Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
There are two parts of the chapter. The first recounts Christ's ascension into heaven. The second, Matthias substituted for Judas in the Apostolate by lot.
Vulgate Text: Acts 1:1-26
1. The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, 2. until the day on which, giving commandments by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles whom He had chosen, He was taken up: 3. to whom also He showed Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God. 4. And eating together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which (He said) you have heard by My mouth: 5. for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. 6. Therefore those who had come together asked Him, saying: Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? 7. But He said to them: It is not for you to know the times or the moments, which the Father has put in His own power; 8. but you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. 9. And when He had said these things, while they looked on, He was raised up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10. And as they were beholding Him going up to heaven, behold, two men stood by them in white garments, who also said: 11. Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you have seen Him going into heaven. 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain that is called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey distant. 13. And when they had entered, they went up into an upper room, where they were staying — Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Jude of James. 14. All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brethren. 15. In those days Peter, rising up in the midst of the brethren, said (there was a multitude of persons together, about a hundred and twenty): 16. Men, brethren, the Scripture must be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was the leader of those who apprehended Jesus: 17. who was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. 18. And he indeed possessed a field of the reward of iniquity, and being hanged, burst asunder in the midst; and all his bowels gushed out. 19. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the same field was called in their tongue Haceldama, that is, the field of blood. 20. For it is written in the book of Psalms: Let their habitation become desolate; and let there be no one to dwell therein; and let another take his bishopric. 21. Therefore of these men who have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us, 22. beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which He was taken up from us, one of these must be made a witness with us of His resurrection. 23. And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. 24. And praying they said: You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen, 25. to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. 26. And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles.
Verse 1: The Former Treatise
1. Former. — It is a noun, not an adverb: that is, I made a treatise. So St. Chrysostom, as if to say: My purpose was, and is, to write the history of the Incarnate Word, namely Christ and Christianity. I wrote Christ's history in the Gospel, namely His Incarnation, His deeds and death through the 34 years of His life; now I follow up His deeds after death, namely the institution and propagation of Christianity and the Church up to the first bonds of Paul, which occurred twenty-eight years after Christ's death. Therefore Luke, both in the Gospel and in these Acts, has woven through the history of Christ and the Church, through its first sixty-two years. — For in Greek it is to proteron, that is, the former, namely, I made a treatise.
Indeed. — The Greek mèn, that is, indeed, ordinarily requires after it kaì, that is, but — yet not always; for sometimes it is added merely for the rhythm and weight of the narrative, especially in the opening, so that it may begin its march as on a lofty buskin, as the Lexicographers note from Demetrius Phalereus. Both purposes are served here. For it adds majesty to the history, and implicitly links the former to the latter, and prepares and makes the transition from it to this, as if to say: I made the former treatise indeed in the Gospel concerning the life of Christ; but now I shall make a latter and subordinate one concerning the life of Christ's Apostles.
I made a treatise, — in the Gospel written by me. The Syriac translates, "I wrote a book"; for lógos signifies both word and treatise, and book or volume, as Vatablus and Gagneius render it. So Cicero, in book III of the Offices, translates the book Oeconomicus, and calls it the book Oeconomicus of Xenophon.
St. Chrysostom notes the modesty of St. Luke, in that he does not call his Gospel a Gospel, but a treatise: "For he does not say, the former Gospel which I preached, but: I made the former treatise indeed, evidently considering the preaching of the Gospel to be something more magnificent than was suited to his own worth or strength. And yet the Apostle adorns him with this title: Whose praise is in the Gospel," indeed the Church, which designates and entitles his treatise and book about Christ "The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke." Thus those who humble themselves and what is theirs, Christ and the Church exalt. With the same modesty Luke in these Acts makes no mention of his own labors and the help which he rendered conspicuously to St. Paul, but suppresses all that is his own with deep silence.
Of all, — namely the chief mysteries or points, which suffice to win faith for Christ and to explain His doctrine and life. For what St. John in the Gospel narrates concerning the raising of Lazarus, the absolution of the adulteress, the illumination of the blind man, the water changed to wine, etc., Luke is silent about and passes over: indeed even all the Evangelists together have recorded few of Christ's deeds and sayings, and have left most in silence: "which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, could not contain the books that should be written," says St. John in his Gospel, chap. xxi, 25.
O Theophilus. — First, St. Salvianus, in his epistle to Salonius, translates Theophilus as the love of God, as if Luke wrote and dedicated this book to the love of God, which urged him to write, that he might impress the same on the minds of his readers. "So Timothy, he says, is the same as the honor of God. Therefore when you read that Timothy wrote to the Church, you must understand this, that it was written to the Church for the honor of God, indeed rather that the honor of God itself sent the writings: because he is rightly said to have written, by whom it was brought about that it was written." This is ingenious, symbolic and pious, but not literal, nor genuine. For Theophilus and Timothy are concrete names, not abstract, and accordingly signify not the love and honor of God, but one loving and honoring God. To him therefore, not to God, Luke inscribes and dedicates these Acts.
Secondly, others better hold that the name Theophilus is common to any believer, not proper to anyone. So Origen and Ambrose, on chapter 1 of St. Luke's Gospel, and Epiphanius, heresy 51. For Theóphilos in Greek is the same as one who loves God, as Origen says; or one beloved by God and pleasing to God, as St. Ambrose holds, to whom the epithet krátistos, that is, most powerful, is rightly given. For love makes those who love God all-powerful, both because all things are common to friends, and because "love is strong as death, jealousy hard as hell," Cant. viii, 6. Thus Theodoret entitles his religious history of the holy Anchorites Philotheus (which inversely is the same name as Theophilus), because the Anchorites were Philothei, that is, loving God and beloved by God.
