The
MOFFATT
NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY
Based on The New Translation by the
REV. PROFESSOR JAMES MOFFATT, D.D. (Oxon)
and under his Editorship
THE GENERAL EPISTLES
The Moffatt
New Testament Commentary
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THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
BY THEODORE H. ROBINSON, M.A., D.D.
THE GENERAL EPISTLES BY JAMES MOFFATT, D.D.
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BY W. MANSON, D.D., NEW COLLEGE,
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THE
GENERAL EPISTLES
JAMES, PETER, AND JUDAS
BY
JAMES MOFFATT
D.D. (Oxon), LL.D., D.Litt.
Washburn Professor of Church History
Union Theological Seminary
New York
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EDITOR’S PREFACE
EVERYMAN’S NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY
The aim of this commentary is to bring out the religious meaning and message of the New Testament writings. To do this, it is needful to explain what they originally meant for the communities to which they were addressed in the first century, and this involves literary and historical criticism; otherwise, our reading becomes unintelligent. But the New Testament was the literature of the early church, written out of faith and for faith, and no study of it is intelligent unless this aim is kept in mind. It is literature written for a religious purpose. ‘These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.’ That is the real object of the New Testament, that Christians might believe this better, in the light of contemporary life with its intellectual and moral problems. So with any commentary upon it. Everything ought to be subordinated to the aim of elucidating the religious content, of showing how the faith was held in such and such a way by the first Christians, and of making clear what that faith was and is.
The idea of the commentary arose from a repeated demand to have my New Testament
translation explained; which accounts for the fact that this translation has been
adopted as a convenient basis for the commentary. But the contributors
As everyman has not Greek, the commentary has been written, as far as possible, for the Greekless. But it is based upon a first-hand study of the Greek original, and readers may rest assured that it represents a close reproduction of the original writers’ meaning, or at anyrate of what we consider that to have been. Our common aim has been to enable everyman to-day to sit where these first Christians sat, to feel the impetus and inspiration of the Christian faith as it dawned upon the minds of the communities in the first century, and thereby to realize more vividly how new and lasting is the message which prompted these New Testament writings to take shape as they did. Sometimes people inside as well as outside the church make mistakes about the New Testament. They think it means this or that, whereas its words frequently mean something very different from what traditional associations suggest. The saving thing is to let the New Testament speak for itself. This is our desire and. plan in the present commentary, to place each writing or group of writings in its original setting and allow their words to come home thus to the imagination and conscience of everyman to-day.
The general form of the commentary is to provide a running comment on the text,
instead of one broken up into separate verses. But within these limits, each contributor
has been left free. Thus, to comment on a gospel requires a method which is not
precisely the same as that necessitated by
James Moffatt.
THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES
INTRODUCTION
THE epistle of St. James is a pastoral or homily addressed to Christians in general
(see on
It was addressed to churches which were still governed by presbyters; they and teachers are the only officials mentioned, and the lack of any reference to bishops proves that it was either written prior to the development marked by Ignatius, or composed for communities which were as yet unaffected by the change to a monarchical episcopate. One country which would answer to this is Egypt, and there are some minor indications that point to an Egyptian origin for James, e.g. the use of Alexandrian books like Sirach and Wisdom, and the fact that the first author to quote it is Origen.
Even Origen shows hesitation about citing it as canonical, and down to the fourth century its place in the N.T. canon was both limited and disputed. Thus Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. ii. 33) records the opinion that it was composed by James the brother of Jesus, but adds candidly, ‘I must observe that it is considered spurious. Certainly not many writers of antiquity have mentioned it.’ Evidently there was no tradition linking it to the apostle James; indeed the western Church seems to have ignored it altogether until the second half of the fourth century. Jerome believed it was the work of the apostle James, but he records another, older view that it was pseudonymous, ‘ab alio quodam sub nomine eius edita, licet paulatim tempore procedente obtinuerit auctoritatem.’ There are still critics who maintain this theory, although it is not easy to see why a writer who desired to float his tract under the flag of the apostle James did not make more , use of the apostolic name and prestige.
The alternative theories are (a) that it was really written by the apostle James,
either before or after St. Paul, or (b) that it was composed by some teacher of
the church called James, of whom we know nothing. The latter upon the whole meets
the facts of the case adequately; it is no longer needful to discuss the hypothesis
that the tract was originally a Jewish document, interpolated by a Christian in
And its merits are marked. James, as Zahn remarks, ‘is a preacher who speaks like a prophet . . . in language which for forcibleness is without parallel in early Christian literature, excepting the discourses of Jesus.’ The style is pithy and terse, often aphoristic; in 108 verses there are no fewer than 54 imperatives. This corresponds to the spirit of the writer. He has met Christians who—
His arguments and appeals are directed against abuses of popular
Christianity as it developed in circles where worldliness was infecting the faith,
and where misconceptions of belief were prevalent. There is no problem of Jew and
Christian present to his mind; it is only a misinterpretation of passages like
The homily begins with five paragraphs loosely strung; upon the thread of trial
or temptation (
The tone of its advice and the very structure of its paragraphs recall the gnomic
Hellenistic literature. For it is plain that the writer’s mind is steeped in the
teaching of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon, two products of Egyptian Judaism,
which were much read by primitive Christians. Sirach may have been known to Jesus
himself; at anyrate, it was familiar to the authors of the gospels, and perhaps
to Paul; sometimes it even was included among the canonical scriptures. As for
the Wisdom of Solomon, it was probably known to Paul. In the Muratorian canon of
the second century (an Egyptian list of N.T. scriptures) it is ‘accepted in the
catholic church’ along with the epistle of Judas and two of the Johannine epistles.
The homily of James shows us on every page how instinctively the writer drew upon
these books for his exposition of the Christian wisdom or practical philosophy of life.
Twice in literature James has been robbed of his due. Elijah was a man with a
nature just like our own. Pascal cites this in his Pensées. Thus ‘dit saint Pierre,’
he observes, ‘pour désabuser les Chrétiens de cette fausse idée qui nous fait rejeter
l’exemple des saints, comme disproportionné à
God grant me grace to glorify my God!
And first I say it is a grievous case,
Many so dote upon this bubble world,
Whose colours in a moment break and fly,
They care for nothing else. What saith St. John:
‘Love of this world is hatred against God’?
But it was James, not St. John, who wrote, The world’s friendship means enmity to God.
THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES
The salutation or address is shorter than any other in the N.T. letters, closer to the form commonly employed in ordinary correspondence.
1 James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: greeting.
Three features in this address are singular. (a) Paul calls himself or is called
in the addresses of his epistles sometimes ‘a servant of Jesus Christ’ (or ‘of
Christ Jesus’), or ‘a servant of God,’ while Judas calls himself ‘a servant of
Jesus Christ,’ but a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ is unique. Any Christian
might be termed a servant of God, but it was applied to outstanding personalities
like prophets. Here servant has its general religious sense (see on
However, by playing on the word, he introduces his first counsel (
2 Greet it as pure joy, my brothers, when you come across any sort of trial, 3 sure that the sterling temper of your faith produces endurance; 4 only, let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect.
2
Greeting and greet as (a reason for) pure joy are an attempt to bring out the
play on words in the original, where the
But James strikes an heroic note. He assumes, or rather he calls upon his readers
to be sure to realize, that character is the chief concern; it is so for God and
it must be so for His People, not outward calm or prosperity, but the inward ripening
of the soul, the relationship of man to God. You will then rejoice, with a kind
of stern cheerfulness or satisfaction, in whatever forwards that, however trying
the dealings and discipline of God may be. For trial advances the interests of the
soul, if it be bravely and faithfully undergone. But all depends on how we take
it or think of it. James (
The divine reward is explained later, in
and through his endurance set on the way to be a ripened character, with never a defect.
This is the ideal. But in real life some may not always
5 Whoever of you is defective in wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all men without question or reproach, and the gift will be his. 6 Only, let him ask in faith, with never a doubt; for the doubtful man is like surge of the sea whirled and swayed by the wind; 7, 8that man need not imagine he will get anything from God, double-minded creature that he is, wavering at every turn.
5
Wisdom throughout this homily is the insight which enables a Christian to understand
and practise and advance the religious life that is in keeping with the law of God.
James does not use the term and idea in connexion with God’s work in creation and
providence, or as a medium of revelation, as the Wisdom literature does; for him
it is purely a human endowment, which comes from God but which operates in human
life, i.e. in the common life of the Christian Church
6
The prayer of faith (see
8
Wavering or unstable is often illustrated by a sea-simile. Thus the Greek orator
Demosthenes (De Falsa Legatione 383) calls democracy wavering and compares its shifting,
un-reliable policy to winds at sea. It is perhaps an undesigned coincidence that
the rebuke of Jesus to the disciples, ‘Where is your faith?’ (in
Up to this point the line of thought is unbroken. Whenever you encounter
trials,
treat them as opportunities. ‘Calamity is the occasion for valour,’ said Seneca
(De Providentia 4);
‘great souls sometimes rejoice in adversities, much as brave soldiers rejoice
in wars.’ Christians, says James, always ought to meet troubles in this heroic spirit.
But do not, he adds, shut up the lesson-book of endurance too soon, as though you
had learned all the lessons God meant you to acquire; and recollect that as ‘to
know God is complete righteousness’ (
9
9 Let a brother of low position exult when he is raised; 10 but let one who is
rich exult in being lowered; for the rich will
9
When some man of obscure position, like the
poor man in
But James has more to say about the opposite case of a rich man who has become
a Christian brother, perhaps after visiting the church (
10
And he is safer so, James adds. For the rich (i.e. the wealthy man who is
bound up with his wealth, the unconverted worldly man of property) is to meet a
swift, complete doom. In
James now adds another pendant, resuming the subject of trial (
12 Blessed is he who endures under trial; for when he has stood the test, he will gain the crown of life which is promised to all who love Him. 13 Let no one who is tried by temptation say, ‘My temptation comes from God’; God is incapable of being tempted by evil and he tempts no one. 14 Everyone is tempted as he is beguiled and allured by his own desire; 15 then Desire conceives and breeds Sin, while Sin matures and gives birth to Death. 16 Make no mistake about this, my beloved brothers: 17 all we are given is good, and all our endowments are faultless, descending from above, from the Father of the heavenly lights, who knows no change of rising and setting, who casts no shadow on the earth. 18 It was his own will that we should be born by the Word of the truth, to be a kind of first fruits among his creatures. 19 Be sure of that, my beloved brothers.
12
Blessed is he who endures is a reminiscence of the beatitude for the latter
days in
13
So much for trial cheerfully and courageously borne. But hardship is apt to
start questions in the mind; it makes some people think, and think unfairly about
God, as if He were to blame for the temptations to disloyalty stirred by trial.
If trial involves probation, does it mean that God puts temptation deliberately
in the way of man, or that He tries him too severely? When outward hardship rouses
some inward impulse to give way, a man heavily tried by temptation may seek to excuse
his weakness in yielding by putting the responsibility upon God;
‘this temptation,
which is too hard for me, comes from God.’ Paul had met a similar objection in
In the Imitatio Christi (i. 13) the rise of temptation is thus described: ‘First there comes to mind a simple thought, then a strong imagination, afterwards
delight and an evil movement and assent.’ This corresponds to what James means by
illicit desire, the imagination toying with a forbidden
15 idea, and then issuing in a decision of the will. The results of this embrace
of evil are depicted graphically (Milton’s famous expansion is in Paradise Lost,
ii. 648 f.). James
James contrasts the periodic changes in luminaries like the
We have been born anew, James concludes, to be a kind of first fruits among his
creatures. The Greek term aparchê might mean ‘gift’ or ‘sacrifice,’ but not here; it is an archaic biblical phrase for ‘the pick of creation,’ Christians being
the choicest product of the divine creative purpose in the world. Philo could speak
of the Jews as being ‘set apart from the entire human race as a kind of first fruits
to their Maker and Father’ (De Spec. Leg., iv. 6), and James takes over the honour
for Christians as the real ‘twelve tribes’ of the Lord, in whom the divine purpose
was to be realized in its choicest form. There is no allusion here to these Christians
being the first of many to follow; it is the supreme honour of their position,
the superlative rank of their relationship to God, not any primacy in order of succession,
which is implied in first fruits. James does imply, of course, that they must live
up to their exalted destiny from above; he is about to urge this in his next paragraph.
Here he mentions their privilege in order to prove the lofty character of the God
to whom some were being tempted to do less than justice as they felt their own weakness
under the trials of
But the regenerating Word requires our co-operation: we have a duty towards
the Word (
19 Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to talk, slow to be angry—20 for human anger does not promote divine righteousness; 21 so clear away all the foul rank growth of malice, and make a soil of modesty for the Word which roots itself inwardly with power to save your souls. 22 Act on the Word, instead of merely listening to it and deluding yourselves. 23 For whoever listens and does nothing, is like a man who glances at his natural face in a mirror; 24 he glances at himself, goes off, and at once forgets what he was like. 25 Whereas he who gazes into the faultless law of freedom and remains in that position, proving himself to be no forgetful listener but an active agent, he will be blessed in his activity. 26 Whoever considers he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, his religion is futile. 27 Pure, unsoiled religion in the judgment of God the Father means this: to care for orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself from the stain of the world.
19
The three opening counsels are common in ancient social ethics, and the following
sentences are strung more or less closely upon them. Anger or bad temper is the
theme of
21
Clear away is the same word as that rendered in Peter
off with, and both
writers denounce virulent malice, though James does not contrast it with Christian
love. Human anger, he begins, a man’s animosity or irritation against his fellow-Christians,
does not promote either in himself or in other people divine righteousness, i.e.
the divine goodness and character, the devout life as lived under the scrutiny and
standards of God, in fact the high purpose spoken of in
The Greek term rendered ‘engrafted’ in the A.V. originally meant ‘innate,’
but this meaning is impossible here; an innate or inborn Word cannot be received.
James gave it the sense of ‘engrafted’ or which roots itself inwardly, that being
the property of the divine revelation. There was an affinity between God’s saving
truth and the human nature; the seed suited the soil. But the seed was not innate
in the soil; it entered into the soil, and had to be inwrought, as it were, or
developed by a moral process. Here, as in
Be quick to listen was a common ethical maxim which
We see time’s furrows in another’s brow,
And death entrenched, preparing his assault,
How few themselves in that just mirror see!
