Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He exhorts the faithful that, renouncing the former luxuries and desires of paganism, they conform themselves to Christ who has suffered, and live for God alone: whence, in verse 7, he exhorts them to the practice of prayer, mutual love, hospitality, and the promotion of the glory of God. Finally, from verse 12 to the end, he exhorts them to endurance and magnanimity, that with Christ and for Christ they may sustain whatever persecutions and afflictions with a steadfast and brave spirit.
Vulgate Text: 1 Peter 4:1-19
1. Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sins, 2. that now he may live the rest of his time in the flesh, not after the desires of men, but according to the will of God. 3. For the time past is sufficient to have fulfilled the will of the Gentiles, for them who have walked in riotousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and unlawful worshippings of idols. 4. Wherein they think it strange that you run not with them into the same confusion of riotousness, speaking evil of you. 5. Who shall render account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6. For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to the dead: that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but may live according to God in the Spirit. 7. But the end of all is at hand. Be prudent therefore, and watch in prayers. 8. But before all things have a constant mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covereth a multitude of sins. 9. Using hospitality one toward another, without murmuring. 10. As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another: as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11. If any man speak, let him speak as the words of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the power which God administereth: that in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ: to whom is glory and empire forever and ever. Amen. 12. Dearly beloved, think not strange the burning heat which is to try you, as if some new thing happened to you: 13. but if you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice, that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. 14. If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honor, glory, and power of God, and that which is His Spirit, resteth upon you. 15. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a railer, or a coveter of other men's things. 16. But if as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17. For the time is, that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if first at us, what shall be the end of them that believe not the gospel of God? 18. And if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 19. Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commend their souls in good deeds to the faithful Creator.
Verse 1: Christ Therefore Having Suffered in the Flesh, Be You Also Armed With the Same Thought
1. Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh; be you also armed with the same thought. — The word therefore signifies that these things are inferred and concluded from what he said in the preceding chapter, verse 18: "Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that He might offer us to God." From this he rightly concludes: Therefore conform yourselves also to Christ who suffered for you, and arm yourselves with the same thought, that with Christ crucified you may likewise crucify your vices, preserve the justice received from Him, and not return to your former injustice; but present and offer yourselves to God as just and holy, lest you make void His passion and labors, and lest He should have died gratuitously and in vain for you.
Excellently does St. Bernard say in sermon 3 on the Nativity of the Lord: "I," he says, "was playing outside in the street, and in the secret of the royal chamber a sentence of death was being passed over me. His Only-Begotten heard this, came forth, having laid aside His diadem, clothed in sackcloth, His head sprinkled with ashes, with bare feet, weeping and wailing because His little servant had been condemned to death. I gaze upon Him suddenly coming forth, I am amazed at the novelty, I inquire the cause and listen. What shall I do? Shall I still play, and mock His tears? Surely if I am insane and lacking my mind, I shall not follow Him, nor mourn together with Him who mourns;" and shortly after: "Know, O man, how grievous are the wounds for which it was necessary for the Lord Christ to be wounded: if these were not unto death, and eternal death, the Son of God would never have died for their remedy." By His blood, then, Christ abolished vices, and bought virtues for us, that we may preserve, increase, and perfect them with all zeal, labor, and effort.
Note: The phrase "in the flesh" signifies, first, that Christ suffered only in this life while He was in mortal flesh, not after death when He descended to the lower regions, as Calvin blasphemously says, asserting that Christ bore the punishments of the damned, that He might take upon Himself and pay for our condemnation. Secondly, that most of His sufferings, such as those of stripes, scourges, spittings, thorns, and nails, were in the flesh. Thirdly, by "flesh" he understands by synecdoche the soul that is passible, capable of, and subject to sufferings. For he alludes to that saying of Christ in the garden, beginning His passion with sadness: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," Matthew 26:41. Opposing flesh therefore to spirit, under it and by it he understands the soul, both the sensitive — for this felt the pains in the flesh, not the flesh itself. Hence St. Augustine, in his book On Faith and Works, ch. 10, reads: "Christ having suffered through the flesh"; — and also the rational soul, namely its lower appetite, which looks to the good and convenience of nature or person, and feels and grieves over its discomforts, troubles, and pains. Hence concerning it the Apostle says: "The flesh," that is, the carnal soul and appetite, "lusteth against the spirit," Galatians 5:17; for the greater of Christ's sufferings were in the sensitive soul, the greatest in the rational soul and appetite. For in this He conceived an immense grief for the sins of every individual man, because they so greatly offend God, so that by this act of grief and contrition He might satisfy God for them; in this also He grieved intensely over the malice and ingratitude of men, that so many were going to despise His passion and grace, and willingly rush into hell. Hence fourthly, by "flesh" take synecdochically the whole humanity: for this he opposes to the divinity; for some heretics, like Eutyches with his followers, taught that the divinity of Christ also suffered, just like the humanity. So St. Fulgentius, book 3 to Thrasimund, ch. 9: "Therefore," he says, "he confesses that Christ suffered in the flesh, whose divinity he knew to remain altogether impassible." So in John 1:14 it is said: "The Word was made flesh"; flesh, that is, man consisting of flesh and soul. Hence from this passage the Fathers teach, first, against Nestorius, that there were not two persons in Christ but one, namely that of the Word; secondly, against Eutyches, that there were two natures in Christ, the divine and the human, plainly unconfused and unmingled, distinct and separate, in that one was impassible, the other passible. So the Council of Seville, ch. 13; Theodoret, Dialogue ch. 3; Irenaeus, book 3, ch. 20; Gelasius, book On the Two Natures, and others.
Note secondly, for "be ye armed with the same thought," St. Jerome (book 1 Against Jovinian) reads, or rather explains, "be ye armed with the same conduct." In Greek it is tēn autēn ennoian hoplisasthe, that is, "arm yourselves with the same thought," that is, put on as armor, and arm yourselves therewith. Oecumenius, Pagninus, and the Zurich version, supplying kata, render: "according to the same thought arm yourselves." By "thought" understand first consideration, estimation, reasoning, as if to say: Since Christ has suffered so much for you, consider, weigh, and conclude how much you ought to do and to suffer for Him — nay, for yourselves — namely for the flight of sin and the pursuit of virtue, which by His passion He has procured for you. This is what Paul exhorts: "Think diligently upon Him that endured such opposition from sinners against Himself, that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds. For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin," Hebrews 12:2.
Secondly, "with the same thought," that is, with a like resolution, decree of mind, and purpose, arm yourselves: so Vatablus. Thus St. Paul, exhorting the Philippians (ch. 2, v. 3) to humility and mutual love, uses the same incentive: "Have this mind in you," he says, "which was also in Christ Jesus," that is, put on this disposition of mind, this purpose, which you behold in Christ, "who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man." The sense is, as if to say: Since Christ has so resolutely and nobly suffered and was crucified for you, that He might crucify your sins and vices, do you likewise crucify them in yourselves with a like resolution of mind and effective purpose, even if it is done with suffering and pain. Again, after the example of Christ, bear bravely and nobly all the adversities and bitter things which occur very many in this life. So Paul says, Romans 6:6: "Our old man (with Christ crucified) is crucified together with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, and that we may serve sin no longer."
And Galatians 2:19: "For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I may live to God. With Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me."
St. Peter and St. Paul therefore teach that not only Religious, as Cassian beautifully shows, book 4 of the Institutes, chapters 34 and 35; but all Christians, with the crucified Christ, ought to be crucified to the world and to its pomps and vices, so much so that Christianity is the image of the cross, and the whole life of a true Christian should bear that figure and likeness which Christ had when nailed to the cross. For first, just as he who is hung on the cross cannot move his hands and limbs at will, but has them fastened to the wood: so the Christian cannot move himself and his limbs at will, but ought to conform and as it were fasten them to the law of God and of Christ. Secondly, as he who is nailed to the cross is constantly tortured by his cross: so the law of Christ constantly tortures the senses and the flesh, as repugnant to its desires and concupiscences, commanding them to be mortified and cut off. Thirdly, as the man hung up does not care about people passing by, spectacles, pomps, delights: so the Christian ought not to care about these things, nor fasten his heart to them. Fourthly, the man hung up is not anxious about tomorrow, nor is held by any greed for money or possessions: let the Christian do the same. Fifthly, the man hung up, though breathing in body, is yet by care and thought dead to all things, and only thinks of those things to which he hopes shortly to depart: so also the Christian must be dead in affection not only to vices and concupiscences, but to the very elements of the world and to all things, and turn his whole heart to God and heaven, whither he hopes at every moment to arrive: hence it will come about that, dead to the acts and desires of the world, he no longer lives himself, but Christ lives in him, who was crucified for him.
Note thirdly: The phrase "be ye armed," first, can be taken generally for "put on, equip": for thus garments and any sort of instruments are sometimes called arms. Secondly, however, properly and more forcibly, take "be ye armed" for "arm yourselves, equip yourselves with arms." This word implies first, that the life of man, especially of a Christian, is nothing else than a warfare, as Job 14:1 says, in which there is continuous wrestling and contending against the devil, the flesh, and the world. Secondly, that the full armor (panoply) of Christ was His Passion and cross: for with this He overcame sin, death, hell, and the devil. Hence symbolically Thomas the Englishman notes that Christ on the cross was like an armed knight: for the crown of thorns was His helmet, His flesh His breastplate, the nails His sword, the cross His horse. Thirdly, that the panoply likewise of every Christian is the Passion and cross of Christ, and the thought, memory, consideration, and invocation of it: for the Christian must use and fight with the same arms which Christ used and fought with. Wherefore there is no more effective weapon or shield for resisting the temptation of the devil, the flesh, and the world, than the thought of Christ crucified, as I taught in chapter 2, verse 21, and chapter 3, verse 18. See also the panoply of the Christian from head to heel, which I described from the Apostle in Ephesians 6:13.
As a symbol of this thing, in the Sacrament of Confirmation we are signed on the forehead by the Bishop, and by it we are as it were enrolled and strengthened as soldiers and athletes of Christ, to fight for the faith of Christ even unto death and martyrdom. Thus Constantine the Great, in his Edict, referring to his own Confirmation: "And when I was raised from the font," he says, "clothed in white garments, the Holy Spirit of sevenfold grace bestowed His seal with the unction of the blessed Chrism, and traced the standard of the cross on my forehead;" and Prudentius in the Psychomachia:
After the seals inscribed with oil upon the forehead, through which the royal Unguent was given, and the perennial chrism.
Hence in the Roman Ordo on Holy Thursday, the form of the cross is called "the sign of the forehead and the sacred title of the warrior, that signed with the holy Chrism we may deserve to be heavenly standard-bearers." Wherefore the ancients in Confirmation anointed and signed with the cross not only the forehead, in which modesty resides, for fearlessly professing the faith and the cross, but also other members. The Greeks still observe this, who, as Jeremias, Patriarch of Constantinople, says in his Profession of Faith, anoint the forehead, eyes, and back in the form of the cross. The Ethiopians indeed, as their Ritual or Order of Baptism has it, anoint not only the eyes, forehead, and back in the form of the cross, but also the nostrils, lips, breast, stomach, shins, knees, and feet, to signify that all the members, all the senses, all the actions of the Christian must be sealed with the cross.
Hence again the watchword and standard of the Christian warfare is the cross. For Constantine the Great first changed the eagles, which the Romans bore in their standards, into the labarum of the cross, which had been shown to him from heaven with this motto: "In this sign thou shalt conquer;" and by it he obtained illustrious victories over Maxentius and other tyrants, as Eusebius narrates in the Life of Constantine. The Christians followed this in the sacred war: for as many as enrolled in the army to recover the Holy Land were signed with the cross. See Gretser, On the Cross.
For he that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sins. — Many take "he that hath suffered in the flesh" as Christ; for he said a little before about Christ: "Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh," etc., and so they explain, as if to say: Christ, having suffered in the flesh, by His Passion enervated and abolished sins, while He makes us by His grace to desist and cease from them: so that it is a Hebraism whereby Cal is put for Hiphil, namely "He ceased" for "He made to cease." Or, as others have it, "hath ceased from sin," as the Greek has it, that is, He ceased to be a victim for sin. "For by one oblation He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Hebrews ch. 10, verse 14. But these explanations seem violent or strained. Wherefore Oecumenius and others genuinely take "having suffered in the flesh," namely "crucified," as referring to the Christian; for he, as I have already said, in baptism is crucified with, has died with, and is buried with Christ, as Paul says in Romans 6:4. Again, he has suffered in the flesh, because he afflicts, mortifies, and crucifies his flesh with its concupiscences. For the things which follow pertain to the Christian, not to Christ: "That now he may live the rest of his time in the flesh, not after the desires of men, but according to the will of God."
Verse 2: That Now He May Live the Rest of His Time in the Flesh, Not After the Desires of Men, but According to the Will of God
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The Christian who, like the crucified Christ, is crucified, by crucifying his flesh with vices and concupiscences, has now ceased, said farewell to, and renounced sins, so that henceforth in the flesh he may not live to the flesh, but to God, just as if he were an angel in the flesh, subjecting it to the spirit, making it spiritual, and almost transforming it into spirit: wherefore let him not live "according to the desires," that is, according to the desires of Gentile and carnal men in luxury, drunkenness, banqueting, as he soon explains; but "to the will," that is, according to the will "of God," so that he may set this in all things as the rule of his life, and may be moved and impelled by it to every good pleasing to God, which He commands or counsels. Hence St. Jerome, in book 1 Against Jovinian, reads: "Let him spend the rest of the time in the flesh in the will of God." Piously and wisely St. Augustine in the Manual: "He loses," he says, "what he lives, who does not love Thee, O God; he who is concerned to live not for Thy sake, O Lord, is nothing, and is for nothing: he who refuses to live for Thee, is dead: he who is not wise unto Thee, is foolish." And shortly after: "The soul which does not seek Thee nor love Thee, loves the world, serves sins, and is subject to vices, is never at rest, never secure. Let my soul ever serve Thee, let my pilgrimage ever sigh for Thee, let my heart burn in Thy love, let my soul rest in Thee, my God; let it contemplate Thee in ecstasy of mind, let it sing Thy praises in jubilation, and let this be my consolation in this exile." Therefore St. Peter signifies that Christians ought to redeem the time past, ill spent on flesh and lust, that from baptism they may consecrate all their subsequent life to Christ, and may study virtue so much the more earnestly as they once more insolently studied pleasure, as St. Paul also admonishes in Romans 6:19. For if they return to their former lusts, they will provoke God and be more grievously punished by Him. For, as St. Peter says in Epistle 2, ch. 2, verse 21: "It had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them. For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog is returned to his vomit; and, the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire."
Verse 3: For the Time Past Is Sufficient to Have Fulfilled the Will of the Gentiles
St. Augustine, homily 20 among the 50. Plainly Pagninus and the Zurich version: "For it is enough for us that in the time of past life we have done the will of the Gentiles, when we lived in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness." Out of modesty, and that the rebuke might be milder, St. Peter numbers himself among the Gentiles, although he himself was not a Gentile, much less did he live as a Gentile. He explains "the rest in the flesh," as if to say: You have spent a great and better part of your age in paganism on flesh and vices: a small part of life remains to you; therefore the rest of it, which is little, declining and growing old, give to God and virtue. Therefore enough has been given to lust and the belly, now live for Christ. Thus Udo, Archbishop of Magdeburg, living disgracefully, was warned from heaven by this voice: "Udo, Udo, cease from play, you have played enough, Udo." But because he did not end his playing, he was beheaded by St. Maurice in the public temple of the city, where even now the traces of his blood are seen in the marble, as Nauclerus narrates, vol. 3, gen. 43; Fulgosius, book 9, ch. 12, and others. So says Ezekiel 44:6: "Let all your wicked deeds suffice you, O house of Israel;" and ch. 45, verse 9: "Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel, leave off iniquity and robberies, and execute judgment and justice." This is what St. Paul admonishes the faithful in Romans 13:11: "It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep, etc., the night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences." See how St. Paul, like string to string, harmonizes with and accompanies St. Peter.
To them who have walked, — wallowing themselves from vice to vice: for there are three degrees of sinners: the first is to attempt sin, the second to walk and stand in it, the third to sit and rest in it, and to give and fasten oneself entirely to it — those whom the Psalmist expressed at the beginning of the Psalms, saying: "Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence." The wicked therefore walk from sin to sin. On the contrary, of the just it is said in Psalm 83:8: "They shall go from virtue to virtue, the God of gods shall be seen in Sion," which St. Fursey in Bede, book 3 of the History, ch. 19, heard the angels singing to him.
In luxuries. — The Greek aselgeia signifies lasciviousness, insolence, petulance, wantonness, audacity, both in impure words, gestures, and touches; and also in jeers, mockeries, and annoyances, by which one's neighbor is vexed and troubled.
Desires, — epithymiais, that is concupiscences. For the heart of the wicked seethes with these, and like a burning oven constantly shoots out sparks, namely burning desires now of lust, now of gluttony, now of avarice, now of anger, now of vengeance, etc. For, as Seneca says: Immense are the desires of men, and they always gape and demand. "One is born from the end of another: such as we say is the series of causes, from which fate is named, such we say is the series of lusts." So he himself in epistle 19. Truly the wise man in Ecclesiasticus 18:30: "If thou give to thy soul her desires, she will make thee a joy to thy enemies."
Drunkenness. — Some wrongly read "willings": for in Greek it is oinophlygiais, that is, drunken-states, wine-bibbings, debaucheries, such as belong to drunkards who, full of wine, smell and belch nothing but wine, and so in wine bury and overwhelm body, senses, soul, mind, and themselves entirely, more like the dead than the living; whence the Syriac translates, "in debauchery and drunkenness and wantonness and song."
Revellings. — Of these I have spoken in the Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul, Romans 13:13.
Drinkings. — This word is distinguished from drunkenness, as cause from effect: for drinking causes drunkenness. Again, as genus from species: for drinking is done not only with wine, but with mead, beer, and other drinks.
And unlawful worship of idols. — "Unlawful," that is abominable and execrable; it is meiosis. Hence St. Augustine, homily 20 among the 50, reads "unspeakable services of idols." For the Gentiles not only worshipped Ceres as if a goddess giving fruits, and Bacchus as if a god giving wine; but they also set up gods over their other desires and lusts, whom they invoked that they might grant them the things desired, such as "Volupia, who was named from pleasure (voluptas), and Libentina, whose name is from lust (libido)," says St. Augustine, book 4 of the City of God, ch. 8. I pass over the goddess Virginensis, Prema, Partunda, Venus, Priapus, and others more obscene, whom modesty does not allow to be named, so that St. Augustine, in mentioning them, book 6, ch. 9, blushes and shudders.
Hence it is clear that this epistle, although primarily written to the Jews, was secondarily written also to the Gentiles converted to Christ: for these in their paganism gave themselves to idolatry, luxury, and gluttony: but the Jews after the return from Babylon no longer worshipped idols.
Verse 4: Wherein They Think It Strange That You Run Not With Them Into the Same Confusion of Riotousness, Speaking Evil of You
4. Wherein they think it strange. — xenizontai, that is, they are made strangers, that is, they seem foreigners to themselves, and as if they were in another world, seeing such an unexpected thing, namely your life so holy and admirable, which as a foreign, new, and unaccustomed thing they wonder at and are amazed by: for it is an enormous miracle to see a Gentile become a Christian and suddenly change his manners to the contrary, so that he becomes a new man, sober from drunken, chaste from incestuous, humble from proud, spiritual from animal. Such therefore is the force of the Evangelical law and the grace of Christ, of which the Psalmist in Psalm 18:8: "The law of the Lord," he says, "is unspotted, converting souls." And Isaiah, ch. 8, verse 18: "Behold I and my children whom the Lord hath given me for a sign and for a wonder." Hence Oecumenius: "The Gentiles themselves," he says, "wonder at you, that you do not run together with them in the like anachysis of impiety, that is, in the outpouring, namely in the confusion," both because they wonder at your change, and because they wonder that they are deserted by you, and because they wonder at you for conquering the concupiscences which they themselves, indulging in and enslaving themselves to, think it impossible to be without.