Thirdly, Titus of Bostra, on Luke I, holds that this book is inscribed by Luke to a definite person, but that it is uncertain whether that person was called Theophilus by a proper name, or by a common one — that is, lover and worshipper of God.
Fourthly and genuinely, St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Euthymius, Toletus, and others on Luke I and V; St. Augustine, book IV On the Consensus of the Gospels, chap. IV, hold that the name Theophilus is proper, not common (just as today many are called Theophilus by a proper name) and that he was an eminent and powerful man; for this is what the epithet krátiste signifies, that is, most powerful (Our translator renders, most excellent), which Luke gives him, Gospel chap. 1, vers. 3; for of old presidents and prefects were called krátistoi, that is, most powerful or most excellent: as "most excellent Felix," Acts xxiv, 3; "most excellent Festus," Acts xxvi, 25. Wherefore Theophylact and Euthymius hold that this Theophilus was a senator or prince; Oecumenius, that he was president of a province; Nicephorus, in book III, chap. xxv, that he was the sixth bishop of Antioch. But the epithet krátiste signifies rather a president or prince (for it is given to such) than that he was a bishop; unless you say that he was made bishop from a prince, as happened to St. Louis and others. Furthermore St. Augustine doubts whether this Theophilus is the same as the one to whom St. Luke inscribed his Gospel. But it seems certain that he is the same, and this Luke himself signifies, when he writes that he is dedicating this latter book of Acts to him, because he had dedicated to him the former book of the Gospel: so St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Toletus, and others. Perhaps this Theophilus was that Antiochene noble man, whom St. Peter, converting him, turned his house into a church, in which he placed his Antiochene Chair, as St. Clement narrates, book X Recognitions, last chapter; and therefore Luke perhaps here omits the title krátiste, that is, most excellent, with which he had addressed him at the beginning of the Gospel, because he had now abdicated the magistracy, and out of zeal for Christian modesty was leading a private and silent life. So Baronius holds, whose conjecture is approved, namely that Luke of Antioch seems to have written these things to Theophilus likewise of Antioch, as it were to his fellow citizen. Finally, what Luke writes to Theophilus, let us consider written to ourselves, especially since we are all, or aspire to be, Theophili and worshippers of God. Theophylact adds, on chap. 1 of St. Luke's Gospel, that Theophilus was Luke's disciple and catechumen.
Jesus began to do and to teach. — Jesus is a proper name, not of God, but of this man assumed by the Son of God, or the Incarnate Word, just as my proper name is Cornelius, another's is Peter, Paul, etc. For Christ was called Jesus, that is, Savior, because He was destined by God as Redeemer and Savior of the world, Matt. i, 21. See what is said on Phil. ii, 10. The sense is, as if to say: In the Gospel I wrote the acts of Christ, beginning from His first deeds and teachings, indeed from His infancy, and I have woven these through up to His ascent into heaven.
Morally: Note here Christ's manner, wisdom, and efficacy in teaching, namely that He first did, then taught; first taught by example, then by word. Whence first, He taught nothing which He had not first done Himself. Nazianzen, in the funeral oration of St. Basil, teaches that he did the same; and St. Bernard and St. Bonaventure in their Lives teach the same of St. Malachy and St. Francis. The beginning of doing, then, is the way and beginning of teaching. Secondly, He did more than He taught. For through the first thirty years of His life He was in continual action, but He taught only in the last three years; namely Christ wished to teach as having authority, and to "give to His voice the voice of power, that He might instruct others to teach in such a way that you also teach yourself," says St. Bernard, sermon 59 on the Canticle, and epistle 191. Golden and royal is the saying of Pacatus, in his Panegyric of the Emperor Theodosius: "Commanded correction provokes men, but it is most gently enjoined by example." Furthermore, that Christ did this, St. Chrysostom shows by examples: "Consider, he says, in what manner Christ won faith for His words by His deeds. He exhorted to meekness saying: Learn of Me that I am meek and humble of heart; He taught us poverty, and demonstrated both by His deeds: for, He says, the Son of Man has not where to lay His head. Again, He commanded that we should love our enemies: He showed this on the cross praying for those who crucified Him. He said: To him who would draw you into court that he may take your tunic, allow him to take your cloak also: but He Himself gave not only His garments, but also His blood. He commanded the disciples likewise to do the same. Whence Paul also said: As you have a pattern from us. For nothing is colder than a teacher who only philosophizes in words. For this is not the part of a teacher, but of an actor and hypocrite. Therefore the Apostles first taught by examples of life, then by words: indeed there was no need even of words, since their deeds cried out." He adds afterwards: "Nor would he stray from the truth who would call His passion an action. For by suffering He accomplished that great and admirable work, by which He cast down death and accomplished all the rest."
Verse 2: Until the Day on Which He Was Taken Up
2. Until the day on which giving commandment (in Greek it is the aorist enteilámenos, that is, when He had commanded: for after the commandment He was taken up: so the Syriac and others) by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles whom He had chosen, He was taken up. — The phrase by the Holy Spirit has a difficulty: to what does it refer? what does it signify? First, the Syriac refers it to whom He had chosen, so that it is an anastrophe, to be arranged thus: "giving commandment to the Apostles whom He chose by the Holy Spirit;" breathing the Holy Spirit upon them, He said: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them," John xx, 22. But this anastrophe is gaping and somewhat harsh, especially since the Roman and other codices separate the by the Holy Spirit by a comma and disjoin it from whom He chose.
Secondly, Idacius, in book III Against Varimundus, refers it to to preach, which he himself supplies: "on the day, he says, on which He chose the Apostles by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel." But to preach the Gospel is not in the text, nor in any Interpreter.
