Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Among other things which the Gnostics and other heretics taught was this: that there would be no judgment, so that men, without fear of Christ as judge and avenger, might freely indulge in their concupiscences and heresies. St. Peter refutes this and graphically depicts the horror of an unforeseen judgment, and the dreadful fire by which the world shall be consumed, and the new heavens and new earth; and from this he concludes: "Wherefore, dearly beloved, awaiting these things, be diligent that you may be found by Him in peace, spotless and undefiled." Second, lest they should marvel at the judgment being deferred, he says that its delay will be brief, and that it is granted by God to men so that they may repent and provide for their salvation, as St. Paul admonished in his Epistles, which he asserts are difficult to understand and are perverted by heretics. Finally, in verse 17, he warns that they should remain firm and grow in the faith and grace of Christ.
Vulgate Text: 2 Peter 3:1-18
1. Behold, dearly beloved, I write to you this second epistle, in which I stir up your sincere mind by way of admonition: 2. that you may be mindful of those words which I told you before from the holy Prophets, and of the precepts of your Apostles, of the Lord and Saviour. 3. Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts. 4. Saying: Where is His promise or His coming? For since the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. 5. For this they are willingly ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water and through water, consisting by the word of God: 6. whereby that world which then was, being overflowed with water, perished. 7. But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 8. But of this one thing be not ignorant, dearly beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9. The Lord delayeth not His promise, as some imagine; but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance. 10. But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up. 11. Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conversation and godliness? 12. Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat? 13. But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to His promises, in which justice dwelleth. 14. Wherefore, dearly beloved, awaiting these things, be diligent that you may be found by Him in peace, spotless and undefiled. 15. And account the long-suffering of our Lord, salvation: as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you. 16. As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own perdition. 17. You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed, lest being led aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness. 18. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and unto the day of eternity. Amen.
Verse 1: Behold, This Second Epistle I Write to You, Dearly Beloved, in Which I Stir Up Your Sincere Mind by Way of Admonition
1. Behold, this to you — O Christians dispersed throughout Asia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, etc., as he said in epistle I, chapter 1, verse 1; for he here signifies that he is writing this second epistle to the same persons to whom he had once written the first.
In which — namely in the two epistles, that is, the first and the second already mentioned.
I stir up your sincere mind by way of admonition. — "I stir up," namely as if from a sleep of torpor, lukewarmness, and forgetfulness: for this is what the Greek διεγείρω implies. Pagninus: "I goad your sincere mind by admonition." In Greek ἐν ὑπομνήσει (Erasmus wrongly reads ἐν ἐπιγνώσει, that is, "in knowledge"), that is, in admonition, in remembrance, in recall to memory, according to what he said in epistle I, chapter 1, verse 12: "Wherefore I will begin always to put you in mind of these things." Let the Pastor here learn often to rub in and to inculcate the same matter upon his subjects, until they thoroughly learn it and translate it into their manners. So Chrysostom, homily 19 on Acts, replying to those who complained that the same things were said and repeated by him, says: "This is precisely what most ruins you. And what proves it is that they are not weary of seeing the same things again and again in the theater." And he adds that "their reproach is that they are not corrected though they hear so often."
Note: He calls the "mind" of the faithful "sincere," first, as whole; second, as incorrupt; third, as pure and simple. For "sincere" signifies three things: First, "sincere," that is, whole. Thus Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 12, calls a "sincere body," that is, whole: explaining which he adds "without wound;" and Lucretius, Book 3, the "sincere" limbs, that is, whole. For "sincere" appears to be compounded from σύν (whence some write syncerum with a y), that is, together, and cera (wax), as if to say, together with the wax. So called from those who divide the produce of the hives with a partner; for these divide the honey together with the wax: but if they give only honey without the wax, they defraud their partner and do not act sincerely, that is, wholly.
Secondly, "sincere" means the same as incorrupt, immaculate; so Horace, Book I, chapter 2:
"Unless the vessel is sincere, whatever you pour in turns sour."
"Sincere," that is, incorrupt; and Cicero in his speech for Quinctius: "There is nothing so holy and sincere in the city." Whence some derive sincerum from caries (rot), as if to say sine carie, that is, without corruption.
Third and best: "Sincere," says Donatus, is pure, without disguise and simple, like sincere honey, that is, without wax. Thus sincere wine is called pure, unmixed; sincere grain is called pure, free from legumes and chaff; sincere and pure oil, free from water and dregs. And this is what the Greek εἰλικρινής means, that is, sincere, true, not feigned, clear, pure, manifest, as if from εἵλη κρινόμενος, that is, examined and judged in the splendor of the sun.
Such ought to be the mind of Christians, and such it was in the age of the first Christians under St. Peter — so pure and sincere, that it dared to appear and be examined by God, the Sun of justice. For he hid in his heart nothing feigned, nothing painted, nothing simulated, nothing vicious, but exhibited all things openly, candidly, faithfully, chastely, virtuously: what he relished in his heart, this he uttered with his mouth. "The sincere and simple man," says St. Gregory, Morals, Book 10, chapter 17 (or according to another edition, chapter 29), "always prepares his mind for patience, and being upright for the sake of justice rejoices over insults received, has compassion in his heart for the afflicted, rejoices in the prosperities of good men as if they were his own, in his mind solicitously ruminates the food of the sacred word, and when questioned he knows not how to speak anything in a double sense."
The patriarch Isaac gives the same example of sincerity: "Does simplicity of manners please you?" he says, homily 15 on Ezekiel. "Isaac comes to mind, whom the tranquility of his life adorned in the eyes of Almighty God." And St. Ambrose, in his book On Joseph, chapter 1, teaches us to learn "in Abraham, the unwearied devotion of faith; in Isaac, the purity of a sincere mind; in Jacob, the singular patience of mind and labors; while Joseph's example is as it were a mirror of chastity." The same St. Ambrose, in Book 10 on chapter 23 of Luke, teaches that sincerity, lost by Adam, was restored by Christ, and that therefore Christ on the cross drank vinegar, that the vice of corrupted nature might be abolished from the human body. "Let us therefore," he says, "transfer our vices, hardened by the carelessness of mind and body, into Christ through penance, so that from Him the incorrupt sincerity of the heavenly wine and blood may be poured back into us."
St. Bernard, sermon 3 On the Circumcision: "First of all," he says, "let Christ appear as a child with His Virgin Mother, that He may teach us that simplicity and modesty are to be sought before all things. For natural simplicity belongs to children, and modesty is innate to virgins. To us all, therefore, at the beginning of our conversion no virtue is more necessary than humble simplicity and modest gravity." The same to his sister, On the Manner of Living Well, chapter 9: "Let there be simplicity in your entrance, honesty in your gait. Let nothing unbecoming, nothing wanton, nothing petulant, nothing insolent, nothing frivolous appear in your gait. For the soul appears in the gesture of the body; gesture is the sign of the mind." The same, epistle 34 to Cardinal Roland: "Let dovelike simplicity act on your behalf, and let serpentine prudence fight against the wiles of the malign and ancient serpent." Thus Paul glories in sincerity and calls it the glory of conscience, 2 Corinthians 1:12: "For our glory is this," he says, "the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity of heart and sincerity of God, and not in carnal wisdom, but in the grace of God, we have conversed in this world." And exhorting the Corinthians and all the faithful to the same, in epistle I, chapter 5, verse 7: "For our Pasch," he says, "is Christ sacrificed. Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." For unleavened bread is pure and sincere; but leavened bread is impure and mixed.
Verse 2: That You May Be Mindful of Those Words Which I Foretold From the Holy Prophets, and of the Precepts of Your Apostles, of the Lord and Saviour
2. That you may be mindful of those words which I foretold from the holy Prophets — that is, that you may be mindful of the words which I foretold in the oracles of the Prophets. Whence the Greek clearly has: μνησθῆναι τῶν ῥημάτων προειρημένων ὑπὸ τῶν ἁγίων προφητῶν, that is, that you may be mindful of the words foretold by the holy Prophets. So Œcumenius, Pagninus, Vatablus, and others. Our Interpreter sagaciously referred the τὸ προειρημένων, that is, "foretold," both to St. Peter and to the Prophets, because he saw that St. Peter is here recalling to the faithful the oracles of the Prophets — not all of them (for those are very many and unknown to most, and do not pertain here), but only those which concern Christ and the Christian faith, and the law which he said in chap. 1, verse 19, had been foretold by the Prophets; for he intends to confirm the faith of Christ from the oracles of the Prophets. Whence Dionysius the Carthusian and others read: "That you may be mindful of the words of the Prophets and of the holy Apostles," as if to say, the words of the Apostles harmonize and accord with the words of the Prophets. For what the Apostles preached as having been done through Christ, this the Prophets foretold as to be done through the same. This is what Paul says, that we are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Ephesians 2:20.
And of your Apostles, of the precepts of the Lord and Saviour — because the precepts of the Apostles are the precepts of Christ the Saviour, as if to say, that you may be mindful of the precepts of Christ the Lord and Saviour, which by His command your Apostles promulgated to you; for they delivered to you not their own precepts but Christ's. So St. Paul says: "You know what precepts I have given to you by the Lord Jesus," 1 Thess. 4:2. Whence he infers in verse 8: "Therefore he that despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God;" and 1 Cor. 14:37: "If any seem to be a prophet or spiritual," he says, "let him know the things that I write to you, that they are the commandments of the Lord."
Others by hyperbaton refer the τὸ "of the Lord and Saviour" not to the precepts but to the Apostles, as if to say: Be mindful of the precepts of the Apostles, because they are the Apostles of the Lord and Saviour. So St. Jude, verse 17: "Be mindful," he says, "of the words which have been spoken before by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." Some Greek manuscripts somewhat favor this, which, in place of ὑμῶν, that is "yours," as the Complutensian, Royal, and Latin Vulgate read, read ἡμῶν, that is "ours," as if to say, of the Apostles which we are. Whence Vatablus translates this whole passage thus: "That you may be mindful of the words which were foretold by the holy Prophets, and of the commandment of us who are Apostles of the Lord and Saviour."
Verse 3: Knowing This First, That in the Last Days There Shall Come Deceitful Scoffers, Walking After Their Own Lusts
3. Knowing this first — that is, before all things know and attend to this as of the greatest moment, as if your eternal salvation or damnation depended on it: by which he signifies that the faithful, if they wish to be saved, ought in the highest degree to beware of seducers and heretics: for these drag their followers with them into hell.
There shall come in the last days — toward the end of the world, in the time of Antichrist, says St. Augustine, City of God, Book 20, chap. 18, and others. This is true, but more strictly: for St. Peter is warning the faithful both then living and those who would live thereafter to beware of these seducers. Whence note that τὰ ἔσχατα, that is, the last times, are in Scripture also called ὕστερα, that is, the latter; for both translate the Hebrew אחרית acharit: in this manner the Prophets are wont to call the time of the Messiah the last, that is, the latter, following both the law of nature and that of Moses. Thus Isaiah calls it so, chap. 2, verse 1; Micah 4:1; Joel 2:28; and St. John, epistle 1, chap. 2:18. St. Peter therefore signifies that in all future times, and especially toward the end of the world, various seducers shall come, and that all should diligently beware of them. The same was warned by St. Paul, 1 Timothy 4:1, and Acts 20:29. See what is said there.
He chiefly indicates the Gnostics, who in that age taught that one should freely give oneself over to lusts and passions, and mocked the faithful who threatened the day of judgment, as though by an empty shadow and bugbear of a false thing they were depriving themselves of the use and fruit of a pleasant and voluptuous life.
Deceitful scoffers. — St. Augustine, City of God, Book 20, chap. 18, reads: "mocking with mockery;" St. Jerome, Against Jovinian, Book 1, "seducing scoffers." Such were the Gnostics, who mocked all things divine and human, and especially the fear of the deity, of judgment, and of divine vengeance: for, taking this away from men, they persuaded them to give themselves with impunity to Venus and the belly. And this was, and still is, the doctrine, seduction, and deception of heretics. The same is done by modern Gnostics, who, since they are without God (being atheists), think that they alone are wise, and proclaim themselves to be the wise.
Walking after their own lusts — indulging in gluttony, lust, and the other concupiscences, and that assiduously and continually: for the τὸ "walking" signifies continuation, habit, purpose, and the settled state of a voluptuous life.
Verse 4: Saying: Where Is His Promise or His Coming? For Since the Fathers Slept, All Things Continue as They Were From the Beginning of Creation
4. Saying (mockingly, like those forerunners of theirs in Jeremiah saying, chap. 17, verse 15: "Behold, they themselves say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come."): Where is His promise and His coming? — In Greek it now reads ποῦ ἐστιν ἡ ἐπαγγελία τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ, that is, where is the promise of His presence (or coming), as St. Augustine reads, City of God, Book 20, chap. 18. "His," understand of Christ, who, as is plain to all the faithful, promised that He would come again to earth, that by His presence He might visit and judge the world, glorifying the good in heaven and condemning the wicked to hell. For the Hebrews often pass over the subject in silence and leave it to be supplied as commonly known and familiar. The meaning is: Seducers shall come, who — that they may impudently glut their lusts like beasts, without remorse and without fear of an avenging deity — shall deny that Christ shall return to judgment and shall exact punishments from those who have indulged their lusts.
Such were, first, the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the flesh and every spirit, and consequently the immortality of the soul, hell, and eternal life, Acts 23:8. Second, the Dositheans taught the same, sprung from Dositheus the Jew in the time of Nero and St. Peter about the year of the Lord 52, according to Hegesippus and St. Jerome Against the Luciferians. Third, Hymenaeus and Philetus, saying that the resurrection had already taken place, whom St. Paul delivered to Satan, 2 Timothy 2. Fourth, the Gnostics denying the judgment, according to Philastrius. Their parent was either Basilides, as St. Jerome holds in De Viris Illustribus; or Nicolas, one of the first seven Deacons, as St. Augustine holds in his book On Heresies; or rather Carpocrates, as St. Irenaeus holds, Book 1, chap. 24, who lived in that age and could almost have seen the author. Fifth, the Florinians, saying that the resurrection is no other than the begetting of children; for in this the father as it were rises again and endures in the son: their author was Florinus under the Emperor Commodus and Pope Soter, about the year of Christ 182, according to Eusebius, History, Book 5, chap. 15. Sixth, the Symmachians denied the future judgment and the resurrection of the flesh about the year of the Lord 273. Seventh, the Proclianites, who are also called Prodianites and Hermiotites by Philastrius, arose in the time of the Emperor Valens and Pope Damasus about the year of the Lord 382. Eighth, the Albanenses in the year of the Lord 796. Ninth, about the year of the Lord 1001, when many had predicted the day of the world's end, and their prediction was found false, there arose a heresy of those who said that the world was incorruptible, which tried to defend itself by this passage of St. Peter, as Baronius reports from Abbo, abbot of Fleury, in that same year. Tenth, in our age, the Davidgeorgians denied the future judgment in the year of Christ 1525. Again the Libertines, that they may, like unbridled horses, neigh after and indulge their lusts, deny the judgment, the resurrection, and every divinity. The same is done by many others, and more shall do so at the end of the world, and chief among them Antichrist himself, who shall be an atheist and most luxurious, and shall publicly teach atheism and epicureanism; for he shall wish himself alone to be worshipped as God, as Daniel teaches, chap. 11, verse 37, and Paul, 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
For since the fathers (namely the first and the ancient ones, from whom the human race has been propagated) slept (that is, died), all things continue thus from the beginning of creation. — In Greek κτίσεως, that is, of creation. Whence the Tigurine version translates: all things remain so as they were from the beginning of creation, as if to say, all things remain just as they were founded and created from the beginning.
