2 Peter 2:4
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments, to be reserved unto judgment:
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Si enim Deus angelis peccantibus non pepercit, sed rudentibus inferni detractos in tartarum tradidit cruciandos, in judicium reservari.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Εἰ γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ἀγγέλων ἁμαρτησάντων οὐκ ἐφείσατο, ἀλλὰ σειραῖς ζόφου ταρταρώσας παρέδωκεν εἰς κρίσιν τηρουμένους,
Haydock's commentary
If God spared not the Angels, &c. St. Peter here brings these examples of God's justice. 1. Towards the rebellious angels that fell from heaven; 2. that of the general flood, or deluge; 3. when he destroyed Sodom and those other cities. First, angels that sinned, God by his justice delivered them, drawn down with infernal ropes into hell to be tormented, and to be reserved even for greater torments after the day of judgment. This seems to be the liberal sense of this fourth verse, which is obscure, and has divers reading in the Greek. In the examples of the deluge and of Sodom, St. Peter shews not only the severity of God's judgments upon the wicked, but also his merciful providence towards the small number of the just, as towards Noe[Noah], a preacher of justice, the eighth and chief of those who were preserved in the ark, when he spared not the world that was of old, (literally, the original world) or wicked of those ancient times. When he delivered that just man, Lot, at the time he reduced Sodom and those other cities to ashes: for Lot was just both in sight and hearing, without being corrupted by what he saw and heard; chaste as to his eyes and ears, or as to all that could be seen or heard of him, when the wicked among whom he lived vexed and grieved his just soul by their impious deeds. God, therefore, who knows and approves the ways of the godly, preserves them by his providence amidst temptations. (Witham)
2 Rudentibus inferni detractos in tartarum tradidit cruciandos, in judicium reservari, seirais zophou (some few copies, adou) tartarosas, paredoken eis krisin teteremenous; other manuscripts, teroumenous. Tartaroo must signify cast into a place, called tartaros, derived from taratto, turbo. The Rheims Testament hath, with ropes of hell drawn down; but the sense rather seems to be, delivered into chains, or into prison. Some would have tartarosas to signify, cast down into this region of the air. It is true divers of the ancient Fathers were of opinion, that devils are dispersed in the airy region, where they are punished and tormented; but these same Fathers do not deny, that there is in the inferior parts of the earth a place of torments for the devils and damned souls, into which (called also the abyss) the devils begged not to be sent and confined there. (Luke viii. 31.) This is the place called hell, tartarus, &c.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine City of God, Of the Two Different and Dissimilar Communities of Angels, Which are Not Inappropriately Signified by the Names Light and Darkness
That certain angels sinned, and were thrust down to the lowest parts of this world, where they are, as it were, incarcerated till their final damnation in the day of judgment, the Apostle Peter very plainly declares, when he says that “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved into judgment.” Who, then, can doubt that God, either in foreknowledge or in act, separated between these and the rest? And who will dispute that the rest are justly called “light?” For even we who are yet living by faith, hoping only and not yet enjoying equality with them, are already called “light” by the apostle: “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.” But as for these apostate angels, all who understand or believe them to be worse than unbelieving men are well aware that they are called “darkness.” Wh …
St Augustine City of God, Whether We are to Believe that Angels, Who are of a Spiritual Substance, Fell in Love with the Beauty of Women, and Sought Them in Marriage, and that from This Connection Giants Were Born
In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, “Who maketh His angels spirits,” that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος , which in Latin appears as “angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that God’s ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched. …
St Augustine City of God, Against Those Who are of Opinion that the Punishment Neither of the Devil Nor of Wicked Men Shall Be Eternal
First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognize why the Church has not been able to tolerate the idea that promises cleansing or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and protracted punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old and New Testament, did not grudge to angels of any rank or character that they should enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom after being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived that they could not invalidate nor evacuate the divine sentence which the Lord predicted that He would pronounce in the judgment, saying, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” For here it is evident that the devil and his angels shall burn in everlasting fire. …
St Augustine The Enchiridion, The Condition of the Church in Heaven
But of that part of the Church which is in heaven what can we say, except that no wicked one is found in it, and that no one has fallen from it, or shall ever fall from it, since the time that “God spared not the angels that sinned,” as the Apostle Peter writes, “but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment?”
St Augustine Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans, That Evil Angels Have Been Made Evil, Not by God, But by Sinning
But because evil angels also were not constituted evil by God, but were made evil by sinning, Peter in his epistle says: "For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but casting them down into the dungeons of smoky hell, He delivered them to be reserved for punishment in judgment." Hence Peter shows that there is still due to them the penalty of the last judgment, concerning which the Lord says: "Go ye into everlasting fire, which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels." Although they have already penally received this hell, that is, an inferior smoky air as a prison, which nevertheless since it is also called heaven, is not that heaven in which there are stars, but this lower heaven by the smoke of which the clouds are conglobulated, and where the birds fly; for both a cloudy heaven is spoken of, and flying things are called heavenly. …
St Augustine Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Chapter XVI. 8-11
4. He will also reprove it “of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” Who is this, save he of whom He saith in another place, “Behold, the prince of the world cometh, and shall find nothing in me;” that is, nothing within his jurisdiction, nothing belonging to him; in fact, no sin at all? For thereby is the devil the prince of the world. For it is not of the heavens and of the earth, and of all that is in them, that the devil is prince, in the sense in which the world is to be understood, when it is said, “And the world was made by Him;” but the devil is prince of that world, whereof in the same passage He immediately afterwards subjoins the words, “And the world knew Him not;” that is, unbelieving men, wherewith the world through its utmost extent is filled: among whom the believing world groaneth, which He, who made the world, chose out of the world; and of whom He sait …