Bede

In his own words on 2 Peter

• 2 Peter 1:1

  In the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore, the apostle Peter writes a letter to them, greeting those who have obtained an equal faith to his own, and exercise it through works of righteousness. Namely, the righteousness which human prudence has not discovered, nor legal institution teaches, but the Lord and our Savior speaking through the Gospel has shown, when he says: Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5). And again: You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder. But I say to you, etc. (Ibid.).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:2

  Grace and peace be multiplied to you, etc. In the first Epistle he wrote: Grace and peace be multiplied to you (1 Peter 1). But in this one: Grace and peace be fulfilled to you, because, of course, he wrote the former letter to those beginning, and this one to those more perfect. For peace and grace are multiplied to those advancing well in this life through faith, but will be fulfilled for those arriving in the other life through vision. Hence, well, when saying: Grace and peace be fulfilled to you, he added: In the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because this is eternal life (he says), that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17). And again: If the Son sets you free, you will be truly free, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:3

  Through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and virtue. And this too depends on the previous passage, because through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, we have recognized all the mysteries of His divinity by which we are saved. He called us by His own glory and virtue, for He did not send an angel to our salvation, nor an archangel, nor did He find in us any merit for which we were to be saved, but rather seeing us as weak and inglorious, He redeemed us by His own power and glory. Hence He says: You did not choose Me, but I chose you (John XV).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:3

  Just as His divine power has given us all things, etc. This statement depends on the previous sentences. The meaning is: Grace and peace be multiplied to you as you come to know our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly. And know this too through Him, that all things of His divine power have been given to us through His grace, which are sufficient for attaining life and preserving piety. Hence, He says: Because everything I have heard from My Father I have made known to you (John XV). And elsewhere: And the glory which You have given Me, I have given them (John XVII). But if it is read as some manuscripts have: Which has been given for life and piety, then the meaning will be: So that you may understand how our Lord has given all things of His divine power to us according to the measure of our capacity, which power has been given for us to attain life and piety. For this form of expression is very common in the Scriptures; and it is called by grammarians ellipsis, that is, the omission of a necessary word, such as in the Psalm: For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert mountains. It implies, for the way of escape is evident, for God is judge everywhere (Psalm LXXIV).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:4

  That through these things you may become partakers of the divine nature. He suddenly changes the person, and who had previously spoken about himself and his own things: He has given us precious promises, immediately turned to those to whom he was speaking: That through these, he says, you may become partakers of the divine nature. This he does not by chance, but providentially. Therefore (he says) the Lord has revealed to us, who by nature are Jews, who are born under the law, who are even physically instructed by his teaching, all the secrets of his divine power, therefore to us, that is, to his disciples, he has given the greatest and most precious promises of his Spirit, that through these even you who are from the Gentiles, who were not able to see him physically, might be made partakers of his divine nature by us who teach you what we have heard from him, by us consecrating you through his mysteries. Hence, very rightly he said above: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, how all things of his divine power which have been given to us for life and piety, can also be taken as said: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in this, that you may know our Lord Jesus Christ, even you, just as to us through him all the promises or gifts of his divine power, which lead to life and piety, have been given. So that just as we have received the promised gifts from him, or we confidently trust without any doubt that we will receive them, so also may you not doubt about his gifts.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:4

  By which He has given us exceedingly great and precious promises. By which means, through the knowledge of Him, because the more perfectly one knows God, the more profoundly one feels the greatness of His promises.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:4

  Fleeing from the corruption of lust that is in the world. He rightly says that the lust of the world has corruption, and therefore must be fled from, according to him who says: "Flee from sin as from the face of a serpent" (Ecclesiasticus 21), because there is also incorruptible lust, about which it is sung: "My soul has desired and fainted after the courts of the Lord" (Psalm 83). About which also in the book of Wisdom through a figure of speech called in Greek κλῖμαξ, in Latin gradation, it is very beautifully reported: "The beginning," he says, "of wisdom is the most true desire for discipline" (Wisdom 6). Therefore, care for discipline is love, and love is the keeping of its laws. But keeping of the laws is the completion of incorruption. And incorruption makes one to be near to God. Therefore, the desire for wisdom leads to the eternal kingdom.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:5

  But you, giving all diligence, supply virtue in your faith. Virtue in this place is placed not for strength and miracles, but for good conduct; which is rightly to be joined to faith, lest it be idle and dead without works: in which he rightly commanded that all diligence be added, because he who is soft and negligent in his work is brother to him who destroys his work.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:5

  And in virtue, knowledge. According to that of Isaiah: "Learn to do well, seek judgment."