From the long duration of the world and the constancy of all things they infer its eternity, namely that it shall always endure such, so that no one ought to be anxious about its end and the second coming of Christ. So Aristotle, On the Heavens, Book 1, infers that the heaven is incorruptible from the fact that no change has ever been seen in it. But they reason falsely and err, both because there are frequent, indeed perpetual, vicissitudes in the world of things, motions, generations, corruptions, alterations, etc., as St. Peter subjoins; and because the deity, that is, God as governor, judge, and avenger, is most demonstrated from the inconstant constancy and constant inconstancy of this world. For who makes things so inconstant, indeed warring with one another and contrary, such as fire and water, heat and cold, south wind and north wind, moisture and dryness, hail and rain, sterility and fertility, fruits and produce so varied and contrary, etc. — who makes them so constant that for so many thousand years they are born and come forth at fixed times, except one and the same constant Deity? See Theodoret in his ten books On Providence, and our Lessius On the Deity. Then finally, because creatures, just as they received their beginning from God who created them, so also they shall receive from the same a fixed end. For He who makes them rise shall also make them set: for the rising of things is in His hand and at His will, and so likewise their setting, as all the Prophets and the whole Scripture proclaim. This is so true and evident that Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, Book 2, citing Aristotle, shows it to be clearer than light; for he says: "Excellently does Aristotle say: If there were beings who had always lived under the earth in good and noble dwellings, adorned with statues and paintings, and equipped with all those things in which those who are deemed happy abound, and yet had never gone forth above the earth, but had received by report and hearing that there was a certain divinity and power of the Gods; then if at some time, the jaws of the earth being opened, they could escape from those hidden seats into the regions which we inhabit and come forth: when suddenly they should see the earth and seas and sky, recognize the magnitude of clouds and the force of winds; should behold the sun and recognize both its magnitude and beauty, and also its efficacy, that it makes the day by light spread over the whole sky; and when night had occupied the lands, they should perceive the whole sky distinguished and adorned with stars, and the variety of the moon's light, now waxing and now waning, and the risings and settings of them all, and their fixed and unchangeable courses through all eternity: when they saw these things, surely they would judge both that the Gods exist and that these so great works are works of the Gods." And further on: "For who would call him a man, who, when he has seen the so certain motions of the heaven, the so fixed orders of the stars, and all things so connected and fitted together with one another, denies that any reason is in them, and says that those things happen by chance, which we cannot, by however great counsel, attain to with any counsel? When we see something moved by some mechanism, like a globe, or a clock, or many other things, we do not doubt that they are the works of reason; but when we see the impulse of the heaven moved and turned with admirable swiftness, most constantly accomplishing the annual changes with the highest preservation and welfare of all things, do we doubt that these things are produced not only by reason but by some excellent and divine reason?" Then by going through the individual elements, the stars, sun, moon, herbs, flowers, beasts, and the members of man, he shows that all and each are so skillfully composed only by the divine mind, and by the same are preserved, governed, and directed, so that all things with silent voice cry out that there are Deities, that there is a God, judge and avenger of evil as well as of good.
Verse 5: For This They Are Willingly Ignorant Of, That the Heavens Were Before, and the Earth Out of Water and Through Water, Standing by the Word of God
5. For this they are willingly ignorant of. — That is, they willingly and of their own accord do not know this, because they will not to know. This is the affected ignorance proper to scoffers, seducers, and heretics. He proves that all things do not continue thus as they were from the beginning of creation, as the scoffers and Gnostics said, from the fact that God in the time of Noah destroyed the whole world by the flood for its crimes, and that in like manner He shall destroy it by fire, and shall thereby bring to it an end together with deserved punishment to each. So Œcumenius: "Just as," he says, "when the heavens and the earth had been constituted out of water, the flood came upon them unexpectedly, in like manner it has now also been decreed that the destruction of the universe shall come about through fire, in which the wicked will perish."
That the heavens were before, and the earth, out of water and through water, standing by the word of God. — There is a syllepsis here: for the participle "standing" refers not only to the earth but also to the heavens, and as it were embraces them within itself; yet it most immediately refers to the earth, and so is given in the singular; nevertheless it is extended also to the heavens by a Hebrew syllepsis (for the Hebrews make the adjective agree with the nearer noun, even though it refers also to a more remote one: see Bellarmine in the Hebrew Syntax), so that "standing" (singular) is the same as "standing" (plural), as Clarius, Catharinus, Salmeron, and Cajetan read. Indeed St. Augustine, City of God XX, ch. 18, reads thus: "The heavens of old and the earth were constituted out of water and through water"; and Bede and Œcumenius here, and Rupert, Book I on Genesis, ch. 50, read thus: "The heavens of old were constituted out of water and through water." From this reading it is clear that the heavens were formed out of water, and that this is why in Hebrew they are called shamaim, that is, "there waters," as I showed on Genesis 1:2 and 6, and as Œcumenius here asserts: whence water is so called as if a qua omnia ("that from which all things" come). Hence Thales of Miletus said that water was the first principle of all things. The sense is: It is hidden from them that the heavens and the earth subsist by the Word of God, and that consequently by the same Word of God they can perish and be abolished. For just as God, by saying "Let there be light," the heavens, the sun, etc., created them and made them to be and to subsist: so likewise, by saying, "Let them be no longer," or "Let them cease to be," immediately they will not be and will cease to exist; nay, if God should merely withdraw His word and His hand, so as no longer to say "Let there be light," the heavens, the sun, etc., by this very fact all things would cease to be. For all things were so created by God in the beginning that they must continually be preserved by Him and continually receive their being from Him, and as it were be continually created: for they depend upon God as rays depend upon the sun. Wherefore the preservation of things in God is nothing other than the continuation of creation, or the continual creation of things. Furthermore, take "heavens and earth" properly, and not as referring to prime matter, as St. Augustine seems to wish in Book I On Genesis against the Manichaeans, ch. 7; for prime matter was not created formless, but with the form of the heavens and the earth. Again, the heavens here signify not only the air, as Bede and others would have it, but the true heavens.
The earth subsisting out of water and through water. — You will ask, how is this true? Œcumenius answers first: "There are," he says, "two elements (by which God destroyed and shall destroy the wicked along with the world) that chiefly hold together the fabric of the universe and preserve its coherence, namely water and fire, out of which the other two also exist. For the air subsists from the exhalation of waters, and the earth from their concretion." But the earth in the beginning of the world was created by itself, not out of water, as is plain from Genesis 1:1.
Wherefore secondly, the same Œcumenius better explains: the earth, he says, is said to subsist out of water and through water, "because water holds the earth like a kind of glue that adjoins it, and unless this water were so attached to it, the earth would necessarily be dissolved and dispersed into the air." Water, then, as a kind of glue, binds and cements the earth together, so that one part may cleave to another as if compacted. Thus Philo, in his book On the Creation of the World, says that water is mingled with earth, both that it may bind it together and that it may render it fertile and apt for the use of living things. Hence some refer this to fountains and rivers, by which, as by veins, the earth is watered, lest it be reduced to dust. Thirdly, others say that the earth is "out of water" because it was so separated from the water that it forms a globe distinct from it. But the more learned mathematicians refute this from eclipses and other experiments, and prove that water and earth form a single globe, so that there is one center of the whole world. See our Clavius in his Sphere. Fourthly and most genuinely, the earth subsists "out of water," Greek ἐξ ὕδατος, that is, out of water, because on the first day of the world the whole earth was covered with waters, so that it did not appear and seemed to be nowhere: but on the third day of the world God separated the waters from the earth and gathered them into one place, Genesis 1:2 and 9; then accordingly the earth, as it were swimming up and emerging from the water, appeared, and openly showed that it existed. And Scripture means nothing else when, in Psalm 23 [24]:2, it says that God "founded it [the earth] upon the seas." For the meaning is: God made the earth to rise up and appear out of the waters and the sea. Again, "of water," because God made it so that the earth along its shores is somewhat higher than the adjoining edges of the sea, so that it appears to project and lift up its head, as it were higher, out of them.
You will say: How does St. Peter say that the earth subsists not only out of water but also "through water"? I answer, "through water," that is, in the midst of water, or among the various intermediate waters now separated and surrounding the various parts of the earth on every side, the earth itself stands; what the French call en l'eau, parmi l'eau; the τὸ "through water" therefore explains that τὸ "of water," and is almost one and the same with it. For τὸ "of water" signifies that the earth stands out and emerges from the water; while τὸ "through water" signifies that it does not so stand forth as to be separated from water, but rather that water is intermingled with it, sprinkled into it and inserted, just as in man phlegm and blood are mingled and inserted through the veins. Secondly, "through water," because the earth, being of itself dry and apt to fall apart, is by water as it were by birdlime and glue cemented and joined together; that it may coalesce with it into one globe, as I said a little before. For although the earth is the lowest of the elements and of bodies, yet God so arranged the waters that the earth seems set around with them and placed within them. For being encircled by the Ocean, and watered by so many rivers gushing forth on every side, it appears as it were to be bound together, moistened, made to coalesce, fructified, and vivified by the waters. St. Peter mentions the waters because of the flood that arose from waters, of which he is about to speak next. Finally, our Lessius, On the Divine Attributes, book XIII, chapter XX, refers the "of water" to the heavens, but the "through water" to the earth, and explains it of the division of the upper waters from the lower, Genesis I, 6, as if to say: "The heavens are constituted of water," because God at the beginning of the world established and made the firmament (namely the heaven), which would stand in the middle and divide the upper waters from the lower, and so would consist of both, and stand separately from both. "The earth, however, was constituted by water," when He gathered the waters which were under the firmament into one place, and through the midst of the waters the dry land appeared. A similar transposition occurs in Hebrew at Psalm LXVII, 9 and Psalm CXII, verses 5 and 6, and elsewhere. The same is fitted to this passage, and signifies that the heavens not only exist of waters, but were also made of them, as St. Clement explains, book I of the Recognitions, who asserts that he received this from the mouth of St. Peter. Wherefore this exposition appears plainly to be according to the mind of St. Peter, and genuine, so that by referring "of water" to the heavens, and "through water" to the earth, you may expound thus: that the heavens, originally created from water by God, stand by the word of God; but the earth, by water mixed with it, stands firm by the same word of God. So Canticles I, 5, when the bride says: "I am black, but beautiful, as the tabernacles of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon;" likewise these things must be combined and explained respectively by transposition, as if to say: "I am black as the tabernacles of Cedar, but beautiful as the curtains of Solomon."
Standing by the word of God — by His saying: "Let there be light; let there be luminaries," etc., Genesis I, 3. This is what the Psalmist says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the spirit of His mouth," Psalm XXXII, 6.
Verse 6: Through Which That World Which Then Was, Being Overflowed With Water, Perished
6. Through which — the heavens and the earth, giving the waters of the deluge, which would resume their ancient seats (namely by occupying and covering again the whole earth), from which they had withdrawn at the Lord's command, Genesis I, 9: would resume them, I say, by a new miracle, to avenge the crimes of the impious earth-born.
By the same word (namely by the same command and order of God by which they were once overwhelmed by the waters of the deluge) are laid up — τεθησαυρισμένοι εἰσὶν, that is, are stored away as it were into the treasury of divine providence, justice and vengeance, namely "kept in store for fire," as follows. Therefore Hugo and Dionysius interpret "laid up" badly as "placed again, and restored to their former state." As therefore the sinner stores up guilt for himself, so God stores up punishment for him. For He has in the treasuries of His omnipotence and providence infinite kinds of punishments, with which He may strike and punish the faults of men according to their deserts. Whence St. Paul says that the sinner "treasureth up to himself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of God," Romans II, 4 and following. And James, chapter V, verse 3: "You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days."
Was deluged with water and perished. — For inundatus (deluged), Thomas the Englishman by a paragram reads mundatus (cleansed): this is true, but corrupt.
Verse 7: But the Heavens and the Earth Which Are Now, by the Same Word Are Kept in Store, Reserved Unto Fire Against the Day of Judgment and Perdition of Ungodly Men
7. But the heavens which now are, and the earth, by the same word are laid up, being reserved for fire. — This is an antithesis filling out the force of the argument: for he opposes to the earth and heavens which existed before, in Greek ἔκπαλαι, that is, ancient, of old, antique, the earth and heavens which now are, namely the modern; because just as those, when the world perished, perished by the common deluge of waters, so these will perish by the deluge of fire in the conflagration of the world, when God will avenge the crimes of men by fire, just as of old He avenged them by water; and consequently this judgment of His and the punishment of His vengeance is to be expected by each one and feared. Furthermore, the heavens which existed before perished by the deluge, not entirely, but with respect to the lowest and nearest part of the earth, namely with respect to the air of both the lowest and middle regions. For the water of the deluge exceeded all the mountains (and consequently also the middle region of the air) by fifteen cubits, Genesis VII, 20.
Eugubinus, however, and Oleaster, whom I cited at Genesis VII, 11, and others, take the heavens here entirely and universally for both the heavens properly so called and for the air: for they are so taken in what follows. For these authors hold that in the time of Noah the waters which are above the heavens and above the firmament rained down, in order to bring the deluge upon the earth: for neither the air nor a hundred seas would have sufficed for so great a deluge, exceeding as it did all the mountains by fifteen cubits. Therefore the waters which God had stored up most vast above the heavens for this end were necessary. And this seems to be required here by the full and perfect antithesis of St. Peter, as if to say: The earlier heavens, namely those which existed before the deluge, were split open and overwhelmed by it, and as it were perished; because the waters which are above the heavens, raining down for the deluge, split, overwhelmed and changed them: in like manner the heavens after the deluge, restored by God, which now exist, at the end of the world will burn in the fire of conflagration, will be dissolved and perish; and new heavens and a new earth will be formed by God, which will endure gloriously with the Blessed forever. For he distinctly distinguishes the heavens from the elements in verse 12, saying: "The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat of the fire." If the latter heavens will melt by fire, then equally the former, because those which existed before the deluge were as it were melted away by the waters of the same. So they themselves: concerning which I have spoken at Genesis VII, 11.
For he replies to the objection of the scoffers, who say in verse 4, that all things continue thus as they were created from the beginning, and consequently that there is no, nor will there be, judge and avenger of crimes. He refutes this, saying that God was the avenger of the impious, when He drowned all in the waters of the deluge and destroyed them: but this, he says, is hidden from them, because they do not know it, or are unwilling to know it.
Reserved for fire. — Of which the Psalmist, Psalm XCVI, verse 9: "A fire shall go before Him." And Paul, II Thessalonians I, 8: "At the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with the angels of His power in a flame of fire, giving vengeance to them who know Him not." Indeed the Sibyl, in Book II of the Oracles, sings thus of this fire of conflagration:
Then a burning, fiery river shall flow from the high heaven,
And shall consume all places utterly to the bottom,
The earth, the vast Ocean, and the dark blue
Pools of the deep, lakes, rivers, springs, and stern Pluto;
The heavenly pole as well... the lights of heaven also into one
Will flow molten, their carved form utterly destroyed:
For the stars shall fall, all torn from heaven.
And to the same effect Ovid writes these lines:
He also remembers that in the fates a time will come,
When the sea, the earth, and the regal vault of heaven
Shall burn, and the wrought mass of the world shall labor.
From this learn how great is the gravity of crimes, and how great will be their punishment and vengeance: for on account of them this whole world will burn up, just as of old on account of the same Sodom and the whole Pentapolis burned.