Thirdly, St. Chrysostom refers it to the verb commanded, as if to say: Christ's commands were holy and spiritual, not carnal and earthly: because He commanded all His commands from the impulse of the Holy Spirit, whom He had always as assisting and indwelling, indeed as companion and co-worker. Whence Christ says: "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life," that is, they are spiritual and vital, flowing from the prompting of the Holy Spirit, John vi, 64.
Fourthly, others refer it to the He was taken up, as if to say: Christ was taken up into heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit. But then the whom He chose is more harshly interposed. Nestorius followed this sense, contending from it that Christ was not God, inasmuch as He had needed alien help, namely that of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is not alien, but intimate and homoousios with Christ insofar as He is God.
Fifthly, you may refer it genuinely and properly to the Apostles, so that the by the Holy Spirit be their title and authorization, as if to say: giving commandment to the Apostles — namely, those called by Christ, chosen and designated to the apostolate by the impulse of the Holy Spirit — who were a little after to be authorized and consecrated in fact by the same Spirit publicly at Pentecost: for the Greek article tois is to be understood, namely, as if to say, enteilámenos toîs apostólois, toîs dià pneúmatos hagíou, that is, "giving commandment to the Apostles, who were going to be such by the Holy Spirit." It is an idiom of the Greeks, among whom the relative is everywhere understood with the substantive verb. Luke adds this, in order to win authority both for the Apostles and for these their Acts, as having been performed by the Holy Spirit, of whom they themselves were instruments.
Vatablus adds: "By the Holy Spirit," that is, he says, concerning the Holy Spirit, so that the by the Holy Spirit may partly refer to the Apostles, in the sense I have already given, partly to giving commandment: thus the full sense will be, as if to say: Christ commanded the Apostles, chosen by Himself and soon to be created and authorized by the Holy Spirit, concerning the same Spirit, namely to wait, that the Apostles, of course, might patiently await Him and His coming and mission through the world, and prepare themselves for Him quietly and piously. For so He explains this command and these words, when He immediately adds, vers. 4: "He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which (He said) you have heard by My mouth: for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence." Behold, this is the "giving commandment to the Apostles by the Holy Spirit," and concerning the Holy Spirit: for we read of no other command given to the Apostles by Christ on the day of the Ascension. Luke confirms the same in the last chapter of his Gospel, vers. 49, where immediately before Christ's ascent into heaven he sets forth His promise and command: "I, He says, send the promise (the Holy Spirit) of My Father upon you: but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." For that command: "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," was given to the Apostles not at the Ascension, but earlier on the mountain of Galilee, where Christ after the resurrection by appointment showed Himself alive to the whole company of the disciples, as is evident from Matt. xxviii, 16. To this purpose serves the Gloss, which explains the "by the Holy Spirit" as "on account of the Holy Spirit," as if to say: He commanded the Apostles to sit in Jerusalem on account of the Holy Spirit, namely that they might receive Him about to descend there at Pentecost.
Cajetan also approaches, who by the "to the Apostles by the Holy Spirit" thinks the eleven Apostles are distinguished and set apart from Judas. For Judas was chosen to the apostolate by Christ, but not authorized by the Holy Spirit: whence he fell from it and perished. Hence it is clear that the Apostles were creatures of the Holy Spirit, just as Cardinals are creatures of the Pope. For the Holy Spirit gave them, first, the power of preaching the Gospel by office, namely that they should do this as His own legates, just as much as Christ's; secondly, He filled them with His own spirit, namely a fiery mind and tongue, that they might preach with immense zeal and efficacy, strike and convert all nations; thirdly, He gave them the power of working miracles, that they might confirm and seal their preaching with the Holy Spirit's seal as it were; fourthly, He stood by and directed them through all things, so that not so much they themselves as the Holy Spirit through them was seen to speak and act, as Christ had promised: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you," Matt. x, 20.
Whom He chose. — In Greek hoùs exelexato, whom He had chosen, namely long before, much earlier, namely Matt. x, 1 and 2. Hence Tertullian, in his book On Prescription, chap. xx, so reads and understands, "whom He chose to His own side," as if to say: Whom Christ as supreme Pontiff sent as Legates a latere through the whole world. This is what Paul says, 2 Cor. v, 20: "For Christ we are ambassadors, as if God were exhorting through us."
He was taken up, — not by angels, but by His own power and from Himself, namely from His own divinity, through the gift of agility imparted by Himself to His blessed and glorious humanity. He was taken up, then, upwards (for this is what the Greek aná in analémphthē signifies), that is, He ascended into heaven. Thus analambánein heautón signifies to return to oneself, to collect oneself from fear, to restore oneself to one's place, and that not by external, but by internal and proper force and power. Christ did this in the 34th year of His age, as the truer and more common opinion of Theologians and Chronologists holds. But why was He so quickly taken up? Why did He not for many years exhibit His presence so desired and profitable to the earth and to men, according to that which Jeremiah complains in chap. xiv, vers. 8: "O expectation of Israel, why are You to be as a sojourner in the land, and as a traveler turning aside to lodge? Why are You to be as a wandering man?" I reply: There are various causes: the first, because Christ came chiefly to redeem us by His death and to offer His life for us. But it was fitting that it should be offered when it was most flourishing, namely in the flower of age, which is the 34th year. For this victim was most noble and most worthy of God, especially because Adam was created at the same age, and abused that age by an offense to God, which Christ came to repair at the same age and flower.
The second, because in 34 years He completed the work of His mission, namely He preached the Gospel, performed miracles, gave examples of all virtues, traversed the whole of Judaea preaching: nothing more remained. For He preached only to the Jews, as the Messiah promised to them; lest, if He turned aside to the Gentiles, the Jews should have ground for slandering, that He was not the Messiah promised to them, but another for the Gentiles.
The third, because Christ in few years performed very many and most perfect acts of all virtues and of His offices, indeed more than we do in a hundred, or even a thousand years: being made perfect therefore in a short time, He fulfilled long times.