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:6

  And in patience, godliness. So that he may be kind towards those whom he patiently endures, according to that of the apostle Paul: "Charity is patient, is kind" (1 Corinthians 13).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:6

  And in knowledge, temperance. So that when they have learned to do well, immediately they abstain from evils, lest knowledge of heavenly things fall in vain, if one neglects to restrain himself from earthly temptations.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:6

  And in temperance, patience. It is always necessary that temperance is accompanied by patience, so that whoever has learned to restrain himself from the pleasures of the world may also endure adversities with a firm heart, armed for justice from the right hand and the left (2 Corinthians 6).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:7

  In the love of brotherhood, charity. Here he specifically calls charity that by which we love the Creator, which, as the degrees of virtues advance, is rightly joined to the love of brotherhood, because neither God can be perfectly loved without a neighbor, nor a neighbor without God. Indeed, the love of God is superior to the love of neighbors, because we are commanded to love them as ourselves, but God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength (Mark XII), however, through the practice of brotherly love we ought to ascend to the love of the Creator. For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see (1 John IV)?

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:7

  In piety, however, the love of brotherhood. So that no one renders the works of piety to their enemies with any other view than that of brotherly love. This, of course, obtaining in all temptation, aims at converting those whom one cannot teach or rebuke, to the affection of piety by praying or doing good.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:8

  For if all these things are present with you and abound, not empty, etc. He said if they abound, if with superior virtue they prevail against the wars of vices.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:9

  For he to whom these things are not present is blind, etc. The eye signifies knowledge, the hand signifies work. He is blind and groping with his hand who, not having the knowledge of righteous work, performs whatever seems right to him, and, ignorant of the light of truth, extends his hand to a work he does not see, lifts his steps to a path he does not foresee, and thus suddenly falls into the ruin of perdition, which he could not foresee. Such is everyone to whom these things that Peter speaks of are not present, because through the increments of spiritual virtues it is proper for us to reach the fellowship of divinity. On the contrary, Solomon, admonishing a wise listener: And let your eyelids precede your steps (Prov. IV). Which is clearly suggesting that in all our acts, we should diligently strive to foresee what we are to attain, carefully scrutinizing what is done according to God's will and what otherwise.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:10

  By doing these things, you will never sin. He speaks of greater sins, which anyone who commits will not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God, and from which everyone who devotes himself to the aforementioned virtues remains immune before the Lord. Otherwise, there are minor sins, about which it is written: "There is not a just man upon earth, that does good" (Eccl. 7); and "in your sight no one living is justified" (Ps. 142).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:10

  Wherefore, brethren, be more eager to make your calling and election sure through good works. Many are called, but few are chosen (Matt. 20, 22). The calling of all who come to faith is certain; but those who diligently add good works to the sacraments of faith they have received make their calling and election sure to those who observe them. Conversely, those who return to sins after their calling, when they depart from this life in these sins, already make it certain to all that they are reprobate.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:11

  For so an entrance will be abundantly supplied to you into the everlasting kingdom, etc. This passage is suited to that of the prophet Ezekiel, where speaking of a building set upon a mountain, he says: "And its ascent had eight steps" (Ezek. 40). And here indeed the blessed Peter enumerates eight steps of virtues, by which we must ascend, fleeing the corruption of worldly lust, to the habitation of the heavenly kingdom: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. Of these steps the Psalmist surely speaks: "In his heart he has set his ascent" (Ps. 84), and elsewhere says: "They will go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion." (Ps. 84).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:12

  Wherefore I will always begin to admonish you about these things, etc. Why does he want to always admonish them about good works, those whom he says have knowledge and are confirmed in the present truth? Unless perhaps it is so that the knowledge they have learned they may exercise in good works, and the truth of which they are confirmed in presence they may guard with a fixed mind, lest ever through teachers of error they fall from the simplicity and purity of faith, concerning which teachers he speaks more in the course of the Epistle. And this sentiment agrees with that of blessed John, who says: "I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it" (1 John 2). Therefore, the apostles write to those who know the truth, and admonish them so that they might observe what they know. Whence also John, speaking, adds shortly after: "Let that which you have heard from the beginning remain in you" (Ibid.).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:13

