Commentary on the Catholic Epistles 1 part 1/2

For just as men of the world, in the documents of their everyday transactions, wish to designate themselves by the ranks that belong to them, so also the apostles, at the beginning of their writings, count it worthy to designate themselves 'servants of God and of Christ.'

Accordingly, urging them onward toward the perfection that consists in courage and endurance, he fittingly calls them 'brothers,' and not 'children' or 'sons.'

Having sufficiently exhorted them to endure trials with joy, so that a proven work and perfect patience might come to be,

yet these things are brought to perfection for their own sake, and not as done for the sake of something else.

By a further admonition he undertakes to persuade them to accomplish rightly the tasks set before them, saying, on the ground of a promise, that the one who endures trial is blessed.

For he who thus contends athletically in the struggle will become a proven man, trained through all things;

and to the one who has thus shone forth out of grievous circumstances there shall be given the crown of life, prepared by God for those who love him.

Thus the one who, by enduring trial, despises hardships and even death itself, will receive the crown of eternal life in exchange for the transient life he despised.

You may inquire whether the crown of life that God has prepared for those who love him possesses any material substance—the things which God has prepared for those who love him, which, by reason of the greatness of their divinity, do not fall under sight or hearing, nor have they entered into the mere conception of man.

Since the Saviour's dictum is true, which says,

'Ask, and it shall be given you,' which he also confirms by declaring:

'Everyone who asks receives,' one might inquire how it is that some, when they pray, are not heard.

He who comes to the act of asking by the proper way, omitting nothing that contributes to obtaining what is earnestly sought, will assuredly receive what he has begged to be given him;

but if anyone, having strayed outside the aim of the asking that was handed down, appears to ask, then, not asking in the manner he ought, he does not ask at all.

Therefore, when such a one does not receive, the saying is not proved false.

For likewise, when a teacher says:

'Everyone who comes to me for the sake of learning shall have knowledge of it,' we understand 'coming to the teacher' in a precise sense—that is, together with attending closely to what comes from the teacher, along with practising and studying these things.

But to the one who does not do so, it must be said:

'You did not come to him as you were urged to.'

Making it clearer who they are that seem to ask yet do not receive, the writer of the epistle has beforehand taken up those who ask contentiously and wrongly, for the sake of vain pleasures.

And indeed some, asking for divine knowledge and for the acquisition of virtues, do not receive;

and to these also it must be said that they did not count it worthy to receive the good things for their own sake, but for the sake of being praised on account of them.

But it belongs to pleasure-lovers also to delight in praises;

wherefore to these also it is not given, since they wish to squander upon pleasures the very things concerning which they make their request.

Since vice procures friendship with the world, but virtue friendship with God, virtue and vice cannot coexist.

He who loves the world through sinning is shown to be an enemy of God;

and likewise he who confirms his friendship with God through godliness is straightway found to be an enemy of the world;

wherefore, just as it is impossible to serve God and mammon, so also it is impossible to be a friend to God and to the world.

Indeed, then, when the Lord came to make friends of God of those who obey him, he cast a sword and division upon the earth;

wherefore also he gives peace, not as the world offers it;

for the world, through the peace it gives, makes men subject to passions toward material things;

but the Lord, in bestowing peace, prepares friends of God;

so 'the world' in these passages must be understood as the sympathy toward things here below.

From Origen, out of his interpretation, on the matter of the foreknowledge of God.

For God, having foreseen the faith and conduct of men, rightly accomplished in them through the evangelical teaching, foreknowingly chose them also in Christ before the foundation of the world, then predestining them to be sons by partaking of the Spirit of adoption;

for foreknowledge is to be regarded as nothing other than the contemplation of things that shall be—which, once the things foreseen have come into existence, is no longer foreknowledge but knowledge.

Even, therefore, if those to whom Peter writes were 'elect according to foreknowledge,' yet the address is not made to them as now non-existent;

the underlying sense, therefore, casts out the myth concerning [pre-existent] natures.

If the inheritance is kept in the heavens for the faithful, certain persons hold a frigid opinion, supposing that they shall receive it in the Jerusalem below throughout a whole thousand years, imagining that they will take the prizes of the kingdom as [carnal] luxury;

and these are to be asked how they can speak of bodily luxury as incorruptible and unfading, especially since they also circumscribe it, having it cease when the millennial year is over;

in addition to these things, one must join the sayings that make plain that the inheritance is in the kingdom of the heavens, and that it does not fall under [perception] because it is intelligible and beyond the sense-perception of mortals.