Unto the day of judgment and of the perdition of the ungodly men. — You will first ask, whether this fire will precede the judgment, or rather follow it? St. Augustine, XX On the City of God xvi and xxxviii, holds it will follow. Prosper, Anselm and others agree, whom Suarez cites and follows, III part, tome II, disp. LVII, sect. 1, who hold that the conflagration of the world will be after the judgment for this purpose, that through it the world may be wholly purged of absolutely all crimes, even the curses and blasphemies committed by the reprobate in the judgment. But the more common opinion of the Doctors is that this fire will precede Christ the judge and His judgment. The reasons are: First, because this seems clearly stated, Psalm XC, 3: "A fire shall go before Him, and shall burn His enemies round about. The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of all the earth. The heavens declared His justice, and all peoples saw His glory." By which words it is plainly signified that this fire will precede, and burn up all things, then Christ the judge will follow and carry out the judgment. Second, because men who at the end of the world will be found alive, will be examined by this fire, and purged of light faults, according to that of I Corinthians chapter III, 13: "The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is; and: He shall be saved, yet so as by fire;" for that the Apostle there speaks of the day of judgment (for he calls this the day of the Lord) and the fire of the conflagration of the world, I have shown there. But men will be purged not after the resurrection and judgment (although Caesarius of Arles in homily 1 on that of I Corinthians III: "He shall be saved, yet so as by fire," held this of some), but before, so that being fully purged they may with the others be caught up to meet Christ in the air, and immediately be made blessed by Christ, glorified, and ascend with Him into heaven. Third, because it is fitting that the glorious Christ should not descend into the world unless it is already purged and expiated by fire; fourth, because this fire will assist Christ the judge as a lictor, to strike and punish the reprobate, and that, when the sentence of damnation has been pronounced by Christ upon them, it may at once snatch them away and roll them down with itself into Tartarus. For this is what St. Peter signifies here, when he says that this fire is reserved unto the day of judgment and perdition of the impious, and the Church when she sings in the Office of the Dead: "Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death on that terrible day, when the heavens and the earth shall be moved, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire." And Tertullian, or rather Novatian, in his book On the Trinity, chapter VIII: "Toward the fiery day of judgment," he says, "this world hastens," by which words he alludes to these of St. Peter. And St. Augustine, book of 50 Homilies, homily 46, where from St. Paul he teaches that each one's work is to be tried by fire.
Therefore this seems to be the future order and sequence of the conflagration and consummation of the world. First, God through the angels will stir up a fire, by which the world will burn: by the same all men will be killed, but only those who have faults and need cleansing will be tormented and purged, each more or less according to his own deserts; second, when the Archangel sounds the trumpet: "Arise, ye dead, come to judgment," all will rise from death and ashes, and will be carried by angels into the valley of Josaphat, that there they may be judged by Christ; third, Christ will carry out the judgment of all and each, and presently the fire will thus snatch away with itself into Tartarus the reprobate judged and damned by Him. For which reason this fire seems likely to be similar to and of the same nature as the fire of Gehenna: for it will be joined to it, and will end in it. And by this means then this fire will purge the world of the curses and blasphemies committed by the reprobate on the day of judgment, because it will snatch them away into Tartarus, so that there will be no need of any other expiation or burning of the world.
Hence the Erythraean Sibyl sings of it:
A river of fire and brimstone shall fall down from heaven;
so that it is similar to the fire of hell, which is sulphurous, as is clear from Isaiah XXX, 33; Apocalypse XX, 9, and elsewhere.
You will ask second, what effects will this fire produce? I answer first, it will serve Christ to represent and adorn His majesty, both divine and royal and judicial, in His humanity. For fire is the indicator of divinity: hence everywhere in Scripture God has appeared and been represented through fire, as I have shown at Exodus III, 2 and XIX, 18. Again, fire was carried before kings, as a symbol of power and vengeance, as I said at Jeremiah I, 13. Therefore this fire going before will show, and as if with a silent voice will proclaim Christ to be God, and as man to be King and judge of all things.
Second, this fire will dissolve all mixed bodies into elements: for since they were established for the use of the temporal life of men, when that life ceases they will be of no use, and consequently are to be resolved into their principles, from which they are compounded, and restored to their elements. So our Lessius, book XIII On the Divine Attributes, chapter XX, who affirms the same of absolutely all mixed bodies: although some deny this and hold that certain things are to be reserved, and namely the earthly paradise for the use of the little ones who died without baptism in original sin; for these they hold will live in this world throughout all eternity: concerning which more at verses 10 and 13. But that all things are to be burned up, St. Peter asserts in clear words at the end of verse 10.
Third, this fire will purge the just then living who will have something of fault, or punishment to pay and expiate, as St. Paul teaches I Corinthians III, 13; but the just who are fully purged it will either not touch, or rather it will indeed touch them, but will not afflict them, except as much as natural death is wont to afflict one dying naturally: for by this fire all even the just will die, unless you say that God will affect the just not by fire, but by another easier death. Certainly that all will die by fire St. Bonaventure teaches in IV, dist. 47, Last Question, and St. Augustine insinuates, homily 16 among the 50: "Those," he says, "who have done things worthy of temporal punishments (of whom the Apostle says, If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire), through the fiery river, of which the Prophetic discourse mentions (and a fiery river issued before Him): through the river, I say, of fire, and through the fords dreadful with boiling globes, they will pass: as great as the matter of sin will have been, so great will be the delay of crossing; as much as the fault demanded, so much will a certain rational discipline of the flame claim from the man; and as much as foolish iniquity suggested, so much will the wise punishment rage." Where it is to be noted, says Lessius in the place already cited, that this fire as if endowed with reason, will torment each one more or less, according to the quantity of fault or guilt; because it will act as the instrument of divine justice, applied by His powerful hand, as also St. Thomas teaches in IV, dist. 47, near the end, where he says that indeed all both good and evil are to be killed by this fire, and turned into ashes, but the good in whom there is nothing to be purged will feel no pain; the evil will be grievously tormented; but the good in whom there is something to be purged will feel torment from that fire more or less according to the diversity of their merits. The same manner is observed in the fire of Purgatory: for that fire rages on those who are being purged, according to the gravity of their offenses and the magnitude of their guilt.
The fourth effect will be the expiation of the world; for this world is as it were the temple of divinity, which God has founded and sanctified for His worship and honor. This temple has been polluted through the infinite sins of men and demons, through carnal and spiritual filth for many ages: hence before it is renewed to the state of glory, it must be expiated, which expiation, just as of old was done by water, so now will be done by fire, which is most fitting for this effect.
Mystically, this fire will represent that this judgment of Christ will be fiery, that is, sincere, clear, exact, sharp and efficacious, according to that of Daniel VII, 10: "A swift stream of fire issued forth from before Him;" and Apocalypse I, 14: "His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass," etc.; and: "From His mouth came forth a sharp two-edged sword;" and: "His face was as the sun shineth in its strength."
From this fire, and its faith and doctrine, the Gentiles charged the Christians with the crime of faction and sedition, namely that they were threatening the whole world with fire, and contriving its ruin, says Minucius in Octavius; indeed Martin of Poland in his Chronicle relates that Nero ordered all Christians to be burned, and Paul their teacher to be beheaded, because he preached that the world would perish by fire: although others bring forward other and more probable causes of the Neronian persecution.
Verse 8: But of This One Thing Be Not Ignorant, Dearly Beloved, That One Day With the Lord Is as a Thousand Years, and a Thousand Years as One Day
8. But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. — This is an anticipation; for he meets the objection: If Christ is to come to judgment, why does He delay so long, why does He so long tolerate crimes, why does He so long allow His own to be afflicted by the impious? He answers first, that all this time, although it seems long to us, is nevertheless brief before God, indeed is as it were one day, if compared with the eternity of God. "For the eternity of God is the entire and perfect possession at once of unending life," says Boethius, book III On Consolation; and St. Caesarius, brother of St. Gregory Nazianzen, Dialogue III: "With God," he says, "the whole eternity is one day, lacking evening." Wherefore eternity is as it were one indivisible now, enduring always and constant, and therefore in it our thousand years are as one day, and one day in it is as our thousand years: because in it there is no succession; nothing passes away, nothing comes: but it itself is as one perpetual and constant day, coexisting with all ages, around which standing still and unmoved, all times revolve, slip away, and pass. So Œcumenius: "With God," he says, "who is infinite, and an unbounded sea of essence, nothing is extended; but a thousand years are with Him just as one day; or rather, according to David, there is not even a multiplication of a day, for he says: A thousand years in Thy sight, O Lord, are as yesterday which is past," as if to say: A thousand years with Thee are as one day: indeed one now of eternity.
Second and better Gagnaeus, as if to say: With God a thousand years are as one day, and conversely one day as a thousand years; because with God there is no, or very little, distance between one day and a thousand years: for a thousand years with Him, who is immense and eternal, are so small that they appear to be as one day; for a thousand years are distant from God's eternity as much, as one day is distant, namely infinitely: equally therefore they are distant from it, and consequently appear among themselves equal and equal: just as one standing on a high mountain, if from a distance he sees a boy with a man, does not distinguish the boy from the man, but sees them as something one and equal. So those who stand in heaven do not distinguish men from trees on earth; but see both small, slender and as it were equal, just as we see small and large stars as equal, nor do we distinguish among them, so that we may discern the difference of size, which is greatest. Whence Irenaeus, near the end of book V, says that some have thought that this was therefore threatened to Adam: "In whatever day thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death," Genesis II, 17; because so it actually happened. For after eating the forbidden fruit, Adam by living did not complete one day, because he did not reach the thousandth year (which before God is as it were one day).
Third, more aptly, as if to say: To God, both one day and a thousand years are objectively present; God's eyes and gaze behold both one day and a thousand years. For God perceives, sees through, foresees, and disposes all things even the smallest, so that one day succeeds another, one year another, and exists at the time defined by Him. Wherefore do not doubt that He also has the day of judgment present, beholds it, and at the time defined by Him will exhibit it, and make it appear and exist. For all times equally, both long and short, are present to God and His eternity, so that He arranges all and each at an equal interval; wherefore the Lord does not delay His promise of the day of judgment, of the rewards of the good and punishments of the evil, because He will exhibit it at a fitting time disposed by Him. St. Peter cites Psalm LXXXIX, 4, where the Psalmist graphically depicts the brevity of our life, and says: "For a thousand years in Thy sight are as yesterday which is past, and (as) a watch in the night; and (their years shall be) as things that are accounted of as nothing. In the morning man shall pass away as grass, in the morning he shall flourish and pass away, in the evening he shall fall, grow dry, and wither," as if to say: A thousand years of our life, as long as those of Methuselah were almost (for he lived 969 years), are with God as yesterday, indeed as one watch of the night which lasts only three hours, indeed the years of men are as things accounted as nothing.
Wherefore the life of men is as grass which in the morning is green and flourishes, in the evening dries up and falls. Hear St. Jerome on Psalm LXXXIX: "See what he says. O brief eternity! That Adam, our father, who lived nine hundred and thirty years, even that Methuselah, who lived nine hundred and sixty-five years. Suppose he had lived a thousand: in comparison with Thy eternity, what was great is brief. For what does it profit to be great which has an end? Our thousand years, before we offended, was one day with Thee. Why do I say one day? one watch of the night." And below: "For all our days have failed. Our age has run on, and while we are ignorant, we are grievously destroyed. And this very thing which we speak is about death, and we do not understand. Our years shall be considered as a spider. See what he says. As a spider which sends out threads, and runs hither and thither, and weaves all day long, and the labor indeed is great, but the effect is nothing: so also the life of men runs hither and thither. We seek possessions, we prepare riches, we beget sons, we labor, we are exalted to kingdoms and we do all things, and we do not understand that we are weaving a spider's web. The days of our years in them are seventy years. Where are the thousand years? We have been compressed into seventy years. But if much, eighty. But if we live more, it is no longer life, but death. But if in powers, eighty years. For whom will you find to be an octogenarian and healthy? The Greek saying also says: Old age itself is a disease. And besides, their labor and sorrow. Whatever is more, is not life, but pain."
To this point belong St. Basil and Theodoret on Psalm LXXXIX, who explain thus, as if to say: "This our life is brief and calamitous; but with Thee, who art eternal and everlasting, even the number of a thousand years is similar to one day." And Cassiodorus in the same place: "Not," he says, "to one present day, but to a past day is compared so very long an order of ages." And Eugubinus in the same place: "It is the speech," he says, "of God to men, as if to say: What are you building, by what hope are you living? What if you yourself were to live even a thousand years, that is, more than the first father, who passed nine hundred and thirty years, all this age, because at last one must die, will be to you as one yesterday gone by. But if human life is a particle of time, time the briefest part of eternity, what will whatever each of men lives be before the eyes of God? For, as Plato and Aristotle say, there is neither day, nor year, nor month with God, who is above the sun the begetter of time, nor can He be intercepted by time."
Excellently Pliny, book XXI, chapter 1: "Nature begets flowers for a day, a great warning to men, that things which most splendidly flourish most swiftly wither." Read the poem of Virgil On the Rose:
As long as one day is, so long is the age of roses.
Most wisely therefore Nazianzen, in the oration In Praise of Caesarius: "We are an unstable dream, a phantom which leaves no trace, dust, vapor, morning dew, a flower born for a time and withering."
Nor are Emperors or Kings in better condition; indeed they too are born men, Ecclesiastes X, 12: "So even a king today is, and tomorrow he shall die." With which the chorus of Seneca in Thyestes, after Act III, accords:
A brief hour exchanges the lowest with the highest.
He who places the diadem on his brow,
Whom nations bowing on knee have trembled before,
Whom the rising day saw proud,
This man the setting day saw lying low.
Weigh how momentary royal happiness is. Hence that verse of Euripides, which Plutarch recites in his little book of consolation to Apollonius, is rightly celebrated: "Happiness is not stable, but lasting only for a day." In which place Demetrius of Phalerum is read to have rebuked the Poet, otherwise praised, who ought to have said not one day, but a point of time. Seneca acutely gives the reason, in book VII of Natural Questions, chapter XXXII: "Time flows on, and abandons even those most eager for it. Nor what is to come is, is mine, nor what has been: I hang upon a point of fleeing time."
Finally Alcazar on Apocalypse chapter I, verse 3, explains otherwise and presses the "with the Lord," as if the discourse were of the Blessed: for these, since they enjoy blessed eternity, esteem a thousand years as one day. Thus "a thousand years with the Lord are as one day," namely, because death approaches each one: but after death the faithful and the saints enjoy the blessedness of God, which is measured by aeon or eternity, not by time; and then they care little or nothing that the day of judgment is deferred for a thousand years, because "a thousand years with the Lord (namely in the blessed life) are as one day." Therefore Peter is treating of those who are with the Lord: for otherwise if he were treating of those who live in this time, and were comparing it with eternity, as if to say: Wait a little, whoever you are who are afflicted, because you will soon be visited, namely after a thousand years (for these with God are one day), it would seem rather to be a mockery, than a consolation of human weakness. So he himself, fittingly enough and connectedly.
Symbolically many explain thus, as if to say: The world will stand for six thousand years, because it was created in six days; but one day is reckoned with God for a thousand years: therefore our six days make with God six thousand years. Hear St. Jerome, Epistle to Cyprian: "I think that from this place a thousand years are wont to be called one day, namely so that because the world was made in six days, it is believed to subsist only for six thousand years, and afterwards to come to the seventh and eighth number, in which the true sabbath is celebrated, and the purity of circumcision is restored: whence also through the eight beatitudes the rewards of good works are promised."
This opinion has other firmer foundations, and therefore is held by many Fathers and Doctors: hence it is probable, nor can it be charged with rashness, as I shall show on Apocalypse XX, 5, and is plainly different from the opinion of the Chiliasts, which Bede, On the Reckoning of Time, chapter LXVI, calls heretical.
Again John Ferdinandus, in Thesaurus Script., under the word Dies, number 40, cites St. Augustine explaining thus: One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, that is, one day of punishment in purgatory is so bitter that it is equated to the punishment of a thousand years of this life. Witness that soldier, who when he had been only one hour in Purgatory, thought he had been there many years, concerning which St. Antoninus, IV part, title 14, chapter X, § 4. For a brief time in the gravest pains seems to be longest.