Note: For "confusion," the Greek is anachysis, which signifies first, "a pouring back," by which, namely, to a base question or act, a base response or act is hurled back and poured back; secondly, "superabundance." For lust, like the sea, overflows and boils over into all obscenities. Hence the Syriac translates, "behold, now they wonder at you, and they tear you with curses, because you do not itch with lust together with them in that former gluttony." Thirdly, "softness and lasciviousness;" fourthly, "confusion," as Oecumenius translates, and that twofold, namely first, shame and blushing; secondly, commixture by which men or women shamefully, unspeakably, and continually mingle with each other contrary to nature: for lust is monstrous and insatiable, hence it always devises new modes of turpitude.
Speaking evil. — As if to say: They so wonder at your change, that at the same time they do not praise it, but blaspheme it, that is, blame it, mock it, execrate it, as contrary to their own manners, and as a tacit rebuke of the same: for by your virtues you really tax and condemn their vices. So today we see Religious men blasphemed by the wicked, because the splendor of their virtue and religion strikes and pricks the eyes of the wicked as of owls, when they see their own vices really exposed and condemned by them. Wherefore he who does this, shows himself wicked, and it has often been discovered that some hidden lust or vice rules over such people, even though they try to conceal it and veil it with external honesty of manners. Truly St. Prosper, epigram 32:
"The impious part of the world," he says, "is hostile to the part of the pious,
Nor can it tolerate dissimilar souls,
Laughing at those unwilling to use present wealth,
And hoping that what is entrusted to them can be given to them."
Verse 5: Who Shall Render Account to Him Who Is Ready to Judge the Living and the Dead
5. Who shall render account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. — "Who is ready," first, is the same as "who is appointed as judge." Secondly, who out of zeal for justice and vengeance gapes after judgment, and eagerly awaits the day of judgment. Thirdly, who is shortly and very soon about to judge, that is, who has at hand both knowledge and witnesses, namely angels, demons themselves, and man's own conscience, by which He may convict and condemn the guilty; and also virtue and power, by which He may thrust those condemned by Him, even kings and princes, into the abyss of hell, so that no one can escape His eyes, mouth, and hands. Wherefore then they will too late acknowledge their error and will say in astonishment: "These are they whom we had sometime in derision, and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the Saints." But of themselves howling they will lament: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice hath not shined unto us, and the sun of understanding hath not risen upon us. We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways, but the way of the Lord we have not known. What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow, and like a messenger running by, and like a ship that passeth through the waves, whereof, when it is gone by, the trace cannot be found," etc. Wisdom 5:3 and following.
Wisely St. Augustine, Soliloquies ch. 14: "When I diligently consider this," he says, "O Lord my God, terrible and strong, I am confounded with fear and with great blushing, since to us is given a great necessity of living justly and rightly, who do all things before the eyes of the Judge who beholds all things."
Verse 6: For, For This Cause Was the Gospel Preached Also to the Dead
6. For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to the dead: that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but may live according to God in the Spirit. — He proves that Christ will judge the living and the dead, from the fact that, descending to hell, He judged the dead in the flesh, but living in the spirit. For he plainly alludes to what he said about the same in the preceding chapter, verse 18: "For Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that He might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit: in which also coming, He preached to those spirits that were in prison;" for St. Peter is accustomed to repeat and inculcate the same things. Hence so often he repeats and inculcates the Passion of Christ, patience, brotherly love, and other Christian virtues. For this is the office of a good Pastor, doctor, and preacher: for hearers do not at once grasp or do what is said, but the same things must be repeated and impressed on them again and again: for which reason St. Chrysostom, in his homilies to the people, often and almost to the point of nausea inveighs against the custom of swearing, which then prevailed at Antioch, and openly professes that he would not desist from this iteration and rebuke until the hearers should have corrected it. Now various authors explain this place variously.
First, Pererius, book 9 on Genesis, disp. 30, num. 91, and Salmeron here take "the dead" as "those about to die," as if to say: To men who are about to die, while they live in this life, the future judgment after death is seriously and truly preached: therefore the dead are truly to be judged by Christ.
Secondly, Arias takes "the dead" mystically, namely as those dead to sin, as if to say: To those who in Christ are dead to the world and to sins, this Gospel, that is, glad tidings, was brought, that although according to man and flesh, that is, as to external appearance, they are judged to be like other men, yet they live according to God in the spirit, that is, by spirit, mind, and life they reflect and represent Christ the Son of God and His glory. So also Dionysius explains, as if to say: Those dead in Christ are judged and condemned by the men of this world, yet they live before God in the spirit, as endowed with God's grace and charity. To this is added Alcazar on Apocalypse 21:20, annot. 18, who understands the dead as those dead to sin and self-love, as if to say: Christ is going to judge the living and the dead mystically. For thus the Gospel was preached by the Apostles to the dead, that is, to the faithful, who are dead to sin and to the world, and this so that they might patiently bear being judged in the flesh, that is, being condemned, tortured, and slain for Christ's sake, knowing that their cause is to be adjudged to them at the tribunal of God; and that they will be given the reward of spiritual, glorious, and eternal life, namely that they may live before God with an immortal, most joyful, and most blessed spirit.
Thirdly, others, as if to say: Those dead in Christ judge, that is, condemn the wicked deeds which mostly reside in man's flesh itself, and therefore subject themselves to God to be cultivated and made alive in the spirit. But all these take "the dead" not properly to the letter, but mystically and spiritually, although it seems it should be taken properly as it sounds. For so St. Peter immediately before takes it, when he says that Christ will judge the living and the dead, and he is striving here to prove this.
Fourthly therefore Oecumenius, taking "the dead" properly, explains thus, as if to say: Christ descending to hell judged, that is, condemned the dead living there, namely those who, while they were among the living, after the manner of carnal men had lived basely in the flesh: but He vivified and saved those who according to God in the spirit, that is, piously and spiritually had passed their life. But here he establishes two orders, one of those to be saved, the other of those to be damned, and consequently makes those judged different from those vivified, while St. Peter seems to make them the same. For this is what those particles "indeed" and "but" signify, which are accustomed to be opposed to each other in the same matter and in the same subject.
Fifthly, others explain, as if to say: Christ descending to the dead Fathers detained in limbo evangelized to them and announced that they would be judged, in Greek krithōsi, in the future, that is, they would indeed be judged on the day of judgment, "according to men," that is, inasmuch as men now revived will exist again "in the flesh": for in it they will rise and go to judgment; but he likewise announced to them that they would be adjudged to heaven, to be vivified "in spirit" of grace and of eternal glory. But this exposition does not sufficiently explain the antithesis which exists in being judged in the flesh and being vivified in spirit; again, between "according to men" and "according to God"; but it subordinates men to God, flesh to spirit, and judgment to vivification.
Sixthly, others: St. Peter, they say, proves that Christ would come to judge not only the living, but also the dead, from the fact that, as he said in the preceding chapter, verse 19, Christ descended to hell, in order to evangelize and preach to those who once dead had descended there — for this purpose not that He might convert the dead in sin, but that as it were as judge He might judge them, not only by striking down and condemning the demons and the reprobate already damned to hell, but also by judging the just who were once unbelievers when Noah was threatening the Flood, but afterward believers and penitents: for these He judged, and pronounced this sentence upon them, saying: I have condemned you for your unbelief and sins "according to man," that is, externally "in the flesh," namely so that your outer man, that is, the body and the flesh, should deserve to be drowned in the Flood; or "according to men," that is, as men do, who can kill the body but not the soul, you should be punished and die in the flesh; but because you repented before death, therefore according to God, that is, internally and secretly before God I adjudge your soul to life, namely so that through that death and redemption you may live with Me in spirit, and therefore I share with your spirit the vision of My divinity, and by it I bless and glorify you, and shall also bring it about that on the third day he should rise with Me in body to a full, glorious, and eternal life. So Suarez, Part 3, vol. 2, disp. 42, sect. 3, and Gregory of Valentia, Part 3, 2, Quaest. 4, point 2.
You will say: For "they may be judged" and "may live," in Greek the futures are krithōsi and zōsi. Therefore this judgment is still future, but the one of Christ already mentioned was carried out when He descended to the underworld. Therefore St. Peter is not speaking of it here. I answer first: These futures are not to be referred to time present to us, but to Christ, namely to the time of Christ descending to the underworld: for then it was still future, not done; as if to say, Christ descended to the underworld to evangelize the dead, in order that He might judge them in the flesh and vivify them in the spirit: for they had not yet been judged and vivified by Him, but were still to be judged and vivified.
Second, Christ then began the judgment, but will complete it at the end of the world. Then therefore He will carry out the full and universal judgment, which indeed is still future: for then He will celebrate before the whole world that judgment carried out in secret in limbo, and will confirm and publish His sentence, that it may last through all eternity; as if to say, Christ descended to the underworld to judge the dead fathers in the flesh and to vivify them in the spirit, and He did this inchoately in this descent, but will do the same fully and perfectly on the day of judgment.
Third, Christ judged the dead in limbo in the flesh, that is, He punished them for the future, because He inflicted this penance upon them externally, that they should bear public mark and ignominy among men, namely that men not only of past times but also of future times should judge and reckon them, as far as the flesh, to have been drowned and suffocated in the Flood justly because of their unbelief and sins, and indeed should judge them as condemned in soul, even though in secret before God they have been vivified in the spirit. For thus even now learned men, as I said in the preceding chapter, verses 19 and 20, hold that all those drowned in the Flood were damned. Christ therefore by His judgment imposed this mark upon them among men, and willed that they should bear this judgment of men because of their own fault, namely because by their unbelief and sins, and by their just punishment and the death by which they were drowned in the Flood, they gave men just occasion of suspecting this; but because St. Peter says: "That they may be judged according to men," not "according to man," it seems rather that he is speaking of the judgment of men, rather than the judgment of Christ; otherwise he would have said "that Christ may judge them," or "that they may be judged by Christ." Rather therefore he seems to speak of the dead, who in piety and the mortification of the flesh are judged by carnal men to have led a miserable, superstitious, and foolish life, but not of those dead in sin, and drowned in the Flood. Hence he says it was evangelized to these, that is, that joyful news of the reward and prize of the blessed life had been brought.
Wherefore seventh, this seems to be the genuine context and sense of this whole passage; lest anyone wonder at what St. Peter said, namely that Christ would judge the dead, he proves the same thing, saying: "For for this cause was the gospel preached also to the dead." For he is speaking against Gentiles and Epicureans living in luxuries, drunkenness, and revellings, saying: Eat, drink, play: after death no pleasure — as if all happiness consisted in these and in this life; for they reckoned that the soul perishes with the body, and accordingly that it was foolish to abstain from the pleasures of this life and to mortify the flesh in hope of a future life, as if there were none, and therefore no judgment was to be expected in it concerning the deeds of the present life, no reward or retribution: for the dead, they thought, feel nothing, know nothing, suffer nothing, indeed simply do not exist. St. Peter overturns this by teaching that Christ will judge both the dead and the living, and will render them rewards according to their merits; therefore the dead live as to the soul, and accordingly Christians ought to renounce their former lusts, abstain from the vices of the flesh, and conform themselves to Christ suffering and crucified, by crucifying the appetites of the flesh: "So that now," he says in v. 2, "he may not live the rest of his time in the flesh by the desires of men, but by the will of God," namely that in the other life you may rise with Christ unto glory. He proves all these things from the fact that Christ, in order to show that He would judge both dead and living, descended to the dead fathers dwelling in limbo, who in this life lived piously, chastely, holily according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, and to them He evangelized, that is, brought the joyful news of beatitude, namely by adjudging them to heaven and the blessed life, and as a judge in fact bestowing it upon them, so that although they are judged and reckoned "according to men," that is by worldly men, to be dead (for "dead" must be repeated here, as is plain from the antithesis that follows: "But that they may live," etc.), that is, to have utterly perished "in the flesh," and therefore to have been miserable and superstitious or foolish, because, while they lived, they spurned the pleasures of the flesh, and with its vices and concupiscences mortified and crucified them, in order to liken themselves to Christ who afterward suffered and was crucified, yet these same persons "live according to God," that is, before God, and by the gift of God in the spirit of grace and heavenly glory. For the phrase "although they are judged according to men" looks back to what he said in v. 4: "Wherein they think it strange that you run not with them into the same confusion of riotousness, blaspheming." For, as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 15:19: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." This is what is meant by "for this cause was the gospel preached also to the dead," for this judgment of Christ was a gospel, that is, the most joyful news, which He brought to the fathers, mortified so often and so long in the flesh, concerning His death and redemption now accomplished, and therefore concerning their deliverance, happiness, and glory.
Such dead were the Prophets, Maccabees, and the like, whom the Apostle enumerates in Heb. 11, who led an austere life in the mortification of the flesh, and served God in pure and holy spirit, and for Him endured hard things, even death itself. Such too were many drowned in the Flood, who at first, being unbelieving toward Noah threatening it, as he said in the preceding chapter, v. 20 (for he alludes to that), gave themselves over to lusts, drinking, and revellings; but afterward, terrified by the constancy of Noah's threats and the building of the ark, they repented, and gave themselves to abstinence, continence, and penance. For carnal men judged these to be plainly dead, and drowned in the Flood as to the flesh, although through Christ they live in the spirit. For he sets forth their example to Christians that they may imitate them, and renounce the former allurements of the flesh, and live by the spirit of grace, that they may soon be raised again with Christ, be granted happiness, and live and be blessed in the spirit of eternal glory. For this verse depends on v. 1 and following.
Furthermore, from the glory and reward of these pious ones St. Peter leaves to be inferred the punishments and torments of the impious — namely what torments await those who, indulging in the pleasures of the flesh, gave themselves wholly over to luxury and intemperance — that the faithful may avoid these, and follow the pious who live and die in the mortification of the flesh. Wherefore he adds: "Now the end of all is at hand."
Note first, the phrase "according to men" is the same as "by men," who esteem human things, that is, external and sensible things, who judge, love, and pursue only those things which they see, feel, and savor "in the flesh," and in carnal pleasures, and accordingly judge those who have lived and live in the flesh as abstainers and continent men, to be miserable, superstitious, and foolish.
To this is opposed "according to God," that is, with God, before God, by God, by the gift and reward of God, who is Lord of spirits, looks upon the pious mind, and judges it secretly, internally and invisibly, by conferring upon it the life of the spirit, namely a spiritual, heavenly, angelic, blessed, and divine life.
Note second, St. Peter alludes to Christ, whom in the preceding chapter, v. 18, he said suffered for us, that He might offer us to God, having been put to death indeed in the flesh, but vivified in the spirit; as if to say: As Christ for our and the fathers' faults underwent this judgment, that He might die in the flesh, but rising on the third day be vivified in the spirit, so likewise the same judgment He inflicted on the fathers who lived according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, pronouncing this sentence upon them: Because you have mortified the concupiscences of the flesh, I bestow on you the life of the spirit; and although by carnal men you may be judged plainly to be dead, and therefore to have lived miserably in the flesh, yet with God may you live happy in the spirit, namely immortal, blessed, and glorious in the soul, and in their own time with Christ — who suffered and was crucified for you — may you rise in an immortal, blessed, and glorious body.
Whence tropologically this judgment of Christ and of the fathers must be undergone by every Christian, namely that he be judged and mortified in the flesh both by others and by himself, and thence be vivified in the spirit both by grace and by glory. To this can be referred the moral rather than literal exposition of St. Augustine, epist. 99, who taking "the dead" not as those in the underworld, but as the unfaithful and iniquitous, explains thus: "Therefore," he says, "in this life the gospel was preached also to the dead, that is, to the unfaithful and iniquitous, that when they shall have believed, they may indeed be judged according to men in the flesh, that is, in various tribulations, and in the death of the flesh itself: whence the same Apostle in another place says, that the time has come for judgment to begin from the house of the Lord; and that they may live according to the spirit, because in it they had been mortified, when they were held by the death of unbelief and impiety." And so Oecumenius: "They say," he says, "that those who have so died to Christ that they may be conformed to the death of Christ, and to the world, that is, to worldly concupiscences, are dead, and live to Christ alone, on account of their previously slothful and negligent life condemn themselves in the flesh, and that this is nothing other than to lead life by the spirit, that is, by Christ's institution: since indeed the condemnation of former life-actions makes them more eager and ready to perform those things that are at hand." So too Hugo, Vatablus, and others.
Verse 7: But the End of All Is at Hand. Be Prudent Therefore, and Watch in Prayers
7. Now the end of all is at hand. — The "now" does not refer to what immediately precedes about the judgment of the dead, but to what he said above about abstaining from lusts, revellings, and former vices: for he gives this as the reason for that abstinence, namely that the end of pleasures as well as of all things draws near; but properly it looks back to "He is ready to judge," as if to say: Christ the judge is at hand for us, because the end of all is at hand: therefore it is fitting to live soberly and chastely, and to be conformed to Christ in His suffering, that we may appear before Him as judge secure and joyful, and may render an account of the holy life we have led. This is what Christ admonishes, Luke 21:34: "Take heed lest your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly."
Furthermore, "end" here can first be taken of life, as if to say: Our life is brief, and many have already lived 30, 40, 50 years of it: little therefore remains for them: therefore the end of life threatens, namely death and the particular judgment.
Second, and rather, "end" here is understood of the world and of the age: for the "of all" suggests this; as if to say: The world has now stood for four thousand years, and inclines toward old age and decline: the world has passed through six of its ages of life, it now lives the seventh and last; therefore its end approaches. For the first age of the world was from Adam to Noah and the Flood. The second, from Noah to Abraham. The third, from Abraham to Moses. The fourth, from Moses to David. The fifth, from David to the Babylonian captivity. The sixth, from the Babylonian captivity to Christ. The seventh now runs from Christ until the end of the world. Hence St. John, Epistle 1, ch. 2, v. 18, says: "Little children, it is the last hour;" and St. Paul, 1 Cor. 10:11: "These things," he says, "are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages are come." Hence he says in the past tense "has drawn near," because the greater part and number of the ages has now passed.
Mystically Oecumenius: "The end," he says, "of all," namely of the Prophets, "is Christ, as if to say: Since the perfection of all, which is Christ, has come, you also ought to be conformed to Him, rendering yourselves in all things consummate and perfect in temperance, in sobriety of prayers."
Be therefore prudent, and watch in prayers. — The "therefore" signifies that these things are drawn and concluded from what has been said; as if to say: Because the end of all is at hand, it is fitting that you prepare yourselves for it, acting prudently in all things and watching in prayers, according to that common saying:
Whatever you do, do prudently, and look to the end.
He alludes to, indeed recalls, that saying of Christ: "Watch ye therefore, because ye know not at what hour your Lord will come;" and Matt. 25:13: "Watch ye therefore, because ye know neither the day nor the hour;" and ch. 26, v. 41: "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation."
For "be ye prudent" in Greek it is sōphronēsate, which Oecumenius, Pagninus, Vatablus, Isidorus, Gagnaeus and others render, "be ye sober": "inasmuch as," says Oecumenius, "prayer and the pouring out of supplications belong to the sober, that is, to those who watch, and not to those who are weighed down, lulled to sleep by the drunkenness of worldly things." Hence sobriety is called sōphrosynē, in that it sōzei tēn phronēsin, that is, preserves prudence and soundness of mind. The Syriac translates, "be ye chaste": for chastity is the companion and daughter of sobriety. Our (translator) more generally and plainly translates, "be ye prudent." For prudence is the leader and charioteer of all virtues, as St. Anthony used to say, which orders and moderates each action of man, and so composes and disposes a man, that he may securely await the end of all things, and confidently present himself, ready to render an account of his life, before the tribunal of Christ.