25
Whereas in closely examining the divine Word—a more ‘just mirror’ than
that which ought to reveal to us any physical change and decay in our own natures,
we win eternal profit. He who gazes with concentrated attention on this Mirror of
the Word and remains in that position perseveringly, thereby proves himself to be
no forgetful hearer but an active agent (literally ‘a doer of work’). How? The
figure of
This is the second beatitude of James. The first was pronounced on the passive
mood of life (
26
Slow to talk suggests another form of self-deception, that of the religious
worshipper who considers he is religious because he attends service and listens
to the Word, and yet does not bridle his tongue. This was a flagrant temptation
of teachers in the church, and James returns to it in
In
The second expression of true religion is personal purity, the
world being used
as in
The thought of religion as worship, indeed as public worship, now suggests a
word against another danger of religious services (
ii.
1 My brothers, as you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Glory, pay no servile regard to people. 2 Suppose there comes into your meeting a man who wears gold rings and handsome clothes, and also a poor man in dirty clothes; 3 if you attend to the wearer of the handsome clothes and say to him, ‘Sit here, this is a good place,’ and tell the poor man, ‘You can stand,’ or ‘Sit there at my feet,’ 4 are you not drawing distinctions in your own minds and proving that you judge people with partiality?
1
The Christian religion has hitherto been called
The Word or The Word of truth or The faultless law of freedom; here it is more explicitly
belief in the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the divine Glory—a striking term for Christ as the full manifestation
of the divine presence and majesty. The Jews called this the shekinah; thus one
contemporary rabbi
Belief in Christ is incompatible with any social favouritism. Yet it is combined
with such servile regard to certain persons in public worship as James proceeds
to describe in vivid words. As Christians had no church-buildings at this period, 2 their place of meeting
was usually some large room in the house of a wealthy member
or a hall hired for the purpose (
Instead of arguing that this is out of keeping with the character of God, who
is ‘no respecter of persons,’ James declares that this truckling to the wealthy
is contrary to the estimate of God (
5 Listen, my beloved brothers; has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the realm which he has promised to those who love him? 6 Now you insult the poor. Is it not the rich who lord it over you and drag you to court? 7 Is it not they who scoff at the noble Name you bear?
5
Poor people have a rich calling from God. James, for whom, as for some of the
psalmists, ‘poor’ is practically synonymous with ‘pious’ and ‘rich’ with ‘
impious,’ insists that they are far more likely to become Christians than the rich
visitors to the congregational worship; possibly he recalled, though he does not
quote, the beatitude of Jesus on the poor, or a word like that preserved in
The next paragraph is addressed to an objection which James anticipates (
8 If you really fufil the royal law laid down by scripture, You must love your neighbour as yourself, well and good; 9 but if you pay servile regard to people, you commit a sin, and the Law convicts you of transgression. 10 For whoever obeys the whole of the Law and only makes a single slip, is guilty of everything. 11 He who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not kill. Now if you do not commit adultery but if you kill, you have transgressed the Law. 12 Speak, act, as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom; 13 for the judgment will be merciless to the man who has shown no mercy—whereas the merciful life will triumph in the face of judgment. iv. 11 Do not defame one another, brothers; he who defames or judges his brother defames and judges the Law; and if you judge the Law, you pass sentence on it instead of obeying it. 12 One alone is the legislator, who passes sentence; it is He who is able to save and to destroy; who are you, to judge your neighbour?
8
Like Paul (
But James is now passing away from the special case of invidious partiality with
which he started, and dealing with the general question of harshness inside the
Christian community. The illustration of callous conduct towards a poor visitor
to the service is now dropped; he takes broader ground in attacking the unmerciful
spirit, the censoriousness and hard temper, of which such conduct is one expression. 10
‘A sin perhaps, but only one breach of the Law,’ is the plea lo met (in vers.
but by more than damning such offences; they may complacently point to their freedom from one sin as condoning some lapse in another direction, or hold that obedience to certain primary laws is as good as obedience to the whole.
11
James selects as examples of this two precepts of the decalogue singled out
by Jesus (in
Two considerations are put forward. (a) The law of freedom is not laxity but
a strict ethical rule of God, and we shall be judged by our adherence to its supreme
principle of brotherly love or mercy, i.e. compassion for the sins and sufferings
of our fellows. This had been already urged, in
The second consideration (b) is that the unbrotherly spirit is a piece of arrogant
presumption towards the Law of God. At some early period the passage was misplaced; its proper and original position is here, not in
The latter is plain, the former is not so clear at first. To
defame one another is the sin of slander denounced in
Who are you (the stern question comes, to which there is no answer), to judge your neighbour and encroach thus on the function of his God and yours?
The next paragraph (
ii.
14
My brothers, what is the use of anyone declaring he has faith, if he has no deeds to show? Can his faith save him? 15 Suppose some brother or sister is ill-clad and short of daily food; 16 if any of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace! Get warm, get food,’ without supplying their bodily needs, what use is that? 17 So faith, unless it has deeds, is dead in itself.
14
Act on the Word, be an active agent, speak, act. James has already touched
this string; he now strikes some resonant chords from it. Faith for him is religious
belief’ in the Christian revelation, in. the unity of God (
No pious sentiments or talk avail.
15
In
He now meets curtly an objection to his view (
18
Someone will object, ‘And you claim to have faith!’ Yes, and I claim to have deeds as well; you show me your faith without any deeds, and I will show you by my deeds what faith is. 19 You believe in one God? Well and good. So do the devils, and they shudder. 20 But will you understand, you senseless fellow, that faith without deeds is dead?
18
James overhears an objector retorting, ‘And you claim to have faith, you
who talk so highly of deeds! What do you know of religious belief?’ The reply
is that the two are a unity; Yes, James answers his critic, ‘I do claim to have
faith and I claim to have deeds as well—which is more than you can do!
I can show
you by my deeds what faith is, the genuine religious belief which always comes out
in living obedience to the will of God. (This is the equivalent in James for Paul’s
word on faith active in love; both writers are agreed that the first thing to do
with faith is to live by it.) But can you show me your faith without any deeds?
You cannot, he implies. All you can produce is a declaration or profession of faith,
a mere statement. 19 Let me cross-examine you on it: You believe in one God? Well
and good; it is the fundamental article of the creed, this monotheism; but
such religious belief, devoid of any deeds, lifts you no higher than the devils
or daemons. They believe in one God too, James ironically adds (recalling an old
Orphic phrase, see on
He does not pursue the subject further; with a touch of 20 scorn for the
senseless, empty-headed defender of a purely formal religious belief, he turns to show him
two classical
21
When our father Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar, was he not justified by what he did? 22 In his case, you see, faith co-operated with deeds, faith was completed by deeds, 23 and the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham believed God, and this was counted to him as righteousness—he was called God’s friend. 24 You observe it is by what he does that a man is justified, not simply by what he believes. 25 So too with Rahab the harlot. Was she not justified by what she did, when she entertained the scouts and got them away by a different road?
21
Abraham is our father, the ancestor of all true Christians; real believers
are sons of Abraham. Paul had said this in a different connexion already (
23
In some early manuscripts of
25
Like the author of Hebrews (
Two final applications follow, one in
26 For as the body without the breath of life is dead, so faith is dead without deeds. iv. 17Whoever, then, knows to do what is right to do and does not do it, that is a sin for him.
ii.
26
Again, as in the previous paragraphs (
17 The second sentence clinches the whole argument
of
Sins of speech: the might and mischief of the human tongue; this is the theme
of
iii.
1
My brothers, do not swell the ranks of the teachers; remember, we teachers will be judged with special strictness. 2 We all make many a slip, but whoever avoids slips of speech is a perfect man; he can bridle the whole of the body as well as the tongue. 3 We put bridles into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, and so, you see, we can move the whole of their bodies. 4 Look at ships, too; for all their size and speed under stiff winds, they are turned by a tiny rudder wherever the mind of the steersman chooses. 5a So the tongue is a small member of the body, but it can boast of great exploits.
1
The churches addressed by James had teachers, of whom he was one, as well as
presbyters (
These were fairly common metaphors in ancient ethical
5a writings. The uncommon touch comes at the close:
so the tongue, small as
it is, can boast of great exploits. Alas, they are often great disasters, the
exploits
of a mischievous force in human life! For imperfect men suffer cruelly from this
pernicious and untameable organ of the body, as James now proceeds to describe (
5b
What a forest is set ablaze by a little spark of fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, the tongue proves a very world of mischief among our members, staining the whole of the body and setting fire to the round circle of existence with a flame fed by hell. 7 For while every kind of beast and bird, of creeping animals and creatures marine, is tameable and has been tamed by mankind, 8 no man can tame the tongue—plague of disorder that it is, full of deadly venom!
5b
The forest-fire metaphor is familiar enough in ancient
literature; Euripides in a fragment of his lost play on Ino, compares the
incautious blabbing of a secret
to a spark catching hold of a forest, but James probably means the spread of angry
passions stirred by some ill-judged, angry 6 word.
Staining the body recalls the phrase about the foul nature of malice in
In one wisdom-passage on burning words (
9
With the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with the tongue we curse
men made in God’s likeness; 10 blessing and cursing stream from the same lips!
My brothers, this ought not to be. 11 Does a fountain pour out fresh
water and brackish from the same hole? 12 Can a fig
9
To be consistent we should bless not only God but our fellow-men as
made in God’s likeness. Sirach (
In the Wisdom literature (e.g. in
13
Who among you is wise and learned? Let him show by his good conduct, with the modesty of wisdom, what his deeds are. 14 But if you are cherishing bitter jealousy and rivalry in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on that—and be false to the truth. 15 That is not the wisdom which comes down from above, it is an earthly wisdom, sensuous, devilish; 16 for wherever jealousy and rivalry exist, there disorder reigns and every evil. 17 The wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, forbearing, conciliatory, full of mercy and wholesome fruit, unambiguous, straight-forward; 18 and the peacemakers who sow in peace reap righteousnesss.
‘In all (modes of) wisdom there is fulfilment of the Law, 13
but to be learned in wickedness is not wisdom’ (
The modesty (see
17
Wisdom originally and essentially was the knowledge of duties and dangers
in the moral life, as revealed in the law of God, and as this study was directed
to practical ends, it involved practical qualities in those who professed to teach
it. The bearing of pure here is best seen in the use made of the verb in
‘But how speak of peace to you,’ James tells his
churches, ‘you wrangling, worldly crew? To your knees before God!’ The thunder
of this call to repentance rolls through
iv.
1
Where do conflicts, where do wrangles come from, in your midst? Is it not from these passions of yours that war among your members? 2 You crave, and miss what you want; you envy and covet, but you cannot acquire: you wrangle and fight—you miss what you want because you do not ask God for it; 3 you do ask and you do not get it, because you ask with the wicked intention of spending it on your pleasures. 4 (Wanton creatures! do you not know that the world’s friendship means enmity to God? Whoever, then, chooses to be the world’s friend, turns enemy to God. 5 What, do you consider this is an idle word of scripture?’ He yearns jealously for the spirit he set within us.) 6 Yet he gives grace more and more: thus it is said,
but to the humble he gives grace.
1
‘The body,’ says Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo
(66), ‘fills us with desires
and cravings . . . it is nothing but the body with its passions that is the cause
of conflicts and factions and wrangles’; he explains that the conflicts of war
are invariably due to material cravings. James also finds that the feuds by which
Christians were being torn are manifestations of something wrong within. But he
is not referring to military wars. What are conflicts and wrangles? The latter
in Greek could mean disputes or pitched battles over doctrine, and this would carry
on the argument of the previous paragraph against the factions and quarrels of
Christians, especially
2
Crave is quite general; the rendering ‘lust’ is too narrow. There are legitimate cravings for outward things, and if people miss their objects of desire, it does not follow that this is because they are bad, and therefore withheld by God. James comes back to this in a minute. Meantime, in breathless haste, he turns to selfish cravings. The text is obscure, perhaps corrupt. At an early period one word at anyrate was misread by copyists. The traditional text read kill (phoneuete), which cannot by any reasonable interpretation yield a relevant meaning; after kill, covet is a hopeless anticlimax. Erasmus was the first to guess that the original word must have been envy (phthoneuete). Envying and coveting the possessions or position of others fail; you cannot acquire what you want. Why this was so, James does not explain. Perhaps these people had not power to carry out their insurgent demands for a larger share of outward goods. Still, they seethed with the longings of unsatisfied desire and envious greed. You wrangle and fight, doing your best to acquire this or that, under the sway of these imperious inward cravings.
3
Here the text is broken, or James breaks off. ‘Try prayer to God,’ is his
next word. ‘But we do pray.’ ‘Yes, but you pray with a selfish, worldly motive,
which prevents your prayers being answered.’ This is the second reason which James
offers for unanswered prayer (the first being in
This is the drift of
5
The fifth verse is extremely obscure. James had hailed
For the third time James cites inspired scripture explicitly (
6
Now James resumes the thought of
7
Well then, submit yourselves to God:
resist the devil,
and he will fly from you:
8
draw near to God,
and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
8
Lament and mourn and weep,
let your laughter be turned to mourning,
and your joy to depression;
10
humble yourselves before the Lord,
and then he will raise you up.
7
Submissiveness to God instead of any jaunty self-confidence! Some circles
in the early church were perplexed by wondering if post-baptismal sins on the part
of Christians could be forgiven. Could any such sins be pardoned by God? If so,
what sins, and how? James, with practical good sense, ignores this difficulty,
and falls back simply on the duty and blessing of repentance. Resist the devil
in
10
James closes with the same assurance as Peter (
Now for a special case of the pursuit of worldly gain which has just been exposed
(
13
Come now, you who say, ‘To-day or to-morrow we are going to such and such a city; we shall spend a year there trading and making money’—14 you who know nothing about to-morrow! For what is your life? You are but a mist, which appears for a little and then vanishes. 15 You ought rather to say, ‘If the Lord will, we shall live to do this or that.’ 16 But here you are, boasting in your proud pretensions! All such boasting is wicked.
Both this and the next paragraph open with the brusque 13 Come now. These busy Greek
traders have to make plans. James does not censure such foresight; what he denounces
is their habit of ignoring God. Say is of course ‘say to yourselves,’ and the religious
attitude of James is that of
15
If the Lord will had been used by Paul (in
Rich landowners are next attacked (
v.