The fourth, because heaven was due to His divine body, as its proper place, where the angels eagerly awaited it: therefore it was not fitting that it be left longer on earth than the necessity of the mission required, where it was a reproach to the Jews and a scandal to the Gentiles: especially since prolonged converse diminishes esteem and breeds contempt.
Morally, that He might teach us not to desire a long life, but to pant after heaven, and that: "Fill your years with virtues," and that of Wisdom IV, 8: "Venerable old age is not that of long duration, nor counted by the number of years: but the senses of man are gray hairs, and a spotless life is the age of old age."
Verse 3: He Showed Himself Alive
3. To whom also, — These rightly are linked with the preceding. For with these Luke explains the He was taken up, namely the manner and order of Christ's ascension and its prior arrangements, by which He proved to the Apostles that He had truly risen, and gradually disposed their minds, that they might not bear with grief His departure and going into heaven.
He showed Himself alive, — paréstēsen, that is "He stood by, exhibited, presented Himself alive again from death," namely by raising Himself, and rising by the power of His divinity, and being raised setting Himself before the Apostles alive and to be looked upon: for paréstēsen signifies both. Whence Francis Suarez, III part., tom. I, disp. xlv, sect. 2, with St. Thomas, teaches that Christ rose by the power of His divinity, as the first and principal cause, which after death remained for the whole three days hypostatically united both to the body and to the soul of Christ, and by the power of the soul as an instrument, or rather a secondary cause. For although our future resurrection will be, not from our own soul — but by the ministry of Angels; yet it was otherwise in Christ. For it was fitting that Christ's soul rise of itself, lest it should seem to need for this the help of Angels. The soul of Christ therefore was a sufficient principle, both for disposing the body, and also for collecting the parts which were scattered, indeed outside the sepulchre, such as were the blood, hairs, and other humors poured out scattered in the passion. For all these the soul of Christ led into the sepulchre, making them penetrate the stone covering it, and again be inserted into the body: which then it disposed and organized for information for its own union, and having arranged it as it were as a companion of its passions and instrument of its merits, again inserted itself into it and animated it, vivified it, beatified it, and glorified it. Furthermore this power is connatural to the soul of Christ by reason of the hypostatic union: because from the union with the Word that soul has permanent power, and by way of habit, for working such miracles. Whence the soul of Christ here behaves not as a mere instrument, but in the manner of a secondary cause, which has in itself the power of acting: thus Suarez. Wherefore the hieroglyph of Christ dying and rising is the setting and rising sun, of which likewise the symbol is the phoenix, which bird they fashioned and painted with wings outspread, that with them they might shadow forth the rays of the sun. Furthermore the riddle of the phoenix in Symposius applies to Christ:
Death is life to me; I die if I shall begin to be born. But there is something prior to me before the origin of joyful light. Thus I call the shades themselves alone my parents.
By many proofs, — by many arguments, in Greek tekmḗria, that is sure, indubitable and necessary signs and indications, as Quintilian teaches from Aristotle, in book V, chap. ix, by which Christ proved His resurrection. Such were so many of Christ's appearances, eatings, conversations, marks of His wounds, which He showed and wished to be touched by Thomas; the miracles, such as that with the doors closed, He entered to His disciples by penetrating them, and suddenly when He wished, disappeared: all of which taken together sufficiently rendered Christ's resurrection credible and to be believed, and so demonstrated His body to be not only revived, but also blessed, subtle and glorious, especially with the testimonies of the Angels and of holy Scripture being added, so that no deception or fiction could underlie them. I speak of moral demonstration and evidence, not mathematical; thus St. Thomas and Suarez, III part., Quaest. LV, art. 6, where he teaches that Christ revived showed Himself through works of threefold life, namely vegetative, while He ate and drank; sensitive, while He showed Himself to see and hear; intellective, while He spoke and discoursed on the Scriptures.
For forty days, — not continuously, but by turns and at intervals. You will ask, why precisely so many? I reply: The first cause is, because this number is perfect, and sacred and frequent in Scripture: for it is consecrated by the fast of Moses, Elijah and Christ, and many others.
The second, because on the 50th day, namely at Pentecost, He was about to send the Holy Spirit from heaven: it was fitting therefore that He should ascend there on the fortieth day, that with the Holy Spirit in heaven He might treat of His descent at that time, in which the disciples, in His absence, were preparing themselves for the coming of the Holy Spirit by prayers and sighs.
The third, that He might compensate the absence of forty hours in death by the presence of as many days, says the Gloss. For Christ died at the ninth hour of the sixth day, and rose at dawn of the Lord's day; therefore from His death until the resurrection 40 hours intervened, during which His soul was in the lower regions; but His body lay in the sepulchre only 36 hours, for after three hours from death He was buried. So holds the sense of the Church, and so teaches St. Augustine, in his Dialogue to Orosius, of the LXV Questions, Quest. XXVI.
The fourth, that the antitype might correspond to the type, namely Christ to God, Peter to Moses. For God exhibited Himself present to Moses, while for forty days He acted on Sinai and received the law from Him: it was fitting therefore that God incarnate, namely Christ, should dwell on Sion as many days with Peter and the Apostles, as new and Evangelical lawgivers, and hand down and explain the Evangelical law to them.
The symbolic cause is, that the number forty is a symbol of our pilgrimage in this world. Whence the children of Israel were sojourners forty years in the desert, tending toward the promised land: so likewise Christ for forty days as it were sojourned here, and these being completed He ascended into heaven, that in like manner He might teach us to be sojourners throughout this whole life, and as it were as pilgrims to pass through the world, and not to fix our mind on any created thing, but to dwell in heaven, where, the forty years of our exile being completed, we are to arrive. Hence again forty is a symbol of penance, purification and fasting, which being duly accomplished, with Christ we shall arrive at the heavenly Pasch and at the fiftieth of jubilee, as it were at the reward of labor and continence. Whence St. Thomas, III, Quaest. LVII, art. 1, ad 4: "By the forty days, he says, the time of the present age, in which Christ is conversant in the Church, can be understood: because man is composed of four elements, and is instructed against transgression of the Decalogue."
