Super Acta Apostolorum expositio, cum epistola ad Accam

There follow the excellent expositions of the same venerable Bede, priest, servant of Christ, on the Acts of the Apostles, in fitting order and suitable sequence: both because these were written by the same Luke the evangelist by whom the Gospel just expounded was written, and because they agree most of all with the Gospel's phrasing, and also because, perhaps for these reasons, they are customarily placed in the common Bibles after the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, on which the same author collected Explanations separately. After these, following the order stated, we shall add his Explanations on the Catholic Epistles, and lastly on the Apocalypse of St John, closing this volume neither unexpectedly nor unfaithfully.

EXPOSITION ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

LETTER OF BEDE TO BISHOP ACCA

ON THE EXPOSITION OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

To his lord in Christ, most longed-for and truly most blessed, Bishop Acca, Bede sends everlasting greeting in the Lord.

I have received the very frequent letters of your Blessedness, in which you have deigned to admonish me not to let the edge of my mind grow torpid and fall asleep in sluggish leisure, but to apply myself, watchful and unwearied, to meditating and searching the Scriptures daily; and, after the exposition of the Apocalypse of the holy evangelist John, which at the request of our brother Eusebius I comprised in three books and presently arranged to have copied out for you, to spend as much sweat as I can on an explanation of the blessed Evangelist Luke as well, following the footsteps of the Fathers. Since I have not yet been able to do this, being both daunted by the sheer immensity of the work and hindered by the pressure of clamouring affairs (which you know better than I), yet so that the authority of your request should not be slighted, I have done in the meantime what I could. For I have sent a little work on the Acts of the Apostles, which I had put out not many days before and, corrected as quickly as time allowed, so that your sacrosanct wish should not be hindered, had set down on small parchments. In it I have tried, as best I could, to clarify those things that seemed either to have been done in a mystical sense or to have been said rather obscurely. In this little work many other writers of the Catholic faith helped me, but most of all Arator, subdeacon of the holy Roman Church, who, running through that very book in order in heroic verse, mingled into the same metre a number of flowers of allegory, giving occasion

to me either of gathering other things from them or of expounding the same things more plainly. The Acts of the Apostles, then (as blessed Jerome says), seem indeed to sound out a bare history and to weave together the infancy of the newborn Church; but if we know that their writer Luke was a physician, "whose praise is in the Gospel", we notice likewise that all his words are medicine for the languishing soul. And, being about to expound some things in them according to the small measure of our littleness, we shall first take care to point out that the evangelist Luke himself, as has been said, according to the tradition of the ancient commentators of the Church, was highly skilled in the art of medicine, and knew Greek letters better than Hebrew. Hence his language, both in the Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, is more polished and has the scent of worldly eloquence, and he uses Greek testimonies more than Hebrew. From this has come about something at which I marvel greatly and which, struck with the most violent amazement because of the slowness of my wit, I do not know how to search out: for what reason, when in the Hebrew verity ten generations are found from the Flood to Abraham, Luke himself, who, with the Holy Spirit guiding his pen, could in no way write anything false, preferred to set down eleven generations in the Gospel, following the Seventy Translators, with Cainan added. Now for this reason he says in the Proem of the Gospel that it seemed good to him to write diligently in order, since many had attempted this. But we ought to understand those to be meant whose authority stands great in the Church, because that

what they attempted they were by no means able to accomplish. He, however, not only carried his narrative up to the resurrection and ascension of the Lord, so as to hold, by his labour, a worthy place among the four authors of the Gospel Scripture, but also wrote down thereafter those things done through the Apostles which he believed sufficient for building up the faith of readers or hearers, in such a way that his book alone was held worthy of belief in the Church as the account of the acts of the apostles, all those being rejected who dared to write the deeds and words of the apostles without the faith that was due. For Mark and Luke wrote at a time when they could be approved not only by the Church of Christ but also by the apostles themselves, who were still abiding in the flesh. For it came about by the Lord's will that not only the apostles who had seen, but also the disciples who had learned by hearing, should write down the deeds and words of Christ, so that the doctors of the Church who followed might be given both confidence and authority alike for preaching and writing the things they had not seen; but the Acts of the apostles, and especially of blessed Paul, whose inseparable companion in his travels blessed Luke was, he composed just as he himself had seen them. Their whole course, so far as we have been able to make out from the histories of others, covers twenty-eight years, that is, six years of Tiberius Caesar, four years of Gaius, fourteen years of Claudius. In the reign of this last emperor

HERE BEGINS THE EXPOSITION.

CHAPTER I.

The former treatise I made of all things, O Theophilus, which Jesus began to do and to teach. He says that in the Gospel he wrote of all the deeds and words of Christ, not because he was able to take in all of them, lest he contradict John, who says: Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of His disciples, which are not written in this book (John 20:30); but because out of all of them he chose the matter for his treatise, those things which he judged fit and suitable to suffice for the duty of his stewardship. Theophilus is interpreted "lover of God", or "loved by God". Whoever, then, is a lover of God, let him believe that it was written to him, and, since it was Luke the physician who wrote, let him find here the health of his soul. And it should be noted that he says: Which Jesus began to do and to teach. First to do, afterwards to teach. For Jesus, in forming the good teacher, taught nothing but what He did.

Until the day on which, giving commandments through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen, He was taken up. By hyperbaton it is to be read "until the day on which He was taken up", giving commandments before the ascension, that is, giving precepts to the apostles, which are read either here or in the Gospels. The sense, then, is: I have written of Jesus from the time when He began to do signs and to teach until the day on which, these being accomplished, He returned whence He had come.

Appearing to them for forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God, and eating with them, etc. To instruct their faith in His resurrection, the Lord quite often, after

the apostle Peter came to Rome, and in the fourth year, when a famine had occurred, in the eighth year the Jews were expelled from Rome. Likewise four years of Nero, the last two of which blessed Paul spent at Rome in free custody. From this we understand that the book was composed in that same city. And again, so that I may distinguish the same periods by the kings of the Jews as well: Herod, Philip and Lysanias the tetrarchs ruled for six years. King Herod, who is also Agrippa, who perished at Caesarea, seven years. Agrippa his son, under whom Paul was sent to Rome, fifteen years. Of his reign there remain twelve years until the overthrow of Jerusalem. I have set these things out in some detail so that, when you turn over the history of this little book, you may clearly recognize what was done at what time. I have also sent a little explanation of the Epistle of the most blessed evangelist John, the greatest part of which I excerpted, as a concise abridger, from the homilies of St Augustine, which are spread out with the most ample sweetness. Some things too I have added at the end by my own sweat. In both these works, if you find anything of use, ascribe it to the gifts of God; if anything superfluous, have compassion on my frailty. May the Lord almighty preserve your Blessedness, who intercede for us, unharmed for ever for the governance of the Church.

His passion appeared to them alive, takes food, and shows the same flesh which He had raised from the dead, to be handled. But by a higher mystery, through this forty days' converse with the disciples, He signifies that by a hidden presence He will fulfil what He had promised: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matt. 28). For this number signifies this temporal and earthly life, either on account of the four seasons of the year or on account of the four winds of heaven. For after we have been buried together with Christ by baptism into death, as though the path through the Red Sea had been crossed, we need the Lord's leadership in this wilderness, to lead us through to heavenly things and, rewarding us with the denarius of His image, to make us blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit as in the true rest of the jubilee.

But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. The apostles had not yet been baptized, not, however, with water, but with the Holy Spirit; for we understand that they had already been baptized, whether with the baptism of John (as some think) or (which is more credible) with the baptism of Christ. For it was not [beyond Him to perform] the ministry of baptizing, so that He should have had baptized servants through whom to baptize the rest, since He did not shrink from the ministry of that memorable humility when He washed their feet. When, therefore, the Lord said: For John indeed baptized with water, He by no means added: But you shall baptize, but: But you shall be baptized with the Spirit

Holy. For neither the apostles nor their followers, who baptize in the Church to this day, are able to baptize otherwise than John, that is, in water; but only, when the name of Christ is invoked, the inner power of the Holy Spirit is present, to purify at once the souls and the bodies of the baptized while a man supplies the water, which did not happen in John's baptism. For the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7).

They therefore who had come together asked Him, saying: Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? Since, appearing to them, He had spoken of the kingdom of God, and had also promised the coming of the Holy Spirit not many days hence, they consequently question Him about that same kingdom: whether, namely, they ought to believe that it was to be restored in the present, as soon as the Holy Spirit came, or reserved for the saints in the future. For the disciples, still carnal, believed that once the resurrection of Christ was accomplished the kingdom of Israel would come at once. In keeping with which Cleophas says: But we hoped that it was He that should redeem Israel. And the evangelist stated beforehand that, as the Lord was about to come to Jerusalem, they supposed that the kingdom of God would immediately be made manifest. But the prophecy had to be fulfilled, in which, singing to the Father: But Thou hast cast off and despised, and hast put off Thy Christ (Ps. 88). For the Father cast off and despised the Son when He forsook Him in His passion as He said: God, My God, why hast Thou cast Me off (Matt. 27)? And He put Him off, so that Him whom the saints thought would reign at that time, they should await coming in His majesty on the day of judgement. Hence the Lord Himself too, intimating that a spiritual Israel and a heavenly kingdom had been promised by the prophets, says:

It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father has put in His own power. The time of that kingdom (He says) is so secret that it lies open only to the Father's knowledge. And when He says: It is not for you to know, He shows that He Himself knows, He to Whom belong all things that are the Father's, but that it is not expedient for mortals to know, so that, always uncertain of the Judge's coming, they may live each day as though they were to be judged on the next.

But you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you. And you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, etc. When the Holy Spirit, He says, has come upon you, He will by no means bring the kingdom of Israel, or the kingdom of God in Israel, as you think, but He will afford you the power of bearing witness to Me. And the times of that kingdom are so far off that the report of the Gospel will first run not only through this city of Jerusalem but also through all the borders of Judaea, then next through the nation of Samaria, and at last through the uttermost bounds of the whole circuit of the world.

And when He had said these things, while they looked on, He was raised up. Mark indeed, recalling another saying of the Lord, says: And the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven (Mark 16). But because Luke added, more expressly, When He had said these things, He was raised up, he certainly shows that, when those words which he had recorded

had been completed, the Lord ascended to the heavens.

And a cloud received Him out of their sight. Everywhere the creature renders service to its Creator. The stars point Him out at His birth, they veil themselves at His passion, clouds receive Him as He ascends, they will accompany Him as He returns to judgement.

Behold, two men stood by them in white garments. White garments befit exaltation rather than humiliation. And therefore, as the Lord ascends, angels appear in white garments, who are not said to have appeared in white garments when the Lord was born; for He who in His nativity appeared as God humble, in His ascension was shown as man exalted. For the place too is fitting, since He who was born as man in a lowly little town returned to heaven from a lofty mountain.

This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven. The angels are seen for two reasons: namely, to console the sadness of the ascension by recalling the return, and to show that He was truly going into heaven, and not as it were into the sky, like Elijah.

He shall so come as you have seen Him going into heaven. That is, He will come to judge in the same form and substance of flesh in which He had come to be judged. To that flesh He gave immortality indeed, but did not take away its nature. His divine glory too, which once appeared on the mountain to three disciples, will be seen by all the saints when the judgement is completed, when the wicked man shall be taken away, that he may not see the glory of God.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount which is called Olivet. Our Lord and Saviour, having overcome the prince of darkness, leads the faithful out into a place of peace and light. And fittingly He ascends the mount of anointing, being about to promise the Holy Spirit, whose unction teaches us of all things.

Which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey. According to the history, he indicates that the Mount of Olives is separated from the city of Jerusalem by the space of a mile, for on the Sabbath, according to the law, it was not lawful to walk more than a thousand paces. According to allegory, however, he who shall deserve to behold inwardly the glory of the Lord ascending to the Father, and to be enriched by the promise of the Holy Spirit, enters here by a Sabbath journey the city of everlasting peace. And there shall be for him, according to Isaiah, Sabbath upon Sabbath, because he who here has ceased from perverse work will rest there in the heavenly reward. But on the contrary, he who in this world, as it were through the time of six days, has neglected to work out his salvation, will be shut out from the borders of blessed Jerusalem in that time of everlasting rest, having scorned that saying of the Gospel: Pray that your flight be not in winter or on the Sabbath.

And when they had entered the upper room, they went up to where they were staying. He marks the place as on the upper floor, because by now they had climbed from the earthly manner of life of the Sabbath to the higher things of knowledge and virtue.

James of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Jude of James. Some think that there were two apostles called by the name of James, namely James of Zebedee and James of Alphaeus, but that a third James, the brother of the Lord, was not an apostle but bishop of Jerusalem. This is by no means true; rather, according to the

faith of the Gospels, it must be known that this same James, son of Alphaeus, an apostle, presided at Jerusalem; he was called the brother of the Lord because he was the son of Mary, the Lord's mother's sister, whom John the evangelist mentions: Now there stood (he says) by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas (John 19), giving this Mary the surname "of Cleophas" from her father or from her family. For how could the brother of the Lord be said to be not an apostle but a third James, when Paul too names him an apostle, saying: But other of the apostles I saw none, saving James the brother of the Lord (Gal. 1)? and when the evangelist Mark calls this same man not the third but the second, saying: And there were also women looking on afar off, among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joseph, and Salome (Mark 15)? For since "greater" and "less" are wont to mark a distinction not among three but between two, James of Alphaeus is called "the Less" to distinguish him from the Greater, who was the son of Zebedee. Read the book of blessed Jerome against Helvidius. Simon Zelotes, moreover, is the one who in the Gospels is written "the Cananaean". For Cana is interpreted "zeal". He was from the village of Cana in Galilee, where the Lord turned water into wine; after his brother James he ruled the Church of Jerusalem, and at a hundred and twenty years of age he mounted the cross under Trajan. He is declared to have been a cousin of the Saviour according to the flesh, because Hegesippus attested that his father Cleophas was the brother of Joseph. Jude of James, that is, the brother of James, is the same one who in the Gospels is called Thaddaeus; and he was sent to Edessa to Abgar, king of Osroene, as the ecclesiastical history relates. There follows:

All these were persevering with one mind in prayer. Those who await the coming of the Holy Spirit persevere with one mind in prayer. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful (Wis. 1). And therefore whoever desires to receive His promised gifts ought to persist perseveringly in prayers seasoned with brotherly charity.

Now the crowd of men together was about a hundred and twenty. These hundred and twenty, rising little by little and by increments from one to fifteen, make up the number of the fifteen steps, which is contained mystically in the Psalter on account of the perfection of both laws, and the number [of days] during which the Vessel of election stays with Peter at Jerusalem. For it was fitting that the mystery which the lawgiver displayed in years, the preachers of the new grace should signify by their number.

Men, brethren, the Scripture must be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit foretold, etc. The apostle Peter fears to remain in the number eleven. For every sin is of the number eleven, because, while it acts perversely, it oversteps the precepts of the Decalogue. Hence, because none of our righteousness is innocent of itself, the tabernacle which held within it the Ark of the Lord was veiled over above with eleven curtains of goats' hair. And he restores the apostles' number of twelve, so that through the two parts of seven (for three fours [make] the glory of the dupondius) they might both keep with their number the grace which they preached by word, and that those who to the world

were to preach the faith of the Holy Trinity in its fourfold form, as the Lord said: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28), might confirm the perfection of the work by the mystery of the number as well. According to a higher understanding, however, the loss which the Church suffers in false brethren remains to this day for the most part uncorrected. But since the people of the Jews who crucified the Lord is believed to be reconciled to the Church at the end of the world, the full count of the apostles was restored as the fiftieth day, as it were, drew near.

And this man indeed possessed a field of the reward of iniquity. He who sold the Lord of life, having lost the land of the living, possesses a field of blood and of eternal death, the memorial of his crime and of his name. Otherwise Judas himself did not merit to possess the potter's field bought with the price of blood, since, having brought back the thirty pieces of silver, he at once punished the crime of betrayal upon himself by a more criminal death. But, after the manner of sacred speech, "possessed" is said for "caused to be possessed". As blessed Job says: And my garments shall abhor me, that is, my corruptible members shall render me abhorrent.

And being hanged, he burst asunder in the midst. The mad traitor found a punishment worthy of himself, namely that the knot of the noose should choke the throat from which the word of betrayal had gone out. He sought also a worthy place of destruction, so that he who had delivered the Lord of men and angels to death, hateful to heaven and earth, as one to be joined only to the spirits of the air, should perish in mid-air, after the example of Ahithophel and Absalom, who persecuted King David. And to this so fitting an end death itself followed, in such a way that the bowels which had conceived the guile of betrayal fell burst open and were rolled out into the empty air. A death most like his punishment is reported to have condemned Arius the heresiarch, so that, since the one strove to extinguish the humanity of Christ and the other His divinity, both, as they had lived empty of understanding, so too might perish emptied of their bowels.

Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be none to dwell in it, and his bishopric let another take. These little verses are plain indeed, and openly expounded by blessed Peter's interpretation: for Judas both received the deserved punishment of his transgression and, going away to his own place, that is, to the gehenna of hell, by an untimely and impious death abandoned the common dwelling of human life; and none the less, when holy Matthias received the place of that ministry and apostleship, the most sacred full count of apostolic perfection was restored. But it should be noted that, according to the Vulgate Edition, the whole testimony is by no means taken from the one hundred and eighth psalm, but only its last part, while the former part is from the sixty-eighth, in which it is said of the Jews: Let their habitation be made desolate, and let there be none to dwell in their tabernacles. For since blessed Peter wished to support both the casting-off of Judas and the election of Matthias with prophetic testimonies, he joined the testimony which had been set down specifically for the bishopric of Matthias and that which had been set down generally about the casting-off of the Jews, in whose number Judas also was. By what unskilled corrector this was first [changed to] the hundred and eighth

psalm added, I do not know. He, seeing these little verses placed together by blessed Peter, and that his own Psalter did not have them together, began to think that he had a falsified Codex, and presumed to add on what it had not had. In the same way, into the thirteenth psalm eight verses from Paul's Epistle to the Romans were added, which he himself had woven together from all the psalms and from Isaiah the prophet. Of these the first is: Their throat is an open sepulchre. The last: There is no fear of God before their eyes. For what I have said is confirmed not only by the Hebrew verity and the more correct Edition of the Seventy Translators, but also by plain reason: that in that same hundred and eighth psalm, apart from these little verses, there are thirty curses laid upon Judas Iscariot, according to the number of the pieces of silver for which he did not fear to sell the Lord. Of these the first is this: Set Thou a sinner over him. And the last is this: And let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak.

Joseph, who is called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. Barsabas is interpreted "son of rest", Matthias "little one of God". Of whom Arator says:

O how far human judgements stand from those on high! By the merit of the little one he is passed over who in the praise of men was just.

And they gave them lots, etc. Not by this example, nor because Jonah the prophet was found out by lot, is trust to be placed in lots indiscriminately, "since the privileges of individuals," as Jerome says, "can by no means make a common law." For there the Gentile men, driven by the storm, sought by lot the author of their danger; and here Matthias is chosen by lot, lest the election of an apostle should seem to depart from the command of the old law, where the high priest was ordered to be sought by lot, as is said of Zachary: According to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense (Luke 1). The priest was chosen by lot then, I think, so that it might be signified in a figure that the true priest was always to be sought, until He should come for Whom it was reserved, Who, not in the blood of victims but by His own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption (Heb. 9). His sacrifice was immolated at the time of the Pasch, but was truly consumed on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit appeared in fire. For it was an ancient custom that victims accepted by God were consumed by fire from heaven. Until the truth was fulfilled, then, it was lawful for the figure to be practised. Hence it is that Matthias, who is ordained before Pentecost, is sought by lot; but the seven deacons afterwards were ordained by no casting of lots, but only by the choice of the disciples, and by the prayer and laying on of hands of the apostles. But if any, compelled by some necessity, think that God should be consulted by lots after the example of the apostles, let them see that the apostles themselves did this only when the assembly of the brethren had been gathered and prayers poured out to God.

CHAPTER II.

And when the days of Pentecost were being fulfilled, they were all together in the same place. That is, in the upper room into which they are related above to have gone up. For whoever with the Spirit

Holy desire to be filled must of necessity pass beyond the dwelling of the flesh by the contemplation of the mind. And as the forty days during which the Lord after His resurrection conversed with the disciples signify the Church of this pilgrimage, risen together with Christ, so the fiftieth day, on which the Holy Spirit is received, fittingly expresses the perfection of blessed rest, in which the Church's temporal labour will be rewarded with the eternal denarius. For the number forty itself, reckoned by its equal parts, adds that very ten besides and makes fifty. For the half of the number forty is twenty, the fourth part ten, the fifth eight, the eighth five, the tenth four, the twentieth two, the fortieth one. And twenty, and ten, and eight, and five, and four, and two, and one make fifty. The figure of this reckoning is very easily seen, since our present conflict generates for us, as it were secretly, the everlasting joy of the jubilee, as the Apostle says: For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation works for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory (II Cor. 4). Now our true blessedness of body and soul is this: that we, glorying in immortality, be filled with the eternal vision of the supreme and blessed Trinity. For in the body we consist of the four best-known qualities. But in the inner man we are commanded to love God with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole mind. And this is the perfect denarius of life, that we rejoice in the present vision of the divine glory. But it should be noted, according to the history, that among the ancients the day of Pentecost, that is, of the fiftieth, on which the law had been given, was reckoned from the slaying of the lamb. Here, however, the fiftieth day, on which the Holy Spirit was sent, is reckoned, as blessed Augustine explains, not from the Lord's passion but from His resurrection; and He Himself, the example of the old sign returning, there most manifestly consecrated the Lord's day by His coming. By this point of time too He showed that the true Pasch is to be celebrated on the Lord's day. For as here, so there also God appeared in a vision of fire, as Exodus says: And all Mount Sinai was smoking, because the Lord had come down upon it in fire (Exod. 19).

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, etc. The Lord indeed appeared through fire, as blessed Pope Gregory explains, but through Himself He spoke inwardly. And God was neither the fire nor that sound, but by what He showed outwardly He expressed what He wrought inwardly. For He who made the disciples within both kindled with zeal and instructed in the word, showed fiery tongues without. The elements, then, were brought in as a sign, so that bodies might perceive fire and sound, but hearts be taught by an invisible fire and a voice without sound.

And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire. For the Holy Spirit appeared in fire and in tongues, because all whom He fills He makes both burning and speaking alike: burning, that is, from Him, and speaking of Him. At the same time He also indicates that holy Church through

spread out to the ends of the world, was to speak with the voice of all nations.

And it sat upon each of them. That it is said to have sat is a token of royal power. Or certainly because His rest is shown to be in the saints.

And they began to speak with various tongues. The unity of tongues which the pride of Babylon had scattered, the humility of the Church gathers up again. Spiritually, however, the variety of tongues signifies the gifts of various graces. But it is not unfittingly understood that the Holy Spirit gave first to men the gift of tongues, by which human wisdom is both learned and taught from outside, for this reason: to show how easily He can make men wise through the wisdom of God, which is within them.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation that is under heaven. I think it fitting to inquire who these were, and from which captivity they were Jews. For indeed that which had been in Egypt or in Babylonia had already been ended. And the Jews had not yet come into captivity to the Romans, although that too was already impending, as the avenger of the crime committed against the Saviour. It remains, then, that the captivity understood is the one that took place under Antiochus, which had certainly happened not many times before.

Because each one heard them speaking in his own tongue. It is asked in this place how each one heard them speaking the great works of God in his own tongue: whether those who spoke uttered what was being said in the various speeches of each tongue, that is, so that each of them, speaking now in this tongue, now in another, ran thus through them all; or whether the wonder lay rather in this, that the speech of those who spoke, in whatever tongue it had been uttered, was understood by each hearer according to his own tongue; so that (for example) when any one apostle was teaching in the church (for it was necessary, the rest being silent, that one should speak, and that one speech should reach the hearing of all), that very speech had in itself this power, that although the hearers were of different nations, each according to his own tongue received the hearing of that one same speech which had been uttered by the apostle, and grasped its understanding. Unless perhaps on this view the miracle seemed rather to be the hearers' than the speakers'.

And those who dwelt in Mesopotamia, and Judaea, and Cappadocia. In this place it signifies by Judaea not the whole nation but a part of it, that is, the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, namely to distinguish it from Samaria, Galilee, the Decapolis, and the other regions in the same province. Although these all spoke one tongue, Hebrew, yet each had its own distinct homely manner of speaking. Hence Peter too, at the Lord's passion, is betrayed by his speech as being a Galilean.

Jews also and proselytes. They called proselytes, that is, newcomers, those who, drawing their origin from the Gentiles, preferred to choose circumcision and Judaism, as Achior in the book of Judith is related to have done. Not only, then, they say, those who are Jews by nature

had come together from the various parts of the world, but also those who, born of the uncircumcision, had adhered to their rite.

But others mocking said: These men are full of new wine. Though mocking, they nevertheless bear true witness in a mystical sense. For they were filled not with the old wine, which ran short at the wedding of the Church, but with the new wine of spiritual grace. For already the new wine had come into new wineskins, when the apostles were sounding forth the great works of God not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the Spirit (Rom. 7).

For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is the third hour of the day. The Holy Spirit, being now about to proclaim the glory of the undivided Trinity, fittingly came down at the third hour. And because it is said above: They were persevering in prayer, rightly do they receive the Holy Spirit at the hour of prayer, so that it may be shown to readers that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not easily received unless the mind is raised from carnal things by the striving after things above. For the three times at which Daniel is read to have bent his knees in the day and to have worshipped are understood by the Church as the third, sixth and ninth hour. Because the Lord too, sending the Holy Spirit at the third hour, Himself mounting the cross at the sixth, laying down His life at the ninth, deigned to commend these same hours to us and to hallow them more excellently than the rest.

I will pour out of My spirit upon all flesh. The word "pouring out" shows the bounty of the gift, because the grace of the Holy Spirit was to be bestowed not, as formerly, as a power to prophets and priests only, but to all everywhere, of both sexes, in every condition and person. For what "all flesh" is, the prophet went on to explain.

And your sons and your daughters, he says, shall prophesy, etc. And I will give wonders in heaven above, and signs on earth below. Wonders in heaven, when at the Lord's birth a new star appeared, and as He mounted the cross the sun was darkened and heaven itself was covered over with darkness. Signs on earth, because as the Lord gave up the spirit the earth trembled, opened the tombs, broke the rocks, and brought forth alive again many bodies of the saints which had slept.

Blood and fire and vapour of smoke. The blood of the Lord's side, the fire of the Holy Spirit, the vapour of compunction and weeping. Because as smoke springs from fire, so from the burning of the Spirit springs holy [weeping]. For that blood too should flow out in a living stream from dead flesh, which is against the nature of our bodies, it remains for us to believe was done in place of a sign. Of what, that is, if not of our salvation and life, which springs indeed from His death? There may also be understood, in the fire, the enlightenment of the faithful; in the vapour of smoke, the blindness of the Jews who did not believe. Hence also the Lord, when about to give the law, came down in fire and smoke, because He both enlightens the humble through the brightness of His showing, and darkens the eyes of the proud through the gloom of error.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. This is believed to have been partly done at the Lord's passion, and partly to be yet to come before the great day, that is, of judgement. For then the sun was darkened, but the moon turned into blood could not appear openly to men, since it

being then (as was natural at the Pasch) at the fifteenth [day], had been hidden from the sight of mortals in the daytime by the interposition of the earth.

And it shall be: Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is what Peter says elsewhere: That God is not a respecter of persons, but in every nation he who fears Him and works justice is acceptable to Him (Acts X).

Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God, and the rest as far as You have slain by afflicting [Him]. Like a learned master he first admonishes the unbelievers, whom he pities, so that afterwards, when they have been pricked to the heart with a just fear, the apostles may more fittingly bestow on them the counsel of salvation. And because he is speaking to those who know the law, he shows that this is the very Christ who had been promised by the prophets. Yet he does not at first name Him, by his own authority, the Son of God, but a man approved, a just man, a man raised from the dead, not with the resurrection usual to and shared with the rest, that is, deferred to the end of the world, but accomplished on the third day, so that the declaration of a singular, glorious resurrection might gain testimony to His eternal divinity. For since he proves that the bodies of the others underwent corruption after death, he proves that this One, of whom it is said: Thou wilt not give Thy holy one to see corruption (Ps. XV), was free from human frailty; he proves also that He surpassed the deserts of the human condition, and is therefore to be likened to God rather than to men. But what sort of opening of their preaching the apostles use among the Gentiles, you will be taught in the story of Cornelius the centurion, and in the speech of the apostle Paul delivered at Athens.

I foresaw the Lord before me always, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be moved. Coming, He says, into things that pass away, I did not take My eye from Him who abides for ever, foreseeing this, that when temporal things were accomplished I should return to Him; for He favours Me, so that I may abide steadfastly in Him, and may ascribe this, that I did no sin, nor was guile found in My mouth (I Pet. II), not to the humanity but to the divinity; for this reason there is both gladness in My thoughts and exultation in My words, because of the resurrection, namely, since through it the world has been set free.

Moreover My flesh also shall not fail in destruction, but shall fall asleep in hope of resurrection. Because Thou wilt neither give My soul to the underworld to be possessed, nor suffer the sanctified body, through which others too are to be sanctified, to be corrupted.

Because Thou hast made known to Me the ways of life, by which one goes to eternity. In these, after the sadness of the passion, Thou wilt fill Me with gladness with Thy countenance (Ps. XV). And to Me ascending into the heavens Thou wilt give the delights of Thy right hand even to the end. For neither was He left in hell. Christ did indeed descend according to the soul to the underworld so as to succour those whom it behoved, but He was not left in hell, because by a swift return He sought again the body that was to rise.

Being exalted therefore by the right hand of God, because the Psalm had said: For He is at my right hand, that I may not be moved. And having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this which you see and hear. You see in tongues of fire,

you hear in our speech. But in saying that He received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit and poured it out, he makes plain both natures of the same Christ, because He both received as man and poured out as God.

For David did not ascend into the heavens. But he himself says: For just as blessed David foretold these last things not of his own ascension but of that of his Lord, who, being sent forth out of Sion, that is, coming from the royal stock of the same David, was to rule in the midst of His enemies, so also know that those things which he set before them belong not to David but to the death and resurrection of Christ.

The Lord said to my lord: Sit at My right hand. The first name of Lord among the Hebrews is the Tetragrammaton, which is used properly of God; the second is one common to mortals, by which both kings and other men are called. But if the Arian heresy should wish to object to us from this difference that the Son is less and the Father greater, we shall answer it that the lower name befits Him who is bidden to sit. As blessed Peter too went on to explain: That God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. For it was not the divinity that was crucified but the flesh. And this, certainly, could be made [Lord], which could be crucified.

Until I make Thy enemies the footstool of Thy feet. This is what Peter himself says elsewhere of the Lord: Whom heaven indeed must receive until the times of the restoration of all things (Acts III). For then, when all the times of refreshment shall have come from the presence of the Lord, He will send from the royal thrones Him who has been preached to us, Jesus Christ, to judge the living and the dead (Wis. XVIII).

Now when they heard these things, they were pricked in heart, etc. See the prophecy of Joel fulfilled: that after the fire of the Holy Spirit the flesh is followed by the vapour of compunction. For smoke is wont to draw out tears. Those who had laughed begin to weep, they beat the breast, they give their prayer to God as a sacrifice, so that, now to be saved, they may be able to taste that blood which, when formerly condemned, they had called down upon themselves and their children. There follows:

Do penance, he says, and let each of you be baptized. Being about to speak of baptism, he put first the laments of penitence, so that, after the manner of the Church, they might first pour over themselves the water of their affliction, and afterwards wash themselves with the sacrament of baptism.

And there were added that day about three thousand souls. When the Church's baptism was first celebrated, the divine goodness, by its ordering, gathered a number of souls matching the confession of the Holy Trinity. And Moses indeed commanded the solemnity of the first-fruits to be begun on the fiftieth day after the Pasch, on which the law was given; but now, at the coming of the Holy Spirit, not sheaves of ears of corn but the first-fruits of souls have been consecrated to the Lord.

And they had all things in common, etc. If the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, it at once assuredly begets love of neighbour as well. Hence, because of the twofold ardour of charity, the Holy Spirit is read to have been given twice to the apostles

For it is a great token of brotherly love to possess all things in common, having nothing of one's own.

CHAPTER III.

Now Peter and John were going up into the temple, etc. The apostles, about to enter the temple at the ninth hour, first heal a man long lame and feeble, then, labouring on until evening, they imbue many thousands of men with the word of faith. Because the teachers of the Church, coming at the end of the world, preach first to Israel in its sickness and afterwards to the Gentiles as well. For these are the labourers whom the householder brings into the vineyard at the ninth and eleventh hour (Matt. XX).

And a certain man, who was lame from his mother's womb, was being carried. Because the people of Israel proved rebellious not only to the Lord incarnate but even from the first times of the law's being given, it was, as it were, lame from its mother's womb. This is well figured by Jacob wrestling with the angel, blessed indeed but limping (Gen. 32), because the same people, prevailing over the Lord in the passion, [was] in some blessed through faith, but in others lame through unbelief.

Whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful. The Beautiful gate of the temple is the Lord, by whom if anyone enters he shall be saved. Feeble Israel, unable to go to this gate, is carried by the voices of the law and the prophets, so that, by hearing the wisdom of faith, it may beg help from those who enter into the inner parts. These, by foretelling things to come, set their hearers as it were at the gate; but it belongs to Peter to lead them into the temple, to whom, for his strong confession, both the surname of rock and the keys of heaven were given.

Silver and gold I have none, etc. The old tabernacle indeed had ordinances of worship, and a worldly sanctuary adorned with gold and silver; but the blood of the Gospel shines out more precious than the metals of the law, because that people which had lain with feeble mind before the gilded doorposts, being healed in the name of the Crucified, enters the temple of the heavenly kingdom. Otherwise, blessed Peter, mindful of the Lord's precept in which it is said: Do not possess gold and silver (Matt. X), was accustomed not to store up for himself the money which was laid at the apostles' feet, but to keep it for the use of the poor who had left their own inheritances.

And taking him by the right hand he lifted him up. Whom he raises, he also strengthens with the right hand. Because the word of one who teaches avails less in the heart of the hearers if it is not also commended by the examples of his own conduct.

And leaping up he stood, and walked. And he went in with them into the temple. An excellent order of perfection: first that he who had lain should rise, then lay hold of strength, and so enter the gate of the kingdom with the apostles.

And they were all filled with amazement and ecstasy. He calls ecstasy fear. For in another way too one is said to be in ecstasy [when] out of his mind, estranged not by fear, but caught up by some inspiration of revelation.

All the people ran to them, to the porch which is called Solomon's. When Israel has been saved through the apostles,

the whole world runs together to the threshold of the true and peaceable Solomon, of whom it is said: His empire shall be multiplied, and of peace there shall be no end (Isa. 9:7). And He is the stone cut out of the mountain, who, when the earthly kingdom hostile to the faith falls, alone holds a peaceable empire throughout the world (Dan. 2:45).