Finally some formerly explained St. Peter thus, as if to say: The day of judgment, that an exact examination may be made of each, will last a thousand years; wherefore the Saints who will have some light faults, will be purged for a thousand years by fire, that they may expiate them. But Bede rightly refutes these: "But these," he says, "do not see how great impudence it is to believe, that so great a multitude of the perfect and just, when in the twinkling of an eye they have received their blessed and immortal bodies, must in the air, or on the earth await the end of judgment for a thousand years' span, and then at last when their companions are entirely prepared, hear the long-awaited sentence: Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom." Similar was the delirium of Mohammed about the centuries of the day of judgment, which Dionysius the Carthusian relates and refutes, book III Confutation of the Alcoran, chapter XV and following.
Tropologically: Hence conceive, estimate and weigh how great is the brevity of human time, and how long the eternity of God and the Saints; for, as St. Ephrem says, tome I sermon Exhortation to Piety: "A thousand years of this age have such comparison with that eternal and incorruptible world, as the smallest grain of sand of the sea with the whole sand of the same."
The Mirror of Examples, dist. IX, chap. LXV, relates that a certain monk in the choir singing the verse already mentioned: "A thousand years before Thy eyes are as yesterday which is past," wondering how this could be true, going out into a grove in meditation, there heard a little bird singing most sweetly, which charmed him and detained him for three hundred years without food, drink, or sleep: then it flew away, and he coming to himself, returning to the monastery and the choir as if about to sing Terce of the same day (for he thought that the same day still endured, on which he had gone out from the choir), saw other monks, another choir, and all other things. The Abbot inquiring the name of the monk, found in the chronicles of the monastery that he had lived three hundred years before, and gone out from the choir, and no longer appeared; then the monk took the Holy Synaxis, and at once expired, and flew away to heavenly glory, whose melody and joys he had foretasted. The Reverend Father Francis Costerus diligently investigated this story, and found that it had really happened in the monastery of Afflighem of the Order of St. Benedict, which is situated in Belgium between Brussels and Alost, as he himself once affirmed to me in Belgium. As therefore St. Benedict, lifted up to God and God's immensity, saw under it the whole world gathered together as a globe: so he who is lifted up to God's eternity sees under it all times gathered together as one day, indeed as a point. St. Gregory gives the reason, book II Dialogues, chapter XXXV: "Because to one seeing God," he says, "every creature is narrow. For however little he has glimpsed of the light of the Creator, everything that is created becomes brief to him. For the inner light which has snatched up the mind of the seer to higher things, has shown him how narrow all lower things were."
Let us ruminate on these things, let us deeply meditate upon them, that we may deserve to pass from vanity to truth, from brevity to eternity, not miserable, but blessed. Thus Thomas More, Chancellor of England and Martyr, was ruminating on these, who being assaulted by Henry VIII, king of England, with all engines, and at last through his wife lamenting his miserable lot, however much one might wish for it, "a thousand years before Thy eyes are as yesterday which has passed; not even as tomorrow which is yet to come: thus all things that are bounded by the end of time are to be regarded as already past," etc.
Our life therefore, however long-lasting, compared with eternity is only one yesterday, says St. Peter, and one today, says St. Paul, Hebrews 3:13; so that we may be called ephemerals, or hemerobii ("day-livers"), like the little creatures that live but a single day, of which Aristotle speaks in his History of Animals, Book I, chapter 5, and Cicero in his first Tusculan Disputation: "Compare," he says, "our longest age with eternity, and we shall be found in almost the same brevity as those little beasts." Let us therefore despise the trifles of trifles and the vanities of vanities, says St. Augustine, Confessions Book VIII, chapter 11; let us long for heaven and eternal things, and bravely endure all daily crosses as momentary, since by them we pass to eternal goods; let us seriously dread nothing save eternal punishment and fire, and equally sin: let us count all other things, whether joyful or sad, of no value, and through both let us press on briskly and constantly toward blessed eternity. For this is the whole man.
Verse 9: The Lord Delayeth Not His Promise, as Some Imagine; but Dealeth Patiently for Your Sake, Not Willing That Any Should Perish, but That All Should Return to Penance
9. The Lord delayeth not His promise. — In Greek, ὁ Κύριος τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, that is, "the Lord of the promise," namely its author, or He who has promised, does not delay, I say, to make good His promise, that is, that which He has promised, namely the day of judgment, for the rewarding of the good and the punishing of the wicked; but at the time appointed by Himself, which is brief to Him, although it seems long to us, He will bring it forth.
But dealeth patiently (in Greek μακροθυμεῖ, that is, He acts with long-suffering), for your sake. — The Vulgate translator reads ὑμᾶς, that is "you"; others read ἡμᾶς, that is "us," as if to say: God therefore puts off the day of judgment which He has promised, not because He is slow, but that He may give you and your friends and companions space for repentance, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to repentance." The reason, then, why God prolongs the day of judgment is God's long-suffering and love toward sinful men, because indeed He awaits them, that they may come to their senses and be saved. Hence the Zurich version clearly renders: "The Lord, who promised, does not delay, as some think it a delay: but He is long-suffering toward us, while He wills that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance, or be embraced or come." For all these meanings the Greek χωρῆσαι signifies.
He alludes to that passage of Isaiah 30:18: "The Lord waits, that He may have mercy on you, and therefore He shall be exalted, sparing you, for the Lord is a God of judgment." On which St. Jerome says: "Great is the mercy of God, that He waits for our repentance," and therefore the greater is man's ingratitude and impenitence, if he does not respond by repentance to God who awaits him with such patience and longing: therefore "the more slowly the divine wrath proceeds to vengeance, the more it will compensate for its tardiness with the greater severity of punishment," as Valerius Maximus says, Book I, chapter I.
Wherefore Esdras vigorously says, or whoever the author is, in 4 Esdras, chapter 2, verse 34: "Wait," he says, "for your shepherd, He will give you the rest of eternity; for He who shall come at the end of the age is near. Be ready for the rewards of the kingdom, for perpetual light shall shine upon you for the eternity of time. Flee the shadow of this world, receive the joy of your glory," etc. For all this life is a river, and that one running, rapid, headlong, sweeping all things with it. For, as the Poet says:
All things pass away after the manner of flowing water.
And Heraclitus: "The life of men," he says, "is nothing other than a river, nay rather man is a bubble." And Pythagoras, when asked what human life is, entered a chamber and immediately went out again, intimating that life is at once an entry and an exit, an arrival and a departure. But God is immortality and eternity itself, and therefore the refuge of our mortality, says St. Augustine. Hence He is called "Jehovah," or "He who is," or "I am who am," Exodus 3:14. For God is constant being itself, unity itself, and the most simple and incorruptible perfection of all things. But if, O man, thou hadst lived a thousand years amid all the riches, delights, honors, and pomps of the world, what wouldst thou now have from it? All would have passed away like a river: the same will be the case with the rest of thy life that remains, however brief: when it is over, thou wilt die and be summoned to the tribunal of God, and an exact reckoning of all thy words and deeds will have to be rendered, that thou mayest be assigned either to heaven or to hell. The same holds of a thousand years passed in penance, labor, and martyrdom: for the pain passes away, but the reward remains. Thy life therefore is as it were a moment, on which eternity hangs. Live then, if thou art wise, for eternity. Hear St. Augustine on Psalm 89: "Since a thousand years before Thy eyes are as yesterday which has passed: therefore we ought to turn to Thy refuge, where Thou art without any changeableness, away from these passing and slipping things; for however long a time may seem to this life," and so on.
St. Jerome, in chapter II to the Romans (or whoever the author is: for it does not seem to be St. Jerome, as I have shown in that same place): "Therefore," he says, "it seems to men that God long awaits sinners, because we, since we are of brief time, reckon a hundred years to be eternity. But He, with whom a thousand years are as one day, does not equate a hundred years to the span of one of His hours. Wherefore this is little in His sight: since even men are wont to hope for the correction of sinners over a long time." Hence it is plain that God wills the salvation of all, and wills the damnation of none, and consequently reprobates no one before his demerits and death in sin are foreseen — a will which in God is not merely of sign, as some have judged, but also of good pleasure, as Gabriel Vasquez solidly shows, part 1, Question XIX, disp. 83, ch. II. For the Prophets everywhere cry out that God is unwilling, indeed grieves and is angry at sinners, because they go to their own destruction. This is what Paul cries: "God wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," 1 Timothy II, 4. And Christ: "It is not the will," He says, "before our Father, that one of these little ones should perish," Matt. XVIII, 14. And St. Augustine: "It is wicked," he says, "to ascribe to God the causes of all sins and ruins." See him, in the book On the Article Falsely Imposed on Himself, chapters X and XIII, and Prosper Against the Objections of the Gauls. I have confirmed this same point at length on Hosea, ch. XI, 8.
Let then the impious voice of Calvin on chapter IX to the Romans, verses 17 and 28, depart: "God destined the wicked to be created in order to damn them." Let him himself hear, to pass over others in silence, St. Clement, book II of the Constitutions, ch. LV: "We have heard," he says, "from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and being most excellently instructed we declare, what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God, which has been made known to us through Jesus Christ, namely that none should perish, but rather that all men, when they have believed in Him with one consent, praising Him with one mind and one mouth, may live forever." For, as St. Ambrose rightly notes on 1 Timothy II: "God wills all to be saved, but only if they approach Him: for He does not so will it as that the unwilling be saved; rather He wills them to be saved, if they themselves are willing." Hence likewise the error is plain of those who held that Christ suffered not for all but only for the predestined. Thus once judged the Predestinatians, Arnobius on Psalm CXLVII, Faustus, book II On Free Will, chapters XIV and XVI; Remigius of Lyons, book I Against the Three Epistles of the Three Bishops, and certain moderns. But the contrary is taught by St. Peter here, by St. Paul, and everywhere by Holy Scripture and all the Fathers.
Verse 10: But the Day of the Lord Shall Come as a Thief, in Which the Heavens Shall Pass Away With Great Violence, and the Elements Shall Be Melted With Heat, and the Earth and the Works Which Are in It Shall Be Burnt Up
10. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief. — "At night" some Greek copies add, and St. Paul, 1 Thess. V, 2. Note: Properly speaking, Christ Himself is not (for that would seem incongruous and unfitting), but the day of the Lord, that is, the day of judgment, of wrath and vengeance, is compared to a thief. So Theophylact on Matt. XXIV, 4: "By a thief," he says, "He names the consummation of the world, and the death of each individual."
Furthermore the Lord intimates that His coming will be at night. "As therefore a thief comes secretly, so also will My coming be — that you may not be negligent." Wherefore what the Lord says in Apoc. III, 3: "I will come to you as a thief, and you shall not know at what hour I will come to you;" and ch. XVI, v. 15: "Behold, I come as a thief," — take this metonymically, so that the judge is put for the judgment and the day of vengeance: as if to say, My coming, that is the judgment and day of vengeance, will be unforeseen and unexpected by you; it will overwhelm you snoring in your sins, as a thief overwhelms the sleeping. Or properly, not that Christ Himself is as it were a thief, but that to sinners He will be as unforeseen and harmful as the coming of a thief: hence they will reckon and compare Him to a thief; but the just, awaiting and longing for Him, will reckon and compare Him to a most beloved friend and guest. He speaks therefore in the sense of the impious, who will dread Christ's coming as the coming of a thief; for, as Christ says in Matt. XXIV, 37: "As in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be; for as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew not, until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."
Secondly, many judge that the day of the Lord is compared to a thief breaking into a house at night, because this day will come and begin at night. Whence Matt. XXV, 6: "At midnight," He says, "a cry was raised: Behold, the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him." So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius on the same passage; indeed St. Jerome says it is the Apostolic tradition that for this reason at Pasch the people may not be dismissed before midnight, because at that time Christ is to come, at which time He typically struck down the firstborn of the Egyptians, Exodus ch. XII, v. 29. The Jews too expect their Messiah to come at midnight.
Others, however, judge that Christ's last judgment will be in the morning: for it is fitting that Christ judge most clearly not in the dark, but in clear light. So St. Thomas, part III, in the Supplement, Question LXVII, art. 3; the Abulensis on Matt. XXV; Suarez, part III, vol. II, disp. 57, and others.
Both can be true, and perhaps will be true: namely that the judgment itself will properly be carried out by Christ in the morning, according to that Church hymn: "And that last morning, which we humbly await." Yet the consummation of the world will begin at night for the greater terror of the impious; namely, at night the heavens will be agitated with swifter impetus and a great rushing sound, and they will kindle the fire by which the world will be burned: by which fire shining at night there will be such brightness that it will seem to be morning and day. Again, the heavens will be agitated with such velocity that they will at once bring on the morning and turn night into day, especially with the brightness of Christ and the Saints drawing near: "For the just shall shine forth as the sun," Matt. XIII, 43. This is what the Sibyl plainly says, and from her Lactantius, book VII, ch. XIX:
____ When He comes,
There will be fire and a dreadful darkness in the middle of the night.
"Then the midst of heaven will be opened in the dead and dark of night, so that throughout the whole world the light of the descending God appears as a flash of lightning. This is the night which is celebrated by us with vigil for the coming of our King and our God."
Morally, Cassiodorus on Psalm CXVIII, 62, on that verse: "At midnight I rose to give Thee praise," teaches that the faithful must with the Church pray and sing psalms by night, because Christ will come for judgment by night. "He knows," he says, "that at that time the chains of Peter, Paul, and Silas placed in prison were loosed; he knows also that the bridegroom is to come at midnight: therefore at the same time he rises for praises, lest among the foolish virgins the door be closed against him." And St. Augustine, epistle 120, ch. XXXIV, and sermon 22 On the Words of the Lord according to Matthew: "At midnight," he says, "He will come, when it is very dark, that is, hidden, whether He comes, and when He is not awaited." Whence he infers: "Therefore watch by night, lest you suffer a thief."
In which the heavens with great impetus (in Greek ῥοιζηδόν, that is, impetuously, with rushing sound, and with a hissing such as is wont to be emitted by a blazing fire, says Œcumenius, or by a storm and strong winds: whence the Zurich version renders, the heavens after the manner of a hissing storm) shall pass away. — In Greek παρελεύσονται, that is, shall pass by, shall be dissolved; St. Augustine, XX On the City of God XXIV, reads transcurrent (shall run across). You will ask first, what are these heavens? Many take the heavens precisely and properly so called, namely the starry heavens: for they are here distinguished from the elements, and consequently from the air, so that we may not understand the airy heavens; for they judge these heavens to have been made out of waters, and therefore not to be solid but fluid like air, and properly to be ether, which is capable of change and corruption; because "every alterable thing is corruptible," says Aristotle, book I On Generation. For thus the Mathematicians have detected by the dioptra in the sun, moon, and stars, and have shown me, spots that are not only stable but also mobile, going and returning. Indeed these same have judged that the last comet, which appeared as a huge thing in the year of the Lord 1618, like a beam, of the most tenuous splendor, bearing the figure of a sword, whose point on November 18 appeared under the Crater, while its lowest part reached obliquely to the shoulders of the Centaur; then on November 30 the point was directed through 12 and 13 toward the heart of Hydra; and the lower part was seen under 22 of the same Hydra. This comet, I say, distinguished Mathematicians judged was not in the air, but far above the air in the very starry heavens, indeed above all the lower heavens, and demonstrated this from its enormous parallax, which seems unable to occur except in lofty and most vast heavens: thus Aristotle erred, who held that worlds are eternal and incorruptible.
