Peter seems to have preached in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia and Asia to the Jews of the dispersion, and afterwards, having come to Rome, he was crucified head downwards, for he himself had asked to suffer so.

Why does Peter, an apostle to the Jews, write to those who are scattered in the dispersion, when most of them were still living in Judea at that time? To understand his meaning, we have to compare what he says with texts like I am a pilgrim and stranger on earth, as were all my forefathers.^[1] The souls of all are like strangers who are joined to bodies for as long as they dwell in time. If these souls were thought to be the substance of the body, they would be natives on earth. But these souls are concealed in a covering of flesh and are in fact like strangers on earth. They feel the pains of the flesh because they are quite assimilated into natural bodies. This is why terrors are brought on the inhabitants of the earth, which affect both the things which are earthly in themselves and the souls which are covered in an earthly image.

This apostle was appointed to preach to those of the circumcision, but he deliberately did not limit his preaching to those who lived in Judea. Instead, by sending this circular letter, he sought to preach to Jews scattered all over the world, to the effect that they must hold onto the faith which they have received, for by keeping it they would inherit many great, good, eternal and heavenly things.

Like James, Peter was an apostle to the Jews, but he was sent to all Jews everywhere, and not just to those who lived in Palestine. ^[1] COMPARED WITH THE PETER OF ACTS. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: This epistle is by somebody called Peter, but although its teaching is more sublime and perfect in both style and arrangement than James, it is very inferior to the exactness of the teachings of Peter as they are found in the Acts of the Apostles. COMMENTARIES.^[1]

What Peter says agrees with the statements of Paul, such as: He has chosen us in himself before the foundation of the world, to be holy and spotless before him in love, predestinating us to be adopted as sons.^[1] . . . Foreknowledge is not to be regarded as anything other than the contemplation of the future. It becomes knowledge as the things which are foreseen come to pass. Therefore, although the people to whom Peter was writing had once been chosen according to God’s foreknowledge, by the time he was writing to them their election had already taken place.

Peter is showing here that although he is later in time, he is in no way inferior to the prophets of old. For he is the equal of Jeremiah, to whom God said: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.^[1] He goes on to say that he has been sent by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, whose mission was to separate, by spiritual gifts, those who were obedient to the gospel of Christ’s suffering and who were sprinkled by his blood, from all other peoples.

We must not suppose that the Spirit knows God as we do, only through the historic revelation of the Son. For if the Holy Spirit knows God only in this way, then he has passed from ignorance to knowledge, and it is certainly as impious as it is foolish to confess him as the Holy Spirit and then ascribe a prior ignorance to him.

See how Peter says that he was called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the foreknowledge of God the Father. Furthermore, he explains what his apostleship is like by saying that it is in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ. Moreover, we who believe in him have also been sanctified by the Spirit, and he sprinkles us too with his blood in order to cleanse us. For how can we not know that God sanctifies us by his own Spirit and cleanses us believers with his own blood? For Christ was God in human flesh.

They were chosen for the purpose of being sanctified by the Holy Spirit so that once they had been cleansed from all their sins, those who had perished by their disobedience might start to obey the Lord Jesus Christ and, by being sprinkled with his blood, escape the power of Satan.

May it be granted to us, after we have struggled nobly and subdued the spirit of the flesh, which was at enmity with God, when our soul is in a calm and tranquil state, to be called the children of peace and to share the blessing of God in peace.

They have received immortality and the hope of eternal life. These good things in heaven are better than human things. For this reason they praise God the Father, who shows his great mercy in doing these things faithfully. When God is the giver, the things given are both better and certain to materialize. The statement also has relevance to the Old Testament, for in it God gave the land of the Canaanites to those who believed in him.

Peter means that God has acted to redeem us without any help from us. His mercy is great enough to be able to forgive every sin which has been committed in thought, word and deed, from the beginning to the end of the world.

What exactly are the blessings which God has given us in Christ? First, there is hope, not the kind of hope which he gave to Moses, that the people would inherit a promised land in Canaan, for that hope was temporal and corruptible. Rather God gives us a living hope, which has come from the resurrection of Christ. Because of that, he has given all those who believe in Jesus the same resurrection. This is a living hope and an incorruptible inheritance, not stored up here on earth but in heaven, which is much greater.

If God first generated us out of matter, the Father of our Lord later regenerated us into a better life. Christ rises again in us according to our faith, just as earlier he died in us because of our unbelief. It was furthermore said that no soul, whether it is righteous or evil, will ever return to a corruptible body in this life, lest by taking on flesh it should once more acquire the opportunity to sin, but rather that both good and evil souls will return in the resurrection body. For soul and body are joined together each according to its proper nature. They fit together rather like stuffing in food, or a construction of stones.

Peter offers praise to God the Father in such a way as to make it perfectly clear that our Lord and Savior is both God and man. He calls God the Father of our Lord precisely because he does not doubt that our Lord had always existed with him as his Son. It is right for us to bless God because although on the strength of our own merits we deserve nothing but death, he has regenerated us by his mercy to a new life. He has done this by the resurrection of his Son who loved our life so much that he gave himself up to death for our sake. When that death was overcome by his resurrection, he offered it to us as a model which might give us hope of rising again ourselves. For he died in order that we should no longer be afraid of death, and he rose again so that we might have a hope of rising again through him.

