IL
Virtue.
1. The word " virtue " cannot be taken here in the sense which it bears in ordinary use. As a general term it is employed to designate all excellence; — here, it is only one excellence out of many. It must stand, therefore, for something distinct and specific. It does so. It stands, according to the exact import of
* W. L. "\\'atkiuson, Studies in Christian Character, ii. 77.
2 PETER I. 5-7 163
the original term, for " force," " energy," " manly strength." It describes a readiness for action and effort, the disposition and the povirer of strenuous achievement.
The Latin word vir meant a man, or a hero ; and the Latin word virtus meant the special quality of the man or the hero. Virtue, to the Latins, meant, thus, the quality of manhood, or heroism. It was the special quality of life, without which a man was merely a creature, an animal. It gave tone, and dignity, and force to men. Virtue and manliness were almost synonymous words. To be manly was to be virtuous ; to be virtuous was to be manly. And it is in this sense that the word is used in our text. For the Greek word conveys just this conception of manly virtue. We associate with it the idea of courage, robustness, manhood.
In some ways " virtue " is the proper translation of the Greek word, but the Christian should remember that the meaning of human nature has been deepened and widened beyond reckoning since the Word became flesh and dwelt among men. Christ Jesus is a revelation of the possibility of human nature, and it has become a new thing since He took our nature on Himself. So when we speak of manliness in the Christian sense we mean manliness after the type introduced into life by Jesus Christ. It is not the Greek or Eoman type of character that is here meant, not the life of self-assertion, of mere courage, or of that tendency which says the race is to the swift, and the battle to the strong ; but the kind of life which realizes itself in service, which spends itself in saving others, which has as its ideal the life of Him who when He was reviled, reviled not again, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.
2. We may take " virtue " in various senses, not excluding one another, but each contributing something to the whole meaning.
(1) First of all it is efficacy. It is faith in energetic action. We often employ the word in this sense. We speak of there being virtue in a medicine to cure a particular disease. We also talk of one thing happening " in virtue of " another, i.e. the one is the cause of the other, the power which produces the other. And the term is often iTsed with this meaning in Scripture. Thus, in
i64 THE UNFOLDING OF CHARACTER
the case of the woman who came secretly among the crowd and touched the hem of Jesus' garment, it is said Jesus knew that virtue had gone out of Him. That is to say, Jesus was conscious of having put forth an efficacious power to heal the woman. And on another occasion, when Jesus came down from the mount, where He had all night been engaged in prayer, we are told, " the whole multitude sought to touch him : for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all."
Elsewhere this same writer has the word twice, but then he must be using it in quite a special and not the ordinary sense, for it is to God that he applies it. He speaks of " shewing forth the virtues of God " ; and again, just before the text, he speaks, if we take the true reading, of God calling us " by his own glory and virtue." Well, this last passage will give us a clue to what St. Peter means in the text. For when he speaks of God's virtue, he means, we are clear, the energy and power which God exercises on those whom He calls ; the strong, constraining force with which His arm draws us nearer to Himself. There you have it — the energy, the power, the effectiveness of God, or, if the case be so, of man ; that is what St. Peter means by " virtue." This is what we have to equip our faith with — energy, power, earnestness, effectiveness.
^ Just as the optic nerve feeds the brain with images of the physical order, so the faith-nerve feeds the soul with visions of the spiritual order. The amount of will-power poured into our faith will determine the measure of its efficiency and the richness of its result. It is the same in every other department of life. Con- centration, the power to focus the scattered forces of the mind on one point of observation, and the faculty of cutting out all disturbing and distracting factors, will ever be the measure of man's success. Deficient will-power is an all-sufficient explanation of failure, whether in law, medicine, literature, commerce, or trade. If you saw a young fellow of splendid ability failing on this account, you would say, " In your faculty supply will." Just as you have seen business men fall out of the running through lack of this element, so St. Peter had seen Christian men falling out of the Christian race. From this failure he is anxious to save them. Hence his rallying word at the close of this passage, " If ye do these things ye shall never stumble." We live by correspondence with our surroundings. Indeed, life has been defined by Herbert Spencer as " correspondence with environment." Now, the method