1 Come now, you rich men, weep and shriek over your impending miseries!
3b You have been storing up treasure in the very last days;
2 your wealth lies rotting,
and your clothes are moth-eaten;
3a your gold and silver lie rusted over,
and their rust will be evidence against you,
it will devour your flesh like fire.
4 See, the wages of which you have defrauded the workmen who mowed your fields call out,
and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.
5 You have revelled on earth and plunged into dissipation;
you have fattened yourselves as for the Day of slaughter;
6 you have condemned, you have murdered the righteous—unresisting.
1
As in
3b
The next clause got displaced at an early period, and must be recovered from
4
The second charge is fraudulent treatment of their farm-labourers. The Mosaic
code ordered the wages to be paid every evening: ‘You must pay him his wages by
the day, nor let the sun go down upon it (for the man is poor and he wants his wages),
lest he cries to the Eternal against you and you incur guilt’ (
So much for the second charge. The third is wanton luxury, with its social cruelty
(5, 6). Your dissipated self-indulgence has been merely preparing you, like the
fatted cattle in your stalls, for the Day of slaughter. The phrase was coined by
Jeremiah (
The righteous is singular in Greek, the generic singular representing the class
of those who are poor because they are pious—a usage stereotyped in the Wisdom
literature, which often handled the question. A passage which probably was in the
mind of James is the famous determination of the ungodly in
Unresisting (literally, ‘and he does not resist’) is a vivid climax; the helplessness
of the victims aggravates the guilt of their oppressors. Like the defrauded labourers,
these poor folk had no means of redress, so far as earth was concerned, and they
submitted without a murmur to the suffering. But wait a little, James adds (
7 Be patient, then, brothers, till the arrival of the Lord. See how the farmer
waits for the precious crop of the land, biding his time patiently till he gets
the autumn and the spring rains; 8 have patience yourselves, strengthen your hearts,
for the arrival of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not murmur against one another, brothers,
lest you are judged; 10 look, the Judge is standing at the very door!
7
A word of encouragement to Christians (brothers) who are still being badly
treated in these and other ways. James stirs no class-feeling, e.g. of labourers
against their unjust employers; leave the wealthy oppressors to God’s imminent
vengeance on their cruelty. The religious attitude is what concerns him. The rightful
spirit for the righteous in the circumstances, with the arrival of the Lord
(explained on
10
Then, from warning, James swings back to encouragement (
This is the most permanent and profound thought of the whole passage; patient
endurance can sustain itself on the conviction that hardships are not meaningless,
but that God has some end or purpose in them which He will accomplish, if sufferers
only are brave enough to hold fast to Him (so
James had offered an illustration of this from the farmer’s attitude to the slow processes of nature, but he reaches deeper in appealing to what his friends had heard read aloud in the lessons from the O.T. during worship, proving that trial was no new thing in the religious life, and that no one who trusted in God had ever been confounded.
Against oaths (
12 Above all, my brothers, never swear an oath, either by heaven or by earth or by anything else; let your ‘yes’ be a plain ‘yes,’ your ‘no’ a plain ‘ no,’ lest you incur judgment.
12
A puzzling fragment, on one sin of the tongue, which James seems to regard
as specially serious. Above all was a formula which generally came in as a letter
was drawing to its end (see
Jews had various forms of swearing; for superstitious reasons they avoided the
name of God, but swore freely by heaven or by earth or otherwise, though moralists
had already protested against the abuse of such oaths. Thus Sirach (
Still dealing with the use of the tongue in the religious life, he passes on
to give some advice about prayer (
13 Is anyone of you in trouble? let him pray. Is anyone thriving? let him sing praise.
14 Is anyone ill? let him summon the presbyters of the church, and let them pray over him,
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 the prayer of faith will
restore the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; even the sins he has committed
will be forgiven him. 16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another,
that you may be healed: the prayers of the righteous. have a powerful effect. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature just like our own; but he offered prayer that
it might not rain, and for three
13
To be in trouble is the verb corresponding to the noun underlying fortitude
in
James adds, in passing, to complete the picture: And let anyone who is thriving, in good spirits, sing praise to God. Prayer and song are our means of communicating with God. Praise is the sound which ought to rise from a cheerful, prosperous life. Elsewhere in the N.T. the word to sing praise refers to public worship, and always, if the usage in classical Greek and in the Greek O.T. be decisive, to songs with a musical accompaniment. But the use of a musical instrument is not bound up with the verb, and in the case of an individual is less likely.
14
One form of trouble is illness, and we now have a word on the functions of
prayer at the sick-bed. Social oppression is to be endured, but James believed that
some trials could be removed, and among them illness. The sickness of a believer
is not a merely physical trouble; neither is it a purely individual
James describes a curious custom in the churches which he knew, of employing
oil, not by the hands of a doctor but as a religious rite of therapeutic power.
While prayer is the decisive factor in the cure, the presbyters are not only to
pray over the patient but to smear his body with oil, pronouncing the sacred name
of the Lord, i.e. ‘Jesus,’ which was supposed to have potent efficacy in working
cures. Oil was a well-known medical remedy in the East, but this is a religious
rite of unction, neither mere faith-healing nor purely medical therapeutic. The
only other reference to the custom is, in one tradition about a mission of the disciples
during the lifetime of Jesus (
Now, in the primitive church this was openly done as a rule, before the congregation.
The earliest manual of church practice prescribes: ‘you must confess your sins
in church, and not betake yourself to prayer with a bad conscience’ (Didaché iv.),
and again that confession of sins must precede the communion service (xiv.). Clement
of Rome (lvii.) tells the insubordinate members at Corinth that they must ‘submit
to the presbyters and be schooled to repentance.’ The context of this admonition
of James points to the same practice. To a sick person, unable to attend worship,
the visiting presbyters represent the church; they listen to the patient’s confession,
and after prayer for his recovery pronounce over him the assurance of God’s pardon.
James is speaking to presbyters and other members about their respective duties,
when he says Confess . . . pray. It is in line with the functions assigned here to
presbyters that in the English Prayer Book, before the communion
In this second word (
Another trace of the Jewish tradition which James follows
A last word of encouragement in the task of restoring lapsed Christians (
19 My brothers, if any one of you goes astray from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 understand that he who brings a sinner back from the error of his way saves his soul from death and hides a host of sins.
19
According to Polykarp (see above, on
So the homily ends—abruptly, even more abruptly than the First Epistle of John,
without any closing word of farewell to the readers, abruptly, but not ineffectively.
The Wisdom writings on which it is modelled end as suddenly. Indeed Sirach (
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER
INTRODUCTION
This beautiful epistle is addressed to Christians in Asia Minor who needed heartening and encouragement under the strain of a persecution-period. It was a time of tension, due to interference by the State authorities, who had obviously become suspicious of the Christian movement as immoral and treasonable. This set up, in some circles of the church, a feeling of perplexity and hesitation. Christians were suffering from the unwelcome attentions of Government officials, as well as from social annoyances, and they required to be rallied. The purpose of Peter is to recall them to the resources of their faith. Hence the emphasis upon hope, in its special aspect of hope in the near, messianic advent of Jesus Christ. But the responsibilities of hope are also urged; there is a constant stress upon reverent submission to the will of God as well as upon the duty of living innocent and peaceable lives which will commend the faith to outsiders.
The epistle follows the method of most of the Pauline letters in concluding (
So familiar and congenial is the vocabulary of this apocalyptic religion to Peter,
that he even speaks of Rome as ‘Babylon’ (
The bearer was Silvanus (
Traces of it appear soon in early Christian literature, probably in Clement of
Rome (towards the close of the first century), certainly in Polykarp of Asia Minor,
and in Gaul (in the letter from the churches at Lyons and Vienne). It was also known
to Papias at the beginning of the second century. It is possible to argue that traces
of First Peter are to be found in Ephesians and James; certainly there are some
noticeable affinities with Hebrews, which was the work of a later teacher in the
church. But First Peter differs from Hebrews, even while they breathe a common atmosphere.
‘Such conceptions as faith (with a different shade of meaning
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER
i.
1 PETER, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 whom God the Father has predestined and chosen, by the consecration of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood: 3 may grace and peace be multiplied to you.
1
Apostle means a delegate with powers, one who represents the person who has
commissioned him. Whether Peter had founded (
This Christian position is further described, after the geographical address
(on which see the Introduction), 2 as whom God the Father has predestined and chosen
(literally, chosen according to the predestination of God the Father). Christians
as the true People of God their Father enjoy the prerogative hitherto monopolized
by Jews of being chosen by God (so
The final greeting is couched in archaic terms, borrowed from Enoch (
The subject of the homily is faith under suffering; it is addressed to Christians
who are undergoing a hard time. But Peter begins upon the note of praise (
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy
we have been born anew to a life
3
Blessed be (the) God was a devout phrase of Jewish religion. Peter, like Paul
(
For Peter, God is the Father of Christians (
Such bliss endangered by your present hardships? No, it is reached through them
(
6 You will rejoice then, though for the passing moment you may need to suffer various
trials; 7 that is only to prove
6
The contrast is between then (i.e. at the last hour) and now, the
passing moment of persecution. Peter speaks elsewhere of a present heroic joy for Christians
who bear rough experiences in the right spirit (
No, Peter would reply, ‘You must not say “contrarious.”’ 7
The variety of trials which beset Christians is permitted only to prove something; persecution shows, as nothing else can, whether Christians are loyal to their
convictions. Trouble
Faith and love for Christ will bring you successfully through the brief, hard
interval before the end (
8 You never knew him, but you love him; for the moment you do not see him, but you believe in him, and you will thrill with an unspeakable and glorious joy 9 to obtain the outcome of your faith jn the salvation of your souls.
8
The original reading, eidotes, was at an early period confused with
idotes; hence the rendering, ‘whom having not
In the next sentence (
10 Even prophets have searched and inquired about that salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was meant for you; 11 the Spirit of messiah within them foretold all the suffering of messiah and his after-glory, and they pondered when or how this was to come; 12 to them it was revealed that they got this intelligence not for themselves but for you, regarding all that has now been disclosed to you by those who preached the gospel to you through the holy Spirit sent from heaven, The very angels long to get a glimpse of this!
10
How favoured Christians are, when the very prophets of to old anticipated but
only anticipated this destiny! Even prophets of old, inspired men who were deeply
interested in your religious privileges, could not do more than predict the grace
or salvation that was meant for you; they could neither experience it nor understand
the hour or method of its realization. This grace includes the thought of God’s
goodness in admitting pagan converts to membership in the People (
All this the early Christians found freely predicted in the O.T.; such a messianic
interpretation of the O.T. was common (see
Such engrossing interest in the storms that were to herald the final bliss was
characteristic of the apocalyptic prophets particularly (see
All this is designed to encourage the readers. The salvation in store for them
has been the absorbing theme of inspired prophets in the past; also, they, are
better off than the prophets, for (a) experience is higher than anticipation, and
(b) even the prophets were limited in their visions; to Christians alone the full
truth of God’s grace in Christ has now been disclosed. The preaching of the gospel
is through the holy Spirit (as in
The very angels are interested in this salvation, they
long to get a glimpse of it! The verb is used of the four arch-angels in Enoch (
Two paragraphs follow (
13 Brace up your minds, then, keep cool, and put your hope for good and all in the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 Be obedient children, instead of moulding yourselves to the passions that once ruled the days of your ignorance; 15 as He who called you is holy, so you must be holy too in all your conduct—16 for it is written, You shall be holy because I am holy. 17 And as you call upon a Father who judges everyone impartially by what he has done, be reverent in your conduct while you sojourn here below; 18 you know it was not by perishable silver or gold that you were ransomed from the futile traditions of your, past, 19 but by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb unblemished and unstained. 20 He was predestined before the foundation of the world, and has appeared at the end of the ages for your sake; 21 it is by him that you believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory; and thus your faith means hope in God.
13
Such a prospect should rally you. Brace up your minds, instead of allowing
yourselves to become depressed or panic-stricken by the hard times through which
you are passing (
These words are a bridge between
15
(a) The first motive is put in O.T. language (e.g.
(b) Further, stand in awe of the judgment of God; Christianity is no sentimental
religion of the Father, which encourages presumption and moral carelessness. ‘Il
est bien nostre seul et unique protecteur,’ says Montaigne in his essay on prayer
(Essais, i. 56), ‘et peult toutes choses á
nous ayder: mais encores qu’il daigne nous honnorer de cette doulce alliance
paternelle, it est pourtante autant juste, comme il est bon et comme it est puissante.’17
You call upon (invoke) a Father (perhaps a reminiscence of O.T. words like
18
Finally, (c), remember the cost of your redemption from the futile traditions
of your past. ‘Futility’ and ‘ignorance’ were two standing epithets for paganism
(see
19
As usual, Peter does not explain how Christ’s sacrifice availed to free men; with some words of
The fundamental idea in all such references to emancipation as ransom in the
N.T. is not from what but for what one is ransomed, not to whom the price was paid
(for ransomed is equivalent to bought) but to whom one now belongs. The Ransomer
owns those whom he has emancipated at the cost of his own life; remember that,
Peter urges—you belong to Another, after what he has done for you (the argument
of
21
The appearance of Christ on earth evokes faith, a faith that expects the final
intervention before long; it is by him that you believe (‘by the faith he inspires,’
as Peter had already said,
Only, this hope is not a selfish possession; it involves brotherly love and
mutual affection in the members of the community. The general moral obligations
of the faith have been already outlined; now, after the slight digression in
22 Now that your obedience to the Truth has purified your souls for a brotherly love that is sincere, love one another heartily and steadily. 23 You are born anew of immortal, not of mortal seed, by the living, lasting word of God; 24 for
All flesh is like the grass,
and all its glory like the flower of grass:
the grass withers
and the flower fades,
25 but the word of the Lord lasts for ever—
ii.1
and that is the word of the gospel for you. So off with all malice, all guile and insincerity and envy and slander of every kind!
