Chapter 1

Theophylact of Ohrid, Exposition of the Second Epistle of Peter — Chapter One

¹ Argument of the Second Epistle of Peter. Peter himself writes this also to those who have already believed. The Epistle is a reminder of the former things. For knowing that the putting off of his body would be swift, he was earnest to remind them all concerning the teaching in which they had been instructed. And first he expounds concerning the faith, showing that it was proclaimed beforehand by the prophets, and that the prophecies concerning the Savior are not human, but were spoken from God. Then he charges them not to give heed to those who deceive, saying that their destruction will come, as it also came upon the angels who transgressed. He foretells in the Epistle that there will be days in which mockers will walk about and will wish to deceive some, saying that the coming of the Savior is proclaimed by us in vain, because it is always being spoken of and has not yet come to pass. From these especially, therefore, he charges them to keep away, teaching them not to grow careless in the meantime. For all time is as nothing before the Lord, since one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. He firmly affirms and demonstrates that the day of the Lord will come swiftly, and he commands that all be ready for it in good works, and that they love what was written by the apostle Paul, and not give heed to those who slander these writings—since such men slander all the divine Scriptures as well. Having reminded and taught them all to know these matters beforehand, he exhorts them not to fall away from the aim of the faith; and so he brings the Epistle to its close.

² Chapter-headings of this same Second Epistle.
1. Concerning the calling that is confirmed in faith by the works of virtue, and concerning the hope of the good things to come.
2. An exhortation to the remembrance of the teaching after his departure. And how on Mount Tabor he heard the voice of God concerning Christ.
3. The foretelling of the deceitful uprising of heretics, and of their impiety and coming punishment.
4. A recapitulation concerning the wickedness of heretical men. Wherein: first, that Christ will come suddenly at the consummation of this age; second, that one must therefore make oneself ready with every virtue.

³ Chapter One. Symeon Peter and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal honor with us in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.[1] The name Simon is the diminutive of Symeon, as Metras is of Metrodorus, Menas of Menodorus, and Theudas of Theodosius. From the very outset he raises up the minds and souls of believers, stirring them to the same zeal for the preaching that the apostles had. For those who have obtained a grace of equal honor would not justly (or: would not, being equal,) fall short in any of those things in which they have been shown to be equals. Everywhere he girds them about with peace, which Christ also bestowed when he rose from the dead and went up to the Father, crying, Peace be unto you. And in the Church we too pray that the angel of peace may be given. And the priest bestows this on the people from the holy altar, for it is the mother of all good things. Therefore the Lord also charged his own disciples to bestow this first when entering houses.

⁴ Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord. The sense, in order, is this: To you who have obtained a faith of equal honor with us in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord, through the righteousness of our God, grace and peace be multiplied.

⁵ Seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue; whereby are granted to us the precious and exceedingly great promises. The sense, in order, is this: Grace and peace to you, inasmuch as all things that pertain to life and godliness, in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, have been granted to you by his divine power, which bestowed this grace upon you unto the knowledge of his glory and virtue—whereby the greatest promises have been granted—that, having escaped the corruption of the world which comes through lust, you might become partakers of the divine nature. Otherwise: the construction runs at length, but the sense is this: Inasmuch as we have received countless good things through the power of Christ, we are able to become partakers also of the divine nature and to be raised to life and godliness; we ought so to order our lives as to add virtue to faith, and through virtue to advance in godliness, until we come to the perfection of good things, which is love. And we became partakers of the divine nature through the sojourning of the Lord and God, who took up the first-fruits of our nature in himself and sanctified it by the assumption. And if the first-fruits are holy, so also is the lump. By corruption he means that which comes from worldly lust, as being composed of corruptible things and concerned with corruptible things.

⁶ That through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world in lust. The sense, in order, is this: That, being delivered from the corruption that is in the world, which is accomplished in fleshly lust, you might become partakers of the divine nature. For having escaped stands for having been delivered.