Since some rank the promise and salvation of the saints who lived before the sojourning of the Saviour as inferior, supposing that those who came after it possess something more, in that they saw the Lord with the senses and the signs wrought by him, it must be shown that their supposition is mistaken.

For how is Abraham inferior to any of those after the sojourning, seeing that he beheld the day of the Lord, and that all who are perfected according to the Lord depart into his bosom? And how are Moses and Elijah inferior, who appeared in glory together with the Lord when he was transfigured, merely because they did not see the Lord with the senses? For [Scripture] does not make the one who beheld the Lord according to the flesh preferable to those who possessed the intelligible sojourning.

Indeed, many of the heterodox concur with this mistaken opinion, having a longing to slander the Old Testament by every means;

and this too shall be said: that even if they did not see or hear with the senses the things which the Lord spoke, nevertheless they had a divine yearning for them;

for 'many prophets and righteous men desired to see.'

If anyone should understand the salvation sought by the prophets to be in accordance with the End—that which is over all things and the last object of desire (for it is for its sake that all other things come to be, while it itself is for the sake of nothing)—it is not out of keeping to understand the matter before us as applying also to the holy angels and, simply put, to all the blessed rational beings, since all of them have a desire to stoop and peer into the things pertaining to the End.

If the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, what must one understand concerning the matter before us? For if it is the Father who is signified, how is he the judge who judges according to each one's work? But if the Son judges, having received all judgment, how is he the Father? To which it must be said:

if the Father and the Son are one Godhead, then when the Son judges, the Father is the one who judges;

but the Son too can be a father of those brought into being, having begotten them by a participation in holiness;

at all events, he often called his own disciples 'little children,' and to others he said—to the one:

'Child, your sins are forgiven'; and to another:

'Daughter, your faith has saved you.'

And these things refute those who sever the Godhead.

By 'the living and abiding word of God that remains forever' he means the evangelical word.

For when the Gospel says:

'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,' says the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just as the Lord, being the true light, came into the world for judgment, that he might give sight to those who were blind before his coming, but blind those who see amiss, so also, being a chosen and precious stone, he furnishes honour to those who are built upon him through faith, being shown to be their firm foundation; but to those who disobey through unbelief toward him he is not precious, but is reckoned a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, an obstacle to the builders who set him at nought;

and these are the scribes and Pharisees.

And when he says 'unto which also they were appointed,' it is not as though God had forced them into this very thing, but because they suffered this through their own wicked mind and base choice.

According to the ancient ordinance of the Law, the royal lineage was one thing and the priestly lineage another;

after that ordinance the Gospel succeeded, teaching one and the same to be both priest and king;

for Christ is both;

and these things being thus established, it is necessary that those sown by him—he being at once king and priest—should be a chosen race, being at once a royal house and a priesthood;

for since he who begot them holds both the beginnings [of rule], of necessity they too, as from a king, are royal, and, as from a priest, are a priesthood;

wherefore also they are a holy nation, having been called by him who calls, who is holy, unto 'You shall be holy.'

These same, besides being a holy nation, are also a people for [God's] possession, having come to be outside all destruction;

for possession belongs to those who are taken to oneself, not to those who are cast out.

For since those called from diverse nations and customs have cast off all diversity in taking up one mind, attending to one faith and teaching—through which soul and heart become one—they are one holy nation.

Those who, through godliness, prove worthy of obedience are fittingly styled 'beloved,' since those who are longed for on account of something human are indeed loved, yet are not truly 'beloved.'

Since, then, I am so disposed toward you, to whom I write this epistle, I exhort and urge you to abstain from the pleasures that spring up out of the flesh;

for these wage war against the soul, harboring great enmity toward it, since the substance of the soul is one thing and that of the flesh another.

By 'human institution' he means the authorities that are appointed by kings;

to these, therefore, one must be subject for the Lord's sake;

but if we are subject for the sake of the Lord who said,

'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,' then whenever they command anything contrary to the will of the Lord, let us not obey.

He does not command servants to have toward their masters that fear which is a mere passion — for such fear is irrational and exists even in irrational animals — but the fear that arises with knowledge and right reason;

For he who fears his master on account of Christ and His teaching submits to him with reverence, in contrast to the one who fears his master because of wickedness and other torments, who has a merely passionate fear;

He uses this same sense also a little later when he speaks to the wives, saying:

'beholding' — that is, the husbands — 'your chaste conduct coupled with fear';

for this usage is customary in many places of the divine Scripture.