22
Peter had once spoken about God cleansing the hearts 22 of pagans
by faith (
There is an apt illustration of the thought and term in Marcus Aurelius (xi.
i8), who observes, ‘A friendly disposition is invincible, if it be genuine and
not an affected smile or playing a part (hypocrisis).’ Brotherly love
or philadelphia
was no longer mere affection for one’s blood brothers or even for fellow-members
of one’s nation, as Greeks and Jews interpreted it, but the tie which bound Christians
to Christians as members of the brotherhood for which Christ had died, though by
birth they might belong to different families and nations, the tie that drew them
together and made them join hands in a warm, religious fellowship. Such an affection,
Peter implies, does not spring up naturally in human nature; it is not a sensuous
affection, but flows from the heart (heartily), from souls purified
by a spiritual
process, otherwise it may become a short-lived impulse or dry up into a formal
expression. Even in Christians it requires to be disciplined and trained. This conception
recurs elsewhere in the N.T., e.g. in
Love must be taken as seriously as hope, Peter means. In Christian circles it
is constantly spoiled by spitefulness, self-seeking, censoriousness, fickleness,
and formality; vital love of this new and exacting kind grows in a regenerated
life, and the practice of it requires a realization of the re-generating power of
God. Brotherly love is a moral task, but it is also an endowment. This is the point
of the connexion between
It is not enough to avoid or discard what is inconsistent; a taste for the new
life must be developed (
2 Like newly-born children, thirst for the pure, spiritual milk to make you grow
up to salvation. 3 You have had a taste of the kindness of the Lord: 4 come to him
then—come to that living Stone which men have rejected and
2
Like newly-born children (babes at the breast)—either an indication that this
part of the homily had been originally addressed to the newly-baptized, or a reminder
that, however experienced, they were not beyond the need of simple spiritual nourishment
for the regenerate life, that they might grow up to salvation (the other side of
These words echo another passage, from Isaiah, which he is about to quote. 5 But,
before developing this thought, he appeals for a vitally close fellowship with the Lord;
come and, like living
stones yourselves, be built into a spiritual house (
He now comes back to Christ (
6 For thus it stands in the scripture:
Here I lay a Stone in Sion,
a choice, a precious cornerstone:
he who believes in him will never be disappointed.
7 Now you believe, you hold him ‘precious,’ but as for the unbelieving—
the very stone the builders rejected
is now the cornerstone,
8 a stone over which men stumble and a rock of offence; they stumble over it in their disobedience to God’s word. Such is their appointed doom. 9 But you are the elect race, the royal priesthood, the consecrated nation, the People who belong to Him, that you may proclaim the wondrous deeds of Him who has called you from darkness to his wonderful light—10 you who once were no people and now are God’s people, you who once were unpitied and now are pitied.
6
The scripture is (a)
From this stern reminder that the attitude of men towards Christ is critical
and decisive, and that the world-order is a grave matter for the disobedient 9(
The transference of the religious consciousness from the city or state to a religious
society had been already initiated in cults like those of Isis and Mithras, which
were international or rather non-national in scope. For this and other reasons they
were suspected by the Romans, either as immoral (which was sometimes true, of Isis
at anyrate) or as harbouring anti-social and unpatriotic tendencies. Both criticisms
were levelled against Christianity as one of these new Oriental fellowships, and
both now engage the attention of the apostle, who issues a series of counsels (
11 Beloved, as sojourners and exiles I appeal to you to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war upon the soul. 12 Conduct yourselves properly before pagans; so that for all their slander of you as bad characters, they may come to glorify God when you are put upon your trial, by what they see of your good deeds.
11
The first time Peter speaks in his own person, he affectionately calls his
readers beloved (see
One good of this moral discipline is that it forms an effective 12
reply to the pagan slander of Christians as bad characters (so
No provocation must lead to rebellion against the authorities (
13 Submit for the Lord’s sake to any human authority; submit to the emperor as supreme, 14 and to governors as deputed by him for the punishment of wrongdoers and the encouragement of honest people—15 for it is the will of God that by your honest lives you should silence the ignorant charges of foolish persons. 16 Live like free men, only do not make your freedom a pretext for misconduct; live like servants of God. 17 Do honour to all, love the brotherhood, reverence God, honour the emperor.
13
In vindicating Christian freedom against the Law, Paul had to issue a similar
warning against antinomian excesses (
17
What Christians are really free and bound to do is now put in four terse clauses.
Do honour to all, not only to the authorities by loyalty and paying taxes, etc.,
but to all men; human nature is dishonoured by being treated as material for one’s
own advantage (the temptation of the strong), or by being flattered (the temptation
of the weaker), or by any cynical temper. Peter takes it for granted that
All Christians were servants or slaves of God. But some were literally slaves,
who were specially tempted to be restive. Peter now turns to them (
18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with perfect respect, not simply to
those who are kind and reasonable but to the surly as well—19 for it is a merit when from a sense of
God one bears the pain of unjust suffering. 20 Where is the credit in standing punishment for having done wrong?
No, if you stand suffering for having done right, that is what God counts a merit. 21 It is your vocation; for when
22 He committed no sin,
no guile was ever found upon his lips;
23 he was reviled and made no retort,
he suffered and never threatened,
but left everything to Him who judges justly; 24 he bore our sins in his own body on the gibbet, that we might break with sin and live for righteousness; and by his wounds you have been healed. 25 You were astray like sheep, but you have come back now to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
18
Peter thinks it possible that pagan husbands may be won over by Christian
wives (
But if you cannot please these unreasonable masters, you can please your God
by bearing the pain of unjust suffering; 19
that is a merit, it counts with God, wins His approval. The phrase from a
sense of God is unexampled in the N.T.; it means that one is supported by a steady
consciousness of God (as for the Lord’s sake,
But the parallelism does not hold his mind. He does not suggest that Christian
slaves by their patience under suffering vicariously atone for the sins of those
who oppress them. Instinctively he returns to the thought, Christ suffered for you
(
The apostle then turns back to the slaves; and by his wounds
(literally, the weals or scars left by the lash) you have been healed (from
From slaves Peter turns to wives and their duties (
iii.
1 In the same way, you wives must be submissive to your I husbands, so that even those who will not believe the Word may be won over without a word by the behaviour of their wives, 2 when they see how chaste and reverent you are. 3 You are not to adorn yourselves on the outside with braids of hair and ornaments of gold and changes of dress, 4 but inside, in the heart, with the immortal beauty of a gentle and modest spirit, which in the sight of God is of rare value. 5 It was in this way long ago that the holy women who hoped in God adorned themselves. They were submissive to their husbands. 6 Thus Sara obeyed Abraham by calling him ‘lord.’ And you are daughters of Sara if you do what is right and yield to no panic.
The new Christian freedom was apt to make some married women restive as well
as slaves, especially when their husbands were pagans. Mixed marriages started an
acute problem in the early church. A Christian wife found herself in serious difficulties,
domestic and social, when her religion ran across the pagan customs of her position
as a married woman. Tertullian, a century and a half later, wrote vividly on these
problems, but already they were being felt in Asia Minor, as they had been in Corinth
(
1
Peter’s first word is that a similar (in the same way, as
The spectacle of chastity must also include gentle modesty (
Peter’s word anticipates some warnings by pagan moralists in the next century.
Thus Plutarch (Conjug. Praecept. 26, 48) explains that for a woman to adorn
(ho kosmos, the very word used here) herself with gold or pearls does not really beautify
her; the real beauty of the sex lies in whatever invests them with seriousness
and decorum and modesty. He also makes a point, by the way, which Peter misses,
viz. that a husband must not expect his wife to avoid pretentious extravagance if
she sees that he is addicted to it himself;
‘you cannot banish extravagance from
the women’s quarter, when it is unchecked among the men’ (e.g. in decorating the
harness of their horses). Lucian stresses beauty of character in women instead of
outward adornment (Imagines, 11) with similar arguments, and there are other proofs
that ethnic critics of social morality were alive to what Peter here urges on religious
grounds. The apostle’s thought is that such moral beauty never wears out, being
immortal (a characteristic touch, absent
Augustine’s mother Monica is an apt example of what is intended here. We are told in her son’s Confessions (ix.) how she endeavoured, and not without success, to win over a pagan husband to God, ‘preaching Thee to him by her character, whereby Thou didst make her beautiful to her husband, reverently loveable and wonderful.’
5
Peter now (
And you are true (
Now for a brief word to husbands (
7 In the same way you husbands must be considerate in living with your wives, since they are the weaker sex; you must honour them as heirs equally with yourselves of the grace of Life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
7
Considerate, in the light of
‘Platon en ses loix,’ says Montaigne
(Essais, i. 56), ‘faict trois sortes d’iniurieuse creance des dieux: Qu’il n’y
en aye point; Qu’ils ne se meslent point de nos affaires [the point met by Peter
in
Peter has nothing to say about children and their parents, any more than about
the duties of masters to their slaves. He passes forward to offer counsel to the
whole body of Christians (
8 Lastly, you must all be united, you must have sympathy, 8 brotherly love, compassion, and humility, 9 never paying back evil for evil, never reviling when you are reviled, but on the contrary blessing. For this is your vocation, to bless and to inherit blessing;
10 he who would love Life
and enjoy good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking guile
11 let him shun wrong and do right,
let him seek peace and make peace his aim.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the upright,
and his ears are open to their cry;
but the face of the Lord is set against wrongdoers.
8
Lastly (the phrase only here in N.T.), you must all be united. The Greek word
for united (only here in the N.T.) is explained by the use in Homer’s
Iliad (xxii.
260 f.): ‘wolves and sheep cannot have a united mind, but are constantly thinking
evil against one another’; to be united is to be harmonious—no falling out among
yourselves—you must have sympathy (only here in N.T.), fellow-feeling, brotherly
love (
Then comes, as in
Then follows (
13 Yet who will wrong you if you have a passion for goodness? 14 Even supposing you have to suffer for the sake of what is right, still you are blessed. Have no fear of their threats, do not let that trouble you, 15 but reverence Christ as Lord in your own hearts.
13
Wrongdoers? Yet who will (who is likely to) wrong you if you have a passion
(a strong term, rendered ‘a zest’ in
This is the negative side of their attitude towards pagan oppressors. But occasionally
a more positive attitude is demanded (
15 Always be ready with a reply for anyone who calls you to account for the hope you cherish, but answer gently and with a sense of reverence; 16 see that you have a clean conscience, so that, for all their slander of you, these libellers of your good Christian behaviour may be ashamed.
15
Fearlessness does not mean contemptuous indifference to pagans, however;
when you are questioned informally or interrogated by a magistrate, after arrest,
always be ready with a reply. Be ready to explain and discuss your religion, not
merely to reverence Christ as Lord in your own hearts, but to tell others what he
means to you. The new outlook upon death and immortality often excited curiosity
and keen interest in those who first heard of the Christian religion, but the hope
you cherish is probably no more than a synonym for Christianity (see
To these two conditions of an effective reply, freedom from any lecturing tone
and a deep consciousness of God’s presence, the apostle now, adds a third, 16
viz. that Christians must be conscious of their own innocence (the thought of
Now, resuming the thought of
17 For it is better to suffer for doing right (if that should be the will of God) than for doing wrong. 18 Christ himself died for sins, once for all, a just man for unjust men, that he might bring us near to God; in the flesh he was put to death but he came to life in the Spirit.
17
God’s will is personified here, like His patience in
From the turn of thought here, as at
19 It was in the Spirit that Enoch also went and preached to
the imprisoned spirits 20 who had disobeyed at the time when God’s patience held
out during the construction of the ark in the days of Noah the ark by which only
a few souls, eight in all, were brought safely through the
water. 21 Baptism, the counterpart of that, saves you to-day (not the mere washing
of dirt from the flesh but the prayer for a clean conscience before God) by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ who is at God’s
19
You remember, says, Peter, how it was in the Spirit (i.e. after his translation
to heaven) that Enoch went down on his famous mission to the imprisoned spirits.
One tradition placed this commission during Enoch’s lifetime; ‘Enoch,
though a man, acted as God’s envoy to the angels, and was translated,’ says Irenaeus
(iv. 16, 2). Peter seems to follow the other tradition (so
But what interests Peter is baptism, not Enoch. The contrast of
flesh and Spirit,
on which he is dwelling (
In an important parenthesis Peter explains the human side of the sacrament. The
Greek term (baptisma) still carried its original sense of washing (see
As for the closing words of the paragraph, they allude to the accepted belief
of the church that the resurrection was 22
followed by the ascension (went to heaven), the session at God’s right hand
(as Peter had said long ago,
Note on iii. 19, 20.—The text of
Peter now resumes the thought of
iv.
1 Well, as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, let this very conviction that he who has suffered in the flesh gets quit of sin, 2 nerve you to spend the rest of your time in the flesh for the will of God and no longer for human passions.
1
We are living in a new era and order of experience, since Christ has suffered
for us in the flesh. Therefore, he had already said, ‘We must break with sin and
live for righteousness’ (
Experience is the best exegesis of such tense words, particularly the experience of those who have lived through similar phases of endurance in the Christian cause. Thus when Hus went to the Council of Constance in 1414, he wrote a letter to his friends in Bohemia about his persecutors in the Roman Church which contains a passage bearing on our text. ‘I shall not be led astray by them to the side of evil, though I suffer at His will temptations, revilings, imprisonments, and deaths as indeed He too suffered, and hath subjected His loved servants to the same trials, leaving us an example that we may suffer for His sake and our’ salvation. If He suffered, being what He was, why should not we? In truth, our suffering by His grace is our drawing from sins and our deliverance from eternal torments’ (The Letters of John Hus, ed. Workman and Pope, p. 148). The same profound thought reappears in lines which he wrote during his imprisonment (ibid., p. 198):
2
This is the conviction needed to nerve you for such moral loyalty; it is an heroic and trying enterprise. Literally the phrase is, ‘arm yourselves with’ this conviction. It is a common phrase, which has even passed into English. Thus the Roman general Cominius, in Shakespeare’s play, exhorts the high-spirited Coriolanus to summon up his powers of sell-control in order to meet the critical tribunes:
Arm yourself
To answer mildly; for they are prepared
With accusations.
What matters is not so much the actual trials incurred in a consistent obedience
to the will of God (
With a touch of grave irony, Peter tells them that they have lived long enough
in pagan vices, and consoles them by predicting the imminent judgment of God which
will vindicate their staunchness (
3 It is quite enough to have done as pagans choose to do, during
the time gone by! You used to lead lives of sensuality, lust, carousing, revelry, dissipation and illicit idolatry,
4 and it astonishes them that you will not plunge with them
3
A sixfold description of the human passions of pagan society.
