ACTUS APOSTOLORUM

• 425C

See among his works.

VERS. 1.-- I made a discourse. That is, I wrote: because to write is to work. Or he says it thus, because by his deeds he deserved to be the writer of the Gospel. I made. The whole book of the Gospel is called one discourse, in that it has one sense: or the singular stands for the plural. The Gospel is a good announcement, by which is announced rest after labour, a kingdom after servitude, life after death. Of all things. Of the sayings and deeds of Christ which he judged worthy of his office or fit for his dispensation. O Theophilus. Theophilus is the same as friend of God, or lover of God: and if thou art a friend of God, it is written for thee. 425DWhich Jesus began to do. From the baptism of John by which Jesus was baptized, until the day on which he was taken up into heaven: because Luke wove the discourses concerning that whole time, who at the end of the Gospel wrote thus: When he had blessed, he departed from them and was carried into heaven. To do. [Vulg. Luc. 24:51 dum benediceret illis, "while he was blessing them"] He appoints or instructs a good teacher, one who does what he teaches.

VERS. 2.-- Giving commandment to the apostles to preach the Gospel through the Holy Spirit, through whom the Gospel was preached, because he inspired the words and bestowed confidence. Or, giving commandment through the Holy Spirit, that is, what the Son commands, this the Holy 426CSpirit also commands. Or, he gave the commandment on account of the Spirit, because he would not command unless the Spirit were about to come. He chose. This turns to the praise of the apostles, whose acts he purposes to write. Taken up. Taken up by the Divinity, or by a cloud, as true man.

VERS. 3.-- Alive. A living and proper body, not a phantasmal one, which the apostles also recognized as most well known. Or alive, in that after death he was living. Or alive, that is, no more to die. Through days. Yet he did not appear to them through forty continuous days: for John says that after the day of the resurrection four other days intervened. After which he appeared again through forty: because he had been dead for forty hours, for forty days he confirms that he lives. And by the forty 426Da type of the present age may be understood, in which Christ is engaged in the Church: or because man, consisting of four elements, is instructed against the transgression of the Decalogue.

VERS. 4.-- Eating together with them. He announces the signs of a true body, because not by one sense of the body, but by sight, by hearing, by touch, by appearing, by speaking, by eating together, he proved that he had risen. The promise, which he promised through Joel, as is had in what follows: and if it was made by Christ, yet it will be fulfilled by the Father. Or it is called of the Father, because it is promised in his Word, that is, in Christ.

427AVERS. 5.-- For John. (BEDA.) When the Lord said: For John baptized with water, but you, etc., as far as that which was not done in the baptism of John.

Baptism is given in two natures, namely the bodily and the spiritual: because the man who is baptized consists of two: namely of body and of soul, yet baptism is one, as the man is one.

But you, etc. When Peter denied, the apostles were not baptized; not with water, but with the spirit: for after the resurrection it was said: But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. For they had not yet been confirmed by the resurrection of Christ and by the mission of the Spirit. But as circumcision was not necessary to the just before it was commanded to Abraham and to his posterity: so 427Bafter the sacrament of the New Testament, that is baptism, was given in the place of circumcision by the Lord saying: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit (Joan. III), etc., it is certain that none belongs to the body of Christ save the baptized, apart from those to whom the passion is reckoned in place of baptism. Likewise it is written when Paul was baptized: and it is not written when the other apostles were baptized: but we ought to understand that they were baptized on account of that: Unless a man be born again, etc.

VERS. 7.-- It is not for you to know. He does not say, it will not be, but it is not: noting that they are still weak, and therefore not fit for the knowing of the secret: but when he says: It is not for you to know, he shows 427Cthat he himself knows, whose are all things that are the Father's, but that it is not expedient for them to know, but that they should so live as though they were to be judged daily. Which the Father. The time of that kingdom, he says, is so secret that it lies open only to the knowledge of the Father, but you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit, that what through the weakness of the flesh you cannot do, you may be able to do out of the power of the Holy Spirit. In his own power. This he said excusably as true man, but there is only one power of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: the Son also is the power of the Father.

VERS. 8.-- But you shall receive. The knowledge of the times is taken away, but the divine help of which they stand in need is applied: in this manner, when something is taken from children, another thing is given lest they be utterly saddened. Of the Holy Spirit coming upon you. When the Spirit shall come upon you, he will not bring the kingdom 427Dof Israel, or the kingdom of God in Israel, as you think, but he will bestow upon you the power of bearing witness of me, and the time of that kingdom is so far off, that first the fame of the Gospel shall run through not only Jerusalem, but all the borders of Judaea and of Samaria, and even the bounds of the world round about. In Jerusalem and in all Judaea. The consequence of order is preserved in the names of the places: to Jerusalem succeeds the nearest province of Judaea, to which Samaria is joined by situation, and thereafter the fellowship of the whole earth is brought in. In Jerusalem. Mystically: in the vision of peace, in the confession of the true faith: in the keeping of the commandments of God: and he foretold that they would preach among those who shall have made themselves strangers from the earth, through whom, as through the spokes of a wheel, from the middle of the earth where he wrought salvation, 428Aspiritual grace and saving doctrine flowed out through the whole world.

VERS. 9.-- And when he had said these things. Mark records it otherwise, saying: And the Lord Jesus indeed, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven (Matth. XXVIII). But because Luke added more significantly: When he had said these things, he was lifted up, he shows that, those discourses being finished which he had recorded, the Lord ascended the heavens.

VERS. 11.-- Galilaeans, why stand you looking up to heaven? In whom there ought to be a more prudent understanding, because the Galilaeans excelled the rest of the Jews in wisdom. Or, Galilaeans, the changeable, because by the instability of their sense they will have forgotten the commandments of God.

VERS. 12.-- Then they returned, etc. The return 428Bof the apostles from Mount Olivet to Jerusalem signifies the Church, which, ascending from the active into the contemplative, descends again into the active manner of life. For Mount Olivet was called by the ancients the mount of three lights: namely of the lamp shining out from the temple, and of the sun rising on the other side, and of the oil, a natural light on the mount itself: which three things befit perfection, on account of the light of the divine Word shining out from the Church, on account of the brightness of the sun of justice, on account of the lustre of a pure conscience.

VERS. 13.-- And when they were come in. In the Greek it is put thus: When they had entered the city, they went up into the upper room, where were abiding Peter, etc. In the Greek the order of the names is thus: Peter and Andrew, James and John, Simon Zelotes and Judas of James. The upper room, 428Cetc. (BEDA.) It is a place in the upper part, signifying that they who are lifted from the earth ascend to the higher things of knowledge and of virtue.

The upper room is called the third roof, a figure of charity built up upon faith and hope. But charity is poured forth in our hearts through the Spirit. Peter and John. Peter is put first, because he is prince and shepherd. Peter and John are deservedly put first, who ran together to the tomb, because they loved more than the rest. The first (if it is right to say it) loved more than the rest: the other, Jesus loved most. The catalogue of the apostles is therefore set down, lest outside these any false ones be received: and equal places of each are set down, the degrees of merits distinguishing them.

These are the twelve sons of Jacob; the twelve fountains 428Dof the desert, which Israel found in Elim; the twelve loaves of proposition; the twelve stones on the vestment of the high priest; the twelve signs of the zodiac; the twelve stones of the altar; the twelve stones lifted out of the Jordan; the twelve oxen under the brazen sea; the twelve stars in the crown of the spouse; the twelve foundations; the twelve gates; the twelve months of the year; the twelve hours of the day; the twelve fruits of the tree of life.

Zelotes. (BEDA.) Zelotes is the same who in the Gospels is called Chananaeus. Chana is interpreted zeal. For he was of a village of Galilee where the Lord turned water into wine. He, after James his brother, ruled the Church of Jerusalem.

The son of perdition perishing, the number 429Aof the apostles remained imperfect, for according to the likeness of the moon the Church waxes and wanes: but old things pass away, and new things are made.

VERS. 14.-- Mary, etc. The Virgin is distinguished from the women, who nevertheless is sometimes called woman not for corruption, but for sex. Behold, the beginning of the nascent Church is adorned with the flower of virginity. In the midst of the brethren. That is, of the sons, whose Father in heaven is one.

Peter is said to have stood in the midst: as it were condescending with a common compassion. This example is to be taken by the shepherds of the Church.

This number of a hundred and twenty agrees with the age of Moses, that as under this number, Moses being dead, Jesus succeeded, who led the people into the land of promise, 429Bso to the old law the princedom of Christ succeeded in the Church, leading the true Israel to the kingdom of heaven.

VERS. 18.-- He possessed a field. Not because he possessed a field, but because his was the price of the field, who sold the Lord of life. The land of the living being lost, Judas possesses the field of blood and of death by the eternal memory of his crime and of his name. Yet he did not possess the potter's field bought with the price of blood, who forthwith punished in himself the crime of the betrayal, but he possessed is said for he caused it to be possessed. Some ridiculously expound the field possessed by Judas to be hell. Others think that he possessed that field, from this, that he was buried in it with the strangers. The bowels. The bowels, which are the seat of fraud, burst asunder by so great a crime, were not 429Cable to contain themselves. But deservedly are the bowels poured out through the seat of guile, not through the place of the kiss, that is, the mouth with which he kissed Jesus, though with a false surface, but through the other in which was the venom of hidden malice.

VERS. 19.-- Their, that is, of them that dwell in Jerusalem, because although both spoke Hebrew, yet the property of the tongue of the men of Jerusalem differed from the Galilaeans, of whom the apostles were: which is shown in the passion of the Lord, where Peter also, unwilling, was betrayed by his own tongue to be a Galilaean.

VERS. 20.-- Desolate, and let there be none, etc. Until Matthias, chosen in his stead, be taken up. Or, let it not be Judas himself who dwells in it, but let another be taken up in his stead, who was judged unworthy of repentance.

VERS. 23.-- Two. Clement relates that these two who 429Dwere set up for the lot of the apostolate were of the number of the seventy disciples. Who was surnamed. He lingers in the praise of Barnabas: because Matthew has it for praise, that he is chosen by lot. The praise of Barnabas is heaped up, lest he should seem to be rejected as unworthy: which was afterwards declared; because with Paul he is ordained apostle of the Gentiles, having been reserved for that office. Justus. It is either Latin or Hebrew: and it is interpreted sparing, or lifted up. And Matthias, who is interpreted given, or the gift of God: to whom the gift of the apostolate was conferred by the Lord, or he is interpreted the cloth of God. Deservedly is he passed over at small worth in the praise of men, who was just, says Arator.

• 430A

VERS. 1.-- In the same place. Namely in the upper room, into which they had gone up. He who desires the Spirit treads upon the dwelling-place of the flesh, transcending it by the contemplation of the mind.

VERS. 2.-- From heaven. The Spirit is given from heaven, that God may be loved; on earth he is given, that the neighbour may be loved: for twice after the resurrection was he given, for the commending of the two precepts of charity. A sound. It may be called the speaking of tongues sounding from the mouth of the apostles. Spirit. Before the passion the Spirit was given to the apostles for the grace of teaching and of healings; after the resurrection Jesus breathed the spirit, and said: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them (Joan. XX), etc. Which gift he had given to Peter alone 430Bbeforehand: but, as is believed, then by anticipation, now with the rest by completion it is bestowed on Peter also: and the power of forgiving was given to those whom he was sending to the office of preaching.

Mighty. By comparison with what went before, the grace of the apostles is called mighty, or the Spirit came in the likeness of a mighty wind. The whole house. The Spirit is poured into them sitting in one house, that the unity of the Church may be commended, the third law beginning in the upper room. At the giving of the law the people stood far off for fear; here, at the coming of the Spirit, they had been gathered into one out of love. Sitting. That there might be fulfilled what had been said to them: Sit you here in the city. Sitting is a token of humility and of stability: by which a seat is prepared for the Holy Spirit, who rests upon the humble.

430C(GREG.) The Spirit appeared in fire, but through himself, etc., as far as and hearts were taught by the voice or by the sound.

VERS. 3.-- Parted. The dispersion of tongues was made at the tower, but what pride dispersed, humility gathers together again: in pride is dispersion, in humility concord is made. Behold, the sentence of the Lord is fulfilled which says: I will not leave you orphans, but I will send the Paraclete Spirit (Joan. XIV), who, being their advocate, spoke for them in all tongues. [Vulg. Jo. 14:18 Non relinquam vos orphanos: veniam ad vos, "I will come to you"] He brought tongues, who came for the Word, for the tongue has kinship with the word, so that they cannot be separated from one another. So the Word of the Father, that is the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable, nay rather of one nature. As of fire. The same Spirit came in fire: because sinners 430Dthe Spirit purges, enlightens, kindles, burns. For fire has four natures, it burns, purges, warms, enlightens. In like manner the Spirit burns up sins, purges hearts, shakes off torpor, illumines ignorances. Fire is incorporeal and invisible in its own nature; but when some body has been assumed it is seen, appearing of diverse colour, on account of the materials in which it burns. So the Spirit will not be able to be seen, save through the creatures in which he works.

VERS. 4.-- And they began. Behold the sign of fulness: a full vessel bursts out. Fire cannot be hidden in the bosom. With divers tongues. Because they spoke with all tongues, or, speaking in their own, that is the Hebrew tongue, they were so understood by all as if they spoke in the proper tongues of each, 431Aaccording to that of the Prophet: In other tongues and with other lips will I speak to this people, etc.

VERS. 5.-- Out of every nation, etc. (RAB.) As if it were said: Wheresoever born. But the captivity, which was made under Antiochus not many times before, caused the Jews to be born among all nations.

VERS. 6.-- Confounded. That confusion is set over against the confusion of tongues, from which Babel obtained its name. So the humility of the apostles answers to human pride. Every man. All the tongues are said to be seventy-two: whence also the disciples of the second order were chosen under this number, that the number of the preachers might accord with the number of the tongues.

VERS. 8.-- We have heard. In this it was signified that one Church would speak in the tongues of all nations.

431B(BEDA.) It is asked whether those who were speaking, etc., as far as it seemed rather to be a miracle of the hearers than of the speakers.

VERS. 9.-- Cappadocia, etc. These five provinces which are set after Judaea do indeed speak Greek: but from the custom of their country there is a diversity in sound. Whence wonderful was the grace in the apostles, which not only taught them the diversity, but also made in their speech the distance of properties in each of the tongues according to the number of the provinces.

VERS. 10.-- Strangers of Rome. In the Greek, sojourning Romans, that is, Jews who led a pilgrim life at Rome.

VERS. 14.-- Jewish men. That is, there are two causes of prudence, namely that they were Jews, and that they dwelt in 431CJerusalem, which sobriety becomes.

VERS. 17.-- I will pour out. By this word he shows the largeness of the gift, because the Spirit was to be given not, as of old, to prophets and priests only, but to all persons everywhere in either sex. Of my Spirit. He looks to the diverse gifts while he says this, but not to a diminution of the substance. Upon all flesh. What all flesh is he consequently expounds there: And the sons shall prophesy, etc.