Morally: Christ wished gradually to wean the disciples and lead them away from His bodily presence, lest they be struck down if He suddenly ascended into heaven. Again, God wished to show how much more liberal He is in consolations than in inflicting penalties and desolations; for in return for the 40 hours of Christ's absence in death, He gave the disciples forty days of His presence. Therefore He weighed the hour of affliction with a day of consolation.
Where Christ stayed during these forty days is curious to ask and rash to define. Some probably suspect that He stayed with Elijah and Enoch in paradise, either that primeval one, Gen. ii, 8, or some similar one: both because this place and society befitted the blessed and glorious body of Christ; and because Elijah deserved this, who had stood by Him and given testimony at the Transfiguration; and because the translation of Elijah and Enoch, and the delay and postponement of beatitude, demanded this as it were by their own right, so that, since on Christ's account they remain alive on earth for so many thousand years, and are not transferred to heaven, like all other holy men, to contemplate God and enjoy Him, they might at least see the humanity of Christ revived acting on earth and enjoy its glory, and receive from Him the legation which they are to perform, and the commands which they are to execute at the end of the world, when they shall return to defend the faith of Christ against Antichrist and fall as martyrs for it: so St. Justin Martyr opines in Questions to the Orthodox, Quest. LXXV, LXXVI and LXXXV; Irenaeus, book V, chap. v; Nicephorus, book I Hist., chap. xxxi; St. Bonaventure, in Meditat., chap. xci and xcviii. St. Thomas favors this view, in III, Dist. xxii, Quaest. III, art. 2, at the end, where he opines that the souls of the Fathers who rose with Christ were in the earthly paradise; for where these were, there was Christ also.
Speaking of the kingdom of God. — The kingdom of God properly is the kingdom of heaven: for there God reigns through glory in the blessed, who reigns through power and providence over the whole world. To this kingdom God created and called men from the beginning of the world; for this is man's end and beatitude. Wherefore the theme of St. John the Baptist's preaching was this: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," Matt. III, 2. The same was afterward Christ's theme, Matt. IV, 17, and at His command of all the Apostles, Matt. x, 7. But because this kingdom of God spreads itself, and God communicates it to the Church and to the faithful and saints militant in her, hence the Church militant also is called the kingdom of God, namely spiritual, both because in her God reigns through faith, grace, and the other virtues; and because she is the way, part, and beginning of the Church triumphant, which is properly and perfectly the kingdom of God; for to her she tends and leads her faithful. And so by metonymy the Church, as also evangelical preaching, and faith is sometimes called "kingdom of God," as when Christ says: "The kingdom of God has come upon you," that is, the evangelical faith, through which God reigns in you, and which makes you members of the Church, which is the kingdom of God, that you may now belong to its dominion and kingdom. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Christ during these 40 days before His ascent into heaven spoke to the Apostles of the kingdom of God, both heavenly, namely of eternal glory and felicity in the Church triumphant; and earthly, which leads to the heavenly, namely of the Church militant: namely He taught the Apostles how they ought to institute, form, and perfect the Church.
Verse 4: And Eating Together with Them
4. And eating together. — The Greek codices vary here. Some read synaulizomenos, that is, conversing with them in the same hall and hospitality; whence also some Latin codices for convescens (eating together) read conversans (conversing). But St. Chrysostom, the Syriac, Theophylact, Oecumenius and others everywhere read synalizomenos: which the Tigurine, Erasmus and Pagninus translate as "gathering them in the same place," from the word háma or aná, which signifies a council or congregation. For Christ, about to depart, willed that all should be present, that He might say a final farewell to all, and give His last admonitions, and ascend in the sight of all. But better St. Jerome, to Hedibia, Question VII; St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius translate convescens (eating together), so that synalízomai is said from the communion of salt. For those who eat together share the same salt and saltcellar: for háls in Greek is the same as sal in Latin. For often the Latins turn the Greek aspirate into the letter S, as hýper becomes super, hys becomes sus, hérpō becomes serpo, hérpyllos becomes serpyllum, hýlē becomes sylva. Both readings and translations come to the same thing. For those who dwell in the same hospitality share the same bread of hospitality and salt, that is, are gathered together. They safely eat together. Hence Pythagoras, as Laertius testifies in his Life, judged that salt should especially be set on the table, because it admonishes us of fairness and justice, that it preserves and protects whatever it occupies, and is made of the most liquid things — water from sea and rivers. Again, salt is a symbol of friendship, because it preserves bodies and conserves them for the longest time; hence it is called the salt of the covenant, Lev. 2:13. Therefore it was customarily set before guests before other foods, by which the firmness and perpetuity of friendship would be signified. Hence some hold it ominous if salt happens to be spilled on the table. Hence the proverb: "One must not transgress salt and the table," that is, the law of friendship. For as salt coalesces from many waters and molten elements into one solid mass, so souls coming together from diverse places coalesce into one, and there is fulfilled that saying of Plato (or rather of St. Luke), mía psychḗ (one soul), as Pierius says, Hieroglyphica book XIII, chapter 10; whence Origen, on Matthew chapter 27, treating of Judas the betrayer: "He was mindful, he says, neither of the same salt, nor of the table, nor of the bread shared."
