But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;
As previously he warned them by the awful end of apostates, so here he stirs them up by the remembrance of their own faith, patience, and self-sacrificing love. So Revelation 2:3-4.
Call to remembrance - habitually: the present tense.
Illuminated - "enlightened:" come to "the (full) knowledge of the truth" (Hebrews 10:26), in connection with baptism (note, Hebrews 6:4). In spiritual baptism, Christ, "the Light," is put on. 'On the one hand, we are not to sever the sign and the grace, where the sacrament truly answers its design; on tho other, the glass is not to be mistaken for the liquor, nor the sheath for the sword' (Bengel).
Fight of - i:e., consisting of afflictions.