  I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, etc. We usually make use of a tabernacle in journey or in war, and rightly therefore the faithful, as long as they are in the body and are away from the Lord, testify that they are in tabernacles, in which they may conduct the journey of this life and fight against the adversaries of the truth.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:14

  Knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle is very near. Most beautifully does blessed Peter call his demise not death, but the putting off of his tabernacle, because indeed for the perfect servants of God it is as if they cast off the bonds of the flesh, as travelers having completed their journey go to their own home for habitation instead of their tabernacle, as those deployed in expedition return to their fatherland after the enemy has been driven away or defeated. For they acknowledge only their own home, only their municipality, only their fatherland in the heavens. Of which also the apostle Paul says: "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:16

  For we did not follow cleverly devised myths, etc. Here he touches upon both pagans and heretics, the former of whom did not fear to call whatever pleased them gods; the latter, after receiving the mysteries of the true God, no longer paid attention to the divine Scriptures but instead tried to transfer them by badly interpreting them according to their own erroneous understanding.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:18

  And we heard this voice brought from heaven, etc. Some deny that this Epistle was written by the blessed Apostle Peter; had they carefully attended to this verse and what follows: When we were with him on the holy mountain, they would by no means doubt the author of this Epistle. For it is established, according to the faith of the Gospels, that Peter, along with his fellow apostles James and John, heard that aforementioned voice when the Lord was glorified on the mountain.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:19

  You do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, etc. The sense of the order is: You do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place. For in this world's night, full of dark temptations, where it is difficult to find anyone who does not stumble, what would we be if we did not have the lamp of prophetic speech? But will the lamp always be necessary? Certainly not. Until (it says) the day dawns. For in the morning I will stand and contemplate (Psalm V). Meanwhile, it pertains to the nocturnal lamp that we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we will be (1 John III). And indeed, in comparison to the wicked, we are the day, as Paul says: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Ephesians V). But if we compare ourselves to that life in which we will be, we are still night, and we need a lamp.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:19

  And we have the prophetic word made more certain. That is, the one where it is said from the person of the Mediator of God and men: The Lord said to me, You are my Son, today I have begotten you (Psalm II). For if anyone (he says) considers our testimony to be unreliable, that in secret we saw the divine glory of our Redeemer, and heard the Father's voice directed to him, certainly no one will dare to contradict or doubt the prophetic word concerning this, which has long been included in the divine Scriptures and which all testify to be true.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:19

  And the morning star rises in your hearts. Who is this morning star? If you say the Lord, it is not enough. The morning star itself is our clear understanding. For it rises in our hearts, it will be illuminated, it will be manifested. Love will be as we now desire it to be, and since it is lacking, we sigh, and what it will be like, each will see in each other, just as we now see our faces in each other.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:20

  Understanding this first, that every prophecy of Scripture, etc. This verse depends on what was said above: You do well to pay attention; for those who pay attention to the words of the prophets do well indeed, that they may have the light of knowledge through these. They must first understand that none of the holy prophets proclaimed to the people their own doctrines of life by their own interpretation, but recommended to their listeners to act upon what they had learned from the Lord. They simply delivered to God's people, whether by speaking or writing, the heavenly secrets they had perceived in private, unlike the soothsayers of the Gentiles, who proclaimed to the crowds of the deceived the inventions of their own hearts as the resolutions of a divine oracle. Therefore, just as the prophets wrote not their own words but the words of God, so also their reader cannot use his own interpretation but must very carefully consider how the writer himself wanted his words to be understood.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 1:21

  For prophecy never came by the will of man, etc. They could always foretell the future; but the Spirit itself filled their hearts whenever it wished; thus, it was not in their power to teach whatever they wanted, but they spoke only what they had learned, enlightened by the Spirit. We say this so that no one may dare to interpret the Scriptures according to their own will. Someone has ridiculously interpreted these words of the blessed Peter, saying that just as a flute receives the breath of a human to sound, yet does not understand the sound it produces because it is of an insensible nature; so the prophets, inspired by the Spirit of God, uttered what the Spirit willed, yet did not retain in their minds what they said, according to that line of Virgil: "It gives a sound without a mind." This is clearly a most shameless error. For how could they give such sound advice for living to their listeners, if, being like the insane, they did not know what they were saying? Why, then, are they called seers? How is it written: "The word that Isaiah saw" (Isaiah 2), or any other prophet, if not because in the hidden, most lucid vision of heavenly matters they understood the mysteries that they then clearly expressed to their listeners in words?