⁷ And for this very reason, bringing in all diligence, supply in your faith virtue, and in virtue knowledge, and in knowledge self-control, and in self-control patience, and in patience godliness, and in godliness brotherly love, and in brotherly love charity. He knows the degrees of advancement: first, faith, which is the foundation and groundwork of good things; then second, virtue—that is, works; for without these faith is dead, as James says. Upon these comes knowledge. And what is this? The discernment of the hidden mysteries of God, which does not lodge with just anyone, but with him who has trained his habit through better works. Upon these comes self-control. For this too is needed by him who has come to the measure of knowledge, lest he grow insolent at the greatness of the gift. And since one cannot keep the gift secure by self-control in a short time—the passions ever loving, when freedom restrains them, to be drawn on to the worse—patience, coming in, accomplished the whole, and procured godliness, perfecting the trust toward God. Therefore to godliness was added brotherly love, and upon all the fullness of all good things, love, as it seems both to Paul and to the truth. For love constrained both the Son of God and his Father: the Father, to give his beloved Son; the Son, to pour out his blood for us.[2]

⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, they make you neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. These things—which? Faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly love, charity; which must not only be present, but also abound. For if their presence profits, much more their abundance. And what is the profit from them, but to have boldness toward the second coming of the Lord? For upon the one who does not have these, when the Judge comes in glory and flashes like the sun, blindness follows; since even if his sight were sound, not even so could he gaze undisturbed upon that surpassing brightness, for what shines too exceedingly with light naturally (dims the eyes of those who can bear it but feebly).

⁹ For he in whom these things are not present is blind, shortsighted, having forgotten the cleansing of his former sins. Therefore the rather, brethren, be diligent to make your calling and election sure. To be shortsighted is said for to be blind, from the moles under the earth that remain wholly blind. And this is like what was said by the blessed James, that If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding the face of his birth in a mirror. For this man too, having come to know himself through being cleansed by holy baptism—that he was washed from a multitude of sins—ought to have known that, having been cleansed and having received holiness, he should be sober, that thereby he might keep the sanctification without which no one shall see the Lord; but he forgot it. Therefore the rather, he says, my brethren, be diligent, showing your calling and election to be abiding—that is, the catechetical word which you heard at your election—and to be without reproach in your calling, lest you be judged as having forgotten the gift of God, but rather remain holding your calling sure.

¹⁰ For doing these things, you shall never stumble. For so an entrance shall be richly supplied to you into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I will not be negligent always to put you in remembrance of these things. Doing these things—which? The aforesaid: namely, virtue, knowledge, and the rest. And observe how, having first exhorted them from the more fearful things—the tribunal of the Judge—he now exhorts them from the good things, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of God.

¹¹ Though you know these things and are established in the present truth. Yet I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle is swift, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me. Lest, being continually reminded of the same things, they should think they were hearing these things as men condemned to idleness, and be grieved, he added, Though you know these things and are established in the present truth. And, giving the reason for his continual reminding, he added that he knew the departure from this body of his would be swift.

¹² Moreover I will be diligent that you may always have these things, and that after my departure you may keep them in remembrance. Some, taking this in a transposed order—as, I will be diligent that even after my departure you may always have (that is, daily and continually) the remembrance of these things—wish to establish from it that even after death the saints remember those here, and intercede on behalf of the living, since those who call upon their divine grace are not outside the faith that plainly sees this happening day by day. So those, in this way. But others wish to take the saying simply about this, and to understand it thus: that I will be diligent that after my departure you may always have the remembrance of these things means, for this reason I am continually pressing upon you, chanting the same things to you, that, having formed in you a habit concerning these matters—and not a condemnation of disobedience and ignorance—you may have, by the constancy and unshakableness of your grasp of them, even after my departure from life, the ordinances concerning these things sure and indelible.