Note, as to the etymology, "'prudent' is said as though 'seeing afar,'" says Isidore, Etymologies bk. 20, ch. 15. "For he is keen-sighted, and sees the chances of uncertain things." Prudence therefore is named as though "foresight," or "providence." Its definition is given thus by St. Augustine, On Free Will bk. 1, ch. 13: "Prudence is the knowledge of things to be sought and things to be shunned." By Aristotle, Ethics bk. 6, ch. 5: "Prudence is right reason about things to be done." By others it is defined plainly and fully thus: "Prudence is a virtue of the intellect, by which in any business at hand we know what is honorable, what is base; what is to be done, what avoided." The integral parts of prudence are reckoned by some as six. The first is "providence," which is the consideration of future events that may follow from the work. The second is "reason," namely the readiness of reasoning and inferring one thing from another. The third is "docility," that is, readiness to learn. The fourth is "shrewdness," or sagacity, which is the discovery of a means in a very short time, says Aristotle. The fifth is "circumspection," namely consideration of circumstances lest any be lacking in the work. The sixth is "caution," namely care that the dangers and disadvantages connected with the work may be avoided. The chief offices and acts of prudence are four: "counsel," from good deliberation; "judgment," that the better thing and the more apt means to the end may be chosen; "constancy," in retaining what has been rightly judged; "diligence," in carrying it out. To these are opposed as many vices and acts of imprudence, namely "precipitation," which militates against counsel; "inconsiderateness," against judgment; "inconstancy," against constancy and firmness of judgment; "negligence," against the diligence and vigilance of reason in execution. Prudence therefore is the measure and rule of all the virtues which are in the will, from which the reason of what is honorable and virtuous is derived and descends into individual acts. For that is the work of virtue, which is conformable to the judgment and dictate of prudence. For the office of prudence is to prescribe the measure to the virtues, namely what in each function is commensurate to reason, not exorbitant by excess or defect. Wherefore perfect prudence is only in upright men, who have their affections subdued: for in others the affections often change and pervert the judgment of reason and prudence, says St. Thomas, 2-2, Question 49.
Finally, prudence is concerned with particulars, that each thing may be done in a suitable place, time, and manner.
Morally, learn here that the first and chief of all virtues is prudence. Splendidly Nazianzen in his Iambic On Fortune and Prudence: "I would prefer," he says, "a drop of prudence to a whole sea of more favorable fortune." St. Basil, in Constitutions of Monks, ch. 15: "In every action that is undertaken, prudence ought to go before. For prudence being removed, there is nothing of any kind which, although it may seem good, does not lapse into vice, if it is done either at the wrong time or without moderation." The same in oration 21 On Happiness and Prudence: "True prudence is nothing other than the knowledge of things to be done and to be omitted, which whoever follows will at no time turn away from the works of virtue, nor ever be pierced by the dart of depravity." St. Augustine, sermon 1 on Psalm 37: "'Prudent' is said as 'seeing afar': if prudent, seeing afar, then he sees by faith." The same, in his epistle to the Romans, prop. 49: "Prudence is a spirit, since neither in temporal goods is our hope, nor in evils our fear." The same, On Music bk. 6: "Prudence is an affection of the soul or a motion which understands that eternal things are higher, and inferior things are temporal," and therefore those are to be sought before these.
The Gentiles felt the same, who give these praises and precepts of prudence. Socrates, asked, "what is prudence?: 'The harmony,' he said, 'of the soul.'" So Stobaeus, sermon On Prudence. The same: "As an empty ship is to be furnished with suitable instruments, so life is to be furnished and fortified with the affections of prudence. No one will safely use a horse without a bridle, or riches without prudence." The same taught his disciples three things: first, "to keep prudence in the soul;" secondly, "silence on the tongue;" thirdly, "modesty in the countenance." So Maximus, sermon 41. Philo, Allegories bk. 1: "What gold is among metals, that prudence is among the virtues." Plutarch: "As the blinded Cyclops, wherever he stretches his hands, leans on no fixed mark, so a great king who lacks prudence, whatever he undertakes, does so with great tumult of affairs, but with no judgment."
He assigns these precepts of prudence. The first is from Bias, in Laertius: "Consider; and afterward set about the matter." Likewise: "Approach things to be done slowly, but once you have set about it, act with constancy."
The second is from Periander, in Laertius: "Do those things of which you will not repent." The same, asked what in the smallest is greatest? answered: "Prudent thoughts of the soul in the human body."
Third: "Perfect prudence admires nothing in human affairs." So Democritus, in Stobaeus, sermon 3.
Fourth: "Prudence makes use of all the virtues, and shows their measure, order, and occasion, like a certain eye of the mind most luminous on every side, and therefore prudence makes its possessors like to God." So Iamblichus, in Stobaeus, sermon On Prudence.
Fifth: "A prudent man, for life as for a certain road, procures not a more precious provision for the journey, but what is more necessary." So Crito, ibid.
Sixth: "Prudence has three duties: first, to remember things past; second, to do things present; third, to be wary of things future." So Isocrates, in Stobaeus, sermon 1.
Seventh: "In battle, only the prudent soldiers are the cause of victory." So Agesilaus, in Plutarch's Sayings of the Spartans; whence concerning the younger Scipio, Cato applied that line of Homer about Tiresias, Odyssey 2:
He alone is wise; the others flit about like shadows.
So Plutarch in Apophthegms.
Celebrated is that saying of Euripides: "One right counsel overcomes a great body of soldiers." In war therefore as well as in other things, prudence is worth more than arms and strength.
Eighth: "As an emperor leads an army, a helmsman leads ships, God leads the world, and the mind leads the soul itself; so prudence tempers and rules the very happiness of the present life." So Archytas in Stobaeus, sermon 11 On Virtue, which is first in order.
Ninth: "Prudence teaches you to be always the same in all things, both in prosperity and in adversity, just as the hand is the same whether it is extended into a palm or contracted into a fist." So the holy author of the sermon to the Brethren in the Desert, sermon On Prudence, vol. 10 of St. Augustine.
Tenth: "As a scar warns that a wound is to be guarded against, so the memory of past evils makes us more cautious." So Plutarch.
Eleventh: "The beavers of Pontus cut off their own genitals in the hunt, because they understand that they are sought on account of these: so it is the part of a prudent man to throw away the thing for which he is endangered." So Plutarch. Thus Christ bids us pluck out the eye, the hand, the foot, if they are an occasion of scandal and ruin to us, Matt. 18:8. Prudence therefore teaches us to set goods of fortune below reputation, reputation below life, life below conscience:
If you lose all, remember to preserve your good name.
Twelfth: "Listen to him who has four ears," that is, hear the one who, by long experience of many matters, is wiser than the rest, as old men generally are, who have long handled both private and public affairs.
Thirteenth: "In military difficulties, it must be provided that one give up something in inflicting harm, rather than do harm with some loss to one's soldiers." So Caesar, On the Gallic War bk. 6.
Fourteenth: "It stands in the place of wisdom to have the folly of another disclosed, and to look on quietly while the enemy rushes headlong through imprudence." So Tacitus, Histories bk. 2.
Fifteenth: "It belongs to the prudent and to those who worship God to cut off at once the causes of a war that is springing up, especially with friends; but it belongs to the imprudent and to those who seek God's anger upon themselves to stir up the occasion of tumults." So Procopius, Persian War bk. 2.
Sixteenth: "It belongs to the prudent to forgive enmities to friends; it belongs to fools and barbarians to destroy friends along with enemies." So Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 5. The same, bk. 11: "Prudent men," he says, "reckon public advantages of greater weight than private quarrels."
Seventeenth: "Of evils choose the least, of goods the greatest. What befalls by divine providence, bear of necessity; what comes from enemies, bear with fortitude." So Thucydides, bk. 2. "Do not lightly trust anyone, nor grow insolent because of the success of affairs: but expect all things that can befall men." So Polybius, bk. 8.
Eighteenth: "No good man is held by lust for power, nor desires for himself the care of weighty affairs; and in such a matter it is expedient to take up the office imposed considerately, that it may be carried out safely." So Dionysius, bk. 36. Therefore the private life is the blessed life.
Nineteenth: "The plans of enemies must be forestalled, before they grow with harm." So Dionysius, bk. 38.
Twentieth: "He who has care of his own safety should observe two things: first, that having been appointed over a matter, he remove its difficulty from himself; second, that he preserve the credit of an affair well managed." So the same, bk. 49.
Twenty-first: "Before you begin, deliberate; and when you have deliberated maturely, action is needed." So Sallust in Catiline.
Twenty-second: "It is better to use present goods than to seek after fleeting ones." So Procopius, Persian War bk. 1. Thus safe things are to be preferred to dangerous, certain to doubtful, perpetual to temporary, much to little, easy to difficult, public to private, divine to human, heavenly to earthly: for this is what prudence dictates.
Twenty-third: "It greatly helps in carrying out affairs to use the opportunity of the time." So Procopius, Vandal War bk. 1.
Twenty-fourth: "It is signal prudence to do, in such a way that you may seem to have done it gladly, that which you cannot but do." So Pachymeres, bk. 9.
Twenty-fifth: "In arduous matters one must deliberate long, much, and seriously, that we may embrace what is most honorable and most just; but above all God is to be entreated, that He may suggest to us what is best." So Commines, bk. 2.
Twenty-sixth: "It is better to guard one's own than to seek another's with danger."
Again: It belongs to a prudent man not to display his own things, to conceal his counsels, not to be terrified by rumors, to look upon things to be avoided in another's misfortune, according to that saying:
Happy is he whom others' dangers make cautious.
Twenty-seventh: "Adapt yourself to the time, do not change yourself in some things, but rather fit yourself," says Seneca, On the Four Virtues.
Twenty-eighth: Aristotle to Alexander: "Examine the annals of your fathers; from them you will be able to draw good examples, because past deeds give a sure lesson about future ones."
Twenty-ninth: "In prudence two faults are to be avoided: one, that we should not take unknown things for known, and rashly assent to them; the other, that we should not bestow too great zeal and much labor upon obscure and difficult matters, and those not necessary." So Cicero, On Duties bk. 1.
Thirtieth: "Prudence is a virtue of intelligence and reason, through which in deliberating a choice can be made of the goods and evils that pertain to happiness," says Aristotle, Rhetoric bk. 1, ch. 9.
Thirty-first: "It belongs to prudence to forestall a future injury; but to insensibility, not to avenge what has been done," says Democritus.
Finally, these were the maxims and precepts of wisdom of the Seven Sages of Greece. Bias said: "Truth begets hatred." Chilo: "Know thyself." Cleobulus: "Nothing in excess." Thales: "Pledge surety, and harm is at hand." Pittacus: "Use the opportunity." Periander: "Moderate your anger." Solon: "No one is happy before death."
Watch in prayers. — Nēpsate signifies first, "be sober;" second, "watch;" for both vigilance and sobriety are required for prayer. St. Peter remembered his own fall from the fact that, when Christ was praying in the garden and warning, "Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation," he himself, overcome by sleep and grief, slumbered and did not pray: whence it came about that he denied Christ in the temptation; therefore, taught by his own ill, he warns others to beware of this rock against which he had struck, and to be assiduous, keen, and vigilant in prayer both by night and by day. For "the life of mortals, especially of the faithful, is a watch," both because they themselves are surrounded by enemies on every side, against whom one must continually keep watch, and because they certainly await the day of the Lord, and do not know when He will come. Hence St. Hilary on Matt. 24: "It behooves us to be prepared," he says, "because ignorance of the day stirs up the intent solicitude of suspended expectation." And St. Ambrose, On the Faith bk. 5, ch. 7, assigns this cause of vigilance: "That while we do not know the moments of the certain future judgment, we always, as if set on watch and placed on a certain watchtower of virtue, may avoid the habit of sinning, lest the day of the Lord catch us amid vices." For more about vigilance and its causes, see St. Chrysostom, hom. 62 to the People, and St. Augustine on that Psalm 62: O God, my God, to Thee do I watch from the light.
Furthermore, St. Peter wills that we watch, that is, that we be assiduous, keen, and ready in prayers, both because prayers are the most efficacious weapons against all temptations and enemies, and because by praying it is fitting that we prepare ourselves for the day of the Lord, that we may know, namely by awaiting Him, constantly thinking of Him, loving, praising, and invoking Him. Whence St. Basil, in his homily on St. Julitta: "Reclining at table," he says, "pray; eating bread, render thanks to the Bountiful Giver. Are you putting on a tunic? Give thanks to the kind giver. Are you wrapping yourself in a cloak? Make the inner charity toward God grow golden within you, who has bestowed the coverings." And indeed, if to anyone bestowing some benefit on us, however small, we at once give thanks, much more ought we to give thanks to God, again and again, and at every hour bestowing new gifts both on our body and on our soul, frequently and as it were continuously, according to that saying of St. Augustine, Soliloquies ch. 18: "As there is no hour or moment in my whole life in which I do not enjoy Thy benefit, so there ought to be no moment in which I do not have Thee before my eyes, in my memory, and do not love Thee with all my strength;" and a little before: "Therefore let everything that I live be Thine, and I offer the whole of myself wholly to Thee. Let all my spirit, all my heart, all my body, all my life live for Thee; my sweet life, because Thou hast set me wholly free, in order to possess me wholly." The same, in epistle 77 to Aurelia: "What better thing," he says, "can we both bear in mind, and bring forth with our mouth, and express with our pen, than thanks to God? Nothing can be said more briefly, nor heard more joyfully, nor understood more gratefully, nor done more fruitfully."
Verse 8: But Before All Things Have a Constant Mutual Charity Among Yourselves: For Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins
8. Before all things, having mutual (in Greek eis heautous, that is, "into yourselves, among yourselves": so Pagninus, Vatablus, and others, that is, "mutual" among one another, as he said; for he is treating of charity toward the neighbor, not toward God, as is plain from what follows) constant charity among yourselves. — In Greek ektenē, which signifies first, extended, continuous, persevering; secondly, vehement and swift; so Pagninus and Vatablus; thirdly, liberal, profuse; fourthly, cordial and flowing from the inmost and whole heart: for ektenōs is the same as "earnestly, with all one's strength, vehemently, copiously, liberally, with one's whole soul." For Christ had and has such charity toward us, and from it He poured out for us His blood, His spirit, and His life, indeed gave Himself to us as food. Whence St. Bernard: "We are blood-relatives," he says, "in the blood of Christ." See therefore how greatly we ought to love one another, namely as blood and blood-kin both of ourselves and of Christ. Such charity St. Paul had, of whom St. Chrysostom, in hom. 13 on 2 Corinthians: "Charity," he says, "enlarged the heart of Paul: nothing is broader than the heart of Paul, which embraced the whole world." See what is said at the beginning of Acts on the portrait of Paul, and 1 Cor. 13, and Coloss. 3:14, where Paul, sounding in tune with St. Peter, says: "But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection." This is what is said in Cant. 8:6: "Love is strong as death, jealousy hard as hell. The lamps thereof are lamps of fire and of flames: many waters cannot quench charity, neither shall the floods drown it."
Furthermore, St. Basil prescribes the manner of mutual charity, in his sermon On the Institute of Monks, namely that it ought to imitate God and the sun. "As, therefore," he says, "God (and the sun) bestows light indiscriminately upon all, so the imitators of God ought to communicate the ray of their charity equally to all, because where charity suffers an eclipse, hatred at once succeeds in its place." The same in the Shorter Rules, interrogation 162, asks: "Of what kind ought our mutual charity toward one another to be?" and he answers: such as the Lord showed and taught when He said: "Love one another as I have loved you. Greater charity hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends; and if life is to be laid down, why should not much greater readiness of soul be necessarily applied in those things which are of less value? — not for this reason, that we may satisfy human duties, but with this counsel, that we may please God, and serve the benefit of each one." The same, oration 1 On Love toward God and Neighbor: "It is fitting," he says, "that we have such charity among us, as a man, with nature herself as guide, bears toward one of his own members, wishing equal health to the whole body, because also the pain of any one member presents equal trouble to the body." And a little before: "Let the mutual love of bats remind you, who, bound together as it were by a long chain, cling to one another, that you may never reckon separation and a solitary life to be more excellent than society and communion."
Because charity covers (kalypsei, that is, "shall cover," that is, "is able and accustomed to cover") a multitude (that is, the totality) of sins. — Thus Christ is said to have suffered for many, that is for all, Matt. 26:30; and that many, that is all, will rise on the day of judgment, Dan. ch. 12:2. You will ask first, what charity is here understood? I answer first, St. Bernard, in sermon 25 on the Canticle, understands the charity of God, which covers the sins of His predestined before death. "God's purpose stands," he says, "and the sentence of peace stands over those who fear Him, both dissembling their evils and rewarding their goods, so that in a wonderful way not only their good things but even their evil things cooperate unto good for them." And soon: "These therefore I have considered as never having sinned, since even if they seem to have offended in time, they do not appear so in eternity, because the charity of the Father covers a multitude of sins."
Second, Clement of Alexandria, in Stromata bk. 2, ch. 6, understands the charity of Christ: for this covers the sins of His elect, when, applying to them His passion, He bestows the grace which wipes away all their sins. But both these senses are accommodated rather than genuine. For St. Peter is treating of mutual charity, namely by which the faithful love one another, not of the charity of God or of Christ. Whence third and genuinely, understand the charity of the faithful. So Tertullian, Ambrose, Augustine, Clement, Prosper, and others to be cited shortly. Now since there is a twofold charity in them, one by which they love God, and another by which they love their neighbor, some understand here the charity by which they love God. For this charity covers, that is, conceals and abolishes sin, both through the act of contrition: for contrition is sorrow for sins flowing from the love of God above all things, and therefore it abolishes all mortal sins, according to that saying of Christ about Magdalene: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much," Luke 7:48; and through the act of martyrdom, which Tertullian applies to this passage in Scorpiace, ch. 6: "Thus, he says, love covers a multitude of transgressions, namely by loving God with all one's strength, by which one contends in martyrdom; out of all one's soul, which one lays down for God, it fashions a martyr." In like manner the act of love of God above all things expels every mortal sin, and justifies the sinner, even if, due to actual forgetfulness, he does not elicit sorrow and contrition for them, according to Proverbs 8:17: "I love them that love me," as the theologians everywhere teach; for an act of charity cannot coexist with the state of sin: see Francisco Suarez, Part 3, tom. 4, disp. 9, Quaest. 1, concl. 2. But others more properly take charity here as not the love of God, but of neighbor, and fraternal love, both because he alludes to, indeed cites, Proverbs 10:12, where it is said: "Hatred stirreth up strifes, and charity covereth all sins," for which the Septuagint translates, "but all those who do not contend, friendship covereth." St. James extends the same charity, saying in chapter 5, verse 20: "He who shall cause a sinner to be converted, etc., shall cover a multitude of sins." Charity therefore covers and abolishes sins before God in three ways: first, dispositively, because the act of contrition is the ultimate disposition to grace and justice; for contrition is an act of charity; second, formally, because the habit of charity and grace formally justify man; third, meritoriously: for those justified by acts of contrition and charity merit the remission of venial sins.
