Epistola II B. Petri
by Anselm of Laon and his school
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/114/epistola-ii-b-petri/
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## THE ARGUMENT.

[0689A]

Simon Peter declares that the wise are dead to this world through faith, and to those same men he makes manifest, more clearly than the light itself, how great is the greatness of piety.

## CHAPTER ONE.

VERS. 1.-- *Simon. [n: (BEDA.)]* He writes this epistle to the same persons to whom he wrote the first also, etc., *as far as* they did not yield, let them not yield to the heretics.

*Servant and Apostle.* The person of the writer is commended.

*Equal. [n: (BEDA.)]* He acknowledges them as equal to himself, not on account of circumcision, but because the same grace and faith of Christ which they themselves had received, this also they exercised through works. *In justice.* This justice human [0689B] prudence did not find out, nor did the institution of the law teach it, but our Saviour showed it in the Gospel: *Unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven [n: (Matth. V)]*.

VERS. 2.-- *Grace unto you. [n: (BEDA.)]* In the first Epistle he wrote *be multiplied;* in this, *be fulfilled:* because he writes that one to beginners, this one to the more perfect. Grace is multiplied to those who advance well in this life through faith; it shall be fulfilled to those who arrive in the other life through sight. Whence he adds, *in the knowledge of God,* that is, that you may know the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent.

VERS. 3.-- *How all things. [n: (ID.)]* So may the grace of Christ be fulfilled, etc., *as far as* but he restored the weak and inglorious by his own power and glory.

[0689C]VERS. 4.-- *He hath given us most great and precious promises.* That is, eternal life, which we may obtain through the knowledge of him. Or he gave the things which he promised us, concerning the conversion of others through us, or concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit, or concerning the power of miracles.

VERS. 5.-- *Minister in faith. [n: (BEDA.)]* Not only should you flee the concupiscence of the world, etc., *as far as* lest you be soft and dissolute.

VERS. 6.-- *But in knowledge, abstinence. [n: (ID.)]* When you shall have learned to do good things, in the hope of eternal life abstain forthwith from evil things, both in thought and in deed, lest the knowledge of heavenly things go for nothing, if anyone restrain not himself from the allurements of the world.

VERS. 7.-- *But in piety. [n: (ID.)]* Bestow not the works of piety upon your adversaries with a view to any other [0689D] thing save that of brotherly love, that you may pray for them that they may be converted, who by your teaching or by rebukes are unwilling to be converted.

VERS. 8.-- *For if these things be with you,* etc. Therefore hold these things and minister them to others, because if all these things be present with you in the affection of the heart, and also abound, that is, shall have prevailed against the wars of the vices, they will not constitute you void of virtues in this world, or without fruit in the world to come.

[0690A]VERS. 9.-- *He is blind and groping with the hand. [n: (BEDA.)]* The eye designates knowledge, the hand designates work, etc., *as far as* he could not foreknow, he fell.

*Receiving forgetfulness.* When a man falls from sin into sin, he seems to have forgotten the covenant which he entered upon with God in baptism.

VERS. 10.-- *You shall not sin at any time.* That is, you shall attain unto eternal life, where you shall sin no more. Or you shall shun criminal sins, which whoever has committed shall not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ; free from which he remains, with the Lord helping, who shall have given himself over to the aforesaid virtues. But without venial sins no one can be.

VERS. 11.-- *For so. [n: (BEDA.)]* Ezechiel, speaking of the building set upon the mountain, etc., *as far as, and there shall be seen [0690B] the God of gods in Sion [n: (Psal. LXXXIII)]*.

VERS. 12.-- *I will begin always to admonish you of these things.* That there may be for you an entrance open unto the Holy of holies, again and again will I admonish you, and I shall always be at the beginning, because there shall never be an end of admonition. What therefore it is not irksome to me to repeat the oftener, let it not be burdensome to you the oftener to hear.

*And indeed knowing. [n: (BEDA.)]* Why does he wish to admonish those who know, and are confirmed? For this reason, namely, that they may exercise in works the knowledge which they have, and may guard with fixed mind the truth by whose presence they are confirmed, lest at any time through masters of error they fall away from the simplicity and chastity of the faith.

VERS. 13.-- *But it is just,* etc. Therefore I will admonish, because I judge it just, by reason of this, that the Lord graciously called [0690C] me, and confirmed me, and admonished me to confirm others, saying: *Confirm thy brethren,* to rouse you up as though sleeping unto these things foretold, being always solicitous in admonishing.

VERS. 14.-- *The putting off of my tabernacle. [n: (BEDA.)]* Beautifully he calls it not death, but a putting off, because it is so for the servants of God to pluck out the bonds of the flesh, as it is for travellers, the journey finished, to go to their own home instead of the dwelling of a tent; as it is for men set on campaign, the enemy laid low, to return to their fatherland.

VERS. 15.-- *But I will give diligence.* Because I am soon to pass over, therefore meanwhile, while I live, I will give diligence that you may frequently, namely as often as the false ones shall press upon you and shall wish to draw you away, have these things in memory [0690D] after my decease, when you shall not have me present as a teacher; not to have them in any manner whatever, but so that you may make a memorial of them by fulfilling them in work, and by teaching others.