And it shall be that every soul which will not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed. Briefly and clearly, by the testimony of the prophets and of the law, he teaches that the Lord is to be heard by all nations, and that He will condemn the unbelieving, but will bestow eternal blessing on the faithful.

And all the prophets from Samuel onwards. Although the patriarchs and the saints of earlier times prophesied of Christ by words and deeds, yet the time of the prophets properly so called (I mean those who wrote openly of Christ and of the mystery of the Church) took its beginning from Samuel, under whom the times of the kings in Judaea also began, and lasted until the end of the Babylonian captivity.

And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The seed of Abraham is Christ, in faith in whose name blessing has been promised to all the families of the earth, namely to Jews and Gentiles. And the apostle soothes the minds of the Jews, so as to make them readier to believe, by saying that the Healer of the whole world chose them first to visit and to bless.

To you first, he says, God, raising up His Son. Where it is likewise to be observed that [he refers] to the same Son of God whom he calls the seed of Abraham, on account, namely, of the two natures of the same Christ, lest they should believe either that Christ was man only, or that one was the son of man and another the Son of God. By this snare of heresy the madman Manes and Nestorius were deceived.

CHAPTER IV.

And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the magistrate of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, and the rest. Both the priests and the magistrate, or praetor of the temple, as another Edition says, who were regarded as the teachers and judges of the people, were grieved that the multitude had flocked together to hear the apostles; the Sadducees, however, because they preached the resurrection. And both, because those men affirmed that Jesus, whom they knew had been put to death by themselves as a man, had been glorified by God the Father.

And the number of the men became five thousand. If by the five thousand men whom the Lord fed in the desert (Matt. 14:21) is understood the people set under the law but refreshed by the gift of Christ, these five thousand too, instructed by the teachings of the apostles, can denote the people of the Gentiles, which has spiritually followed the mysteries of the same [bread]. And well are both presented with the heavenly gift at evening, because when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son (Gal. 4:4).

This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which has become the head of the corner. The builders were the Jews, who, while all the nations were abiding in the desolation of idols, themselves alone read daily the law and the prophets for edification. These, while they were building, came to the cornerstone which was to embrace two walls, that is, they found in the prophetic Scriptures

that Christ was to come in the flesh, who would found the two peoples in Himself. And because they preferred to stand on one wall, that is, to be saved alone, they rejected the stone, which was fitted not for one but for two. But God, though they were unwilling, Himself set Him as the head of the corner, so that out of two testaments and out of two peoples there might rise the building of one and the same faith.

And there is no salvation in any other. If the salvation of the world is in no other but in Christ alone, then the fathers of the Old Testament too were saved by the incarnation and passion of the same Redeemer, by which we believe and hope to be saved. And though the sacraments differ according to the reckoning of the times, yet one and the same faith agrees. Because the same dispensation of Christ which we have learned through the apostles to have been accomplished, they learned through the prophets was to come. For there is no redemption of human captivity except in the blood of Him who gave Himself a redemption for all.

Having learned that they were men without letters and unlearned, they wondered. Unlettered men are sent to preach, lest the faith of believers should be thought to come about not by the power of God but by eloquence and learning, as the Apostle says: Not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ be made void (1 Cor. 1). For they were called idiotae who, content with their own tongue only and with natural knowledge, knew nothing of the study of letters. For the Greeks call what is one's own ἴδιον.

For the man was more than forty years old on whom this sign of healing had been done. According to the history, the full age of the man is shown to the cavillers, who cannot get past it. But allegorically the people of Israel not only for forty years in the desert, despising the manna, sought again the filth of Egypt, but in the land of promise also was ever limping between the rites of the Lord and those of idols. Or, if the number forty signifies the twofold fullness of the law (for four times ten make forty), the transgressor of both, lying feeble, as it were overpassed the perfection of forty.

Lord, Thou who madest heaven and earth, etc. Having heard the threats of the persecutors, they ask for themselves confidence to resist by means of signs of power.

Against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint. They expound word for word the name of Christ, of which it was said: And against His Christ (Ps. 2). For Christ received His name from chrism, that is, from anointing. According to what is said: God, Thy God, has anointed Thee with the oil of gladness (Ps. 44), that is, with the Holy Spirit.

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered was moved. They who were seeking the strength of a stout heart against the deceit of their enemies receive, by the earthquake, a token that their prayer had now been heard, so that they might recognize that earthly hearts would give way to them, since beneath their feet, at the coming of the Holy Spirit, the very earth was shaken with fear. Although there may be understood the glad fear of those who were to be made subject to the apostles by believing, who, the weight of lowly things being shaken off, learned to rise again together with Christ and to savour heavenly things.

And the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul. They who had perfectly left the world in no way preferred themselves one to another, glorying in nobility of birth, but, as though born of the womb of one and the same mother, the Church, all rejoiced in the same love of brotherhood.

And with great power the apostles gave testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. He carefully distinguishes the order of the teachers and of the hearers. For the multitude of believers, having despised their own goods, was joined together by the bond of charity; but the apostles, shining with mighty works, laid open the mysteries of Christ to all.

And Joseph, who was surnamed Barnabas by the apostles. I think this is the Barnabas who below is read to have been ordained with Paul as apostle of the Gentiles. Hence, because he was a Cypriot by race, afterwards, parting from Paul, he went back to his native island. Although some think that the colleague of Paul was rather he who above was set with Matthias for the lot of the apostolate, not observing that according to the more correct copies this one is called Barnabas and that one, with a letter changed, Barsabas, and in the book of Hebrew names this one is interpreted son of consolation, but that one son of rest.

Which is interpreted SON OF CONSOLATION. Wherever holy Scripture sets down the names of things or persons with their interpretation, it signifies that a more sacred sense is certainly present in them. Rightly, then, is he called son of consolation who, despising present things, is consoled by the hope of things to come. For the Holy Spirit is surnamed Paraclete for this reason, that to those who have tribulation in the world He affords, by the inward pouring of His gift, paraclisis, that is, the consolation of heavenly joys. So blessed Peter, because of the grace of the same Spirit, is called Bar Jona, that is, son of the dove. There follows:

And he brought the price, and laid it before the feet of the apostles. Of this Arator [says]:

They prove that it ought to be forsaken, since they shun to touch it,

And teach that it is to be trodden down, the gold which they set beneath their steps.

That from which earthly cares come upon the heart

Is cast upon earth like itself.

CHAPTER V.

Ananias, why has Satan tempted your heart? In another Translation, following the Greek Copy, it reads thus: Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart? Where it is to be noted that no creature can fill the soul and mind of man according to substance, but only the creating Trinity. For it is only according to operation and the prompting of the will that the mind is filled with the things that are created. For Satan fills the mind of someone, and the ruling part of the heart, not indeed by entering into him and into his understanding and coming in (so to speak) by the entry of the heart, since this power belongs to the divinity alone, but as a cunning, wicked, false and fraudulent deceiver, drawing the human soul into the affections of malice through the thoughts and incitements of the vices with which he himself is full. Satan therefore filled the heart of Ananias, not by entering himself, but by inserting the poison of his malice.

You have not lied to men, but to God. Above he had said

that he had lied to the Holy Spirit. It is plain, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is God, and that the error of Macedonius was condemned before he was born.

And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and expired. It was not for the sake of gain that he gave so severe a sentence on the transgressor, but foreseeing in the spirit the tares to come, which would corrupt the simplicity of the Church with depraved morals (for from these the most foul race of the Sarabaites is said to have sprung, who, without in any way giving up their own goods, pretend to keep the apostolic strictness), he did not suffer the guilty to be cured by any penance, but, to strike fear into those who came after, took care to cut off the noxious shoot at the root. Then there follows:

And great fear came upon the whole Church, and upon all who heard these things. But of the rest no one dared to join himself to them. The punishment of the two who had tried to join them by fraud gave an example to the rest.

That, when Peter came, at least his shadow might overshadow any of them, and they might be freed. Then Peter visibly raised up the sick by the shadow of his body, he who even now does not cease to strengthen the weaknesses of the faithful by the invisible shade of his intercession. And because Peter is a type of the Church, he himself, fittingly, walks upright, but by the shadow that goes with him raises those who lie low; because the Church, intent in mind and love on heavenly things, passes over the earth as if in shadow, and here renews by temporal sacraments and figures of heavenly things those whom there she rewards with everlasting gifts. Some join to this place what the Lord says in the Gospel: He who believes in Me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do (John XIV).

Then the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, which is the heresy of the Sadducees, etc. Heresy is so called in Greek from choosing, because each, having spurned the sayings of others, chose for himself what he thought should be followed. And the Sadducees, whose name is interpreted the just (for they claimed for themselves what they were not, as we read below), denying altogether the resurrection of the body, said that the soul perishes with the flesh. Nay, they did not even believe that there is any angel or spirit, and, accepting only the five books of Moses, they rejected the proclamations of the prophets. And therefore these chiefly side with the rulers in persecuting the apostles, led, that is, by jealousy, because the apostles with great power and by the signs of miracles bore witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.

But an angel of the Lord by night opening the doors of the prison, etc. Lest Thomas should doubt that the Lord, whom he had seen entering when the doors were shut, bore flesh and bones, behold, he himself with his companions, still clothed in mortal flesh, goes out through shut doors.

The prison indeed we found shut with all diligence, and the guards standing before the doors; but when we opened, we found no one. Why, profane Jew, are you goaded by blind madness, saying that the Lord was taken from the tomb by the apostles stealing [Him]? Tell me, I pray,

by whose theft do you believe these same apostles were taken out of your shut prison?

They were in doubt about them, what would come of it. Not even so were they willing to give themselves to the faith. For inborn malice hardens the faithless heart even in the face of manifest signs.

And you wish to bring the blood of this man upon us. The high priest had forgotten the debt which he himself had called down upon himself and his own, saying: His blood be upon us and upon our children.

But a certain Pharisee in the council, named Gamaliel, rising up. This Gamaliel, as Clement indicates, was a companion of the apostles in the faith, but by their counsel remained among the Jews, so that in such a storm he might be able to calm their fury.

For before these days there rose up Theudas, etc. This Theudas, as Josephus relates, persuaded many to take their goods out of the city and to occupy the banks of the Jordan. And though he was a sorcerer, he said that he was a prophet, and that he could by his command part the flood of the river and provide a crossing. A troop of horsemen, coming upon him by order of the procurator Fadus, killed or captured many, and carried his head back to Jerusalem.

After him rose up Judas the Galilean. Josephus writes that this man too was a Gamalite, from the city of Gamala, who, having taken a certain Pharisee Sadduc into his undertakings, urged the common people not to lose their liberty by paying tribute to the Romans, putting forward from the law that the Lord alone is to be served, and that those who brought tithes to the temple ought not to render tribute to Caesar. This heresy had grown so far that it troubled even the Pharisees and a great part of the people, so that they believed the Lord Christ must be asked whether it is lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not.

CHAPTER VI.

There arose a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews. The cause of the murmuring was that the Hebrews preferred their own widows, as being better instructed, to the widows of the Greeks in the ministration.

It is not right that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Of this Arator [says]:

.... This place shows

That for the untaught people the dishes of the mind are better

Than feasts poured out through the limbs.

Look out therefore, brethren, seven men from among you of good report, etc. From this the apostles, or the successors of the apostles, decreed seven deacons throughout all the churches, who should be of higher rank than the rest and should stand nearest about the altar like pillars of the altar; and not without some mystery of the number seven.

And Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, did wonders and great signs among the people. But there rose up certain of the synagogue which was called that of the Libertines, etc. Stephen in Greek is in Latin called Crowned. With most beautiful fitness he had anticipated in his name, by a kind of presage, what he was to receive in deed: stoned in lowliness, but crowned on high. In Hebrew, however, it is interpreted your pattern. Whose? namely, of the martyrs who followed, for whom, by suffering first, he was made the pattern of dying for Christ.

And they could not resist the wisdom and the spirit which

he was speaking. This is what the Lord Himself says to His martyrs: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries will not be able to resist and gainsay. For it was fitting that He should confirm in the protomartyr what He deigned to promise to all who are handed over for His name.

CHAPTER VII.

The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, etc. It is to be noted, according to the words of Stephen, that God did not speak to Abraham after the death of his father, as appears in Genesis (the father certainly died in Charran, where the son also lived with him); but before he dwelt in that same city, already then when he was in the region of Mesopotamia, of which that city is a part.

Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and come into the land which I shall show you. Then he went out from the land, etc. By the land and kindred of Abraham he means the homeland and race of the Chaldeans, from which he had long since gone out, he who was now living in Mesopotamia; but because, though he had gone out for whatever reasons, he was held by the hope and desire of returning, he hears from the Lord: Go out from your land. Not that he should carry his body across from there, which he had already done, but that he should tear out the love of his mind. Therefore what follows, Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans, signifies a going out not of the body but of the mind, by which he separated himself for ever from the way of life and the nation of the Chaldeans. For according to the testimony of the Chronicles, in the same year he went out from Chaldea, entered Mesopotamia, stayed in Charran, and was brought into the land of promise.

That his seed would be a sojourner in a foreign land, and they would bring them into bondage and treat them evilly for four hundred years. It is not to be understood as though he said that this seed was to be treated evilly or brought into bondage for four hundred years; rather it is to be read by hyperbaton: that his seed would be a stranger for four hundred years, in part of which time bondage also befell it. For since it is written: In Isaac shall your seed be called (Gen. 21:12), and from the year of Isaac's birth to the year of the going out from Egypt four hundred and five years are reckoned, which Scripture in its manner calls four hundred, during which that seed was to be a stranger, whether in the land of Canaan or in Egypt, it can also be understood thus: that the toil of four hundred years is reckoned from the fifth year of Isaac, in which he began to be afflicted through the son of the bondwoman.

Joseph sent for Jacob his father, and all his kindred, seventy-five souls. In saying this he follows the Seventy Translators; but in the Hebrew verity only seventy souls are found. And indeed, if you are willing to count the very list of souls in Genesis, adding Jacob himself and Joseph with his two sons, who were in Egypt, you will find only seventy souls.

And he died, and our fathers, and they were carried over into Sichem. Of Joseph alone, indeed, Scripture relates that his bones were carried over from Egypt and buried in Sichem; but both from these words of blessed Stephen and from the writings of Saint Jerome, who [visited] those same

was a dweller in those places, it is to be observed that the other patriarchs too were buried there, although the memory of Joseph is deservedly held more famous, since he himself both commanded that this be done with his bones, and the city itself belonged to his tribe. For Jerome in the account of blessed Paula relates thus: « She passed through (he says) Sichem, not Sichar as many wrongly read, which is now called Neapolis, and entered the church built on the side of Mount Garizim around Jacob's well, upon which the Lord sat. » And a little after: « And turning aside from there (he says), she saw the tombs of the twelve patriarchs. » Likewise in the book On the best Kind of translating: « The twelve patriarchs are not buried in Arbes, but in Sichem. » But what follows rightly gives pause:

And they were laid in the tomb which Abraham bought for a price of silver from the sons of Hemor the son of Sichem. For Genesis teaches that Abraham bought from Ephron the son of Seor the Hethite, in Cariatharbe, the place of a tomb for four hundred silver shekels, in which Abraham himself, Isaac and Jacob, and Adam the first-formed were buried; and likewise that Jacob, returning from Mesopotamia, received near the city of Sichem a part of a field, in which to pitch his tents, from Hemor the father of Sichem, for a hundred lambs. Abraham therefore did not buy a tomb from Hemor the Sichemite, but from Ephron the Hethite, and in it the twelve patriarchs were not buried, but in Sichem, as we have said. But blessed Stephen, speaking to the common people, follows in his speaking rather the opinion of the common people. For joining two narratives together, he attends not so much to the order of the surrounding history as to the cause that was at issue. For he who was accused of having taught against the holy place and the law goes on to show how Jesus Christ is shown from the law to have been promised, and that they themselves chose to serve neither Moses then nor the Lord now. I have said these things as I could, not prejudging a better opinion, if there be one. Further, where it is said, From the sons of Hemor the son of Sichem, in the Greek copy it is written: From the sons of Hemor, who was in Sichem, which seems to agree better with the history of Genesis, although it could have happened that the same Hemor had both a father and a son by the name of Sichem.

But when the time of the promise drew near which God had confessed to Abraham. That one, surely, in which it was said: And after these things they shall go out, and shall serve me in this place.

Who appointed you prince and judge over us? In his whole address he convicts them of having been opposed even then to the law and to Moses.

This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel: God will raise up for you a prophet from your brethren, as He raised me. As me: visible in the flesh, but above me wonderful in majesty, but above me terrible in majesty. Lest the teaching of Christ, he says, be called new and foreign, Moses himself, whom your fathers would not obey, proclaims both that He would come in the form of a man and that He would give the precepts of life to all souls.

Did you offer victims or sacrifices to me for forty years in the desert? Although, under the necessity of serving,

they made libations to the Lord, yet, being turned away in mind, they are said to have truly served idols from that time when they turned gold into the head of a calf. For as to our reading that afterwards they offered certain things to the Lord, they did it not willingly but, as we learn from this place, from fear of punishment and from the slaying of those who fell on account of idols. But the Lord regards not the things that are offered, but the will of those who offer. In short, wherever there was occasion, they always turned back in heart to Egypt.

And you took up the tabernacle of Moloch. Although, he says, you seemed to bring victims and sacrifices to the tabernacle of the Lord, yet with the whole intent of your mind you embraced the shrine of Moloch. Now Moloch, or Melchom, as it is also often read, is the idol of the Ammonites, which is interpreted your king.

