ACC ~ 2 Peter 1 v4

FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. ORIGEN: What is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit? Peter describes this by calling it “sharing in the divine nature.” SERMONS ON LEVITICUS 4.4.2.

ESCAPE FROM CORRUPTION. NOVATIAN: The word of Christ bestows immortality. But immortality is the companion of divinity, because divinity is immortal, and so immortality is the result of partaking in the divine nature. ON THE TRINITY 15.7.

WE BECOME CHRIST-BEARERS. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: When Christ’s body and blood become the tissue of our members, we become Christ-bearers and “partakers of the divine nature,” as the blessed Peter said. MYSTAGOGICAL LECTURES 4.3.

THE MEASURE OF GOD’S NATURE. HILARY OF POITIERS: Since the Christian is conscious of having been made a partaker of the divine nature, as blessed Peter says in his second epistle, he must measure the nature of God not by the laws of our own nature, but evaluate the divine truths in accordance with the magnificence of God’s testimony concerning himself. ON THE TRINITY 1.18.

A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIMSELF. AMBROSE OF MILAN: The fact is that God made humankind a partaker of the divine nature, as we read in the second epistle of Peter. He granted us a relationship with himself, and we have a rational nature which makes us able to seek what is divine, which is not far from each one of us, in whom we live and are and move. LETTERS TO PRIESTS 49.

REALIZE YOUR DIGNITY! LEO THE GREAT: Realize your dignity, O Christian! Once you have been made a partaker of the divine nature, do not return to your former baseness by a life unworthy of that dignity. Remember whose head it is and whose body of which you constitute a member! SERMONS 21.3.

STEP OUT OF YOUR FORMER NATURE. HILARY OF ARLES: Just as God stepped out of his nature to become a partaker of our humanity, so we are called to step out of our nature to become partakers of his divinity. INTRODUCTORY COMMENTARY ON 2 PETER.

BECOME PARTAKERS. BEDE: The greater your knowledge of God becomes, the more you will realize the magnitude of his promises. When God blesses us, he changes our very being so that whatever we were by nature is transformed by the gift of his Holy Spirit, so that we may truly become partakers of his nature. ON 2 PETER.

GRACE ENABLES PARTICIPATION. ANDREAS: God has blessed us abundantly—that is the meaning of this passage. We have received thousands of good things as a result of Christ’s coming, and through them we can become partakers of the divine nature and be turned toward life and godliness. Therefore we must behave in such a way as to add virtue to faith, and in virtue walk along the way which leads to godliness until we come to the perfection of all good things, which is love. CATENA.

2 Pet