Furthermore, charity covers one's own sins, not only as to guilt, but also as to punishment, because it obtains their remission from God. And from this seems to have arisen this phrase, that when a sin is forgiven, it is said to be covered, namely because before it is forgiven, it continually strikes the eyes of God and of men, and provokes them to vengeance. But properly it seems to have arisen from homicide, which, because it is the highest crime, is therefore an example and mirror of the others. Hence "blood," that is, the shedding of blood, in Scripture signifies every sin. For in homicide the blood that is shed strikes the eyes of relatives, friends, and judges, especially of God, unto its avenging: hence when it is forgiven, the blood is said to be covered; when it is not forgiven, it is said to appear and to cry out for vengeance. This is what God says through Ezekiel 24:6, 7, 8: "Woe to the bloody city, etc. For her blood is in the midst of her: she set it upon the most clear rock: she shed it not upon the ground, that it might be covered with dust: that I might bring up My indignation, and might take vengeance, I have set her blood upon the most clear rock, that it should not be covered. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Woe to the bloody city, of which I will make a great pile," that Jerusalem might be burned by the Chaldeans with a great fire. Conversely, Joel, ch. 3, verse 21, says: "I will cleanse their blood, which I had not cleansed before," that is, I will cover and forgive sins through the merits of Christ. So Nehemiah, speaking of Sanaballat and the enemies of the Jews, prays to God: "Cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before Thy face;" but always look upon it, that Thou mayest punish and avenge; and Psalm 84:3, David says: "Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of Thy people; Thou hast covered all their sins:" "Thou hast covered," that is, Thou hast forgiven; for the prior verse, according to custom, explains the latter.
Secondly, charity covers the sins of neighbors, namely injuries (for the Hebrew pescaim signifies these, that is, transgressions, Proverbs 10:12) and offenses by which one offends another, and provokes to wrath. For charity covers these, both in the soul of him who has been offended, by blotting out the injuries, just as among the Athenians there was a law of amnesty, that is, of the forgetting of injuries; and in the soul of him who offends, it covers the animosity, inciting him to reciprocal love, that he may acknowledge his fault, and reconcile himself to the offended party: for the charity of the offended draws forth the charity of the offender, and vice versa: for love is the magnet of love. The genuine sense, therefore, of this passage is, as if to say: Cultivate mutual charity. For when this has occupied the soul, it covers mutual offenses by which we frequently provoke and offend one another by words or deeds, and so it begets peace and concord. That this is the sense is plain, first, from what precedes and follows, all of which look to mutual charity; secondly, from Proverbs ch. 10:12, which passage St. Peter here cites. For there hatred is said to stir up strifes, but charity to cover sins, that is, to cover strifes already stirred up, or to be stirred up; where the Scholiast clearly translates: "love covers all who do injury." Now from this general sense various particular ones are derived: for, as Clement of Alexandria says, 2 Stromata: "Charity is understood in many ways, by meekness, by kindness, by tolerance, by freedom from envy and emulation, by the removal of hatred, by the forgetting of injury."
You will ask, secondly, what sins and whose sins charity covers — one's own or another's? I answer: both, indeed all, as Solomon says, and from him St. Peter. First, therefore, charity of the neighbor covers one's own sins and reconciles man to God, because charity toward neighbor arises from charity toward God, which abolishes all sins and sanctifies man: for one loves the neighbor out of love of God, as His living image (and "participation," says Origen in the Prologue to the Canticle) created for His friendship, sonship, inheritance, and glory. "Charity," says St. Augustine on Psalm 33, "has two feet: do not be lame. What are the two feet? The two precepts of love of God and neighbor: with these feet run to God." And in this way can be understood that of Proverbs 10:12, which St. Peter here cites: "Hatred stirreth up strifes, and charity covereth all sins," as if to say: just as hatred stirs up the wrath of men and of God, so charity reconciles the friendship of God and men, and covers and conceals all sins; hatred offends God and men, charity reconciles you, hateful or offensive and excessive toward God and men: for in this way the antithesis between the prior and posterior hemistich stands. That charity covers one's own sins is taught by Tertullian in Scorpiace, ch. 6; St. Augustine, tracts 1 and 5 on the epistle of St. John; Clement, 2 Stromata, ch. 6; Ambrose, De Fuga saeculi, ch. 2; Ephrem, tract De Paenitentia; Prosper, ad Demetriadem, and many others, who take charity here as both of God and of neighbor. For although Solomon, Proverbs 10:12, seems rather to speak of charity toward neighbor, yet St. Peter extends his sentiment more generally to the charity of God, because this charity is connected with that one, indeed arises from it.
The first sense is, as if to say: If you forgive your neighbor his injuries, he, provoked by this love of yours, will likewise forgive yours, and so to both God will forgive His own (offenses), according to Christ's word in Matthew 6:14: "If you will forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offenses." Hence He also commands us to pray: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." For he who forgives offenses to his neighbors merits congruously, if he be a sinner, that mortal sins, and condignly, if he be just, that venial sins be forgiven him by God.
Second, hatred manifests sins through quarrel; but charity, by silence or its prudence, covers the same, that is, conceals or excuses them, except insofar as fraternal correction requires that they be argued and corrected. So Oecumenius and Lyranus here, and St. Chrysostom, homily 4 on Acts: "Charity," he says, "covers a multitude of sins: but enmities suspect even things that do not exist." So also St. Bernard, epistle 17. Hence St. Augustine, explaining that of Matthew 18:13, "If thy brother shall offend against thee, go and correct him between thee and him alone": "Charity itself," he says, "demands that what is sinned more secretly be corrected secretly: where the evil happens, there let it die: for if you alone know, and you wish to accuse him before all, you are not a corrector, but a betrayer." Therefore charity does not divulge the sin of one's neighbor, lest it irritate it, but covers it or privately corrects it, that it may heal. Truly Abbot Pastor in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, little book 9, number 6: "Whatever hour," he says, "we cover the sin of our brother, God too will cover ours; and whatever hour we have betrayed the faults of brothers, God will likewise betray ours." For with what measure you have measured, it shall be measured back to you: thus Constantine the Great at the Council of Nicaea, when notorious pamphlets were offered to him in which the Bishops were mutually accusing one another of crimes, refused to read them, but threw them into the fire, saying that if he saw any crime of a Bishop, he would cover it with his own cloak, lest it fall into the eyes of the people; and by this means he dispelled all their quarrels and complaints, as Theodoret reports, book 1 of his History, ch. 11.
Third, hatred, that is, correction proceeding from hatred, does not correct morals, but irritates, so that the sinner hardens himself in sin, and impudently defends and boasts of it: but charity, that is, correction made out of charity and love, soothes, calms, and settles all sins and all contentions and strifes, according to that saying of St. Augustine on chapter 1 of Galatians: "Whatever is brought against a wounded mind is the impulse of one punishing, not the charity of one loving: love, and say whatever you will."
Fourth, if you bear the injuries of your neighbor out of charity silently and patiently, you will cover them and quench them as water quenches fire, and overcome evil with good, and heap coals of fire upon his head, by which you will inflame him to reciprocal love. Hence the Septuagint at Proverbs 10:12, translate: "But all those who do not contend, friendship will cover."
Fifth, if you wish to remove enmities, quarrels, injuries, scandals, and any sins among neighbors with one another, show charity toward them: for by charity you will overcome them, bind them to yourself, and cover and abolish all things.
You will ask, thirdly, how charity covers sins. I answer, first: Charity covers, that is, abolishes sins, just as water covers fire when it overwhelms and extinguishes it: thus God is said to cover sins when He does not look upon them to punish, but by forgiving them removes, takes away, and abolishes them from His sight, and consequently from the nature of things (for what is in nature is necessarily seen by God), as I said on Romans 4:7.
Second, charity covers, that is, wraps up, cloaks, and by softening and cloaking excuses the injuries and sins of one's neighbor. For the Wise Man, Proverbs 10:11 and 12, opposes these two: "The mouth of the wicked covereth iniquity," and: "Charity covereth all sins," as if to say: The wicked man and impiety cloak and conceal their iniquity with the cloak of sanctity; but charity veils and covers the offenses of neighbors with the cloak of love.
So Dionysius Carthusianus on Proverbs ch. 10, verse 12. Charity therefore is, as it were, a golden mantle that covers all blemishes and defects so that they may not be seen. Thus St. Augustine praises his mother St. Monica, 9 Confessions, 9: "That among any souls dissenting and discordant, where she could, she so showed herself peaceful that when she heard from each many most bitter things about the other, such as swelling and bloated discord usually belches forth, when through the bitter conversations of one friend present about an absent enemy the cruelty of hatreds is breathed out; she nevertheless betrayed nothing to the other about the other, except what served to reconcile them."
St. Bernard teaches the manner of covering and excusing sins, Sermon 40 on the Canticle: "Excuse, he says, the intention if you cannot the work; suppose ignorance, suppose surprise, suppose accident. But if the certainty of the matter refuses absolutely all dissembling, persuade yourself nonetheless, and say: Vehement was the temptation: what would she have done about me, if she had received like power over me?" And Seneca, book 2 On Anger, ch. 30: "Let us examine, he says, the nature and the will of those acting. Is he a child? Let it be granted to his age, he does not know whether he sins. Is he a father? Either he has been so beneficial that even his injury is now a right, or perhaps this very thing is his merit by which we are offended. Is she a woman? She errs. Has he been commanded? Who but an unjust man rages against necessity? Has he been hurt? It is not an injury to suffer what you first did. Is he a judge? You should believe his sentence more than your own. Is he a king? If he punishes the guilty, yield to justice: if the innocent, yield to fortune. Is it a mute animal, or like a mute one? You imitate it if you grow angry. Is it a disease, or a calamity? It will pass over more lightly one who endures. Is it God? You destroy yourself as much when you are angry with Him as when you pray that He be angry at another. Is the man good who did the injury? Do not believe it. Is he wicked? Do not wonder. He will give to another the penalties he owes you, and the one who has sinned has already given them to himself."
Solomon therefore teaches, and from him St. Peter, that the true way of reconciling and preserving charity among men is, if all displeasing words, gestures, and acts which can give occasion of quarreling be covered, as it were, with a covering, cloaked, and blotted out.
Third and more aptly, charity covers injuries and sins, as a plaster covers wounds and sores by healing them and curing them. Therefore to cover sins is to wrap them, bind them up, anoint them, poultice them for healing; therefore he who loves is like a surgeon binding and healing with the plaster of love and loving correction all offenses, quarrels, and wounds of the soul. Thus that God covers sins as if with a plaster so that He may heal and cure them, Augustine teaches on Psalm 31, second sermon: "God," he says, "covers your wounds: the physician covers and cures; for he covers with a plaster: under the covering of the physician the wound is healed." The same is taught by Nazianzen, oration On Baptism.
Fourth, charity not only heals the wound and sore of the soul, e.g., quarrels and enmities, but also entirely covers it, so that it leaves behind no gap, bruise, or scar, namely no rancor, no pain, no memory, according to that precept of St. Clement, indeed of the Apostles, book 2 of the Constitutions, ch. 45: "You as a merciful physician, cure all sinners, using medicines suited to salvation, not only by burning, cutting, applying the razor, but also by binding, drying, applying gentle medicines that cover the scar, softening with consoling words."
Tropologically, sins are covered, first, when we amend our life: for then we cover and veil our former evil works with later good ones, "by taking up the covering of an honest life, that the foulness of past crimes may be hidden before the eyes of God," says Blessed Peter Damian, sermon 3 On St. George. So also St. Ambrose, book 2 On Repentance, ch. 5, and St. Gregory, 27 Morals, ch. 2. Second, when their remnants, namely inclinations, thoughts, and depraved habits, we mortify and uproot. So St. Gregory Nazianzen, oration On Baptism.
Anagogically, the past sins of the just are covered, because although on the day of judgment they are to be publicly disclosed and made manifest to the whole world (as against the Master, in 4, Distinction 43, letter D, the Theologians everywhere teach), yet this will result not in the confusion of the Saints, but in their glory: for it will be the glory of St. Magdalene that she emerged from her sins and rose to such great sanctity.
Morally, learn here how great is the power of charity. For it abolishes all offenses, not only past, as I have already said, but also present and future. Present, both because it abolishes present offenses, quarrels, strifes, enmities; and because it covers and excuses imperfections, imprudences, indiscretions, etc., which are committed in the work of charity, according to the saying: "Zeal purges the deed." Thus zeal purges from crime the homicide of Moses, of Phinees, of Mathathias, because they committed it out of burning charity for God and their nation, so that they might restrain it from idolatry, and turn away the wrath and vengeance of God from it.
It also covers future offenses, because it prevents them and makes them not be committed. So St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 16, on the verse, "Therefore I was directed to all Thy commandments": "Rightly, he says, was he directed, because he loved. For charity covereth a multitude of sins. See how much it covers, how much it directs. Charity is patient, is kind, envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, etc. Therefore if the law makes one immaculate, charity rightly covereth a multitude of sins, because love is the fulfillment of the law." Thus the wise charity, by reconciling enmities and enemies, prevents their quarrels, strifes, fights, and murders, which otherwise would certainly have come from them. And this is what Solomon means when saying in Proverbs 10:12: "Hatred stirreth up strifes, and charity covereth all sins," as if to say: where there is hatred among men, quarrels and contentions arise even from the slightest cause; where there is love, even great offenses are covered, or rather are not recognized. For the candor of a friend interprets all things candidly, indeed conceals the deeds of a friend, and does not hold one crime for another. On the contrary, hatred drags all things to the worse part, and forthwith fashions a crime where there is none; or makes a great one out of a small one, making an elephant out of a fly. For just as through black glass all things appear black, but through clear and golden glass all things appear white, bright, and golden: so through hatred all actions of him whom we hate appear foul and hateful; but through charity, all actions of him whom we love appear bright, pleasing, and golden, because love covers their malice and vice, and sees in them nothing but what is beautiful. Again, charity is the honey that sweetens all the gall of words and blows: it is the conqueror of injuries, because love is loving, indeed maddened.
Wherefore truly Clement of Alexandria, book 4 of the Stromata: "This," he says, "is charity, to love God and one's neighbor, this raises one to a height that cannot be explained: charity covers a multitude of sins, charity glues us to God, does all things in concord: in charity all the elect of God have been consummated. Without charity nothing is pleasing to God; there is no explication of its perfection."
And St. Augustine on Psalm 21, sermon 2: "The seamless tunic of Christ," he says, "is the charity and unity of the Church, woven from above, that is, from heaven by the Father and the Holy Spirit. Upon it the lot is cast, no one divides it;" and book 6 Against Julian: "Whoever," he says, "shall hold truth and charity, will neither err nor be envious. For error is to be driven out by truth, and envy by charity." The same elsewhere asserts that the bond of the members of the Church and of Christ is charity. The same, sermon 7 On St. Stephen: "Charity," he says, "in Stephen overcame the savagery of the Jews. Charity in Paul covered a multitude of sins. Charity therefore is the source and origin of all good things, an outstanding bulwark, and the way that leads to heaven. He who walks in charity will be able neither to err nor to fear. Charity itself directs and protects, and itself leads through." Charity, therefore, is the cloak of all sins as well as of all virtues, "indeed charity is the cloak of God and of the divine majesty," as one of the Saints aptly said, according to Isaiah 59:17: "He is covered as with a cloak of zeal."
Verse 9: Using Hospitality One Toward Another, Without Murmuring
9. Be mutually hospitable without murmuring. — In Greek, "without murmurings." He attaches hospitality to charity as a companion, indeed a daughter, and excludes from it murmuring. For stingy and narrow-minded hosts are accustomed to complain about the multitude of guests, the expense, the duration, gluttony, talkativeness, liberty, and other vices. Such were the inhabitants of Pontus to whom St. Peter writes, namely hard and inhospitable, as is plain from the words of Tertullian which I cited at the beginning of the epistle. Hence Pontus, from the ferocity of its inhabitants, was called Axenos, that is, inhospitable; but through the faithful disciples of St. Peter it was made Euxinos, Euxine, I say, and hospitable. For Pontus, on account of its rigid colds and dim, cloudy air, brings forth rigid and hard men. "Pontus," says Pliny, "was formerly called Axenos from its inhospitable ferocity." Ammianus, book 2: "The Achaeans," he says, "with their savagery extending through long license, gave the sea the name 'Inhospitable;' and on the contrary by way of euphemism it is called the Euxine Pontus." Ovid On Pontus: "Which Pontus holds with the false surname Euxine."
Wherefore St. Peter rightly commends to the inhabitants of Pontus, now converted to Christ, sincere hospitality "toward one another," namely toward Christians, especially toward the Apostles and apostolic men, who for the sake of the Gospel, or because of persecutions, then frequently changed lodgings and regions, and therefore needed the hospitality of many hosts. Among the Jews and many other peoples there is a right of hospitality for strangers of one's own nation for three days; when these are passed, it expires, and they say:
After three days fish and a guest often grow loathsome.
How great was the hospitality of the first Christians is plain from Lucian's Peregrinus, and from the Life of St. Pachomius, who through it was converted to Christianity, and from the Life of St. Praxedis and St. Pudentiana, who received all Christians with hospitality: hence their house was called the Baths of Novatus; where afterwards St. Justin Martyr lodged, and other Christians, so that this was their common and famous hospice.
Excellently St. Augustine, On the Words of the Lord according to Luke, sermon 32: "Recognize," he says, "the hospitality through which one comes to the Lord. Receive the guest, of whose journey you also are a companion, because we are all pilgrims. He is a Christian who recognizes himself a pilgrim in his own house and in his own country. Our fatherland is above; there we shall not be guests." The same, sermon 68 On the Times: "Abraham," he says, "offers hospitality to pilgrims, he who had no roof;" hence he merited to receive in hospitality the three angels representing the Holy Trinity. "Behold, the heavenly sublimity reclined at a human table, food is taken, He dines, and in the conversation of a tablemate familiar words are exchanged between man and God. And because with God hospitality cannot be without fruit, immediately He received the price of His reward. A son (Isaac) is given to the old man, posterity is given to the despairing." And sermon 70: "See, brothers, with what fervent spirit you ought to receive guests. Behold Abraham himself runs, his wife hastens, the servant hurries, no one is sluggish in the house of a wise man;" and shortly: "Lot, because he offered with kindly spirit what he could, merited to be freed from the destruction of the Sodomites. Attend, brothers, that even Lot, while he did not turn away guests, merited to receive angels. Behold, the angels enter the hospitable house, the houses (of the Sodomites) closed to guests are consumed by sulphurous flames."
The same, book 2 On Questions of the Gospel, Question 51: "Hold to hospitality if you wish to recognize the Savior: what infidelity took from the disciples, hospitality restored." The same, On Visiting the Sick, sermon 1: "You have God as a guest; make the hospitality given to your guest acceptable, and then you will say securely to your guest that in going he may lead you forth, and in leading he may bring you through, and in bringing through he may give you hospitality. I say to you, if you have shown to Him pleasing hospitality of yours, He will show His to you pleasingly and more pleasingly. O how blessed you will be if you become a guest of God, if you receive a dwelling in that heavenly city, namely Jerusalem, if God shall thence say to you, giving you certain thanks: I was a guest, and you took Me in, and as long as you did to one of the least of Mine, you did unto Me. Come, blessed of My Father, take possession of the kingdom. God does not promise you hospitality, He promises you the kingdom. You shall reign with Christ, you shall be heir of God, and joint heir with Christ." See St. Gregory, homily 23 on the Gospels, where he says: "Pilgrims are not only to be invited to hospitality, but also to be drawn in;" and he confirms this by citing these words of St. Peter, with the example of a very hospitable man, to whom as a pilgrim He showed Himself.