*After the decease,* etc. The decease of the saints is so called when they go forth to meet the bridegroom.

VERS. 16.-- *For not unlearned fables,* [var: Vulg. *doctas fabulas*, "learned fables"] etc. [n: (BEDA.)] Here he touches both the pagans and the heretics. The pagans feared not to call gods whatsoever delighted them. The heretics, having received the mysteries of the true God, thereafter were zealous not to attend to the divine [0691A] Scriptures, but rather to transfer them by ill interpretation to an erroneous sense.

*But made beholders,* etc. The transfiguration of the Lord and his brightness was a sign of his resurrection and of ours. By Elias, who appeared with him, is understood the resurrection of those who were before the law. By Moses, that of those who were under the law; by Peter, and James, and John, that of those who are under grace. Or, by Moses dead, that of the dead; by the living, that of the living.

VERS. 19.-- *And we have the more firm.* What I have said to you is not fabulous, but certain, and not only declared by these signs, but also for the confirmation of our preaching we have the prophetic word of David: *The Lord said to me, Thou art my Son [n: (Psal. II)]*, etc., more firm among the other prophets, [0691B] because he prophesied of Christ more clearly than the others.

*Whereunto you do well to attend. [n: (BEDA.)]* That you may be able to have the light of knowledge, etc., *as far as* in comparison with the life to come we have need of a lamp.

VERS. 20.-- *Understanding this first.* Attend to the prophetic word, for it is from God. Which can be proved by this, that prophecy is not written in such words and in such a manner of speech as men use in their own speech, and as secular writings are composed and interpreted. And truly the utterance of the prophets is not according to their own will, or that of the hearers, but according to the will of the Holy Spirit who was speaking in them.

VERS. 21.-- *For not by human will. [n: (BEDA.)]* As it was not in the power of the prophets always to have the [0691C] spirit, always to foretell things to come: so it was not of their power that they should teach whatsoever things they would, but they spoke those things alone which they had learned from the spirit. These things are therefore said, lest anyone expound the Scriptures according to his own pleasure.



## CHAPTER II.

VERS. 1.-- *Perdition.* Deservedly do they bring perdition upon themselves who deny their Redeemer, or who preach him not such as the truth shows him, but such as they themselves feign him to be. And therefore, being strangers to the Redeemer, they look for nothing more certain than the pit.

VERS. 2.-- *The way of truth shall be blasphemed. [n: (BEDA.)]* Through the heretics the way of truth is wont to be blasphemed, not only in those whom, seduced, he associates to his own heresy, but in those also whom, through their most impure [0691D] deeds and the execrable sacrifices or mysteries which they perform, they stir up into hatred of the Christian name, while the unskilled suppose that all Christians are given over to villainies of this kind.

VERS. 4.-- *For if God spared not the angels. [n: (ID.)]* If God [spared not] the apostate angels, delivered over to the punishments of hell, etc., *as far as* they were hurried away into the depths of the abyss.

VERS. 5.-- *To the world. [n: (ID.)]* The world after the flood is the same which was before it also, etc., *as far as* the just shall receive the glory of.

VERS. 6.-- *And the cities.* These cities were in a twofold manner brought into fire, because first he reduced them to ashes by burning, together with the adjacent lands, [0692A] and when he had afterwards covered the places of the burning with the waves of the Dead Sea, he willed the surrounding region still to preserve the appearance of the ancient punishment. For there grow most beautiful fruits, which beget also in those who look upon them a desire of eating. If thou pluck them, they crumble and are dissolved into ashes, and stir up smoke as though they still burned. *Into ashes.* The fire which once punished the Sodomites signifies that the ungodly are to suffer without end. That the earth is smoking, that the most beautiful fruits have ashes within and a stench, intimates that carnal love, though it smile upon fools, yet they reserve to themselves nothing among things invisible but burning, or that the smoke of their torments may go up for ever and ever.

VERS. 7.-- *Lot oppressed. [n: (BEDA.)]* The unjust deeds and words of his neighbours tormented the just man, which, beholding, [0692B] he was not able to correct; but he himself kept himself in good works. Nor did he darken himself by the villainies seen or heard. He is likewise called just in seeing, or in hearing; because they saw nothing in him, they heard nothing of him, save what pertained to justice.

VERS. 9.-- *The unjust.* The false ones and their followers; and therefore do not follow them.

*Unto the day of judgment. [n: (BEDA.)]* Both before the day of judgment, loosed from the body, they pay their penalties, and in the judgment they look for heavier things, when they shall be tormented in body and in soul.

VERS. 11.-- *Where the angels.* There shall the unjust be tormented, where the evil angels, who before had been proud against God, and were punished thereupon, now bear not, but rather cast away, the judgment of being proud against God: which is execrable against themselves, because for it they are grievously [0692C] punished, and, terrified by the greatness of the punishments, they now desist from that judgment, to presumption [cj: *praesumptioni*; read *praesumptionis*, "of presumption"]: but these unjust ones do not yet desist. Or they shall be tortured there, that is, with God: where the angels, not good ones [cj: *non boni*; read *boni*, "the good angels"], endure not, but avenge, if anything execrable be said against them.

