossians 2:14, "led them confidently in open triumph in Himself."
Hence in the third place, "From the wood God reigned," Psalm 95:10 according to the Septuagint, as St. Justin cites it Against Trypho. For Christ won for Himself by the cross the victory and the kingdom of the whole world. "For the government is upon His shoulder," Isaiah 9:6. "For the dominion of the Lord and His kingdom is the cross," says Theophylact on Luke 23. The cross therefore was the triumphal chariot of Christ: whence St. Augustine in wonder, treatise 117 on John: "A great spectacle, but if impiety beholds it, a great mockery; if piety beholds it, a great mystery. If impiety beholds it, it sees a king carrying for the scepter of His kingdom the wood of His punishment; if piety beholds it, it sees a king bearing the wood which He was about to set even on the foreheads of kings."
St. Clare, after the example of her master St. Francis, continually gazed with the eyes of her mind upon Christ crucified, and so was inflamed to contempt of the world, desire of the cross, poverty, divine love, and every perfection. She taught the novices to lament over Christ crucified. She wore against her flesh a cord of thirteen knots in memory of the wounds of Christ. Well known is what St. Bonaventure writes On the Stigmata of St. Francis, impressed upon him by Christ as he meditated on Christ's passion. St. Colette was so frequent and intent in meditation on the passion of Christ that she was carried out of herself and transformed into God by most ardent desire and love, especially on Fridays. Like her was Lydwina, who, dwelling continually in the garden of the passion, drew sighs from her heart and poured out showers of tears from her eyes, and through thirty-three years afflicted by continual sicknesses and sharp sufferings, with the highest patience conformed herself to the suffering Christ. Of all these the leader was St. Mary Magdalene, who alone, while almost all the others fled away in fear, stood firmly by the suffering Christ even unto death, indeed even unto the resurrection. Thus St. Elizabeth, daughter of the king of the Hungarians, gazing more intently upon the image of Christ crucified, was so pricked with compunction that, bursting into tears, she said to herself: "Behold, my creator and redeemer, with naked body, for my sake meets an ignominious death upon the cross: but I, wretched, covered with gems, gold, fine linen, and purple, am wasting rather than living a life unworthy of heavenly benefits."
That we may live to righteousness. — Wherefore St. Ambrose exclaims: "O divine sacrament of that cross, in which weakness clings, strength is free, vices are nailed up, trophies are erected!" Hence he concludes: "Therefore do you also crucify sin, that you may die to sin. For he who dies to sin lives to God. Let us live to Him who did not spare His own Son, that in His body He might crucify our passions. For Christ died for us, that we might live in His body restored to life. There has died therefore in Him not our life, but our guilt." And St. Bernard, epistle 105 to Romanus: "The just man dies, but securely: indeed, whose death, as it is the departure from the present life, so is it the entrance into a better one. A good death, if you die to sin that you may live to righteousness. While you live in the flesh, die to the world, that after the death of the flesh you may begin to live to God."
By whose bruise — in Greek molopi, that is wound, weal, blow — you were healed. — For the body of Christ in the passion was so beaten, torn, and made livid by scourges and blows, that it all seemed to be one bruise, indeed leprosy, as Isaiah says, chapter 53. Piously St. Ambrose, book On the Holy Spirit: "The wound of Christ is our medicine." The same on chapter 22 of Luke: "You grieve therefore, Lord, not Your own wounds but mine; not Your death but our weakness; and we esteemed You to be in sorrows, when You grieved not for Yourself but for me, and by Your bruise You healed our wounds." Just as the bird called icterus heals jaundice patients because it draws the disease into itself and dies of it. So Christ, drawing the diseases of our soul into Himself, was put to death by them, and we were made alive.
Verse 25: For You Were as Sheep Going Astray; but You Are Now Converted to the Shepherd and Bishop of Your Souls
25. For you were as sheep going astray. — He stirs up the faithful to humility and gratitude, namely that they may consider that they were sheep wandering away from God, from virtue, from salvation, and from heaven, and rushing to the devil, to crimes, to damnation, and to hell, but recalled by Christ the shepherd, brought back, and set on the straight road to salvation. Therefore let them give immense thanks to Christ their shepherd. He alludes to Isaiah 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." And Psalm 118, last verse: "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost: seek Your servant, O Lord." And to the parable of the shepherd who, leaving the ninety-nine sheep, sought the hundredth that had wandered, and when he had found it, laid it on his shoulders and brought it back to the fold, Luke 15:4. Hence at Rome in the Basilica of the Lateran and in other churches, Christ is often painted as a shepherd among the sheep, carrying the lost sheep on His shoulders and bringing it back to the fold. Whence St. Leo, sermon 18 On the Passion, contrasting Christ with Adam: "The former by the desire of pride made his way to misery, the latter by the strength of humility prepared the way to glory."