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:1

  And they deny the Lord who bought them, etc. Concerning this buyer, Paul also says: "For you were bought at a great price; glorify and carry God in your body" (1 Cor. 6). Rightly indeed do they bring upon themselves swift destruction, who, denying their Redeemer, refuse to rightly confess Him and glorify, and by doing good, to bear Him in their own body: which all heretics do; for Arius, who says that our Redeemer is lesser than the Father in divinity, and Photinus, who says: "Christ is a man, not God," and Manichaeus, who says: "Christ is only God, not truly man," and Ebion, who says: "Christ did not exist before Mary, He took His origin from her," and Apollinaris, who says: "Christ is only God and flesh, never having taken a rational soul," and Pelagius, who says: "Christ is not the Redeemer of infants in baptism, because they, conceived without iniquities and born from their mother without sins, have no sin that must be forgiven to them, and therefore Christ is not the Savior of all the elect"; and other heretics with them indeed deny the Lord who bought them with the price of His own blood, because they proclaim Him not as truth reveals but as they themselves imagine. And therefore, made alien from the Redeemer, nothing is more certain than that they expect the pit of destruction.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:1

  To their own destruction. For those who attempt to corrupt the holy Scriptures and to disturb and pervert the Catholic faith bring condemnation upon themselves in this. However, the Church of Christ, having dispelled the darkness of errors, enjoys its true light. Hence, it is well said at the end of the Apocalypse, which is the closing and, as it were, the seal of all divine Scripture: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the book of life and from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book (Apocalypse XXII). The difficult things to understand in the Epistles of Paul, which he says are distorted by the unlearned and unstable, are especially those in which he speaks about the grace of God that justifies the ungodly (Romans IV), that is, makes the ungodly righteous. For he himself says: Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Romans V). Those who did not understand this thought he was saying: Let us do evil that good may come (Romans III). But far be it from Paul to teach his listeners to do evil to achieve good, for his entire intention is to restrain from evil and to call as many as possible to do good. But when he says, Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Romans V), he thereby commends the gift of grace more strongly, which is accustomed to forgive both great sins and lesser ones when people convert. And the greater the sins committed before conversion, the greater the forgiveness received through the gift of grace. Therefore the Apostle speaks thus about the sins we have already committed, so that no one should perish from despair of forgiveness because of the enormity of his crimes; but, as the enemies interpreted, he was not urging to commit more sins to receive greater good through them. Hence the blessed Peter rightly adds by way of admonition:

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:2

  And many will follow their debaucheries, etc. The way of truth will be blasphemed by heretics not only in those whom they draw out to associate with their heresy, but also in those whom by their most impure deeds and sacrifices, or the execrable mysteries they perform, they provoke to hatred of the Christian name, those who are unskilled thinking all Christians to be entangled in such wickedness. To whom Scripture says: "Through you My name is blasphemed among the nations" (Isaiah 52).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:3

  Their judgment has not ceased long ago. When 'long ago' signifies a past time and 'has not ceased' is a word in the present tense, it seems to mean nothing else but that the judgment of the perdition of the impious, which has already long begun, continually torments them presently and will never cease with any end.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:4

  For if God did not spare the angels who sinned. For many verses here conclude with one ending: The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. For if, he says, God did not spare the angels who sinned, but consigned them to hell to be kept in chains of darkness until judgment; if, destroying the ancient world for its crimes by the flood, He saved righteous Noah; if, punishing the enormities of Sodom, He delivered Lot, a worshiper of justice, from the unjust; it is certainly known that the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to reserve the wicked for torment on the day of judgment. And it should be noted in what he says, that God did not spare the angels who sinned, because those evil angels were not created evil by God, but became evil by sinning.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:4