He urges the wives to imitate the holy women, and especially Sarah, persuading them thus to be subject to their husbands as she was to Abraham, whose children he says they have also become through doing good;

wives have Sarah as their mother.

But consider the matter allegorically — how one becomes a child of Abraham and Sarah;

according to the Apostle, Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman;

then, having led them up to the two covenants, he says a little later that she was born according to the spirit, calling the Jerusalem that is above the free woman;

'Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who travailed with you';

for it is not possible to refer these things to those persons;

for how could she who many generations before had received the death owed to nature still be in travail with those who lived in the prophet's time? Hence these words must be understood as referring to the mother of those born according to the spirit, the Jerusalem that is above;

the women whom he urged, through doing good, to have Sarah as their mother.

'But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.' Just as to magnify God does not signify bringing to Him an increase of greatness, nor does to glorify Him imply conferring on Him renown from without, so neither does to sanctify the Lord signify adding holiness to Him;

which very thing we are commanded to do in our own heart;

for if we should attain an accurate apprehension of His holiness, we do not sanctify Him once for all, but rather, in our heart, from this doing, there is added to our conception of God's holiness;

in the same way also he who magnifies Him receives into himself a participation in His greatness;

'My soul doth magnify the Lord';

'O magnify the Lord with me';

in the same way, he who knows what belongs to glory glorifies himself unto Him;

these things do not seem paradoxical to one who accurately understands that God does not receive but rather bestows good things.

For we must be so prepared for the knowledge of the faith that, being at every occasion asked for an account concerning it, we may readily give answer, and in answering may display gentleness and the fear of God;

for he who speaks the word concerning God ought so to speak as if God were present.

for indeed an action is praiseworthy then, when it is carried out with reasoning;

for to think one knows something without understanding and examination brings blame;

for the knowledge of the uncomprehending is but muddled words.

When the appointed time has come to begin, the judgment of God begins to pass over from the greater to the lesser, that is, from the faithful who make up the Church of God;

if the examination of deeds done in life begins first from us who are of the house of God, what end must one suppose there is for those who have disobeyed the gospel of God? He instills much struggle and fear in the faithful, so that they may securely learn who the Judge is, before whom they must give account;

having roused these to the fear of Him, he urges on those who disobey the divine teaching, declaring that an inescapable punishment will befall such people, which he named their 'end,' as marking the limit of the disobedience they had;

rousing them still further, he says:

if the righteous man scarcely obtains salvation, what must one suppose concerning the ungodly, who because of self-condemnation are not raised up unto judgment, and concerning the sinners who do not stand up in the counsel of the righteous? For the righteous is scarcely saved, being in anguish over how he has fulfilled the judgment concerning himself;

for even if he is conscious of nothing evil in himself, yet knowing that not by this is he justified, until the Judge shall justify him, he is in anguish.

But he is one who is indeed embraced by God, yet in another respect despises and transgresses His laws;

and if, in respect of the underlying subject, the same person should be both sinner and ungodly, he will have the difference only in conception;

and it is possible for one who sins to be forthwith also ungodly, by acting impiously toward God through contempt.

'The heavens that now are, and the earth, being stored up by the same word' — this is likened to what happened at the time of the flood;

just as the world that then was perished, being flooded by the heavens and the earth, so, when the heavens and the earth are dissolved into fire, the ungodly and the sinners shall utterly perish;

and this is the point of the likeness — that they perish together in the same way as those who perished in the flood;

for 'as in the days of Noah,' says the Lord, 'they were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and took them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.' Speaking still further in confirmation that it will be so, he says that the day of judgment will come unnoticed like a thief, in which swiftly and without delay the heavens shall pass away while the elements are dissolved by the fire that is brought upon them;

after which heavens have passed away with a great noise, there will be new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness and the promises of God have their dwelling.

Or he says this on account of the resurrection of Christ, inasmuch as through Thomas it was made known to all the apostles, He having raised up this very flesh which they nailed to the cross.

Each of the created things is said 'to be' something — for instance, to be an angel, to be the sun or the heaven — but the Savior alone happens simply to Be;

by participation in whom all things come into existence.

Having first received the hearing of this according to the introductory teaching, one comes to see Him scientifically after much exercise, which is called the 'handling' concerning the word of life, which said that:

concerning Him who was in the beginning we have heard through the Law and the Prophets, that He would come;

and when He had come manifestly, we saw Him with our eyes, having not carelessly given our assent to Him who appeared in the flesh;

for after much handling on our part, searching the Scriptures that testify concerning Him, we believed the word concerning the Life.