Sensuality is indecent,
lascivious conduct, wanton and unashamed. Lust is sexual passion in immoral forms
(same word as that rendered ‘passions’ in
Peter mentions the dead for a special reason and with an explanation by way of
parenthesis. Christians who have died before the second Advent are not excluded
from this blissful vindication; though they have had to suffer the penalty of death
in their mortal sinful natures 6
(judged in the flesh as men), their acceptance of the gospel when they were alive insures
their immortal life as God lives (see
Another view is possible. While it is naturally out of the question to take
the
dead here as ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ (the dead in
In any case the words are an allusion in passing to some belief which was familiar to the writer and his readers, too familiar to require explanation. But it is hard for us to reconstruct the context of the belief from the scanty materials at our disposal. Peter was not writing a theology; he was simply addressing himself to a special situation, to harassed Christians who were in need of encouragement, and he reminds them that the relief is sure and near, vindication. for themselves, retribution for their foes—and also that their dead fellows were quite safe with God. Modern Christians ask larger questions. What becomes of the pre-Christian dead? How are men treated, who at the end have never heard the gospel? But these questions were not present to the apostle’s mind here.
The next paragraph (
7 Now, the end of all is near. Steady then, keep cool and pray! 8 Above all, be
keen to love one another, for love
7
No panic or excitement, however, though the end of all is near
(
8
Another vital preparation was the habit of mutual love (
9
As in
The point of
Hospitality (
So with any other form of practical service (
Here the homily might have ended. Here indeed it may have ended. But letters
then, as now, were not always written at a sitting, and we may assume some interruption
at this point; the epistle had to be laid aside for a time, and then resumed. In
what follows Peter reiterates afresh the main thoughts of the earlier sections:
‘And now for a last word upon your sufferings.’ The
apostle has two things to say, the first in
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the ordeal that has come to test you; as though
some foreign experience befell you. 13 You are sharing what Christ suffered; so rejoice
in it, that you may also rejoice and exult when his glory
is revealed. 14 If you are denounced for the sake of Christ, you are blessed; for then the Spirit of glory and power,
12
Beloved, as in
Rejoice. Why? 14 Because (see
Injuries and outrages reveal the spirit of your pagan neighbours, who try to
crush your strength, but there is for your loyalty another revelation of God’s
glory
and power (the presence of God in glorious power) which inwardly rewards and rallies
you. The phrase you are denounced . . . Christ may be an echo of
16
But if a man suffers for being a Christian, he must not be ashamed, and so
apostatize (see
Peter’s second word of consolation is eschatological. ‘Deliverance is at hand: you have not long now to wait.’
17 It is time for the Judgment to begin with the household of God;
and if it begins with us,
what will be the fate of those who refuse obedience to God’s gospel
18
If the just man is scarcely saved, what will become of the impious and sinful?
19 So let those who are suffering by the will of God trust heir souls to him, their faithful Creator, as they continue to do right.
17
It was an O.T. axiom that God’s judgment should begin with the household of
God (see
That is, retribution will overtake sin in the present world. The LXX omitted
on earth, which suited Peter’s purpose better. He is content to leave his question
unanswered, What will be the fate of the impenitent? Which is more impressive than
the explicit threats of Enoch (
19
So, in view of what has been urged in
A word to the presbyters (
v.
1 Now I make this appeal to your presbyters (for I am a presbyter myself, I was a witness of what Christ suffered and I am to share the glory that will be revealed), 2 be shepherds to your flock of God; take charge of them willingly instead of being pressed to it, not to make a base profit from it but freely, 3 not by way of lording it over your charges but proving a pattern to the flock. 4 Then you will receive the unfailing crown of glory, when the chief Shepherd makes his appearance.
1
Presbyter, the official title for the ministers of the primitive communities,
meant literally ‘senior.’ Not all the seniors in a community would be presbyters,
but the presbyters would be as a rule chosen on account of their experience and
age. Peter plays on the double sense of the term; I am a presbyter myself, i.e.
old enough to have seen Christ suffer. Presbyter myself (literally, fellow-presbyter)
is a touch of modesty from an apostle (
2
Now . . . be shepherds. The adverb and the aoristic imperative of the verb
(here, as in
(a) They must show no reluctance in undertaking or in carrying out their duties.
Take charge of them (episcopountes, i.e. discharge your episcopal functions)
willingly,
instead of being pressed to it. Sometimes the presbyters were selected by the apostles
who founded the community (
Others, again, were quite willing to serve, and threw themselves into the work,
but evidently for the sake of what it brought them. Such presbyters (b) are warned
not to make a base profit from it but to serve the church freely, i.e. without making
the stipend the main end. Peter protests against mercenary aims, against the temper which makes men
But the desire for position is stronger in some than the love of money, and the
apostle proceeds to warn (c) other 3
presbyters against lording it over their charges, the overbearing temper against
which Jesus had already put his disciples on their guard (
Charges translates the plural of the term klêros, which here has its untechnical
sense of ‘an allotted portion’; the charges are the different churches entrusted
to the care of the presbyters. The Vulgate rendered the Greek literally, ‘dominantes
in cleris,’ but the distinction between clergy and laity is much later than this,
and the words cannot mean ‘domineering over the lower clergy.’ Instead of driving
and bullying the faithful, the presbyters are to prove a pattern to the flock;
their best influence will be through personal 4
example. Then, at the second Advent, you will receive (the same verb as ‘obtain
’ in
A brief sentence to the younger men (
5 You younger men must also submit to the presbyters. Indeed you must all put on the apron of humility to serve one another, for
the haughty God opposes,
but to the humble he gives grace.
6
Humble yourselves under the strong hand of God, then, so that when it is time, he may raise you; 7 let all your anxieties fall upon him, for his interest is in you.
5
The younger men are junior subordinates in the ministry (see
The quotation from
7
Humble yourselves by letting all your anxieties fall upon him (a reminiscence
of
But this does not mean that you can relax your efforts; be alert and stedfast
till you are finally relieved (
8 Keep cool, keep awake. Your enemy the devil prowls like a roaring lion, looking out for someone to devour. 9 Resist him; keep your foothold in the faith, and learn to pay the same tax of suffering as the rest of your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 Once you have suffered for a little, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will repair and recruit and strengthen you. 11 The dominion is his for ever and ever: Amen.
Trust is not idle security (so in
9
Resist him by refusing to give up your faith, keep your foothold in the faith,
firm and unyielding, with a courage on which no hardship makes any impression,
and learn to pay the same tax of suffering as the rest of your brotherhood (
A brief postscript follows (
12 By the hand of Silvanus, a faithful brother (in my opinion), I have written you these few’ lines of encouragement, to testify that this is what the true grace of God means. Stand in that grace.
13 Your sister-church in Babylon, elect like yourselves, salutes you. So does my son Mark. 14 Salute one another with a kiss of love.
Peace be to you all who are in Christ Jesus.
12
Silvanus was a Jewish Christian who spoke Greek, and therefore had been employed
by Peter in the composition of the homily (see Introduction), as his amanuensis
or secretary. Peter vouches for him as a faithful brother (in my opinion), i.e.
as a reliable messenger, just as Cicero had vouched for Cossinius in one of his
letters (Ad Attic., i. 19: ‘Cossinius hic, cui dedi litteras, valde mini bonus
homo et non levis et amans tui vicus est’), perhaps because he was unknown to some
or all of the recipients, perhaps because he was commissioned to expand orally the
few lines enclosed. The verb in encouragement is appeal in
13
The first of the two greetings is from the local church where Peter is writing,
your sister-church in Babylon, elect (
14
The kiss of love, or, as, Paul termed it, the holy kiss, was a naïve custom
among the primitive communities, who met
Peace as a farewell greeting occurs in
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. PETER
INTRODUCTION
THE atmosphere of this tract is described in the introduction to the epistle of Judas. Indeed the writer has drawn upon that earlier pamphlet, since it seemed to him to characterize the false teachers against whom he is warning the churches. Antinomian errors are still rampant. But the specific feature of the later development of the movement is a repudiation of belief in the second Advent, and the author seeks to rehabilitate this doctrine as the source of good, Christian faith and morals. He writes a pastoral letter for Christendom in general. It is a strongly worded manifesto against unworthy antinomian teachers, who were propagating a view of Christianity which, under a cloak of liberalism, seemed to him to produce moral indifferentism in the lives of its adherents.
The course of the argument is easily followed; there are no real difficulties
in the transition from one paragraph to another. Everything becomes plain, once
it is borne in mind that the writer has the tract of Judas before him, and that
he is writing under the name of Peter, throwing himself back (e.g. at
‘The real author of any such work had to keep himself
altogether out of sight, and its entry upon circulation had to be surrounded with
a certain mystery, in order that the strangeness of its appearance at a more or
less considerable interval after the putative author’s death might be concealed.’
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. PETER
As in the case of the epistle of Judas, the greeting or address (
i.
1 Symeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have been allotted a faith of equal privilege with ours, by the equity of our God and saviour Jesus Christ: 2 grace and peace be multiplied to you by the knowledge of our Lord.
1
Symeon, the Semitic form of ‘Simon,’ is used by James
in
The description of Jesus Christ as our God and saviour is unique; the adoring
cry of Thomas, My Lord and my God’ (
2
The prayer of First Peter (
3 Inasmuch as his power divine has bestowed on us every requisite for life and piety by the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence—4 bestowing on us thereby promises precious and supreme, that by means of them you may escape the corruption produced within-the world by lust, and participate in the divine nature 5 for this very reason, do you contrive to make it your whole concern to furnish your faith with resolution, resolution with intelligence, 6 intelligence with self-control, self-control with stedfastness, stedfastness with piety, 7 piety with brotherliness, brotherliness with Christian love.
3
Us answers to ours in
4
The ideas and even the language about divine power manifesting itself to human
beings in order that they might participate in the divine nature through some
knowledge of the deity, gained by sacramental or semi-physical means, often of an ecstatic
character, were current in the Hellenistic philosophy and religious cults of the
age. In terms of this contemporary faith the writer expresses his Christian beliefs,
availing himself of forms and conceptions familiar to his readers. The personal
fellowship with Christ, first verified by the apostles, is adequate for real life
and piety, i.e. for the true life which, in a world of moral corruption, consists
in piety or practical religion (see
The object and end of Christian knowledge is moral and spiritual communion with
Christ. But this destiny requires active participation on the part of believers.
The historical revelation endowed men with exceptional promises of an undying divine
life beyond this transient, material order of things; what Christ was and did opened
a new outlook for men, encouraging them to hope and all its responsibilities, for
thereby refers loosely to every requisite for life and piety. The revelation of
the divine nature in Jesus Christ was full of promise. It is assumed that these
promises will be fulfilled by the Lord, but what needs to be argued is the moral
demand that they make upon Christians (as in
5
The positive response to the divine promises is now sketched (
Life has to encounter trials, however, as well as incitements to self-indulgence,
and so stedfastness is further required in maintaining the Christian hope when it
is contradicted (
Only by this discipline and development of the religious life is it possible
to attain heaven (
8 For as these qualities exist and increase with you, they render you active and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; 9 whereas he who has not these by him is blind, shortsighted, oblivious that he has been cleansed so from his erstwhile sins. 10 So be the more eager, brothers, to ratify your calling and election, for as you practise these qualities you will never make a slip; 11 you will thus be richly furnished with the right of entry into the eternal realm of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.
8
The practical development of the Christian life along these lines deepens and
widens our personal experience and sense of Christ; it enables members of the community
in their common life to penetrate into the meaning of the Lord’s life and purpose.
9 We learn him as we live with him and for him. Anyone who neglects these graces shows that he has forgotten all about
the change wrought in his life at baptism,
11
The term furnished echoes
My one aim and constant endeavour is to keep you mindful of this vital creed
(
12 Hence I mean to keep on reminding you of this, although you are aware of it and are fixed in the Truth as it is; 13 so long as I am in this tent, I deem it proper to stir you up by way of reminder, 14 since I know my tent must be folded up very soon as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me. 15 Yes, and I will see to it that even when I am gone, you will keep this constantly in mind.
12
In view of the critical importance of the issues, I mean to keep on reminding
you of them. The Greek is awkward but the sense is plain. So is the courtesy (as
in
16 For it was no fabricated fables that we followed when we reported to you the power and advent of our Lord Jesus Christ; we were admitted to the spectacle of his sovereignty, 17 when he was invested with honour and glory by God the Father, and when the following voice was borne to him from the sublime Glory, ‘This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I delight.’ 18 That voice borne from heaven we heard, we who were beside him on the sacred hill, 19 and thus we have gained fresh confirmation of the prophetic word.
16
The we now is the apostles once more, as in
The term for advent (parousia) suggested a royal visit or arrival, and this regal
significance is brought out do what follows; we were admitted to the spectacle
(literally, initiated into the supreme mystery) of his sovereignty or divine majesty
at the transfiguration, when we first realized his divine honour and authority.
The apostolic report of his power and advent, was a testimony to what was yet to
be manifested fully; but there had been a significant anticipation during his lifetime,
of which Peter and his fellows had been eye-witnesses. For some reason the transfiguration
is appealed to as a foreshadowing of the second Advent rather than the resurrection; 17
there Jesus received honour and glory from God the Father (i.e. his Father),
shown in the dazzling light which we saw shining from his person. There too from—the original
apo of the Latin Vulgate and the Syriac versions was soon altered into
the hupo of the traditional text (i.e. ‘by’)—the sublime Glory
(a reverential
periphrasis for heaven or the divine Presence), the voice came to him, which is
quoted freely. The writer assumes that his readers knew the synoptic tale, but his
citation agrees with none of the three versions; he inserts the Greek term for
‘I’ in the clause in whom I delight, for the sake of emphasis. 18 We heard that voice,
he declares, we who were beside him on the sacred hill, sacred because it was
the scene of this divine manifestation. All this stress on the transfiguration as
heralding the second Advent sounds at first sight strange, for in the gospels no
such interpretation of the scene is suggested. But in all three traditions (
It is not difficult to understand why the writer omitted the words ‘hear ye
him’ from the divine voice, for this concentration of attention upon Jesus in contrast
to the O.T. law and prophets, who are thereby superseded, would not have suited
his purpose. So far from viewing the transfiguration as superseding the O.T. prophecies,
19 he explains that thus (by our experience of the transfiguration)
we have gained fresh confirmation of the prophetic word, i.e. of the O.T. prophecies about Christ,
especially in connexion with his glory and second Advent; this fulfilment has strengthened
our faith in these prophecies. It is an argument on the lines of that urged in the
apostle’s speech in
But the connexion between this sentence and the following
19 Pray attend to that word; it shines like a lamp within a darksome spot, till the Day dawns and the daystar rises within your hearts—20 understanding this, at the outset, that no prophetic scripture allows a man to interpret it by himself; 21 for prophecy never came by human impulse, it was when carried away by the holy Spirit that the holy men of God spoke.