(RAB.) Upon all flesh, of male and female, or of the circumcised and the heathen, according to that: There is not male and female, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian and Scythian, bond and free (Gal. III). [Vulg. Gal. 3:28 reads Non est Judaeus, neque Graecus: non est servus, neque liber: non est masculus, neque femina; the clauses on circumcision and on the Barbarian and the Scythian belong to Col. 3:11, not to Galatians]

And they shall prophesy. The law and the prophets until John: from him the kingdom is preached. But it is one thing to prophesy of 431DChrist, another to foretell and to teach things to come.

VERS. 19.-- And I will give. Mystically, wonders in heaven are labours in the Church. Signs, upon the earth. Vengeances, upon the earthly. Blood, in martyrdom. Fire, of the Gospel or of the Holy Spirit. Vapour of smoke, the compunction of the soul or of the heart. Wonders in heaven. For indeed at the birth of Christ a new star appeared; at his ascending the cross, the sun was darkened and heaven was overspread with darkness.

Blood. Not only of the wound, but also of the sweat, when in prayer his sweat became as drops of blood, which is set among the signs of the Deity, because it is not found in human nature. Therefore it signifies 432Athat the whole world is to be washed by the blood of Christ, that as the tabernacle had been consecrated by the blood of victims, so the faithful people might be dedicated by the blood of the same: and that not only at Jerusalem should there be a place of prayer, but that in every place of his dominion the elect should lift up their hands by prayers to the Lord. Vapour of smoke. A vapour, namely, of compunction and of weepings. Because as smoke from fire, so compunction from the ardour of the Holy Spirit.

The sun shall be turned, etc. This is believed to have been done partly in the passion of Christ, partly to be about to come before the day of judgment. For then the sun was darkened, but the moon turned into blood could not appear to men: because then (as being in the Pasch) standing as the fifteenth, it had by day been hidden from human sight by the interposing of the earth.

432BVERS. 23.-- By the determinate counsel. (RAB.) In this alone were the Jews blameworthy, that they did it not with an obedient mind.

And foreknowledge of God, etc. (ID.) In the Greek it is thus: Receiving him thus delivered up by foreknowledge. For he was delivered by the governor into their power, that they might choose either him or the robber, but life being granted to the robber, they slew Jesus by the hands of the soldiers.

VERS. 24.-- He hath raised up. Not by the resurrection usual with the rest and common, which is deferred to the end, but by that which was celebrated on the third day, that the assertion of this resurrection might be a testimony of the Deity.

(RAB.) He raised up, according to the humanity, which the Jews most greatly hated.

The sorrows being loosed. The sense of this sentence seems to be, 432Cthat when the Lord descended to the lower regions the sorrows of the punishments were loosed, because they could not touch him, but according to the Greek, in which it is written: Loosing through him the sorrows of death, according as it was impossible that he should be held by it, it is plain that through his descent the saints were freed from the places of the infernal regions; who, although they were in the bosom of Abraham, that is in the consolation of rest, yet were not wholly loosed from the sorrow of death or of hell, because they had not deserved to enter the joys of heaven, until that of the Prophet should come to pass: In the blood of the testament thou hast led forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water (Zach. V). [Vulg. Zach. 9:11 in sanguine testamenti tui emisisti vinctos tuos, "thou hast sent forth"] For they were bound before they were led forth.

VERS. 25.-- I foresaw the Lord. The voice of Christ exulting after the resurrection at the right hand. The left is the present life; the right, the eternal. That I be not moved. 432DAfter the resurrection all things will be immovable. And the tongue hath exulted. Because rest after labour is given: for he laboured in the hope of eternal life. Thou wilt not leave. Let me not again be moved by the corruption of a repeated cross and death. Thou hast made known to me. I know that I shall always live. Thou shalt fill me with full gladness, that is, I shall not die again. Because he is at the right hand. The cause why he is not moved is that the Lord helps at the right hand, the left not prevailing. For if he be not at the right hand, the devil occupies that part, as is said of Judas: And let the devil stand at his right hand (Psal. CVIII).

VERS. 26.-- And hath exulted. In the passion he said: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matth. XXVI): and he began to fear and to be heavy: that he might show himself true man 433Ain soul and body, and truly passible. But afterwards the soul and the tongue exulted, because by his passion the human race was to be saved.

VERS. 27.-- In hell. It is agreed that the soul was not left in hell, which, when those had been taken away for whose sake he had descended, straightway returned to the things above, nor was the flesh corrupted, but glorified by a swift resurrection.

VERS. 28.-- Thou hast made known to me. Not only are these things understood of him who, the fulness of divine power and wisdom being once received, destroyed death by himself, rising again to life; but also of the just who, the way of truth having been found through him, will return to life and will be gladdened, seeing his face: because that sight is above all things and is perfect beatitude.

VERS. 33.-- The promise of the Holy Spirit being received. 433BChrist received it as true man, and as God pours out the Spirit, as Joel says: I will pour out, etc. Likewise the apostles receive from him the promise of the Spirit, who in the Gospel is said to be about to be sent by the Father. He hath poured forth this, etc. He who before said that Jesus was raised up by God, now raising the faith of his hearers higher, declares him to be the Lord, whom he affirms to have poured forth the Spirit: for this is the sign. And beautifully has he used the word of pouring out: which he recorded above that the prophet Joel had set down, that from this also it may be established that he himself is the Lord Jesus, who before the assumption of flesh was wont to speak in the prophets, who gives signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, who saves all that call upon him. And the rest which the prophet describes, he fulfils as true God.

433CVERS. 34.-- Sit thou at the right hand. (RAB.) Manifestly Peter, from this psalm, the kingdom of Christ not earthly, but heavenly, etc., as far as in the other, he is Lord of the same.

VERS. 36.-- Him Lord. Setting down the name of majesty and of power, he shows him to be one to whom every creature ought to be subjected. Christ is the name of royal or of pontifical dignity. In the law kings and pontiffs were anointed, in a figure of him. And Christ. He is truly Christ, anointed with all the fulness of the Holy Spirit, who of the same Spirit gave powerfully to whom he would. Jesus whom, etc. Jesus is Lord and Christ, one person existing in two natures, because born eternally of the Father in the Divinity, made temporally in the humanity, when by the working of the Holy 433DSpirit he was incarnate in the womb of the virgin.

VERS. 37.-- Pricked. The prophecy of Joel is fulfilled, because after the fire of the Holy Spirit follows the vapour of compunction. Smoke is wont to draw out tears, they begin to weep who had mocked, they beat the breast, they give prayer to God as a sacrifice, that they may be able to taste that blood, to be saved by him, which they had before called down upon themselves and upon their sons.

VERS. 38.-- In the name. In the honour, or in this form, because in one the faith of the three is contained.

VERS. 39.-- And to all. This is referred to that testimony of prophecy which he set last, namely Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved: which pertains especially to the calling of the Gentiles; 434Awho, made far off from the children of Israel, were to be saved through the invocation of the name of the Lord.

VERS. 40.-- He testified, etc., that is, testimony and exhortation. Save yourselves. This is the quality of the testimony and of the exhortation, but Luke concluded very many words of Peter in a brief sentence. From the generation. There are two generations, one of the good, the other of the wicked.

VERS. 2.-- The gate of the temple, etc. This gate, the loftiest of all, Joathan the son of Ozias, king of Juda, built. For all the gates of the temple were upon the ground, except the Beautiful, which hung: which by the Hebrews is called the Gate of Joathan.

(BEDA.) The Beautiful gate of the temple is the Lord, through whom, etc., as far as the keys of heaven were given.

434BVERS. 6.-- Silver, etc. Peter was mindful of that precept: Do not possess gold and silver. The money also which was laid at the feet of the apostles they did not lay up for themselves, but kept for the uses of the poor, who had left their own patrimonies.

VERS. 8.-- And leaping up he stood, etc. The order of perfection: first he rises who had lain, then he seizes the way of the virtues, and so with the apostles enters the gate of the kingdom.

VERS. 10.-- With wonder and ecstasy. That is, with dread and with excess of mind. Ecstasy is also spoken of when the mind is not alienated by dread, but is taken up by the inspiration of revelation.

Ran together, etc. (BEDA.) Israel being saved through the apostles, 434Cthe whole world ran, etc., as far as he alone holds a peaceable empire throughout the world.

VERS. 13.-- The God of Abraham, etc. (RAB.) Three are commemorated, with no ungodly man coming between, either on account of the primacy of justice, or, etc., as far as which also is likewise observed in the spiritual generation.

VERS. 15.-- You killed, by will and by word, and this against the law, which says: He that shall kill a man willingly, he also shall be killed.

VERS. 16.-- Perfect soundness. In the two things which have been foretold.

VERS. 17.-- Through ignorance. Two things wrought together: your ignorance, and the foreknowledge of God.

VERS. 18.-- By the mouth of all, etc. Therefore was it necessary that it should be fulfilled, because not one, but all had prophesied.

434DVERS. 19.-- That sins may be blotted out. Then shall sins be fully blotted out, when by the power of the resurrection death shall be destroyed last.

VERS. 20.-- That when there shall come, etc. These things are said continuatively to what precedes, namely, that when the times of refreshment shall come from the presence of the Lord, then your sins may be blotted out.

VERS. 21.-- Whom it behoveth, etc. That is, the Church through faith, or to sit in heaven at the right hand of the Father.

VERS. 22.-- Moses indeed. He sets down examples, not of all who spoke, or of what things, but only of some.

435AThat a prophet, etc. The Son of God took flesh of the people of Israel, appearing in the likeness of Moses, that as he led the carnal Israel, instructed and purified by ceremonies and by sacred laws, into the land of promise, so also Jesus by the grace of the Gospel led the spiritual Israel to heaven. And as the despisers of the law of Moses were cast out of the land of promise by their enemies, so they who despise the doctrine of the Gospel shall be driven from the assembly of the saints by avenging spirits.

Of your brethren. (RAB.) God raised up Josue of Ephraim, Jesus of Juda.

VERS. 23.-- He shall be exterminated from among the people. That is, from the lot of the saints, and he shall be rendered an exile. Or, he shall be cast outside the bounds of beatitude.

435B(RAB.) They that resisted Josue were cast out of the carnal people; but they that resist Christ are exterminated from the spiritual: death follows either disobedience, whether carnal or spiritual.

From Samuel and thenceforth. Under Samuel the times of the kings began in Judaea.

VERS. 25.-- Of the testament. (BEDA.) From that testament which unto Moses, etc., as far as, in thy seed shall all nations be blessed. [Vulg. Act. 3:25 in semine tuo benedicentur omnes familiae terrae, "all the kindreds of the earth"]

Fathers. He set down the plural fathers, and not the singular father, because it was promised not to Abraham alone, but to Isaac and Jacob. In thy seed, etc. (BEDA.) The seed of Abraham is Christ Chistus: in whose faith the blessing is promised to all families, namely to Jews and to Gentiles.

435CAll families. Not that all are, but because none is blessed save in him, as also that: He enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world (Joan. I).

They shall be blessed. Cursed in the sin of Adam, they are blessed in Christ, in whom those also are blessed who went before the incarnation: because the same man God opened the gate of heaven, and at the end will say to all the elect: Come, ye blessed of the Father (Matth. XXV), etc.

VERS. 1.-- The priests and the magistrates, etc. These seemed to be the teachers and the judges of the people. The Sadducees. These denied the resurrection: and therefore they grieved at the teaching of the apostles, who announced the resurrection.

435DVERS. 2.-- Being grieved, that the multitude flowed together to hear the apostles.

The resurrection. This is most of all against the Sadducees: but both grieved that the apostles affirmed Jesus, whom they had slain as a man, to have been glorified by God the Father.

VERS. 4.-- And there was made, etc. If in the five thousand men whom the Lord fed in the desert the people of the law freed by Christ is understood, here also the five thousand instructed by the apostles can signify the people of the Gentiles: which was to follow the mysteries of the same law spiritually. And well indeed at evening are they endowed with a heavenly gift, because when the fulness of time came, God sent his Son upon the earth, etc.

436AVERS. 11.-- This is the stone. (RAB.) Here, answering the things asked of him, he preaches concerning Christ, and most of all concerning David, in whom, as in their own patriarch, they believed before all others.

Rejected. (AUG.) Of the rejected stone no history is had.

VERS. 13.-- Without letters, etc. These things were said not because they were wholly ignorant of letters, but because they had not the skill of the grammatical art. Idiots. They were called idiots, because they had not exercised their own proper wit through teaching: ἰδίωμα in Greek, in Latin, property.

(BEDA.) 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: according to that: Not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made void (I Cor. I).

436BVERS. 19.-- But Peter, etc. (RAB.) You who are judges, do your office, not by uttering a crooked speech, but by judging justly. Behold, full grain is found in the ear: which before was bending as it were in the blade.

VERS. 20.-- For we cannot. That is, we will not, or it has been turned into nature (as with the confirmed angels) not to sin.

VERS. 21.-- They made renowned. In the Greek: All made renowned in that which was done: and "in that which had befallen" is not had.

Deeds or words are made renowned when, by the spreading of report, they are brought to the knowledge of very many. But God is glorified in the deeds of men, which is proper to Christian piety and humility, himself saying: 436CThat they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matth. V).

VERS. 22.-- For he was of years, etc. Whence appeared a fuller glory or grace of the power, and therefore he speaks not of the age of the man, but of the time of the infirmity.

VERS. 24.-- With one accord, etc. Without sound. Or by the perfection of unanimity, according to that: If two or three shall come together into one in my name, of every thing which they shall ask, it shall be done for them.

VERS. 25.-- The Gentiles have raged. Roaring is the voice of a lion. Whence Jeremias: My inheritance is become to me as a lion in the wood: it hath given forth its voice over me (Jer. XII). [Vulg. Jer. 12:8 dedit contra me vocem, "gave her voice against me"] They have devised vain things. Of Christ to come, or that he might be held fast in death.

VERS. 26.-- They came together. Herod and Pilate came together 436Dinto friendship.

VERS. 27.-- Thou hast anointed. They expound the name of Christ. Of Christ, from chrism, that is from unction, according to that: God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows (Psal. XLIV).

VERS. 29.-- With all confidence. This they ask of God, that with all confidence they may be able to speak the word of God.

VERS. 30.-- By the name. In the Greek: By the name of thy child Jesus, which agrees better with the desires of the apostles, who were busied about this, that the man crucified by the Jews, the miracles growing bright, might through the name of him who was taken up into heaven become known as himself the Son of God.

VERS. 31.-- The place was moved. Great is the power of the prayer 437Aof the faithful, but this was done for the rousing up of minds.

VERS. 32.-- There was one heart. They who had left the world did not, glorying in the nobility of their race, prefer themselves to others, but, as brought forth from the bowels of one and the same mother the Church, rejoiced in the same love of brotherhood. Neither did any one of them. The virtues which the just possess they judge to be not their own, but of those to whose profit they dispense them. Common. In Greek κοῖνα· whence coenobites, that is, those living in common. Coenobia are their dwellings.