And the star of your god Remphan. You have abandoned (he says) the true and living God, and have taken up for yourselves in place of God the star of Remphan, that is, of your own making. And it signifies Lucifer, to whose worship the nation of the Saracens was given over in honour of Venus. And since Remphan (as I said) is interpreted your making, or your rest, the prophet consequently added, and said:

Figures which you made, to worship them. 'You took up' is understood from the common [clause].

And I will carry you away beyond Babylon. Because of these sacrileges (he says), you shall be led captive not only into Babylon, but beyond Babylon also. Nor is the first martyr to be thought to have erred because, in place of what is written in the prophet, Beyond Damascus (Amos 5:27), he had said beyond Babylon. For he set down the sense rather than the word, since those led beyond Damascus were led into Babylon, just as beyond Babylon.

The tabernacle of witness was with our fathers in the desert. Because they said that he acted against the holy place, he shows from this that the Lord sets no great value on adorned stone, but desires the splendour of heavenly souls. Here he wishes it to be understood that, just as the tabernacle was abandoned when the temple was built, so they should understand that the temple itself too was to be destroyed when a better state succeeded. In accordance with what Jeremiah foretold long ago, saying: Do not trust in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord (Jer. 7:4). And somewhat after: I will do (he says) to this house, in which my name is called upon and in which you have your trust, as I did to Silo, where my name dwelt from the beginning, and I will cast you out from my face (ibid. 7:14–15).

Heaven is my seat, and the earth the footstool of my feet. This is not to be understood carnally, as though God had limbs placed in heaven and on earth, as we do when we sit; but to show that He is more inward and higher than all things, He declared heaven to be His seat and the earth the footstool of His feet. And to show that He also encompasses all things, elsewhere He asserts that He measures the heaven with His palm, and encloses the earth in His fist. Spiritually, however, heaven intimates the saints and earth the sinners, because God, as it is plain, presides over the former by dwelling in them, and casts down the latter by condemning them.

Or what is the place of my rest? Not, surely, a golden or marble place of earthly dwelling, but that which the Prophet adds: But upon whom does my Spirit rest, except upon the humble and quiet, and him who trembles at my words (Isa. 66:2)?

You who received the law by the disposition of angels. For the law was ordained through angels, in the hand of a Mediator.

Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. Since the Lord Christ is the perfect Son both of God and of man, why is it that the blessed martyr chose to call Him Son of man rather than Son of God, when he would surely seem to have brought Him more glory had he chosen to call Him Son of God rather than of man, unless that by this testimony the unbelief of the Jews might be confounded, who remembered that they had crucified a man and had refused to believe Him God? To strengthen, then, the endurance of the blessed martyr, the gate of the heavenly kingdom is thrown open; and lest the innocent man, being stoned, should waver on earth, God made man, crucified, appears crowned in heaven. Hence, since standing belongs to one who fights or who helps, he rightly saw standing at the right hand of God Him whom he had as helper among men who persecuted him. Nor does it seem to disagree that Mark describes Him as sitting at the right hand of God, which is the posture of one who judges, since He both now judges all things invisibly and at the last will come visibly as the judge of all.

And casting him out of the city they stoned him. Both the Lord, who chose us out of the world into His heavenly kingdom and glory, suffered outside the gate, and Stephen, as a stranger to the world, is stoned outside the city. For he had here no abiding city, but sought the city to come with his whole mind. And by a just reversal of things the martyr of pure heart directs his gaze to the heavens, the persecutor of hard neck puts his hands to stones. Hence Arator says:

. . . . Rebellious Judaea,

frenzied, you snatch up stones against Stephen; you who, for your hard crime,

will be stony for ever.

And kneeling down he cried with a loud voice, saying: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. For himself he prayed standing; for his enemies he bent the knee, because their greater iniquity demanded a greater remedy of supplication. And wonderful is the virtue of the blessed martyr, who so burned with zeal that he openly reproached those by whom he was held with the guilt of their faithlessness, and so burned with love that even in death he prayed for those by whom he was being killed.

CHAPTER VIII.

And they were all scattered through the regions of Judaea and Samaria. This is what the Lord Himself commanded: When they persecute you in this city, flee into another (Matt. 10:23). For it was brought about by His will that the occasion of tribulation should become the seed-bed of the Gospel.

And the crowds gave heed to the things that were said by Philip. Both from the present chapter and from the story of the Samaritan woman it is proved that this people was of a mind ready to believe.

Then Simon himself also believed. Either, overcome by the words and power of blessed Philip, he truly believed in the Lord,

or, as is more credible, he pretended to believe until he should receive baptism, so that, being most greedy of praise, so much so that he wished himself to be believed the Christ, as the histories relate, he might learn from him the arts by which he worked miracles. His successors too are shown to have done this, who, trained in the malign arts of their founder, having entered the Church by some fraud or other, were accustomed to steal baptism.

They sent to them Peter and John. Arator expounds this beautifully:

Peter often makes John his companion,

because a virgin is pleasing to the Church.

But it is to be noted that Philip, who was preaching the gospel in Samaria, was one of the seven. For if he had been an Apostle, he himself could surely have laid on his hand, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For this is owed to the bishops alone. For presbyters, whether they baptize apart from the bishop or in the bishop's presence, may anoint the baptized with chrism, but [only] with what has been consecrated by the bishop; yet they may not sign the forehead with that same oil, which is owed to bishops alone, when they deliver the Spirit the Paraclete to the baptized.

Your money be with you unto perdition, and so on. Holy men, when they pronounce a sentence of curse, break out into it not from a wish for vengeance, but from the justice of examination. For within they look upon the subtle judgement of God, and they recognize that evils rising up outside ought to be struck with a curse; and in cursing they do not sin, since in it they do not disagree with the inward judgement. For since the innocence of the one who curses remains, and yet the curse swallows up the one who is cursed even to destruction, it is gathered from the outcome on both sides that the sentence hurled against the guilty is taken from the one and innermost Judge. Hence this Simon too, who received a curse from Peter, perished in eternal damnation. And below, Barjesu, rebuked by Paul, was at once deprived of the common light

For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Therefore the Holy Spirit descended in a dove, to teach those who wished to receive Him to be simple. For he who keeps the gall of bitterness in his heart, however much he may seem baptized, is not loosed from the bonds of his iniquity; but, cleansed as it were for a moment at the hour of baptism, he is soon oppressed sevenfold by a fiercer demon. In vain, then, does he try to buy the grace of the Spirit, who has [not] taken care to strip himself of the raven's mind.

Arise and go towards the south. Fittingly at midday is he sought and found and washed, who, burning with devotion of heart, merited to be consecrated to God as a kind of first-fruits of the Gentiles. In him in particular that saying of the Psalmist was fulfilled: Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands first to God.

To the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza; this is desert. Not the way but Gaza is called desert; for that old Gaza, which was once the boundary of the Canaanites near Egypt, was destroyed to the ground, and another was built in its place in another location. Allegorically it signifies the people of the Gentiles, once deserted by the worship of God and not cultivated by the preaching of any of the prophets. But the way which to that same [Gaza] from

going down from Jerusalem opened the fountain of salvation, is the Lord Jesus Christ, who says: I am the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6). He came down from the heavenly Jerusalem to our weak estate, and whitened the blackness of our guilt with the water of baptism.

And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority. He is called a man on account of his virtue and integrity of mind; and not undeservedly, since he had such zeal for the Scriptures that he did not cease to read them even on the road, and bore such love in religion that, leaving the royal court, he came from the farthest parts of the world to the temple of the Lord. Hence, by a just reward, while he seeks an interpreter of the reading, he found Christ whom he was seeking; and, as Jerome says, he found more in the desert fountain of the Church than in the gilded temple of the synagogue. For there, as Jeremiah declares in wonder, the Ethiopian changed his skin; that is, the filth of sins washed away, he came up whitened from the font of Jesus.

Of Candace queen of the Ethiopians. In the book of Kings too we read that the queen of the South came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. For it was always the custom of that nation to be ruled by women, and to call them Candaces.

Who was over all her treasures. The queen of the Ethiopians, sending her treasurer ahead to Jerusalem, signifies the Church of the Gentiles, which was to bestow on the Lord the gifts of virtues and of faith. And the etymology of the name also fits. For Candace can be interpreted from the Hebrew as 'changed'. For she it is to whom it is said, in the psalm entitled For those who shall be changed: Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house (Ps. 44:11), and so on.

And the Spirit said to Philip. The Spirit spoke to Philip in his heart. For for the Spirit of God to address certain words, as it were, to us is to make known by a hidden power the things that are to be done.

He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. As a sheep, when it is led to be sacrificed, does not resist, so He suffered of His own will. Or in a higher sense: as a lamb used to be sacrificed at the Pasch, so Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7).

And like a lamb before its shearer, without a voice. Not only did He redeem us with His blood, but He also covered us with His wool, that He might warm with His garment those who were cold through unbelief, and that we might hear the Apostle saying to us: As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ. So He opened not His mouth, when in His passion He chose to answer Pilate and the high priests little, and Herod nothing.

In humiliation His judgement was taken away. Because the judge of all found no truth of judgement, but without any fault was condemned by the sedition of the Jews and the voice of Pilate.

Who shall declare His generation? Either it is to be taken of His divinity, that it is impossible to know the mysteries of the divine birth, of which the Father says: Before the day-star I begot Thee (Ps. 109:3). Or of the Virgin's childbearing, that it can be explained only with difficulty. When Mary asked its manner, it is said through the angel: The Holy Spirit shall come upon you. So that either by the angel, or by

the evangelist, are told only the mysteries of His birth, of which the narrator is most rare.

For His life shall be taken from the earth. So that He should live not on earth at all, but in heaven.

And Philip, opening his mouth, etc. Philip is interpreted mouth of the lamp, and the sense is beautiful: that the mouth of the lamp opened its mouth while it brought forth the obscurities of prophecy into the light of knowledge. Although, according to the history too, this circumlocution may signify that his discourse was then to be somewhat longer.

They came to a certain water. There is to this day a village Bethsoro in the tribe of Judah, at the twentieth milestone for those going from Aelia to Chebron. Near it a spring, welling up at the foot of the mountain, is swallowed by the same ground in which it rises. In this the eunuch was baptized by Philip.

What forbids me to be baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and so on. Here another translation, following the Greek copy, has some verses more, where it is written: See, here is water; what forbids me to be baptized? And Philip said to him: If you believe with all your heart, you shall be saved. And he answered and said: I believe in Christ the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and so on. And so I believe that these little verses too were at first translated by our translator as well, but afterwards removed by the fault of copyists.

The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip. There are those who testify that an angel did this in the Holy Spirit, as Jerome reports.

He preached the gospel to all the cities, until he came to Caesarea. He means [Caesarea] of Palestine, where further on he is described as having had a house, which is shown to this day, as also the chamber of his four virgin daughters who prophesied.

CHAPTER IX.

But Saul, still breathing threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. That is, visiting with slaughter those who were present, and frightening with threats those who were absent.

Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? He did not say: Why do you persecute my members? but, Why do you persecute me? because He Himself, in His body which is the Church, still suffers the wicked. Kindnesses conferred on its members, too, He declares to have been done to Himself, when He says: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat (Matt. 25:35). And in explanation He added: As long as you did it to one of these my least, you did it to me (ibid. 25:40).

I am Jesus, whom you persecute. He did not say: I am God, I am the Son of God; but: Take up (He says) the weak things of my humility, and lay down the scales of your pride.

Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told you what you must do. He did not at once show what was to be done, but forewarned that it was to be heard afterwards in the city, so that he might afterwards stand the more firmly in good things, the more utterly he had first been overthrown and had fallen from his former error.

And with his eyes opened he saw nothing. He could by no means have seen well again, unless he had first been blinded

well, and, shutting out his own wisdom by which he was thrown into confusion, had not committed himself to faith in all things.

And he was three days without seeing. Because he had not believed that the Lord had conquered death by rising on the third day, he is now taught by his own example, as he exchanged a three days' darkness for light restored.

For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name. He ought not (He says) to be feared as a persecutor, but rather embraced as a brother, who is ready to endure with the saints the adversities which he had brought upon the saints.

And immediately there fell from his eyes as it were scales. The whole body of a dragon is said to be covered with scales. Since, then, the Jews were called serpents and brood of vipers, he who followed their faithlessness had covered the eyes of his heart as with a serpent's skin. But when the scales fall from his eyes under the hand of Ananias, it is shown in his face that he has now received the true light in his mind.

But his disciples taking him by night. That is, the disciples of Christ. For in the Greek his is not added, but only disciples, so that they may be understood generally as [the disciples] of Christ or of the Church. For Paul is not yet read to have made disciples, but only to have confounded the Jews who lived at Damascus.

They let him down through the wall, lowering him in a basket. This kind of escape is kept even today in the Church, when someone surrounded by the ambushes of the ancient enemy or the snares of this world is saved by the defence of his hope and faith. For the wall of Damascus, which is interpreted drinking blood, is the adversity of the world. King Aretas, who is interpreted descent, is understood as the devil. The basket, which is usually made of rushes and palm leaves, signifies the joining of faith and hope. For the rush signifies the greenness of faith, the palm the hope of eternal life. Whoever, then, sees himself girt by the wall of adversity, let him quickly climb into the basket of the virtues, by which he may escape.

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples. Let us not believe that, as soon as he was baptized, he came to the apostles at Jerusalem; but, as he himself wrote to the Galatians, that he first went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus; then after three years, coming to Jerusalem, he saw Peter and stayed with him fifteen days, and saw none other of the apostles except James the brother of the Lord; and after that, as Luke too relates, he came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Whether he suffered the ambushes at Damascus on the first or the second occasion is not easily clear. For it can be understood of the second, from its being said that, when many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him. And Luke seems to pass over Arabia for this reason, that he did not preach there at all, according to what he himself says later, speaking to King Agrippa: That I preached first at Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and in all the region of Judaea, and to the Gentiles.

But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. This is that Barnabas, a Cypriot by race, a Levite, who is recorded above to have brought the price of his field to the feet of the apostles.

He spoke also and disputed with the Greeks. Note that he taught Greeks in Jerusalem and Jews in Damascus, which is a city of the Gentiles; perhaps this signifies that the Gentiles were to be helped into the city of God, and the Jews were to fall into the faithlessness of the Gentiles. According to what Isaiah says: And Libanus shall be turned into Charmel, and Charmel shall be counted as a forest (Isa. 29:17).

And there he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had kept his bed eight years. This Aeneas signifies the human race, languishing at first in the delight of weak things, but healed by the work and the mouth of the apostles. For since the world itself is raised up on four quarters, and the course of time is varied by the four seasons of the year, whoever embraces present and passing joys is laid nerveless on a bed, as it were for twice the fourfold number of years. For the bed is sloth itself, where the sick and weak mind rests, that is, in bodily pleasure and every worldly delight.

Aeneas, the Lord Jesus Christ heal you. Arise and make your bed. He whom he had cured of paralysis he at once commanded to rise and make his bed for himself, intimating spiritually that whoever has received in his heart the firm foundation of faith should not only shake off the torpor in which he had lain weary, but also prepare good works in which he may rest.

Now in Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas. That is, a little doe, or a roe. And it signifies souls lofty in the pursuit of the virtues but contemptible in the opinion of men. For blessed Luke would not have added the interpretation of the name had he not known that a great mystery lay in it. For the doe and the roe are animals alike in nature but differing in size, which dwell on high mountains and, though from far off, yet see all who come. Hence too from the keenness of their sight they are called in Greek dorcades. So indeed the saints, dwelling on the heights through the merits of their works, keenly attend both by the contemplation of the mind and to heavenly things, and are ever watchful over themselves with cautious circumspection. For that these animals are clean according to the law, but are timid and unwarlike, as Martial says, expressing their nature:

The boar is feared for his tusk, his horns defend the stag;

we unwarlike does, what are we but prey?

does it not plainly signify those who are busy to live simply, to walk with the discerning step of action as with a cloven hoof, and to chew the cud of the word of God in continual meditation? And if, perhaps through ignorance or weakness, they have incurred spiritual death, yet because of the integrity of their right intention they merit to be raised again, as is proved to have happened to Peter himself, to whom what is written of Dorcas can most rightly be applied.

And it came to pass in those days that she fell sick and died. For when the saints, through the frailty of mortal nature, commit some faults, they fall, as it were in the days of good works, by reason of a sudden weakness. But when they at once apply themselves to tears, they climb up to the hope of recovering virtue, they call upon the help of the saints, and their own

call to mind again the good deeds they had interrupted, they truly do what follows.

And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. And the rest which is related of the summoning of Peter and the showing of Dorcas's almsdeeds.

And all the widows stood about him weeping. The widows are the pious thoughts of the penitent soul, which for a time had lost the vigour of their former understanding, as if the guidance of a husband; and they must make humble entreaty for the soul that has sinned.

And showing him the coats and garments which Dorcas made for them. They prayed for the dead woman not with their own words but with her works, since almsgiving frees not only from the second death but also from the first.

He said: Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. A most just order for one rising again: that she should first open the eyes of the mind, and then, having recognized Peter's voice, sit up, recover the light of her circumspection which she had lost, and live according to the teaching of those who had helped her.

And giving her his hand, he lifted her up. Touched by Peter's hand Tabitha rises again, because the soul languishing in sins recovers by no better order than by the examples of the saints.

CHAPTER X.

