I Peter 3 · The Lantern

Wives and Husbands

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if any are disobedient to the word, they will be gained without a word through the conduct of the wives,

The Instructor orders them to go forth "in becoming apparel, and adorn themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety," "subject to their own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold," he says, "your chaste conversation.

The husband is the head of the wife, and so she must be subject to him just as the other members of the body must be subject to the head. Peter wants wives to show their husbands the path of virtue with just the same vitality as so many of them lead their husbands in the opposite direction.

The Apostle set forth moral teaching for all: for kings, rulers, masters, and slaves. For subjects he established as law that they should obey kings and rulers, in what they ought and as they ought, and thereby showed that the rulers themselves have a certain predisposition and incentive toward justice in the laws, and for everything they do according to the laws they will not…

having witnessed your pure conduct in fear.

Let your adorning not be the outward one of braiding of hair and putting around of gold or putting on of garments,

but the hidden man of the heart, in the imperishable of the gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth before God.

For in this way formerly the holy women also, who hoped in God, were adorning themselves, being subject to their own husbands,

as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord — whose children you have become, doing good and not fearing any consternation.

Ye wives, be subject to your own husbands, and have them in esteem, and serve them with fear and love, as holy Sarah honoured Abraham.

Let the husbands love their wives, remembering that, at the creation, one woman, and not many, was given to one man. Let the wives honour their husbands, as their own flesh; and let them not presume to address them by their names. Let them also be chaste, reckoning their husbands as their only partners, to whom indeed they have been united according to the will of God.

Since Sarah had become a companion to Abraham of such great faith, God called her the mother of all the righteous, and when Peter was urging believing women among the Gentiles to practice the virtues of humility, chastity and modesty, he remembered our mother Sarah with due praise.

Husbands, likewise, dwelling with them according to knowledge, as with a weaker vessel, the female, rendering honor as also being joint heirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers are not hindered.

What (of the fact) that she endured not to have been met alone; but in the presence of Adam, not yet her husband, not yet bound to lend her his ears, she is impatient of keeping silence, and makes him the transmitter of that which she had imbibed from the Evil One?

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

That conjugal chastity is to be approved according to the evangelical law is shown by authority, as follows. 1 Peter 3: Husbands, dwelling together according to knowledge, bestowing honor on the woman as on a weaker vessel; but this is according to the conjugal act: therefore the conjugal act is consonant with the law of God.

Turning from Evil

Now the end: all be single-minded, sympathetic, loving as brothers, tender-hearted, humble-minded,

For as it is enjoined on them, "to be subject to their masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward," as Peter says; so fairness, and forbearance, and kindness, are what well becomes the masters.

Here Peter moves on from husband and wife and sets out the law of love for everyone. Every virtue is based on it—compassion, mercy, humility, and so on.

The connection with the preceding instruction is as follows: finally, or to put it briefly, be all of one mind, and so forth, knowing that you are called to this, to bless everyone. For Paul also says: "Bless those who persecute you" (Rom. 12:14); acting in this way, you will hear from all the designation of yourselves as "blessing" (Ps. 36:20).

not repaying evil for evil or insult for insult, but on the contrary blessing, because to this you were called, so that you may inherit a blessing.

"Wherefore, girding up your loins," "serve the Lord in fear" and truth, as those who have forsaken the vain, empty talk and error of the multitude, and "believed in Him who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and gave Him glory," and a throne at His right hand. To Him all things in heaven and on earth are subject. Him every spirit serves.

A brother asked a hermit, 'What is humility?' He answered, 'To do good to them that do evil to you.' The brother said, 'Suppose a man cannot attain that standard, what is he to do?' The hermit answered, 'He should run away, and choose silence.'

Because to this you were called, that you might inherit a blessing. Namely, with the Judge saying: Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom (Matthew 25). The blessing of inheritance can also be understood as that by which the Church is perpetually blessed in future life.

For “the one desiring to love life and to see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;

let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.

And if I glance around at their examples-(examples) of some David heaping up marriages for himself even through sanguinary means, of some Solomon rich in wives as well as in other riches-you are bidden to "follow the better things; " and you have withal Joseph but once wedded, and on this score I venture to say better than his father; you have Moses, the intimate eye-witness of…

Exhortations and encouragements to godliness are of fundamental importance. It is essential to turn away from the tendency toward evil and from the evil path of acquiescence in wickedness, so as to reach out to what is good. We must first distance ourselves completely from everything evil if we want to enjoy genuine health, free from all disease.

These things do not come naturally to us, for bad thoughts are always entering our minds. But if a man is wise, he will put them aside and in their place choose thoughts which will be advantageous and profitable for him. This, I believe, is what it means to turn away from evil.

Because the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears toward their prayer; but the face of the Lord is against those doing evil.”

"For the eyes of the Lord," he says, "are upon the righteous, and His ears on their prayers:" he means the manifold inspection of the Holy Spirit. "The face of the Lord is on them that do evil;" that is, whether judgment, or vengeance, or manifestation.