Moreover the word synalizomenos marks the frugality of the ancients, in that they added no other relish to bread than salt, just as their drink was water. Hence that saying of Diogenes, who, when invited by Crates to his hospitality, replied that "he preferred to lick salt at Athens than to feast elsewhere on sumptuous banquets." And that of Horace: "With salt and bread one will well soothe a barking stomach." The same elsewhere introduces Tigellius the singer speaking thus: "Let mine be a three-legged table and a shell of pure salt."
To the same effect is what Cicero in his book On Friendship prescribes — that with him with whom you intend to enter friendship, many bushels of salt must first be consumed together. Pliny, book XXXI, chapter 7, on the authority of Varro, testifies that the ancients used salt in place of relish, and that they ate salt with bread. Hence Homer calls salt divine, and Plato sacrosanct, on which see Plutarch in his Symposiacs, Decade 5. Hence also the Apostles ordained that on Wednesdays and Saturdays Christians should partake of nothing but bread, salt and water, as Epiphanius writes in book V, tom. I, heresy 75; indeed St. Nazianzen testifies that he himself perpetually took nothing other than these three, in Carmen 9, when he sings thus: "Brief pleasure has many troubles as companions. But to my heart / is the hard bread, pleasing relishes are afforded me by / pure salt, a simple table furnished with no labor, / then waters pour for me sober cups. / These are my supreme riches, and Christ the Author of salvation." That the ancient Anchorites and Cenobites lived on these same things is plain from the Lives of the Fathers.
The reasons were: First, "lest they should think Him a mere specter and phantasm," says St. Chrysostom. Second, that on departing He might give them an example of remarkable graciousness, friendship, humility and charity (just as He had done at the Last Supper when about to go to His death), and might fix in them a goad to imitation and reciprocal love. For who would not marvel that Christ, no longer mortal and passible, but immortal and glorious, who feeds on the food of angels — nay, of God Himself — would lower Himself to the table of the rough and poor Apostles, to common food and a cheap clay saltcellar, sit beside them, dine with them, eat the same food and salt, as a companion with companions, a friend with friends? On the other hand, Luther — not Apostolic but Apostatic and fanatical — to display the author of his gospel, boasted that he had eaten a bushel of salt with the devil. Therefore he was a guest, companion, and apostle of the devil. See our Serarius, On Luther's master. Third, that He might give a type and as it were a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, according to that saying: "Behold I dispose to you, etc., a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom," Luke 22:29-30. Hence salt is a symbol of eternity, as also of wisdom and discretion, which the Apostles eating together with Christ partook from Him, that they might become the salt of the earth. See what is said on Lev. 2:13.
From this passage many gather that Christ, shortly after the meal was finished — which usually happens at midday — ascended into heaven in full daylight and openly before all His disciples. So St. Prosper, Sentence 203, among the sentences collected from Augustine which are found at the end of tom. III. St. Augustine certainly hands down that Christ ascended at midday. Wherefore in many places there is a pious custom, from the hour of midday until the first hour after midday, to devote oneself to prayer, in memory of the Lord's Ascension, says Francisco Suárez, Part III, tom. I, disp. 11, sect. 2. For immediately upon the meal being finished, which took place at Jerusalem in the upper room of Sion, He led the Apostles out to the Mount of Olives: on which journey, and in gathering other disciples, some time was spent; soon on the Mount of Olives, bidding farewell and blessing them, He ascended. St. Prosper gives the reason from St. Augustine, in the place already cited: "The vigor, he says, of the Christian faith is initiated in three times, evening, morning and midday. For in the evening the Lord was on the cross, in the morning in the resurrection, at midday in the ascension. The one belongs to the patience of the one slain, another to the resuscitation to life, the third pertains to the glory of His Majesty seated at the right hand of the Father." As therefore He was crucified at midday, so by the merit of the cross He ascended at midday, that at the same time at which He humbled Himself to the death of the cross, He should also be exalted ascending into heaven. Hence about the same time the Venerable Bede, dying, followed Christ the Lord ascending into heaven. For Ven. Bede died on the very feast of Christ's Ascension, and that without illness, while he was at Vespers, singing: "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit," in the year of the Lord 731, in his 59th year. So says the author of his Life, and from him Baronius, in the year of Christ already stated.
You will ask, what and of what kind was this eating of Christ in His mouth and His already glorified body? I say first, the author De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae, book III, chapter 14, found among the works of St. Augustine, judges that it was an eating not real but apparent, such as was that of Raphael, Tobit 12:19, saying: "I seemed indeed to eat and drink with you, but I use invisible food and drink, which cannot be seen by men." For eating is a vital action, by which namely by the power of the soul food is transferred from the mouth into the stomach and members which the soul informs, and is digested vitally. But Raphael did not inform the body assumed, but only assisted it: whence his speaking, eating, accomplishment, etc., were not vital actions — that is, performed vitally by the soul informing the body — but exercised externally through the body and in the body as through an organ. Therefore the angel transferred food from the mouth into the stomach; but as his mouth and stomach were not a true and human mouth and stomach, so neither was his eating true and human. But it was otherwise in Christ: for Christ after the resurrection took up a true body, which the soul truly informed as before, and therefore as His speaking, vision, hearing were true and vital, so also was His eating. He transferred the food vitally by the power of His soul from His mouth into His stomach. Therefore this eating of His was not apparent but real and proper, because He used it as a sure argument of life, and consequently of His resurrection: so commonly the Fathers.