The Life that was in the Father, having been made manifest to us, we have seen, he says — beholding it fittingly and having also heard concerning it;

bearing witness to this Life which has been made manifest, we declare also to you those things upon which it follows that you too should see it.

He writes that a message came to the disciples from the Savior Himself, declaring that God, being light, has no darkness at all in Him;

this message we bring to you also, so that you may have the same opinion concerning God among yourselves, as being light;

and God is an intelligible, eternal light;

for nothing sensible exists forever;

in contrast to this light, we must understand the darkness to be ignorance and the most base condition;

since, then, neither of the two kinds of darkness — neither ignorance nor wickedness — is in God, it is fittingly said that there is no darkness at all in Him.

But if it is said somewhere:

'darkness His hiding place,' by 'darkness' in these words is meant the obscurity that lies in incomprehensibility;

and it is possible that the obscurity is our own ignorance, not indeed that of God, who is light.

In Scripture especially, 'to know' does not always signify to be acquainted with, but also to have had experience of something and to be united to it, as in the passage:

'I never knew you, you workers of iniquity';

for 'He knew no sin' does not mean the not knowing what sin is, but the not having committed it.

He, therefore, who says he has known God — that is, has been mingled with Him and partakes of Him — has as a necessary consequence the keeping of His commandments;

both senses of 'to know' are made manifest from the passage before us.

By this we know, that is, we understand, that we have come to know Him, in that we have been united to Him and keep His commandments; for he who does not keep them is manifestly outside the knowledge of God.

For he who does not keep them is manifestly found to be outside the knowledge of God.

Being the fullness of the wisdom and truth of God, He is thus said not to know the day of judgment.

He is not diminished thereby; for neither, when Scripture speaks of God as having forgetfulness, repentance, and wrath, is the Godhead diminished.

For by the same principle by which those things are explained, the saying that He does not know the day may likewise be resolved.

For just as, in the case of God who alone is wise and possesses the knowledge of all things, there exists no forgetfulness, repentance, or any such thing according to passion, but these are said of Him by way of economy (dispensation), so too, since the wisdom and truth of God does not admit of ignorance, it is said for some useful purpose that He does not know the hour and the day of judgment.

But truly he speaks of perfect love, from which nothing evil or deceitful can separate the one who is enfolded within it.

Perhaps someone will say: how is it possible to understand that the commandment written concerning love was from the beginning and had been heard by those to whom the epistle is written?

For they were not Jews, as the conclusion of the epistle makes clear.

For he says: little children, keep yourselves from idols.

May it not then be that the commandment which is old and exists from the beginning and has been heard by all men is the friendly disposition according to the natural notions?

For all men, being by nature gentle and social creatures, love their neighbors.

Whence the Savior, stirring up this natural disposition, says:

All things therefore whatsoever you wish that men should do to you, do you likewise also to them.

So that no one should suppose that the whole system composed of heaven and earth and the things in them is here presented by the word 'world,' he explained what the things in it are, so that we too might understand accordingly.

There is therefore also that which is in it: a passionate and material disposition signified through the lust of the flesh which wars against the soul, and the desire of the eyes.

It is possible, from the foregoing, to take it also concerning the visible world as no longer being loved by those who have risen above it, in that they no longer look to the things that are temporal but to the things that are eternal.

And since those who choose to spend their time in the love of this life handle sensible things with passion, it is fittingly said that the pride of life and the lust of the flesh and of the eyes are in it.

He who despises all these will be above the world, doing the will of God by abiding forever and loving God.

He says this because, having become disciples, they departed from the truth and devised blasphemies of their own contrivance.

He who has understood scientifically concerning God that He is just according to His essence will straightway have the knowledge that from this One is begotten he who practices His righteousness;

just as he who has known Him to be sanctification gives himself over to being sanctified, knowing accurately the word:

You shall be holy, for I am holy.

And well too does he say 'doing,' but not 'having done' or 'about to do' righteousness;

for virtue, being practical, presents as just the one who is active.

No one therefore is just before the practice of it, nor is he who has ceased from acting according to it.

That God is just, Moses says:

The Lord is holy and just.

This One is the Father of the Savior:

Righteous Father, the world has not known You.

Being the Son of this One, as God from God and holy from holy, so also He is just from just.

The statement that He Himself is called righteousness does not contradict these things;

for that which is such according to essence may be called righteousness and just.

Now we are children of God, that is, according to the present life.