Verse 10: As Every Man Hath Received Grace, Ministering the Same One to Another
10. As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another. — This is the second office of charity: for the first was hospitality. By "grace" here understand not so much sanctifying grace as gratuitously bestowed grace: for this is what the Greek charisma signifies, that is, a gift. He commands therefore that the gifts and talents given to us by God should be expended for the benefit of our neighbors: for to this end God gave them to us; for He has made us their ministers, dispensers and stewards, as the Greek has it, not lords, and consequently He will exact an exact account of this dispensation from each one, saying: "Give an account of thy stewardship," Luke 16:2. Excellently Philo, in the book On the Cherubim: "It is enough, I think, to make clear that we use the possessions of others, neither having glory by possessing, nor riches, nor honors, nor empires, nor anything else proper either to body or to soul, nay not even life itself, but we have only the usufruct." So St. Urban, Pope and Martyr, the teacher of St. Cecilia and of her spouse St. Valerian, said that the goods of the Church are the votive offerings of the faithful, the prices of sins and the patrimonies of the poor, and therefore are to be expended on them, not on relatives, and that he and the Pontiffs are only the dispensers thereof. So his Life relates.
St. Paul accompanies St. Peter, 1 Cor. 12:7: "To every one, he says, is given the manifestation of the Spirit unto profit." And in Rom. 12:6, where he explains the manifold — or, as the Syriac translates, divided and distinct — grace of Christ, saying: "Having different gifts, according to the grace that is given us: either prophecy, to be used according to the rule of faith; or ministry, in ministering; or he that teacheth, in doctrine; he that exhorteth, in exhorting; he that giveth, with simplicity; he that ruleth, with carefulness; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness." See what is said there.
Note: The phrase "as he hath received" signifies that these gifts are to be expended freely, candidly, humbly, liberally for the advantage of others, not for one's own (for thus he has received them from God): so St. Gregory, in Moralia 28, ch. 6 or 11: "Then, he says, the manifold grace of God is well dispensed when the gift received is believed to belong to him who has it not; when it is reckoned to be given for the sake of him on whom it is bestowed. Then charity sets us free from the yoke of guilt, when in turn it subjects us to our service through love: when we both believe the goods of others to be ours, and offer ours to others as if they were their own." The same, in Homily 7 on Ezekiel: "Humbly, he says, bestow good on your neighbors, because you know that what you have is yours, not from yourselves."
Verse 11: If Any Man Speak, Let Him Speak as the Words of God
11. If any man speak (let him speak) as the words of God. — Here he explains the manifold grace, and generally divides it into two generic species, which contain many others under themselves, namely into speaking, that is, preaching and teaching; and ministering, such as distributing alms, serving the sick, receiving guests, etc. See what is said on Romans 12:6, where St. Paul indicates two species, prophecy and diaconia, which in fact are the same as doctrine and ministry. He commands therefore that the teacher and preacher should speak not his own words, but God's, that is, should teach things true, holy, and worthy of God, namely those things which Christ taught in the Gospel, and which God inspires in him, not those which the human or worldly spirit suggests. For in the primitive Church the Holy Spirit in the assembly of the faithful inspired in one an exhortation, in another a hymn, in another a prophecy, that each might bring forth and utter these for the edification of those present, as St. Paul teaches, 1 Cor. 14:26. To this purpose is that of Pindar in the Nemean Odes, ode 8: "Virtue grows when exalted by the wise, like a tree made fertile by the dew."
Secondly, that they should speak these words not proudly, but humbly: "For those who do not have from themselves the words they utter, why do they swell up as if from their own?" says St. Gregory, Pastoral Care, Part 3, ch. 25. Again, that they should speak them not coldly, but ardently: for such are the words of God and of the Holy Spirit, who therefore gave fiery tongues to the first teachers, namely the Apostles, at Pentecost, that with them they might ardently utter His words, and with them set on fire the hearts of their hearers, according to that: "Thy word is exceedingly refined," Psalm 118, verse 140. Climacus excellently, in Step 26: "As, he says, one who carries spices is betrayed by the odor even if he does not wish to be: so also he who has the Spirit of God is recognized by his words." Wherefore St. Augustine, in Book 4 of Christian Doctrine, instructs the teacher and preacher to pray ardently to God before reading and preaching, that He may suggest not only the things to be said, but also the manner and ardor in which they are to be said for striking the hearts of men, so that not so much the teacher as God through the mouth of the teacher may seem to speak. "That he may be heard, he says, intelligently, willingly, obediently, let him not doubt that this is accomplished more by the piety of prayers than by the faculty of orators, so that praying for himself and for those whom he is about to address, he may be a prayer-maker before being a teacher. At the very hour when he is about to speak, let him, before he stretches forth his speaking tongue, lift his thirsting soul to God, that he may belch forth what he has drunk, or pour out what he has been filled with."
So St. Paul the first Hermit, when visited by St. Anthony, spoke with him only the words of God; for thus St. Jerome writes about him: "When they mingle in mutual embraces, they greet each other by their proper names, and offer thanks to the Lord in common. And after the holy kiss Paul began thus with Anthony: Behold him whom you have sought with such labor: a neglected hoary head covers limbs decayed by old age. Behold, you see a man who will soon be dust. But since charity bears all things, tell me, I pray, how the human race fares: whether new roofs rise in ancient cities; by what empire the world is governed; whether any remain who are seized by the error of demons." Soon, when a raven brought bread: "Lo, said Paul, the Lord truly pious, truly merciful, has sent us a meal: for sixty years now I have always received a fragment of half a loaf; but on account of your arrival Christ has doubled the rations for His soldiers, etc. Then they sipped a little water from the spring with bowed mouth: and offering to God a sacrifice of praise they spent the night in vigils." When morning had risen, St. Paul spoke thus to Anthony: "Long ago, brother, I knew you dwelt in these regions: long ago God had promised you to me as my fellow-servant. But because now the time of my falling asleep has come, and because I have always desired to be dissolved and be with Christ, my course being completed there remains for me a crown of justice; you have been sent by the Lord, that you may cover my little body with earth, nay, restore earth to earth. When Anthony heard this, weeping and groaning he begged him not to leave him, and to take him as a companion on such a journey;" and he replied: "You ought not, he said, to seek what is yours, but what is another's. It is indeed expedient for you, having cast off the burden of the flesh, to follow the Lamb; but it is also expedient for the other brethren, that they may still be instructed by your example," etc. Let such be the conversations of religious, such the colloquies of the servants of God, such the visits of the faithful.
So St. Dominic continually spoke either with God or about God, and inculcated the same in his followers: hence St. Thomas Aquinas did the same, and taught others, saying: "A religious man should speak only with God, or about God." Thus David the Anchorite, deprived of speech, obtained from God that he might speak of divine things, as John Moschus reports in the Spiritual Meadow, ch. 143. Such were our first leaders St. Ignatius, St. Xavier, Father Faber, Father Canisius, who in inns, streets, and the courts of princes spoke nothing but religious matters, everywhere flowing with the heavenly honey of divine praises and of holy things, and therefore won countless souls for God. This is what Malachi says, chapter 2, verse 7: "The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts." Where St. Jerome notes that it is not said "will utter," but "will keep," namely that they may speak opportunely, and give to their fellow-servants food in due time: so that the mouth of the priest may be a kind of ark of saving doctrine, from which all may draw the necessities, which God has stored up there for the common benefit and instruction. The Author of the Imperfect Work, homily 38: "As the stomach, he says, when receiving food cooks it, so also priests receive the knowledge of the word through Scripture from God, and cook it within themselves, that is, by handling and meditating upon it within themselves, they distribute it to the whole people." And St. Ambrose, sermon 13, compares priests to bees. Just as bees, he says, from the little flowers of the divine Scriptures make sweet honey, and whatever pertains to the medicine of souls they compose with the art of their mouth. Moreover, it is not enough for a priest to speak the words of God with his voice, unless he also speaks them with his life: for life gives efficacy to the voice. For, as St. Ambrose says in epistle 6, "God separated the priests from the people, He commanded Moses to ascend the mountain with the priests, while the people stood below. Do you see the divisions? Nothing plebeian is required in priests, nothing popular, nothing common with the pursuits, customs and manners of the disorderly multitude; the priestly dignity claims for itself a sober gravity apart from crowds, a serious life, a singular weight. For how can he be respected by the people, who has nothing secret from the people, and is in no way different from the multitude? What is there in you to be admired, if he sees in you what is his own? if he sees nothing in you beyond what he finds in himself? Let us therefore rise above plebeian opinions, and the well-trodden paths of common gregarious conversation." Hence God in Leviticus 10: "I shall be sanctified, He says, in them that approach me." Where some translate: "I shall be acknowledged as holy by the cleanness and sanctity of My ministers," namely priests. Theodoret, Question 3 on Leviticus, asks why the victim offered for a priest was wholly burned, and answers: to demonstrate the integrity of the priest, who has not partially but wholly and plainly dedicated himself to God.
St. Basil, in Morals, Rule 80, ch. 10, asks what kind of men preachers of the Gospel ought to be? and answers: first, they ought to be as Apostles; secondly, as heralds of heaven; thirdly, as a rule of piety; fourthly, as the eye in the body: all of which he proves point by point from Scripture and the words of Christ.
"As Apostles, he says, and ministers of Christ, and faithful dispensers of the mysteries of God, fulfilling most completely both in deed and in word those things alone which have been commanded by the Lord. Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Going, teach all nations; so let a man esteem us as the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. As for what remains, it is required among dispensers that a man be found faithful.
As heralds of the kingdom of heaven, for the destruction of him who holds the empire of death in sin. Going therefore, preach, saying: The kingdom of heaven is at hand. I testify before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by His coming, preach the word of God.
As a form or rule of piety, that through them those who follow the Lord may be directed to all rectitude, and the perversity of those who in any matter resist His command may be uncovered. Forgetting indeed the things that are behind, but reaching forth to those that are before, I press toward the appointed mark, to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Whoever therefore among us are perfect, let us be thus minded: and if you are otherwise minded in any thing, this also God will reveal to you. Nevertheless, to that which we have already attained, that we be of the same mind, let us continue in the same rule. Be an example to the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity. Carefully take care to present yourself approved unto God, an unashamed workman, rightly handling the word of truth.
As the eye in the body, namely that they may know how to have a discernment of both good and evil, and that, as members of Christ, they may direct each member to the offices suited to it. The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome."
St. Gregory Nazianzen, in Oration 1, the Apologetic: "This is the sum, he says, that they should so excel in virtue that (to say it in one word) they should be heavenly: and able first to be purged, then to purge; to be instructed in wisdom, and so to make others wise; to become light, and to illumine others; to approach God, and to bring others to Him; to be sanctified, and to bring sanctity to others." Therefore let teachers and priests display that integrity of morals which is the censure and discipline of the rest: which they will accomplish "if they speak as oracles, and live as deities." Let religious do the same: for theirs it is to speak the words of God, that their voice may be the voice of God, not of the world, that they may imitate their Patriarch John the Baptist, who says: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," Matthew 3:2 and 3.
If any man minister, as of the power which God administereth (chorēgei, that is, supplies, suggests, furnishes), — so the Syriac. This is the other kind of charism, namely diaconia or ministry, such as the administration of the holy Sacraments, of alms, and of any other things. He says therefore, that whoever has obtained from God any such ministry and office in the Church, let him administer and exercise it, not by his own power, but by God's, which God supplies and furnishes to him: by which he intimates first, that they ought to perform their own office, not invade another's; and that they can claim nothing for themselves, but all their power, faculty and efficacy belongs to God, to whom it is to bestow. So Oecumenius. Secondly, that they ought to minister in power, that is, not only rightly and faithfully, without respect of persons; but also valiantly, strenuously, generously overcoming all difficulties, fearing no man's power or envy, knowing themselves to be God's ministers, and acted upon, ruled, and protected by Him; for this is what the Greek ischys means, that is, power, strength, fortitude. So Christ returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, Luke ch. 4:14. Let Christians imitate the same, that whatever they begin and do, they may begin and do in the power of the Spirit, that they may seem to be acted and impelled by the divine power of the Holy Spirit, as Samson was acted in his mighty and heroic deeds. Thirdly, in giving and bestowing they should be liberal, mindful that they are not giving their own but God's, who is most liberal in giving, and wills that His ministers imitate this His liberality, and therefore the more liberally they bestow, the more liberally He imparts to them. For, as the Author of the Imperfect Work says, hom. 43 on Matthew: "Where the master of the house is bountiful, the steward ought not to be stingy. If God is kind, why should His priest be austere? Do you wish to appear holy? be austere about your own life, kind toward another's." Fourthly, that they should not seek their own gain, but that of souls for God's glory: "That in all things, he says, God may be honored (in Greek doxazētai, that is, glorified) through Jesus Christ," because through the merits of Christ the Mediator God bestows these gifts on His ministers. Wherefore truly St. Augustine, Soliloquies ch. 15: "He who, O Lord, seeks glory for himself from Thy good, and not for Thee, this man is a thief and a robber, and is like the devil, who wished to steal Thy glory." And St. Bernard, Sermon Against Ingratitude: "Happy is he, he says, who at every single grace returns to Him in whom is the fullness of all graces;" and Sermon 13 on the Canticle: "To the place, he says, from which they go forth, the rivers of graces return, that they may flow again; let the heavenly outpouring be sent back to its source, that it may flow more abundantly upon the earth."
To whom (both to Christ and to God) is glory and dominion. — The Syriac: glory and honor. Holy and heavenly men are accustomed to refer the beginnings and ends of all things and prayers to God, according to that: "From Thee is the beginning, in Thee shall it end;" and therefore to break forth into His doxology in imitation of the blessed minds, whose life they fore-taste and begin. For the blessed in the heavens continually sing to God: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come," Apocalypse 4:8. "To Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, benediction, and honor, and glory, and power, for ever and ever," Apoc. 3:13, and 7:12. See what is said there.
Verse 12: Dearly Beloved, Think Not Strange the Burning Heat Which Is to Try You
12. Dearly beloved. — "By the very name, says Oecumenius, he signifies that not because they are held in hatred, but because they are exceedingly dear, namely to God, and are vehemently loved, do afflictions befall them."
Do not be strangers. — He passes from charity to patience, then most necessary for the faithful on account of persecutions: in Greek it is mē xenizesthe, that is, do not wonder and esteem it as a strange thing, that many adversities should befall and rush upon you as upon servants of God. Do not, says Oecumenius, regard this as foreign to the friends of God, since it is proper and glorious to them, that they should be tested, purged, and made illustrious as gold by the fire of tribulation, and that they should be conformed to Christ suffering, that they may be configured to the same Christ rising again. Hence Bede, Hugh, and others explain it thus, as if to say: Do not consider yourselves strangers to God and Christ, as though cast off by Him, and therefore afflicted. But Lyranus says, as if: Do not, on account of afflictions, become a stranger, that is, alienate yourselves from the faith and love of Christ, or flee into foreign shores. But the first sense which I gave is the proper and genuine one.
Wherefore foolish are the heretics, who, whether ignorantly or maliciously, twist these words against pilgrimages to the thresholds of the Holy Apostles, to Compostela to St. James, to Jerusalem to the holy places, etc., as if St. Peter here forbade pilgrimaging thither. For xenizesthai signifies nothing of the sort, but what I have said. Whence the Syriac, St. Cyprian, epistle 56, and St. Jerome on Amos chapter 4 translate, "do not wonder"; Tertullian in the Scorpiace, chapter 12, "do not be terrified at the burning"; St. Fulgentius to Thrasimund, "do not be terrified at the heat as if it were something new." And so St. Peter immediately explains, saying: "As though some new (in Greek xenou, that is foreign) thing happened to you." Wherefore equally incongruous is the sense of Aureolus in his Compendium of Sacred Scripture, as if to say: Do not run about lightly, carried away by some fervor of will, imagining that you will find something new elsewhere. And that of Hugh, as if to say: Do not in the fervor of devotion vow or bind yourselves to impossibilities, or to things too difficult, which afterwards you cannot or will not perform; for xenizein is opposed to idiazein: hence as idiazein means to be accustomed, and to do the customary thing in the customary way, so on the contrary xenizein means to do an unusual thing, to be astonished at a new and unwonted thing, to be terrified and shaken by the strangeness and novelty of the thing. Thus St. Basil, epistle to Meletius: I shall write, he says, to Eccion tō xenizonti, that is, narrating something unheard-of to you; I knew that an accusation of this kind would lead you to astonishment because of the novelty of the matter. Thus Constantine the Caesar, in book 9 of Agriculture, chapter 5, teaches that a plant should be set in soil congenial and connatural to it, lest, he says, it xenizētai, that is, be alienated by the novelty, and turn away from soil that is foreign to it. Aptly therefore here you may translate with Salvian in the place cited and others: Be not moved, be not troubled, be not shaken in afflictions as by a new, unwonted, and foreign thing. With the same meaning the word peregrinus and peregrinor is taken by the Latins: for he is called a peregrinus who is not in his own city, but in a foreign one. Whence Cicero for Rabirius: "Are you, he says, so ignorant of our discipline and custom, that you seem to wander as a stranger in another city, not to bear office in your own?" And in book 5 of the Tusculans: "He, he says, wandered through all infinity, that he might rest in no extremity." So the ears and eyes are said to wander, when they hear, see, and are astonished at a foreign and new thing. So Horace, book 1, epistle 12: "The mind, he says, is abroad." So in Isaiah 28:21, the work of God is said to be alien and foreign to punish and afflict, because His proper work is to have mercy, to spare, and to do good. And perhaps to this passage of Isaiah St. Peter here alludes.
In the burning heat, — not of love and affection, but of affliction and temptation; for in Greek it is en pyrōsei, that is in burning, as Tertullian reads in Scorpiace ch. 12; in ardor, as St. Cyprian, epistle 56; Pagninus, do not wonder at your testing through fire; Oecumenius and the Tigurine version, while you are tested and tried through fire; for pyrōsis is a testing and trial through fire; less correctly some translate it as blight, namely jaundice or rust, which scorches grain by burning it like the royal disease, and is therefore in Hebrew called schiddaphon.