VERS. 33.-- The apostles gave. He distinguishes the order of the teachers and of the hearers. For the multitude of believers, temporal things being despised, were joined to one another by the bond of charity. But the apostles, shining with power, 437Bset forth the mysteries of Christ.

VERS. 36.-- Joseph. (RAB.) Increased, Barnabas is interpreted son of consolation, being driven by the increase and the advance of spiritual good.

Which is, being interpreted. Wherever Scripture sets down the names of things or of persons with an interpretation, it signifies that a more sacred sense is in them. Deservedly is he called son of consolation, who, present things being despised, consoles himself with the hope of things to come. For the Holy Spirit also is therefore called Paraclete, because to those having tribulation in the world he bestows, by the infusion of himself, paraclesis, that is, consolation, as Peter also was called Barjona, that is son of the dove, on account of the grace of the Spirit.

Son of consolation. (RAB.). Either on account of the alms 437Cwith which he consoled the poor, or for the consolation of the reward which he deserved to receive from God, or because he was held worthy to console the apostles in Judas' stead.

VERS. 3.-- He tempted. (RAB.) He sets down the preterite, he tempted, because the temptation was complete. Temptation is carried on in three ways, by persuasion, by delight, by consent: all of which was fulfilled in Ananias. And to defraud. (ID.) In this it seems there was a lie, because he had vowed the whole. But it is better not to vow than after a vow not to pay to the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 4.-- But to God. Above he had said: to the Holy Spirit: it is plain therefore that the Holy Spirit is God.

VERS. 5.-- He fell. (RAB.) The beginnings of laws are always commended by 437Dpunishments. The two sons of Aaron, offering fire, are consumed: Oza, upholding the ark, died. He fell, that the rest of the transgressors might be terrified by his example.

And there came fear, etc. (BEDA.) An anticipation: since by the death of the man alone, before the wife's end, few had heard of it, although it could be said of the few that they feared.

VERS. 7.-- Of hours, etc. (RAB.) A short time of penance is given to the wife, whose fault is more venial than the husband's, inasmuch as she consented to her head.

VERS. 8.-- Tell me, etc. (ID.) By questioning, he declares the wife's fault out of her own confession, the fault which the husband had shown to be his own in the deed.

438AVERS. 9.-- Why is it that, etc. Was it said by way of rebuke? or it is thus to be distinguished: what? as if: What is this: then he himself answers himself and says: Is it indeed agreed among you to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?

To tempt, etc. (RAB.) The tempting of the Spirit lay in this, that they made trial how great his knowledge is.

They buried. (ID.) From this many take an example, that wives should be buried beside their husbands. Others think it unworthy that examples be taken from transgressors, for whom their partnership had made their desert equal alike in the crime and in the death and in the burial.

VERS. 11.-- And there came. First Ananias by [a; read ac, "and"] Saphira died quickly in the sight of the Church, that the apostolic authority, how great it was, might be shown: and that it might be shown how great a sin it is to withdraw 438Bagain from the Church what has been offered, and that the rest might be chastened by this example.

VERS. 12.-- Of the apostles. It is said in the plural, of the apostles, because it was not by the hand of Peter alone; for although for his honour the rest are passed over in silence, yet their deeds are not passed over in silence.

VERS. 13.-- Of the rest, etc. By the example of Ananias and his wife: for the punishment of the two who had fraudulently joined themselves to them gave an example to the rest.

VERS. 14.-- It was increased, etc. (RAB.) So great was the multitude of them that believed, that, the strength of faith growing, the shadow alone sufficed. Or: So many sick were then brought by the believers, that they could not all touch him.

VERS. 17.-- Heresy. (RAB.) Heresy is interpreted a division, because the heretic, despising the sayings of others, 438Cchooses what he thinks is to be followed.

Of the Sadducees they were filled, etc. The Sadducees are interpreted the just, named from Sadoch the priest, either for their race or for their manners; but justifying themselves they claimed for themselves what they were not: denying the resurrection of bodies, they said that souls perish with the flesh: but they believed that there was neither an angel nor any of spirits, and they rejected all the Scriptures except the books of Moses: and therefore they consented most of all with the princes in the persecution of the apostles, who by power and by signs bore witness to the resurrection of Christ.

VERS. 20.-- Of this life. (RAB.) Christian, or eternal. But this is not added for this reason, that the sect of the Christians was famous, for which they had been delivered to prison.

438DVERS. 23.-- The prison indeed, etc. Mad are the Jews who at the goading of envy say that Jesus was carried off from the tomb by the apostles stealing him, by whose theft they may say that the apostles were carried off out of the closed prison.

VERS. 24.-- The magistrates. According to the Greek, magistratus is to be read in the singular number, as also in what follows where it is said: Then the magistrate went away with the ministers. They doubted. Not even so do they believe: for inward malice hardens a faithless heart even against manifest signs.

VERS. 28.-- By commanding etc. In the Greek: Did we not by commanding command you? For to speak thus better befits one who questions. You have filled Jerusalem. The chief of cities, in which we also dwell. In this they praise the apostles unwittingly, who, terrified by threats, 439Acease not to preach. Upon us the blood. (RAB.) It is plain that it was said by antiphrasis: His blood be upon us.

The rash questioning of the high priest is refuted by a prudent answer.

(ID.) They question, for there is wont to be doubt in words, when in the heart a fixed opinion is held.

VERS. 30.-- The God of the fathers. (RAB.) Not new, nor lately found out by us: but he says this, that their disobedience may be inexcusable.

VERS. 32.-- The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has strengthened us, that even though you resist we may firmly preach the great works of God, speaking in us and forming the words which you hear.

To all. (RAB.) Not to us alone, but to all 439Bthat obey, to you also, if you will receive. In this he calls them to penance.

VERS. 34.-- Gamaliel. He was a disciple of the apostles, as is thought, remaining among the Jews by the counsel of the apostles, that he might destroy their worst counsels and mitigate their fury.

VERS. 36.-- Theodas. (BEDA.) Theodas persuaded many, when they had taken their goods out of the city, to beset the banks of the Jordan, and though he was a magician, he called himself a prophet, and promised that, the river being divided, he would afford a passage. A troop of horsemen coming upon him by order of Fadus the procurator, many being slain or taken, carried his head back to Jerusalem.

VERS. 37.-- Judas the Galilean, etc. Of him Josephus says that he compelled the people not to lose their liberty by paying tribute 439Cto the Romans: bringing forward out of the law that God alone is to be served, and that those who gave tithes ought not to pay tribute. Which heresy grew so far that the Pharisees and a great part of the people asked Christ whether it were lawful to give tribute to Caesar.

VERS. 40.-- Having beaten them, etc. (RAB.) Behold, the fortitude of faith is made plain, which could be restrained neither by words nor by scourges. Before they were forbidden by speech, now they are beaten with scourges.

VERS. 41.-- That they were worthy. They thought not that they laboured, but that they received a very great gift: because Blessed are they that suffer persecution for God (Matth. VI). [Vulg. Matth. 5:10 propter justitiam, "for justice' sake"]

VERS. 42.-- And every day, etc. Often such summaries are interposed, briefly gathering many things, so that, as it were, an end may be set to the discourse that has gone before, and a foundation 439Dto that which follows.

VERS. 1.-- Of the Greeks. (RAB.) Either of the gentile strangers dwelling in the city: or, etc., as far as they were burdened by the daily ministry.

They were despised. (ID.) From the want they were the more burdened.

VERS. 2.-- It is not right that we, etc. The apostles show that bishops and teachers of the Church ought not to be entangled in bodily affairs.

VERS. 3.-- Consider ye, etc. (BEDA.) From this the apostles have now decreed, etc., as far as not without the mystery of the septenary number.

440AVERS. 4.-- But we, etc. Concerning themselves they do not ask, but judge.

VERS. 5.-- And they chose, etc. (RAB.) This order is to be kept in ordaining: let the people choose, let the bishop ordain.

Stephen. He is set first, and he alone is praised, that in one all may be praised, or that the honour of martyrdom may be paid to the first.

VERS. 6.-- And praying. The common dispensation required that ministers should be chosen, who, when they were found worthy, the providence of the saving counsel growing by degrees, it pleased that these very men should be ordained ministers of the sacred altar and of the Lord's blood, as of the refreshment and of the common table. Which is proved from this, that it is said: Praying they laid hands upon them: this is proper 440Bto those who are promoted to the office of the most holy altar. By this example prayers are made at ordinations, although the prayer of the apostles is not written.

VERS. 7.-- And the word, etc. (RAB.) It seems as it were a recapitulation, because he had said: Every day they ceased not teaching, etc., and he returns to that very thing, saying: And the word of the Lord increased.

(ID.) Often in this book, and in the Gospel also, such summaries are interposed, etc., as far as because before, when the people increased, zeal had been stirred up.

VERS. 8.-- Stephen, in Greek; in Latin, a crown: who forestalled by the presage of his name that which he was to receive in fact: because after the cross of Christ he was the first crowned with martyrdom on high, who was stoned 440Cin lowliness. In Hebrew Stephen is interpreted our rule, who, suffering first, was made to the martyrs that followed a pattern of dying for Christ.

VERS. 13.-- This man. Out of contempt they do not call him by his proper name, but call him a man, as it were carnal and lowest.

VERS. 2.-- Men, brethren, and fathers. Because Stephen was charged with having blasphemed against Moses and God, at the beginning of his discourse he meets their calumny, saying that the God who spoke to the fathers and to the prophets is the God of majesty and of glory. Moses also he praises: but he proves them rebellious and always disobedient. But he used art of speaking toward the rebellious, beginning 440Das though he feared them: thus, Men, brethren, and fathers: a gentle and clement speech wins over the hearer, so that it may commend the pleader. He began smoothly, that he might be heard long, and he who refused to speak against God and the law preaches the true God at the beginning of his oration. The law also he so expounded, that he was the preacher of that whereof he was accused of being the destroyer: in the further course of his discourse also, refuting their errors, he taught fully the vigour of his mind, and that he was free from the fear of the enemy.

The God of glory, etc. Stephen, mindful of that precept: Love your enemies (Luc. VI), etc., announced salvation to his persecutors.

In Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is set at the head of Syria toward the north.

441A(RAB.) Mesopotamia and Charra are in Chaldaea, and from Mesopotamia he passed over into Charra.

VERS. 3.-- And he said, etc. In Genesis it seems to be contained that, after the death of his father, who died in Charra where the son dwelt with him, the Lord spoke to Abraham. But before he dwelt in the city, when he was in Mesopotamia, it was said to him:

Go out from thy land, etc. By the land and the kindred of Abraham he calls the country and the race of the Chaldeans, whence he had already gone out, living now in Mesopotamia; but he was still held by the hope and the desire of returning, and therefore he hears: Go out from the land and from thy kindred; not that he should draw out his body (which he had already done), but that he should pluck out the love of his heart.

(RAB.) Stephen passed over the third, that is, and 441Bfrom the house of thy father: which was done because of the exceeding skill or unskilfulness of the people.

VERS. 4.-- Then he went out, etc. (RAB.) Abraham went out from Ur of the Chaldees. Ur, etc., as far as his father being dead it was said to him: Go out from thy land, etc.

His father, etc. (ID.) He returns to the origin of the race of Israel, and to the beginning of the divine friendship, that he may pass over nothing in which he might seem to blaspheme.

You dwell. He said "you," and not "we," because the apostles had already in a manner left the land, and Stephen, who was already as it were set in death

VERS. 6.-- That his seed shall be, etc. (BEDA.) It is not so to be understood, as though it were to be ill treated, etc., as far as whether in the land of Chanaan or in Egypt.

Four hundred years. (RAB.) It is thus to be joined: 441CA sojourner, etc., as far as it was completed at the distribution of the land of promise.

VERS. 7.-- I will judge. (ID.) Judgment sometimes signifies discernment, as there: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause (Psal. XLII). Sometimes punishment, as: Judge them, O God (Psal. V).

VERS. 8.-- The testament of circumcision. (ID.) A covenant or a sign made for this end, that the people of Israel, etc., as far as it is betokened that the boasting of glory in spiritual circumcision is to be shunned.

On the eighth day. (RAB.) By eight days the mystery of our circumcision is shown, we who through the octave of the New Testament (which is contained in the resurrection of the Lord and in the eight beatitudes) are circumcised from vices on the eighth day.

441DVERS. 9.-- They sold him into Egypt. Narrating briefly he passes to the end, for he was sold not first to the Egyptians, but to Ismaelite traders and to Madianites, and they sold him into Egypt to Putiphar the priest.

VERS. 14.-- In souls. This is said according to the edition of the Seventy interpreters. In the Hebrew only seventy are found.

(RAB.) If Jacob and Joseph with his two sons are not numbered, etc., as far as than for the Hebrew verity to make his own discourse suspect.

VERS. 15.-- And he went down. According to the situation of the places there is a descent from the land of promise into Egypt, 442Aand because servitude had succeeded to liberty, Jacob is said to have gone down with his offspring into Egypt.

VERS. 16.-- They were carried over. (RAB.) By synecdoche they are said to be carried over because of Joseph, to whom Jacob, etc., as far as, Carry my bones hence with you (Gen. L). [Vulg. Exod. 13:19 efferte, "carry out"]

(BEDA.) Of Joseph alone the Scripture testifies that his bones, etc., as far as the twelve patriarchs are not buried in Arbe, but in Sichem.

And they were posili, (RAB.) Genesis teaches that Abraham, from Ephron the son of Seor the Ethite, etc., as far as they would serve neither Moses nor the Lord.

In the sepulchre, etc. This of Jacob alone, whose body his sons, taking it out of Egypt, buried in the double cave, where Abraham was buried with Sara, and Isaac with Rebecca: and there Lia was laid: whence that city 442Bis called Hebron, that is, a marriage, because the fathers were buried there with their wives. But he confounds two histories, and involves the one with the other. For Abraham did not buy from the sons of Emor the sons of Sichem, but Jacob bought Sichem from them; therefore it is thus to be joined: They were carried over into Sichem from the sons of Emor the son of Sichem: as if it were said, into that Sichem which Jacob bought from the sons of Emor the son of Sichem. In Genesis it is read that Sichem was the son of Emor, whence some think that there were two Sichems, of whom the one is said by Luke to be the father of Emor, the other by Genesis the son. Some join the beginning and the end of the discourse, saying, from the sons of Sichem, and afterwards bring in, of Emor the son, that this place may agree with Genesis.

VERS. 18.-- Another king. That king is the devil, who loves the effeminate, hates the male.

442CVERS. 19.-- Our kindred, etc. He says "our fathers," and, "our kindred," lest he should seem to blaspheme the fathers.

VERS. 20.-- Acceptable to God, etc. The blessed Stephen shows that Moses did not blaspheme.

VERS. 22.-- Moses. (RAB.) Moses is as much as to say of the water, because he was taken out of the water, or daubing, because he was found in a basket daubed with bitumen. Moses is a type of the Saviour, who, the devil being struck down, set his own race free.