19
‘The O.T. prophecies, especially as they are confirmed by such facts as the transfiguration just mentioned, will illuminate your minds sufficiently about the second Advent till it actually happens. So ponder them’ amid—
The present world is a darksome spot, where you need this lamp of prophecy to guide your steps; all will be clear when the Day of the Lord’s Advent dawns. The writer twists the metaphor to suit his purpose. The daystar rises before the dawn, but here it is the outward signs of the Day which clear up the inward uncertainties of Christians; the open manifestation of the Advent is the means of enlightening them.
20
Attend to the prophetic anticipations of Christ, but under-stand the principle
of their interpretation. False teachers (
Here, as in
Prophecy? Yes, but while there were holy men of God, there were pseudo-prophets
too, as there are to-day. This leads the writer to the special theme of his letter; the next section (
ii.
1 Still, false prophets did appear among the People, as among you also there will
be false teachers, men who will insinuate destructive heresies, even disowning the
Lord who ransomed them; they bring rapid destruction on themselves, 2and many will follow their immorality (thanks to them
the true Way will be maligned); 3 in their lust they will
1
False teachers, the term for these pseudo-leaders of religion, does not occur
elsewhere in the N.T.; in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue (lxxxii.), ‘as there were false
prophets in the days of your holy prophets, so among us to-day there are many false
teachers,’ and The Apocalypse of Peter begins with this statement of the Lord, ‘many of them will be false prophets and teach various destructive dogmas and ways.’
The heresies which they adroitly and subtly spread affected both faith and morals,
though the only explicit charge on the former score is that they actually disowned
the Lord (literally liege, as in
In the homily called 2 Clement (
Then follows in one long, involved sentence (
4 For if God did not spare angels who had sinned, but committing them to pits
of the nether gloom in Tartarus, reserved them under punishment for doom: 5 if he did not spare the ancient world but
kept Noah, the herald of righteousness, safe with seven others, when he let loose
the deluge on the world of impious men: 6 if he reduced the cities of Sodom
The underlying thought is that God will act as He has always done, to punish
sinners and to preserve the faithful. This is His character in the moral order,
and it may be relied upon; history offers examples of His procedure which are a
salutary warning and a consolation. Instead of beginning with the first instance
cited by Judas (
5
In the second example, of the deluge, Noah is called the
herald of righteousness,
herald meaning ‘preacher’ as in
6
In the allusion to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra (the third example,
as in Judas), the Greek word for reduce to ashes is an out-of-the-way term, which
commonly meant ‘covering with ashes’ (as in an eruption of Vesuvius). A punishment
by fire follows a punishment by water. In the third book of Maccabees, which for
a time had a vogue in the Eastern Church, this passage occurs (
10
The writer now returns to the errorists, their antinomian practices (as in
10 Daring, presumptuous creatures! they are not afraid to scoff at the angelic Glories; 11 whereas even angels, superior in might and power, lay no scoffing charge against these before the Lord. 12 But those people!—like irrational animals, creatures of mere instinct, born for capture and corruption, they scoff at what they are ignorant of; 13 and like animals they will suffer corruption and ruin, done out of the profits of their evil-doing. Pleasure for them is revelling in open daylight spots and blots, with their dissipated revelling, as they carouse in your midst!—14 their eyes are full of harlotry, insatiable for sin; their own hearts trained to lust, they beguile unsteady souls. Accursed generation! 15 they have gone wrong by leaving the straight road, by following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who liked the profits of evil-doing—16 but he got reproved for his malpractice: a dumb ass spoke with human voice and checked the prophet’s infatuation.
10
The first charge is repeated from Judas (
The writer had already mentioned (in
A closing paragraph (
17 These people are waterless fountains and mists driven by a squall, for whom the nether gloom of darkness is reserved. 18 By talking arrogant futilities they beguile. with the sensual lure of fleshly passion those who are just escaping from the company of misconduct—19 promising them freedom, when they are themselves enslaved to corruption (for a man is the slave of whatever overpowers him). 20 After escaping the pollutions of the world by the knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, if they get entangled and overpowered again, the last state is worse for them than the first. 21 Better had they never known the Way of righteousness, than to know it and then turn back from the holy command which was committed to them. 22 They verify the truth of the proverb:
The dog turns back to what he has vomited,
the sow when washed will wallow in the mire.’
17
The writer changes the rainless clouds of Judas (
What chance have recent converts from paganism against the specious argument of these religionists that Christian freedom means freedom from the moral law? The words throb with the righteous passion of a man who had seen such men and women suffering a moral collapse under libertine ‘spiritual’ teaching. 19 Promising them freedom from the law of God, when they are themselves the slaves of passion! The inconsistency of it!
Paul had had to warn his converts long ago (
22
As for apostates, who forsake true Christianity for such circles of sanctified
licentiousness, they merely illustrate the old adage about the dog and the sow!
It is a double proverb. The first part occurs in
Now the writer resumes the first person singular, as he returns to the theme
of
iii.
1 This is the second letter I have already written to you, beloved, stirring up your pure mind by way of reminder, 2 to have you recollect the words spoken by the holy prophets beforehand and the command given by your apostles from the Lord and saviour.
1
The first letter, to which this is a sequel, is First Peter, which had by this
time become well known to the Church at large, and it is to this catholic Church
that the present epistle is addressed by the writer in the name of Peter. ‘It is
not sufficiently considered,’ says Dr. Johnson as a moralist, ‘that men more frequently
require to be reminded than informed.’ Our author had considered this. His allusion
to the pure mind of Christians is another touch of courtesy, such as in
2 The language of
The words your apostles are not unambiguous. Had the epistle been directed to
a special church or group of churches, the apostles might be those missionaries
who had founded them. But in a general pastoral like the present, the phrase means
the twelve apostles (i.e. men like myself,
In what follows, the writer starts from
3 To begin with, you know that mockers will come with their mockeries in the last days, men who go by their own passions, 4 asking, ‘where is His promised advent? Since the day our fathers fell asleep, things remain exactly as they were from the beginning of creation.’ 5 They wilfully ignore the fact that heavens existed long ago, and an earth which the word of God formed of water and by water. 6 By water the then-existing world was deluged and destroyed, 7 but the present heavens and earth are treasured up by the same word for fire, reserved for the day when the impious are doomed and destroyed.
3
In some quarters the death of Christians before the return of Jesus from heaven
roused anxious fears, for their friends wondered whether they had not thus missed
salvation. This perplexity, felt by genuine believers, we have already met in
This is the solitary reference in the N.T. to the current idea of the universe
ending in a conflagration. Josephus (Antiquities, i. 2) mentions a prediction of
Adam that the world would be twice destroyed by water and by fire, and the far-spread
idea of a final bonfire of the universe had entered Jewish apocalyptic; it is voiced
specially in the Sibylline oracles, where it differs from the Stoic cosmogony,
in which there was a periodic renovation of the universe by means of fire. ‘The
Sibyl and Hystaspes,’ says Justin Martyr (Apol., i. 20), “said that corruptible
things would be dissolved by fire; the philosophers who are called Stoics declare
that God himself is to be dissolved into fire, and that after this change the world
will be renewed. . . . In asserting that there will be a conflagration we use the
language of the Stoics, but,’ he adds, our doctrine is not theirs in essence. The
belief was popular in Roman as well as in Greek mythology, and it entered Christian
apocalyptic at an early period. The writer alludes to it here as a familiar conception
of the end, in order to meet the first objection taken to the doctrine of the Advent.
He shows some independence in his development of the general theme. Thus he follows
the, book of
Our author, like the prophet John (
George Herbert echoed it in the last stanza of his poem on Decay:
His second argument is against misconceptions of the divine delay (
8 Beloved, you must not ignore this one fact, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years, and a thousand
9 years are like a single day. 9 The Lord is not slow with what he promises, according to certain people’s idea of
8
The scoffers wilfully ignored one fact; believers were apt to ignore another,
namely, the truth underlying the words of
What is time to God? If He seems to delay, it is not, as 9
certain people imagine, because He is careless or powerless, but because He is merciful and patient,
longsuffering (see
The day of the Lord is sure to come (
10 The day of the Lord will come like a thief, when the heavens will vanish with crackling roar, the stars will be’ set ablaze and melt, the earth and all its works will disappear. 11 Now as all things are thus to be dissolved, what holy and pious men ought you to be in your behaviour, 12 you who expect and hasten the advent of the Day of God, which dissolves the heavens in fire and makes the stars blaze and melt! 13 It is new heavens and a new earth that we expect, as He has promised, and in them dwells righteousness. 14 Then, beloved, as you are expecting this, be eager to be found by him unspotted and unblemished in serene assurance.
10
Like a thief is another (see on
The last word of the sentence is obscure. The primitive reading is not shall
be burned up, as we might expect, but heurethesetai, ‘be found’ (as in
11
The terror and pathos of this are not what the writer stresses; it is (
The permanent lesson of the passage (as of
The writer now returns to the thought of
15 And consider that the longsuffering of our Lord means salvation; as indeed our beloved brother Paul has written to you out of the wisdom vouchsafed to him, 16 speaking of this as he has done in all his letters—letters containing some knotty points, which ignorant and unsteady souls twist (as they do the rest of the scriptures) to their own destruction.
15
The thought of God’s longsuffering is more prominent in Romans (see
A last word of exhortation (
17 Now, beloved, you are forewarned; mind you are not carried away by the error of the lawless and so lose your proper footing; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory now and to the day of eternity: Amen.
17
Error is the word rendered misconduct in
THE EPISTLE OF JUDAS
INTRODUCTION
In the rhymed preface to his Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan explains that he was drawn into writing the allegory when he was occupied with another book.
So Judas meant to write upon the general theme of the Christian salvation, but, says he, I am forced to write you this special appeal, in view of a sudden emergency. Only, Bunyan’s alteration of purpose was literary. In Bedford gaol he had been thinking and indeed writing already about—
Fortunately for the world, the allegorical handling of the subject suddenly appealed
to him with such force that he struck off into allegory, instead of composing a
theological treatise as he had originally intended. Judas had to drop a wider project
for a special piece of counsel and warning; he had to change his message rather
than his method. So far as we know, he never wrote the book or epistle which he
had in mind, when he turned to dictate this urgent call. Pindar opens his first
Isthmian Ode by apologizing for
What moved him to write it was an outburst of antinomianism. Antinomianism is an ugly word for an uglier thing. In religion it is the belief that a truly spiritual man is exempt from the moral law, in virtue of his relationship towards God. For certain religions it has never been binding on a so-called ‘saint’ to be what his fellow-beings would call a moral person. But Christianity from the first insisted on faith and fellowship being bound up with a good life, and therefore the appearance of antinomian tendencies within its communities caused instant and indignant protests.
That such tendencies should manifest themselves, however, was only natural. Antinomianism,
like Pharisaism, is a perversion of religion at its very best. It is the exaggerated
extreme of a merely legal view of religion. Once people awake to the truth that
God’s favour is not to be earned by an
It is against a background of this kind that pastoral letters like those of Judas
and Second Peter are intelligible. The details are obscure, for the precise data
of the controversy cannot be recovered, but the general trend is fairly plain. Judas,
for example, is an earnest, honest leader of the church, not a keen analyst or cool
religious critic of heresies. He denounces the errorists, instead of describing
them. Indeed this would have been superfluous, as his readers are assumed to know
them at first hand. It is therefore difficult to identify them amid the movements
that swarmed between the last quarter of the first century and the middle of the
second within the Christian churches of the East. The pastoral is no transcript
of the errorists’ opinions and practices, and the" hints dropped by Judas do not
fit any one party known to us. But some suggest that he must have been attacking
an incipient phase of the gnostical tendency which characterized, for example, what
Irenaeus called ‘the party of Simon and Carpocrates,’ who were antinomian on principle
and held erroneous views of the person of Christ, besides disparaging angels. Thus
the Simonians believed that redemption emancipated the elect from the sway of the
rebellious angels and celestial powers who ruled or mismanaged (according to them)
the universe. As Judas put it, they scorn the Powers celestial and scoff at the
angelic Glories. They also held that the distinctions between good and evil were
the arbitrary work of these angels, and that the free man, saved by grace, could
do as he pleased; morality, as usually understood, was a matter of opinion, due
to the angels of the present world. Besides, said some, one ought to try all experiences,
good or bad. Thus, said the indignant Judas, they pollute their flesh, and pervert
the grace of our God into
They made extensive use of dreams and visions, these visionaries! They scoffed
at the O.T. prophecies as inspired by the inferior angels, arrogantly preferring
their own revelations. And they practised their religious rites and cures for
money—for what it brings them, as Judas sneered, to benefit themselves. Like the prophet
John, who found similar lax movements in the Asiatic churches of Ephesus and Smyrna
and Thyatira towards the close of the first century, Judas took the effective line
of stamping the errorists with O.T. names of notorious offenders—Cain, Balaam, and
Korah; but he is controverting a more subtle and speculative movement, though it
evidently was tinged with the same tendency to moral laxity. Clement of Alexandria,
in his Stromateis (iii. 2), declares that what Judas wrote (
It is through glimpses like these of various rampant tendencies, all speculative
and antinomian, that we can form some idea of the teachers against whom this emphatic
pastoral is directed. It is alive to the unholy alliance between speculative theosophy
and practical immorality, just as the first epistle of John is, though the latter
faces the Cerinthians with their doctrine of a truly human Jesus who was endowed
with the divine spirit of Christ only between the baptism and the passion. The prophet
John in the book of Revelation denounces Nicolaitans, who were connected somehow
with the followers of Carpocrates or at anyrate with the tenets of that party, but
he fastens on their immoral tendencies like Judas,
It would be interesting to know if, in
‘I
read my Bible,’ says the mother of Felix Holt, in George Eliot’s romance, ‘and
I know in Jude where it’s been stained with the dried tulip-leaves this many a year, as you're told not
The feature that compromised it in some quarters before long was its use of the
book of Enoch and of legends like that about the dispute between the devil and Moses.