He alludes to Ecclus. 27:6: "The furnace tries the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation just men;" and to that: "We have passed through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us out into a refreshment," Ps. 65, verse 12. For affliction is as it were a burning furnace, scorching and tormenting the afflicted. It is therefore pyrōsis itself, that is a burning, scorching, concoction, but in which, and out of which, is made pyrōpos, that is pyropus, a gem that shines and flashes like fire, according to that: "As gold in the furnace He hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust He hath received them," Wisd. 3:6. Where St. Ephrem prudently notes, in the sermon On Patience, that just as the potter or goldsmith adjusts the furnace to the earthen vessel or to the gold which he is firing, lest he scorch it too much or too little: so also God adjusts the temptation to the strength of man, and to the grace which He gives him, nor does He suffer a man to be tempted above his strength, as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 10:13. Again, He adjusts it to the vices of man, which He desires and intends to burn off and consume by this fire of tribulation. The sense therefore is: Do not be strangers in the burning heat, that is, do not wonder as at a strange thing at the heat, that is, the ardor, of temptation and affliction which befalls you. It is a catachresis: for "to be a stranger" is put for "to wonder at as a strange thing"; it is a Hebraism, "in the burning heat" meaning "at the burning heat": for the Hebrews construct verbs of contact, whether real or mental, such as to wonder at, with beth, that is "in." For some of the first Christians wondered (as also now those wonder who turn from sins to God) that, soon after their conversion to Christ, they were on every side harassed by persecutions, temptations, and hardships. To these St. Peter answers, that this is not to be wondered at, since it follows from the nature of the thing. For faith and piety stir up the hatred of infidels and the impious against them, since they have declared war on them. Wisely Salvian, in book 3 On Providence: "What, he says, is the wonder if we endure all evils, who are enlisted to bear all things?" For this cause Christ crucified, after the resurrection, appeared to the two disciples going to Emmaus as a pilgrim in Israel, to represent that they themselves were pilgrims. For He took on Himself their affection and habit, that He might teach them: because, namely, to new disciples and new Christians it seemed new and strange, that Christ, who had been promised to be King of Israel and Savior of the world, should die and be crucified. But He Himself corrected this error of theirs, showing from the law and the Prophets that it behoved Christ (and consequently every Christian) to suffer, and so to enter into His glory, Luke 24:26. Wherefore wisely St. Chrysostom, hom. 8 on 2 Tim.: "It is unlawful, he says, for God's wrestler to indulge in pleasures, it is not permitted for the wrestler to feast. For all present things are wrestling, contest, war, stadium: another is the time of rest; this time is appointed for hardships and for sweat. No one, when he has stripped himself for the contest and been anointed, seeks rest." And St. Leo, sermon 1 On Lent: "Let us understand, he says, that the more zealous we are for our salvation, the more vehemently shall we be assailed by the adversary." St. Hilary on Matthew 4 gives the cause, saying: "Upon those of us who have been sanctified the temptations of the devil rage most fiercely: he most longs for victory over the saints." And St. Jerome, in the epistle to Eustochium, On the Custody of Virginity: "The devil does not seek out unfaithful men, he hastens to snatch from the Church of Christ: his foods, according to Habakkuk, are choice; he wishes to subvert Job, and having devoured Judas he asks for power to sift the Apostles." And St. Gregory on that passage of Job 40, "He shall drink up the river": "Those, he says, he strives mightily to snatch, whom he sees, having despised earthly pursuits, already joined to heavenly things." And Origen, homily 9 on Judges 1: "You have come, he says, to the water of baptism: this is the beginning of the spiritual contest and battle; from here the beginning of the battle against Zabulon arises for you." Wherefore, just as Christ immediately after His baptism went into the desert, and was there tempted by the devil: so let every faithful man, regenerated and aspiring to the height of virtue and to heaven, have this premeditated thought, that he must wrestle fiercely with the enemy, indeed that he has in fact challenged all the demons and all hell to a duel and singular contest. "Son, says Ecclus. ch. 2:1, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation." Having experienced this, St. Anthony, as St. Athanasius testifies, taught and admonished others, saying that the devil most fiercely attacks and harasses Monks and virgins who have dedicated themselves to God, both because their heroic virtue is a disgrace to the demon, who refused to aspire to it, and is therefore as it were a stake in his eyes, continually pricking and crucifying him; and because he ill bears that God, whom he holds for an enemy and torturer, should be thus worshipped and honored by them; and because he envies their virtue and glory.
Which befalleth you for a trial. — peirasmos, that is temptation, alludes to pyrōsis, that is fervor; for temptation is as it were a fire, a fervor and ardor, which tests, that is, examines, purges, and perfects man's mind, virtue, and constancy, according to that of Daniel 11:35: "And of the learned shall fall, that they may be tried, and may be chosen, and made white." See what is said there.
As though some new thing happened to you. — As if to say: It is not a new and strange thing for the faithful and pious to be tempted and tribulated, as you, O new Christians, suppose, but it is old and proper, indeed always practiced from the beginning of the world until now. Thus the impious Cain persecuted pious Abel; the sons of men and Nemrod persecuted the sons of God; the Canaanites persecuted Abraham; the Sodomites Lot; the brothers Joseph; Laban Jacob; the Philistines Isaac; Pharaoh Moses; the Egyptians the Hebrews; Saul David; Manasses Isaiah; the Jews persecuted Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and the rest of the Prophets, according to that of Hebr. 11:37: "They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy: wandering in deserts, in mountains and dens, and in caves of the earth."
Wherefore Christ often forewarned His own of this very thing, that they might prepare themselves for it: "In the world you shall have distress," John 16:32. "The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against the parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for My name's sake," Matthew ch. 10, verse 21.
Verse 13: But If You Partake of the Sufferings of Christ, Rejoice
13. But rejoice, as partakers of the sufferings of Christ. — He gives two reasons why they ought not to be sorrowful in affliction, but to rejoice: the former, that in tribulation they share in the passion of Christ. Whence St. Fulgentius, in book 3 to Thrasimund, reads, but as partakers, which is the highest honor and glory, as well as advantage and merit: for those who suffer are, through their own passion, as it were grafted and engrafted into the passion of Christ, like a branch into a tree, and so from Him they suck all the sap of vigor and grace, and the strength to endure, to merit, and to persevere. The latter, that with Christ who suffered they are to rise again to immense glory. The Greek has alla katho koinōneite, that is, but in that ye are partakers; or, as Tertullian, Scorpiace 12, "for inasmuch as ye are partakers;" which reading signifies that we should rejoice as much as in suffering we share in the sufferings of Christ, so that the more the passion grows, so much the more let the joy also grow: so much so that the measure of joy may be the measure of tribulations, according to that of 2 Corinthians 1:6: "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us: so also by Christ doth our comfort abound;" and that of Psalm 93:19: "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, Thy consolations have given joy to my soul." Hence St. Cyprian, epistle 56, reads: "But as often as ye communicate in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice." Hence those who suffer are said, first, to suffer not so much their own cross as Christ's, according to that: "Let us go forth therefore to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach," Hebr. 13:13. So "Moses, when he was grown up, denied himself to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter, rather choosing to be afflicted with the people of God, than to have the pleasure of sin for a time, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of the Egyptians," Hebr. 11:24. So Paul says with his companions: "Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies," 2 Corinthians 4:10. "And if we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him," Rom. 8:17. "I bear the marks of Jesus in my body," Galatians 6:17.
Secondly, Christ in turn is said to suffer in the faithful as the head in His members. Hence Christ said to Saul: "Why persecutest thou Me?" Acts 9:4; He did not say: "Why my faithful," but: "Why persecutest thou Me?" because they themselves are My members, and with Me make up one mystical body of the Church: by persecuting them, therefore, you persecute Me, because he who persecutes the members, attacks and persecutes the head itself. So St. Paulinus, in his epistle to Aper: "From the beginning of the ages, he says, Christ suffers in all His own. For He is the beginning and the end, who is veiled in the law, revealed in the Gospel, wonderful always both suffering and triumphing in His Saints, the Lord. In Abel slain by his brother, in Noe mocked by his son, in Abraham a pilgrim, in Isaac offered up, in Jacob a servant, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed and put to flight, in the Prophets stoned and cut asunder, in the Apostles tossed by land and sea, and frequently slain by many and various torments of the blessed Martyrs. He, therefore, even now bearing our infirmities and sickness, because He is the man always set in a stripe for us, and knowing how to bear infirmities which we without Him can neither bear nor know. He Himself, I say, now for us and in us sustaining the world, that by enduring He may destroy it, and perfect virtue in infirmity. He also in thee suffers reproaches, and Him in thee this world hates; but thanks to Him, because He conquers when He is judged, and triumphs in us."
Thirdly, those who suffer are said to be incorporated into Christ, and so to become and be one with Christ. For thus the Apostle calls us co-dead, co-planted, co-crucified with Christ, Rom. 6:5, and 2 Timothy 2:11; whence the same says: "With Christ I am nailed to the cross; and I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me," Galatians 2:20; and St. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Romans: "My love is crucified." Wherefore the apex and sum of the Christian life consists in the endurance of afflictions and in the love of persecutors. Whence St. Basil, prescribing a formula of the perfect life for Religious men and Anchorites, in his admonition to the younger, inculcates almost only this very thing.
Rejoice. — St. Cyprian reads: in all things rejoice, according to that of St. James 1:2: "My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations," where I have recounted many causes of this joy. "The end of the sufferings of Christ is the resurrection," says Origen on chapter 1 to the Romans. So also the end of the suffering of Christians is resurrection and eternal glory: rightly therefore let them rejoice in suffering.
That ye may also be glad with exceeding joy in the revelation of His glory, — agalliōmenoi, that is, leaping for joy. Whence St. Cyprian, epistle 56, reads, "rejoicing ye exult." For to exult is to leap beyond measure, says Nonius. For so great will be the magnitude of beatitude and heavenly glory, that the human heart cannot contain it, but as it were leaps outside and above itself, indeed would be split and burst with joy, did not God contain and bind it with His omnipotent hand. So the Psalmist, while still placed in this exile, from the hope of future glory: "My heart and my flesh, he says, have rejoiced in the living God," Psalm 83:3; and: "Sing joyfully to God, all the earth, sing, and rejoice, and sing psalms," Psalm 97:4; and: "Going they went and wept, casting their seeds; but coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves," Psalm 125:6; and Malachi ch. 4, verse 2: "Unto you that fear My name, the Sun of justice shall arise, and health in His wings, and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd": where I said more about this leaping; and Sophonias ch. 3, verse 14: "Give praise, O daughter of Sion; shout, O Israel; be glad, and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem." See Baruch, ch. 5.
So we read in the Life of St. Evergislus Archbishop of Cologne, that when, according to his custom, he entered the temple of St. Gereon, in which the bodies of him and of his fellow Martyrs rest, and recited that psalm: "The Saints shall rejoice in glory," they themselves answered from the sepulchres: "They shall be joyful in their beds," Psalm 149, verse 5.
Verse 14: If You Be Reproached for the Name of Christ, You Shall Be Blessed
14. If ye be reproached. — In Greek oneidizesthe, that is, as Tertullian, Scorp. 12, reads, "if ye are dishonored"; St. Cyprian, epistle 56, "if it is cast as a reproach upon you": For to the Gentiles the name of Christ and of Christian was a reproach and shameful; whence they cast that as a kind of infamy upon the faithful.
In the name of Christ, — that is, on account of the name of Christ, namely because you are Christians, because you worship and invoke the name of Christ. The Syriac: for the name of Christ, or because you belong to Christ, as being of the house, family and Church of Christ. So Nero, who first persecuted the Christians, made the name "Christian" a reproach, when he passed this shameful edict against them: "Whosoever confesses himself to be a Christian, let him as a convicted enemy of the human race, without any further defense, be put to death." Acutely and wittily Tertullian, Apol. 3, censures the Gentiles for hating the name of Christ, since Christ in Greek is the same as "anointed"; or, as the Gentiles pronounced it, Chrestus, since chrēstos is the same as sweet, useful, profitable. "Therefore, he says, in innocent men an innocent name itself is hated," nay, a holy, lovable, angelic, divine name; for such is "Jesus Christ."
Blessed are ye. — In Greek makarioi, that is blessed, supply: ye shall be in heaven, and ye are on earth, on account of the honor of the name of Christ, and on account of the certain hope of glory, as promised by Him to those who suffer for Him.
Because that which is of the honor, glory and virtue of God, and the Spirit which is His, resteth upon you, — as if to say: The glory, virtue and Spirit of God rests upon you, and impels to every difficult thing, namely to heroic patience. The Syriac translates, the glorious Spirit of God resteth upon you. The Greek now has: hoti to tēs doxēs kai to tou Theou pneuma eph' hymas anapauetai, that is, because the spirit of glory and the spirit of God (that is, the glorious spirit of God, it is a hendiadys) resteth upon you. St. Cyprian, epistle 56, reads onoma for pneuma; for he translates: because the name of the majesty and power of the Lord resteth upon you; Tertullian, Scorp. ch. 12: because the glory and Spirit of God resteth upon you.
In him therefore who suffers for Christ, there rests of God, first, honor; secondly, glory; thirdly, virtue, in Greek dynamis, that is, power and strength; fourthly, the Spirit, who is the author of all glory, honor, and virtue in the sufferer, and as in His temple and bridal chamber rests there with wondrous delight; for in the sufferer, says Dionysius, this signifies that God reckons something honorable, glorious, virtuous, or triumphal — namely, invincible patience in adversities. Thus the spirit of fortitude rested upon Christ, Isaiah 11:2. By these words he signifies how great a dignity and ornament it is to suffer for Christ, namely that in this is placed all the honor, glory, power and majesty of God, so that nothing more worthy, more honorable, more divine, more pleasing to God or more glorious can be conceived, indeed the very person and majesty of the Holy Spirit rests in him who suffers. For He as a leader makes the one who suffers for Christ, as His own soldier, sworn in, animates, strengthens, protects, perfects him so that he conquers, and leads him to triumph and an eternal crown. For the highest and most noble fortitude is to suffer for Christ, for the orthodox faith, for the true religion, for the worship of God and for God Himself: to suffer, I say, words and blows, calumnies, reproaches, torments, and death itself. Hence St. Augustine, in his sermon On St. Victoria: "There," he says, "is the more glorious crown, where Christ is the weaker: because indeed a manly spirit in women has done something greater, when under such a weight feminine frailty did not fail, etc. He appeared in them invincible, who for them was made weak. He filled them with fortitude that they might conquer, who emptied Himself that He might make them strong. He led them to these honors and praises, who for them heard reproaches and accusations. He made women die manfully and bravely, who for them deigned mercifully to be born of a woman." Again the same St. Augustine, in sermon 78 On the Times, mystically expounds that text of Genesis 25, "The elder shall serve the younger" — namely Esau to Jacob — thus: The wicked shall serve the pious, persecutors the patient, torturers the Martyrs; because by torturing they do nothing else than fashion for them the laurel of martyrdom. "How," he says, "do the wicked serve the good? not by obeying, but by persecuting: how do persecutors serve the Martyrs, how do files or hammers serve gold, how do mills serve wheat, how do furnaces serve the loaves to be baked, so that the loaves may be baked and the furnaces consumed; how in the goldsmith's furnace does the chaff serve the gold, where without doubt the chaff is consumed and the gold is proved."
The Greek codices add: "He (the Spirit), indeed among others is blasphemed, but among you is glorified," by which is signified that these reproaches of the infidels against Christians fall back upon the Holy Spirit Himself, and consequently the faithful who suffer have as their companion in passion the Holy Spirit, who both receives and repels these reproaches, and who animates, directs, and strengthens the faithful in receiving and refuting them. Again, that the Holy Spirit is honored and glorified by those who suffer as much as He is dishonored, despised and blasphemed by the persecutors. Therefore Tertullian, to the Martyrs, ch. 3: "You are about to enter a good contest, in which the agonothete is the living God, the xystarches is the Holy Spirit, the crown is eternity, the prize is the angelic substance, citizenship for ages of ages. Thus your epistates is Christ Jesus, who has anointed you with His Spirit, and has led you out to this arena."
Furthermore, St. Peter here insinuates various reasons why suffering for Christ is the highest dignity. The first is, because this is the highest act of Christian patience, fortitude, charity. The second, because sufferings are royal garments, namely purple, the military cloak, garlands, badges, and, as the Apostle calls them, Galatians 6:17, the marks of Christ. Therefore Theodore the Studite, when ordered to be flogged by Leo the Armenian for defending the sacred images of Christ, at once spontaneously loosed his belt and, having laid aside his garment, offered his naked body to the lashes: "For it is a delight to me," he said, "this flogging of my poor body, and this finally is its supreme laying down, that my naked soul may the more swiftly fly to Him whom I desire." Thus Michael the Studite, in his Life. Whence Theodore himself, writing to Naucratius and exulting after the blows: "Is not," he says, "the glory of those who bear the marks of Christ more wonderful than that of those who wear diadems — to bear the life-giving sufferings of Him as crowns?"
The third, because Christ exalted the cross and the sufferings in His own body, and as it were deified them; for just as, assuming humanity to the Word, He as it were deified it, by uniting it to God, so making man the Word, that this man might truly and properly be God: so likewise, taking up cross and sufferings in body and soul, He united them with body and soul to the Word, and thus as it were deified them. Hence just as God is truly said to have been incarnate and made man, so He is truly said to have suffered, been crucified, died: therefore Christ in Himself and in His humanity dedicated and consecrated sufferings and patience, just as poverty, as St. Bernard says, humility, obedience, and contempt of self and the world.
The fourth, that Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the whole Most Holy Trinity is supremely honored by those who suffer, as by sacrifices and holocausts, not brute but human and rational, as St. Peter here says.
The fifth, that to them by God is promised and prepared the highest reward and crown in heaven, namely the laurel of martyrdom, and that they may be supremely conformed to the glorious Christ, who were conformed to the same suffering and crucified Christ.
The sixth, that the cross, sanctified by contact with the body of Christ, is to be adored, and not only that which touched the body of Christ, but every other which is its representation and image, as we see it publicly adored in the Church on Good Friday, according to that of Lactantius:
Bend the knee, and adore the venerable wood of the cross.
Whence the Church then sings of it:
O tree of beauty bright and fair,
Adorned with the king's purple,
Chosen from a worthy stem
To touch such holy limbs.
Blessed are thy arms upon which
The price of the world hung,
Made the balance of His body,
And bore away the prey of Tartarus.
O Cross, hail, our only hope:
In this time of suffering,
Increase righteousness for the godly,
And grant pardon to the guilty.
Sufferings therefore unite us and make us like to Christ and God, indeed they make us companions of the crucified Christ and God, and as it were transform us into Him. What is nobler than to be like and a companion of Christ? "By martyrdom you are adorned as it were with the blood of Christ as your companion," says St. Cyprian, On the Praise of Martyrdom.
The seventh, that the sufferings of the Martyrs marvelously illustrate the Church: for there is no sect which has so many Martyrs, who for their faith, or rather perfidy, are willing to pour out not only their wealth but also their life, as the Christian religion has. Again, the martyr gives an illustrious example of virtue to the rest of the faithful, that they too may long to suffer and die for God. Hence Tertullian in his Apology: "The blood of the Martyrs," he says, "is the seed of Christians." And Prudentius in the Peristephanon:
The number of the Martyrs ever
Grew beneath every hailstorm.
Therefore St. Gregory Nazianzen, oration 18, which is about St. Cyprian, gives the Martyrs these titles and praises, that they are "holocausts endowed with reason, perfect victims, oblations pleasing and acceptable to God, heralds of the truth, cuttings of falsehood, fulfillments of the law understood in a spiritual sense, oppressions of error, prosecutions of vice, deluges of sin, lustrations of the world." Wherefore by your virtue, O St. Cyprian Martyr, "I am affected to a greater degree, I am refreshed by memory, and as if frenzied with joy I am borne along, and in some manner I dwell in your same martyrdom, I am companion and partaker of the contest, and I cross over wholly to you." Thus far Nazianzen, who also a little before asserts that, despising all earthly things, he pants for the heavenly. "By an insatiable eagerness for this thing," he says, "I am held, nor can I ever be torn from it. I am delighted by the honors of the Martyrs, I rejoice in the blood of the wrestlers, and the contests and victories indeed are of others, but the crowns are mine, so much do I esteem this glory, and reckon their excellent deeds to be my own."
St. Chrysostom, a noble martyr of a long martyrdom, expelled from Constantinople so that he might be done in by the hardships of the journey and the cruelty of the soldiers, as in fact he was done in, writes thus to Cyriacus likewise in exile: "Indeed, when I was being driven from the city of Constantinople, I cared for none of these things, but spoke thus with myself: If the Empress wills to proscribe me, let her proscribe: The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof. If she wills to cut me asunder with a saw, let her cut: I have Isaiah as my example. If she wills to cast me into the sea, I shall remember Jonah. If she wills to throw me into a furnace, I have those three youths who endured it. If she wills to expose me to beasts, I shall remember Daniel cast into the den of lions. If she wills to stone me, I have Stephen the protomartyr. If she wills to take off my head, I have John the Baptist. If she wills to take away my substance, let her take it away: naked I came forth from my mother's womb, naked I shall return thither. The Apostle exhorts me: God does not respect the person of man. If I still pleased men, I would not be the servant of Christ. And David himself arms me, saying: I spoke in the sight of kings, and was not ashamed."