Now there was a certain man in Caesarea named Cornelius, etc. One does not reach faith through virtues, but virtues through faith, as blessed Pope Gregory explains. For Cornelius (he says), whose almsdeeds were praised before baptism by the witness of an angel, came not by works to faith but by faith to works. For if he had not believed in the true God even before baptism, whom was he praying to? Or how had almighty God heard him, if he was not asking to be made perfect in good things by Him? He knew, therefore, God the creator of all things, but he did not know that His almighty Son had become incarnate. He had faith, since his prayers and alms were able to please. But by good action he merited to know God perfectly and to believe the mystery of the Incarnation of His Only-begotten, so that he might come to the sacrament of baptism. Through faith, then, he came to works, but through works he was made firm in faith.

He saw in a vision manifestly, about the ninth hour of the day, etc. Fittingly he receives the oracle to seek baptism at the ninth hour, since he was to be baptized into the death of Him who gave up His spirit at the ninth hour.

And now send men to Joppa. When, his alms and prayers having been accepted, the teacher of salvation is at once ordered to be sent for, it is clearly indicated that by those alms and prayers he had sought from the Lord the full knowledge of his salvation.

He called two of his household servants, and a soldier who feared the Lord. Cornelius sent three to Peter, because the Gentile world that was to believe made Europe, Asia and Africa subject to the apostolic faith, to be occupied partly in soldierly pursuits, that is, in the urgency of preaching, and partly in household affairs. Note that one soldier and two household servants are sent. For the stronger, the fewer in

among the members of the Church you will find more who know how to hear the word than who know how to speak it.

Peter went up to the higher parts. It signifies the Church, which, having left earthly desires behind, will have its way of life in the heavens.

To pray about the sixth hour. At the sixth hour Peter in the midst of his prayers hungers, namely for the salvation of the world, which the Lord had come in the sixth age of the world to seek and to save. This He Himself also wished to indicate when at the same hour of the day He thirsted at the Samaritan woman's well.

And a certain vessel descending, like a great linen sheet. That vessel signifies the Church, endowed with incorruptible faith. For the moth does not consume linen, though it spoils other garments. And therefore whoever wishes to belong to the mystery of the Catholic Church, let him shut out from his heart the corruption of evil thoughts, and be so incorruptibly established in faith that he is not gnawed in mind by wicked thoughts as if by moths. Otherwise: the moth is the heretic, wishing to corrupt the Lord's garment, but by the Lord's ordering not able to. This was also prefigured in that tunic of the Lord which the soldiers did not dare to tear.

To be let down by four corners from heaven to the earth. The four corners by which the sheet hung signify the four quarters of the world, over which the Church is spread. For she is the city of our God on His holy mountain, spreading wide the rejoicings of the whole earth. And that it is let down from heaven indicates that she is preserved and likewise increased by the grace alone of the Holy Spirit coming upon her. Whence John says in the Apocalypse: I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:2). By the four corners the evangelists can also be figured, through whom the Church is imbued with the heavenly gift and raised on high.

In which were all four-footed beasts and creeping things of the earth, and birds of the air. Those animals are all the nations, unclean with errors, but cleansed by the threefold immersion, that is, by the mystery of the Holy Trinity in baptism; nations which, abandoning the image of man, had taken on the shapes of beasts and serpents. Hence to Herod, on account of his crafty malice, it is said: Go, tell that fox (Luke 13:32). And to the Pharisees: Brood of vipers (Luke 3:7). And of the lustful: They have become horses maddened after women (Jer. 5:8). And of the shameless: Do not give what is holy to dogs (Matt. 7:6). And of the pleasure-loving: Nor cast your pearls before swine (ibid.). And of the proud and crafty alike: Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests (Matt. 8:20). And in common of all: And man, when he was in honour, that is, made to the image of God, did not understand; he has been compared to senseless beasts (Ps. 48:13). But the true, that is, the incorrupt, man Solomon shows, saying: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole man (Eccl. 12:13).

Rise, Peter, kill and eat. Rise, He says, make ready to preach the gospel. Kill in the nations what they had been, and make them what you are. For he who eats food placed outside transfers it into his own body. He commands, therefore, that the nations, through unbelief formerly outside,

placed outside, their past life having been killed, should be grafted into the fellowship of the Church, which Peter signifies. In accordance with what the apostle Paul says of himself: For I through the law am dead to the law, that I may live to God and to Christ. And again: And I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:19–20). But those who are ensnared by heretics are, as it were, devoured alive by death.

For I have never eaten anything common and unclean. The people of the Jews, boasting that they are God's portion, call common those foods which all men use: for example, pork, oysters, hares, and animals of that sort, which do not divide the hoof, nor chew the cud, nor, among fishes, have scales. But unclean foods are said to be the flesh of wild beasts or reptiles, edible by no mortal.

And this was done three times. Because the mystery of the Holy Trinity was to be preached by the twelve apostles through the four parts of the world, therefore the four linen cords were let down from heaven for the third time. Or, as blessed Ambrose interprets it, the figure repeated a third time expressed the working of the Trinity. And therefore in the mysteries a threefold question is put and a threefold confirmation is made, nor can anyone be cleansed except by a threefold confession. Hence Peter himself also, in the Gospel, is asked a third time whether he loves the Lord, so that by a threefold answer he might loose the bonds which he had tied by denying the Lord. These things were fittingly shown to Peter when Cornelius, a Gentile, was sending to fetch him, so that he should not hesitate to deliver the Christian faith to the uncircumcised. For he was of those animals shown in the vessel of the Gospel. Hence he is also confirmed by the Holy Spirit in doing this very thing.

And at once the vessel was taken up into heaven. After the threefold letting down, the sheet is received into heaven, because after the way of life of this world, in which the Church, cleansed through faith and baptism, journeys as a pilgrim, there follows a heavenly dwelling, happy and eternal.

The Spirit said to him: Behold, three men are seeking you. He heard these things from the Spirit in his mind, not in the ear of the flesh.

Arise therefore and go down, and go with them. He is commanded to go down from the roof and to go out to preach, so that the Church may not only contemplate the Lord by climbing to the heights, but may also preach Him to all the weak, and to those still placed, as it were, outside, yet knocking at the door of Simon, that is, of obedience, by returning to the active life, as though rising from a bed. In accordance with what the Lord says: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man (John 1:51).

Whose house is fittingly recorded as being placed by the sea. For the sea signifies the wave-tossed tumults and furies of the world, where wicked men, like the most greedy fishes, pursue and devour one another. But the way of life of the saints is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), who, even if the earthly house of this dwelling be dissolved, have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (II Cor. 5:1).

Behold, I am he whom you seek. What is the reason for which you have come? The Spirit told him that soldiers were present, and because

for what cause they had come He kept silent; because, to preserve the humility of the human mind, the Spirit of prophecy sometimes touches in part and in part does not touch.

And it came to pass, when Peter had come in, Cornelius came to meet him, and falling at his feet worshipped. By the gesture of his body Cornelius shows beforehand what devotion he had within in his heart. For the hearer comes to meet his teacher who, with a clean heart and an ear diligently attentive, and with eager longing, receives the word of faith. For he who is drawn slowly to believing is raised up by the teacher as though lying down. But he who, blushing at the stains of his life, by falling on his face shows signs of humility and shame alike, rightly deserves to be raised up by his instructor.

But Peter lifted him up, saying: Arise, I myself also am a man. For holiness of conduct deserved the fellowship of equality. For in the fault of Ananias and Sapphira the zeal of vengeance laid open the right of power.

And God has shown me to call no man common or unclean. This He showed indeed at that time when the angelic voice sounded: What God has cleansed, do not call common.

Four days ago until this hour, I was praying at the ninth hour in my house, and behold, a man stood before me, and so on. In the Greek and in some Latin manuscripts it is written thus: From the fourth day until this hour I was fasting, and praying from the sixth hour until the ninth, and behold, a man, and so on. It was very fitting that he should be heard who, continuing his earnestness in supplication for three hours, drew it out from the sixth to the ninth. At which time the Lord Himself, to Whom he was praying, prayed with His hands stretched out on the cross for the salvation of the whole world.

He sent the word to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ; He is Lord of all. In this it appears (he says) that God is not a respecter of persons, because He sent His only-begotten Son, Who is also Lord and Maker of all, to make peace with the human race, so that in His name, as the Prophets bear witness, not the Jews only but all who believe may receive the remission of sins.

You know the word that was published through all Judaea, and so on. He has briefly embraced all that is said in the Creed: that Jesus is the Christ; that He is Lord of all; that He was sent to reconcile the world to God; that He was heralded by the voice of John; that He was anointed with the Holy Spirit; that, God dwelling in Him, He was made manifest through miracles; that He was crucified, and raised from the dead, and shown to His own; that He will come at the end as judge of all; and that He will also spread His Church through faith over the whole world.

How God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power. Another version says: As God anointed Him. John, then, preached Jesus as God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit, namely at that time when he said: He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11). And again: For I saw the Spirit descending as a dove upon Him (John 1:32). Jesus, then, was anointed not with visible oil, but with the gift of grace, which is signified by the visible ointment with which the Church anoints the baptized. Yet He was not anointed then

with the Holy Spirit when, after His baptism, the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove. For then He deigned to prefigure His body, that is, His Church, in which the baptized especially receive the Holy Spirit. But He is to be understood as anointed with this mystical and invisible anointing at that time when the Word of God was made flesh, that is, when human nature, without any preceding merits of good works, was joined to God the Word in the womb of the virgin, so that with Him it became one person. For this reason we confess Him born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary.

For God was with Him. That is, the Father with the Son. For it is better to understand it so than that the divinity of the Son is signified as dwelling together with the man whom He assumed, lest we seem to double the person of Christ and fall into the doctrine of Nestorius.

To us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. Here blessed Peter sets out what is not related in the Gospel, namely that after the resurrection he drank with the Lord. Unless perhaps we believe it indicated there where He says: Until I drink it new with you in the house of My Father.

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were hearing the word. Then they asked him to stay with them some days. Lest there be hesitation in giving baptism to the Gentiles, it is confirmed by the testimony of the Holy Spirit, Who in a new order went before the very waters of the washing which He is wont to sanctify; which is found to have happened once, in testimony to the faith of the Gentiles, but never among the Jews.

And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And the faithful of the circumcision who had come with Peter were astonished, because on the nations also, etc. Since it is the rule of the Church that the faithful are baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, it is asked how Luke, throughout the whole text of this little book, testifies that baptism was given in no other way than in the name of Jesus Christ. Blessed Ambrose resolves this thus: that the mystery is fulfilled through the unity of the name. For if you say Christ, you have designated both God the Father, by Whom the Son was anointed, and the Son Himself Who was anointed, and the Spirit with Whom He was anointed; for it is written: Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit. If you say the Father, you have indicated alike both His Son and the Spirit of His mouth, provided you grasp it also with the heart. If you say the Spirit, you have named both God the Father, from Whom the Spirit proceeds, and the Son, because the Spirit is the Son's also. Hence, that authority may be joined to reason, Scripture shows that we can also rightly be baptized in the Spirit, as the Lord says: But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). And the Apostle says: For in the one body, in one Spirit, we have all been baptized (I Cor. 12:13). Otherwise: it is especially fitting that we be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, since, as the Apostle says: All we who have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death, etc. (Rom. 6:3.)

CHAPTER XI.

And I saw four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and birds of the air, etc. I wonder how these things, concerning certain foods forbidden by the old law, but now

to be eaten, are so interpreted, since neither serpents nor reptiles can be eaten, nor did Peter himself understand it so, but rather that all men are equally called to the Gospel of Christ, and that none is polluted by nature. For it was not for eating beasts, but for having communion with Gentiles, that he was rebuked, when he set out the mystery of this vision.

And these six brethren also came with me. Beautifully, with the sevenfold number of brethren as witness, the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit was poured out. Otherwise: because this world was formed in six days, perfect works are shown by the six brethren. They accompany the teacher well when, amid the words of exhortation, they show their hearers examples of perfect working.

And they glorified God, saying: So God has given to the Gentiles also repentance unto life. This is what we read in the book of blessed Job: From the North gold shall come, and to God fearful praise (Job 37:22). For first the splendour of faith arose in the cold breast of the Gentiles, and for that unexpected faith Judaea glorifies God with trembling.

They travelled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, etc. From here, after the revelation of the gospel sheet, in which the holy animals might rest softly in heavenly hope, the affairs of the Church began to grow, when through foreign provinces, islands and cities the Gospel is preached not only to Jews but also to Gentiles.

And he set out for Tarsus to seek Saul. For it was said above that Saul was sent secretly from Jerusalem to Tarsus.

And one of them named Agabus, standing up, signified by the spirit that there would be a great famine. Agabus can be interpreted messenger of tribulation, who, according to his name, prophesies here a general famine, and below bonds for the apostle Paul.

They purposed to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judaea. They knew that in Judaea, and above all in Jerusalem, the famine would rage more fiercely. There were the poor among the saints, who, having sold their goods, houses and fields and brought the prices to the apostles, had no further leisure for acquiring money. And some too were punished by the unbelieving Jews themselves, for the confession of the faith, by having their own substance taken away. To them the Apostle says: And you accepted with joy the plundering of your goods (Heb. 10:34). Among these almsgivers is recorded the devout deed of Helena, queen of the Adiabeni, who, buying grain from Egypt, ministered most generously to the needs of the people of Jerusalem. Hence she also merited an honourable burial before the gates of that same city.

CHAPTER XII.

And at the same time Herod the great king sent. Not, that is, at the time of the famine, which the histories report took place in the fourth year of Claudius, since Herod died in the third year of the same; but without doubt at that time when the offerings were being carried to Jerusalem. But let us not suppose that Herod who was tetrarch, and afterwards was made king, is designated in this chapter. For

Josephus relates that Gaius, on taking up the empire, at once handed over the principality of the Jews to this Herod, son of Aristobulus, whom he nevertheless names Agrippa, and with it the tetrarchies of Philip and of Lysanias; and that in the fourth, that is, the last year of his reign he likewise conferred [the rest] on the same Herod. But Herod himself, who had been the author of John's death and had taken part in the Lord's passion, tormented by many diseases, he condemned to perpetual exile. Further, that this Herod or Agrippa, struck by an angel in the third year of Claudius and the seventh of his own reign, left the kingdom to his son Agrippa. And the Aristobulus he mentioned is the one who, with his brother Alexander, had been killed by his faithless father, that is, Herod the elder, under whom the Lord was born.

And he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. Concerning this James, Clement of Alexandria relates a story worthy of memory. And he (he says) who had brought him (James, that is) before the judge for martyrdom, being moved himself also, confessed that he was a Christian. And both were led together to punishment. And as they were being led on the way, he asked James that forgiveness be granted him. And he, after considering a little while, said: Peace be to you. And he kissed him. And so both were beheaded together.

Delivering him to four quaternions of soldiers. As a centurion had a hundred soldiers under him, so a quaternion of soldiers had four.

And striking Peter on the side he raised him up. The striking of the side is a remembrance of the passion of Christ, from Whose wound our salvation flowed. And to us also, held by the chain of afflictions, the apostle Peter himself gives such comfort, saying: Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same thought (I Pet. 4:1).

Gird yourself and put on your sandals. We read that both prophets and apostles used girdles; Peter had loosened its bindings for the time because of the harshness of the prison, so that, with his tunic let down about his feet, he might somehow temper the cold of the night, giving an example to the weak that, when we are tried either by bodily distress or by human injury, it is permitted us to relax something of the rigour of our rule. And because it is said: Let your loins be girded, and your feet shod in the preparation of the Gospel of peace, he is commanded to take up again, spiritually, the insignia of the virtues and of the word to be preached.

They came to the iron gate that leads to the city. Narrow, indeed iron, was the gate that leads to the heavenly Jerusalem; but by the footsteps of the apostles it has now been made passable for us, who by their own blood overcame the iron door. Of this Arator:

What wonder if iron doors give way to Peter, / whom God appoints keeper of the heavenly court, / and, making him hold the summit of His Church, / bids him overcome hell?

And Peter, coming to himself. That is, returned from the summit of contemplation to that which he was before in common understanding.

A girl came forward to answer. And a woman first announced to the disciples the Lord come forth from the enclosure of the tomb, so that where sin abounded, grace might more abound.

But they said: It is his angel. That each one of us has an angel is found both in the book of the Shepherd and in many places of holy Scripture. For the Lord also says of little ones: Their angels always see the face of My Father (Matt. 18:10). And Jacob speaks of himself: The angel who delivered me from all evils. And here the disciples believed that the angel of the apostle Peter was coming.

And going down from Judaea to Caesarea. Although, from the position of the places, he might seem to mean Caesarea Philippi, because it, like Tyre and Sidon, is a city of Phoenicia, yet from Josephus's account we learn that these things were done in Caesarea of Palestine, which was once called Strato's Tower, and lies on the border of Phoenicia and Palestine, situated on the shore of the Great Sea.

They asked for peace, because their regions were fed by him. They needed the friendship of the neighbouring king, because their region was very narrow and hemmed in by the borders of Galilee and Damascus. Hence not even their metropolis Tyre had such wealth from its own land, enough to be the emporium of the whole world, as from the mooring of ships. And it is most productive of purple and shellfish.

And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him. Josephus too agrees: «While he did not shudder (he says) at the impiety of the unlawful flattery, looking up a little later he sees an angel hanging over his head and pressing upon it; and he felt him at once to be the minister of his destruction whom he had before known as the provider of good things.» And a little later: «But tormented for five continuous days by pains of the belly, he violently broke off his life.»

CHAPTER XIII.

Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have taken them. Saul seems, according to the order of the history, in the thirteenth year after the Lord's passion, to have received the apostleship with Barnabas and the name of Paul. And in the fourteenth year, by the agreement of James, Cephas and John, he set out to the teaching of the Gentiles. Nor does the ecclesiastical history contradict this, when it says that the apostles were commanded to preach for twelve years in Judaea.

They preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. For the sake of those unacquainted with the places I have thought it right to note once for all: wherever you see a synagogue of the Jews, know that the things related were done in a city.

Whose name was Barjeu. Barjesu is a corrupt reading, since it ought to be read Barjeu, that is, evildoer, or in evil. I believe [the confusion arose] because the name Jesus is written with the same letters but with a mark set above. For it is not fitting that a wicked man and a magician should be called son of Jesus, that is, of the Saviour, whom on the contrary Paul calls son of the devil.

But Saul, who is also Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit. From Sergius Paulus the proconsul, because he had brought him under the faith of Christ, he obtained the name of Paul. And what follows in this little book treats of the miracles of Paul. For it was fitting that he himself should give completion to the apostolic

acts, whom the Lord had chosen while he long kicked against the goads.

Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind. The Apostle, mindful of his own example, knew that one could rise again to the light from the darkness of the eyes of the mind. For he did not deserve to have the eyes of the flesh who was labouring to take away from others the eyes of the mind.

They came to Antioch of Pisidia. There are two cities called Antioch: one in Coele-Syria, founded by King Seleucus, which was formerly called Rebla, near which they say is the spring Daphne, and that the city enjoys its most abundant waters; in it the disciples were first named Christians. The other Antioch, of which mention is now made, is in the province of Pisidia.

He distributed their land to them by lot, after about four hundred and fifty years. God had said to Abraham that his seed would be a sojourner in a foreign land for four hundred years. And again He says: For in Isaac shall your seed be called. From the rise of the seed, then, until the going out of Israel from Egypt there were (as Exodus writes) four hundred and five years. Add to these forty years in the desert, and five in the land of Canaan, after which the land seems to have rested from battles and the lot to have been cast, and you will find four hundred and fifty years.

And God gave them Saul for forty years. I believe that, since the book of Kings does not openly set out for how many years Saul reigned, the Apostle, speaking in the common way, meant to say what the more frequent report held. But searching more carefully in the same place, as the books of Chronicles also testify, we find that Samuel and Saul ruled over Israel for forty years. For it came to pass, it says, in the four hundred and eightieth year of the going out of the children of Israel from Egypt, Solomon began to build the temple to the Lord, in the fourth year of his reign. But when to the three hundred and ninety-six years during which the judges ruled, as their book shows, you add the forty of David and the four of Solomon, forty remain, of which (as Josephus is witness) Samuel spent twenty and Saul as many more in government.

That God has fulfilled this to your children, raising up Jesus, as it is also written in the second psalm: You are My Son, today I have begotten You. This instance from the psalm is not to be thought to refer to the resurrection of Christ, which he has just mentioned, but to His very incarnation, of which he spoke above. For the following verse bears witness most plainly to the resurrection. For since above he was treating of His incarnation, passion and resurrection, he wished to establish both alike by testimonies given from the psalm. You, therefore, he says, Who are eternal, the Son before the ages, will now appear born in time. Some manuscripts have: As it is written in the first psalm. This is explained thus: that the first and second Psalm were composed [as one], which both begins from blessedness and ends in blessedness.

For I will give you the holy things of David, the faithful ones; that is, whatever I promised to David, the same I, a faithful guarantor, will most surely fulfil for you, namely Christ from his

stock to be born. For thus Isaiah, foretasting the mysteries of the New Testament, says: And I will establish with you an everlasting testament, the holy things of David, the faithful ones (Isa. 55:3). Which in the Hebrew verity reads: And I will strike with you an everlasting covenant, the faithful mercies of David.

Many of the Jews and of the worshipping strangers followed. It is better read: And of those worshipping God, as we have seen in the Greek. It signifies those who were Gentiles by nature but Jews by religion, whom in Greek they call proselytes.

For so the Lord has commanded us: I have set you for a light to the Gentiles. What was said specially to the Lord Christ, the apostles now consider said to themselves, recalling, that is, that they are His members, as He Himself also, on account of the union of the same body, said: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me (Acts 9:4)?

But they, shaking off the dust of their feet against them, came to Iconium. According to the precept of the Gospel, the dust is shaken from the feet in testimony of their labour, that they entered those people's city and the apostolic preaching reached as far as them; or the dust is shaken off so that they may receive nothing from those who have spurned the Gospel, not even what is necessary for food.

The disciples also were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. In the Greek it has: But the disciples, so that we may understand that, while the Jews persecuted the faith, the disciples on the contrary were enriched with spiritual joy

CHAPTER XIV.

They stirred up the minds of the Gentiles to anger against the brethren. What follows in the Greek: But God made peace, some Latin manuscripts lack. And there, at: They were preaching the Gospel, there follows in the Greek: And the whole multitude was moved at their teaching.

But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Lystra. These little verses too are not found in some of our manuscripts.

And a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, was sitting, etc. As that lame man whom Peter and John healed at the gate of the temple prefigures the salvation of the Jews, so this sick Lycaonian too [prefigures] the people of the Gentiles, far removed from the religion of the law and the temple, but gathered by the preaching of the apostle Paul. They gave, he says, to me and to Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision. And the times also fit the interpretation. For the former is healed in the first times of the faith, when the word was not yet entrusted to the Gentiles; but this one, after the Jews had been driven out for their faithlessness and sprinkled with the dust of condemnation, amid the new joys of the converted Gentile world.

And seeing that he had faith to be made whole. Both the former sought money from the apostles in the Jewish manner, but this one sought salvation from faith.

He said with a loud voice: Stand upright on your feet. In the Greek copy it reads: He said with a loud voice: I say to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, stand upright on your feet. We have set down these things about the translation, lest, bewildered by the variety of the manuscripts, you should not know what is truer.

The gods, made like men, have come down to us. A foolish error of the Gentiles, who think everything they see above themselves to be gods.

And they called Barnabas Jupiter; for this reason, namely, that he seemed to be the first of them. For they thought Jupiter the father of the gods and king of men.

But Paul Mercury, because he was the leader of the word; for they believed that Mercury bestowed eloquence and tongue on mortals. Hence the Latins also called him Mercury as though running in the middle, that is, between ears and tongues. But the Greeks called him Hermes, that is, interpreter.

Bringing bulls and garlands before the gates. The bulls for victims; the garlands, either to adorn the front of the temple according to the rite of the Gentiles, or to place on them as on gods when he was about to sacrifice.

Rending their tunics they leapt out among the crowds, and so on. In fear they tear their garments because they were being honoured with the worship of gods. For it is the custom of the Jews to do this whenever they hear something blasphemous and, as it were, against God. But Herod, because he did not give honour to God, but acquiesced in the immoderate favour of the people, was at once struck by an angel.

CHAPTER XV.

They decided that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of them, should go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, etc. Of this going up of his Paul himself writes to the Galatians: Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also, and I conferred with them the Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles (Gal. 2:1–2); where the very number of years which he has set down must be reckoned up. For we know that the apostles Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom in the thirty-eighth year after the passion of the Lord, that is, the last of Nero, and that blessed Peter sat in the episcopal chair at Rome for twenty-five years. But twenty-five and fourteen make not thirty-eight but thirty-nine. It follows, then, that we should believe that blessed Peter came to Rome in that same fourteenth year after the Lord's passion in which Paul speaks with him at Jerusalem, the fourth of Claudius Caesar; and at the same time, unless I am mistaken, from this reckoning it is proved that the blessed apostle Paul came to the faith in the same year in which the Lord suffered and rose again.

Saying that they must be circumcised. The Galatians had been deceived by this error, so as to believe that circumcision and the ceremonies of the law were to be mixed with the grace of baptism.

Purifying their hearts by faith. There is no need, then, to cleanse by circumcision of the flesh those whose hearts so great a faith purifies that they deserve to receive the Holy Spirit even before baptism.

But through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we believe that we are saved, just as they also. If, then, they also, that is, the fathers, unable to bear the yoke of the old law, believed that they were saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is plain that this was the grace which made the righteous of old live. For the just man lives by faith,

Therefore the sacraments could be diverse according to the diversity of the times, yet running back most harmoniously to the unity of the same faith.

After this I will return, and will build up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen, and the rest. The tabernacle of David signifies the shadow of the law, which was corrupted and torn apart by the traditions of the Pharisees, but, when the Lord returned, that is, appeared in the flesh, was raised up by God through spiritual grace, so that not only the Jews, but also all the nations of the Gentiles might seek His name.

And from things strangled and from blood, that is, from shedding blood, or from eating with the blood. These things indeed were granted to those coming from the Gentile life, on account of the very rudiments of their faith and the long-ingrained custom of heathenism; but lest the same should be thought sufficient also for the more perfect, he watchfully added, and says:

For Moses from ancient times has in every city those who preach him in the synagogues; that is, even if they are not now burdened by us with the harshness of precepts, yet as time goes on, while they come together more often to the reading of the law and the prophets, they will little by little take up the ordinances of life and the laws of the love to be kept towards one another. For it is understood that the primitive Church, still Judaizing, celebrated these things on the Sabbaths.

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us; that is, it pleased the Holy Spirit, Who, being the arbiter of His own power, breathes where He wills, and speaks the things He wills.

It pleased us also; not by our own will alone, but by the prompting of the same Spirit.

But Paul and Barnabas stayed at Antioch. In these days was fulfilled what the apostle Paul says: When Cephas had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face (Gal. 2).

But Paul asked that he ought not to be taken along. Because, having placed himself in the very front of the battle line, he had stood too lukewarmly, Paul rightly cast him off, lest by his contagion, as it were, the strength of others should be corrupted.

And there arose a dissension. Do not think this a fault. For it is not evil to be stirred, but to be stirred unreasonably, and when no just matter demands it.

And Barnabas, taking Mark, should sail to Cyprus. On account of a brother dear to him and joined to him by kinship (for they are read to have been cousins), Barnabas, separated from Paul, went back to his native island, and none the less carried out the work of Gospel preaching enjoined upon him.

CHAPTER XVI.

He circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places. Not because he believed that the figures of the law, now that the truth of the Gospel was shining, would bring any profit, but lest on the occasion of the Gentiles the Jews should fall away from the faith. From them, however, the old shadow was to be removed little by little, just as from the Gentiles the depravity of their ancient morals, as was said above. For these legal shadows, as having once been established by the Lord, were at times in those days [observed] by the Apostles for the sake of avoiding the Jews'

perfidy, taken up. But the Gentile ordinance, as being truly devised by Satan, was never touched by the saints.

They were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, etc., as far as Crossing into Macedonia, help us. Truly terrible is the Lord in His counsels over the sons of men. One promises to follow the Master in all things, and is not permitted; another, bidden to follow, did not receive the delay he asked for his father's burial. Saul, unconquered and resisting, is drawn in. To Cornelius, persevering in prayers and alms, the way of salvation is shown as if by way of reward; and God, Who knows hearts, by the grace of His kindness removed the Teacher from Asia, lest, if what is holy were given to dogs, the error of a wicked heart should be judged more heavily for preaching despised. And again, while the apostle was attending to other things, a Macedonian envoy, whom we believe to be the angel of that nation, asks that crumbs of the Lord's bread be offered to him.

Which is the first city of the part of Macedonia, a colony. A colony is a place which, through lack of natives, is filled up with new cultivators. Hence also it is called a colony from the cultivation of the land.

A certain girl having a spirit of Python. What art pythonic divination practises we find in the book of Kings, where, at Saul's request, the pythoness called up from the underworld either the soul of Samuel or, rather, an unclean spirit in its place. This kind of magical phantasm, they say, was devised by the Pythian Apollo, and was so called from his surname. But the Hebrew name also fits, for they call Python the mouth of the abyss.

These men are servants of the most high God. This confession is not one of the will, which the reward of confessing follows; but, compelled by fear of the Holy Spirit, the lying spirit speaks true things, not daring, with the light present, to hide its darkness any longer. But to the sinner God says: Why do you declare My justices?

Lest we be corrupted by the honey / of bitter guile, if he who ministers falsehoods sings true things,

as Arator says.

I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to go out of her. Bar-jesus, who was an assailant of the faith, he blinded both by the weakening of his art and by the loss of his eyes. But this girl, who, though with a perverse mind, yet spoke true things, he took care to deprive only of her wicked art. For since it was unfitting that an unclean spirit should announce the word of the Gospel, he commanded it to depart and be silent, because demons ought to confess the Lord with trembling, but not to praise Him with joy.

And they proclaim a custom which it is not lawful for us to receive or to practise, since we are Romans. They speak of the faith of Jesus Christ, in Whose name the spirit of Python had gone out. For the Romans had already decreed that no god should be accepted unless approved by the senate.

And at midnight Paul and Silas, praying to God, were saying a hymn, and the rest. Both the devotion of the apostolic breast and the power of prayer are expressed, since they sang hymns in the depth of the prison, and their praise shook the ground of the prison, and struck its foundations, and opened the doors, and at last [loosed] the very [chains] of the bound

loosed the chains. Otherwise. Whoever of the faithful counts it all joy when he falls into various temptations (Jas. 1), and gladly glories in his infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in him (2 Cor. 12), he indeed sings hymns with Paul and Silas amid the darkness of the prison, and sings out with the Psalmist to the Lord: Thou art my refuge from the distress that has encompassed me, my exultation (Ps. 31)

He washed their stripes, and was himself baptized. A beautiful interchange of things. Those whose stripes of wounds he washed, through them he himself lost his stripes.

CHAPTER XVII.

Opening and setting forth that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and that this is the Christ, Jesus. The Father was setting forth both things from the Scriptures: that the Christ had to suffer and rise again, and that this same passion and resurrection belonged to no other than Jesus of Nazareth. For some of the Jews were, as they are today too, so faithless that, though they cannot deny that the passion and resurrection of Christ are set down in the Scriptures, they yet utterly deny that these things belong to Jesus, and would rather await Antichrist than believe in Jesus Christ. And therefore Paul not only preached the mysteries of Christ, but taught also that these were accomplished in Christ Jesus.

And of the worshippers and the Gentiles a great multitude; that is, both of those who had exchanged the Gentile rite for Judaism, and of those who had remained wholly Gentiles, many were flocking to Christ.

Now these were more noble than those who are at Thessalonica. He speaks of nobility of soul, by which they had set themselves to hearing and searching the word.

And certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were disputing with him. The Epicureans, following the dullness of their master, placed the happiness of man in bodily pleasure alone, but the Stoics in virtue of the mind alone. Though at variance among themselves, they yet with one mind assail the Apostle, because he taught that man, just as he subsists of soul and body, so ought to be blessed in both; but that this is to be brought to completion neither in the present time nor by human power, but by the grace of God through Jesus Christ in the glory of the resurrection.

What would this word-sower say? Rightly is he called a word-sower, that is, σπερμόλογος, because the seed is the word of God. And Paul the Apostle himself says: If we have sown spiritual things for you, etc. (1 Cor. 9).

I found an altar on which was written: To the unknown God. In Judaea God was known, but not received. In Achaia God was unknown, though sought through many things. And therefore he who does not know will not be known; he who transgresses will be condemned. Neither are free from guilt, but those who did not offer faith to Christ, Whom they did not know, are more excusable than those who laid hands on Christ, Whom they knew.

God, Who made the world and all things that are in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, and the rest. The order of the apostolic disputation is to be carefully observed, by which he so shapes the course of his discourse among the Gentiles as first to teach that one God is the author

of the world and of all things, in Whom we live and move and are, Whose offspring we also are, so as to show that He is to be loved not only for the gifts of light and life but also for a certain kinship of race; then to overthrow by plain reasoning that opinion which is held about idols: that the Founder and Lord of the whole world cannot be shut up in temples of stone; that the Giver of every benefit has no need of the blood of victims; that, finally, the Creator of men and Governor of all cannot be made by the hand of man; that, lastly, God, to Whose image man was made, ought not to be thought like metals; teaching that the remedy for error is the zeal of repentance. For if he had first wished to destroy the ceremonies of the idols, the ears of the Gentiles would have rejected him. When therefore he was persuading them that God is one, he then established by His judgement that salvation was given to us through Christ, yet calling Him man rather than God, and beginning from the things He did in the body, and describing these as divine, so that He might be seen to have been more than man: that death was conquered by the power of one [F. of that one], and that He, having died, was raised up from the underworld (for faith grows little by little), so that, when He was seen to have been above man, He might be believed to be God. For what does it matter in what order each one believes? Perfect things are not looked for at the beginnings; rather, from beginnings one arrives at the things that are perfect.

For in Him we live and move and are. This verse, because it is hard to understand, ought to be expounded in the words of blessed Augustine. « The Apostle shows, he says, that God works unceasingly in the things He has created. For we are not in Him as His substance, in the way in which it is said that He has life in Himself; but certainly, since we are something other than He, we are in Him for no other reason than that He works this. And this is His work by which He holds all things together, and by which His wisdom reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly. Through this ordering we live and move and are in Him. Hence it is gathered that if He were to withdraw this work of His from things, we should neither live, nor move, nor be. » And a little after: « For neither (he says) heaven and earth, and all things that are in them, that is, the whole spiritual and bodily creation, abides in itself, but certainly in Him of Whom it is said: For in Him we live and move and are. Because, even if each part can be in the whole of which it is a part, yet the whole itself is not, except in Him by Whom it was founded. » The same blessed Augustine elsewhere: « If the Apostle said this (he says) according to the body, it could be understood also of this bodily world. For in it too, according to the body, we live and move and are. » Hence this ought to be taken according to the mind, which was made to His image, in a certain more excellent way, and that not visible but intelligible. For what is not in Him, of Whom it is divinely written: For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things (Rom. 11)?