I say secondly, that this food was not digested by Christ and converted into His body, as Waldensis and Durandus hold in III, dist. 22, Q. 6, ad 2; for a glorified body cannot be nourished and grow or decrease: for it is impassible and unalterable. For, as St. Augustine says, epistle 49, Q. 1, and from him Bede: "In one way thirsty earth absorbs water, in another way the burning ray of the sun; the former by need, the latter by power." Whence it follows that this eating belongs not so much to the vegetative soul (since its actions cease in a glorified body) as to the sensitive and locomotive soul. For it is as it were a certain application of matter, upon which the nutritive faculty might exert its power, if it had need of nourishment, or were capable of it, as is a mortal body, not however an immortal one, such as Christ's was. Christ therefore by His divine power suddenly consumed this food and dissolved it into air or some matter lying nearby; or else by the dowry of subtility Christ's stomach penetrated the food, and so passed into another place than the food; and consequently excluded the food from Himself and transferred it into the place He willed: so Suárez, Part III, tom. I, disp. 47, sect. 5.
You will object: therefore the eating of Christ was not real and proper eating, such as is in us who are sustained and nourished by it. I reply, I deny the consequence; for to the notion of true and proper eating it is required and suffices that, by a vital action and organs of life (namely, tongue, teeth, jaws, throat, etc.), food taken in by the mouth be transmitted to the stomach: which is not the case in an angel, if it assumes a body. For there is in it no action of life, but only local motion through the body, to which it assists as it were a charioteer. Yet it is true that in Christ this eating was not as perfect as it is in us. For in us it is the work of the soul both vegetative and sensitive; in Christ, only of the sensitive. This eating of Christ therefore was midway between ours and that of angels. For ours is the action of the sensitive and vegetative soul; in Christ, of the sensitive, not vegetative; in the angel neither of vegetative nor sensitive, but of a soul moving locally, that is, exercising local motion about the stomach and the assumed body.
He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem. — You will ask, why did Christ send the Holy Spirit at Jerusalem and not elsewhere? I reply: The first cause was, because He suffered at Jerusalem; for He had chosen Jerusalem for His passion, Bethlehem for His nativity, says St. Leo, sermon On the Passion of the Lord, because He willed to hide His glory and to display His ignominy to the whole world, that He might teach us to do the same: but the Holy Spirit was sent by the merit of the passion; for it was fitting that where Christ had suffered ignominy, there He should also undergo glory. For the Holy Spirit was Christ's glory, and celebrated Him in Judea and in the whole world, that He might teach us to suffer ignominy, with sure hope that God will turn it into glory.
Second, because at Jerusalem — namely on the Mount of Olives, which overlooks Jerusalem — He ascended into heaven. There therefore He likewise sent the Holy Spirit, that it might be signified that He Himself was the one sending, as He had foretold and promised, and no other.
Third, because at Jerusalem Christ taught, instituted the Apostles, founded the Church. There therefore the Holy Spirit came, that He might confirm and advance all these things.
Fourth, that the Holy Spirit might signify that, with Judaism abolished (for Jerusalem was its capital), He was instituting Christianity. For at Pentecost the Apostles, full of the Holy Spirit, began to promulgate the new law. This promulgation, however, had to be made publicly at Jerusalem, that all the Jews might be able to hear and know it, and from there might learn that the old law was annulled.
Fifth, because Jerusalem was the head of the Synagogue and of the faithful people, as Rome now is. As therefore the soul is more present and flourishes in the head than in the other members: so the Holy Spirit was more present and flourished at Jerusalem (as He now flourishes at Rome, while He directs the Pope and Cardinals in the government of the Church, and while He inspires the faithful there with so great a fervor of works of charity), than in the other cities of Judea. Add that at Jerusalem was Sion and the Temple, in which the Holy Spirit is worshipped and presides.
Sixth, because in Sion reigned David and Solomon, whose son was Christ promised to them. Therefore He likewise was to reign in Sion. In Sion therefore He founded the Church, as His own kingdom. Whence she is called Sion by the Prophets, as Isa. 2:3: "From Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." And chapter 61, v. 1: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, etc., that I might preach the acceptable year of the Lord, etc.; that I might appoint to those who mourn in Sion, and give them a crown for ashes;" and often elsewhere.
Tropologically: Jerusalem, that is, the vision of peace, is a symbol of the just soul, which cultivates peace with God, with itself, and with its neighbors. For this is the seat and temple of the Holy Spirit, according to that saying: "His place is made in peace, and His dwelling in Sion," Psalm 75:3.
Allegorically: Jerusalem is a type of the Church, in which alone the Holy Spirit is and manifests Himself, according to that saying: "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them," Matt. 18:20. Therefore let no one separate himself from the Church, from his congregation, order, college, if he wishes to receive and retain the Holy Spirit. Again, let every faithful person, cleric, religious frequent the temples and public assemblies, such as litanies, sermons, conferences, etc.; for there he will sense the Holy Spirit speaking and will perceive His inspirations and gifts. Wherefore the Apostle admonishes the faithful saying: "Not forsaking our assembly," Heb. 10:25.
Anagogically: earthly Sion and Jerusalem are a type of the heavenly, in which the Holy Spirit pours out His riches and the dowries of glory upon the Blessed, who in the earthly Jerusalem were partakers of His grace and gifts, according to that of Heb. 12:22-25: "You are come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels, and to the Church of the firstborn, who are written in the heavens, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new testament, and to the sprinkling of blood which speaks better than that of Abel. See that you refuse not Him who speaks."
But should wait, — first, to sharpen in them the desire of the Holy Spirit; "for it was needful that they be held by desire of the promise, and thus receive the gift," says St. Chrysostom. Second, it was needful that our nature should appear in heaven and a complete reconciliation be made, and then the Spirit should come, by whom there should be unmixed and pure joy. Third, because "Christ did not wish His disciples, before the coming of the Holy Spirit, to go forth in public as unarmed men or as horses without a charioteer," says the same Chrysostom. For they would have succumbed to labors, temptations, persecutions, philosophers, tyrants, had not the Holy Spirit armed them, and made them unconquered, nay, the conquerors of all. Hence explaining this precept of Christ, Luke the Evangelist (24:49) says: "But sit you in the city, until you be endued with power from on high." Morally: not to the heedless, the torpid, and the sleeping, but to the watching, praying and vigilant do the Holy Spirit and His gifts come.