Tertullian, in his book to the Martyrs, ch. 4, sets before them, among other examples and ornaments of Gentile fortitude, the flogging of the Spartans. "For," he says, "the greatest solemnity today among the Lacedaemonians, the diamastigōsis, that is, the flogging, is not hidden. In which sacred rite, before the altar, all the noble youths are afflicted with scourges, while their parents and kinsmen stand by and exhort them to persevere. For it shall be reckoned an ornament and glory of greater title, if the soul rather should yield (depart from the body and this life) than the body. Therefore if so much is allowed for earthly glory of bodily and mental vigor, that they despise sword, fire, cross, beasts, torments, under the reward of human praise, I can say: These sufferings are small for the attainment of heavenly glory and the divine reward. How much glass? How much for a true pearl? Who therefore would not most willingly give as much for the true as others give for the false?"
St. Cyprian, On the Praise and Exhortation of Martyrdom, gives these either titles or spurs to martyrdom: First, "it gives undaunted spirits to pain." Second, "the mind grows in battle, struck though more frequently, virtue stands immovable, as a rock struck by waves." Third, "by death it condemns life, that it may guard life by death." Fourth, "the soldier laden with the triumphal spoils from the enemy rejoices in his wounds." Fifth, "there is nothing to fear for those whose hope is of eternity and whose life is heavenly, and whose salvation rejoices in the promised immortality." Sixth, "those whose mind has despised this world, and the face of this age has become alien, to whom this world is always in place of a prison: nor will you be able to love martyrdom, unless you first hate the world."
Verse 15: But Let None of You Suffer as a Murderer, or a Thief, or a Railer, or a Coveter of Other Men's Things
15. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, — but as a Christian, and therefore a Martyr of Christ. Wherefore as to what St. Cyprian, epist. 73, and St. Jerome, epist. 58, say — that Christ made of the punishment of homicide a martyrdom for the thief (who was crucified at the right hand of Christ) — understand testimony, namely a protestation of faith in Christ; that is to say: Christ brought it about that the thief, crucified for his crimes, should on the cross itself believe in Christ and publicly profess his faith in Him, and so should become a martyr, that is, a witness of Christ, and obtain the reward of glory due to such testimony, and in that way He converted for him the penalty of homicide into the triumph of this martyrdom.
Or a thief, or an evildoer (in Greek kakopoios, that is, a doer of evils: thus the Syriac; Tertullian, Scorpiace ch. 12, as malefactor), or a coveter of others' goods. — "For it is not the punishment that makes a martyr, but the cause," says St. Augustine, epist. 107 to Festus; nor does the scaffold make a martyr, but a criminal. Hence St. Cyprian, book 3 Testimonia, ch. 37, citing these words of St. Peter: "It behooves not faith," he says, "to be punished for other offenses, but only for the name." Beautifully St. Augustine, sermon On the Ten Plagues: "No one," he says, "has unjust gain without just loss. He who steals acquires a garment, but loses faith: where there is gain, there is loss: gain in the chest, loss in the conscience." The same, On the Christian Life, painting the idea of a Christian: "He truly," he says, "is a Christian, who shows mercy to all, who is moved by no injury at all, who feels another's grief as his own, whose table no poor man is ignorant of, who is held inglorious before men that he may be glorified before God and the angels; who despises earthly things that he may have heavenly things; who does not allow a poor man to be oppressed in his presence; who comes to the aid of the wretched; who is provoked to weeping by another's tears."
For "coveter of others' goods," in Greek it is allotrioepiskopos, that is, a curious inspector of others' affairs, and consequently a coveter: for the appearance and sight of a desirable thing arouses appetite. Hence the curious inspector gapes after things inspected. Tertullian, "a spy on what belongs to another"; St. Cyprian, book 3 to Quirinus, ch. 37, "managing the affairs of others." That saying of Plautus is well-known: "No one is curious, who is not also malevolent." Excellently St. Gregory: "Grave," he says, "is the vice of curiosity, which, while it leads anyone's mind outwardly to investigate the life of his neighbor, always hides from him his own innermost things, so that knowing things of others, he is ignorant of himself, and the curious mind, the more skilled it is in another's affairs, the more it becomes ignorant of its own." St. Bernard, On the Mode of Living Well, ch. 54: "Foolish men," he says, "while they wish to reprove the errors of others, betray their own. So long does a man remain ignorant of his own sins which he ought to bewail, as long as he curiously inquires into the vices of others: but when a man returns to himself, and considers himself well, he does not seek what to reprove in others, because in himself he finds many things to mourn." Hence Blessed Gregory: "We ought so much the less to reprove the hearts of others, the more we know that we cannot illuminate the darkness of another's thought with our sight;" and shortly after: "Curiosity is a harmful skill, it provokes to heresy, it casts the mind down into sacrilegious tales, in obscure matters it makes men bold, in things unknown it makes men headlong."
Verse 16: But If as a Christian, Let Him Not Be Ashamed, but Let Him Glorify God in That Name
16. But if as a Christian, let him not be ashamed (as murderers are ashamed when they are punished for crime, because Christianity is not a crime, but a religion and sanctity), but let him glorify God in that name, — because the name of Christ is glorious, and consequently also that of Christian; for from Christ a Christian is called as it were a follower of Christ, a disciple, worshipper, son and heir. See the words on Acts 11:26. Furthermore, he suffers as a Christian not only who suffers for the faith, but also who suffers for any Christian virtue, such as chastity, justice, religion, etc.: for the faith of Christ enjoins and teaches every virtue. Wherefore whoever is killed and dies for any Christian virtue, is a martyr. For a martyr is one who dies for any truth which pertains to piety, indeed who dies for any truth so that he may avoid lying; for such a one dies for the virtue of veracity, which is opposed to the vice of lying, as St. Thomas expressly teaches, 2-2, Question 124, art. 5. It is otherwise with him who dies in defense of some mathematical, physical or logical truth. For this man is not a martyr, because he does not die for a truth pertaining to piety, as St. Thomas there asserts.
Morally learn here how great a thing it is to suffer as a Christian — namely as great as martyrdom is: and this is the highest ornament and glory. "For what is more glorious," say the noble Martyrs to St. Cyprian, book 5, epist. 12, "or what more happy can befall any of men by divine condescension, than amid the very executioners to confess fearlessly the Lord God? than amid the various and exquisite torments of raging worldly power, even with the body racked, tortured, and torn, to confess Christ the Son of God, with a spirit, although departing, yet free? than to have left the world and sought heaven? than to have stood, having forsaken men, among the angels? than, all worldly impediments being broken, to present oneself now free in the sight of God? than to retain the heavenly kingdom without any delay? than to have been made a partner in suffering with Christ in the name of Christ? than to have been made by divine condescension a judge of one's own judge? than to have brought back an unspotted conscience from the confession of the name? than not to have obeyed human and sacrilegious laws against the faith? than to have testified the truth with public voice? than to have subdued, by dying, that very death which is feared by all? than through that very death to have attained immortality? than, with all the instruments of cruelty torn and racked, to have overcome torments by the very torments themselves? than to have struggled with strength of mind against all the pains of a torn body? than not to have shuddered at one's own flowing blood? than after the faith to have begun to love one's own torments? than not to have reckoned the loss of one's own life to be a loss?" Then they confirm all these things with the words of Christ, by which they sharpen their spirits. "For to this battle the Lord summons us, as if with a kind of trumpet of His Gospel, saying: He who loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and: He who loves his life more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and: He who does not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me; and again: Blessed are they who have suffered persecution for justice's sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed shall you be when they shall persecute and hate you; rejoice and exult: for so they persecuted the Prophets who were before you, their fathers; and again: For you shall stand before kings and powers, and brother shall deliver brother to death, and father his son; and he who shall persevere even to the end, this man shall be saved; and: To him who conquers I will grant to sit upon My throne, just as I also conquered, and sat upon My Father's throne. And also the Apostle: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? as it is written: For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for slaughter; but in all these things we more than conquer, through Him who loved us. When we read these and similar things compared in the Gospel, and feel that, as it were, certain torches for kindling the faith have been placed under us by the words of the Lord, now we not only do not shudder at the enemies of the truth, but we provoke them; and we have already conquered the enemies of God by this very fact, that we have not yielded; and we have subdued the wicked laws against the truth; although we have not yet poured out our blood, we are prepared to have poured it out. Let no one judge this delay of ours to be clemency, which thwarts us, which makes an obstacle to glory, which delays heaven, which prevents the glorious sight of God: for in such a contest, and in such a battle in which faith fights, not to have postponed the martyrs by delay is true clemency."
And book 4, epist. 6 to Tibaritani, On the Exhortation to martyrdom: "For the worldly contest men are trained and prepared, and reckon as great glory of their honor if they happen to be crowned, with the people watching and the Emperor present. Behold a sublime and great contest, and glorious with the prize of a heavenly crown, that God may watch us contending and, opening His eyes upon those whom He has deigned to make sons, may enjoy the spectacle of our contest. As we battle and fight in the encounter of faith, God watches, His angels watch, Christ also watches. How great is the dignity of the glory, how great the happiness, to engage with God presiding, and to be crowned with Christ as judge! Let us arm ourselves, dearest brethren, with all our strength, and prepare for the contest with mind uncorrupted, faith entire, virtue devout. Let the camps of God advance to the battle line that is appointed for us. Let the unblemished be armed, lest the unblemished lose what he recently held. Let even the fallen be armed, that the fallen may recover what he has lost. Let honor summon the unblemished, sorrow the fallen, to the battle." And further on, exclaiming, he says: "Oh, what and how great a day shall come, dearest brethren, when the Lord shall begin to review His people, and by the examination of divine knowledge to recognize the merits of each, to send the guilty into Gehenna and to condemn our persecutors to the perpetual burning of penal flame, but to pay out to us the reward of our faith and devotion! What glory shall there be, and what gladness, to be admitted to see God; to be honored, that with Christ thy Lord and God thou mayest receive the joy of salvation and of eternal light! To greet Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the Patriarchs, and Prophets, and Apostles, and Martyrs; with the just and friends of God in the kingdom of the heavens to rejoice in the pleasure of the immortality given; to take there what neither eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor has entered into the heart of man!"
St. Basil, hom. 20 On the 40 Martyrs, says they celebrated God with these words, and roused one another to undergo martyrdom in the icy pool: "We give Thee thanks, Lord, that with this garment we may put off sin at the same time, since for the serpent we put it on, but for Christ we put it off. What worthy thanks shall we render to the Lord, who for us was stripped! What is great for a servant, if he undergoes what the Lord suffered? Hard indeed is the cold, but sweet is paradise. Afflicting is the ice, but delightful is the rest. Lasting a brief time, the bosom of Abraham will perpetually warm us. We shall exchange one night for eternal age. Let the foot be burned by cold, that it may continually leap with the angels. Let the hand grow numb with cold, that it may have the faculty of being raised to God. For how many of our fellow-soldiers have fallen, keeping faith with a mortal king! Shall we not cast away this life for keeping faith in the true God? Since one must die once, let us die that we may live. Let our sacrifice be before Thee, Lord, and as living victims pleasing to Thee, immolating ourselves in this savage frost, may we be received by Thee." Whence at the end he exclaims about them: "O holy choir! O sacred order! O impregnable wedge! O common guardians of the human race, best companions in cares, mutual advocates of prayers and vows, most powerful ambassadors before God, stars of the world, flowers of the Churches: not earth has covered you, but heaven has received you. The gates of paradise are open to you: a spectacle truly worthy of the armies of angels, of the Patriarchs, Prophets and all the just, etc. In the very flower of life they despised this temporal life, that they might receive God in their members; they raised up the sad, confirmed the doubtful in faith, increased desire in the pious; all setting up one trophy for piety, they were adorned with one crown of justice."
St. Augustine, sermon 30 on Psalm 118: "The whole earth," he says, "is empurpled with the blood of the Martyrs, heaven flourishes with the crowns of the Martyrs, the Churches are adorned with the memorials of the Martyrs, the times are marked by the birthdays of the Martyrs, healings multiply by the merits of the Martyrs." The same, sermon 11 On St. Cyprian: "To Him," he says, "praise, to Him glory, who has deigned to predestine that Martyr among His saints before time, to create him among all in opportune time, to call him when wandering, to cleanse him when soiled, to form him when believing, to teach him when obedient, to rule him when teaching, to help him when fighting, to crown him when conquering."
Furthermore, the Church celebrates the Martyrs with these praises in the hymn for several Martyrs:
Let us hymn, companions, the famous joys
By the merits of the saints, and their brave deeds;
For the spirit longs to bring forth in songs
The excellent race of the victors, etc.
These for Thee trampled down the furies, and
The ferocity of men and savage blows;
To these the claw, tearing fiercely, yielded,
Nor did it pluck their inmost parts.
They are slain by swords as sheep are.
No murmur resounds, no complaint;
But with silent heart the well-conscious mind
Preserves patience.
What voice, what tongue shall be able to recount
What gifts Thou preparest for the Martyrs?
For red with flowing blood, with laurels
Well-shining they are enriched.
Verse 17: For the Time Is, That Judgment Should Begin at the House of God
17. For the time is (in Greek kairos, that is, opportunity, occasion, fitting and opportune time: for such is both the present life, and Christianity, and its new religion; and the modern hatreds of the Jews and infidels against it) that judgment should begin at the house of God. — For it is fitting that a judge should first examine his own house than another's. "Judgment," say Oecumenius and Didymus here, signifies not condemnation, but examination and exploration; add too, some punishment and chastisement, namely tribulation, which is sent by God upon the sinner not rashly, but with judgment and fitting measure, and therefore it is called judgment. For God examines His own house and family, namely the Church, and His domestic faithful, through the tribulations of the just judgment's balance, purges them from lighter sins, instructs and perfects them. For He leaves nothing undiscussed, nothing unpunished. "It has been so arranged by nature," says St. Basil in Oecumenius, "that against those who are most familiar with us, when they sin against us, we are indignant: and the most familiar to God are none other than the faithful, who fill and build up the house of God, that is, the Church." Thus Isaiah says, ch. 29, vers. 1: "Woe to Ariel!" Ariel, that is woe to Jerusalem, to the temple and altar, which is Ariel, that is, as it were the lion of God. See the words there, and Jerem. ch. 35, vers. 18: "Thou hast chastised me, and I was instructed, as an untamed bullock." And the Wise Man, Proverbs 3:11: "My son, cast not away the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when thou art chastised by Him: for whom the Lord loves, He chastises, and as in a son He is well-pleased in him;" and Apoc. 3:19: "I rebuke and chastise those whom I love." St. Peter alludes to that of Ezech. 9:6: "Begin from My sanctuary" to strike and kill the sinners. Wherefore Aureolus wrongly explains "from the house," as though to say: God's judgment upon men proceeds from the house and throne of God, namely from heaven. St. Augustine, on Psalm 92:20, reads: "It is the time for the beginning of judgment from the house of the Lord;" and so explains: "It is time that those who pertain to the house of the Lord be now judged." St. Justin, Quaest. 79 to the Orthodox, gives the example of Josiah, king of Judah, who, although pious, was slain in battle, that he might atone for his light sins. St. Peter proves that Christians ought to suffer from this fact, that certain blemishes, sins and vices cleave to each one, which God wills through tribulation to punish and prune away. Therefore it ought not to seem to them new and strange, that they are exercised and afflicted before the infidels, because God wills to purge His house thoroughly, and make it most pure, and so begins His judgment from it; about to extend it then to the rest of men, whom He will more sharply examine and punish, because He will adjudge them to Gehenna.
Hence wisely St. Chrysostom, hom. On Lazarus: "Where," he says, "you see one leading a wicked life, and suffering nothing bitter here, do not think him blessed, but rather mourn and lament, as one who is going to suffer all sorrowful things there (in gehenna), as the rich man did. Again, where you see one zealous for virtue afflicted with countless troubles, count him blessed, as one who has both washed away all his sins here, and has much reward prepared there, as it happened to Lazarus." It is therefore an urgent benefit of God, that He punishes His own in this life, "lest, when the day of judgment shall come, He punish them in the fullness of their sins," 2 Macc. ch. 6, vers. 13; and Amos 3:2: "Only you," He says, "have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities;" and Malach. 3:2: "For He shall be like a refining fire, and like the fuller's herb, and He shall sit refining and cleansing the silver, and shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall strain them like gold."
But if first from us, what shall be the end of those who believe not the gospel of God? — as if he were saying: If God so judges His faithful and saints, that is examines, explores, exercises and afflicts them, what should the infidels, who flow with vices and delights, expect from Him? what end remains for them? what punishment? what gehenna? This judgment of God upon the impious the Wise Man graphically depicts, ch. 5, vers. 18: "His zeal shall take armor, and He shall arm creation for vengeance against His enemies;" and what follows. Excellently Salvian, book 4 to the Catholic Church: "If anyone among sinners wishes to know," he says, "how gravely great crimes are to be reckoned by God, let him learn how the saints punish even light sins in themselves, conscious indeed already from God's own words of the future examination, and probing the judgments through their Lord's words, and therefore always in the work of God, always in compunction, always set on the cross: blessed are they who, while showing mercy to all, never wholly forgive themselves, sparing themselves in nothing, but spending themselves entirely upon God, and therefore worthy of reward in the future judgment, because here they are continually before themselves under arraignment."
Verse 18: And If the Just Man Shall Scarcely Be Saved, Where Shall the Ungodly and the Sinner Appear?
18. And if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the impious and the sinner appear? — He cites Proverbs 11:31: "If the just man receive in the earth, how much more the impious and the sinner?" where the Septuagint translate it as here St. Peter, following them as is his custom, but both versions come to the same. For "shall be saved," in Greek it is sōthēsetai, that is, is saved, that is, attains to salvation, by suffering many penalties as if penances, and by struggling out with difficulty from the various waves of tribulations.
The just man is scarcely saved, that is, scarcely is he snatched from damnation and obtains eternal salvation: what then is to be expected for the sinner? certainly not uncertain salvation, but certain damnation. Thus Didymus, Oecumenius, Bede and others, says St. Jerome, dialog. 2 Against the Pelagians.
You will say: The just man will certainly be saved: how then does he say "shall scarcely be saved?" I answer, for "scarcely" in Greek it is molis, that is, with labor and trouble, through many tribulations, afflictions, persecutions, penances for venial sins, and so scarcely, that is with difficulty and barely, is the just man saved. Add also temptations, although St. Peter does not speak of these properly, and the Wise Man, Proverbs 11; for he says: "If the just man receive in the earth," namely for transgressions chastisement and the penalties of sins, "how much more the impious and the sinner?" supply, will receive deserved punishments, not on the earth, but in hell.
Secondly, St. Jerome, book 2 Against the Pelagians, proves from this passage against the Pelagians that the just are subject to venial sins. "The just man," he says, "on the day of judgment is scarcely saved; he would be saved easily, however, if he had no stain in him: therefore he is just in that he flourishes with many virtues, and is scarcely saved in that in certain things he stands in need of God's mercy;" and he adds, that for this reason the Church is said to be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. And shortly after, giving another, namely a third, cause and explanation: "For although," he says, "he is conscious to himself of nothing depraved, nevertheless knowing that not in this is he justified, until the judge justifies him, he is troubled and contends."
Our version, however, translates "shall be saved," namely, he says, on the day of judgment — not as if there the just man, who departed in the grace of God, would be doubtful and uncertain of salvation, but because the whole life of the man will be so reviewed and recounted, with its windings and dangers, and from these it will be shown how he was scarcely saved. Trifling is the exposition and anagram of Hugh: The just man, he says, is scarcely saved, because by the power of the cross, which is expressed by the letter X, or by the five wounds, and by Jesus Christ, since in the word "vix" the first letter V is the sign of five; the second is I; for Jesus, the third X, for Christ: but the letter x, the last in vix, is one thing, and the Greek chi, which is the first letter in the word Christos, is another. "Impious," in Greek asebēs, that is, alien from the worship of God, is the infidel; "sinner" is the faithful, namely the Christian, but sinning against the law of God, says Oecumenius. The sense is, says Bede, as if he said: "If so great is the fragility of human life, that not even the just to be crowned in heaven pass without tribulations, on account of the innumerable corruption of vitiated nature; how much more do those who are exiles from heavenly glory await the certain exit of their damnation!" Again, for "shall be saved," the Hebrew is ieschullam, that is, it shall be repaid him; Cajetan, he shall be amended; the Rabbis, he shall have peace: for salam means two things: first to repay; secondly, to be peaceful. Hence Solomon, that is, the peaceful one. In Chaldaic, ponno mitchasen, that is, he shall be strengthened, or rather, as others, he is patient, and endures vices; for this agrees with the Hebrew, Greek and Latin interpreter, as will soon appear.