Since the devil, having turned aside before all others, came to be in sinning, from him is named everyone who acts sinfully;

for he takes the lead in the one who sins by the suggestion of wicked thoughts, as in the case of Judas.

But someone will say that the devil comes to be in those who sin, of those who have sinned before him, by their giving him a place;

in reply to which it must be said that to commit sin is the same as to sin by giving place to the devil;

having been led on to give him a place by desire, after receiving him, he practically accomplishes sin;

for this is what 'to commit it' signifies.

And well too does he say 'doing,' but not 'having done,' since the one who has repented is no longer of the devil, but only the one who still practices it;

for so also it is the one who is doing sin, and not the one who has done it, that is a slave of sin;

for everyone who commits sin, he says, is a slave of it.

And he adds the reason for not being able to sin, saying that His seed abides in him;

But what is the seed of God that abides upon the faithful? Is it not the visitation of the Holy Spirit, through which we were regenerated, which does not depart from us, when, according to Paul, we do not grieve by shameful deeds the Holy Spirit of God, in whom we were sealed unto the day of revelation?

For when we say that he who has righteousness cannot do wrong, we do not indicate a natural inability, such as that according to which we say the irrational animal cannot possess knowledge or any other such thing.

If everyone who commits sin is of the devil, then by so acting he is shown to be a child of the devil, just as also Elymas the magician, from being full of all guile, was known to be a son of the devil;

and since everyone who is begotten of God does not commit sin, by having in himself the seed of God, one may clearly find the one who thus does not sin to be a son of God;

I added 'to the one who sins thus,' lest anyone should quibble by saying that we set down as children of God all those who do not sin;

for infants, who do not commit sin, are not to be called children of God;

for it is from their age, and not from virtue, that they are hindered from sinning—unless we say something else, asserting that it is not sound to say of infants that they do not commit sin;

for not to sin is not the same as not to commit sin;

for the former is like a mere negation, while the latter proceeds from a disposition.

Since he who practices righteousness is begotten of God, and it follows for the one so begotten to love the brethren;

he who does not have righteousness by not practicing it, but hates his brother, is not of God;

in no other way than by not having been begotten of Him.

For no heed is to be given to those who say that these are not of God on account of an earthy nature. For by 'world' here he means wicked men.

For just as, in the manner in which, before the coming of Christ, when there were prophets of God in Judea, many happened to be feigning prophecy, so that there was need of a discerning knowledge to determine which of those saying 'Thus says the Lord' had the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, and which, moved by an evil spirit, were prophets of falsehood; so also after the sojourning of the apostles who spoke in Christ and had the Holy Spirit which the Lord gave, many false apostles were put forward by the devil, feigning the evangelical teaching.

It is necessary to have that gift of the Holy Spirit which is called the discernment of spirits, so that we may have the knowledge to test the spirits, so as to believe the one and to withstand the other.

For there arose certain persons who said that the Lord had come down from heaven in the mere appearance of a man, whose opinions the Manichaeans confirmed.

It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me, through my having received Christ Jesus living in me, through my carrying about the dying of Jesus in the body;

confessing Jesus Christ come in the flesh, not in that flesh which is His own alone, but also in mine.

The 'saying' here too must be understood in a practical sense;

for many speak with the tongue alone.

Just as it brings accusation and blame upon the one who does not choose the choiceworthy and does not love the lovable, so the writer procures praise for those who love those worthy of being loved, namely, being beloved;

But when is it possible for this to be brought about, except when the Savior takes away the sin of the world, so that the man may be shown forth, of what sort he was made by God, being demonstrated according to the likeness and image of his Maker? For thus the man, being made manifest, is at once beloved and worthy of being loved;

since therefore the Savior who was sent to the world by the Father in love toward His own works came for the manifestation of the beauty of those made according to the image of God, those who have obtained this gift are beloved, whence they love one another;

for each one has both the being beloved and the being loving, since he has the commandment to love his neighbor.

If love is of God and God is love, who could be the one who proceeds from Him but the Word Himself? If therefore anyone has love, he has Christ in himself;

God is love; this one again knows love as being from God, which is to be considered no other than the Only-begotten, being, just as God from God, so also love from love.

Those born of God, by the very fact of living rightly according to virtue, are for this reason both children of God and His friends, just as Abraham was.

He who was born of God knew this, having believed that Jesus is the Christ; not by holding a bare assent concerning the apprehension of Christ is one born of God, but by that faith to which are yoked works according to virtue;

which faith Abraham also had, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.

According to this signification we must understand the saying:

'A faithful man is hard to find.'