VERS. 24.-- He avenged him, etc. He shows that he who was doing the wrong was not of his own race.

VERS. 26.-- He appeared to them. (RAB.) So Christ after the ascension appeared through the apostles, to the contending 442DJews and unbelievers who resisted the apostles.

VERS. 27.-- Who hath appointed thee, etc. As if Moses should answer: No one, but: God alone. There is no power but from God. Hence a certain man had received such an answer from Christ: O man, who hath appointed me a judge or a divider over you (Luc. XII) Who hath appointed thee, etc. In his contention he refutes them, that even then they were contrary to the law and to Moses.

VERS. 28.-- Wilt thou, etc. Some think that he who was defended uttered the matter out of anger.

VERS. 29.-- He fled. Moses was in Madian, that is, Christ into the nations.

VERS. 30.-- In a flame of fire, etc. The fire in the bush is the Holy Spirit, the sins of the people are as thorns, because the ardour of the Holy Spirit did not consume the sins of that people 443Awhich set the thick thorns of wickedness against the benefits of God.

(RAB.) Therefore the form of fire (which is not imitable) was shown to them, lest any, etc., as far as how ready a thing it is for a man to take off his shoe.

VERS. 32.-- I am. I am, is the proper word of God, according to that: I am who am, etc.: He who is hath sent me to you. Serpents are not to be feared, where God speaks present.

VERS. 33.-- Loose the shoe. This admonishes us, that standing in the Church (which is holy ground), we should renounce dead works.

VERS 34.-- Seeing, etc. (RAB.) God is wholly sight, wholly hearing, he sees all things, he hears all things, but he is said to see and to hear when he has mercy.

443BI have seen the affliction. (ID.) I who, although I permit someone to be tempted, yet it is not to be thought that I am ignorant of it.

VERS. 35.-- Whom they denied. A synecdoche. Many are said to have denied, when one had spoken, or perhaps because many consented to the one denying.

A prince. Great praise, that he is called prince and redeemer and leader forth of the people.

VERS. 37.-- This is Moses. He turns back upon them the fault which they themselves, disobedient and unbelieving, were casting upon Moses.

VERS. 38.-- The words of life. (RAB.) That is, the two tables with the Decalogue, and the other commandments, of which it is said: He that shall do them shall live in them.

VERS. 40.-- To Aaron. (ID.) As to a prince. They speak as ignorant of the Divinity. For the true God 443Cwas not made, but made all things, nor is he a creature, but the Creator of all.

Make us gods. (ID.) They say gods, because of the two pillars, etc., as far as the pillar of fire went before the people by night.

VERS. 42.-- The host of heaven. The host of heaven is sometimes said to be the army of angels, but in this place he names the stars the host of heaven, since he presently adds, the star of your God. In the book, etc. Although the prophets are many, yet it is said to be one book, and among the Hebrews there is one book.

Did you offer victims. (RAB.) Although by the necessity of serving God they made offerings, yet in mind, etc., as far as they always returned in heart into Egypt.

It is asked: how did they not offer to God, when it is read 443Dthat they offered certain things to God, not of will, but from the fear of punishments? But God receives not the things which are offered, but the will of those who offer.

VERS. 43.-- Figures, etc. (RAB.) The star of your God is Lucifer, to whom they assigned figures. The same gods were adored in figures and in stars.

(ID.) Some so say "the star of your God," that the word pertains to God, because they received not the Lord himself, but his star.

And I will carry you away. For these sacrileges you shall be led captive beyond Babylon. The first martyr is not to be thought to have erred, who, for that which is written in the prophet, They were led beyond Damascus, said, beyond Babylon: for he set down the meaning rather than the word 444A, because they were led beyond Damascus into Babylon, or beyond Babylon.

VERS. 44.-- The tabernacle. Because they said that he acted against the holy place, he shows that he did not speak blasphemy against the holy place

According to the form. (RAB.) Which he had shown him in Sina, because, since it was made also according to a form, the tabernacle itself is shown to have been a form.

(ID.) Historically it is said with Jesus, because Moses was dead.

VERS. 46.-- That he might find a tabernacle. That is, the true temple, of which that was the figure, which should not be changed in place, that is, the Church which he foresaw would be firm and unchangeable, of which the Apostle says: The firm foundation of the Lord standeth (II Tim. II, 9). [Vulg. 2 Tim. 2:19 fundamentum Dei, "the foundation of God"] And elsewhere: 444BNo man can lay another foundation but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus (I Cor. III).

VERS. 48.-- But not the Most High. (RAB.) From the saying of Solomon he convicts the Jews, etc., as far as that he does not dwell in the temple of the Jews alone.

As by the prophet, etc. Of the first tabernacle, which was a shadow and not the truth, he spoke before, and afterward set down the testimony of one speaking of the tabernacle which was truer. If I shall enter into the tabernacle of the Lord, etc., at the last sentence he set God. That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. [Vulg. Psal. 131:3 tabernaculum domus meae, "the tabernacle of my house"]

VERS. 49.-- Heaven to me. Thus he shows that he encompasses all things; whence elsewhere he asserts that he measures heaven with a span, and encloses the earth with his fist.

And the earth. By the example of the earth he designates every creature 444Cof the Creator.

VERS. 51.-- Hard of neck. (RAB.) Purged of the crime of which the false witnesses accused him, he begins to accuse the Jews, because he who is without crime is worthy of the office of a teacher.

And uncircumcised, etc. He shows them that circumcision, in which they gloried against the grace of the Gospel, avails not to salvation for those who had thought and hearing unclean.

VERS. 52.-- Your fathers. (RAB.) Above he said our fathers, speaking by way of persuasion, now by way of rebuke he calls them the fathers of those men only, to whom they are like in malice.

And they slew. (RAB.) He sets down three degrees of their malice 444D: the first is, that they resisted the spirit; the second, that they persecuted the prophets; the third, that with malice increasing they slew them.

VERS. 55.-- Standing. Immovably, because he is not ite rum to fall, or the bearing is signified of one helping, and judging wrongs, and fighting for his servant.

I see the heavens. (RAB.) About to depart from the earth, he saw the heavens opened, that he who despised the earthly life for Christ might merit the inheritance of heaven, and therefore in his very suffering he sees the reward.

The Son of man. Although Christ is the Son of God, yet he chose rather to call him the Son of man, that the unbelief of the Jews might be confounded, who crucified him as a mere man, whom they would not believe to be God.

445AVERS. 57.-- And casting him out. (RAB.) In this they gloried that they fulfilled the law. For Moses said of the blasphemer: Bring him forth without the camp, and let the people stone him (Lev. XXIV).

VERS. 58.-- Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, into the heaven which I see opened. Christ said to the Father: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Stephen, as a servant to the Lord, Lord, etc.

Because they know not. (RAB.) Many of them, in killing Stephen, thought that they fulfilled the law, because they believed him a blasphemer. This also Christ had foretold: There shall come, he says, an hour, that everyone who killeth you may think that he rendereth a service to God (Joan. XVI). [Vulg. Joan. 16:2 venit hora, "the hour cometh"]

VERS. 59.-- He fell asleep. Beautifully is it said, He fell asleep, and not, He is dead, because he offered the sacrifice 445Bof love, and fell asleep in the hope of the resurrection. The saints do not die, because they are changed for the better, and the temporal life is turned into the eternal.

And Saul, etc. He did not indeed stone him, but consented to them that stoned. Whence he would have perished, unless the grace of God and penance had come to his aid; because they who do and they who consent are worthy of death.

VERS. 1.-- In that day. (RAB.) On which Stephen was slain, not because it was made then only, but because from that day the great persecution began, one of the princes of the Church having been slain.

The Church. A collection or a congregation, or a calling. They were dispersed. This is what the Lord commanded: When 445Cthey shall persecute you in this city, flee into another (Matth. X). For by his nod it was carried on: that by the occasion of tribulation there might be made a seed-plot of the Gospel.

VERS. 2.-- And devout men took care of Stephen, that is, men fearing God, either Christians, who were afterwards dispersed, or Jews fearing God though not yet Christians.

VERS. 3.-- Saul. (RAB.) From Saul the persecutor, who was king of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, of which Paul also was; for indeed according to the custom of the ancients descendants draw their names from their forebears.

He laid waste. (ID.) As a wolf the flock, according to the prophecy of Jacob: Benjamin a ravening wolf, in the morning shall eat the prey, at evening shall divide the spoil (Gen. XLIX).

Dragging. He dragged, he did not kill, because perhaps the Lord was guarding his hands, lest they should be polluted with the blood of the innocent.

Dispersed. (RAB.) Although dispersed by fear, yet they were steadfast in the preaching of the Gospel.

VERS. 5.-- Philip. He was of the number of those that were scattered, who first preached Christ to Samaria. A deacon second from Stephen. He is related as second after him, as it were his heir and of the same degree.

VERS. 6.-- They gave heed. (RAB.) They believed, hearing the words and seeing the signs. Two causes of faith: the words of preaching, and the signs of the miracles. From the present chapter and from the history of the Samaritan woman it is proved that the minds of this people were ready to believe, says Bede.

446AVERS. 11.-- By magic arts. (RAB.) Magicians philosophize about particular things, about the nature of the world, the course of the stars, and their motions. Seducing. Leading apart and away from the truth, or turning them into excess, or into stupor and wonder, by his tricks. He had bereft of mind. To bereave of mind is to make the rational mind absent.

VERS. 12.-- Philip. (RAB.) Some say that this Philip was an apostle, and one of the twelve, but it does not seem true according to the order of this book.

Of Jesus Christ. (ID.) Of whom they were ignorant, or (as has been said before) in the name of Jesus he preached the Trinity, and he who perfectly believes one person only of the Trinity cannot lack the belief of the other two.

446BVERS. 13.-- Then Simon. (ID.) Either he believed the Lord, by the words of Philip and by the power, etc., as far as having fraudulently entered the Church, they steal baptism.

VERS. 14.-- They sent. Peter joins John to himself, because virginity is acceptable to the Church, and pleases.

VERS. 16.-- In the name. It is not to be read thus, in the name of Jesus only, as though the other persons were excluded, but thus: they were only baptized, etc., that is, not yet confirmed. Of Jesus. Yet before, they credeban in the Father and in the Holy Spirit, as did the other Jews. Or, the full faith of one person confirms the faith of the Trinity.

VERS. 17.-- They laid on hands. (BEDA.) Philip, who preached the Gospel in Samaria, one of the seven, etc., as far as when he delivers the Spirit the Paraclete to the baptized.

VERS. 19.-- Power. (RAB.) Not of baptizing 446Conly in water and of preaching, or of working miracles, which Philip had, but of laying hands upon whomsoever, etc.

VERS. 20.-- Thy money. Not ours, who do not covet, but thine, which thou comparest with the Spirit, that thou mayest sell it for him, and buy it with the Spirit. Therefore he wished to buy the Spirit, that selling him to others he might be able to receive more.

Money. (RAB.) From this an example is taken, that the alms of the lost be not received.

The apostles, not willing the money, say, be it with thee, that is, keep thine own, and this, unto perdition, that, the money being unjustly gathered, thou mayest pay an eternal penalty.

VERS. 22.-- Do penance. For the covetousness, and the depraved sense by which thou hast thought that a traffic of the Spirit could 446Dbe made.

(RAB.) That all may see what thou art. Not that Peter is ignorant that he will not do penance, but because it is just to preach to all, he does his own office, that the man may be inexcusable. Before all men also he is rebuked, lest they be any more deceived by him.

Pray to God. To whom the heart lies open, of whom the Prophet says: How good is God to Israel (Psal. LXXII); whom no man can deceive, because the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful (Sap. I).

VERS. 24.-- Pray ye. By reason of despair he does not himself dare to pray, but asks the apostles to pray for him, nor does he dare to pray for himself, who does not believe that he will be heard. To the apostles also he speaks feignedly. 447AWhich you have said. Not, which I have believed, but as an unbeliever he imputes to them the things which are to come.

VERS. 26.-- And an angel. After the return of the apostles, the history is woven concerning Philip. To the way, etc. For the way goes down, and by the way one goes down, from the nature of the place.

VERS. 27.-- An Ethiopian. By nature and by desert. For an Ethiopian is dark. Whence: Ethiopia shall prevent her hands to God (Psal. LXVII).

A man of power, etc. (BEDA.) The queen of the Ethiopians sending her treasurer before her, etc., as far as, Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear (Psal. XLIV), etc.

Of queen Candace. It was the custom of that region to be ruled by women, and that they should be called Candaces.

VERS. 28.-- He was returning. He was beginning to return, reading 447BIsaias. Wherever in the New Testament the beginning of salvation is related, the testimony is taken from Isaias, who is interpreted the salvation of the Lord.

VERS. 30.-- Thinkest thou that thou understandest, etc. (RAB.) They know each other's tongues, either through the learning of the eunuch or through the spirit of Philip.

VERS. 31.-- How, etc. Here he reproves the boldness of those who think that they understand Holy Scripture without a teacher.

VERS. 33.-- In humility. (BEDA.) For indeed the judge of all found not the truth of judgment, but without any fault of his own, by the sedition of the Jews and by the voice of Pilate, he was condemned.

Humility. (RAB.) By the passion in which he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death (Philip. II).

447CHe shall be taken away. The second man from heaven, heavenly, separated by holiness from earthly things, or, he shall pass from life into death.

VERS. 35.-- He opened. (RAB.) He opened the treasure of knowledge. Or he opened his mouth, that the Spirit might speak in him, according to that: Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it (Psal. LXXX).

Mystically, Philip opened the mouth of the Church, that from this he whom before they knew not might be preached to the Gentiles.

He preached the Gospel. He solves the question of him that asked: Of whom did the prophet speak? But he shows that it was prophesied of Jesus.

VERS. 36.-- To a certain water. For to this the preaching had led, that he should need water, the things which he had heard on the way concerning baptism.

447DVERS. 37.-- If thou believest. (RAB.) He was not ignorant of his faith, but wished an open confession, that to those who are to baptize and to those who are to be baptized an example might be given of questioning and of confessing.

VERS. 39.-- The Spirit of the Lord. (RAB.) Or the Spirit rushed upon him mightily, as also upon the apostles, etc., as far as upon whom the Spirit had descended?

VERS. 40.-- He was found. By men, he who in his rapture was not found, because he walked in the wilderness, or with exceeding swiftness.

Caesarea. (BEDA.) He means the Caesarea of Palestine, where below he is described to have had a house, which is shown even to this day, and also the chamber of his four daughters, virgins that prophesied.

• 448A

VERS. 1.-- And Saul. He returns to that which he had said above: Saul was still laying waste the Church. Of threatenings, etc. Terrifying with threats, he afflicted with slaughter those present: it is doubted whether he killed or scourged, or did both. Breathing. He breathes after the manner of fire, and not incited by another he himself set others on fire.

VERS. 4.-- And falling. Terrified, he flees back to the ground, or as one adoring he falls upon his face.