There were simple Christians like Mrs. Holt who read such passages without taking
offence at them. But the day came—even in the
In the first epistle of Peter, as we have seen, the collection of apocalyptic
tractates called the book of Enoch is familiar to Peter and his circle, and Judas
definitely cites it as inspired. Any modern reader who looks into it will marvel
at the reputation it once enjoyed in these enthusiastic Christian communities.
Unless he has been in touch with simple, uneducated pietists of a prophetic cast,
he may even fail to understand why such apocalypses ever held the mind and heart
of the church. ‘In the apocalyptic and eschatological literature of the time, the
world was to come to an end. But what really did come to an end,’ says Professor
Vladimir Simkhovitch, ‘in that literature was the last shred of thinking capacity
and common sense.’ This is far too severe. Still, by the end of the second century
Christians were losing interest in the immediate end of the world and in the hectic
prophecies that predicted it; they began to ask inconvenient questions even about
the book of Enoch. How did it survive the Flood? Once this decline of sympathy
with the naïve belief in Enoch set in, the tract came under suspicion. ‘Because
Judas draws a testimony from the apocryphal book of Enoch, his epistle is rejected
by very many,’ says Jerome in the fourth century; but by the end of that century
it was nevertheless finally canonized. Indeed
No tradition, however, has come down to us about its origin. Like the epistle
of James, another Egyptian church encyclical, while it reflects some personal experience
and local observation, it is a homily or pastoral which the writer designs for more
than his immediate circle. As a teacher of the church, he writes urbi et orbi, in
a Christian sense. It was the weight of his tract, for all its apparently fugitive
character, that carried it so far, in the second century. Judas, like James, had
the immense spiritual prestige of a teacher, and the intrinsic merits of his tract,
so timely and pungent, were backed by the spiritual authority of his vocation.
No wonder that Tertullian and others were calling him an apostle by the end of the
century. But Judas was no apostle. So much we know, though little more. Judas was
not an uncommon name among Hebrew Christians, and Judas the brother of James may
quite conceivably be some Judas otherwise unknown to fame. There was a Judas in
the reign of Hadrian who was bishop of the Jerusalem church, for example, though
this is not likely to be our author. Or, we may ask, was the original title merely
Judas a servant of Jesus Christ, and did some
This throws us back upon the fact that among the brothers of Jesus were two called James and Judas, who would be born about the beginning of the century. The former we know. The latter is unknown to tradition, except in connexion with a tale of his grandsons, who were haled before the suspicious emperor Domitian, because they belonged to the Davidic lineage and were supposed to have hopes of a messianic empire. They were horny-handed peasants, who had no difficulty in proving their innocence of any revolutionary designs. Now, as this interview took place after Judas was dead, he must have written his tract by about A.D. 90 at the latest. There is nothing in the references to the errorists which quite shuts out this as a possibility. Those who prefer to think that in the second century some anonymous writer composed the manifesto under the pseudonym of Judas a brother of James have to explain how so unimportant a figure was likely to have been chosen to voice the warning.
The difficulty on either of these hypotheses is to understand why he called
himself or was called a servant of Jesus Christ, instead of a brother. This was
felt early, and answered by Clement of Alexandria, who thought it was due to reverence
and humility. This is ingenious, but is it necessary? Some Judas who had a brother
called James may well have written the manifesto. And this is the more likely when
the James who wrote the canonical epistle is seen to have had no connexion
Whatever view be held of its authorship, it was either written or meant to be
taken as having been written at the close of the apostolic period as a sort of fiery
cross sent through the churches to rally the faithful against a new insidious foe.
The danger against which it sought to forewarn
THE EPISTLE OF JUDAS
The address or salutation (
1 Judas, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, to those who have been called, who are beloved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: 2 mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.
1
A servant means one who is at the disposal of Jesus Christ for service in his
cause, here for the special service of warning and counselling fellow-Christians.
A brother of James (see Introduction) is a unique addition; no other N.T. writer
mentions his family in this way. He writes to those who have been called, and who
have accepted the divine call. But they are not left to their own resources; they
are beloved by God the Father (literally ‘in God the Father,’ a Greek phrase which
means dear to Him or loved by Him) and kept safe (same word as in
3 Beloved, my whole concern was to write to you on the subject of our common salvation, but I am forced to write you an appeal to defend the faith which has once for all been committed to the saints; 4 for certain persons have slipped in by stealth (their doom has been predicted long ago), impious creatures who pervert the grace of our God into immorality and disown our sole liege and Lord, Jesus Christ.
3
Beloved (for I love you too; so in
This is the danger which has roused Judas to put his friends upon their guard.
The peril is not caused by any persecution stirred by Jews or by the Roman Empire.
Neither is it an attack upon the principles of Christianity by some outside critic.
It is an insidious distortion of Christianity from within, due to the influence
of some who claimed to be members of the church. Judas denies their claim. They
have slipped into the church somehow; instead of being called by God, they are
doomed. Their ultimate doom has been predicted long ago (the thought of
The other charge is less clear. Jesus had spoken of those who might
deny him
before men, but this meant Christians who disowned their Lord under the stress of
persecution. It was also possible to speak of Christians denying their God by misconduct
which contradicted the truth of his religion (so
Remember the terrible warnings against such a sinful course in the past history
of the People of God (
5 Now I want to remind you of what you are perfectly aware, that though the Lord once brought the People safe out of Egypt, he subsequently destroyed the unbelieving, 6 while the angels who abandoned their own domain, instead of preserving their proper rank, are reserved by him within the nether gloom, in chains eternal, for the doom of the great Day—7 just as Sodom and Gomorra and the adjacent cities, which similarly glutted themselves with vice and sensual perversity, are exhibited as a warning of the everlasting fire they are sentenced to suffer.
5
A courteous reminder of what they had heard from scriptures like the Pentateuch
and the book of Enoch, read aloud in church-worship. The present situation throws
light on these old lessons, so familiar and so sombre. First there is the doom that
befell the unbelieving Israelites who proved sceptical when the promised land was
set before them—an incident which had powerfully impressed Christian (
There may be a warning here for the errorists, some of whom thought that their
baptized adherents were immune from any risk or danger, in virtue of their profession
of faith. But the direct warning is for the readers; people may once be saved and
yet fall away subsequently into an unbelief
At present he hastens to recall a second, equally notorious instance of punishment
for disobedience; 6 it is the fall of the angels who had abandoned their own domain in heaven, instead of preserving
(literally, keeping) their proper rank. This is the famous legend of the later Judaism,
based upon
A ghastly human parallel to the sin and punishment of the apostate angels is
now cited, in the O.T. tale of Sodom and Gomorra and the adjacent cities (Zoar,
Admah, and Zeboim, according to the O.T.). Their inhabitants had been guilty not
only of vice like the fallen angels who had lusted after women, but of sodomy, sensual
perversity (
According to Enoch (
The gross irreverence of these religious visionaries at the present day (
8 Despite it all, these visionaries pollute their flesh, scorn the Powers celestial, and scoff at the angelic Glories. 9 Now the very archangel Michael, when he disputed the body of Moses with Satan, did not dare to condemn him with scoffs; what he said was, The Lord rebuke you! 10 But these people scoff at anything they do not understand; and whatever they do understand, like irrational creatures, by mere instinct, that proves their ruin.
These pseudo-prophets claimed to have revelations and visions (of what they were
allowed or ordered to do or to ask), i.e. to be specially inspired, but this merely
meant loose living and disrespect for angels, the two sins of which Sodom and Gomorra
had been guilty. The close connexion of sex and religion produced moral aberrations
which 8 Judas calls a pollution of the flesh; the primitive love-feasts (
Disrespect for angels is less intelligible; in the primitive
The closing words are stern, but no sterner than the language often used by men like Luther or Wesley who had to encounter such antinomian perversions among their followers. Even the gentle Ruysbroeck, despairing of the fanatical mystics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries who advocated and practised libertinism, was moved to declare, ‘They perish like mad dogs.’ These mediaeval votaries of the Free Spirit defended their gratification of any appetite on the speculative ground that such desires were all part of the one divine Matter. Their precursors in the days of Judas started from a less pantheistic view, but some of their followers at anyrate were prepared to draw the same practical conclusion, and Judas roughly dubs them brutes (irrational creatures); they have only the animal instinct for physical self-gratification, and that proves their undoing at the end.
Note on the ‘Assumption of Moses.’—This was an apocalypse written about the
beginning of the century, in which the dying Moses predicted the future of his nation
and in which his death was described (though this closing part has been mutilated).
It specially appealed to Judas for two reasons. (i) It contained assertions of the
creation of angels and of the world by God. Thus a quotation has been preserved
giving the original finish to Michael’s rebuke; he said to the devil, ‘For from
His holy Spirit we were all created,’ and also, ‘From before God went forth His
Spirit and the world was created.’ No lower origin for angels or for the universe,
as these errorists alleged! (ii) It contained also apt words of protest against
secular religion and selfishness, as Judas recalls in
A passionate denunciation of their practices (
11 Woe to them! they go the road of Cain, rush into Balaam’s error for what it brings them, and perish in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These people are stains on your love-feasts; they have no qualms about carousing in your midst, they look after none but themselves—rainless clouds, swept along by the wind, trees in autumn without fruit, doubly dead and so uprooted, 13 wild waves foaming out their own shame, wandering stars for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved eternally.
11
Like other N.T. writers, he brands the errorists by comparing them to some
notorious O.T. characters. Balaam’s error is clear; Balaam was the prototype of
false teachers who inculcated lax principles of morality (this is the point of the
comparison in
Korah is not mentioned elsewhere in the N.T., but he was the typical rebel against
divine authority in the church these highflying teachers of the inner Light who
claimed that their revelations were above criticism, naturally disclaimed the right
of anyone to guide or rule them, and again resented the opposition of the church-leaders
to their views (which is one of the points of murmurers in
The road of Cain sounds less relevant. In Jewish tradition he had become the
type of self-seeking men as well as of sceptics who refused to believe in any moral
retribution or in the after-life. The latter does not fit these errorists exactly,
though some denied that any bodily excesses could be punished in’ their case after
death; the former trait of unbrotherly egoism may be what Judas means, 12 in the next
verse, by quoting from
The love-feasts were charity suppers in the primitive church, where the members
gathered for a common meal to express their fellowship as a household of the faith.
The food seems to have been provided out of the church funds or by the wealthier
members. But what happened at Corinth evidently happened elsewhere; selfishness
and bad behaviour spoiled the simple meal. Instead of sharing alike, some snatched
at the food before others arrived (i.e. slaves or humble tradesmen who could not
attend till the day’s work was done). So ‘one goes hungry while another gets drunk.’
The pushing and grasping members took advantage of others.
Sky, land, and sea are then ransacked for illustrations of their character. No
refreshment of the soul comes from these rainless clouds, swept along by the wind
of impulse; they are like trees in the late autumn (the season when fruit was expected)
that are without fruit. 13 Such men, Judas adds, are doubly dead (i.e. dead in sin
before they were baptized and dead through their subsequent misdoings) and so uprooted
finally (see on
But Judas does more than recall Enoch; he cites the book triumphantly as an
inspired prophecy of these loud, licentious mischief-makers, whose doom had been
predicted long ago (
14 It was of these, too, that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, when he said,
Behold the Lord comes with myriads of his holy ones,
15 to execute judgment upon all,
and to convict all the impious
of all the impious deeds they have committed,
and of all the harsh things said against him by impious sinners.
16 For these people are murmurers, grumbling at their own lot in life—they fall in with their own passions, their talk is arrogant, they pay court to men to benefit themselves.
14
In the book of Enoch (
Judas views their whole religious position as a restless,
Judas now reminds his readers that the Christian apostles as well as Enoch had
foretold the rise of such errorists (
17 Now, beloved, you must remember the words of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 they told you beforehand, ‘At the end of things there will be mockers who go by their own impious passions.’ 19 These are the people who set up divisions and distinctions, sensuous creatures, destitute of the Spirit.
17
For true members of the church the apostles are authoritative. 18 Either this
quotation is from some writing which has not survived (see on
Mockers denotes their contemptuous rejection of the moral laws of God; they
would also show insolent airs of superiority towards Christians who still believed
that the spiritual life was bound by ethical principles. Bunyan, in Grace Abounding
(44, 45), tells how the seventeenth-century sect of the Ranters,
Judas now turns (
20 But do you, beloved, build up yourselves on your most holy 20 faith and pray in the holy Spirit, 21 so keeping yourselves within the love of God and waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that ends in life eternal. 22 Snatch some from the fire, 23 and have mercy on the waverers, trembling as you touch them, with loathing for the garment which the flesh has stained.
20
The faith is the faith which has been once for all committed to the saints
(
Christians are beloved by God (
22
This positive sentence is followed by a sentence on the duty of counteracting the propaganda of the errorists. They themselves may be beyond reach, but some of their deluded followers may and ought to be rescued. ‘When the power of reclaiming the lost dies out of the Church,’ said Sir John Seeley, ‘it ceases to be the Church.’ Judas recognizes this impulse and power as vital to a genuine Christianity; the Church is not to enjoy itself in the thought of its own privileges, but to stretch out its hands to those who are caught in the pernicious teaching which is abroad. The original text has been preserved by Clement of Alexandria and Jerome as well as in the Philoxenian Syriac version; afterwards it was expanded into the later text in one form or another.
Snatch some from the fire is’ another (see on
Only, such rescue efforts have their dangers. There have been sad cases of people
engaged in rescue work who have been actually drawn into the very sins which they
were endeavouring to defeat; in trying to lift others, they have been pulled
down and stained in the mud (see on
The warning against contamination is absent from the similar injunction in the Didaché (ii. 7: ‘You shall hate no man, but some you must reprove, for some you must pray, and some you must love more than your very life’), but then the Didaché contemplated a much less serious position of affairs.