They prove this from this passage of St. Peter and Psalm CI, 27: "They (the heavens) shall perish;" Isaiah XXXIV, 4: "The heavens shall be folded together like a book;" and ch. XXX, 26: "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun;" Apoc. VI, 14: "Heaven departed as a book folded up;" Matt. XXIV, 29: "The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light: and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be moved." Again, the empyrean heaven, they say, consists of ether: for the Blessed will not be fastened in it as in a solid and hard wall, but they will be able naturally to move, walk, and speak in it, as we do in this air. If in the empyrean heaven there is ether, but incorruptible: then ether is also divisible in the lower and starry heavens. For Mars, Venus, Mercury (the last two of which appear sometimes above and sometimes below the sun) and the other planets have such wonderful and varied motions, so many circuits, bendings, and reflections, that they seem to move in divisible ether, like fish in water, as St. Basil, St. Ambrose, and others have judged: whence the Mathematicians, in order to represent these motions of theirs, have devised so many epicycles, eccentrics, concentrics, etc. So plainly thinks, and St. Peter is explained by, his disciple and successor St. Clement, in book II of the Recognitions, where he relates that St. Peter disputing with Simon Magus distinguished a twofold heaven: one invisible to us in which the Blessed dwell, which he says is eternal and immutable; the other visible and distinguished by stars, and that this is corruptible and to be corrupted, namely when men shall have ceased to be on earth, for whose sake it was created. The same in book III, from the mouth of St. Peter, says that just as a chick comes forth from the egg with the shell broken — another and different from the egg — so when this fabric of heaven and world is dissolved, a new state of the heavens will arise and be unfolded for the Blessed. His words are: "Just as the shell of an egg, however beautifully made, must yet be broken and dissolved, that the chick may come forth from it, and that for which the form of the whole egg seems to have been expressed may appear: so also it is necessary that the state of this world pass away, that that more sublime state of the heavenly kingdom may shine forth." And St. Basil, book III of the Hexaemeron, asserts that the world's destruction will be by fire, which though most plentifully strewn through heaven and the waters, and now indeed tempered by the incredible abundance of the waters surrounding above and below, yet at the end of the age, when the waters are consumed, will devour all things in a common conflagration. St. Basil therefore seems in part to make heaven fiery and of fiery nature with the Stoics: for thus Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, by the testimony of Eusebius On the Preparation of the Gospel, taught that all things will at last perish by ethereal fire. The same about the starry heavens being to perish and be consumed by fire was held by St. Justin, St. Jerome, Theodoret, St. Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa, Hilary, Œcumenius, and among the moderns Catharinus, Salmeron, and Serarius vigorously proving this here, Hieronymus Magius, Franciscus Valesius, Ludovicus Molina and others, whom I have cited on Isaiah XXXIV, 4, where I have said more on this matter. The same the Sibyls sang, and from them Virgil the poet, Aeneid VI and X; Lucretius and Manilius, book I; Pliny, book II, ch. IX; Ptolemy in the Quadripartite, and others, who held that the stars are nourished by vapors, which being taken away and burnt up at the end of the world, the stars will perish. Hence Lucan also, book I of the Pharsalia, sings thus of the end of the world:
Star will clash with star, the fiery stars will seek the sea,
The earth will refuse to extend its shores,
And will throw off the strait; Phoebe, opposed to her brother,
Will go, and indignant to drive her chariot through a slanting orbit,
Will demand the day for herself, and the whole discordant
Machine of the riven world will trouble its compacts.
If you object that passage of Job XXXVII, 18: "Hast Thou perhaps formed the heavens, which are most solid as if of cast bronze," they reply: "most solid" means most firm, just as if they had been cast of bronze. For the Hebrew word for word has: "Hast Thou stretched out with Him the strong heavens, which are as the appearance of a thing molten?" So Vatablus; or, as Pagninus, "which are strong as a molten mirror." Whence Cajetan, Pineda, the Zurich version, and others there understand by "heavens" the air, or the ether, which God has stretched and rarefied above us, but at the same time has so confirmed and solidified, that it is a stable, constant, strong, mighty thing: for the force of agitated and driven air is incredible, as is plain in strong winds, which throw down and lay flat trees, houses, towers, citadels.
But others, both ancients and moderns, generally take the heavens here as airy, not starry. For heaven in Scripture signifies whatever is stretched out above us, whether it be air, or properly heaven: whence the birds of heaven are called, that is, of the air: and thus a little before St. Peter said that the heavens, that is, the lowest part of the heavens, namely the air, gave the waters of the flood. By the elements they understand water, and the air of the lowest region near the earth: for from these as from elements all mixed bodies are made and compounded. So plainly St. Augustine in book XX On the City of God, chs. XIV, XVI, XVIII and XXIV; St. Epiphanius, Heresy 64; Damascene, book II On the Faith, ch. VI; St. Gregory, book XVII of the Moralia, ch. V.
The first reason is that the heavens are incorruptible, not only by the judgment of Aristotle and the Philosophers, but also, as it seems, by the judgment of the Scriptures, as Job ch. XXXVII, v. 18, according to the Latin version already cited; and the Psalmist, speaking of the heavenly bodies: "He has established them," he says, "forever, and unto ages of ages," Psalm CXLVIII, 5.
The second, because fire cannot act upon the heavens; whence it will not reach them, just as the water of the flood did not reach them; but as far as that water reached, fire too will reach to the same point, namely so as to exceed all mountains by fifteen cubits, says Augustine, XX On the City of God, ch. XXIV, and from him the Scholastics on Book IV, distinctions 47 and 48.
The third, because in heaven there are no defilements or sins to be purged and expiated by this fire. Hence these same hold that these airy heavens are to be corrupted, not as to substance, but as to qualities, so that namely while the same form and matter remain, they may be purged from vapors and other dregs and defilements, and be changed for the better, namely receiving greater subtlety and light. So St. Augustine, Gregory, Epiphanius, in the places cited; St. Jerome on Isaiah ch. LXV; the Scholastics on Book IV, dist. 48, and Part I, Q. LXVII and LXVIII. For just as the same man will rise again, so also the same elements which served man will rise with him, and that will be as it were the reward of their labor and suffering, as St. Paul intimates in Romans ch. VIII, v. 20. Hear St. Cyril, book IV on Isaiah ch. LI: "Isaiah," he says, "properly names the death of the elements, and aptly their change for the better, as Paul also says: The creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption; in what manner, however, Christ's disciple shows generously, saying: The day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away in the manner of a storm, and the burning elements shall be dissolved. Therefore he says that the renewal of the creature, as a resurrection from the dead, will be like that in human bodies." And St. Jerome on Isaiah ch. XXX: "There will be," he says, "the light of the moon as the light of the sun, when the Lord shall give a new heaven and a new earth, and the fashion of this world shall have passed away, that the moon and the sun may obtain the rewards of their labor and course. For the expectation of the creature awaits the revelation of the sons of God."
To me the middle opinion is pleasing, namely that by "heavens" here are understood both the starry and the airy: for both will pass away with great impetus; for elsewhere Holy Scripture teaches that the heavens properly so called are to be changed, and indeed that the sun and moon are to be adorned with greater light. Hence Christ in Matt. XXIV, 29: "The powers of the heavens," He says, "shall be moved." And the Church in the Office of the Dead: "When the heavens are to be moved, and the earth." So Cajetan here, Viegas on ch. XXI of the Apocalypse, Suarez part III, vol. II, disp. LVIII, sect. 3, where he says it is probable that on the day of judgment the starry heavens are to be more swiftly agitated, so that they may sweep along with them the airy heavens, and may concur in kindling the fire and in the conflagration of the world, both by that swifter motion of theirs and also by their influence and action.
Therefore the heavens shall pass away, first, because they will be more swiftly hurried along; secondly, because their motion will soon cease, as St. Ambrose teaches, book V, epistle 21, and the Doctors generally. The sun then in one hemisphere, the moon in the opposite, will stand forever, that each may illumine its own; for it is not necessary that all the heavens complete their course: for thus the heaven of the stars, in order to complete its course from rising to setting, would have to move for 36,000 years, as Ptolemy holds; but the world will not stand so long. It is therefore enough that they move as long as the men whom they serve dwell on earth. When men are abolished, the course of the heavens will be cut off, and consequently of all sublunary things: "For when the motion of heaven ceases, the motion of inferior things ceases," says Aristotle, book II On the Heavens.
Thirdly, they shall pass away, that is, they shall be dissolved, as to their lower part, namely as to the airy heavens; whence explaining of these he adds, v. 11: "The burning heavens shall be dissolved;" but as to their upper part, namely as to the starry, they shall be transformed and shall pass into another state, and a greater light and glory. Thus Christ says, Matt. XXIV, v. 35: "Heaven and earth shall pass away," namely from the present corruptible state into a future incorruptible one. And Psalm CI, v. 27: "All shall grow old like a garment, and like a covering Thou shalt change them," as it were like an inverted garment. For as a garment worn out on the outside is turned, so that the inner part whole becomes the outer, and so the garment seems to be new: so the old form and state of the heavens will be changed into a new one more bright and glorious, and so they will seem to be other and new heavens.
Fourthly, they shall pass away, because by thunders, lightnings, clouds, comets, falling stars, and other meteors, by storms and tempests, the air will be so disturbed, that the heavens will seem to pass away and to be torn from the hinges of the world, and to be undermined and to vanish, according to that of Job ch. IX, v. 6: "Who moves the earth from its place, and its pillars are shaken." And ch. XXVI, v. 11: "The pillars of heaven tremble, and quake at His nod." Where Didymus in the Catena of the Greeks says that by that earthquake which happened at Christ's Passion, the very earth was wholly shaken and convulsed from its center. If this is true, surely the same will happen on the day of judgment, when there will be the highest terror and commotion of all things, the end and limit, according to that of the Church just now cited: "When the heavens are to be moved, and the earth." See what is said on Apoc. VI, at the end.
Finally certain learned men, in order to reconcile the two prior opinions and to satisfy all the passages of Holy Scripture, have ingeniously devised a new opinion, saying that the heavens, which are now solid, will at the end of the world be reduced and will return to the fluid matter, out of which as out of a chaos and abyss they were first formed, Genesis I.
But this opinion too suffers its own difficulties: for first, the question remains how the fire of the conflagration will act upon solid and incorruptible heavens, so as to reduce them into fluid matter.
Secondly, after the day of judgment the heavens seem likely to be more solid than they now are, because they will endure forever.
Thirdly, the heavens, with the Blessed whom they served in this life, will on the day of judgment as it were rise again into a more perfect state and form: therefore they will be more perfect, and will have more perfect and more solid forms and endowments than they now have. For the Apostle in Romans VIII, 20, teaches that every creature is now subject to vanity, that is, to change and corruption, but awaits the resurrection so that through it it may be brought into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. And Isaiah, and from him St. Peter here, promises that new heavens are to be created. Again, Isaiah, ch. XXX, v. 26, says that the light of the moon will be like that of the sun; but the sun's light will be sevenfold greater: all of which argue that at the end of the world the heavens will not return into their chaos and their primeval matter, but will be far more elegant, more beautiful, and more excellent than they are now.
Wherefore other distinguished Philosophers and Theologians, in order plainly to satisfy the words of Holy Scripture and especially of St. Peter in this place, and to reconcile with them Philosophy and Aristotle — who ought rather to follow than precede Holy Scripture — say first, that the heavens are incorruptible in this way, that they cannot naturally be corrupted either by themselves or by the bodies subject to them, namely the elements: yet that they can be corrupted by a higher and more powerful agent, and therefore are to be corrupted by God on the day of judgment by the fire of the world's conflagration, which will be stirred up anew by God for this purpose, and will be superior, more efficacious, and more burning than our elemental fire. For there are various grades and orders of incorruptible things, some more perfect than others. For the Angels are more incorruptible than the heavens: for they lack matter, and are wholly simple substances, incorporeal and spiritual, and therefore wholly incorruptible. Wherefore the heavens, with respect to the Angels, are corruptible; but with respect to inferior bodies and the elements, incorruptible.
Secondly, they assert that the heavens will be burnt and liquefied by the fire of the conflagration, inasmuch as they are compacted, bound together, and as it were glued together out of water, so that they may be purged from all defilement and dregs, and become purer and more subtle. For this St. Peter plainly says here, and Isaiah ch. XXXIV, v. 4, and ch. LI, v. 6, and among the more recent writers our Adam Tannerus at length in his Dissertation on the Heavens, Question XI. Hear Isaiah, ch. XXXIV: "And all the host of the heavens shall waste away (that is, shall liquefy like wax), and the heavens shall be folded together as a book, and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falls from the vine and from the fig tree," that is, as Christ explains it in Matt. ch. XXIV, 29: "The stars shall fall from heaven;" for the host, that is, the soldiers of the heavens are no other than the stars and constellations. The heavens therefore and the stars shall be liquefied and dissolved, yet so that the same shall remain as to substance, and shall retain numerically the same matter and substantial form; but in such a way that both shall be perfected, and shall receive a new union and more illustrious endowments and qualities, so that they shall seem to be made new heavens, a new earth, a new world, as Isaiah says, and Apoc. XXI, 5: "Behold, I make all things new;" for since light naturally as it were flows from the substance of the sun and the heavens, when light is then to be more perfect, it seems that the substance of the sun and the heavens will also be more perfect. For in the universal resurrection there will be the resurrection, renewal, and glorification not of man alone, but of the heavens, the earth, and the whole world, which has served and suffered with the elect men. Wherefore as a reward for this suffering and service, with man rising again it will rise to glory. As therefore the dying man after death will rise the same in number as to substance, but now perfect and endowed with glory, and therefore immortal and incorruptible: so likewise the heavens, washed and purged through the conflagration, the same form and substance remaining in number, will rise as it were to their glory with greater light, subtlety, and union, and thereby will be endowed with incorruption and eternity. Wherefore, just as the same man rises again, not another, lest one suffer and merit and another who has neither suffered nor merited rise again: so the very same heavens which served man by suffering will rise again, not others, lest those which served man perish and others be rewarded in their place. The example is in metals, such as iron, bronze, gold, and silver. For just as gold is melted by fire, so that from it a beautiful golden cup is made, so that, the same form and substance of the gold remaining, that very gold is nevertheless perfected and made splendid by fire, art, and figure: so likewise the heavens and the elements will be dissolved and liquefied by the fire of conflagration like ice and wax, but in such a way that, the same form and substance remaining, they may be reformed and rise again to a new perfection and glory. For that the heavens and elements will remain the same in number as to substance is gathered from that text in Eccles. 1:4: "One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever." And chapter 3, verse 14: "I have learned that all the works which God has made continue forever." And Psalm 148:6: "He has established them forever and ever: He has made a decree, and it shall not pass away." This is what the Apostle clearly says in Rom. 8:20: "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption." Therefore the same creature, which now subject to vanity, that is, to suffering and corruption, serves man and hopes to be delivered from it, shall be set free when man rises again, and will rise to glory, not another: otherwise there would not be a resurrection, but the creation of another creature. And Isaiah, chapter 30, verse 26: "The light of the moon," he says, "shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Therefore the same moon, the same sun shall remain, but seven times brighter; for it will then be a new age of glory, happiness, and eternity, whose author shall be Christ, who is therefore called "the father of the world to come," Isaiah 9:6. Wherefore then the heavens, sun, moon, and stars shall not return to the primeval fluid abyss, which was created at the beginning of the world, Gen. 1:1. For thus they would return to their rude and formless chaos, and would be more wretched than they are now; but far more glorious than they were formed from the abyss, they shall rise again, that they may be conformed to the holy men rising in glory, and may delight and gladden them with their appearance. By this reasoning nothing is taken from Aristotle, but rather added to him. For he considered nature alone, according to which he said the heavens are incorruptible; which is true. But Sacred Scripture, beyond nature, hands down God's decree, and grace and glory, by which God supernaturally adorns men, and on account of men adorns the heavens, and will reform and bless the whole world: but it cannot be reformed unless what perished beforehand, that is, was dissolved or liquefied. Faith therefore here corrects, indeed elevates nature, and Sacred Scripture informs and perfects philosophy, and Paul informs and perfects Aristotle. Finally, to be liquefied is not to be corrupted: for gold by being liquefied is not corrupted but perfected: thus the heavens, although incorruptible, will be liquefied, that they may be more solidly compacted. All these things are confirmed by the spots and faculae which more recent Mathematicians have observed in the sun and planets through the optical tube, and which I myself have observed. Likewise by Mercury, Venus, and Mars, which through the same tube have been detected continually revolving around the sun. Again, by the two new stars which have been seen around Saturn, and four others around Jupiter through the same instrument. Furthermore, by the comets which have appeared above the moon, such as the recent one in the year of our Lord 1618, which the Mathematicians affirmed existed above the moon from its enormous parallax, that is, from no change in aspect at any distance of the observers. Moreover, by the new stars which from time to time have appeared in the starry heaven and again disappeared, such as the one which appeared in Cassiopeia in the year of our Lord 1572. I omit that in Joshua, chapters 10 and 12, the sun stood still, and that it was turned back under Hezekiah, 4 Kings 20:11, and that it suffered an unusual eclipse when Christ was suffering, Matthew 27:45. All of which signify that the heavens are not entirely immutable and incorruptible, but that God, in order to display His power and lordly right and dominion in them, alters and changes them at will, and disposes and prepares them for that ultimate and full transformation by which He will make them entirely incorruptible and immutable, indeed glorious for all eternity; wherefore then they ought to be more perfect and more solid than they are now. All these things seem to be required by the words of Scripture so often and so clearly repeated by Isaiah, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, David, and others concerning the heavens that are to be changed, indeed to perish, and new ones to be made: and they seem sufficient for explaining and completing those passages, as is clear to one comparing them. See St. Augustine, book 21 De Civitate Dei, chapter 8, where he relates that by God's command the star of Venus by a marvelous portent changed its color, magnitude, figure, and course to the astonishment of the Astrologers. The same author, in his book De Urbis excidio, recounts the prodigy by which, while the heavens were burning and the earth trembling, God seemed to threaten destruction to the city of Constantinople, in the year of our Lord 396. Finally, if fire acts by God's power upon spirits, namely upon demons and damned souls, why should it not act by the same power upon the corporeal heavens? From what has been said, some gather (although others deny it) that at the end of the world the heavens will be renewed by God not only accidentally, but also substantially. For this is what is meant by Isaiah 65:17: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth." And Apoc. 21:1: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." For just as in the resurrection, although the same numerical man will rise again, yet he, as it seems, will be substantially more perfect than he was before; for he will receive a new substantial perfection and union, by which the soul will be more intimately, more closely, more perfectly, and more nobly united to the body than it was united before, so that the new man rises as it were a heavenly man, glorious, impassible, immortal; for so close will be the union of soul with body that it can no longer be dissolved, so that from this the man becomes immutable and incorruptible, who before was mutable, mortal, wretched, and corruptible; wherefore then he will receive a more perfect being, which can always subsist and endure, indeed cannot be corrupted or altered: the same will happen proportionally in the heavens. So among others teaches St. Thomas, and after him D. Soto in book IV, dist. 49, Question 4, art. 5, where he gives as the intrinsic cause of the impassibility and immortality of the bodies of the blessed their perfect union with the soul. The dowry, he says, of impassibility is not a quality, but the soul's perfect and indissoluble information of the body, which gives the body to be perpetual. For the blessed soul has the power to inform the rising body indissolubly, in the manner in which the form of heaven informs its matter. For it so closely binds to itself the potency of matter, that it is no longer pervious to any alteration or passion which by its nature might disrupt the body. Add that the soul then informing the body will elevate it to a certain degree of spirituality, that it may be subject and serve at its bidding, according to that text 1 Cor. 15:44: "It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body," as St. Augustine explains in book 13 De Civitate, chapter 20. So far D. Soto. The same is taught by our Salmeron on this passage of St. Peter, by Delrio on chapter 1 of Genesis, and many others cited at the beginning, whose statements I leave to the Reader to weigh and judge.