  But He handed over those dragged down by the howls of hell into Tartarus, etc. Another translation has this verse as: But pushing back into the prisons of the darkness of hell, He handed them over to be reserved for punishment in judgment. Therefore, it shows that the punishment of the final judgment is still owed to the apostate angels, about which the Lord says: Go into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew XXV), even though they have already accepted this hell, that is, the lower murky air, as a prison. For as much as the sublimity of heaven is concerned, the space of this air can already be called hell, so also regarding the height of this same air, the earth which lies below can be understood as deep hell. But He calls the howls of hell the very prideful boastfulness by which the angels of His spirit swelled in arrogance against their Creator. For ropes are called howls, by which sailors hang sails so that, with the wind blowing, they leave the tranquility of the port and always trust themselves to the uncertain waves of the sea. To these appropriately howling ropes are compared the efforts of unclean spirits, who, as soon as they were raised up against the Creator, impelled by the winds of pride, were dragged into the depths of the abyss by their very efforts of elevation. Some codices have: But dragged down by the howls of hell, He handed them over into Tartarus, which signifies the voice either of utmost exaltation or of wailing in punishment. For they howl when they suffer either hunger or something else, unable to bear the excess of haughtiness, if any adversity occurs to them.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:5

  But He preserved Noah, the preacher of righteousness, etc. It is known to all that Noah was born in the tenth generation from Adam, but he is called the eighth because eight people survived the flood, of whom he was one. He mentions the number eight to subtly imply that the time of the flood signifies the test of the final examination, when, with all the reprobates condemned, all the righteous will receive the glory of eternal life. For there are six ages of the present world, the seventh is also now conducted, in that life where the souls of the saints enjoy eternal rest in a blessed Sabbath, and the eighth is to come at the time of the resurrection of all and the universal judgment. And he surnames Noah the preacher of righteousness, because by doing works of righteousness in the sight of all, he showed how it should be lived before the Lord. For he is not found to teach anyone by word, indeed not a single word is found spoken to God or man by him, but with the greatest virtue, in the whole construction of the ark, in the coming of the flood, in the beginnings of the following age, with a silent mouth but with the most prompt devotion of the heart, he obeyed the heavenly commands.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:5

  And He did not spare the original world. It is the same world in which the human race now dwells, which was inhabited by those who lived before the flood. Yet, nonetheless, that original world is rightly called another, as it is written in the following part of this Epistle that the world at that time, having been flooded by water, perished, and the heavens that existed before, meaning all the turbulent spaces of the air being consumed by the height of the increasing waters, and the earth, altered by the waters exceeding into another form. For although some mountains and valleys are believed to have been made from the beginning, they are not as significant as those now seen in the entire world. This could perhaps be denied, if we did not also now see the face of the earth changed by the subversion of the waters every year. This is believed to have happened even more so then, as the greater and more prolonged flood of waters besieging the earth flowed over it.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:6

  And the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. Because he asserts that the cities of the impious were reduced to ashes, it should be understood in two ways. Because first, through fire, he reduced them along with the adjacent lands to ashes, and when he afterwards covered the places of the fire with the waters of the Dead Sea, he still wanted to preserve the surrounding region as a specimen of ancient punishment. For very beautiful fruits indeed grow, which also generate a desire to eat for those who see them. If you pluck them, they crumble and dissolve into ashes, and raise smoke, as if they still burned. Hence, in the Book of Wisdom it is said: "This [fire] rescued the righteous man fleeing from the wicked who were perishing as the fire descended upon Pentapolis." As a testimony to whose wickedness, it is evident that a scorched earth remains deserted, and at certain times the trees have fruit (Wis. X). It can be understood: And they also remain deserted and scorched. And this is what is also added here:

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:7

  And just Lot, oppressed, etc. Indeed, the holy man was tormented by both the unjust deeds and words of his neighbors; seeing these things daily, he was not able to correct them at all; but nevertheless, he conducted himself so prudently that neither by witnessing their disgraceful acts nor by hearing them did he taint the gaze of his chaste mind, but with unflagging intent, he pursued the actions of his own righteousness. Or certainly, he was righteous by sight and hearing, because those present saw and heard nothing in him except the works of righteousness and words; and no fame about him spread among the absent, except what pertained to righteousness, like the example of the blessed Job, who said: The ear that heard me blessed me, and the eye that saw me testified to me (Job XIX). And it is to be noted that the blessed Peter follows the example of the Lord's teaching in this place. For the Lord Himself, speaking in the Gospel about the day of judgment, recalls the sudden advent either of the flood or of the Sodomite fire, where the righteous were delivered, but the reprobate were caught in the snare of sudden destruction. And also in another place, when He intended to restrain the minds of His disciples from the pride of arrogance, He presented the example of the angelic fall, saying, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Luke X).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:9

