2 Peter 1:16–18

2 Peter 1:16 — "We did not follow cunningly devised fables"

Peter opens with a strong adversative contrast. The Greek word translated "cunningly devised fables" (sesophismenois mythois) is pointed and polemical. Mythos in the Greco-Roman world carried connotations of literary invention, priestly propaganda, or philosophical allegory — the kind of story that educated people knew was not literally true. Peter is explicitly rejecting the charge (likely circulating among false teachers mentioned later in 2 Peter 2) that the apostolic proclamation of Christ's parousia (coming) and dynamis (power) was of this invented, fictive character.

The phrase "power and coming (parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ" is theologically dense. Parousia is the technical term in early Christian literature for the Second Coming, but here it may encompass both the Incarnation's arrival and the future return — the whole arc of Christ's salvific lordship. "Power" (dynamis) echoes the language of theophanies throughout the Old Testament. To "make known" (gnōrizō) these realities is apostolic kerygma — the formal, authoritative proclamation of the Good News — not mere storytelling.

The counterweight to fable is eyewitness testimony: epoptai — a word used in the Greek mystery religions for those initiated into the highest, most privileged level of sacred vision. Peter's use of it here is a stunning inversion: the deepest divine mystery was not hidden in a pagan cult but revealed openly on a mountaintop to three Jewish disciples.

2 Peter 1:17 — "He received honor and glory from God the Father"

Peter now provides the specific content of what was witnessed: the Father's bestowal of timē (honor) and doxa (glory) upon the Son. This is not merely an affirmation Jesus received from a crowd or even from angels — it comes from "the Majestic Glory" (megaloprepous doxēs), a reverential circumlocution for God Himself, reflecting Jewish sensitivity to the divine name. The construction emphasizes that the Transfiguration was an act of divine investiture: the Father was publicly, cosmically ratifying the identity and authority of Jesus.

The heavenly voice — "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" — echoes two pivotal Old Testament texts simultaneously: Psalm 2:7 ("You are my Son; today I have begotten you"), the royal enthronement psalm, and Isaiah 42:1 ("Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights"), the first Servant Song. The combination is theologically explosive: Jesus is simultaneously the Davidic King of Psalm 2 and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. This double identification, confirmed by the Father's voice, is the interpretive key to Christ's identity.

2 Peter 1:18 — "We heard this voice from heaven"

Peter drives the empirical point home: ēkousamen — "we heard." Not reported speech, not tradition handed down, but direct sensory experience. The phrase "with him on the holy mountain" (en tō hagiō orei) is charged with biblical resonance. Mountains are the habitual sites of divine encounter in Scripture: Sinai, Horeb, Moriah, Zion. By calling this unnamed mountain (traditionally identified as Mount Tabor) "holy," Peter is placing the Transfiguration within Israel's great history of theophany. The mountain is made holy by the divine Presence — just as Sinai was holy because God descended upon it.

Typological and Spiritual Senses

The Transfiguration narrative recalled here participates in a rich typological structure. Moses received the Law and his face shone on Sinai (Exodus 34:29–35); Elijah heard the still small voice at Horeb (1 Kings 19:12). At the Transfiguration, both figures appear alongside Jesus, suggesting that the Law and the Prophets find their telos in Him. Peter's testimony that he was an eyewitness invites the reader into the same contemplative gaze — the Church, through the apostolic word, becomes a participant in that vision of glory.

Catholic tradition illuminates this passage with extraordinary depth on several fronts.

The Transfiguration in Catholic Theology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§554–556) interprets the Transfiguration as a "foretaste of the Kingdom" and a strengthening of the apostles' faith before the Passion — the glory hidden in Christ's humanity was momentarily unveiled. Significantly, the CCC (§556) quotes Leo the Great: "Christ was transfigured, not by acquiring what he was not, but by manifesting to his disciples what he was." This is critical for reading Peter's testimony: the doxa witnessed was not granted to Jesus at that moment but revealed from what always already indwelt Him.

Apostolic Tradition as Eyewitness. The First Vatican Council (Dei Filius, 1870) and the Second Vatican Council (Dei Verbum §7) both affirm that Divine Revelation was transmitted by the Apostles, who "by their oral preaching, by example, and by observances handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with him, and from what he did." Peter's appeal to eyewitness experience here is precisely the theological warrant for Apostolic Tradition — the faith is not myth but testimony.

The Voice of the Father. Origen (Commentary on Matthew XII.38) notes that the divine voice at the Transfiguration recapitulates the voice at the Baptism, forming a divine "bookend" around Christ's public ministry. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae III, q. 45) argues the Transfiguration was fittingly manifested precisely to confirm faith in both the divinity and the future glorified humanity of Christ, so that believers would not be scandalized by the Cross.

Anti-Gnostic Function. The rejection of mythoi is directly relevant to the Church's perennial struggle against Gnosticism and its modern successors. The Fathers — Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus — repeatedly grounded orthodoxy in the physical, historical, witnessed reality of Christ's acts, against the Gnostic tendency to spiritualize or allegorize away the bodily events of salvation. Peter's "we were eyewitnesses" is the apostolic bedrock of the regula fidei.

In an age saturated with disinformation, conspiracy theories, and the blurring of fact and narrative, Peter's insistence that the Christian faith rests on eyewitness testimony — not myth, not projection, not wish-fulfillment — speaks with urgent force. Catholics today are sometimes tempted, under cultural pressure, to treat the miraculous events of the Gospel as spiritually meaningful but historically negotiable. 2 Peter 1:16–18 closes that door: the Transfiguration happened; someone was there; and that person is speaking.

Practically, this passage calls Catholics to recover confidence in the historicity of the faith as the very ground of its spiritual power. When you read the Synoptic Transfiguration accounts at Sunday Mass (particularly on the Second Sunday of Lent), you are not hearing a pious legend — you are hearing the testimony of witnesses. Let that specificity shape your prayer. Pope John Paul II, in Rosarium Virginis Mariae (§21), added the Transfiguration as the Fourth Luminous Mystery precisely to invite contemplation of Christ's glory as something that actually broke into history. Spend time with that mystery — not as symbol, but as event — and let the eyewitness testimony of Peter draw you deeper into the real humanity and real divinity of Jesus.