Why me, etc. (BEDA.) He says not: Why dost thou persecute, etc., as far as, As long as you did it to one of these least ones, you did it to me (Matth. XXV).

VERS. 5.-- I am Jesus. He calls himself not God nor the Son of God, but, Receive, he says, the weak things of my humility, and lay aside the scales of thy pride.

448BVERS. 7.-- Arise. Work untiring as an ox, and be a teacher of the Church. In the law it is written: Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn (I Cor. IX).

Enter in. (RAB.) About to enter the city he is terrified, lest he bring sorrow upon the saints; thereafter the Lord is bidden to enter, that he may learn the faith which he had assailed.

And it shall be said. An example of learning is given, and pride is rebuked, that no one may think another unworthy to be taught by him what he knows not.

VERS. 8.-- His eyes being opened. (RAB.) There is shown to him in the body what he suffered before in the soul. For as an eye is open without sight, so the law is useless without the faith of Christ.

(BEDA.) He could not with his eyes see well again, unless first blinded, and shutting out his own wisdom, which is troubled 448C, he committed himself to the faith.

VERS. 9.-- And he was. (RAB.) Here a form is given to penitents, that they begin from a space of three days, and in this three days' space also the degree of the catechumens is dedicated.

Three days. It appears that through the three days, being blinded, he was awaiting the light of grace, not growing sluggish in idleness, but, enlightened by God, he was searching into heavenly things. It is credible that even at that time he was fully taught the dispensation of the Gospel.

Not seeing. Because he did not believe that God, rising on the third day, had overcome death, he is instructed by his own example, who changed the darkness of the three days by the returning light.

He did not eat. (RAB.) This had befallen his soul, which had not had the inward food and drink. 448DBut from the fasting of the body and from thirst it is shown that the needy soul must be filled.

VERS. 10.-- Ananias. (ID.) It is a sign of familiarity that one is called by his own name.

VERS. 11.-- Into the village. (ID.) Villages are called lands lying next either to cities, or to one another within a city.

VERS. 15.-- Go, etc. He is not to be feared as a persecutor, but to be embraced as a brother: because the evils which he brought upon the saints, he is ready to endure.

VERS. 17.-- He entered in. The prophecy of Isaias was fulfilled, who says: The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, that is, Saul with Ananias.

VERS. 18.-- There fell, etc. (BEDA.) The body of the serpent 449Ais covered with scales, etc., as far as that he received light in the mind.

(RAB.) That the scales fall is a likeness of the inward sight renewed from the veil of the law.

VERS. 20.-- And immediately. He fulfils the word of the Lord who says: He that will come after me, let him deny himself (Luc. IX), etc.

VERS. 21.-- Is not this he. (RAB.) He gives an example of not blushing, where truth can change its own opinions.

VERS. 24.-- They watched. Not the Jews, but the citizens with their king Aretha, as he himself writes to the Galatians. For the Gentiles agreed with the Jews in the persecution of the Christians.

VERS. 26.-- And when he was come. Not as soon as he was baptized: he came to Jerusalem to the apostles, but 449B(as he writes to the Galatians) he first went away into Arabia, and thence returned to Damascus; then after three years he came to Jerusalem to see Peter, etc. Then, as Luke testifies, he came into the parts of Syria and Cilicia.

VERS. 27.-- Barnabas. (BEDA.) He was a Cyprian by race, a Levite, who is above recorded to have brought the price of a field to the feet of the apostles.

VERS. 29.-- With the Greeks. Jews are called Greeks, because they were born among the Greeks by the dispersion.

VERS. 30.-- To Caesarea. Caesarea Philippi is a city of Syria. Tharsus is a city of Cilicia.

VERS. 31.-- The Church. Such things, as has been said above, are often inserted at the end of narrations and at the beginning, to the praise of the apostles and of the ecclesiastical faith. And with the consolation. Consolation is given in labour, whence it is plain 449Cthat the Church was being tried.

VERS. 33.-- Named Aeneas. (RAB.) Aeneas betokens the human race lying sick, etc., as far as who is made weak by the pleasure of the flesh and by the delight of the world.

VERS. 34.-- Arise. Him whom he had cured of the palsy he commanded to arise and to make his bed, signifying that he who had received the faith in his heart should not only shake off torpor, but should also prepare works in which he may rest.

VERS. 35.-- Of Lydda and Sarona. They were two cities converted to God, for therefore miracles were wrought in them.

VERS. 36.-- Named Tabitha. (RAB.) Tabitha is rendered from the Hebrew into Latin Dorcas, or Damula, as is found in quisbusdam copies.

Dorcas. Allegorically: Dorcas is a doe or a roe: 449Dand it signifies the soul, lofty by the pursuit of virtue, but contemptible in the opinion of men. But Luke, in setting down the interpretation of the name, signifies that a mystery is contained in it. These animals, dwelling in the mountains, see sharply: whence from the sharpness of their sight they are called dorcades in Greek. So they who are lofty by the merits of their works aim at higher things, and watch circumspectly over themselves, they live simply with a discerning degree of work, they walk as it were with a cloven hoof, they ruminate the word of God by assiduous meditation.

VERS. 39.-- In an upper room. (RAB.) She is placed in a higher place, either because of the height of her merit, or because of the sublimity of the miracle which was to be wrought upon her.

VERS. 40.-- All being put forth. (ID.) This was done after the example of Christ 450Araising up the daughter of the chief ruler of the synagogue, to avoid elation, or lest the unworthy should see the sign. She opened. (BEDA.) Right is the order of those that rise again, that first she open the eyes of the mind, afterwards, the voice of Peter being known, she sit up, and receive again the lost light of her circumspection, that she may live unto the teaching of those who help. She opened her eyes. These are the three degrees of the raising up.

VERS. 41.-- And giving. Tabitha rises again at the touch of Peter's hand, because the soul lying sick in sins grows strong again by no better way than by the examples of the saints.

VERS. 1.-- A man, however, etc. (RAB.) By the merit of his perfection and by his manly work this centurion is called a man, according to 450Bthat: There was a man in the land of Hus, whose name was Job.

Cornelius. (BEDA.) Not by virtues did he attain to faith, but by faith he attained to virtues. (GREG.) Cornelius, whose alms before baptism, an angel bearing witness, etc., as far as but in faith he is made solid through works.

VERS. 2.-- Religious, etc. (RAB.) All these things by the good of nature, etc., as far as without manly seed, that is, he may be believed to have conceived by the teaching of a master.

VERS. 3.-- He saw. (RAB.) Not in the night, not in sleep, because the Gentiles, being of a gross understanding, etc., as far as as was shown before in the example of Peter and John.

An angel of God. (ID.) Not of Satan. In this the apostles are excused who preach to the Gentiles and baptize them: for how should that be grudged by a man which was made manifest 450Cby an angel? Entering in, to him perhaps, calling him, and occasion is given to Peter of excusing himself to the Jews who dispute against him and say: Why hast thou gone in to men having the foreskin (Act. XI), etc. [Vulg. Act. 11:3 Quare introisti ad viros praeputium habentes, "Wherefore hast thou gone in"] O Cornelius. A familiarity is shown, by which the name of a gentile man was inserted into the acquaintance of the angels.

VERS. 5.-- And now send men, etc. (RAB.) Here begins the recompense, that God may have mercy on thee who art merciful, because: Blessed are the merciful, for mercy, etc. (Matth. V). [Vulg. Matth. 5:7 quoniam ipsi misericordiam consequentur, "for they shall obtain mercy"; Migne's quotation lacks ipsi]

Joppa. (ID.) It is a city of the land of promise, nearest to the Tyrrhene sea, and situated upon its eastern shore, into which Jonas going down entered a ship, that he might flee.

VERS. 6.-- He lodgeth, etc. Peter lodges in 450Dthe house of Simon, that is, of one obeying, who is a tanner, because a teacher of the Church gladly dwells there where there are obedient men, who chastise the body and bring it into subjection, having crossed over the waves of the world by liberty of mind. For by the constancy of faith they despise the fleeting glory of the world and its terrors.

VERS. 7.-- And when he was departed. (RAB.) He does not say, when Cornelius had awaked, because to him the angel appeared neither through a dream, nor in ecstasy, but manifestly.

A soldier. (ID.) He does not say the household servants fearing the Lord, because at the beginning he had said that he was religious, fearing the Lord with all his house.

VERS. 9.-- As they drew near, etc. Another reading: As they appeared, namely those who were sent by Cornelius, 451Athat is, drawing near in such wise that they could be seen from the house of Simon the tanner.

(RAB.) For into the upper parts, another reading has into the upper room, and rightly: because the gentile people is as it were the upper house: but the Synagogue is beneath, because sunk in the world.

In saying into the upper parts, he signified that the Church, the coveting of earthly things being forsaken, would have her conversation in the heavens. At the sixth hour Peter, amid his prayers, hungers, and that for the salvation of the world, which Jesus came in the sixth age of the world to seek and to save: which he showed when at that same hour he sat over the well of Samaria.

VERS. 10.-- When he was hungry. (RAB.) By compassion he hungers for the salvation of the Gentiles, which is now shown in the vision, which was therefore seen at the sixth hour, because it was wrought in the sixth age 451Bof the world.

VERS. 11.-- Heaven opened. (BEDA.) The opening of heaven is the revelation of the heavenly mysteries shortly to come to the Gentiles. And in this he designates that the heavens are opened to the Gentiles, and that an entrance is to be laid wide.

A certain vessel. (ID.) That vessel designates the Church, etc., as far as through whom the Church, steeped in the heavenly gift, is exalted.

A linen cloth. For the Church, for the whiteness of holiness, and for the mortification of the flesh. From heaven to earth. (RAB.) Thence we are admonished that where our head is and our root (whose branches we are), thither the anchor of our hope may penetrate.

VERS. 12.-- All fourfooted beasts. All the Gentiles who shall believe and who are to be taken up into the unity of the body of Christ, that all may be made his members.

451CVERS. 13.-- Kill. Cleanse, mortify, and slay, that thou mayest make them victims to God, that being plucked out of oldness they may pass over into newness.

VERS. 14.-- I have eaten, etc. (BEDA.) He that eats food set outside transfers it into his own body. He commanded therefore that the Gentiles, set outside through unbelief, be grafted into the fellowship of the Church (which Peter signifies).

(ID.) Peter thought the Gentiles unclean, etc., as far as but may bind fast in the love of God alone.

VERS. 21.-- Going down. (BEDA.) He is bidden to come down from the roof, and to go to preach, etc., as far as, But the conversation of the saints is in the heavens (Philipp. III). [Vulg. Philipp. 3:20 Nostra autem conversatio in caelis est, "But our conversation is in heaven"]

Behold, I am he, etc. He shows that he knows of their coming, giving also an example of humility, dismissing a circuit 451Dof words.

What is the cause, etc. The Spirit said that the soldiers were at hand, and was silent for what cause they had come, because for the keeping of humility the spirit of prophecy sometimes touches the mind in part, and in part touches it not.

VERS. 22.-- He received an answer. To his alms and his prayers the Lord answered by an angel. Into the house. By this they persuade him, because the angel commanded that he should enter into his house, although he was a gentile.

VERS. 23.-- Bringing them in, etc. Here begins the communion of the apostles with the Gentiles, because he had gone down to them who had heard from the angel the command that they should enter into the house of a gentile, therefore he received the Gentiles into hospitality.

VERS. 24.-- His kinsmen being called together, etc. Twofold 452Ais the cause of the calling together; nearness of kindred, and friendship.

VERS. 27.-- And talking with him, etc. (BEDA.) The holiness of his action earned the communion of equality, just as in the fault of Ananias and Sapphira the zeal of his vengeance laid open that of his power.

VERS. 30, 31.-- And behold a man, etc. He does not say an angel, so far was he from disdain, and he says: Cornelius, thy prayer hath been heard, and thine alms have been had in memory before God. [Vulg. Act. 10:31 eleemosynae tuae commemoratae sunt in conspectu Dei, "thy alms are remembered in the sight of God"]

In the sight of God. (RAB.) In the Greek, In the sight of God we are present. This is rightly said by him who was ready to obey God, believing him to be everywhere present.

VERS. 34.-- He is not a respecter of persons, etc. 452B(BEDA.) It is plain that God is not a respecter of persons, etc., as far as but that they should receive all that believe.

VERS. 37.-- You know, etc. (RAB.) It is to be read thus: You know Jesus as John preached him: Jesus of Nazareth, how he anointed him, etc. Or: this John preached, that he anointed him, not indeed after an earthly manner, but by the spirit and the power of signs.

VERS. 38.-- Who went about, etc. In the Greek is added, through forty days, not that they ate and drank with him daily, for it would be contrary to John, who interposes eight days in which he was not seen by them, that he might be made manifest the third time, and for as many days he fasted before his death, being in need of food, whereas he ate after the resurrection being now not in need of food. He fasted before his death, that we might abstain from the desires 452Cof this world. He ate, teaching by this that he is with us until the consummation of the world. Fasting is in the contest, because he who is in the struggle abstains from all things. Food is in the hope of peace, which shall be perfect, when this mortal shall have put on immortality. But we, while we take the way of the Lord, fast from the vanity of the world, and are refreshed by the promise to come.

(RAB.) Through forty days, not continually, but at certain turns taken within that quadragenary number of days.

VERS. 41.-- And we drank. (BEDA.) Here Peter sets forth what is passed over in silence in the Gospel, that after the resurrection he drank with Christ, unless perhaps we believe it to be indicated there, where he says: Until I drink it with you in the kingdom of my Father (Matth. XXVI). [Vulg. Matth. 26:29 cum illud bibam vobiscum novum in regno Patris mei, "when I shall drink it new with you"]

452DVERS. 45.-- The Spirit. The Spirit is the house of God, inasmuch as he is given to those who through him love God; but with himself he is God, even if he be given to none, coeternal with the Father and the Son. Nor, because they give, and he himself is given, is he less than they. For he is so given as the gift of God, that he gives himself as God: For the Spirit breatheth where he will (Joan. III). [Vulg. Joan. 3:8 Spiritus ubi vult spirat, without enim]

VERS. 47.-- Can any man forbid water, etc. As if, God first gave what is greater, and inverted the order, can he forbid what is less You have come for this, that you may be witnesses, therefore judge.

VERS. 48.-- In the name of Christ. Whereas the rule of the Church is that baptism be delivered in the name of the Trinity, Luke nevertheless testifies that it was given in the name of Jesus Christ. Ambrose, resolving this, says that through the unity of the name 453Athe mystery is made full, because he who says Christ designates also the Father, from whom the Son is, and the Holy Spirit: he also who says the Father shows alike both the Son and the Spirit: and he who names the Spirit calls also the Father, from whom the Spirit proceeds, and the Son, whose Spirit he also is. Whence, that authority may be joined to reason, one is baptized also in the Spirit, according to that: But you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit (Act. XI), and the Apostle: In one Spirit we have been baptized (I Cor. XII). [Vulg. Act. 11:16 vos autem baptizabimini Spiritu Sancto, without in] [Vulg. 1 Cor. 12:13 Etenim in uno Spiritu omnes nos in unum corpus baptizati sumus]

VERS. 6.-- The fourfooted beasts of the earth, etc. (RAB.) I marvel that some interpret this of meats, etc., as far as he set forth the mystery of this vision.