It is not those who are still in their sins who are worthy of such divine oversight, but those who have been cleansed from them. The phrase "the eyes of God" is a metaphor for those divine powers which see everything. It is they who watch over the righteous, but his ears are also ready to hear their prayers.

From the words of the prophet that he cited, he draws a conclusion. There it is said: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and the face of the Lord is against those who do evil" (1 Pet. 3:12), and the apostle adds to this: if you live in this way, then God will be gracious and merciful toward you. And in such a situation, who will harm you?

And who is the one who will harm you if you become zealous for what is good?

Suffering for Righteousness

But even if you would suffer because of righteousness, happy are you. And do not fear their threat nor be troubled,

No one can harm a person who does not do evil himself. Peter shows that trials which come from the Gentiles cannot harm those who live according to virtue. On the contrary, they turn those who endure them into blessed people.

Therefore, sanctify God in your hearts, and do not be afraid of human fear nor be troubled. But always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. And do this with the demonstration of good actions.

But even if you suffer anything for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. He says, not only does the one who inflicts evil upon those doing good not harm you at all, but also when the enemy persecutes you for the good deeds which he abhors, he provides you with a greater cause of blessedness as he exercises the strength of your patience, according to that saying of the gosp…

but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready for a defense to everyone asking you an account concerning the hope in you — but with gentleness and fear,

"But sanctify the Lord Christ," he says, "in your hearts." For so you have in the Lord's prayer, "Hallowed be Thy name."

Furthermore, God commands "to sanctify Him in the hearts," as Isaiah says (Is. 8:13): this means, do not glory in those things that appear, but in the hidden treasury of your hearts, working the sanctification of the Lord, which consists in the separation of the nations from their abominations or wicked customs; thus sanctify Him.

That the Lord commands sanctification, that is, rest for the sake of loving, this is a purely moral precept. Whence blessed Peter says: But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, that is, love him. For he sanctifies or makes holy the Sabbath who loves God above all things for his own sake, not for the sake of something else.

having a good conscience, so that in what you are spoken against, those reviling your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

For it is better to suffer doing good, if the will of God would have it, than doing evil;

because Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that he might bring you to God — having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,

Sheol saw me and was shattered, and Death ejected me and many with me. I have been vinegar and bitterness to it, and I went down with it as far as its depth. Then the feet and the head it released, because it was not able to endure my face. And I made a congregation of living among his dead; and I spoke with them by living lips; in order that my word may not be unprofitable.

He was truly laid as Man in a tomb of rock; but rocks were rent asunder by terror because of Him. He went down into the regions beneath the earth, that thence also He might redeem the righteous.

These words of Peter [1 Peter 3:19] are referred by some to Christ's descent into hell: and they explain it in this sense: "Christ preached to them who formerly were unbelievers, and who were shut up in prison"—that is, in hell—"in spirit"—that is, by His soul. Hence Damascene says (De Fide Orth.

in which also, having gone, he preached to the spirits in prison,

And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth. And they said one to another: 'The earth made without inhabitant cries the voice of their cryingst up to the gates of heaven.

That the dead might know salvation, who in limbo long had dwelt, Into hell with love he entered; to him yield the broken gates As the bolts and massive hinges fall asunder at his word. Now the door of ready entrance, but forbidding all return Outward swings as bars are loosened and sends forth the prisoned souls By reversal of the mandate, treading its threshold once more.

The soul of Christ after the passion descended to hell, that is, to limbo, for the liberation not of all, but of those who had departed as members of Christ through living faith, or through the Sacraments of faith. Because the remedy of the passion was most sufficient, it extended itself to celestial, terrestrial, and infernal things.

who had disobeyed at one time, when the patience of God was waiting in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few — that is, eight souls — were saved through water.

Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted unto Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved.

But (in vain): for they who had originated those of the former seed sent into the ark (secretly and stealthily, and unknown to that Mother-Virtue), together with those "eight souls," the seed likewise of Ham, in order that the seed of evil should not perish, but should, together with the rest, be preserved, and after the deluge be restored to the earth, and, by example of the r…

He set this down as a resolution of the objection. Someone might say: "Who else preached before Christ, and who were condemned for not obeying?" Like the Apostle Paul (Rom. 2:15), he could have pointed to the rational powers innate in us: for those who were created capable of distinguishing good from evil and, despite this, did not do good, are worthy of condemnation.

Which also now saves you, an antitype: baptism, not a putting away of the filth of flesh but the demand of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

"By the resurrection," it is said, "of Jesus Christ:" that, namely, which is effected in us by faith.

"O ἄντίτυπον, etc." (The context of the Greek words here is obscure, and therefore rendered in Latin with more words; yet by rendering the Greek expressions literally, it would be arranged thus:) that baptism, corresponding to the figures, now also saves you, which is now not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the ἐπερώτημα of a good conscience, which is toward God, or…

Likewise in the time after the cleansing of sin, there were three divisions: the building of the Ark, the showing of the rainbow, and the separation of tongues. For a hundred years, Noah worked on the Ark in which he was saved together with seven souls. And, as Peter says, baptism is the type of this — of water, of desire and of blood.

who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been subjected to him.

I Peter3

Wives and Husbands

Turning from Evil

Suffering for Righteousness