You will ask how the just man is scarcely saved? for if he is just, and dies just, he will certainly be saved. Interpreters explain "shall be saved" in three ways. For salvation is threefold: the first, of the body; the second, of the soul, when it is converted from sin to justice and the grace of God; the third, of the soul when it attains eternal salvation. Firstly therefore some, from St. Ambrose, book 2 Apology of David, ch. 3, expound it thus: The just man scarcely at last shall be saved, that is, with difficulty he is rescued from the miseries and hardships of this life, by which God punishes his lighter faults: what then shall the impious pay forever for the penalties of the gravest sins? This sense is favored by the Hebrew text and the Latin version, Proverbs 11:11, and by the fact that St. Peter is dealing with the penalties by which God here punishes and expiates the just. Thus St. Augustine, book 20 Against Faustus, ch. 14: "For what is more just," he says, "than the Only-Begotten, whom yet God did not spare, and what more evident, that He does not spare even the just, amending them by the variety of tribulations, when concerning this matter it has been openly said: And if the just shall scarcely be saved." Secondly, the same St. Augustine, on Psalm 6, expounds it of the second salvation, namely of the conversion of the sinner, who is converted with difficulty, because it is difficult to leave pleasures and to repent, that is to say: If the just man with much labor and anguish is scarcely saved, that is, comes to his senses and is converted, how many and how great pains, anguishes and torments shall await sinners for lethal guilt, which shall never be blotted out? Thirdly, others commonly take it of the third salvation, that is to say: which willingly desired sin: while it tries to rise, it is forced unwillingly to endure. For thence it is punished where it took delight: because thence, when converted, it has the labor of struggle, where, perverted, it sought the joy of pleasure. He adds in chapter 17 that the elect tremble all the more on this account the nearer they approach to the end, and that Christ in the garden manifested in Himself the type of this their fear, when, being close to death, He sweat water and blood in His agony. Hence in chapter 18 he adds: "For we consider that we could by no means pass through the way of this present life without fault, and that, even what we have lived praiseworthily is not without some guilt of ours, if mercy be set aside in the judgment. What then shall the planks do, if the columns tremble? Or how shall the immovable shrubs stand, if even the cedars are shaken by the whirlwind of this fear? When therefore the soul is approaching the dissolution of the flesh, the soul of even a just man is sometimes troubled by the terror of vengeance." And shortly after: "But because the souls of the just are often purged from any light contagions by the very fear of death, and already from the very dissolution of the flesh receive the joys of eternal recompense, and for the most part, by a certain contemplation of eternal reward, are made glad even before they are stripped of the flesh, it is rightly said: He shall see His face with joy."
St. Augustine, 9 Confessions, 13, gives a seventh reason — namely, the deep and unsearchable abyss both of the human heart and of God's judgments. For praying for the soul of his mother St. Monica, he says: "Woe even to the praiseworthy life of men, if Thou shouldest examine it with mercy set aside. But because Thou dost not exact our sins severely, we trust with confidence to find some place of indulgence with Thee." Well known is the example of the Doctor of Paris, who from his bier cried out: "By God's just judgment I am accused, judged, condemned;" and yet he had seemed to live justly and holily — by which spectacle St. Bruno was moved and withdrew into the Carthusian order, and founded that order. Even St. Paul says: "I chastise my body, etc., lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a reprobate," 1 Cor. 9:27.
Finally, Thomas Anglicus gives seven causes why the just man is scarcely saved, not unlike those already mentioned. First, that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the glory to come. Second, that the flesh lusts against the spirit. Third, that the flesh by its corruption weighs down the soul. Fourth, that none but the violent seize heaven. Fifth, that the way which leads to life is narrow, and that the works of the virtues are arduous and hard. Sixth, that it is uncertain whether we are just. Seventh, that the judgment of God is subtle and strict.
Where shall the impious and the sinner appear? — where shall they appear? whither shall they go? what place shall receive them? what shall be their lot? — as if to say: The impious shall be terrified to appear in judgment before the face of Christ, and shall say to the mountains: "Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us," Apoc. 6:16. Thence they shall go into hell, shall appear among the damned, Gehenna shall receive them, and the eternal fires.
Hence the Chaldee on Proverbs 11:13 renders it, the impious shall in the end be destroyed. He alludes to Jeremiah 25:29: "Behold, in the city upon which My name is invoked, I shall begin to afflict; and shall you be as innocent and immune ones? You shall not be immune;" and chapter 49:12: "Behold, those whose judgment was not to drink the cup (of the Lord's fury) shall surely drink: and shall you be left as innocent? You shall not be innocent, but shall surely drink," as if to say: If God thus punishes His own for light sins, how will He punish strangers for many and grievous crimes?
St. Gregory, 26 Moralia, 18, thinks the allusion is to the natural motion of a body toward its center, which is swifter at the end than at the beginning — as if to say: If God's justice and wrath, when first set in motion and stirred up, inflicts such calamities on the just, with what force and impetus shall it at last, in the end of its motion, be hurled against the impious and rage upon them? "Sins," he says, "the divine severity will by no means permit to remain unpunished, but begins the wrath of judgment here in our (that is, the just's) chastisement, that in the damnation of the reprobate it may rest as at the end of its motion. Let the reprobate then go on, and consume the desires of their pleasures with much iniquity, and on that account let them not feel temporal scourges, because eternal punishments await them."
St. Augustine on Psalm 93:20 thinks the allusion is to a slave who, seeing the son being severely scourged by the father, trembles, and expects a far heavier punishment for himself. "If the sons," he says, "are scourged, what may the most wicked slaves hope for? How then shall the wicked be with You, when You do not even spare Your own faithful, that You may exercise and instruct them?"
Verse 19: Wherefore Let Them Also That Suffer According to the Will of God Commend Their Souls in Good Deeds to the Faithful Creator
19. Therefore let these also who suffer. — This is the epilogue of what has been said, as if to say: Since the just man is scarcely saved, and only through many tribulations, it is fitting that those who suffer should commend themselves to God, both that He may supply them strength to endure, and that they may pass through the last and narrow agony of life without peril of salvation, and reach in safety the palm of the life to come; and therefore let them heap their prayers with good deeds, that they may make sure their election and salvation. By good deeds understand good works, both of patience and fortitude, of almsgiving, and of charity — especially toward persecutors and torturers, whom in olden times the Martyrs were wont by their charity to convert and lead over to Christ.
According to the will of God, — because it is God's will that we suffer for Christ, for faith and righteousness, not for sins and crimes; and that, conforming ourselves to this will of God, we should bear bravely and cheerfully whatever adversities, as though sent or permitted by Him for our good and honor. With this thought, then, let the afflicted console themselves, namely that no evil shall befall them except as individually foreseen and provided by God, who has set the bounds and measure and duration of every kind of evil, so that I cannot suffer more, nor longer, nor otherwise than God has preordained — namely as much as my strength can bear, and as is expedient for my purgation, perfection, and salvation. God therefore uses the evil will of the impious and of enemies to punish and to exercise His faithful, but bridles, restrains, and rules it like a rider his horse, so that it does not inflict as much harm as it would wish, nor injure in any other way than God permits. Moreover, God wills that we suffer, yet wills that we be prudent, and not give occasions for suffering — nay, that we flee and avoid them, as Christ commanded the Apostles in Matt. 10:23, that in persecution they should flee from one city to another. Foolish therefore was Luther's dogma that the Turk should not be resisted, on the ground that he is the scourge of God, and that God wishes to use him to chastise us.
Thus concerning the Emperor Aurelian, who in the sixth year of his reign was captured by Sapor, king of the Persians, in the year of the Lord 278, Eusebius writes in Book 7 of his History, 25: that when he was meditating persecution against the Churches of God, "the letters and rescripts having now been dictated, and only the subscription remaining, the divine right hand intervened and dashed away the subscription from his impious hand. He is condemned by sudden death, who had been deliberating concerning the death of the pious: that God might show that we are not tortured when the tyrant wills, but are chastised when He Himself approves." Let the afflicted therefore say with St. Job: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: as it has pleased the Lord, so it is done: blessed be the name of the Lord," Job 1:21. Let them say with Judas Maccabeus: "As the will shall be in heaven, so be it done," 1 Macc. 3:60. Let them say with Christ in the agony: "Thy will be done," Matt. 26 — for, as St. Leo says, sermon 7 On the Passion, "this voice of the Head is the salvation of the whole body; this voice has instructed all the faithful, has kindled all the Confessors, has crowned all the Martyrs. For who could overcome the hatreds of the world, the whirlwinds of temptations, the terrors of persecutors, unless Christ, suffering in all of them, said to the Father: Thy will be done?"
Let them commend to the faithful Creator, — either to Christ, as St. Hilary holds in 12 On the Trinity, and St. Cyril, 9 Thesaurus, ch. 1; or more simply to God, inasmuch as it is common to the whole Holy Trinity, for He is the Creator. A twofold reason is given here why the afflicted ought to commend themselves to God. First, because God is the Creator, who loves His creatures, especially rational souls. Second, because He is also faithful, who accepts those who hope in Him and commend themselves to Him, hears them, faithfully assists them, so that He never abandons them, but is present, strengthens, frees, guards and protects, either that they may escape the passion, or that they may bravely endure in it and lay down their life, as the Martyrs did and do: wherefore the dying are accustomed to commend their souls (whence the Syriac renders "they commend," in the indicative), saying to God with the Psalmist and the dying Christ: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit," Luke 23:46; and with St. Stephen: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," Acts 7:58; and with St. Paul: "I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep my deposit," 1 Tim. 1:18; and with St. Agatha: "Lord, who hast kept me from infancy, who hast taken from me the love of the world, who hast made me superior to the torments of the executioners, receive my soul;" and with St. Agnes: "Almighty, adorable, venerable, awesome Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I bless Thee, because through Thy only-begotten Son I have escaped the hands of impious men and passed by an undefiled path through the filth of the devil. Behold, I now see what I believed, I now hold what I hoped for, I embrace what I longed for. I confess Thee with my lips and heart, with all my heart I long for Thee. Behold, I come to Thee, the living and true God, who with our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, and with the Holy Spirit, livest and reignest unto all ages of ages. Amen." So St. Ambrose, Book 4 epist. 34. Finally, all the Martyrs in their martyrdom, distrusting their own strength, commended themselves to God, and so obtained strength to suffer and to die securely. But those who, relying on their own strength, neglected to pray, were humbled and fell and denied the faith, and so paid the penalty for their pride and their wrong, and have been set before us as an example.
Their souls. — Each person has only one spiritual and immortal soul; let them therefore guard it like a little ewe, that it may be happy and blessed for eternity: let them therefore commend and offer it to God to be made blessed. For, as God says in Ezekiel 18:4, "All souls are Mine;" and the Wise One, ch. 11, verse 27: "But Thou sparest all, for they are Thine, O Lord, who lovest souls;" in the Greek more significantly, despota philopsyche, that is, Lord lover-of-souls and lover-of-mankind. Moreover, with the soul all other things are to be commended to God. Hence Tertullian, in his book On Patience, concerning injuries to be borne for God's sake: "If thou layest down with God," he says, "the injury, He is the avenger; if loss, He is the restorer; if pain, He is the physician; if death, He is the raiser-up." He says "souls," because the soul of the sufferer and martyr, at the same instant in which he dies and departs from earth and sea, enters heaven; and while it dies away to the fleeting light, it is reborn to the light of eternal glory. Death therefore is to it the setting of death and the rising of life; martyrdom is to it the setting of pains and the rising of palms. Hence the Church calls the day of the Martyrs' death their birthday, because that day is to them the birthday of a better and blessed life. Happy the death, which is the entrance and gateway of life. "That is not a going out, but a passing over," says St. Cyprian, On Mortality. "The kingdom of God has begun to be at hand, the reward of life, and the joy of eternal salvation, and perpetual gladness, and the possession of paradise, etc.: now heavenly things succeed earthly, great things small, and eternal things fleeting."
In good deeds, — en agathopoiia; the Syriac, in good works; Pagninus and the Tigurine, in beneficence, namely that we should do good even to persecutors and torturers: for this in turn will draw forth the beneficence of God towards us, that He may guard the soul commended to Him, receive it, and bless it with eternal goods. Thus St. James, brother of St. John, when led to death, embraced his betrayer, and saluting him with a kiss made him a Christian and a Martyr, as Eusebius narrates, Book 2 of his History, 8. So St. Polycarp "ordered a table to be set" for those who had come to take him, "and then prayed that they might eat their food largely and abundantly; and asked for one hour in which he might be free for prayer," he obtained, writes Eusebius, Book 4, ch. 14. St. Cyprian ordered 25 gold pieces to be given to the executioner who was about to cut off his head, as Pontius testifies in his Life. This is what Christ commands: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and calumniate you," Matt. 5:44. And He adds the reason: "That you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." For, as St. Leo says, sermon On All Saints: "Mercy wishes thee to be merciful, justice wishes thee to be just, that in His creature the Creator may appear, and in the mirror of the human heart the image of God expressed by the lines of imitation may shine forth."
Again, take "good deeds," with the Syriac, as any good works and exercises of the virtues. Hence Oecumenius takes it as humility. "In what manner," he says, "ought one to commend himself to God? In doing good, that is, in humility, so that he should not glory or extol himself on account of what he suffers, but the greater the things he seems to suffer, the more useless he should esteem himself, and always add and say: Thou art just in all the things which Thou hast done to us."
St. Peter therefore teaches that the Christian should do good not only in life but also in death, so that the whole life of the Christian, even up to and including death, may be a continuous action and exercise of good works, that he may do good as long as he hopes and breathes. The Emperor Vespasian, dying on his feet, said: "It becomes an Emperor to die standing;" but it becomes a Christian to die suffering and laboring, since for soldiers of Christ the wages do not end before life: when they have finished, then they will begin; only death gives them their discharge: the only seat for veterans is heaven.
Again, it is not enough for the Christian in tribulation to suffer and exercise patience: he ought to adorn and crown it with beneficence and other virtues, so that, alternating the thorns of tribulations with the roses of good works, he may weave his own crown, and weave for himself a heavenly mantle of the silver of patience and the gold of charity, and imitate Christ, who, crucified and dying, gave His garments to the torturers, the thief to paradise, John to His mother, the souls of the fathers to heaven, and all men to God. The whole life of Christ then was a continuous suffering of evils and doing of good. Such let the Christian's also be. The other said: "It is Roman to do brave things;" but "it is Christian to do brave things as much as to suffer them."
Moreover, just as roses thrive and flower amid thorns, but when separated and gathered from the thorns die: so the faithful man amid crosses thrives and flowers with good works, but when separated from the crosses and free, withers, grows numb, and dies. Thus St. Peter, leader of the Christian band after Christ, in the Mamertine prison, near death, converted and baptized to Christ Saints Processus and Martinianus together with forty-five others.
Thus St. Stephen did not cease to preach and to confute the Jews, until his sacred and angelic mouth was stopped with stones.
Thus St. Paul, when led to martyrdom, converted his guards and torturers; and in prison did not cease to spread the faith of Christ by preaching with his voice and by writing epistles with his hand, until his head was struck off.
Thus St. Andrew, fixed to the cross and hanging alive on it for two days, never ceased to preach the faith of Christ, until he passed over to Him whose likeness in death he had longed for, as say the presbyters of Achaia, eyewitnesses, in his Acts.
Thus St. Cyprian, already captured by the proconsul and near death, was wholly engaged in exhorting, instructing, and strengthening his people, and was giving each one personal lessons in life, and that even up to his last breath. "Such," says Pontius in his Life, "was his desire to speak, that he wished his prayers for martyrdom might be fulfilled in such a way that, while he was speaking of God, he might be put to death in the very act of his discourse; and these were the daily acts destined for an offering pleasing to God." And St. Augustine in the sermon On St. Cyprian: "With death of body close at hand," he says, "there did not die in the soul of the shepherd the pastoral vigilance, and the care of guarding the flock to the very last day of this life was held with a sober mind. Nor did the hand of the bloody executioner now near him strike from his mind the diligence of the most faithful steward. So did he think of his coming martyrdom, that he might not forget that he was a Bishop. For he loved Him who had said to Peter: 'Lovest thou Me? feed My sheep.' And he was feeding His sheep, for whom, in imitation of Him, he was hastening to pour out his blood. He commanded the maidens to be guarded, knowing that he had not only a simple master, but also a crafty adversary. Therefore against the openly roaring lion he armed his manly breast in confession; against the wolf lying in wait for the flock, he fortified the female sex. Would that the same God might bestow the same upon me!"
Thus St. Ambrose died over his commentary on Psalm 43. Hear Paulinus in his Life, which he wrote to St. Augustine: "A few days before he was confined to his bed, while he was dictating the forty-third Psalm, with me both taking it down and watching, suddenly in the manner of a small shield, fire (a sign of the Holy Spirit) covered his head, and gradually entered through his mouth as into a house entered by its inhabitant: and his face became as snow, but afterwards returned to its own appearance. While this was happening, struck with amazement I grew rigid, nor could I write what was being said by him, except after the vision had passed. For he made an end of writing or dictating that day, since he could not finish the Psalm itself."
Thus St. Jerome, though tried by various illnesses and pains, yet overcame the discomforts of the body by pious labors and by continual reading and writing.
Thus the Venerable Bede did not cease from teaching and writing even in his illness; nay rather, in his last illness he labored on the Gospel of St. John, and almost giving up his soul, in order that he might finish, said to the scribe whom he had called in: "Take the pen," he said, "and write quickly." And at last: "It is well," he said, "finished;" and singing as a swan, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit," he sent forth and resigned his spirit commended to God, to be made blessed by the vision of God, in the year of the Lord 731.
The crosses and labors of the faithful therefore do not end except with life. For they keep in mind that saying of Eccles. 9:10: "Whatever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly: for there shall be neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge in hell, whither thou art hastening." Pondering this, St. Thomas Aquinas, lying ill of his fatal disease, expounded the Canticle of Canticles to the Cistercians of Fossa Nova, and so, after the manner of a swan singing his swan-song, rendered up his spirit to God, dying as he taught and teaching as he died. Likewise I have known religious men who asked of God that they might die not in bed but in labor — and they obtained it; for they died while preaching: namely, the faithful, with Nazianzen, live and lay up treasure for eternity, and the more so the nearer they approach to it, so that even when they are giving up the spirit they commend and resign their souls to the faithful Creator by good deeds. For there is no greater commendation of the soul before God than that which is made by doing good and exercising the works of the virtues. Therefore let this counsel be given to the dying: that they often elicit effective and intense acts of faith, hope, penance, charity, and religion; that they distribute abundant alms; that they establish pious legacies; that they take counsel for the afflicted, the rude, the needy; that they exhort their household, especially their sons, to concord and to the fear and obedience of God; that they ask pardon of any whom they have injured, and forgive any by whom they have been injured, and remit every wrong; that they assign a portion of their food to the Church and to her ministers; and that they appoint anniversary or monthly and weekly prayers, sacred services, and psalmody for themselves, etc.