VERS. 18.-- Therefore to the Gentiles also, etc. This is that which is read in 453BJob: From the North gold shall come, and to God fearful praise, because the brightness of faith arose first in the cold breast of the Gentiles, and for that same unlooked-for faith Judaea glorifies God with trembling. [Vulg. Job 37:22 Ab aquilone aurum venit, "gold cometh from the north"; Migne prints the future veniet]

VERS. 19.-- And they indeed, etc. He returns to that which he had said: therefore they who were dispersed, went about preaching the word. But the narrative concerning Philip, Peter, John, and Paul has been inserted between.

VERS. 20.-- And there were certain. (RAB.) Not of those who had been dispersed from Jerusalem, but, etc., as far as they were conversant among the Greeks in the dispersion.

VERS. 21.-- And a great number. (BEDA.) Now after the revealing of the evangelical sheet (in which the holy living creatures were to rest in the hope of things above) the Church began to grow, when through outward provinces, islands and cities the Gospel is preached 453Cnot only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles.

VERS. 22.-- And they sent Barnabas. (RAB.) Barnabas, manly in goodness. Barnabas is often praised in this book, lest he be believed to have lacked the apostleship for unworthiness of merit, who was afterwards ordained by the apostles apostle of the Gentiles.

VERS. 23.-- And he exhorted, etc. He changed nothing nor added anything, but taught perseverance, because in them the faith was true and full.

VERS. 25.-- To Tarsus. For it was said above that the brethren led him down by night to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus. That he might seek Saul. Behold the goodness of Barnabas, who does not alone presume to teach the people, but seeks a partner of the apostleship.

453DVERS. 26, 27.-- Disciples, Christians. In these, etc. In this the disciples seem not to have kept the command of God saying: Be not solicitous for the morrow (Matth. VI). [Vulg. Matth. 6:34 Nolite ergo solliciti esse in crastinum, "Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow"] But it is agreed that he does not disapprove this, if a man provide those things after the manner of men, but does not serve God for them, so that in his work he looks not to the kingdom of God, but to temporal things. To this rule therefore is this precept reduced, that in the providing of these things we attend to the kingdom of God: but in the warfare of God we think not upon them.

Prophets. (RAB.) Of whom it was said: And your sons shall prophesy (Joel. II). It is a praise of Antioch, whither many perfect men came together.

VERS. 4.-- To four quaternions. A quaternion 454Ais the name given to the chief of four soldiers. For as a centurion has a hundred soldiers under him, so a quaternion has four.

Willing, etc. (RAB.) For the favour would be greater if the Jews themselves killed him, because he was a chief man, not Herod himself, as James also was.

VERS. 6.-- Soldiers, bound, etc. (RAB.) Four difficulties heap up the guard: soldiers, chains prison, guards.

VERS. 7.-- A light. A sign of the presence of the angel of God, whose presence afforded light to Peter alone, nor did it shine upon the others.

And when he had struck his side. (RAB.) The angel was able to have bodily touch, a body being taken from the air.

VERS. 11.-- Being come to himself. He returned from the height of contemplation to that which in the common understanding 454Bwas before.

VERS. 13.-- A damsel came forth, etc. A woman also, first of all, announced to the disciples that the Lord had gone forth from the tomb, that where sin abounded, grace also might more abound.

VERS. 15.-- It is his angel. (HIER.) Great is the dignity of souls: that each one from the rising of its birth has an angel deputed to the keeping of itself.

(ID.) But that each one of us has angels, etc., as far as these are they who ascend and descend upon the Son of man.

VERS. 17.-- They should hold their peace, etc. Until he should tell the mighty work: or he bids them be silent, lest by the shout of them that rejoiced his coming should be known in the city.

VERS. 23.-- Immediately, etc. While he shuddered not at the impiety of unlawful 454Cflattery, looking back a little after he saw the angel hanging over and pressing upon his head, and forthwith perceived him to be the minister of his own destruction, whom he had before known as the provider of good things. Thereafter, tormented for seven continuous days with pain of the belly, he violently broke off his life.

VERS. 1.-- And there were in the Church, etc. The same men were prophets and teachers. Or, some of them were prophets, others teachers.

Niger. (RAB.) From the colour, if it is Latin. Or, it is interpreted ascending, if Hebrew.

VERS. 4.-- Sent by the Holy Spirit. (RAB.) Dismissed by men, they are straightway sent by the Holy Spirit to Seleucia. He was the guide of their journey who separated them 454Dfrom the rest.

They went to Seleucia. (ID.) In certain copies is found: They went to Seleucia, which is Salamina; but they are two names of one city.

VERS. 7.-- To Sergius Paulus. They are two names of one man, Sergius and Paulus.

VERS. 8.-- Elymas. (RAB.) Elymas, according to some, is interpreted the measure of my God, or Magician, and therefore he resisted.

To turn away. (ID.) Him who had begun to be converted he wished to turn from the faith to transgression, according to his own name.

VERS. 9.-- Saul. (ID.) Saul is interpreted the temptation of one looking back, or security, or wonderful.

455AWho is also Paul. (BEDA.) From Sergius Paulus the proconsul (whom he subdued to the faith) he obtained by lot the name of Paul.

Fitly does the apostle of the Gentiles obtain his name from a gentile.

(RAB.) From Sergius Paulus the apostle was called Paul, etc., as far as, I am the least of the apostles (I Cor. XV). [Vulg. 1 Cor. 15:9 Ego enim sum minimus apostolorum; Migne's quotation lacks enim]

VERS. 11.-- And now, etc. Thou shalt be blind, etc. It behoved Paul to work miracles for the perfecting of his apostleship, whom the Lord had chosen while long kicking against the goads.

VERS. 14.-- Antioch of Pisidia. (RAB.) For distinction from the other Antioch, as is believed; but by many it is thought to be the same.

They sat down. (ID.) As about to hear the law, not to preach. Behold an example of humility.

455BVERS. 19.-- The land of Chanaan, etc. (RAB.) That is, of promise, which was therefore (as it seems to most) given to Israel, etc., as far as and therefore he deserved to be accursed.

VERS. 20.-- He gave, etc. The time of the judges passes, for the proving of the patience of God.

VERS. 26.-- To you. (RAB.) To the Jews. I came not but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel (Matth. XV). [Vulg. Matth. 15:24 Non sum missus nisi ad oves quae perierunt domus Israel, "I was not sent but to the sheep"] Or, to you who are dispersed, because (as follows) the inhabitants of Jerusalem rejected it.

VERS. 27.-- Judging. (ID.) That Jesus was guilty of death. Or, judging the voices of the prophets, that is, not believing: for he who detracteth from his brother detracteth from the law, and judgeth the law, how much more they who detract from Christ?

The holy things of David faithful. (BEDA.) Isaias, foretasting the mysteries of the New Testament, says: I will appoint for you 455Can everlasting testament, the holy things of David faithful. In the Hebrew: And I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the faithful mercies of David. [Vulg. Is. 55:3 et feriam vobiscum pactum sempiternum, misericordias David fideles; the first quotation, which Migne ascribes to Isaias, stands in neither Is. 55:3 nor Act. 13:34 (dabo vobis sancta David fidelia)]

VERS. 35.-- Thou wilt not give, etc. (ID.) After the resurrection he dies not, death shall no more have dominion over him, and therefore he says holy things faithful, that is, incorrupt and about to remain eternally.

VERS. 41.-- Behold, ye despisers. In the Greek: Hear, ye despisers, and look, and be destroyed.

Wonder. (RAB.) Join it thus: Wonder and be scattered by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, last of all by the Romans, because I work a work of both vengeances. You will not believe, etc. Or, on account of the greatness of both vengeances, they are said not to believe until they be fulfilled. [Vulg. Act. 13:41 disperdimini, "be destroyed"; Migne prints dispergimini, "be scattered", and glosses it of the scatterings by Assyrians, Chaldeans and Romans]

455DVERS. 43.-- And of the worshippers. (ID.) It is well read worshipping God, as it is had in the Greek. And it signifies those who were by nature gentiles, but by religion Jews, called in Greek proselytes.

VERS. 46.-- First. (ID.) Jesus came first to heal the daughter of the ruler, but the woman suffering an issue of blood snatched the healing before her. Of eternal life. Not because they knew that to be eternal life which they rejected, but the apostles spoke out of their own understanding and their own faith.

VERS. 47.-- For so, etc. (ID.) The prophecy is to us an unmoveable precept: first it is spoken, then the testimony of the Prophet is brought in, to the person of the Father speaking to the Son.

I have set thee. He does not say, I have set you, because what is 456Asaid to Christ pertains to the apostles, who are his members. I have set thee for a light to the Gentiles. (BEDA.) This was said specially to Christ, and yet the apostles judge that the same was said to themselves, because they are his members: as, on account of the union of the same body, it was said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? etc. [Vulg. Act. 13:47 Posui te in lucem gentium, "I have set thee to be the light of the Gentiles"]

VERS. 48.-- Foreordained. This is the order, that after present labours and the mortification of the flesh, life should follow.

VERS. 50.-- Religious women. (RAB.) Either of the Jews who kept the religion of the law, or of the gentiles beginning to preserve religion.

VERS. 51.-- Shaking off the dust, etc. According to the precept of the Gospel, the dust is shaken off for a testimony that they made their labour void.

456B(RAB.) Deservedly is the dust shaken off, because in the judgment they shall be so cast out by Christ, as the dust which the wind driveth from the face of the earth (Psal. I). But if they received the apostles, they would loose their feet, that is their senses, from the dust, that is from vices.

VERS. 6.-- They fled. (RAB.) The flight of the apostles was not more out of fear than out of love of the word of God. And all, etc. That which follows in the Greek: And God made peace, some Latin copies have not.

VERS. 10.-- They lifted up. (RAB.) In this wantonness is noted. Or, the meaning was higher than their own barbarous tongue, ignorant of the one God.

VERS. 12.-- Crowns. (ID.) That he might adorn the front of the temple according to 456Cthe rite of the gentiles, or might set them upon them (as about to sacrifice to gods). It was the custom of the gentiles: that those sacrificing to the honour of their gods should take crowns, the victims being crowned withal.

VERS. 16.-- Filling with food, etc. (ID.) He speaks of carnal things, because gladness is from meats and from wine which maketh glad the heart of man.

VERS. 18.-- They drew him. (ID.) To be stoned like a corpse, of this he himself to the Corinthians: Once I was stoned (II Cor. XI), etc.

VERS. 21.-- That they should continue in the faith. (ID.) Against many tribulations: because the multitude of tribulations demands perseverance of faith. Because through many tribulations. Labour is set first, thereafter the entrance of the kingdom is proclaimed, because the hope of the reward is the solace of 456Dlabour.

VERS. 2.-- By sedition. By Paul and Barnabas, against those who said these things.

They determined. (RAB.) Namely those who had come down from Judaea, etc., as far as he is proved to have come to the faith.

VERS. 6.-- And the apostles came together. (ID.) Here is given an example of holding a council, for discerning those things which are necessary to the faith.

VERS. 7.-- By my mouth. (ID.) Not of another of the apostles, as if he should say: I who first preached to the Gentiles will first shake off from them the yoke of the law. For to the eunuch none of the apostles preached: but Philip the deacon, and he was filled with a gratuitous gift.

457AVERS. 9.-- Purifying by faith. (CHRYS.) By faith alone, he says, they attained those things, and not by works or by circumcision. For they say these things not only as rendering an account for the Gentiles, but as desiring also to lead those others away from the law: yet this as yet they do not say.

VERS. 12.-- And all the multitude held their peace. The order of speaking, or of the speakers, is to be noted, because while each one speaks they keep silence, Peter first.

VERS. 13.-- And after that, etc. (CHRYS.) This man was bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, etc., as far as where, namely, he also sets an end to works.

VERS. 16.-- I will return and rebuild, etc. I will return to the Gentiles, whom he had before said to go into their own ways, and for the strengthening of which sense James brought in a testimony. 457BThis testimony plainly agrees with the words of Simon.

(RAB.) The shadow of the law, which, corrupted by the traditions of the Pharisees, was raised up again through grace when the Lord revealed it, that is, when the Lord appeared in the flesh, that not only the Jews, but the Gentiles also might seek his name.

VERS. 17.-- Upon whom hath been invoked. (ID.) According to that: The priests shall invoke my name upon the children of Israel (Num. VI); and elsewhere: Moses and Aaron his priests (Psal. XCVIII), etc. [Vulg. Num. 6:27 Invocabuntque nomen meum super filios Israel, "And they shall invoke my name upon the children of Israel"; the Clementine has no sacerdotes] [Vulg. Psal. 98:6 Moyses et Aaron in sacerdotibus ejus, "Moses and Aaron among his priests"; Migne's quotation lacks in]

It hath been invoked. For the future, after the manner of the prophets.

VERS. 19.-- I judge. (RAB.) It was rightly to be judged, since it is confirmed by the testimony of three, of two apostles and of the prophets.

VERS. 20.-- And from things strangled. A thing strangled is that which has died of itself, 457Cof which Ezechiel says: Every thing dead of itself, and taken by a beast, of birds and of cattle, let not the priests eat (Ezech. IV). It is fitting that they keep this precept who are anointed with spiritual oil, that they eat not that whose blood has not been poured out, which the epistle of the apostles decreed to be kept. [Vulg. Ezech. 44:31 Omne morticinum, et captum a bestia, de avibus et de pecoribus, non comedent sacerdotes, "the priests shall not eat"]

And from blood. (RAB.) By the shedding of human blood, etc., as far as but that they be chaste and abstain.

VERS. 22.-- Then it pleased. (ID.) Peter speaking, Barnabas and Paul relating, James the bishop of Jerusalem judging, the sentence deservedly pleased. It pleased them to send to Antioch. Legates sent by Christ can send their own legates.

VERS. 23.-- The apostles and the ancients. Of the apostles the 457Dcommon title is set first, lest any occasion of dissension be left.

To the brethren of the Gentiles. (RAB.) The first benefit of the style is that the apostles call gentiles brethren, that is, sons of one God. Greeting. An ellipsis, because every word is too narrow for the breadth of charity, and therefore no word is set down, so that they may be understood to wish them all good things together.

VERS. 24.-- Subverting souls. In the Greek: Subverting your souls, saying: It behoveth you to be circumcised, and to keep the law to whom we gave no commandment.

VERS. 28.-- It hath seemed good. That is, it pleased. To the Holy Spirit. Who, being arbiter of his own power, breatheth where he will, and speaketh what he will.

458ATo the Holy Spirit. (RAB.) And to us, with a human understanding indeed, but a sound one.

And to us. Yet not by our own will alone, but by the prompting of the same Spirit.