  The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, etc. He says the unjust are reserved for punishment on the day of judgment, not because they do not suffer torment for their merits even before the day of judgment, freed from the body, but because greater torments await them in judgment when, having received their body back, they will be punished, who are now tormented in spirit alone. Whence the Lord, reproaching those cities that refused to receive the word of the Gospel, concluded in this way: It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:10

  Giving an example of those who are going to act impiously. For even the fire which once punished the Sodomites plainly shows that the impious are to suffer without end. And that their land remains scorched with smoke, that its most beautiful fruits have ashes within and stench, clearly signifies to all ages that carnal delight, although it may seem pleasing to the minds of fools for the present, reserves nothing for itself in the unseen but burning, so that the smoke of its torments ascends forever and ever.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:10

  But especially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness. He speaks of fornicators, who will suffer greater torments in judgment for the guilt of their corruption than general iniquities.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:10

  And despise government, daring, self-willed. He speaks of the proud and arrogant, who will also endure severer punishments than the general ones.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:10

  They do not fear to introduce sects, blaspheming. He calls heretics those who, blaspheming the faith or life of the orthodox, introduce sects in their own name, that is, heresies, who themselves, with the former, will hear, for a stronger punishment awaits the stronger.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:11

  Where angels, though greater in strength and power, do not bring a blasphemous judgment against themselves. When he says: Where, it signifies in that they despise dominion, that they are daring, that they are self-pleasing, that they create heresies, that is, sects, that they blaspheme. By doing these things, the angels deserved to become demons and pay the penalties for their pride. For their spiritual nature did not suffer the obscenity of carnal desire to pollute them. Unless perhaps when they lure men into this, he indicates that they are to be judged for this also, just as for the other evils that they persuade men to commit.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:12

  But these, like irrational animals naturally, etc. Just as it is natural for irrational animals to often ignorantly fall into traps and destruction out of the need for food, so heretics, compared to foolish beasts, out of a desire to fulfill their own corruption, blaspheming the incorrupt and sound doctrine of the Catholic Church and life, bind themselves with the snares of eternal perdition by impious recklessness. The ecclesiastical history reports that such heretics existed in the times of the apostles: the Simonians, Menandrians, Basilideans, Nicolaites, Ebionites, Marcionites, and Cerdonians, and many others. Rightly, having said of them: Blaspheming in their own corruption they shall perish, he added:

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:13

  Receiving the reward of injustice. The reward of injustice is the punishment he speaks of, which the works of injustice deserve, especially in those who, while they themselves are slaves to the corruption of the flesh, nonetheless blaspheme the conduct of those who live chastely, though they themselves are held by insane errors, they do not cease to disparage those who hold sound understanding.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:13

  Thinking of the delights of the day as impurities and stains. Pleasure is taken both in a good and an evil sense. In the good sense, it is called the paradise of delight, and as it is sung in the psalm: And they shall drink from the torrent of Your pleasure (Psalm 35). In an evil sense, as Solomon says: For youth and pleasure are vain (Ecclesiastes 11). But it is also used indifferently, according to what Sarah said: After I am old, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure? (Genesis 18). Therefore, good pleasure is rightly called the delight of the day, by which the saints delight in the Lord. However, evil pleasure belongs to the night, when the wicked perversely delight in performing deeds of darkness. It is rightly said of the unjust that they think of the pleasure of the day, the delights of impurity and stain, because many are so lazy, perverse, and shameless that, whilst engaging in the most impure and detestable pleasures, they nonetheless judge these to be the best and almost luminous. Some join the first word of this verse to the preceding verse, reading thus: Receiving the reward of unrighteousness as pleasure, and expound it according to what the apostle Paul said: God gave them over to the desires of their hearts in impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves (Romans 1). And a little later: Committing shameless acts, receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. And as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind, to do what ought not to be done (Ibid.). But we thought it right to follow the distinction we found in the works of the blessed Pope Gregory.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:14

  Leading astray unstable souls. Whores are usually called "enticeresses," derived from pollution, or from the beauty of their skin by which they lure the unsuspecting. Therefore, they lead astray unstable souls who, by teaching them wrongly, bring them under the various heretical doctrines as if corrupting them with sensual pleasures.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:15