But the elements with heat (in Greek καυσούμενα, that is, burning, that is, with extreme heat and ardor, as he says in verse 12) shall be loosed. — By "elements" understand the lower air and water: for of the earth he immediately adds that it is to be burned up. But fire either does not need purification, or if it is in coarser and smokier matter, by burning and consuming it purifies and clarifies itself. So "elements" here understand those middle ones between heaven and earth, namely the sea and the air near us, from which all mixtures are compounded and consist.
Further, the word "shall be loosed" some explain thus, as if to say: They will be corrupted, will perish and vanish. Thus Bede here judges that on the day of judgment two elements will plainly perish, namely fire and water, and two will be renewed, namely air and earth. Concerning which the same is taught by Andrew of Caesarea, Arethas, Anselm, Haymo, and Rupert on Apoc. 21:1, where it is said: "And the sea is no more." But the meaning of that passage is different. Wherefore it is far truer that the elements are only to be altered so as to be changed for the better, not corrupted; for all things pertain to the integrity of the universe. "Shall be loosed" therefore, that is, by the force of fire shall be rarefied and as it were liquefied, so that from them are separated the vapors, dregs, exhalations, and other coarse and impure things mixed in with them; just as in the smelting furnace gold is dissolved while by force of fire it is liquefied, that from it the slag, copper, and every other impurity mingled with it may be separated, so that pure refined gold may remain and shine forth. So St. Thomas, Titelmann, Cajetan here, and the Scholastic Doctors in book IV, dist. 48.
But the earth, and the works which are in it (both natural and made by men's art, namely all mixed bodies) shall be burnt up. — Hence it is clear that all mixed bodies are to be burned and reduced to ashes and earth, that they may return to their primitive element. "For since," as our Lessius learnedly says in the place already cited, "all those things were created for the use of man's temporal life, when that life ceases they will be of no use, and therefore are to be resolved into their principles from which they were compacted, and to be restored to their elements. Therefore the earth shall be burned to its deepest depths, and all the works which are in it; mountains and the foundations of mountains shall be burned; all rocks and metals shall be dissolved, and crags shall melt like wax; the sea shall be burned, so that whatever is earthly or solid in it may be consumed; finally, whatever inflammable matter is in the air shall be burned." And a little below: "Concerning the burning of the sea we have no express passage: nevertheless, it is gathered from the words of St. Peter when he says: The elements shall be loosed by the heat of fire. For it is something very mixed and impure; whence it must be dissolved and purged: it will be easy for God by fire to kindle and dissolve whatever is inflammable in the sea. Hence in Apoc. 21, after the renewal of the world, John says: And the sea is no more; not that the element of water is to be abolished (since it pertains to the constitution of the world as one of its principal parts), but because this mixed body which is properly called the sea will no longer be; nor will the water, which is a portion of this mixture, be contained in the same bed, so as to present the appearance of a sea; but it will be limpid as crystal, and will cover the earth on all sides, as in the time of the deluge, as many hold; or, if it does not cover all of it, its disposition and form will be other than it now is, when it serves navigation and the other uses of our mortality." Hippolytus, in his oration On the Consummation of the World: "A fiery river," he says, "going forth with fury like a savage sea, will burn the mountains and hills, and will destroy the sea, and by inflammation will dissolve the heavens." He will destroy the sea — understand this not by consuming the nature of the waters, but by purging it, as has been said; for this fire will act not only by force of nature, but as the instrument of divine power: like the wind by which the waters of the deluge were dried up, Gen. 8. Therefore it is no wonder if it should be able in a short time to burn up the earth to its deepest depth, to dissolve mountains, rocks, and metals, and to consume in the very waters whatever is mingled with them. All these things will happen with incredible crashing and uproar, with burning rocks and ash hurled high into the air, with vast smoke going forth into heaven, with torrents of sulphur, and with rocks liquefied by the force of the burning heat running down on every side. For if all these things happen sometimes in one burning mountain, and that with such a disturbance of the elements that the world seems about to perish, what will happen when so many mountains and the whole earth shall burn from the depths?
From what has been said, it is clear that what Moses Bar-Cepha thinks in book On Paradise, chapter 18, is improbable — namely, that the earthly paradise will be immune from the fire of the world's conflagration, although it will be empty and of no use; for paradise was destroyed, overwhelmed by the waters of the flood. Others say less wrongly that paradise must be preserved for little children, so that after the judgment they may dwell in it for all eternity. But these too err; for the whole earth and all things which are in it shall be burned up, as St. Peter here signifies.
Furthermore, the wood of the Cross of Christ will be immune from this fire, and that it will be carried into the heavens as a kind of triumphal trophy of Christ the Sibyl sings in book VI of her Songs, saying:
O happy wood, on which God Himself hung!
The earth shall not contain Thee, but Thou shalt see the signs of heaven
When the renewed face of God shall flash with fire.
The same Christ implies in Matthew 24:13: "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man," which although Abulensis, Jansenius, and Anselm in his Elucidarium take of the sign of the Cross painted in the air, yet St. Chrysostom, in his homily On the Cross and the Thief, expounds of Christ's very Cross itself; likewise Waldensis, vol. III On the Sacraments, tit. 20, ch. 158. The same is implied by St. Cyril, Catechesis 13, and St. Ephrem, sermon On True Penance, ch. 4. And Gretser, in book I On the Cross, ch. 92, and Suarez, Part III, vol. II, disp. 57, sect. 2, judge it to be probable.
Morally, learn from this not to fix your heart on any earthly thing, because all of it must be burned up on the day of judgment: for by the fire of the conflagration shall be burned up all flowers, all gems, all gold, all metals, all horses, all beasts of burden, all animals, all plants, all trees, all gardens, all palaces, all paintings, all fields, all books, even those of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, and indeed all the Libraries of Sacred Scripture. And if inanimate and insensible things which are without guilt shall so burn, how shall the cupidity and will of man, polluted and teeming with so many sins, burn? Go now, mortals, build palaces, adorn gardens, heap up gold without end, abound in delights. All these things that divine fire shall shortly burn up along with you: "I have seen an end of all perfection: Thy commandment is exceeding broad."
Verse 11: Seeing Then That All These Things Are to Be Dissolved, What Manner of Men Ought You to Be in Holy Conversation and Godliness
11. Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of men ought you to be in holy conversation and godliness. — It is the conclusion, by which he applies a sharp goad to the faithful toward the Christian life and piety, and to every virtue and zeal for good works.
Verse 12: Looking for and Hastening Unto the Coming of the Day of the Lord, by Which the Heavens Being on Fire Shall Be Dissolved, and the Elements Shall Melt With the Burning Heat
12. Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord. — St. Augustine, On Faith and Works, ch. 14, reads, "unto the presence of the day of the Lord," as though looking to this one thing, doing this one thing. "For he who promptly accomplishes some one thing makes haste; he who begins many things at once and finishes none of them merely hurries," says Agellius. For this is that one thing which Christ asserts to be necessary to Martha, in Luke ch. 10, v. 42. For when this one thing is obtained, we obtain all things; when this one thing is lost, we lose all things. Thus St. John was hastening to the day of the Lord, being well conscious of himself and most eager to enjoy his Jesus: "Come, Lord Jesus," he says, in the last chapter of the Apocalypse. This is what we daily pray according to Christ's prescription: "Thy kingdom come." St. Augustine gives the reason in Psalm 66: "He who has feared the One who will judge ought to rejoice that he is to be judged." He gives the same example of himself before his conversion, in book VI of the Confessions, last chapter: "Nor did anything," he says, "recall me from the deeper whirlpool of carnal pleasures except the fear of death and of the future judgment, which through various opinions indeed, yet never departed from my breast. And I disputed with my friends Alypius and Nebridius about the ends of good and evil things: Epicurus would have won the palm in my mind, had I not believed that after death the soul's life remains and the fruits of merits, which Epicurus refused to believe." For, as Paul says, II Tim. ch. 4, v. 8: "There is laid up a crown of justice for those who love His coming." On which place Anselm says: "They do not love the coming of the Judge, except those who know that they have the merit of justice in their own cause." And Theodoret: "He loves the Lord's coming who follows His laws, and orders his life from them."
St. Chrysostom asks in what manner anyone loves the coming of Christ? and answers: "If he rejoices at His presence; and he who rejoices in His presence does things worthy of joy; he will lay down all his wealth, if need be, and his very soul, that he may enjoy eternal goods, that according to His coming he may deserve to look upon Him with fitting bearing, with confidence, with glory, with clarity: this is to love His coming. He who loves His coming will do all things, so that before that universal coming, a particular coming of the Saviour may be made to him. But who is this one? Hear our Lord Himself saying: He who loves Me will keep My commandments, and We will come, I and the Father, and will make Our abode with him."
Moreover Seneca to Marcia, ch. 23: "The mind of a wise man," he says, "leans wholly toward death: this it wills, this it meditates, by this desire it is always borne, tending toward outward things." And Plato in the Gorgias, whom Theodoret cites in book XI On Healing the Affections of the Greeks: "Rhadamanthus (whom the Gentiles believed to be judge of the dead)," he says, "truly knows nothing else of a man, neither who he is, nor from what parents he sprang, but cares only whether he is wicked: which when he has discovered, he sends him down to Tartarus; but the soul which has lived its life holily, and obtaining the soul of an unlettered man or of any other who has cultivated truth, and especially of a Philosopher, who has been free for himself alone, and has not in life been anxious about many other things, lovingly receives it, and sends it to the Isles of the Blessed." Whence Plato relates: "To me at least, O Callicles, by these arguments it has now plainly been persuaded, and I look chiefly to this one thing, namely, how I may show the soundest possible soul to the judge Rhadamanthus. Therefore, dismissing those dignities which many seek after, and giving myself to the truth, I shall take care, so far as in me lies, to live as good a man as possible; and when I must die, to die as good a man as possible." And presently exhorting anyone to the same pursuit: "For neither will you be able to bring any aid to yourself," he says, "when your cause shall be there, and judgment shall be set; but when you shall come into the sight of the judge, you will gape astonished, and shall suffer darkness and giddiness," etc. If Plato says these things, what shall a Christian do?
Meditating these things deeply, the royal Prophet says in Psalm 76:6: "I thought upon the days of old, and had in mind the eternal years. And I meditated in the night with my heart, and I was exercised, and I swept (scopebam) my spirit." Others read scopabam, that is, by various thoughts and meditations as it were I swept, turned over, shook out — or from skopos (mark), as if to say: I directed it to its mark: so Genebrard renders the Hebrew; whence Symmachus translates, I searched; St. Augustine and Theodoret, I scrutinized; the Roman Psalter, I winnowed; St. Jerome to Sunia, I weeded (sarriebam), as with a hoe useless and noxious herbs are rooted out of a field; the same St. Jerome in his Psalter translates, I dug as a field, that I might there cast the seed of the Lord's doctrines; Aquila, I carved; the Chaldean, I thoroughly investigated; others, I vexed my spirit. All these signify the exact, deep, and frequent re-examination, discussion, and inquiry into thoughts and works which the royal Prophet was doing, and which every just man preparing himself for death and for the day of the Lord ought daily to do.
Wherefore St. Basil on Psalm 33: "Whenever," he says, "you feel yourself incited to sin, recall to mind that fearful judgment of Christ, intolerable to any mortal, in which indeed the Judge presides on a lofty throne, and every creature shall stand by, trembling and shuddering; thither each one shall be brought, to be examined of those things which each has done in life. Then those who have perpetrated evils, horrid indeed and sad, shall stand around them, breathing out fire, bearing a face like night for sorrow and for hatred of men. They shall look down into the pit yawning at the bottom, into impenetrable darkness, and into a dark fire, having indeed power to burn, but destitute of light."
By which the burning heavens shall be dissolved. — By "heavens" understand the lower ones, namely the airy. For the upper part of the air is full of thick vapor and inflammable breath, says St. Augustine in book XX On the City of God, ch. 18. Others add the upper heavens also, namely the starry (for these are properly called heavens, especially when distinguished from the elements, as is done here), which they think to be ethereal and ether, and therefore can and ought to be set on fire, as I said above. Thus Serarius here vigorously contends that there shall be burnt up by fire, first, the starry heavens; secondly, the air; thirdly, the water; fourthly, the earth, so that these four as to substance, namely as to form, shall perish, and only their matter shall remain together with the devouring fire and the empyreal heaven. See what was said on verse 10.