Than these necessary things. (RAB.) These are necessary things without which there is no salvation, but circumcision is not necessary: but the things which you would not have done to you, do not to another.

VERS. 29.-- That you abstain, etc. (TERT.) Therefore then, since either kind, etc., as far as whose cleanness pertains more to God than that of the entrails.

VERS. 34.-- And it seemed good (RAB.) It is the matter of the discourse to follow: But Judas alone went to Jerusalem.

VERS. 39.-- A dissension. They did not offend in this, 458Bbecause not every commotion is a sin, but the unreasonable one, and that which is not justly made. Mark being taken. He was joined to Barnabas by the bond of affinity, whence they are also read to have been cousins. Barnabas, dismissed by Paul, sought again his native island, and none the less carried out the work of the Gospel enjoined upon him.

VERS. 40.-- Silas being chosen. (RAB.) For this the Lord made him remain, according to that: And it seemed good to Silas to remain there, that he might work together with Paul as Mark with Barnabas. For in this there was a divine counsel.

VERS. 1.-- The son of a widow. (RAB.) Or, of a Jewess. But that she was by race a Jewess appears from this, that he says he was sprung of a gentile father. [Vulg. Act. 16:1 filius mulieris Judaeae fidelis, "the son of a Jewess that believed"; Migne's lemma reads Viduae filius, the reading the gloss then offers as an alternative]

458CVERS. 3.-- And he circumcised him. (ID.) He circumcised Timothy because of the scandal of the Jews, lest he should seem to condemn the law of Moses, but not to impose it upon the Gentiles as though not necessary. Titus he did not circumcise, lest the Gentiles should take from him occasion of being circumcised. And this is what he says: But because of false brethren unawares brought in, etc. [Vulg. Gal. 2:4 sed propter subintroductos falsos fratres; Migne prints fratres falsos]

VERS. 4.-- To keep the decrees, which were. (ID.) They did not preach what they themselves had done, but that which the apostles had decreed for the will of God. And it is an example of rightly teaching even what thou hast not done. In a figure of this deed the priests were clothed with linen breeches, as though about to sow a work, but not as though about to do it.

VERS. 5.-- And the churches indeed, etc. (ID.) This has been 458Dmore often expounded in the earlier chapters, when we said that by a sentence of this kind the earlier narrative is closed, and the beginning of the following is made.

VERS. 7.-- They attempted to go. (ID.) The apostles are permitted to will, but not to go, etc., as far as Luke in Bithynia, etc.

VERS. 9.-- A man of Macedonia. The angel of that nation likened to a man of Macedonia, by the property of the tongue, or by a special form, or by the judgment of the word.

Help us. (RAB.) This was said in the person of a man, for angels do not need human help. Or the angel says this on account of those over whom he presides, that they may be baptized and be saved.

Help us. He shows that the Macedonians, or the angels, are inspired by 459AGod, or that certain teachers had begun to be taught.

VERS. 11.-- Samothracia. Thracia, Neapolis and Philippi are cities.

VERS. 12.-- Certain days, conferring. In certain books is found: Conferring the word of the Lord on the sabbath day.

VERS. 14.-- A seller of purple. A queen clothed in royal purple, or a weaver of purple, or one selling purple, signifies the Church which sells purple while she pours out blood for Christ, that life may be purchased. Purple rightly designates blood by its colour and by its nature, because it is made from the blood of shellfish. Lydda compelled the apostle, with his companions, to enter her house: because the Church received with a devout heart the preaching rejected by the Jews.

459BVERS. 15.-- She constrained us. (RAB.) Here is given an example, or two examples are given: one of constraining guests, the other of entering in to the newly converted.

VERS. 17.-- Following Paul. (ID.) Although she had met them, the woman cries out not to their face, but behind them, keeping modesty.

VERS. 23.-- They cast them into prison. (ID.) By this the power of the deliverer is the greater. To the same purpose looks also that which follows: He put into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. [Vulg. Act. 16:24 misit eos in interiorem carcerem, "he put them into the inner prison"; Migne's quotation lacks eos]

VERS. 25.-- And at midnight, etc. Prayer is to be made at midnight, and in dangers the diligence of prayer is to be kept.

VERS. 26.-- A great earthquake was made, etc. The devotion of them that pray and the power of prayer is expressed, 459Cbecause while they sing hymns in the prison their praise moves the earth: it shakes the foundations of the prison, opens the doors, looses the chains of the bound.

VERS. 29.-- He fell down, etc. (RAB.) On account of power and knowledge: power, because by the earthquake the doors were opened: knowledge, because Paul knew why he wished to kill himself: therefore before all he fell down at the feet of Paul and Silas.

VERS. 33.-- He washed their stripes. (BED.) A beautiful variety of things. Those whose stripes of wounding he washed, through them he lost the stripes of his crime. Immediately. (RAB.) The swiftness of obedience is betokened. The grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow endeavours.

VERS. 34.-- And when he had brought them, he set a table before them, etc. (ID.) An excellent example of both: 459Dthe entering of the house, and the setting of the table.

VERS. 4.-- And of the worshippers and of the Gentiles. That is, both of those who had exchanged the Gentile rite for Judaism, and of those who had remained Gentiles, many were flowing together to Christ.

(RAB.) The first cause of the malice is that these are of the common crowd; the second, that they were evil even beyond the crowd.

VERS. 6.-- They dragged Jason. (BED.) in the Greek: Jason and certain other brethren. Whence it is to be understood that Jason was a brother and faithful.

VERS. 7.-- Another king. (RAB.) Besides Caesar. This was against the decree of Caesar, whence in the Gospel: 460AEvery one that maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar (Joan. XVIII). But the apostles spoke against it, that Christ was king of the Jews, that is, of them that confess, whence the Jews also accused Christ himself.

VERS. 13.-- By Paul. Who was the leader of the word: and therefore afterward he alone was sent away, that he might go from Macedonia to the sea.

VERS. 15.-- They departed. (RAB.) From Athens those brethren who had conducted Paul departed. Some think it was said of Silas and Timothy, that they departed from Macedonia to Paul.

VERS. 18.-- The Epicureans. (ID.) They are so called from their author, who is said to be the champion of pleasure. Stoics in Greek, in Latin elements; who contended that sins were equal, that is, that every sin is uniform.

460BWhat meaneth this word-sower. A word-sower is he who sows the word; or a word-sower, that is, a sermologus; because the word of God is seed; whence: If we have sown unto you, etc.

(AUG.) We read that Paul the apostle was called a sower of words, which was said by them that mocked, but is not to be rejected by them that believe; for he was indeed a sower of words, but a reaper of morals. And we too, though little ones, and not to be compared with him, sow the word of God in God's field (which is your heart), looking for an abundant crop, or fruit, from your morals.

But others. (RAB.) From the Jews they had heard that the name of demons was abominable, and therefore they compare Paul's teaching to this abomination; or it is the Jews 460Cwho say this, that is, the Sadducees.

VERS. 19.-- To the Areopagus. (RAB.) It is the name of the court at Athens, called from the idol of Mars, which among them is called Arios.

VERS. 22, 23.-- Men of Athens, etc. What you worship in ignorance, that I preach. He answers to that which they had said or had put forward: Thou bringest in certain new things, as if he said: The new things which I bring in you have among your old ones. And this he says for persuasion, lest they refute his words as new.

To an unknown God. (RAB.) That is, to the true God, whom no one knows as he is, etc., as far as that which is passed over in silence, or it was simply written: To an unknown God.

VERS. 24.-- God, who made the world. Note the order of this disputation, because first he teaches that one God is the author 460Dof the world, of all things, in whom we live, and are moved, and are, whose offspring also we are: so that not only for light and life, but also for the kinship of race, he may be shown to be one who ought to be loved.

VERS. 26.-- Of one all the race of men. In the Greek: of one blood, because blood designates the propagation of the flesh, and by the flesh man is understood.

VERS. 28.-- For in him we live. (AUG.) Because he works that in us, which is that we live, are moved, and are, etc., as far as because what is not of him, of whom it is said: Of him, and by him, and in him are all things (Rom. II)?

As also certain of your own poets. To those who did not receive the prophets he speaks the 461Atestimony, not of Moses, not of Isaias, or of any of the prophets, but of their own authors, setting down a verse of Aratus, and out of their own false things, which they could not contradict, he preserves and confirms his own truth. For his, etc. This testimony was taken from the poet Aratus, not from the divine page, lest he should seem to bring in new things.

VERS. 29.-- Being therefore, etc., we ought not. (RAB.) Man is in the middle, having God as higher, gold from silver, with the rest of this kind as lower, which ought not to be compared to him.

VERS. 30.-- God despising. (ID.) That is, pardoning them as venial, and then despising, that is, judging them unworthy of his notice.

VERS. 31.-- Giving faith to all. (ID.) By the example of his own resurrection: or, he has appointed to judge, and afterward it is to be joined thus, giving faith to all that 461Bthey shall rise again.

VERS. 34.-- Dionysius. (BED.) This is that Dionysius who, being afterward ordained bishop of the Corinthians, ruled the Church well, for whose profit also he left many volumes, taking his surname from the place over which he presided. The Areopagus is the court of Athens, drawing its name from Mars, who in Greek is called Arios, pagus, a village.

VERS. 2.-- Because Claudius had commanded all to depart. (BED.) Josephus relates that this was done in the ninth year of Claudius. Suetonius says that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome.

VERS. 3.-- Of the tentmaking craft. (ID.) As exiles and pilgrims build themselves tents which they may use on the way, 461Cetc., as far as and by word and deed protects from the winds of snares.

VERS. 6.-- Your blood. (CHRYS.) This he does, that he may terrify not by word alone, and he discourses the more vehemently, inasmuch as many had been persuaded.

VERS. 7.-- Of Titus Justus, one that worshipped God. Titus Justus was either the man's own name, or he was so surnamed by the merit of his justice. This Titus was not the disciple of Paul to whom he himself wrote the Epistle, and whom he ordained bishop of Crete; with whom Barnabas also, going up to Jerusalem, conferred the Gospel with the apostles, inquiring in their council whether he preached rightly that the Gentiles were saved through the baptism of faith without circumcision, not because he himself doubted of this, but that he might confirm the minds of the doubting by the authority of the apostles.

461DVERS. 15.-- But if they be questions of a word. Now indeed declared and narrated, that is, the Gospel: and of names (Jesus) and (God) or (God the Father). In the Greek: All the Greeks apprehending Sosthenes, etc.

VERS. 18.-- Who had shorn himself. (RAB.) Who shore their own head is uncertain, yet they were Paul or Aquila; whether from fear of the Jews, or from eagerness of converting them? Yet this is said ambiguously, but according to Jerome it is to be understood of Paul.

VERS. 22.-- Caesarea. (ID.) Caesarea is the metropolis of Cappadocia. For he had not yet come into Syria of Phoenicia.

VERS. 27.-- He helped much. Another translation: 462AHe profited much them that believed, by grace, this is what the Apostle writes: I have planted, Apollo watered (I Cor. III), etc.

VERS. 4.-- John baptized. (BED.) John did not remit sins by his baptism, but taught penance. For as circumcision among the patriarchs was a seal of the faith which they had: so also the penitent people received this washing as a seal of their devotion: which prefigured the baptism of Christ, in which remission is made.

(RAB.) It is not baptism, which is not given in the name of the Trinity. Those baptized by Judas are not rebaptized, because it is in the faith of the Trinity; but those baptized by John, because 462BJohn baptizes in water only, but Christ in the Holy Spirit. When therefore a minister good or bad baptizes, if the faith of the Trinity is entire, the Lord baptizes; but those baptized by John in water alone were baptized by Paul.

(BED.) The question is: ought he who through ignorance has perchance been baptized by one not baptized, but nevertheless of right faith, to be rebaptized? Which I think has been expounded in this chapter. For what difference does it make, whether then, before the beginning of Christ's baptism, or now, someone were baptized by anyone without the reception of the same? since those whom John baptized in the faith and name of Christ who was to come, he foretold must be baptized again, saying: I baptize in water, he shall baptize in the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 7.-- And they were all. (RAB.) The judgments 462Cof God are a great deep. Behold, Asia, unworthy of the visitation of the apostles, is now consecrated by the apostolic number and exalted by the gift of prophecy. And it is to be noted that the Holy Spirit showed the signs of his coming here upon twelve disciples, and above upon a hundred and twenty (which number is completed by the duodenary drawn ten times), that in Jerusalem, this in Ephesus, which is a city of the Greeks. In which it is shown that the spirit fills only those (whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles) who are in catholic unity.

VERS. 9.-- Daily disputing in the school. (BED.) From the fifth hour until the ninth and the tenth: as is handed down by certain men: because he gave five hours to work, another five to teaching, two to food and prayer, which however is confirmed by no authority. In 462Dthe school of Tyrannus. (RAB.) The name of Tyrannus is put for a dignity, or it is his own name, and is interpreted containing them, or confirming.

VERS. 10.-- For two years. At this time Paul wrote at Ephesus the first Epistle to the Corinthians.

VERS. 12.-- Half-girdles (RAB.) Garments hanging from one side, or girdles, or night-garments, or a kind of napkin, which the Hebrews use upon the head.

VERS. 13.-- Exorcists. Solomon devised, and taught his nation, modes of exorcism, that is, of adjuration, by which the unclean spirits, being cast out, dared not return to men. And this is done through reprobates unto their own condemnation and unto the profit of those who see and hear: because although they despise those 463Awho work signs, yet they honour God, at whose invocation it is done.

VERS. 14.-- Seven sons, etc. (BED.) Since Satan transfigures himself into an angel of light, etc., as far as he shows concerning what guardians of the Church it is enjoined: Catch us the little foxes that lay waste the vineyards (Cant. II).

VERS. 19.-- And many of them who had followed curious things. (BED.) The industry of the magic art: whose followers deservedly burn their books, though valued at a great price, because they see that the demons (whom they had served) call upon Jesus and honour his apostles.

VERS. 21.-- And when these things were ended, etc. (CHRYS.) Having dwelt long enough in the city, etc., as far as thus everywhere he weaves his works together.

463BTo see Rome. (RAB.) Perhaps he had not seen it before, or because he counted light the tribulation which he was to suffer there; he says only to see, and not to suffer many things.

VERS. 22.-- Into Macedonia. (RAB.) He wished to pass from Asia, in which Ephesus is, into Europe, where Macedonia and Achaia are; and so to go again into Asia, that is, to Jerusalem with the alms, of which he wrote to the Corinthians.

VERS. 28.-- Great is Diana of the Ephesians. (BED.) Diana, whom Demetrius said would perish, they on the contrary marvel that she is great.

VERS. 32.-- And some cried one thing, some another. That other thing which they cried was, either that they should be haled into the theatre, or that another was the great God, or 463Cthat it was another idol, or they even cast reproaches upon Paul.

VERS. 34.-- There was made one voice of all, as it were for two hours crying out: Great is Diana of the Ephesians. Deservedly do the Jews drag the scribe Alexander out of that crowd which wholly adored Diana.