  They followed the way of Balaam from Bosor, etc. Often, heretics propose such foolish doctrines and abominable sacraments that even the most dull-witted, the pagans, and those who completely lack understanding of divine knowledge, detest their madness. They refute their twisted paths and those contrary to God with healthier judgment. And what is worse, because it is more frequent, sometimes many Catholics love the reward of unrighteousness so much that they are deservedly attacked by the unlearned, by laypersons instead of clerics. These are rightly compared to the prophet who is reproached by the words of a donkey speaking against its nature, yet is not deterred from his evil path. The name of the city from which Balaam is said to have come, Bosor, meaning either of flesh or in tribulation, aptly fits such people. Excessive indulgence in luxury provides no greater reason to adulterate the word of truth for the love of money or the desire for temporal things, than when they have enslaved themselves to the lusts of the flesh, clearly unworthy of apostolic praise, which glorifies true believers saying: But you, brethren, are not in the flesh but in the spirit (I Thes. V). And thus they are placed in tribulation, not in the sense that they suffer for the Lord, but rather in that which oppresses the spirits of the weak with the perverse examples of their actions, preventing them from rising to salvation or repentance. Also, the name Balaam itself, meaning a vain or precipitating people, suits such individuals. For those who willingly desert the known path of truth are nothing but a vain people, casting their listeners into perdition by preaching not what corrects them but what delights them erroneously. About whom it is well added:

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:17

  These are wells without water, etc. Saint Jerome, placing these verses in the book against Jovinian, explains them thus: "Does it not seem to you that the apostle has described a different kind of ignorance?" For they reveal knowledge as if from wells, because they promise the rain of doctrines which they do not have, like clouds of prophecy toward which the truth of God reaches, and they are agitated by the whirlwinds of demons and vices. They speak great things, and all their speech is pride. But every one who exalts his heart is unclean, so that they who have slightly turned away from sins return to their error and are eager for the luxuries of foods and the delights of the flesh. For who does not gladly hear: Let us eat and drink, and we will reign forever (Wis. II; Isai. XXII; I Cor. XV)? The wise and prudent call them perverse who are sweet in speech.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 2:22

  For the truth of the proverb happened to them: The dog returns to its vomit, etc. He says this is a true proverb because he takes testimony from the Proverbs of Solomon, which is placed there with explanation: As a dog, he says, which returns to its vomit, so is a fool who repeats his foolishness (Prov. XXVI). And he added from his own: And the sow that was washed returns to wallowing in the mire. Therefore, when a dog vomits, it certainly expels the food that weighed down its chest. But when it returns to the vomit, it is again burdened by what it had been relieved of. And those who lament their sins certainly confess and cast away the evil which had satiated them wrongly and weighed down their innermost thoughts; when they repeat it after confession, they take it up again. But the sow, when washed in the mire, is rendered filthier. And he who laments his sins but does not forsake them subjects himself to greater punishment because he scorns the very pardon which he could have obtained by weeping, and he wallows in muddy water as it were, because by his tears he withdraws the cleanliness of life, and before the eyes of God even those very tears become filthy.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:3

  In the last days, in deception, mockers will come, mocking, namely, the faith and hope of Christians, as they promise to themselves in vain that the time of the resurrection will come.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:3

  Walking according to their own desires, etc. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, says, "I beseech you, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand" (II Thess. II). Therefore, blessed Peter reproves and calls mockers those who assert that the coming of the Lord and His promises are delayed; Paul restrains those who believe that the day of the Lord is imminent. Hence, it is clear to all who love His coming that they should temper their mind in this opinion, so as not to suspect either that the same day of the Lord is near and will come sooner, nor again that it will come later, but we should only diligently ensure that, whether He comes sooner or later, He may find us prepared when He comes.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:5

  For this is hidden from them willingly, that the heavens existed long ago and the earth, out of water, etc. The earth consists out of water, for at the beginning of creation God said: "Let the waters be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear;" and it was so (Gen. I). It consists also by water by the word of God, because by divine arrangement the veins of water fill the whole depth within, just as we see the bodies of living creatures overflowing with veins of blood, lest they fail in dryness if the irrigation of water ceases. Finally, we see that with the heat of summer, the lands with their absorbed moisture wither away, and soon are turned into dust which the wind casts. Another Edition has: "The heavens existed long ago out of water and through water." But it signifies this humid and cloudy air. For Scripture is accustomed to call this air, and sometimes the heavens. Whence it is written: "The hawk in heaven knows its appointed time" (Jerem. VIII).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:6