As some also of your poets have said. This is what he says elsewhere: I judged myself to know nothing among you, except Jesus crucified. For to those who [knew] the prophets'

did not accept the faith, he speaks not with the testimonies of Moses, nor of Isaiah, or of any of the prophets, but of their own authors, reciting, that is, a verse of Aratus, and confirming his own true things from their false ones, which they could not gainsay. For it belongs to great knowledge to give food to one's fellow servants in due season, and to consider the persons of the hearers.

For we are also His offspring. Most rightly are we called the offspring of God, not as brought forth from His nature, but as both created by His will through His Spirit and re-created by adoption.

Among whom also Dionysius the Areopagite. This is Dionysius who afterwards, as bishop of the Corinthians, ruled the Church gloriously, and left many volumes of his genius serving the profit of the Church, which remain to this day, taking his surname from the place over which he presided. For the Areopagus is the council-house of Athens, drawing its name from Mars. For indeed in Greek Mars is called ἄρης, and village πάγος.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Because Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome. Josephus relates that this was done in the ninth year of Claudius. But Suetonius the historian reports it in this way: Claudius expelled from Rome the Jews who were constantly rioting at the instigation of Christ. Whether he ordered the Jews rioting against Christ to be restrained and suppressed, or wished the Christians also to be expelled at the same time as men of a kindred religion, can in no way be determined.

Now they were of the tent-making craft. Like exiles and strangers on the earth, they build themselves tents to use on the way; tabernacles are called σκῆναι in Greek, taking their derivation from overshadowing, since among them shade is called σκία, while σκῆναι or σκηνώματα sound like shelters, which the ancients put together from woollen or linen cloaks or of goats'-hair cloth, or from the leafy branches of trees or from brushwood. But mystically, just as Peter by fishing draws us out of the waves of the world through the nets of faith, so Paul, by putting up shelters of protection, defends us by word and deed from the rain of crimes, from the heat of temptations, and from the winds of snares. There follow in this place two verses in the Greek which are not found in some of our manuscripts.

And he disputed in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks. And then is added what both sets of manuscripts have:

When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, and the rest. Who had shorn his head in Cenchreae; for he had a vow. Cenchreae is the port of Corinth, where, about to board a ship, he sheared his head by a vow. For according to the law of Moses, those who vowed themselves to God were commanded to let their hair grow as long as they wished to be Nazirites, and afterwards to cut it off and give it to the fire. Paul therefore did these things, not indeed forgetting what he had decided with the other apostles at Jerusalem about the abolition of the law, but so that those of the Jews who had believed might not be scandalized, he made himself appear a Jew, that he might gain the Jews. Some manuscripts have in the plural number They had shorn their head, and they had a vow, that is, Priscilla and Aquila. But the eminent doctors

of the Church, Jerome and Augustine, each in his letters, both put it in the singular number and interpret it of Paul. For Jerome puts it thus: « Bidding farewell to the brethren he sailed to Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila, and he shore his head in Cenchreae, for he had taken a vow. »

He set out from Ephesus, and going down, went up to Caesarea, and greeted the Church. He means Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia. For he had not yet come into Syria of Phoenicia. This city, once called Mosacha after Mosoch the son of Japheth, afterwards received the name Caesarea from Caesar Augustus.

Who, when he had come, helped much those who had believed. For he vehemently refuted the Jews. Another translation has: He profited much those who believed through grace. This, then, is what the Apostle writes to these same Achaeans: I planted, Apollo watered (1 Cor. 3).

CHAPTER XIX.

And he said to them: Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? That is: Did you, after baptism, receive the laying on of hands, by which the Holy Spirit is wont to be given?

John baptized with the baptism of repentance. This baptism, he says, could not grant remission of sins, but only teach repentance. For just as the sign of circumcision had been in the patriarchs a seal of the faith which they bore, so too the repentant people received this washing as a singular seal of their devotion: which itself, however, was figuratively to show also the baptism of Christ, by which remission would be given.

Having heard these things, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The question is often aired whether those who through ignorance happen to have been baptized by some who were not baptized, yet of the right faith, ought to be baptized again; which I think is set out in this chapter. For what difference does it make whether someone is baptized then, before the beginning of Christ's baptism, or now, without succession in the same, when even John himself declared that those whom he had baptized in the faith and in the name of Christ, though Christ was still to come, were to be baptized again, saying: I baptize you with water; He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3)? For if now for such persons communion of the body and blood of Christ alone could suffice as a remedy, as some teach, it could have sufficed then too; and there would have been no need for those whom John had baptized with water to be baptized by the disciples of Christ, but only to be confirmed by partaking of the blood.

And all the men were about twelve, etc. Truly the judgements of God are a great deep. Behold, Asia, lately not worthy even of a visit from the apostles, is now both consecrated by the Apostolic number and exalted by the prophetic gift. And it is to be noted that the Holy Spirit showed the signs of His coming both here upon twelve disciples and above upon a hundred and twenty, which is the number twelve multiplied ten times; that in Jerusalem, this in Ephesus, which is a city of the Greeks. I believe it was to show that, whether one believes from the Jews or from the Gentiles, He fills only those who are in communion with the unity of the catholic and apostolic Church.

But some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists attempted to invoke over those who, etc. Josephus relates that King Solomon devised, and taught his nation, methods of exorcism, that is, of adjuration, by which unclean spirits, once driven out of a man, did not dare to return again. And this is done at times even through reprobates, for the condemnation of those who do it, or for the profit of those who see and hear, so that, though men despise those who work the signs, they may yet honour God, at the invoking of Whom such great miracles are done:

Now there were seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who were doing this. It is better read according to the Greek: Now there were [seven sons] of a certain Sceva. Since, then, Satan himself transforms himself as if into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14), he does not fear to colour his ministers also with the same pretence. Hence, because the grace of the Holy Spirit is wont to be signified by the number seven (in which figure both the Lord after the resurrection feasts with seven disciples, and seven brethren come to Cornelius, who was to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, to bring him the Gospel), the sons of Sceva, as if about to drive out evil spirits, are reckoned in the number seven. And because they invoke the name of Christ and of the apostles not by believing but by testing it, they are deservedly condemned for their crafty falsehood not only by God but by the demons themselves. They are well called sons of Sceva, which is interpreted "a little fox crying out". This animal, most cunning in guile and craft, signifies the Jews, Gentiles and heretics, ever lying in wait for the Church of God and, as it were, clamouring with chattering voice. Concerning whom the guardians of that same Church are commanded: Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards.

Jesus I know, and Paul I know. Of this verse Arator says,

Recognize your own madness, / O hostile race: a demon confesses that He reigns / Whom you deny has come, and you are convicted by that very one / At whose goading you rush to ruin.

And many of those who had followed curious arts brought together their books, etc. By curious things he means the practice of the magic art, whose followers rightly burn their books, though valued at a great price, when they see the very demons they had served honouring Jesus Christ the Lord and His apostles.

They found the money to be fifty thousand denarii. In the Gospel too the debts of the debtors are remitted under the number fifty of denarii. I believe it is because, subsisting in this life by the five senses of the body, we transgress the precepts of the Decalogue. But here, on account of the enormity of the crime of magic, the number thousand was also added. Otherwise. The number fifty is often referred to repentance and the remission of sins; whence the fiftieth psalm is that of repentance, and the fiftieth year is that of remission.

And sending into Macedonia two of those who ministered to him, etc. He sent the disciples ahead to prepare the alms which he was to bring to Jerusalem, lest the collections should be made only when he himself came.

For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, etc.

This Demetrius, who strives to disturb the way of the Lord, carries out his own name in his deeds. For it is interpreted "persecuting exceedingly". Hence, fittingly, the temples which he makes for Diana he builds of no other metal than silver; for in the Scriptures eloquence is wont to be indicated by silver, as sense by gold. And Gentile cunning is wont to establish its religion not by any reasoning of sense, but by the bare polish of speech.

And not only is this part of ours in danger of coming into disrepute, but also the temple of the great Diana will be counted for nothing, and destroyed, etc.; that is, not only will our works be shown up as vain and not worthy of a wage, but our religion too will be dishonoured, if Paul's teaching prevails, that idols are not gods. And wondrous is the folly of the Gentiles, who do not blush to worship those whom they know can be built or destroyed by a man.

And they cried out, saying: Great is Diana of the Ephesians. The Diana whom Demetrius said would perish, they on the contrary marvel at as great.

And they rushed with one mind into the theatre. The theatre is a place having the shape of a half-circle, in which the people, standing, used to watch the stage plays within. Hence too it received the name of theatre in Greek from the spectacle. And so, as Arator says:

In no other forum was it fitting for the lewd to handle / the cause and desert of Diana; a shameful ground holds / the misshapen work of the assembly.

CHAPTER XX

And he set out to go into Macedonia. And when he had gone through those parts, and had exhorted them with much discourse, he came to Greece. Greece is the province of Achaia, which the Greeks call ἑλλάδα. Accordingly, where the Latin manuscripts have "Greeks", or, to distinguish them from the Jews, "Gentiles", there the Greek copy wrote ἕλληνας and ἑλληνιστὰς. To this, then, Paul came after Macedonia, because he had resolved, as was said above, to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem.

And on the first day of the week, when we had come together to break bread, etc.; that is, on the Lord's day, which is the first from the Sabbath, when we had gathered to celebrate the mysteries.

And he prolonged his discourse until midnight. And there were many lamps in the upper room. We can say here allegorically that the upper room is the height of the spiritual gifts, the night the obscurity of the Scriptures, the abundance of lamps the exposition of more hidden sayings, the Lord's day the remembrance either of the Lord's resurrection or of our own; and that it admonishes the spiritual teacher that, if ever he has drawn his hearers, allured by the sweetness of the resurrection and the joys of the life to come, to the heights of the virtues, and by disputing at greater length has touched on any hidden things of the Scriptures, he should at once, for the sake of weak hearers, light up the same with the lamp of plain exposition. As the Apostle, when he said that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman, at once added by way of explanation: Now these are the two testaments etc.

And a certain young man named Eutychus, sitting in the window, etc. Eutychus in Hebrew is "senseless", but in Greek "fortunate". Of these, the one fits him who through the pleasure of youth has fallen from the height of the virtues, the other him who through the condescension of the preacher has returned to the heights of the virtues.

Overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third storey, etc. Amid the words of preaching an occasion of healing arises, so that the discourse of doctrine may be strengthened by the sweetness of a miracle, and the toil of the vigil be warded off, and the memory of the master, now about to depart, be fixed more firmly in their minds. But the three storeys, in the highest of which Paul is disputing, are faith, hope and charity. But the greatest of these is charity (1 Cor. 13). If anyone through sloth has deserted it, and has not feared to doze amid the Apostle's words, he will at once be counted among the dead. For when he has offended in one point, he has become guilty of all (Jas. 2).

And when Paul had gone down to him, he lay upon him. That he goes down, lies upon him, embraces him, is what he himself says: My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you. For the raising of those who sin through negligence is more laborious than of those who sin through weakness. And the latter is expressed through Eutychus, the former through Tabitha, whom Peter raised. And therefore she, having fallen sick in those days, dies; he falls and dies at midnight. She after death is washed and laid in an upper room; he, having fallen down from the third storey, is mourned as dead. He [fell] while the master was present and teaching, she while the master was absent. To him Paul goes down; to her Peter goes up to raise her. She, as soon as she saw Peter, sat up; he, having died in the middle of the night, at length rises again in the morning, and, as the sun of justice breathes upon him, is brought back alive.

For he was hastening, if it were possible, to keep the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem. It was indeed a precept of the law that all the Jews should assemble at Jerusalem three times a year, that is, at the time of the Pasch, of Pentecost, and of the Feast of Tabernacles; but the Apostle, the bonds of the world being broken, hastens to keep the day of the fiftieth, that is, of remission, and of the Holy Spirit.

He called the elders of the Church. For "elders" the Greek has πρεσβυτέρους.

Except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city. When he says in every city, he shows plainly that he learned the things that were to befall him as revealed not to himself but to others concerning him. Among these was the prophet Agabus, and also those disciples who, when he was staying at Tyre, warned him through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem.

Saying that bonds and afflictions await me in Jerusalem. So that where he once persecuted the Church, there he might now contend for the Church's peace.

Nor do I count my life more precious than myself. By life he means the temporal life itself in the body, which he holds of least account who awaits eternal joy in another life.

That I am clean from the blood of all of you. For this reason

he believed himself clean from the blood of his neighbours, because he did not hold back in striking at their vices.

In which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops. For he had said above that the presbyters of Ephesus were called to Miletus, whom he now names bishops, that is, overseers. For one city could not have several bishops; but he signifies the same presbyters, as being truly priests, under the name of bishops. For the rank is joined to it, and in many things nearly alike.

To rule the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood. He does not hesitate to speak of the blood of God, because of the union of person in the two natures of the same Jesus Christ. Because of which it is also said: The Son of Man, Who is in heaven (John 3:13). Let Nestorius therefore cease to separate the Son of Man from the Son of God, and to make for himself two Christs.

And from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things. Of these same men John too says: From you, he says, they went out, but they were not of you (1 John 2:19).

For for three years, night and day, I did not cease with tears to admonish each one of you. Arator expounds this beautifully and briefly:

He who sings to the Church its three teachings oftener sets forth / The volume historical, sounding the moral, and the typical; / Hence Judaea, idle, which is called the barren tree, / Though awaited three years, brought forth no fruit.

I have shown you all things. That is, that one must not only persevere in teaching amid afflictions and tears, but must also labour with one's hands, lest any of the weak be burdened. And this is what was said: And whatever you spend over and above, I will repay you when I return (Luke 10:35), namely, to preach the Gospel and not to seek one's expenses from the Gospel.

It is more blessed to give than to receive. He does not set the rich, even those who give alms, above those who, having left all things, have followed the Lord; but he glorifies most of all those who, having once renounced all that they possess, none the less labour, working with their hands what is good, that they may have something to give to him who suffers need.

CHAPTER XXI.

We set out and went on, with them escorting us with their wives and children, etc. The prophecy was fulfilled which, singing to the Church, says: The daughters of Tyre with gifts, all the rich among the people shall entreat your countenance (Ps. 44:13), and the rest, to the end of the psalm. For no city received, kept and sent off the Apostle with greater sweetness. Indeed, to this day the place on the sands where they prayed together is shown.

There came down a certain prophet from Judaea. He says "from Judaea" because Caesarea, where they were staying, belongs to the region of Samaria, situated on the border of Phoenicia and Palestine.

Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man whose girdle this is, the Jews shall so bind in Jerusalem. He imitates the old prophets, who used to say: Thus says the Lord God. For the Holy Spirit, equally with the Father and the Son, is Lord and God, and the working of those whose nature and will are one cannot be separated. Hence also we read above: The Holy Spirit says: Set apart

for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have taken them up (Acts 13:2), that is, the apostolate. And Paul himself writes: Paul an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father (Gal. 1:1). We have said this lest anyone perhaps believe, with Macedonius, that the Holy Spirit is a creature, or of lesser authority than the Father or the Son.

And on the following day Paul went in with us to James. This James, the brother of the Lord, was the son of Mary, the sister of the Lord's mother, whom John the evangelist mentions. Immediately after the Lord's passion he was ordained bishop by the apostles, and for thirty years ruled the Church at Jerusalem, that is, up to the seventh year of Nero. For when the Jews could not kill Paul, which above all they were seeking to do, as soon as Festus had died and Albinus had not yet come into the province, they turned their hands against James, who was buried beside the temple where he had been thrown down.

But they have heard of you that you teach a departure from Moses to those Jews who are among the gentiles, etc.; that is, that through the teaching of Christ you say that the things which were ministered to the fathers through Moses are to be condemned, as sacrilegious and not written at God's command. For this had been bandied about concerning Paul, not by those who understood with what intent these things ought then to have been kept by the believing Jews, namely for the commending of the divine authority and of the prophetic holiness of those sacraments, not for the obtaining of salvation, which, now revealed in Christ, was being ministered through the sacrament of baptism; but those had spread this about Paul who wished these things to be observed as though without them there could be no salvation for believers in the Gospel. For they had perceived him to be a most vehement preacher of grace, and one teaching what was most opposed to their purpose: that man is justified not through those things but through the grace of Christ, for the foretelling of Whom those shadows were commanded in the law. And therefore, striving to stir up ill will and persecution, they accused him as an enemy of the law and of the divine commandments. The ill will of this false accusation he could not more fittingly avoid than by himself celebrating those things which he was thought to condemn as sacrilegious, and so showing that neither were the Jews then to be forbidden them as wicked, nor the gentiles to be compelled to them as necessary. For if he really disapproved of them in the way that had been heard of him, and undertook to celebrate them only so that by a feigned action he might hide his opinion, James would not have said to him:

And all will know that the things they have heard of you are false; but he would have said, All will think: especially since in Jerusalem itself the apostles had already decreed that no one should compel the gentiles to judaize. But they had not decreed that anyone should at that time forbid the Jews to judaize, although the Christian teaching no longer compelled even them.

But when the seven days were being completed. These days had not yet been completed, but their course was running, and their completion was awaited. Hence more expressly in

the Greek it is said: But when the seven days were beginning to be completed. Otherwise the statement cannot stand which he himself made to the governor five days after his arrival in Caesarea: That there are no more than twelve days for me since I went up to worship in Jerusalem. For if to these seven and those five days you add the day of that council on which he had set the Pharisees and Sadducees at odds among themselves, and that on which the Jews had bound themselves by a vow to kill him, without doubt more than twelve days will be found there.

This is the man who [teaches] all men everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Because they saw that the followers of the new grace were less frequent at the ceremonies of the law and the solemnities of the temple, they feared, as is read in the Gospel, that the Romans would come and take away both their place and their nation.