Note: Aptly are sinning men compared to wandering sheep: First, because the sheep is a simple and gentle animal: so too is man. Second, sheep are afflicted with as many diseases as men. Third, sheep ruminate and dream equally with men. Fourth, the sheep is a social animal: so too is man. Fifth, sheep live for a short time: so also are men of brief age. Sixth, for each fold single leaders are appointed: so the various commonwealths, cities, and gatherings of men have their rulers. Seventh, the sheep is a gregarious animal: so too is man. Eighth, the sheep easily strays and wanders: so too does man. As Aristotle says: "The kind of sheep is mindless and, as it is wont to be said, of the most foolish habits." Ninth, the sheep often gives birth to a monster: so too does man. Tenth: the wandering sheep becomes prey to the wolf: so the sinning man to the devil; dogs ward off the wolf: so preachers ward off the devil.
But you are now converted, — not by yourselves, but by Christ calling and drawing you to Himself by His grace, according to that of John 6:44: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him"; and that of Paul: "It is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish," Philippians 2:13; and that of the Psalmist, Psalm 58:11: "His mercy shall go before me"; and that: "Convert us, O Lord, to You, and we shall be converted," Lamentations 5:21; and that of Jeremiah 31:18: "You have chastised me, and I was instructed as an untamed bullock: convert me, and I shall be converted, for You are the Lord my God. For after You converted me, I did penance."
To the shepherd and bishop of your souls, — namely Christ, according to that of Christ: "I am the good shepherd," John 10:11; and that of Isaiah 40:11: "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd, He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and shall carry them in His bosom, and shall Himself bear those that are with young"; and Ezekiel 34:23: "I will set up over them one Shepherd, who shall feed them, My servant David: He shall feed them, and He shall be a Shepherd to them." Some by "Shepherd" understand a king. For thus by Homer the king Agamemnon is called "Shepherd of the peoples," and David by Ezekiel is called Shepherd: because what a shepherd is in a flock, this a king ought to be among a people. Christ therefore is shepherd, that is, king of souls, because He reigns in them by faith and grace, and governs them and directs them to glory and the eternal kingdom, according to that of Psalm 22:1: "The Lord rules me, and nothing shall be wanting to me; in a place of pasture, there He has set me." Thus Christ, in Apocalypse 19:16, is called "King of kings and Lord of lords." Hence Christ, coming into the world, first called to His crib through the angels the shepherds of sheep, and the Magi kings, who were shepherds of peoples, through the star. Hence also in the Echinades islands a voice was heard, when Christ was dying, that great Pan was dead. For Pan was the god of Shepherds. And such was Christ.
And bishop of your souls. — He is Himself bishop also of bodies, inasmuch as the welfare of bodies is ordered to the salvation of souls. Christ therefore is bishop, watcher, superintendent, ruling, guarding, directing souls as His sheep into eternal life. Hence let Bishops learn that their office is not to attend to their own conveniences and honors, but to the salvation of souls, as St. Bernard teaches, book 2 to Eugenius, chapter 6: "Is the chair set up? It is a watchtower: from there in fine you superintend; with the name of Bishop sounding upon you, not dominion, but duty." Excellently St. Epiphanius, heresy 55, shows that Christ is Shepherd and Bishop. "Who offered Himself for the whole world, Himself the victim, Himself the sacrifice, Himself the priest, Himself the altar, Himself God, Himself man, Himself king, Himself pontiff, Himself sheep, Himself lamb, made all things in all for us, that He might be life for us in every way, and might make the immutable firmament of His priesthood unto the ages." Indeed He is Shepherd in such wise that He feeds us His sheep with His own flesh, and gives us His own blood to drink in the Eucharist. Wherefore rightly St. Eucherius: "It is most imprudent, that, when God has done so many things for us, we ourselves have done nothing for ourselves."
To Him therefore as the most loving, most vigilant, most powerful Shepherd of our soul let us continually sing with St. Thomas and the whole Church on the feast of Corpus Christi: "Good Shepherd, true Bread, Jesus, have mercy on us: feed us, defend us, make us see good things in the land of the living. You who know and can do all things, who feed us here, mortals, there make us Your fellow-banqueters, co-heirs and companions of the holy citizens." Good Jesus, my one soul, as Your little sheep, with my whole heart I commit to You: it is Yours, for it is bought by Your blood: do You rule and keep her: direct her by straight paths which hold no scandal of sin, to the harbor of eternal salvation. I say with St. Gregory Nazianzen: "To You alone, alone I am left, O Christ. In You is placed all my strength; in You is the whole confidence of salvation."
Let Bishops and Pastors therefore continually look upon Christ as the prince of Pastors, and from Him let them learn how great a care of souls they ought to bear, that they may be likened to Christ: for they have taken upon themselves His burden and office, as His vicars. So St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocaesarea, bore the care of his own, who brought over almost all his fellow-citizens from unbelief to the faith of Christ. Wherefore as he was dying, when he had asked how many in the city remained unbelievers, and he was answered that only seventeen remained, giving thanks to God he said: "There were just so many who were faithful when I undertook the episcopate." Like him was St. Gregory the Great, pontiff, in whom how great was the zeal of souls is plain from his many and so unceasing epistles, homilies, cares, and deeds. Hence he himself, book 2, epistle 25 to John Bishop of Squillace: "We admonish your brotherhood, to watch carefully over the souls committed to you, and to attend more to the gains of souls than to the conveniences of the present life."