And the elements by the burning heat of fire (kaussoumena, that is, glowing hot) shall melt, — τήκονται, that is, they shall liquefy in the manner of metal melted in a furnace, as I said on verse 10. St. Augustine in the place cited reads: "They shall be boiled down by the burning of fire." For just as gold melts in the smelter, that is, is liquefied and refined, so that from it every dross and foreign matter is scraped away, and it comes forth purer and more splendid: so also shall the air and ether melt, that is, be refined, that all exhalations and dross may be scraped away, and it may shine forth purer and more splendid. For just as through the resurrection the bodies of men shall not be changed into another substance or body, but as it were strained through a furnace and purged from all corruption, and so as it were cooked that they may be eternal: so it shall plainly happen to the whole world through the fire of conflagration. For Scripture says the world shall be eternal, Psalm 93:2, and Psalm 118:89; and so the Psalmist explains and reconciles these places in Psalm 101:27-28; whence also here, in v. 13, St. Peter says the heavens are to be made new, that is, not in substance, but only in quality and perfection are they to be changed. The same St. Paul teaches, Rom. 8:21. And in the same way a little before, in v. 6, St. Peter said the world perished by the flood, though the substance of the world did not perish in the flood, but only its appearance and beauty. So St. Augustine, in book XX On the City of God, chs. 16 and 18; St. Jerome on Isaiah ch. 18, and others. By "elements" understand the earth, water, and the air neighboring them; for the upper region of the air, neighboring the heavens, seems to be comprehended under the name of "heavens," as I said on verse 7.
Verse 13: But We Look for New Heavens and a New Earth According to His Promises, in Which Justice Dwelleth
13. But new heavens, — both the starry and the airy; "new," so that they may represent the newness and glory of the Saints, says Œcumenius: "new," I say, either as to substance, as many will (cited on v. 10); or rather according to quality: "For the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days," says Isaiah 30:26. The same shall happen proportionally to the other stars and to the heavens themselves. So St. Gregory, in book XVII of the Morals, ch. 3: "Both these (heaven and earth)," he says, "pass away in respect of the image they now have, but nevertheless they subsist in essence without end." For "the figure of this world," that is, the image, shall pass away, not the substance, says St. Augustine, or rather Gennadius On Ecclesiastical Dogmas, ch. 70.
St. Peter therefore says this, to console and animate the faithful, harassed by so many troubles and deaths, that thinking of the spoils of the old world flourishing again in the new heavens, they may remember that for the Saints likewise the losses of fleeing life are converted into the gains of immortality, and that with the new heavens they may look for a new blessed and glorious body.
Wherefore all the Saints continually looked up to these new heavens, and aspired to them. Famous was Simeon the Stylite, who stood on a column even to extreme old age, and bound his foot with an iron chain. Theodoret, an eyewitness, gives the reason in his Life, namely in the Philotheus, ch. 20: "In it," he says, "he lives, continually apprehending heaven by his vision, and forcing himself that he might contemplate those things which are above the heavens; for the iron chain did not impede the flight of his mind." And lower down: that he might withdraw himself more from the company and contact of men, "first," he says, "he ordered a column of six cubits to be built, then of twelve, afterwards of twenty, now of six and thirty; for he longs to fly into heaven and to be freed from this earthly conversation." And toward the end: "He received also the gift of doctrine, and twice daily he gives admonitions, bidding men look up to heaven and fly thither, and depart from the earth, and apprehend by vision the kingdom that is hoped for, and fear the threats of Gehenna, and despise earthly things, and look for those to come."
Wonderful is what Louis of Blois writes about St. Mechtilde in his appendix On Four Holy Women: "The holy virgin Mechtilde," he says, "when on the fourth feria after Easter day in the Mass there was begun: Come, ye blessed of My Father, herself filled with a great and unwonted joy, said to the Lord: O if I were one of those blessed ones who shall hear this most sweet voice of Thine! And the Lord to her: Know for certain that thou art one of them, and that thou mayest doubt nothing, behold I give thee My Heart as a pledge of love, and as a house of refuge, so that always and especially in the hour of thy death thou mayest find consolation and rest in it. From that time she began to be moved with wondrous devotion toward the Heart of Jesus. Whence she frequently said: If all the goods I have received from the most kind Heart of my Lord were to be written, no volume however great could contain them. But when the hour of death drew near, the Lord Jesus, illumining her wholly with the light of His divinity, with a winning voice invited her with these words: Come, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for thee from the foundation of the world. Therefore that blessed soul, breathing forth, flew into heaven to the most sweet Heart of Jesus."
Wherefore God-fearing and holy men daily grow and advance in the renunciation of temporal things and in the pursuit of heavenly things, that by this as by Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28:12) they may ascend into heaven, according to David's saying in Psalm 83:5: "Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, O Lord: they shall praise Thee for ever and ever. Blessed is the man whose help is from Thee: in his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps, in the vale of tears, in the place which he hath set. For the lawgiver shall give a blessing; they shall go from virtue to virtue; the God of gods shall be seen in Sion." This did that great Polychronius, of whom Theodoret writes in the Philotheus, ch. 24: "He is," he says, "inflamed with divine desire, and is superior to all earthly things, and though bound to a body has a winged mind, which is borne aloft and traverses the air and the ether, and rises higher than the heavens, and perpetually apprehends divine contemplation by vision; nor can he ever draw his mind away from there; nay even when conversing with those who come, his mind walks among the things above."
And a new earth, — shining with a new beauty, purity and splendor, so that with the Saints, whom it shall serve, it may as it were be glorified, and may delight their eyes and minds. Paludanus in IV, dist. 48, Quaest. 1, judges that this splendor will pervade the earth and reach even to the limbo of the children, and after they have risen will illumine and refresh their eyes and bodies; otherwise they would dwell as it were blind in perpetual darkness. Others, such as Catharinus and Salmeron, here judge that these little ones will be on the earth as in a kind of earthly paradise, and therefore are to be perfected in natural knowledge, so that they shall surpass all Philosophers, contemplating God in His creatures, loving and praising Him, and even rejoicing in the visitation and revelations of the angels. But they are mistaken when they judge that they will be blessed with natural beatitude; for since they are to be condemned with the punishment of loss (though not of sense), namely the lack of the beatific vision, for which they were created, as St. Augustine teaches against the Pelagians, heresy 88, epistle 106, book I On the Merit of Sins, ch. 23, and elsewhere: they are rather to be called the damned than the blessed. Otherwise it is probable that they will lead a comfortable life on earth. For the limbo of children will not contain their bodies, which they will resume on the day of judgment: for there will easily be a thousand millions of little ones, who throughout the whole world for so many ages will have died without baptism in original sin. Add that so many bodies cannot naturally be there without sorrow and the punishment of sense (which Theologians commonly take away from little children); for this would be caused by the obscurity of the place, its enclosure, depression, squalor, narrowness, etc. For Tobias rightly says, 5:12: "What manner of joy shall be to me, who sit in darkness, and see not the light of heaven?" See Lessius On the Divine Attributes, book XIII, ch. 23, where from St. Thomas, Scotus, Marsilius, D. Soto, and other Scholastics, he teaches that these little ones shall appear at the universal judgment, shall undergo the punishment of loss, but shall be perfected in intellect, will, and the other faculties of nature (for then there shall be a general renewal and restoration of all nature), so that contented and happy they may live for all eternity in concord and friendship, and may love and praise God, who has preserved them from actual sin and from Gehenna, and has adorned them with such great gifts of nature, that they may be able to contemplate created things, and especially the excellence of their own soul, equally as the angels do, and from this admire and glorify the Creator; for otherwise they would be idle for all eternity. For it is not to be believed that God wills so many millions of souls to be always in idleness, and as it were in vain on the earth. For if, as the Doctors commonly teach in II, dist. 33, whom Gabriel Vasquez cites and follows III, disp. 134, ch. 3, the little ones, by God so providing, will not feel sorrow over the loss of the kingdom of heaven, in that they did not lose it by their own fault: why should we not believe that, in the general restoration of the whole world, they shall likewise be perfected in the order of natural goods, so that they may be able to know, love and praise God, and so lead a quiet and pleasant life? So Lessius, and he confirms it with many reasons. If these things are true, what place will be more fitting for these little ones than the earth? — being a place in which they will be able to behold and contemplate the sun, the heavens, the stars, the sea, and the rest of created things, and from these to love and praise God.
You will say, in Job 26:10, it is said: "He hath set bounds about the waters, till light and darkness come to an end," that is, the alternation of day and night; therefore when this ceases, as it shall cease on the day of judgment, the waters shall pass beyond their bounds, and again cover the earth, as they covered it in the beginning of the world; and so St. Bonaventure, D. Soto in IV, dist. 47, Quaest. 2, art. 4, and others probably judge it shall be. But it can be answered, first, that the phrase "until light and darkness come to an end" is a proverb, signifying the same as "always and forever." For so Jeremiah explains it, ch. 5, v. 22, saying: "Who hath set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting decree which it shall not pass over;" otherwise the earth, covered by the waters, would be invisible, and would return to the first chaos, out of which it was brought forth by God on the third day of the world, when it was uncovered and separated from the waters, Gen. 1:9, and then received its form and beauty. Secondly, it can be said that the sea at the end of the world will again cover many lands, but not all; at least it will leave a vacant place for the little ones. However it may be, it will be easy for God to construct and fit a suitable place for the little ones rising again, whether on the earth, or beneath the earth, or wherever it shall please Him.
Furthermore, William of Paris in Dionysius the Carthusian, in IV, dist. 47, asserts that the wisest men think that after the day of judgment and the conflagration of the world, the earth shall again be clothed with flowers, gems, trees, fountains, and other like ornaments, both for its own and the world's adornment, and for the delight of the Saints, and for the recreation of the little ones who have died without baptism, who will dwell in it. The same is held by Catharinus here, Pico della Mirandola in the Heptaplus, Abulensis on Matt. ch. 25, Quaest. 542 and 548, and Serarius on Judith ch. 16, Quaest. 2. Hear Anselm in the Elucidarium: "The earth," he says, "which cherished the body of the Lord in its bosom, shall all be like a paradise, and because it is watered with the blood of the Saints, it shall perpetually be adorned with fragrant flowers, roses, and violets, never withering." Others however, like Œcumenius, deny this very thing.
According to His promises we look for. — For God promised new heavens and a new earth, Isaiah 63:17, and ch. 66, v. 22, and ch. 64, v. 4: "The eye," He says, "hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee;" to which St. Peter alludes, and therefore says: "We look for." Again, Christ often promises His own the kingdom of heaven; and this shall be in the new heavens. Finally, St. John, Apocalypse 21:1, promises new heavens and a new earth, but after St. Peter; for the Apocalypse was written by St. John after this epistle. "It is the mark of great audacity and a pure conscience to ask for the kingdom of God and not to fear the judgment of God," says St. Jerome on Matthew ch. 6.
In which justice dwells. — What kind of justice? Leaving aside the error of Origen, I Peri Archon, ch. 7, who, following Plato, attributed soul and mind to the heavens, and consequently sin, justice, and sanctity: first, Philip the Solitary, in book III of the Dioptra, ch. 6, by "justice" understands God; for He as the Sun of justice will dwell in the new heavens.
Secondly and better, as if to say: In these our heavens dwells mercy tolerating sinners; but in the new heavens shall dwell justice, which shall not allow anything defiled to enter into them, Apocalypse 21:27. Again, divine justice will assign to each, either in the new heavens or in the new earth, a place according to his merits, for reward or punishment, and that constant and perpetual without any hope or fear of change: for to the Saints it will assign heaven, to the impious hell, to children dying in original sin the earth. This is what Cyril in book III on Genesis says, that Christ will free the earth from every curse, when He shall give new heavens and a new earth; and, as St. Ambrose says, book V, epistle 21, then all created things which previously were instruments of crimes, those crimes being extinguished, will, so far as in them lies, cultivate piety and justice, which is therefore said to dwell in them. Hence some by catachresis take "justice" as the renewal, splendor, and beauty of the world. For this is congruent with justice and with the world now expiated from sins and sinners, and so as it were just and holy. So St. Ambrose in the place cited.
Thirdly, simply and plainly, "justice," that is, sanctity, namely the just and the holy ones, as if to say: This old world, awaiting its restoration, is the workshop and bilge of all crimes: but the world renewed through Christ the Judge, with crimes and the wicked excluded and banished to Tartarus, will be only the place and seat of justice and of the just and holy; for these shall be the inhabitants and lords of the new heaven and the new earth: for then God shall be all in all, I Cor. 15:28.
Mystically, the new heavens and new earth, but animate, are the saints; for in these dwells justice, and every virtue and sanctity, according to that: "The heavens declare the glory of God. Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth," Psalm 18:1 and 5; which St. Paul mystically expounds of the Apostles, Rom. 10:18.
Verse 14: Wherefore, Dearly Beloved, Awaiting These Things, Be Diligent That You May Be Found by Him in Peace, Spotless and Undefiled
14. Wherefore, dearly beloved, looking for these things, be diligent (σπουδάσατε, that is, with all zeal, with all care, with all strength and sinews strive) that you may be found before Him unspotted (ἄσπιλοι, that is, without spot, namely the graver and mortal sort: for all venial sins in this life are impossible to avoid) and inviolate (ἀμώμητοι, that is, blameless). — For, as St. Paul says, Ephesians I, 4: "He chose us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unstained in His sight in charity." And Colossians I, 22: "He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present us holy, and unspotted, and blameless before Himself." Excellently St. Bernard, On the Threefold Judgment: "Each one," he says, "ought as much as he can to show himself blameless, first indeed before God, but then also before men." Then having cited the words of St. Peter, he adds: "For we provide good things before men in three ways, namely by appearance, by action, by speech. By appearance, that he be not conspicuous; by action, that he be not reprehensible; by speech, that he be not contemptible. Likewise in three ways before God, by thought, affection, and intention; for thought too must be holy. Whence it is written: A holy thought shall preserve thee; and pure affection, and right intention. These three — thought, affection, intention — are in the soul; yet within it they are seen distinct in their own proper places. For thought is in memory, affection in the will, intention in the reason."
Note the "to Him" when he says, "to be found by Him," — as if to say: First, "by Him," that is, by the One from whom nothing is hidden. Secondly, "by Him," that is, in His own judgment, which cannot be deceived and which no one can escape. Thirdly, "by Him," that is, in the sight of Him who beholds all things as present. Fourthly, "by Him," that is, for His honor and glory, that you may please Him, not men; that you may promote His honor, not your own; that you may receive reward and glory from Him, not from the princes of the world. So God prescribed the ideal of perfection to Abraham: "Walk," He said, "before Me, and be perfect"; the Septuagint: "Be pleasing in My sight, and be unblamable or irreproachable." St. Augustine, book XVI On the City of God, chapter XXVI, reads absolutely: "Be pleasing, and be without complaint." When Cicero had recited a similar admonition of Thales of Miletus, in book III On the Laws — namely, that one ought constantly to ponder in mind that not only deeds and words but even thoughts are open to the divine eyes — he added beforehand: "Thales embraced the whole Philosophy of virtue in this one saying." Valerius Maximus adds more explicitly, book VII, chapter II, 7: "That we should desire to have not only our hands, but even our minds pure, having believed that the heavenly Godhead is present to our secret thoughts." So the patriarch Jacob, when about to die, blessing the sons of Joseph, said: "God in whose sight my fathers walked"; the Septuagint: "God, to whom my fathers were pleasing in His sight." So David, Psalm CXIV, 9: "I shall please," he says, "the Lord in the land of the living"; in Hebrew, I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living. So Abel "in all things whatsoever he was doing, considered God to be present," says Josephus, Antiquities I, 4. So Henoch "walked with God"; the Septuagint, was well-pleasing to God, Genesis V, 24. Why should he not please God who so lives that he ever thinks God is present to him? "Noah was a just and perfect man, and walked with God"; the Septuagint says, he pleased God, Genesis VI, 9. So Abraham: "The Lord," he says, "in whose sight I walk"; the Septuagint, the Lord God, before whom I have been pleasing. Seneca gives this counsel for an honorable life to the gentile Lucilius, Epistle 25: "So live, as under the eyes of some good man, ever present." More piously, St. Augustine, Soliloquies, chapter XIV, gives Christians this spur to a holy life: "A great necessity has been imposed upon us of living justly and rightly, who do all things before the eyes of the Judge who discerns all things."