Who said: Do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian, etc.? For a certain Egyptian had come to Judaea who, procuring for himself by magic art the credit of prophecy, gathered about thirty thousand of the Jews; and leading them through the desert he came to the Mount of Olives, ready to rush from there upon Jerusalem and subjugate the city to himself. But Felix forestalled his attempt, at once meeting him with armed men. The Egyptian indeed fled with a few, and the others were slain, and so he easily checked what had been rashly begun.

Four thousand men of the assassins. There need be no dispute about this number of followers between the tribune who said these things and Josephus who wrote about the Egyptian. For it could have happened that, coming at first with a few, and those exercising their tyranny in secret, he afterwards joined more to himself by public deceit. Now it is read that in the time of Felix this kind of robbers arose who, not seeking out hidden places or times, but carrying sicae, that is, short swords in the hand, mingled with the people in the very light of day and, clinging close, bloodied men with an unseen wound, so that death forestalled any outcry and the striker lay hidden. And if anyone had been disturbed that such things were done in the middle of the city, he too perished. So, through fear of danger or through concealment of the deed, the assassin was not caught.

From Tarsus of Cilicia, a burgess of no obscure city. The Apostle was indeed born in Giscala, a town of Galilee. When it was taken by the Romans, he moved with his parents to Tarsus of Cilicia. Sent by them to Jerusalem for the study of the law, he was instructed by Gamaliel, a most learned man, as he himself relates in what follows. Now he calls himself not a citizen but a municeps, from municipium, that is, the territory of that same city in which he was brought up. And a municipium is so called because it renders only munia, that is, the tributes due, or dues. For the liberal and most renowned affairs, and those which proceed from the prince, belong to the dignity of cities. Nor is it surprising if he calls himself a man of Tarsus and not of Giscala, since the Lord Himself, born in Bethlehem, was surnamed not a Bethlehemite but a Nazarene.

CHAPTER XXII.

But they did not hear the voice of Him Who was speaking with me. Above, the narrative relates of this vision that his companions stood dumbfounded, hearing indeed

the voice, but seeing no one. From which it is gathered that they heard the sound of a confused voice, but not the distinction of the words.

And as they were crying out and throwing off their garments and casting dust into the air. In the Lord's passion the priest alone, leaping up from his throne, rends his garments, because then the old priesthood was to be exchanged for the new. But now, because after the slaying of the apostles the whole nation together was to be stripped of the glory of the kingdom, all throw off their clothing and raise to heaven a clamour mixed with dust. According to what the Psalmist says: The pride of those who hate Thee ascends continually (Ps. 73:23).

I obtained this citizenship with a great sum of money. Another Edition indicates more plainly what he said. The tribune said: Do you so easily say that you are a Roman citizen? For I know at how great a price I came to possess this citizenship.

And Paul said: But I was even born [so]. That is, in this I am more a Roman than you, that I did not, born elsewhere, buy the Roman name, but was begotten in their own citizenship.

CHAPTER XXIII.

God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. He did not say this moved by disturbance of mind, but spoke indeed by prophesying, because that figurative high priesthood, which was framed in the likeness of a whitewashed wall, was to be struck and destroyed, now that the true priesthood of Christ had come, with the apostles preaching the Gospel. And hence it is that he says: God will strike you. He did not say, may He strike: signifying this very thing as future, plainly in the indicative mood, not cursing in the optative. For that he said these things with a tranquil mind he makes plain by his following answer, saying:

I did not know, brethren, that he was the chief of the priests. For although he truly knew that in the new testament this man was not the chief of the priests, yet, instructing others and warning them to conduct themselves more modestly towards those who are in authority, he himself too wished here [to act] with restraint.

Men, brethren, I am a Pharisee, etc. As the unity of the good is always useful, so the unity of the wicked is always harmful to the good. Hence the Apostle now busies himself to set his persecutors at odds, so that, divided, they might let go the man whom, united, they had hemmed in. So the Red Sea, which when solid had hemmed in the children of Israel, when divided set them free from Egypt. And that he declares himself a son of Pharisees, or, according to the Greek, the son of a Pharisee, is what he boasts above, that he learned the prophets and the law at the feet of Gamaliel, who is read to have been a Pharisee.

And they bound themselves by a vow, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. Whereas the Lord says: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice (Matt. 5:6), these on the contrary hunger for iniquity and so thirst for blood that they even deny food to the body until they are sated with this man's death. But there is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against God. For even above, although Paul had offered sacrifices, [his] head

shaved, practised the barefoot rites, and become a Jew to the Jews, yet he did not escape the chains that had been foretold. And here, although these men gather councils, bind themselves by vows and lay snares, the Apostle is nevertheless preserved, so that he may bear witness to Christ in Rome also, as had been told him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

And a ringleader of the sedition of the sect of the Nazarenes. At that time indeed Christians were called Nazarenes by way of reproach; but afterwards there arose among the Jews the heresy which was called that of the Nazarenes, who believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and say that He is the One Who both suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, in Whom we also believe. But while they wish to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians.

Whom we also seized. From whom you yourself, by judging, will be able to learn about all these things. In this place some of our Codices have several verses, which are read thus in the Greek: Whom we also seized, and wished to judge according to our law. But Lysias the tribune, coming upon us, with great force took him out of our hands, commanding his accusers to come before you, so that you yourself, by judging, may learn about all these things, etc.

But this I confess to you, that according to the sect which they call heresy, so I serve God my Father. It is better read in the Greek: That according to the way which they call heresy, so I serve God the Father. For what consistency is there in one who spoke in Greek saying: According to the sect which they call heresy, when secta in Latin means the same as haeresis in Greek? But he says: So I serve God the Father, namely according to that way which the unbelievers name a heresy, that is, a sect, as though it had more of the obstinacy of following anything whatever than of diligence in discerning what is right.

But certain Jews from Asia. Join this to what precedes, that is, these are the ones who found me in the temple.

But when two years were completed Felix received as successor Porcius Festus. He means two years of Paul's sojourn in Caesarea, not of Felix's governorship. For it was said above that he had been judge to that nation for many years. Especially since the histories relate that the Apostle was sent to Rome in the second year of Nero, and that Claudius Caesar, at the time when he made Agrippa, the son of the Herod whom the angel struck at Caesarea, king of the Jews, also sent Felix as procurator of the whole province, of Samaria and Galilee, and of the region which is called beyond the Jordan,

CHAPTER XXV.

No one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar. That he appeals to Caesar and hastens to go to Rome, he does for this reason: that he might persist the longer in preaching, and, with many believing as a result and all [things accomplished], might go crowned to Christ.

King Agrippa and Bernice came down to Caesarea. This Agrippa, who came with his sister to Caesarea, is (as I have said) the son of Herod Agrippa, whom we read above was slain by the angel, who until the overthrow

of Jerusalem held the kingdom of Judaea, always a friend to the Romans, and quite safe from all that sedition of the Jews.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa, I count myself blessed before you, since you are to defend me today. Another Edition has translated this verse thus: I count myself blessed, beginning to render an account before you today. This was set down by Saint Jerome in a certain place, with his exposition, thus: «Concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, O King Agrippa, I count myself blessed, since I am to be defended before you today, who know especially all the customs and questions that are among the Jews. For he had read that saying of Isaiah: Blessed is he who speaks into the ears of one who hears, and he knew that the words of a speech avail only so far as the wisdom of the judge has understood them.»

And when they were being put to death, I brought my vote. Another Edition says, And I brought against them the vote for their being put to death, that is, I myself gave the vote as to how they should be put to death.

Festus said with a loud voice: You are mad, Paul. He counted it madness that a man in chains, given the opportunity to defend himself, should make his speech not about the calumny by which he was pressed from without, but about the conscience in which he gloried within, and should run through all the wonders of the revelation by which he had been changed from persecutor into apostle, and moreover, having set forth the dispensation of our Redeemer, should discourse on the resurrection of the dead with the bearing and vehemence of a preacher. But in truth, as there is a foolish madness, by which the prodigal son, deserting his father, fed swine, so there is also a spiritual, that is, a true madness, of which the Apostle says: For whether we are out of our mind, it is for God, or whether we are sober, it is for you. And in comparison with this the Psalmist sings: Blessed is the man whose hope is the name of the Lord, and who has not looked to vanities and lying follies (Ps. 39:5).

Do you believe the prophets, King Agrippa? I know that you believe. He speaks these words not in flattery, as some think, but truly. For Agrippa, as one steeped in the rite and laws of the Jews, believed that the prophets had spoken true things, but to Whom that same truth reached, that is, the Lord Christ, he did not know, being faithless. Although he is read to have said in a certain address held with the Jews: But you presume on the help of religion, when the disciples of Jesus have now filled the Roman world; or do we think that this religion grows without the will of God?

CHAPTER XXVII.

And when we had sailed slowly for many days and had scarcely come over against Chios. It is better read, over against Cnidus, which is an island over against Asia.

But the centurion trusted the helmsman and the naucleros more. Naucleros in Greek is called navicularius, shipmaster, in Latin.

A typhonic wind threw itself against it. Another Latin translation says: A stormy wind. For typhus in Greek is called inflatio, a blowing up, in Latin.

And when the ship was caught and could not make head against the wind, etc. Another Translation has rendered this more plainly:

And when the ship was caught, since they could not face the wind, giving the ship over to the blasts, they began to gather in the sails.

Then we ran past the island which is called Clauda, which they could not reach, but the skiffs sent out began to aid the ship, girding it round. And they were also dragging anchors, fearing lest they should run upon the Syrtes. From which it is shown that, with ropes let down from the middle of the ship's side on either hand about its forepart, they attached anchors to these to be dragged. Just as in our own sea too, that is, the British sea, they are accustomed to fasten millstones behind the stern to check a ship. For they did this to slow the vessel, lest by too headlong a course it should fall upon the Syrtes, which are terrible even by mere report, because they snatch everything to themselves. Whence Sallust too says that their name was given them from dragging.

We were scarcely able to secure the skiff. Having taken it up, they used helps. A scapha or catascopos is a light little boat made of wicker and covered with raw hide. It is named in Greek from watching, because sailors or pirates are accustomed to look out over lands and shores with such a craft. When, then, they had let this down into the sea to help the larger ship, with the waves raging they could scarcely keep hold of it so that it should not slip away.

Having lowered the gear, they were thus driven along. Another translation puts it thus: And fearing lest they should fall into the Syrtis, slackening the yards, they were thus driven along.

For an angel of God stood by me this night. In saying this he was not boasting of himself, but calling them to faith. For it was for this reason too that the sea was allowed to be stirred up, so that both through his not being heeded and through his being heeded, the spiritual grace in Paul might be laid open.

Unless these remain in the ship, you cannot be saved, etc. Because in the danger of shipwreck the knowledge of the sailors, who were skilled in the sea, could avail more than the arms of the soldiers, they therefore bore it more lightly to cut away the skiff than the sailors.

And when light was beginning to come, Paul besought them all to take food. A most beautiful allegorical sense lies open in this place, since Paul urged those whom he had promised would be saved from shipwreck to take food. And because in the middle of the night they were held steady by four anchors amid the onset of the waves, and when day had risen they climb up to the bay of the land, [it signifies] that no one escapes the storms of this world except one who is fed with the bread of life. And he who in the night of present tribulations leans with all his strength on wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice, soon, as the Lord's help flashes forth, reaches the harbour of salvation which he has sought, provided only that, freed from the affairs of the world, he seeks only the flame of love with which to warm his breast.

And having raised the artemon, they made for the shore according to the breath of the breeze. The artemon is a small sail devised for the sake of steering the ship rather than of speed.

And when we had fallen into a place between two seas, they ran the ship aground. He says bithalassum for "two-seaed", because the Greeks call the sea thalassa. And it signifies a shore stretched out into the sea, and surrounded on this side and that by the same sea dividing itself.

And the prow, stuck fast, remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the force of the sea, etc. That ship perished for this reason, that it did not glide over the waves with a light course but, driven violently into the very bottom of the sea, is partly held by the ground and partly shattered by the buffeting wave. Such indeed is the fall of a soul given over to this world, which, when it has neglected to trample on the desires of the world, because it drives the prow of its intention deep into the earth, loosens the whole framework of the works that follow upon the waves of cares. But those who escaped on the fragments of this little ship make for land, because by the examples of those who perish others conduct themselves more cautiously.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

But when Paul had gathered a quantity of brushwood and laid it on the fire. The Apostle came out of the sea and kindled a fire because of the cold, because he warms with the ardour of love the hearts of those whom by teaching he has rescued from the waves of the storms. For the brushwood is any sayings of exhortation which, being able to kindle charity, are plucked from the wholeness of the Scriptures as though cut from the foliage of the branches.

A viper, having come out because of the heat, fastened on his hand. Because the unclean spirit, driven out of the heart of the faithful by the flame of the virtues, strives to pour the venom of persecutions into the teachers of truth, so as to wound the hand, that is, to hinder the work of spiritual teaching.

And he, shaking the beast off into the fire, suffered no harm. With the same fire with which he cherishes his own he burns up the beast, because by the same virtues the saints make progress and the wicked, with their author, waste away through envy, as the prophet says: Zeal has seized an untaught people, and now fire devours the adversaries.

And it happened that the father of Publius lay sick, afflicted with fevers and dysentery, etc. Why does he save a sick unbeliever by prayer, when of Timothy and Trophimus, believers who were sick, he restores the one by the medical art and leaves the other altogether, unless because the one who was not alive within had to be healed outwardly by a miracle, which those who were living soundly within did not need?

We sailed in an Alexandrian ship which had wintered at the island, whose sign was the Castra. I believe that originally insigne Castorum, the sign of the Castors, was set down, but that through the fault of copyists a letter was added, just as we often find frustra panis written for frusta, pieces of bread, and appropriat for appropiat in the most ancient copies. For in the Greek, instead of insigni Castorum, παρασήμῳ διοσκούροις is written; and the Dioscuri, the twin Castors, that is, Castor and Pollux, are so called in Greek. The witness is the city of the Colchians which, founded by Amphitus and Circius, the charioteers of the twins, was named Dioscurias from their name. The gentiles invoke them as gods at sea for this reason, that among the portents of sailors, if single stars appear on the ship or on the yards, they are heralds of a dangerous course, but if twin, of a prosperous one. And they say that by their coming that dread [star], called Helen, is put to flight. In another translation we have seen written, for παρασήμῳ διοσκούροις, whose sign was the sons of Jove. For the fables say that Jove, transformed into a swan, violated Leda, the wife of Theseus, and that from this was born

Helen. Whence it is said: That singing bird sought the embraces of Leda; [and they say] likewise that, changed into a star, he defiled the same woman and begot the twins Castor and Pollux.

For well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying: Go to this people and say: With the ear you will hear, etc. This prophecy, which the Apostle affirms was pronounced by the Holy Spirit, the book of the prophet itself records was spoken by the Lord. From which it is plainly shown that the will and the nature of the Lord and of the Holy Spirit are one, and that in the naming of the Spirit the name of the Lord too is understood. Nor did Paul write these things of the Holy Spirit as having another Holy Spirit, one Who was other in the prophets before the coming of the Lord, but of Him of Whom he himself was a partaker, and all who were borne along in the faith of perfected virtue. Hence too he mentions Him with the article, as if testifying that He is unique and one; and as he says not simply Πνεῦμα ἅγιον, that is, Holy Spirit, but with the addition of the article τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, that is, this Holy Spirit, so he records that Isaiah prophesied with the articled phrase τὸ ἅγιον τὸ Πνεῦμα. Peter too, in that discourse by which he persuaded those present: It was necessary, he says, that the Scripture be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit (that is, τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas (Acts 1:16). He too shows that the same Spirit worked in the prophets and in the apostles. Let these things, excerpted from the books of the blessed Didymus, hold this place in our little works

For the heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily. Lest we should think that the fatness of the heart and the heaviness of the ears are of nature and not of the will, he adds the fault of choice, and says:

And they have shut their eyes, lest perhaps they should see with their eyes. That is, they themselves, by their preceding deserts, were the cause of God's closing their eyes. Or it is to be joined to what precedes, the Lord saying to the prophet: Go to this people, and reproach them with the sins by which they have deserved blindness, if perhaps even so they may deign to hear and be converted to Me (Isa. 6:9).

And he remained two whole years in his own hired [dwelling], that is, in the lodging which he had hired for himself; he preached Christ to all, not only to the Jews, but also to the gentiles, who, he had said, were to be saved when those had been rejected.

And teaching the things that concern the Lord Jesus Christ with confidence, without hindrance. Not only was he not forbidden to preach at Rome, but, Nero's rule not yet being firmly established, nor breaking out into such great crimes as the histories relate of him, he was released, so that he might preach the Gospel of Christ in the regions of the West also, as he himself says to the Romans: Now therefore I shall set out for Jerusalem to minister to the saints. And a little after: When therefore I have completed this, I shall set out by way of you into Spain. For afterwards, that is, in the last year of Nero, he was held by him and crowned with martyrdom. Both of these things he sets forth in the second Epistle to Timothy, which he dictates from his chains when about to suffer: At my first defence, he says,

no one stood by me, but all forsook me. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the preaching might be fulfilled and all the gentiles might hear it, and I was delivered from the mouth of the lion (2 Tim. 4:16–17). Most plainly signifying that Nero, because of his cruelty, is the lion. And in what follows: And He has saved me,

and will save [me] for His heavenly kingdom (ibid.), namely because he felt that martyrdom was now present and imminent for him. Hence in the same Epistle he had said earlier: For I am already being offered up, and the time of my release is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith (ibid.).