VERS. 37.-- Neither guilty of sacrilege, nor blaspheming your goddess. (RAB.) Sacrilegious men are so called from profane diligence. For sacrum signifies both the clean and the profane.

VERS. 40.-- And when he had said these things. He speaks this as a Jew, not wishing the Jews to be slain by the worshippers of idols; or he spoke as a Christian.

463DVERS. 2.-- To Greece. Greece is a province of Achaia; to this Paul came after Macedonia: because he had so purposed, as was said above; and he passes from Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem.

VERS. 4.-- Sosipater. [Vulg. Act. 20:4 Sopater; the form here glossed stands at Rom. 16:21] In the Hebrew Sosipater is interpreted to be the same as telling the dispersion, or saving the dispersed.

VERS. 7.-- And on the first day of the week. The name of the day is spoken, that it may be a preparation of the virtue that is to be done and to be spoken.

(BED.) The upper room, the height of the gifts of grace. The night, the obscurity of the Scriptures, etc., as far as he subjoined: And these are the two Testaments.

VERS. 9.-- Eutichus, etc. (ID.) In Hebrew he is interpreted out of his mind, in Greek fortunate, etc., as far as that the memory 464Aalso of the master now about to depart might be the more closely fixed in the mind.

VERS. 10.-- When Paul had gone down, he fell upon him. (ID.) He went down and fell upon him, he embraced him, etc., as far as and, the sun of justice breathing upon him, he is brought back alive. For his soul is in him. (RAB.) That is, it did not wholly depart, or it returned. This he said because of the unbelieving, as: The girl is not dead, but sleepeth: for so despair is taken away.

VERS. 16.-- Pentecost. It is agreed that the time of the Pasch and of Pentecost was celebrated in the times of the apostles.

VERS. 31.-- Keeping in memory. (RAB.) What he had said to them, he wishes that to be kept in memory, for the memory of a divine precept is no small keeping.

464BVERS. 35.-- It is a more blessed thing. (ID.) This is not read in the Gospel, for not all things are written, but Paul perhaps heard this from the apostles, or received it from the Holy Spirit, or it may be said that, if not the words, Jesus indicated this sense, saying: Give to every one that asketh; and elsewhere: Do not receive gold, etc. [Vulg. Matth. 10:9 Nolite possidere aurum, "do not possess gold"] (BED.) He does not prefer rich almsgivers to those who, leaving all things, followed the Lord, but he chiefly glorifies those who, renouncing in themselves all that they possess, nonetheless labour, working with their hands, that they may have whence to give to him that suffers need. You therefore, bishops, be solicitous concerning the nourishing of orphans, etc.

VERS. 1.-- And when it came to pass, etc. Cos, Rhodes, and thence 464CPatara. (RAB.) Cos and Patara are islands.

VERS. 8.-- Of Philip the evangelist. For the ready office of preaching he deserved to be called an evangelist.

VERS. 9.-- And he had daughters. (RAB.) Elsewhere the daughters of Philip the apostle are read to have been prophetesses, but the truth of this place is not to be contradicted, unless perhaps each of the two be understood to have had daughters that were prophetesses.

VERS. 11.-- Thus saith the Holy Spirit. (BED.) He imitates the ancient prophets, who were wont to say: Thus saith the Lord God, because the Holy Spirit, equally as the Father and the Son, is Lord and God, nor can the operation of those be separated whose nature and will is one.

VERS. 21.-- Saying that they ought not. (BED.) As if they should say: In the doctrine of Christ thou condemnest as sacrilegious things, 464Detc., as far as but the Jews were not forbidden.

Neither according to. The Jews believing in Christ were not forbidden at that time to walk according to the law, the temple and their religion still standing, although they were to have salvation in the sacraments of the New Testament, but they that believed of the Gentiles were forbidden to turn to the law, who nevertheless were bidden diligently to observe the commandments of the law pertaining to morals and to the cleanness of the body, such as: Thou shalt not covet, etc. A fourfold synod was held at Jerusalem: the first was concerning the election of another apostle in place of Judas; the second concerning the election of the seven deacons; the third concerning circumcision not being imposed upon those who believed of the Gentiles; the fourth this one, concerning the Jews not being forbidden at that time 465A(where necessity required) to be initiated in the legal ceremonies, because of the scandal of those who thought that the apostles condemned the law of Moses as idolaters condemn their doctrines.

VERS. 24.-- That the things which they have heard of thee, etc. For thou dost not reject the legal observances in the manner that has been said, but if he celebrated for this reason, that by a feigned action he might conceal his own opinion, James would not say this.

VERS. 27.-- And when the seven days, etc. They were not yet completed, but their course was still being run, etc., as far as lest the Romans should come and take away the place and the nation.

VERS. 35.-- And when he was come to the stairs. It signifies stairs not of the descent from the temple, but of the ascent into the castle.

465BVERS. 37.-- Knowest thou Greek? (RAB.) It is a question or an affirmation, because (as is thought) the tribune was speaking in the Greek tongue, or, lest the Jews should know.

VERS. 39.-- From Tarsus, etc. (ID.) Whither, having been taken captive, he migrated with his parents.

VERS. 3.-- Born in Tarsus. (BED.) Paul was born in a town of Galilee named Giscala, etc., as far as so Christ, born in Bethlehem, was called a Nazarene.

A zealot of the law. In the Greek: A zealot of the law of the God that is, according to that: I bear witness to them, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge (Rom. X).

465CVERS. 7.-- Saule, Saule. (RAB.) Certain copies have: Saul, Saul, that it may be shown that Saulus was named from the name of Saul.

VERS. 9.-- They heard. (ID.) They understood, but only the sound of the voice of Paul, or of him who was speaking to Paul.

VERS. 10.-- And there. (ID.) An example of humility, of not disputing against teachers, nor of presuming concerning ourselves, as though we were taught by God.

VERS. 13.-- Brother Saul, look up. (ID.) There were two things in the eyes of Paul, blinding and enlightening: and therefore he deservedly believed.

VERS. 14.-- He hath preordained thee. (ID.) A fitting order: first, he is preordained in the foreknowledge of God; then he knows the truth, sees the Just One, hears from his own 465Dmouth; afterward he becomes a witness of those things which he knew, saw, heard.

VERS. 17.-- That I was in a trance of mind. This he relates not for boasting, but because of necessity, that he may be seen fit to evangelize the Gentiles.

VERS. 20.-- I consented. By confessing that he consented, he notes that he did not kill, unless he that strikes be taken for him that kills, or for one taking care to kill.

VERS. 28.-- I with a great sum. Another edition more plainly intimates what the tribune said. The tribune said: dost thou so easily say that thou art a Roman citizen? for I with how great a price possessed this citizenship.

Citizenship. That is, the social intercourse among citizens, or the administration of the commonwealth. For it is not that the 466Atribune could not be a citizen of the Roman city, but he had bought a partnership of the city, that he might be a sharer. Paul was the more a Roman citizen, in that he had this not by purchasing, but by being born.

VERS. 3.-- He shall strike thee. (RAB.) He does not say let him strike, because it is a prophecy, not a curse, etc., as far as but the Apostle spoke by divine inspiration.

VERS. 5.-- I knew not, brethren. That is, I did not know that it was Ananias; or he subtly says that he does not know the prince, because the priesthood of the Jews has been reproved.

VERS. 9.-- What if a spirit? (RAB.) Here it appears, according to Jerome, that the Sadducees do not confess a spirit 466Band angels, and therefore the Pharisees name a spirit and an angel, because they knew this to be contrary to them.

VERS. 10.-- Lest Paul should be pulled in pieces by them. (ID.) By the Sadducees wishing to seize him, or by both parties contending together.

VERS. 12.-- They bound themselves by a vow, saying. In Greek, they anathematized: how great the authority of this word is, they know who by the priestly anathema are made strangers from the fellowship of Christ and of the Church.

VERS. 23.-- Prepare two hundred soldiers, etc. (RAB.) He commands this to be done, lest the Jews should take him away, and the tribune himself be accused of a crime before the governor, as though he were to receive money from the Jews, and the price of Paul's death.

• 466C

VERS. 14.-- To my Father and God. (RAB.) Whose son I am shown to be, not a servant, as is had in other codices.

VERS. 21.-- Except for this one thing. (ID.) This he speaks by antiphrasis, for he knew this to please them: as if he should say, I have committed nothing, save that I preached what they themselves also believe.

VERS. 23.-- To minister of his own. (ID.) To his disciples and companions; otherwise, he commanded that no one be forbidden to minister to him of his own things or means.

VERS. 25.-- Trembling, etc., and hoping. (ID.) Join thus: trembling and hoping, for these two things he dismissed him to a free custody, from the fear of God and the hope of money.

466DVERS. 27.-- He left Paul bound. (ID.) Whether Felix left Paul while living or while dying is uncertain; but nevertheless it seems better that while living he did the Jews a favour.

VERS. 1.-- Festus therefore, when he was come into the province, etc. (RAB.) Understand the province of Palestine, as other governors of Palestine, always succeeding one another, were sent by the Romans.

VERS. 18.-- Of whom, etc. (ID.) For these causes, or things, or words: concerning which I was suspecting, that is, was expecting from the accusers, or the evils concerning which I was suspecting; otherwise, concerning whom, that is, the accusers, 467AI was suspecting evil: because they brought forward no cause worthy of death.

VERS. 19.-- Their own superstition. (RAB.) Of both, that is, he called the law of Paul and of the Jews a superstition.

VERS. 23.-- With much ambition. (ID.) That is, with a great crowd going about them, or with much desire of hearing Paul. For ambitio there is put in the Greek phantasia, that is, the manifold apparatus and pomp of a royal office: by which, going about her, she was thronged on every side.

VERS. 8.-- What incredible thing? (RAB.) Or thus: King, what sayest thou? is it judged incredible among you? etc., 467Bby way of questioning, as if he should say: It is not incredible. For indeed he raised up the dead before, for an example of that which is to come, or he raises them up.

VERS. 10.-- When they were killed he brought the sentence. (ID.) [Vulg. Act. 26:10 detuli sententiam, "I brought the sentence," in the first person] Another edition: And upon them that were to be killed he brought the sentence, that is, in what manner they should be killed I myself gave the sentence. I brought the sentence. I judged them to be killed: he does not say that I killed, unless perhaps what follows pertains to the killing: Punishing them, etc., and being yet more mad, etc.

VERS. 14.-- Against the goad. (ID.) Hitherto thou hast resisted without a goad, but now if thou resistest, thou shalt kick against the goad, which is hard enough. The goad is correction itself.

Thou art mad, Paul. (BED.) He thinks it madness that a bound man, having received a place of defending, etc., as far as and 467Cthe Prophet: He hath not regarded vanities and false madnesses (Psal. XXXIX)

VERS. 24.-- Much learning doth turn thee. (RAB.) The philosophers of the Gentiles by much reading used to change their sects. To madness, understand, of mutability; or he calls madness the resurrection of the dead, which he announces.

VERS. 1.-- And when it was determined that he should sail, etc. In the Greek: When it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain others in bonds to a centurion.

VERS. 2.-- Adrumetine. (RAB.) That is, sailing to Rome, according to some, but it is better derived from the name of the African city which is called Adrumetis.

467DVERS. 5.-- We came to Lystra. (BED.) For Lystra, in the Greek Smyrna is written. But Jerome puts Myrrha.

VERS. 9.-- The fast. (RAB.) A great hunger on the voyage, making the sailors weaker. Others say that it was then the forty days' fast before the birth of the Lord, which is not probable. It is better to be thought the seventh fast, in which Godolias was slain. Or the day of the tenth fast in January, when the captives in Babylon learned that the temple had been destroyed.

VERS. 12.-- A haven, etc. (ID.) That is called a haven of Crete which is in Phoenice over against Crete: but they were seeking the haven of Crete, because they were sailing to Crete.

468AToward Africus, etc. Africus stands between the southern and the western quarter, inclining more to the western; Corus between the northern and the western, more bent toward the west; and the province of Phoenice had Crete to the west.

VERS. 13.-- Asson. (RAB.) It is the name of a place so called, because thence the ships were loosed as they went forward into the sea.

VERS. 14.-- Typhonic. Another translation: a tempestuous wind.

Euroaquilo. (RAB.) That is, Boreas, a wind between Aquilo and the east; this wind was contrary to the ship that was to sail into Phoenice.

VERS. 17.-- Syrtis. (ID.) A narrowness or tribulation is called Syrtis.

468BVERS. 21.-- It behoved indeed, etc. (ID.) As if he should say: You did not hear God, in that Paul above was exhorting them; or, it behoved, me being heard, that is, that you should hear me.

VERS. 26.-- And we must come unto a certain island. (ID.) As if he should say: The prophecy of the truth concerning the island is for a sign, that, when they shall have come to it, they may be certain of their salvation.

VERS. 27.-- In Adria. It is a region to which they were sailing; or, the name of a certain strait in the Tyrrhene sea, or rather it seems to be the name of that land from which the Adriatic gulf is called. Otherwise, Adria is taken in the plural for rocks, and therefore the sailors thought that a region appeared. In the book of Hebrew names, 468CAdria is said to be containing evils, or a place of evils.

VERS. 34.-- To take food. (BED.) No one escapes the tempests of the world, save he who is fed with the bread of life, and who in the night of tribulations leans upon wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice, and, by the help of the Lord flashing forth, attains the haven of salvation, so that, being disencumbered of the world, he may seek the flame of love by which the inward parts are warmed.

VERS. 37.-- We were all souls. (RAB.) He does not say men, because perhaps there were women also; or, because of the mingling of Christians, soldiers and sailors, it is so said.

VERS. 41.-- Bithalassum. (BED.) [Vulg. Act. 27:41 dithalassum, "having two seas"] The Greeks call the sea Thalassa, etc., as far as and the sea is called by the Greeks Thelasson.

• 468D

VERS. 2.-- Pyra. (RAB.) Some say that pyra is the name of a wood.

VERS. 8.-- Dysentery or dysin. (BED.) It is an affliction of the intestines. He healed him. Why does he heal by prayer a sick unbeliever, who so deals with Timothy and Trophimus, sick believers, that he cures the one and leaves the other? unless because that man was to be healed outwardly by a miracle, who inwardly did not live: but these did not need this, who within lived healthfully.

VERS. 13.-- Puteoli. Puteoli is a place beyond Rome where Virgil made medicinal baths, each inscribed with its proper titles (as is said) against 469Awhich sickness, namely, they availed. Whence the men of Salerno, led by envy, coming upon them with a strong hand, destroyed the titles and mutilated the buildings.

VERS. 15.-- The brethren had heard. (RAB.) Whence Christians dwelling at Rome? it is plain that Paul was not the first to preach to the Romans.

470AVERS. 30.-- Conductu. That is, in the free custody through which he was conducted, or in his own assembly in which he disputed against the Jews.

VERS. 31.-- Without prohibition. (RAB.) In the twenty-fifth year after the passion of the Lord, etc., as far as Peter and Paul were crowned with martyrdom.