For God foresaw that the faith and behavior of people would be put right by the teaching of the gospel, and so he chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestinating them to be his children by partaking of the Spirit of sonship. For foreknowledge means no more than seeing what is inside a person. It is now no longer foreknowledge in effect but knowledge of something real which has been foreseen. Those to whom Peter is writing were chosen according to foreknowledge, but the calling does not come to people who are hidden from view, for their innate awareness removes any doubt about their true nature.

In order to show how the inheritance of the blessed will continue forever, Peter calls it incorruptible and unfading, demonstrating by this that it is a pure and divine inheritance which will remain uncontaminated in the eyes of those who care nothing for their present wealth, knowing that they have something better and eternal waiting for them.

An incorruptible inheritance must be an infinite one, since everything finite is corruptible. The inheritance of the first Adam was corrupted by sin, but the inheritance of the second Adam can never be touched by the stain of sin.

God has revealed the doctrine of truth, enjoined the path of good work and both promised and delivered the blessing of an inheritance that is always unfading and uncorrupted.

Our inheritance is imperishable because it is a heavenly life which neither age nor illness nor death nor any plague can touch. It is undefiled because no unclean person can enter into it. It is unfading, because the heavenly blessings are such that even after long enjoyment of them the blessed never grow tired, whereas those who live in earthly luxury eventually have their fill of it and turn away from it.

Peter says that God has blessed us greatly and that he has done so through his Son. Furthermore, he says that those who receive these things are those who are protected in the power of God, as Christ himself prayed: Holy Father, protect them.^[1] If the inheritance is kept in heaven for believers, some grow cold thinking that it has been left for us in the earthly Jerusalem, assuming that the rewards of the kingdom will be acquired by the appearance of luxury every thousand years. They should be asked why they say that this bodily luxury is immortal and unfading but at the same time they limit it to every thousandth year. They need to be told that these words show that the inheritance is in the kingdom of heaven and that it cannot be known by the senses of mortal beings. We have been assured that we shall receive all these great things by the Father himself, who is the one who gives them. For it is certain by other means also that he will bless us with these things through his own Son, and not simply through the Son but through his resurrection. For if everything has been granted to us, what is there left to give? The inheritance is immortal and unfading, and what is even greater, it is not here on earth but in heaven.

Your place in the kingdom of heaven is ready, your room in the Father’s house is prepared, your salvation in heaven awaits you. All you have to do, if you want to receive them, is to make yourself ready. But since no one can do this by his own efforts, Peter reminds us that we are kept in the power of God by faith. Nobody can keep doing good works in the strength of his own free will. So we must all ask God to help us, so that we may be brought to perfection by the One who made it possible for us to do good works in the first place.

Read grieve in this verse in the sense of suffer, as in in grief you shall bring forth children.^[1] For a woman experiences grief not in bearing children but rather in suffering before birth.

Those who are afflicted in various ways because of Christ and who persevere to the end have their faith tested and proved. They ought therefore to rejoice, even if some of their labor appears to be involuntary. Peter calls this kind of labor grief, a word which he uses in one of the two meanings described by the apostle Paul, who said that there is one grief which leads to death and another which leads to repentance.^[1] Obviously it is the second of these which is meant here.

Right now we have to suffer for the sake of the preaching, but relief for those who toil is near.

Peter says that we must still suffer for a little while, because it is only through the sadness of the present age and its afflictions that it is possible to reach the joys of eternity. He stresses the fact that this is only for a little while, because once we have entered our eternal reward, the years we spent suffering here below will seem like no time at all.

Just as gold is tried by fire and becomes useful, so also you who live in the world are tried in it. So then, you who remain in it and pass through the flames will be purified. For just as gold casts off its dross, so also you will cast off all sorrow and tribulation, becoming pure and useful for the building of the tower.

Because the saints saw that the divine fire would cleanse them and benefit them, they did not shrink back from or get discouraged by the trials which they faced. Rather than being hurt by what they went through, they grew and were made better, shining like gold that has been refined in a fire.

The righteous suffer so that they may be crowned with glory, but sinners suffer in order to bring judgment on their sins. But not all sinners pay the price of their sins in this life, but await the resurrection. And not all the righteous suffer now, lest you think that evil is to be praised and you come to hate the good.

The glory of the redeemed will never fade after they have been raised from the dead, for it will have withstood the fire of temptation, whereas the gold of this world is said to rust.^[1]

It is appropriate that Peter should compare Christian patience with gold, because just as there is no metal more precious than that, so patience is worthy of all honor in the sight of God.

If you love him now when you have not seen him but have only heard about him, think how much you will love him when you finally do see him and when he appears in his glory! For if his suffering and death have drawn you to him, how much more will you be attracted by his incredible splendor, when he will grant you the salvation of your souls as your reward.

Not even a thousand ironclad tongues can sound out the sweetness of the heavenly blessings.