St. Peter adds the words "in peace," so that, being unstained and inviolate, you may first have peace with God, with neighbor, and with your own conscience: for the peace of conscience is a great good, by which the soul, having subdued its passions, is tranquil, queen and mistress of itself. Whence this peace surpasses all understanding, and guards our hearts and minds, says St. Paul, Philippians IV, 7. See what is said there. Secondly, that you may with a good conscience await the coming of the Lord — namely death and judgment — with a peaceful, serene, cheerful, and confident spirit; this peace, therefore, is the effect and reward of an unstained and inviolate mind.
An antistrophe to this saying of St. Peter is that of St. Paul admonishing Titus, chapter II, verse 12: "That, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly and piously in this world, looking for that blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God." And that of II Corinthians VII, 1: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God," etc. Both, however, received and learned this from Christ Himself saying and teaching, Luke chapter XII, verse 35: "Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands, and you yourselves like to men who wait for their lord." Where see St. Gregory, St. Augustine, and St. Ambrose. He had earlier given the same admonition, Ecclesiasticus chapter XVIII, 19, saying: "Before judgment examine thyself, and in the sight of God thou shalt find propitiation." And: "Be not afraid to be justified even unto death, for the reward of God continueth forever." And Solomon also: "In all thy ways," he says, "think on Him, and He will direct thy steps," Proverbs chapter III, 6. And Tobit to his son, chapter IV, 6: "All the days of thy life," he says, "have God in mind." And David, Psalm XVII, 13: "For all His judgments are in my sight, and His justices I have not put away from me; and I shall be unstained with Him, and I shall keep myself from my iniquity." And Micah, chapter VI, verse 8: "I will show thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of thee: verily, to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitously with thy God." St. Ignatius likewise to Hero: "Remember God," he says, "and thou shalt not sin." And Clement of Alexandria, III Paedagogus, chapter V: "By this means it comes to pass that one never falls, if he reckons God to be ever present to him."
Morally: Admire here and imitate the candor, humility, integrity, and charity of St. Peter, who — zealous for the divine honor and neglectful of his own — so highly praises, indeed canonizes, the Epistles of St. Paul, though he knew that in them he himself was censured and that his own error and lapse were made known to the whole world; for in Galatians II, 11, St. Paul writes thus of him: "But when Cephas had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was reprehensible," etc. Let those doctors and writers note this, who disparage, attack, and tear apart the sayings and writings of others contrary to their own. Let those disciples too note it, who busy themselves to supplant their antagonists; in which matter they discredit themselves more than their rivals, for they betray their own pride, envy, hatred, immodesty, and folly. How much better would it be to dissemble what is bitterly said against them, and to bury it in silence? For so they would show themselves wise, magnanimous, Christian, religious — for their dignity consists in this single virtue.
Verse 15: And Account the Long-Suffering of Our Lord, Salvation: as Also Our Most Dear Brother Paul, According to the Wisdom Given Him, Hath Written to You
15. And account the long-suffering of our Lord salvation. — As if to say: I have exhorted you to await and desire the coming of the Lord by living holily; meanwhile, however, I do not wish you to complain of His delay and say: "The Lord delays His promise," verse 9. But rather to judge, perceive, and reckon that this His long-suffering is extended and shown to us for salvation — both ours and that of other wicked men — so that all may repent of their sins, or at least may accumulate virtues and the merits of good works, of which they will receive crowns and eternal rewards from Christ the Judge: just as in fact this long-suffering of God is for the salvation of many who otherwise would have perished, and so through it the whole number of the Saints and elect is filled up.
As also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, — commending both the long-suffering of God awaiting sinners unto repentance, and purity of life, faith, hope, etc., which I have commended to you in this epistle. Paul does this both in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter II, verse 4: "Or knowest thou not," he says, "that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance?" — so Œcumenius; and in I Corinthians, chapters III and XII, but especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews, III, VI, and X, verse 36, where he signifies in these words that the long-suffering of God ought to be salvation for us: "Patience," he says, "is necessary for you, that doing the will of God you may receive the promise. For yet a little, and very little while, He that is to come will come, and will not delay; but my just man lives by faith." For when Peter says: "He has written to you," he seems to denote the Hebrews; for this epistle of St. Peter is written chiefly to the Hebrews, since he himself, as it were Christ's successor and vicar, had taken upon himself their proper care. So Catharinus, Salmeron, and others here, and Baronius, in the year of Christ 60, and Bellarmine, book I On the Word of God, chapter XVII. Note here the charity and union of St. Peter with St. Paul, to whom he gives so brilliant a praise and testimony of divine wisdom; whence indeed great authority accrued to St. Paul and his epistles. For it belongs to St. Peter and to the supreme Pontiffs his successors to distinguish, approve, and define the Canonical Scriptures from the non-Canonical. Following the judgment of St. Peter, St. Dionysius the Areopagite, chapters II and VII On the Divine Names, calls St. Paul the sun, the perfector, the leader, and the abyss of wisdom, and testifies that from him he received his Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. And St. Jerome, Epistle 61 to Pammachius, calls St. Paul and his voice "the vessel of election, the trumpet of the Gospel, the roar of our lion, the river of Christian eloquence." St. Augustine on Psalm CXLVII: "Nothing," he says, "is better known to us than this man, nothing sweeter, nothing more familiar in Scripture." Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 33, calls Paul the disciple of fishermen (the Apostles) and at once their master. See what is said in the Prooemium on St. Paul, where I have demonstrated at length the wisdom and other endowments of St. Paul.
Verse 16: As Also in All His Epistles, Speaking in Them of These Things, in Which Are Certain Things Hard to Be Understood, Which the Unlearned and Unstable Wrest, as They Do Also the Other Scriptures, to Their Own Perdition
16. In which are certain things hard to be understood. — The Greek ἐν οἷς is masculine; whence it cannot refer to the Epistles, as those are of feminine gender, but to the very things said and written, that is, those that Paul wrote, in which there are many difficulties. From which it is plain, against Calvin and Luther, that the Scriptures are not easy and clear to every layman. Calvin and his shield-bearer Beza reply that the τὸ ἐν οἷς is to be referred to τούτων, which precedes — namely to the matters about which Paul wrote: for these, since they concern God Three and One, Christ crucified, and similar mysteries of the faith, are difficult to understand. "Let no one, therefore," says Beza, "think that error is hereby established; for he is impious and blasphemous who lately wrote that the word of God is so obscure that, however you take it, it does not suffice for deciding the controversies of religion." So says he — a Lucifer to himself, a man of darkness to others, indeed a vagabond and impostor. St. Peter adds: "Which the unlearned and unstable distort, as also the other Scriptures." Where note the word "the other"; for this word denotes the Epistles of St. Paul themselves; for these are numbered among the other Canonical Scriptures, as if to say: They distort the Epistles of St. Paul, as also the other Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles, which, because they are difficult to understand, they twist into alien senses. Add that the difficulty of the Epistles of St. Paul is sufficiently shown by the commentaries of so many and such great Fathers and Doctors upon them, which yet do not equal the meaning and mind of Paul, much less exhaust it. Likewise from the perpetual quarrel and dissent of the heretics over their understanding both among themselves and with Catholics. Finally, from the very inspection and reading of them. Let anyone read the Epistle to the Hebrews, and he will find a thousand difficulties in it.
They distort. — In Greek στρεβλοῦσιν, that is, they twist the Holy Scriptures, which are "the original instruments of Christ," says Tertullian, chapter II On the Flesh of Christ. The same in On Prescriptions, chapter XVII: "As much," he says, "as a false sense opposes the truth, so much does a corrupting style." For, as St. Augustine says, Tractate 18 on John, heresies have arisen from no other source than that "good Scriptures are not understood well, and what is not understood well in them is rashly and boldly asserted." See Vincent of Lerins, Against the Heresies. So even now today our heretics distort the Epistles of St. Paul, and use them to prop up their heresies — to such a degree that Calvin proclaims that on his own side, namely for his fate of predestination and reprobation, for justification by faith alone, for enslaved free will, etc., stand Paul and Augustine. Luther indeed, among other things, dared to distort those words of Paul, Romans III, 23: "We reckon a man to be justified by faith," by adding the word "alone."
Morally: Let preachers note here, who too licentiously drag and twist the Holy Scriptures, willing or unwilling, to fit their own conceits — that in doing so they distort it. For those who twist it into alien senses, these distort it: for the force and mind of Sacred Scripture consist not in the words, but in the sense; about which I have said more in the Prooemium on the Minor Prophets. Indeed St. Gregory, book VI, Epistle 7, rebukes those who at the ordination of Bishop Cyriacus had cried out for joy: "This is the day which the Lord has made," since these words are properly said of Christ, Psalm CXVII: "That voice," he says, "ought not to have been given in praise of a creature, which befits the Creator alone."
To their own destruction. — Because they violate and distort the very words, oracles, and diplomas of God. For if he who falsifies the letters of a king is guilty of treason against human majesty, surely he who falsifies the letters of God is guilty of treason against the divine majesty, and is therefore liable to destruction and Gehenna.
Verse 17: You Therefore, Brethren, Knowing These Things Before, Take Heed, Lest Being Led Aside by the Error of the Unwise, You Fall From Your Own Steadfastness
17. You therefore, brethren, foreknowing (namely, forewarned by me of the danger) beware (that is, as the Zurich version, Pagninus, and St. Augustine, On Faith and Works chapter XIV, render it, "take heed") lest, being led away (Zurich version, "led astray"; in Greek συναπαχθέντες, that is, led away together with others) by the error of the foolish (in Greek ἀθέσμων, that is, of the impious, the wicked, the lawless — namely, of the heretics who distort the Epistles of St. Paul and other Scriptures), you fall from your own steadfastness — of faith, piety, grace, and Christian virtue. Whence Paul says: "It is best to establish the heart with grace," Hebrews XIII, 9. For "error," the Greek has πλάνη: whence the wandering stars are called planets, by which he hints that heretics are planets and wanderers, who stand fixed nowhere, but stray through various heresies, and slip from one into another and another, and at last sink into atheism.
Verse 18: But Grow in Grace, and in the Knowledge of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him Be Glory Both Now and Unto the Day of Eternity. Amen
18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. — Paul prays for and exhorts the same: "We do not cease," he says, "praying for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will, fruitful in every good work, and growing in all knowledge of God, strengthened in every virtue," Colossians I, 10. For, as St. Leo says, Sermon 8 On the Passion: "Let all be renewed by daily progress through the increases of piety: for however much anyone may have been justified, he has nevertheless while in this life that by which he can become more proven and better: but he who does not progress, falls behind; and he who acquires nothing, loses not nothing."
He places grace before knowledge, because to grow in grace is more useful and more necessary than to grow in knowledge; for many of the common and uneducated grow in grace and not in knowledge, and these will surpass many learned and lettered men in heavenly glory. To grow, however, in the knowledge of Jesus Christ the Saviour is to grow in the knowledge of His divinity, humanity, redemption, resurrection, grace, glory, and all the mysteries and benefits of Jesus Christ; whence follows an increase of charity and love for Him. Truly every Christian should daily grow in the knowledge, meditation, and love of Jesus Christ his Saviour; so he would equally grow in merits, and in his crown and heavenly glory. Peter says this against the heretics who called themselves Gnostics — that is, knowers and perfect in knowledge — and boasted of it, when they were ignorant and erring. For the true Gnostics are the faithful who confess their ignorance, and strive to grow in the knowledge of the things of salvation, and therefore continually pray with the Psalmist: "Open my eyes, and I shall consider the wonders of Thy law."
To Him be glory both now, and unto the day of eternity. Amen. — That is, unto all eternity, as long as the day of eternity endures. For eternity is as it were one day, one today ever standing and perduring, as I said in verse 8. Or "unto the day," that is unto the time of eternity — namely an eternal time which we imagine to coexist with God's eternity, so that we may conceive it in mind and in some way grasp it; for "day" is often taken for time: we imagine thousands and millions of years following one another in succession, and that without end, in order to conceive eternity mentally. So David says, Psalm LXXVI, 6: "I had in my mind the years eternal." Here St. Peter signifies that the faithful ought perpetually with life and voice to glorify God, and to wish Him glory not only present and of today, but enduring and eternal, and to sing continually with the Church: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." For this the Blessed in heaven do and sing perpetually, whose life, praise, and happiness it befits us to begin in this life, and therefore to withdraw the mind from earthly, fleeting, and momentary things, and to fix it on the heavenly, stable, and eternal. Excellently St. Leo, Sermon 2 On the Passion, at the end: "We undertake the warfare of a great name, the discipline of a great profession. It is not lawful for the followers of Christ to depart from the royal way, but it is fitting that those tending to eternal things should not be occupied with temporal ones." The same, Sermon 1 On the Resurrection: "From the quality," he says, "of temporal actions, the differences of eternal retributions depend." And below: "Let those things be regarded as past which for the most part already are not: and let the mind, intent on what abides there, fix its desire where what is offered is eternal."
And St. Basil on Psalm XLVIII, treating of contempt of riches: "Be not," he says, "of small or downcast spirit concerning these present things, but rather expect that life altogether blessed and to be closed by no end." Pathetically indeed Blessed Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 124: "Why do we stand amazed? where are we? Who is this sleep that mocks us? What is this deadly forgetfulness that holds us? Why do we not exchange the earth for heaven? Why do we not buy the eternal with the perishable? Why do we not procure the abiding for the perishing?" Truly that man snores deeply who is not roused by these vehement thunders and lightnings of words. Nor less ardently does Nazianzen thunder against the followers of the world, Oration 16: "Who will pass over the passing? Will join the mind to the unstable rather than to the eternal? Who will think of present things as of departing ones? Who will distinguish a picture from the truth, who a shadow from everlasting life?" Congruently also Seneca, Epistle 110: "Why do you wonder? Why are you amazed? It is a pomp. These things are displayed, not possessed; and while they please, they pass: turn yourself rather to the true riches." Finally St. Bernard in his Meditations, chapter II, clearly and forcefully: "Tell me," he says, "where are the lovers of the world who a little while ago were with us? Nothing of them has remained, save ashes and worms. Attend diligently to what they are, or what they were. They were men like you: they ate, and drank, and laughed, spent their days in pleasures, and in a moment descended to hell." Whence the same concludes in the Sentences: "Unhappy therefore is he who, trusting in the slipperiness of this life, expends a perishing labor; nor notices that it is a vapor, and appearing for a little, and vanity of vanities." If therefore you are wise and wish to be happy,
Closing Benediction
Wherefore the Church teaches us to pray to God, "that with Him as ruler and guide we may so pass through temporal goods that we do not lose the eternal"; for we must pass through the temporal and transitory, and cling to the fixed and eternal.
LIVE FOR TRUTH,
LIVE FOR IMMORTALITY,
LIVE FOR ETERNITY.
"This most solicitous meditation ought to be the wise man's: that since the day of this life is brief and its spaces uncertain, death may never be unforeseen by him about to die, nor may he, who knows himself to be mortal, fall into an unordered end," St. Leo, Sermon 5 On the Fast of the Seventh Month.