VERS. 13.-- *The reward of injustice. [n: (BEDA.)]* That is, punishment for evil works; and chiefly those who, while they serve the corruption of the flesh and are held by mad errors, blaspheme the conversation of the just, and cease not to detract from those who are of sound understanding.

VERS. 17.-- *These are they.* The false apostles are not to be imitated, because although they may seem useful, yet there is nothing in them but vanity and uncleanness.

VERS. 18.-- *Proud things.* Proudly saying that they are just, although it be vain, desiring carnally [0692D] and living luxuriously, they allure those who have fled a little from sins; who, though they are like unto them, yet in some measure decline their fellowship, and in some measure abstain from sins. *In the desires of the flesh,* etc. Every one is unclean who exalteth his heart, so that they who have fled a little from sins return to their own error and are zealous in luxury.

VERS. 20.-- *For if,* etc., *the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,* etc. If, fleeing the defilement both of soul and of body which the world sends in; being again entangled (as before baptism) they are overcome by those defilements, it appears that their latter things are made worse than the former: because they offend God more than before baptism, [0693A] and they shall suffer greater punishments, because the promises made in baptism are lying ones.

VERS. 22.-- *For it hath befallen them. [n: (BEDA.)]* In the Proverbs it is set down with an exposition, etc., *as far as* it makes even those tears themselves foul before the eyes of God.

## CHAPTER III.

VERS. 1.-- *Behold, this to you.* As if he should say: I have already written another Epistle for the driving back of the false ones; and that I may show you my great solicitude, behold, for the same cause I write this second Epistle also.

VERS. 2.-- *That you may be mindful.* That is, that through those Epistles you may be mindful of those words which I myself, being present, foretold to you. *Of the words,* I say, received, [0693B] *from the holy prophets* which are confirmed by the authority of the holy prophets; and that you may be mindful of the precepts of the holy *apostles:* lest you let go the precepts which the holy apostles gave you in exchange for the preaching of those false ones; and which *precepts* are also *of the Lord and Saviour* because the Lord himself, who came to save us, appointed these precepts and commanded them to be kept.

VERS. 5.-- *It is hidden. [n: (BEDA.)]* Therefore they say that all things continue in the same manner, etc., *as far as* unto the day of judgment and of the perdition of ungodly men.

VERS. 8.-- *But this one thing.* It being proved that the judgment shall truly be, he shows how effectual it shall be. If it be said to you by the false ones: You can do what you will, because so great a time remains until the day of judgment, [0693C] that from the length of time the judge will not be able to know many things; believe them not, because whatsoever can be done in a thousand years, he sees it even as that which is done in one day. If they say: In a thousand years, by repenting, you shall not obtain pardon of your offences; believe them not: because one day of true penitence avails as much unto salvation as a thousand years, as it did for the thief.

*As a thousand years. [n: (BEDA.)]* In the acknowledgment of the divine power, etc., *as far as* whence also it is rightly subjoined: [0694A] VERS. 9.-- *The Lord delayeth not.* And because he sees all things, you may believe that the Lord delays not in fulfilling his promises, because the time is not yet in which he shall fulfil the things to be fulfilled. But he therefore defers, that he may first fill up the sum of the elect which he foresaw; whence in the Apocalypse: *And it was said to them that they should rest yet a little time, until their fellow servants be filled up [n: (Apoc. VI)]*.

VERS. 10.-- *The heavens with a great violence. The heavens,* that is, the saints; if therefore there be anything in them to be purged, it shall be purged by fire.

*The elements. [n: (BEDA.)]*, of which the world consists, etc., *as far as* and through a temporal punishment, they shall be dissolved into something better.

VERS. 13.-- *But new heavens. [n: (ID.)]* He saith not, [0694B] *others,* but that the old and ancient ones are to be changed into something better, etc., *as far as* we have it also in the prophets: *The light of the lamp shall shine there no more [n: (Isa. LXV)]*. [var: Vulg. Apoc. XVIII, 23 *lux lucernae non lucebit in te amplius*, "in thee"]

VERS. 14.-- *Be diligent to be unspotted and undefiled.* These are the watchings of which it is said: *Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.* He watches who keeps himself free from defilements, who, as much as in him lies, has peace with all men, who subjects all the allurements of the flesh to the governance of the spirit, enjoying in himself a most happy peace.

VERS. 15.-- *Our brother. [n: (BEDA.)]* He says that Paul had written to them, wherein he shows, etc., *as far as* and by these may stir themselves up unto advancement.

VERS. 16.-- *Difficult things.* In the Epistles of Paul, which are perverted by the heretics, etc., *as far as* certain men loosing the [0694C] reins to luxury, and many other things, etc.

*They pervert. [n: (BEDA.)]* There is no book of the Old or of the New Testament in which the heretics have not perverted something, either by taking away, or by adding, or by changing. The one remedy for the unlearned is, with humble steadfastness, to lend an ear to the words of the doctors; which steadfastness because the heretics have not, they are lifted out of the Church by the wind of pride like light chaff, unto their own perdition.
