1 Peter 5:4

And when the chief Shepherd shall appear The word for "chief Shepherd" is not found elsewhere, and would seem therefore to have been coined by St Peter, to express the thought which had been impressed on his mind by his Lord's words, "I am the good Shepherd" (John 10:14). In his own work, as in that of all pastors of the Church, he saw the reproduction of that of which Christ had set the great example. For "shall appear" it would be better to read is manifested.

a crown of glory that fadeth not away More accurately, as the Greek has the article, " the crown of glory." The four last words answer to the one Greek word, "amaranthine," or "unfading," the adjective being a cognate form of that in chap. 1 Peter 1:4. The crown here is the wreath or chaplet of flowers worn by conquerors and heroes, as in 1 Corinthians 9:25; James 1:12, and differs from the "crowns" or diademsof Revelation 12:3; Revelation 19:12, which were distinctively the badge of sovereignty. It is possible, as the adjective "amaranth" was applied to the kind of flowers which we know as "everlastings," that there may be an allusive reference to the practice of using those flowers for wreaths that were placed in funerals upon the brows of the dead. The word and the thought reappear in one of Milton's noblest passages:

"Immortal Amaranth, a flower which once

In Paradise, hard by the tree of life,

Began to bloom, but soon, for man's offence

To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows

And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life;

And where the river of bliss through midst of Heaven

Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream

With these, that never fade, the spirits elect

Bind their resplendent locks, inwreathed with beams."

Paradise Lost, III. 353 361.