NOTES for Pe2 1:1-10

The Second Catholic Epistle of the Apostle Peter essentially continues the same thoughts that the apostle expresses in his First Epistle. After giving his readers an opening blessing, the apostle again speaks of what the ancient Church called “the two ways.” “There are two ways, one of life and one of death,” as the Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, begins. In today’s passage, however, the Apostle Peter supplements this with a description of a person’s gradual growth in God’s righteousness. In verses 5–7, he calls us to grow and lays faith as the foundation of this growth. He then says that faith provides the basis for virtue. Of course, if you do not believe, where will you find the strength to act virtuously?

The apostle then calls us to show, and consequently to find, knowledge in virtue. Here we follow the Greek text, since the Synodal translation is approximate at this point. This is so because only a virtuous life makes a person capable of knowing the Lord Himself. This profound, heartfelt knowledge of Christ leads you along His way. It is the way of self-restraint and patience, the way of humility. The apostle then says that self-restraint and patience, and nothing else, are the foundation of godliness, whose highest expression is brotherly affection and love. In conclusion, we hear an astonishing promise that gives us hope for life: “if you do these things,” the apostle says, “you will never stumble.”

Peter describes an interesting sequence: from trust to what is called by the Greek word ἀρετή, from it to knowledge, from knowledge to what in English might be called restraint or self-control, and then to steadfastness and godliness, followed by brotherly affection and love. What does the apostle mean? The Greek word ἀρετή is usually translated as “virtue,” but this does not mean virtues as good deeds or good qualities of the soul. The word ἀρετή means above all the striving to follow principles that lead to the good, roughly what in the language of Yahwism and Judaism is called striving for righteousness. Evidently, without such striving, a Christian cannot have a normal spiritual life. It helps the seeker acquire the knowledge that a believing Yahwist or a Jew of the post-exilic era would have called “wisdom,” knowledge that helps someone seeking the righteous path not to stray from it. And if the seeker of the righteous path succeeds in mastering this “knowledge,” which would be better called an ability or a skill, a meaning permitted by the corresponding Greek word, that person acquires what Judaism calls the inner Torah: every action, every word, and every choice ceases to be accidental or spontaneous; each is first evaluated for conformity with the Torah and the commandments given by God, and only then is spoken or done. Writing in Greek, the apostle used a word for this inner Christian state that could be translated as “restraint” or “self-control.” The word “abstinence” has acquired a somewhat different, specific meaning in Christian usage, although in its original sense it would probably fit as well. When the seeker of the righteous path acquires the habit of such restraint or self-control, one can say that the inner Torah has become an integral part of that person's spiritual life; he or she acquires what the apostle calls “godliness.” Only now does it become possible to speak of brotherly affection, an attitude toward one's brothers that can be called love, in which one wishes only good to everyone one encounters, regardless of that person's conduct and attitude toward oneself. Only after this can one speak of the love of which the Savior spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper. He spoke of love as the environment and space of the Kingdom, which can exist in Christian gatherings as the Kingdom manifested in the world only for as long as brotherly affection is preserved in relations among the members of the community. This is how the apostle describes the path into the Church and the path into the Kingdom: from striving for a righteous life to the moment when the life of the Kingdom is revealed to the seeker in all its fullness.

Addressing the brethren (who look upon Peter with respect as an apostle and witness of Christ’s earthly days), Peter calls himself first a servant, and only then an apostle. In fact, when Christ took leave of His disciples, He called them not servants but friends. Yet first, the word servant means not only a dependent person but also a worker, and service to the Gospel is labor. Second, Peter does not want his apostleship to become an occasion for exalting himself above those who entered the Church somewhat later than he did.

Reflecting on the qualities a Christian should possess, Peter constructs a chain of interacting qualities linked to one another. This is not an abstract game with concepts used as a rhetorical device, but a disclosure of real connections, though they are not always immediately apparent, among the various phenomena that exist in the world and especially in the realm of spiritual life. None of the qualities named can be separated from the others. Therefore, knowing Christ is inseparable from taking a sober view of ourselves and, consequently, from weeding out sinful weeds. The Gospel was given to us for life, not for memorizing theses by rote.

What does Peter mean when he urges the recipients of his letter to "confirm their calling and election"? As for election, the apostle, as we can see, holds a view of the Messiah and of the messianic remnant that was quite traditional for his time, the remnant that grows into a new people who meet and receive the Messiah. According to these Jewish ideas, the Messiah, like the people of God, was conceived by God before the creation of the world. Of course, God's design concerned not individual people, but the people as a whole, as a covenant people, a community of the faithful whose main historical task would be to preserve the revelation received from God until the day of the Messiah's coming, when that revelation would become available to everyone who receives the Messiah.

As for individual people, much here was determined by a person's free choice: after all, being born a Jew was not enough; one had to realize in one's life the calling that was potentially given to everyone born a Jew. To realize a spiritual calling without personal choice is plainly impossible, so belonging to the people of God was determined not only by birth but also by one's whole life. The apostle, as we can see, applies this traditional idea to the Church, and that is no surprise: a person can be born a Jew, but people are not born Christians, even though the Church, like the Messiah Himself, was undoubtedly conceived by God before the creation of the world. And everyone who is joined to it is joined to this design, becoming part of it, becoming one of God's chosen. But it is not enough to enter the Church once; one must also live in it. The Church is the earthly dimension of the Kingdom, and if one can live in the Kingdom only by making constant spiritual efforts not to lose it, the same can be said of life in the Church; otherwise election is easy to lose.

It would seem that a calling from God is forever. But a calling too is only a possibility; it still has to be unfolded throughout one's whole life, or else it will die without ever being manifested. And Peter does not tire of reminding his readers of this, perhaps because even in his time people had begun to appear in the Church who sincerely believed that their first step on the spiritual path was already its successful and victorious completion, that salvation and the fullness of life in the Kingdom were guaranteed to them simply because they had entrusted themselves to their Savior and received baptism. The apostle, as we can see, wants to dispel this delusion in them, for it could easily cost them their salvation. Salvation is easy to lose and very hard to find again afterward.