¹³ For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Having said that they ought to be most earnest about the things he had preached to them, and having stretched out his discourse at length about this—though they knew it and had heard it variously—he now says: It is not in vain that I show my diligence about these things, but knowing their critical importance, I do not hold back from it. And what is this? Not to have used human wisdom toward us (or: you), and, by bewitching your hearing with embellished words, to have made known to you the power and coming of the Lord—as the Greeks and the heretics do: the Greeks, attending to beauty and to poems, deceiving; the heretics, by their fabrications. For it is likely that even then they were already beginning to spring up. Nothing of the kind, then, can be discerned among us; for with plain speech we made our teaching to you, as Paul also says to the Corinthians—and the things we held from our own eyewitness, we who went up with him on the holy mountain. He means the glory shown to them in the Transfiguration by the Only-begotten, and the voice which they heard borne from heaven by the Father on account of the Lord. And since through the events we came to know the things foretold beforehand by the prophets, we judge, he says, their prophecy the more sure through these. For the events followed upon the words. Therefore you also do well to give heed to the prophecy, that is, to the things spoken beforehand by the prophets, even if they were spoken dimly by the prophets at that time.[3]

¹⁴ For, having received from God the Father honor and glory. This he set down either in place of a finite verb—having received, for he received—since the sequel of the participle does not, by the rule of the construction of the discourse, carry the apodosis into a finite verb. Or, if not this, but if one will not here take having received as that man does, then by the participle the discourse will necessarily slip into something unconstrued; but if having received is taken as standing for the finite he received, the following clause will be consistent: as, For he received from God the Father glory.

¹⁵ When such a voice was borne to him by the majestic glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice we heard borne from heaven, being with him on the holy mountain. Not that there is any prophecy from above concerning the voice borne by the Father; but that, from the Father’s voice from above bearing witness to the Sonship, we were made firm that all the oracular utterance through the prophets refers, beyond contradiction, to him who is witnessed to by the Father. Three times we know our Lord Jesus Christ to have been witnessed as Son by the Father: at the baptism; in the Passion, in the words I have glorified it, and will glorify it again; and on the mountain.

¹⁶ And we have the prophetic word more sure, to which you do well to give heed, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn and the morning star arise in your hearts. Giving heed, he says, to these things spoken by the prophets, you will not miss the hope. For when the events come to pass each in its own season (which he also called day, persisting in the figure; for he said lamp, and a place, namely dark, which is also night)—when the day comes, that is, the coming of the events, you will have the morning star rising in your hearts; that is, the coming of Christ, foretold beforehand by the prophets, and brightening your hearts as a true light.

¹⁷ Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture comes of its own interpretation. For prophecy was never brought by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit. The prophets knew both the things they were inspired with by the prophetic Spirit and the subject of them; yet not exactly so, nor as it was fulfilled in each particular. Therefore they also desired to see the outcome, as the Lord foretold. And he explains why the prophets did not interpret the things spoken by them. And by this he also distinguishes true prophecy from the demonic and counterfeit kind, which is found also among the heretics. That no prophecy of Scripture comes of its own interpretation means this: that the prophets receive their prophecy from God, yet not as those men wish, but as the divine Spirit works; and they knew and understood the prophetic word sent down to them, yet they did not make its interpretation. And that the prophets, being worked upon by God, knew that the word is sent down to them from the divine Spirit, is plain: for they ministered willingly, and what they wished they spoke, and what they did not wish, they kept silent—which is not so with the false prophets. For these did not know in their being worked upon, but, becoming frenzied with madness, were ignorant of what they suffered, like men drunk. The holy prophets, on the contrary, although they knew, had no need to interpret their own utterances, but ministered them to others (for to us, he says, and at the same time also) that the coming of the Lord might not be hidden, nor be plotted against by the ungodly. For when plotted against, it was able to escape, through the power of the Lord. But it is likely that, the escape sometimes happening through marvelous means, what was accomplished of the Incarnation seemed prodigious. And that this is true is plain from the prophets in the New Covenant, who also interpreted themselves when prophesying—if not all of them—for there was no suspicion of any such thing in the New. But that the prophets did not utter their oracles in ecstasy is plain from this also. For since those in the Old and in the New prophesied from one Spirit, Paul says, But if anything be revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For it is clear from this that the prophets, standing in their natural state, prophesied willingly. Therefore, when another rose up inspired, the first who was speaking was permitted to be silent—which one could not find in the case of madmen. For how shall he be silent who does not even know what he is doing? And that there is an energy of the Holy Spirit in the prophets, Paul himself says, declaring, To one is given the word of wisdom, and to another prophecy.