To ask joy of this sort is not to plead only with your words for entry into the heavenly fatherland but also to strive with labor to receive it.

It appears from this that the soul is not naturally incorruptible but is made so by the grace of God, through faith, righteousness and understanding.

If it is the mind which prays and sings in the spirit and the mind which receives perfection and salvation, how is it that Peter says: As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls? If the soul neither prays nor sings with the spirit, how shall it hope for salvation?

Unbelief is a horrible and wicked thing, but faith is the highest good, for it is the harbinger of our entire salvation.

Some say that the promises and the salvation of the saints who lived before the coming of the Savior was inferior to those given to people who came afterwards and who saw Jesus in the flesh, who heard his teaching and beheld the miracles he did in his body. We must however show that this opinion is false. Christ comes in two ways. One is through the intellect, by which God is received as a divine Word. The other is through the senses, by which he appears as a historical person coming out of the womb of Mary. But the first way is more purely divine than the second, which was made necessary by the sinful behavior of mankind. For God comes to all the saints through the intellect and by his word, whether they lived before or after the coming of Christ, sanctifying each one according to his deeds. Those who lived before the coming of Christ were less informed, not because of their wickedness but because of God’s dispensation of time. Therefore it is said that the prophets examined how and at what time the salvation of their souls would be fulfilled by the sufferings of Christ and his subsequent glory. They preached these things, knowing that they were not going to be revealed directly to them but would appear at some future time. Therefore it is wrong to say that their sanctification was somehow inferior to ours.

The prophets inquired and sought out whatever information they could obtain from the Lord or from angels, in the secret recesses of their hearts, about the future grace of the gospel and about how and when eternal salvation would come into the world. They then prophesied by speaking openly to other people and revealing to them what they had learned through their own private contemplation.

Here is it stated that the prophets spoke with wisdom and that the Spirit of God was in them because they belonged and were subject to Christ. For the Lord works through archangels and their associate angels, who are called the spirit of Christ.

The apostle insists that the one who spoke by the prophets was the Holy Spirit of Christ. Nor was Christ a mere man, as the heretics say, but he was the incarnate Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.^[1] . . . For this reason the Savior said: Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you are seeing, and they did not see it.^[2]

Christ has already been glorified twice, once in his resurrection from the dead and again in his ascension into heaven. There will also be a third time, when he comes again in his majesty, as well as in that of the Father and the holy angels, to judge each of us according to our works.

The Spirit of Christ predicted his sufferings to Isaiah: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,^[1] and he predicted the resurrection to Hosea: On the third day we shall be raised up before him, and we shall go on to know the Lord, and we shall find him like the ready morning.^[2]

The mysteries of the more perfect sacraments are of two kinds. . . . Of one kind are the things which the prophets foretold about the future glory, for they were revealed to them. And the saints have preached the good tidings by the spirit of God sent from heaven. Into these things angels desire to look, as the apostle Peter says.

Some thought that the promise and the salvation of those who lived before the coming of Christ was inferior, on the grounds that those who saw him in the flesh and observed the miracles which he did had a greater reward. This is why Peter had to show that their impression was wrong. For how could Abraham be inferior to someone who lived after the coming of Christ, when he saw the day of the Lord and that everyone who would be made perfect by the Lord would depart into his bosom? How could Moses and Elijah be inferior, when they appeared with the Lord at his transfiguration, even though they did not see him in the flesh? Peter insists that it is not necessary to have seen Jesus in the flesh, for there were many unbelievers who did so, some of whom were bold enough to transgress the old covenant. And this has been said for the benefit of those who, even if they have not seen or heard what the Lord said in the flesh, nevertheless have a divinely inspired love for those things. If someone receives the salvation sought by the prophets, it is that which they all longed for at the end of time. For everything else was created by him, but this was not made by anyone. It was not possible for the holy angels or for any of the blessed rational creatures to partake of it beforehand, though they all longed to glimpse the things which would be revealed in the last days.

These things were announced by the Holy Spirit, who is the comforter of whom Jesus said that, unless he himself went away, the Comforter would not come.^[1] The angels who want to glimpse these things are not the ones who fell, despite what many people think. Rather, these are the angels who desire to obtain the fullness of his perfection. ^[2] The Mysteries Accomplished. Irenaeus: There is one Son who accomplished the Fa-ther’s will and one human race in which the mysteries of God are accomplished, which angels long to behold. ^[1]

The angels long to look into these things because of the greatness of their love. They meditate on the Spirit and go on doing so forever, because love never comes to an end.

If the angels desire to look upon him, should not human beings be all the more afraid to despise him?

The angels both desire to see God and see him at the same time. For if they desired to see him but in such a way that their desire remained unsatisfied, they would be anxious and in suffering, but they are not. On the contrary, they are blessed and far removed from any kind of suffering or anxiety, since suffering and blessing do not go together.

Among all the other things which were revealed to the prophets was the message that the fulfillment which they desired would not occur in their time but in yours, for you have been born at the end of the ages. Peter tells his hearers this so that they will value their salvation, knowing that the prophets and righteous people who lived before them were so eager to be on earth when it arrived.