  At that time the world perished, being flooded by water. At that time, referring to the heavens and the earth which he had previously mentioned. For through these things the world that had existed was destroyed. For the higher parts of the world were in no way touched by the flood. Therefore the earth perished, because being submerged and covered by waters, it not only lost the state of fruitfulness inherent to it for such a long time, but also, as we have taught above, in many places it received a different face from that which it had initially. The heavens likewise perished to the extent of this airspace. "For the water increased," as Saint Augustine says, "and occupied this entire space where birds fly." And thus certainly the heavens close to the earth perished, as it is said "the birds of the heavens." But there are also (he says) the heavens of the heavens higher in the firmament, but whether they too are to perish by fire, or if only these which perished by the flood will do so, is a rather more precise debate among the learned.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:7

  But the heavens and the earth which are now, etc. Therefore it is clear from the view of blessed Peter that the earth and those heavens which perished in the flood, and were restored after the flood, are affirmed to be destroyed by final fire.

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:8

  But this one thing, beloved, do not let it escape your notice, that one day with the Lord, etc. Some think this statement should be understood as though the day of judgment has such a length as a span of a thousand years, not considering that he does not simply say there will be one day like a thousand years, but: One, he says, day with the Lord is like a thousand years. Because in the knowledge of divine power, the past, the future, and the present equally abide. And the courses of time which seem long to us and those which seem short are of equal measure to the Creator of time, according to the Psalmist: For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night (Psalm 89), which are as nothing, their years will be. For just as it is understood that the Psalmist equates a thousand years not with the future day of judgment, but with the past day that has passed in the sight of the Creator, indeed he likens all our years, that is the whole time of this age, to a watch in the night, which is a fourth part of the night, so blessed Peter equates each day of the present age as a thousand years and a thousand years to each day with the Lord, that is, he asserts they are of the same measure. Because evidently he sees all things, both small and great, equally. And indeed, if Peter wanted this to be understood only about the day of judgment, that it truly would be of such length as a thousand of our years, he could certainly have indicated his opinion more openly, nor would there be any need to add, with the Lord, because if that last day were of such length, it would appear to all men when it arrived. But the Apostle remembers these things to convince those whom he had mentioned earlier saying: Where is the promise of his coming? showing that the Lord is by no means forgetful of his promise or coming, to judge the living and the dead. But as he thus embraces each day of our age with His eternal memory, like a circuit of a thousand years, so he surveys a thousand years as the span of one day without effort, it is manifestly to be understood that He surely knows the end of all these days and years, and without any doubt He has also foreseen this, when the glory of His coming is to be revealed, when the promises are to be returned to the saints. Therefore it is rightly added:

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:9

  The Lord does not delay His promise, etc. Therefore, He who knows all times, the latest and the ancient, does not delay His promise, but indeed shows this at the time which He predestined before all times to come. And therefore He still defers, so that the full number of the elect, which He decreed with the Father before the ages, may be fulfilled. Hence, in the Apocalypse, the souls of the martyrs who longed for the coming of His judgment and resurrection heard that they should rest yet a little time, until the number of their fellow servants and brethren should be completed. But those who understand the aforementioned judgment of blessed Peter as if he were saying that the day of judgment would last as long as a thousand years, refer this to the cause that it is necessary for those who depart from the body with some sins, yet are predestined to the lot of the elect, to be purged by fire for such a time, and then finally, with all sins forgiven, to come to life. But these do not see how impudent it is to believe that such a great company of the perfect and just, having received blessed and immortal bodies in the blink of an eye, would have to wait in the air or on earth for the end of the judgment for a space of a thousand years, and then finally, with their companions fully prepared, to hear the long-desired judgment: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom" (Matt. XXV).

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles

• 2 Peter 3:10

  But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, etc. Without a doubt, he speaks of those heavens which passed away in the flood, that is, this air close to the earth, which is destined to be destroyed by fire, occupying (as rightly believed) as much space as the water of the flood occupied. Otherwise, if anyone asserts that the higher heavens, where the sun, moon, and stars are set, will pass away, how does he wish to understand the Lord's saying: "Then the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven" (Matt. XXIV)? For if the place of the stars passes away, that is, heaven, by what reason can it be said on the same day of the Lord that the stars will either be darkened or fall, and that the place of the stars where they are fixed will pass away with fire consuming it?

  Commentary on the Catholic Epistles