The pastoral closes with a doxology (
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from slipping and to make you stand unblemished and exultant before his glory—25 to the only God, our saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for all time: Amen.
24
This is the third doxology in the N.T. which opens to him who is able; the
others are in
Indexes
Index of Scripture References
Genesis
1:1-23 1:26 6:1 6:1-2 6:1-7 6:3 15:6 18:12 18:17 19:5 22:1-12
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
1 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Chronicles
Psalms
16:10-11 22:1-31 24:4 31:5 32:1 34:1-22 34:5 34:8 34:12-16 55:22 68:5 86:3 89:26 89:51-52 90:4 103:8 118:7 118:22
Proverbs
3:15 3:34 3:34 10:12 11:31 24:22 26:11 27:1 27:21
Isaiah
5:8-9 8:12-13 8:14 10:3 10:12 11:2 28:16 40:6 41:8 42:12 43:20 43:21 47:6 49:6-7 51:2 52:3 52:5 53:1-12 53:6 53:9 53:12 58:2-12
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Daniel
4:1 8:13 9:24 12:6-7 12:7 12:12
Hosea
Zechariah
Malachi
Matthew
5:10 5:10 5:11 5:11-12 5:12 5:16 5:16 5:21 5:25 5:34-37 5:44 6:14-15 6:19 7:24-27 10:28 12:45 13:16-17 16:1-28 18:15 18:21-35 20:8 24:12 24:24 24:37 25:34-40 26:41 28:19-20
Mark
2:5 4:19 6:13 8:1-9:50 8:38 8:38 9:1 10:42 12:10-11 13:8 13:9 13:20 13:27
Luke
4:25-26 6:24 6:28 6:32 6:36 6:37 8:11 8:24-25 9:1-62 10:23-24 12:21 12:35 12:42 12:45 16:19 16:19-31 19:15 20:17 22:32 23:46 24:26-27
John
8:56 12:41 13:4 13:36 15:8 17:17 20:5 20:28 21:15-16 21:18-19 21:19
Acts
1:7 2:1-2 2:11 2:23 2:25 2:31-41 2:32-33 2:32-35 3:14 3:16 3:18 3:19 4:11 4:24 5:6 5:10 5:30 5:41 8:9 10:39 10:42 11:9 11:21 11:26 14:15 14:23 15:9 15:14 15:23 16:1 16:21 17:4 17:7 17:30 18:21 19:9 20:28 23:26
Romans
1:16 2:4 2:7 2:10 2:23-24 3:13 3:25 5:2 5:3 6:1 6:2 6:11 6:18 7 8:11 8:13 8:28 9:1-11:36 9:22 9:25 9:25 9:33 11:1 11:11 11:22 12 12:1 12:1 12:2 12:6 12:7 12:7-8 12:9 12:13 12:17 13:1 13:8-10 15:14 16:25 23:3
1 Corinthians
2:14 3:2 4:1 4:12 4:19 6:11 7:3-5 7:5 7:10-16 7:16 7:22 8:1 9:19 10:1-2 10:5 10:11 10:13 11:20-22 12:4 13:7 14:16 14:23-25 14:33-35 15:3-4 16:15
2 Corinthians
1:3 1:5 5:4 5:13 6:6 9:10 12:20 13:4
Galatians
Ephesians
1:4 1:21 2:12 3:5 3:9-10 3:20 4:17 4:17-18 4:22 4:27 4:32 5:8 5:22 5:26 6:9 6:14 18:2
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
1:4 1:5 2:4 2:7 2:8 2:9 3:2 3:3 3:16 4:1 4:1 6:5
2 Timothy
Titus
Hebrews
1:2 2:3-4 2:4 2:10 4:7 5:12 6:4-6 9:14 10:22 11:7 11:17-19 11:26 11:31 12:11 12:27 13:2 13:7 13:15-16 13:18 13:20
James
1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1-16 1:2 1:2-4 1:2-4 1:2-4 1:3 1:3-4 1:4 1:5 1:5 1:5 1:5 1:5 1:5 1:5-7 1:5-8 1:5-8 1:7-8 1:8 1:8 1:9 1:9 1:9 1:9-11 1:11 1:11 1:12 1:12 1:12 1:12 1:12-19 1:13 1:14 1:15 1:15 1:15 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17-27 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:19 1:19-25 1:20 1:20 1:20 1:20 1:20-21 1:20-21 1:20-21 1:21 1:21 1:21 1:21 1:21 1:22-25 1:22-25 1:25 1:26 1:26 1:26-27 1:26-27 1:26-27 1:27 1:27 1:27 2:1 2:1 2:1 2:1 2:1-4 2:1-13 2:2 2:2 2:2 2:2 2:2 2:2 2:2-3 2:3 2:4 2:5 2:5-6 2:6 2:6 2:6-7 2:7 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:8-9 2:8-13 2:8-13 2:8-13 2:10 2:10-11 2:12 2:12 2:13 2:13 2:14 2:14 2:14-17 2:14-26 2:14-26 2:14-26 2:15 2:15 2:15-16 2:17 2:17 2:18-20 2:18-20 2:19 2:19 2:20 2:21 2:21-25 2:21-25 2:22 2:22 2:24 2:24 2:25 2:26 2:26 2:26 2:26 3:1-5 3:1-12 3:1-18 3:2 3:2 3:5-8 3:5-8 3:6 3:6 3:8 3:9 3:9 3:9-12 3:9-12 3:10-12 3:11-12 3:11-12 3:13 3:13-18 3:13-18 3:13-18 3:14 3:14 3:15 3:15 3:16 3:16 3:18 3:18 4:1 4:1 4:1 4:1-6 4:1-10 4:1-10 4:1-10 4:2-3 4:3 4:3 4:4 4:4 4:4-5 4:4-5 4:5 4:5-6 4:6 4:6 4:6 4:6-7 4:7 4:7-10 4:7-10 4:7-10 4:8 4:8 4:8 4:8 4:8 4:11 4:11-12 4:11-12 4:11-12 4:11-12 4:11-12 4:11-12 4:12 4:13 4:13-16 4:13-16 4:13-16 4:13-16 4:14 4:17 4:17 4:17 4:17 5:1-3 5:1-6 5:1-6 5:1-6 5:1-6 5:1-6 5:1-6 5:2 5:3 5:3 5:5 5:6 5:6 5:7 5:7 5:7-11 5:7-11 5:7-11 5:7-11 5:9 5:9 5:10 5:10 5:10-11 5:10-11 5:12 5:12 5:13-18 5:14 5:14 5:14 5:14-15 5:14-16 5:15 5:16 5:16 5:19-20 5:20
1 Peter
1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3-5 1:3-12 1:3-12 1:3-12 1:4 1:4 1:5 1:5 1:5 1:6 1:6 1:6 1:6 1:6 1:6-7 1:6-7 1:6-9 1:6-9 1:7 1:7 1:7 1:7 1:7 1:8 1:8 1:8 1:8-9 1:9 1:9 1:9 1:9 1:10 1:10 1:10-12 1:10-12 1:11 1:11 1:12 1:12 1:12 1:13 1:13 1:13 1:13 1:13 1:13 1:13 1:13-21 1:14 1:14 1:14 1:14-16 1:15 1:15 1:15 1:15 1:15-16 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:17 1:18 1:18-19 1:18-21 1:19 1:19 1:19 1:19-21 1:19-21 1:20 1:20 1:20 1:20 1:21 1:21 1:21 1:21 1:21 1:21 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22 1:22-2:2 1:22-2:10 1:22-2:10 1:22-22:1 1:23-2:1 1:24 2:1 2:1 2:1 2:1 2:2-3 2:3 2:4 2:4 2:4-5 2:5 2:6 2:6-10 2:6-10 2:7 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:10 2:10 2:11 2:11 2:11 2:11 2:11 2:11 2:11-12 2:11-3:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:12 2:13 2:13 2:13 2:13 2:13-17 2:15 2:16 2:17 2:17 2:17 2:17 2:17 2:17 2:18 2:18 2:18-25 2:20 2:21 2:21 2:21 2:21 2:21 2:21 2:21 2:23 2:23 2:23 2:23 2:24 2:24 2:24 2:25 2:25 2:25 2:25 3:1 3:1 3:1 3:1-6 3:2 3:2 3:3-4 3:5 3:5 3:5-6 3:5-6 3:7 3:7 3:7 3:8 3:8-12 3:8-12 3:8-4:6 3:8-4:11 3:9 3:9 3:10 3:10-12 3:12 3:13 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:15 3:15-16 3:16 3:16 3:16 3:16 3:17 3:17 3:17 3:17-18 3:18 3:18 3:18 3:18 3:19 3:19 3:19 3:19 3:19-20 3:19-22 3:19-22 3:20 3:20 3:21 3:21 3:21 3:22 3:22 3:22 4:1 4:1 4:1-6 4:2 4:2 4:2-4 4:3-4 4:3-6 4:4 4:4 4:5 4:5 4:5 4:5 4:5 4:5-7 4:6 4:6 4:7 4:7 4:7 4:7 4:7 4:7 4:7-11 4:7-11 4:8 4:8 4:8 4:8 4:8 4:10 4:10-11 4:11 4:11 4:11 4:12 4:12-1 4:12-16 4:12-19 4:13 4:13 4:13 4:13 4:14 4:14 4:15 4:15 4:15 4:15-16 4:16 4:16 4:17 4:17 4:17 4:17 4:17 4:17 4:17 4:17 4:17-18 4:17-18 4:17-18 4:17-18 4:17-18 4:17-19 4:18 4:18 4:19 4:19 4:19 4:19 5:1 5:1 5:1 5:1 5:1-3 5:1-4 5:1-11 5:3 5:3 5:4 5:4 5:4 5:4 5:5 5:5 5:5-7 5:5-11 5:6 5:6 5:6 5:6 5:6-7 5:7 5:7 5:8 5:8-11 5:9 5:9 5:9 5:9 5:10 5:10 5:10 5:10 5:11 5:11 5:11 5:12 5:12-14 5:13
2 Peter
1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1-2 1:2 1:2 1:2-8 1:3-4 1:3-4 1:3-7 1:4 1:4 1:4 1:4 1:5 1:5-7 1:5-21 1:8-11 1:8-11 1:9 1:10 1:10 1:11 1:12 1:12 1:12-15 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:16-19 1:16-19 1:19 1:19 1:19-21 1:21 2:1 2:1-2 2:1-22 2:1-22 2:2 2:2 2:3 2:3 2:3 2:4 2:4-10 2:5 2:6 2:7 2:9 2:9-10 2:10 2:10-16 2:12 2:12 2:13 2:14 2:14 2:15 2:15 2:15-16 2:17-22 2:18 2:18-22 2:19 2:19-20 2:20 2:20 2:20 2:20 2:20-22 2:20-22 2:21 2:21 2:22 2:22 3:1 3:2 3:2 3:2 3:3 3:3 3:3 3:3-7 3:3-10 3:4 3:4 3:5-7 3:5-7 3:8-9 3:8-9 3:9 3:9 3:9 3:10 3:10-14 3:11 3:11-14 3:12 3:13 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:15 3:15-16 3:16 3:17 3:17-18
1 John
1:7 2:16 2:16 3:3 3:17-18 4:7 4:17-21 5:1 5:19
3 John
Jude
1:1 1:1 1:1-2 1:1-2 1:2 1:3 1:3 1:4 1:4 1:4 1:4 1:4 1:4 1:5 1:5-6 1:5-7 1:6 1:6 1:6 1:7 1:7 1:8 1:8 1:8-9 1:8-10 1:8-17 1:9 1:10 1:10 1:11 1:11 1:11 1:11 1:11 1:11-13 1:12 1:12 1:12 1:14-15 1:14-15 1:14-16 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:17 1:17 1:17-18 1:17-19 1:17-23 1:19 1:19 1:20 1:20 1:20-23 1:21 1:22-23 1:23 1:23 1:24 1:24 1:24-25
Revelation
1:6 2:14 3:10 7:4 11:2 14:1 14:1-20 16:1-21 16:10 16:20 21:1
Tobit
Wisdom of Solomon
2:4 2:10 5:8 5:15-16 8:21 9:6 10:3 10:6-7 15:3
1 Maccabees
3 Maccabees
Sirach
2:1-5 2:12-14 4:10 5:13 11:1 15:11 17:1-14 17:31 18:10 18:15 19:16 19:20-21 20:14 21:2 23:9 24:30 28:1-7 28:12 29:10 34:24 38:9 38:10 41:22 48:3 49:9 51:30
Index of Scripture Commentary
Index of Greek Words and Phrases
Index of Latin Words and Phrases
- Dies irae, dies ilia : 1
- Cossinius hic, cui dedi litteras, valde mini bonus homo et non levis et amans tui vicus est: 1
- ab alio quodam sub nomine eius edita, licet paulatim tempore procedente obtinuerit auctoritatem.: 1
- cognitio: 1
- dominantes in cleris: 1
- ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes viros: 1
- maleficus: 1 2
- me aemulari, mein instare vestigiis: 1
- sacramento: 1
- urbi et orbi: 1
- vivus: 1
Index of French Words and Phrases
- Il est bien nostre seul et unique protecteur,: 1
- Platon en ses loix,: 1
- dit saint Pierre,: 1
- et peult toutes choses á nous ayder: mais encores qu’il daigne nous honnorer de cette doulce alliance paternelle, it est pourtante autant juste, comme il est bon et comme it est puissante.: 1
- faict trois sortes d’iniurieuse creance des dieux: Qu’il n’y en aye point; Qu’ils ne se meslent point de nos affaires [the point met by Peter in v. 7: 1
- il fault avoir l’ame nette, au moins en ce moment auquel nous le prions, et deschargee de passions vicieuses.’ Peter would not have limited the demand, however, to, ‘ce moment auquel nous le prions.: 1
- pour désabuser les Chrétiens de cette fausse idée qui nous fait rejeter l’exemple des saints, comme disproportionné à notre état. “C’étaient des saints, disons-nous, ce n’est pas comme nous.” Que se passait-il donc alors? Saint Athanase était un homme appelé Athanase, accusé de plusieurs crimes, condamné en tel et tel concile, pour tel et tel crime; tous les évêques y consentaient, et le pape enfin.: 1
Index of Pages of the Print Edition
i ii iii iv v vi vii viii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 31 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 41 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246