The promise of the Father. — It is a metonymy: the act is put for the object, namely "promise" for the thing promised. The promise therefore is the Holy Spirit promised, both by Christ and by the Father; yet for modesty's sake He calls Him the promise, not His own, but the Father's, just as in the Gospel according to St. John He calls Him a gift, not His own, but the Father's; namely because the Father is the first fount and origin of the Holy Trinity. For from Him the Son draws His deity and consequently the power of spirating, that He may, with the Father, spirate and produce the Holy Spirit. Witnesses of this modesty are these words of Christ: "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete," John 14:16, as if to say: I was the first Paraclete, sent by the Father to teach and redeem you: I have taught, I have redeemed you: my legation completed, therefore, I return to heaven: I will ask the Father and obtain that He send you in My place another Paraclete, namely the Holy Spirit, who will illuminate and perfect what I have taught, according to that of v. 26: "But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you."
Note: The Holy Spirit is the proper gift and dowry of the New Testament, namely of the Christian law and the grace of Christ: for of it He is the pledge and promise; therefore the Old Testament, namely the law of Moses, the Synagogue and the Jews, lacked Him, as being hard, earthly and carnal: if any did indeed have Him, like Elias, Moses, David, they were sons of the New Testament rather than of the Old. Hence the Prophets foretold and promised this, as Ezekiel 36: "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put in the midst of you, and I will take away the stony heart from your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in the midst of you; and I will cause you to walk in my precepts." And Jeremiah, chapter 31, v. 33: "This shall be the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and in their heart will I write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no more shall a man teach his neighbor and a man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest." Joel 2:28: "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons shall prophesy," of which in chapter 2.
Verse 5: For John Indeed Baptized with Water
5. For John indeed baptized with water. — Any Jews, indeed even the Apostles, before they were called by Christ, says St. Chrysostom, Euthymius and Tertullian (book On Baptism, chapter 12 — though Bede seems to deny this), especially Andrew and his companions, who were disciples of John. But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, — namely in the baptism of Christ. For this He opposes to the baptism of John, says St. Chrysostom, Theophylact and Euthymius on John chapter 1, who consequently judges that the Apostles, when Christ was dying, rising and ascending, had not yet been baptized with the baptism of Christ and washed by water. To this opinion accede others who think that Christ's baptism was instituted by Him not before, but after His death and resurrection, in Matt. 28:19, when He said: "Going, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." So Tertullian (book On Baptism, ch. 11), St. Jerome (Dialogue against Luciferians), Chrysostom (hom. 28 on John), and incidentally St. Thomas, Part III, Q. 73, art. 5, ad 4. But that baptism was instituted by Christ long before is plain from John 3:3, granted that it was promulgated after Christ's Ascension at Pentecost, and then began to oblige all, as is plain in Acts 2:38. So commonly the Interpreters and Doctors judge with St. Thomas, Part III, Q. 66, art. 2, where he treats this expressly. Whence we read that the Apostles of Christ, just as John the Baptist, baptized in water — with not John's baptism but Christ's — and that hence arose a dispute among the disciples about the baptism of John and of Christ, John 4:25.
Wherefore St. Evodius, successor of St. Peter in the chair of Antioch, in the epistle entitled Tò Phōs, that is, The Light, asserts that Christ with His own hands baptized of women only the Virgin, of men only Peter: but Peter baptized Andrew, James and John; and these three baptized the rest of the Apostles.
I say therefore literally that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is here called the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, by which He was poured out abundantly like water upon the Apostles, and as it were immersed and absorbed them in Himself. The baptism therefore signifies the abundance of charisms which the Apostles received at Pentecost, so much that they seemed not to be dipped, not to be sprinkled, but to be flooded, filled and inebriated. "For as he who is plunged in water and baptized is surrounded on all sides by waters, so also they were perfectly baptized by the Spirit," says Cyril, catechesis 17. So Christ contrasts His mystical baptism — the outpouring of the Holy Spirit — with the literal baptism of John the Baptist, in that the latter was given only in water, and did not confer remission of sins, grace or justice, but disposed for receiving them in Christ's baptism, by leading men by voice and gesture to penance and tears, as St. Augustine teaches on John chapter 1, tract 5, and others commonly; whereas Christ's mystical baptism would be given in the Holy Spirit, who showed Himself not in cold water but in burning fire; because at Pentecost He was about to give the Apostles a fiery heart and fiery tongues. As if to say: John baptized only in water, but I baptize not only in water, but also in the Holy Spirit. For shortly I will send upon you the Holy Spirit, who with His spirit and sanctity will so fill you up, as if you were wholly baptized and immersed in Him, that thereafter you yourselves may also baptize others in water and the Holy Spirit. So it happened. For as the Apostles baptized, the Holy Spirit descended upon the faithful, not only invisibly, but also visibly in the form of fire, etc., as He had first descended upon them at Pentecost: so St. Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Bede, Lyranus and others. Furthermore, Christ calls the sending of the Holy Spirit a baptism, because baptism signifies, first, the purgation of sins and affections, which the Holy Spirit conferred upon the Apostles and confers daily. For as water in baptism, touching the body, washes the heart, as St. Augustine says, and wipes every sin from it; so the Holy Spirit at Pentecost washed and cleansed the heart and mind of the Apostles from every sin, vice and earthly desire.
Second, the word baptism signifies full sanctification. For as baptism implants in the soul cleansed from sins faith, hope, charity and sanctity; so the Holy Spirit at Pentecost imparted to the Apostles every grace, virtue and holiness, and that in a perfect and heroic degree.
Third, the same word signifies the fullness and abundance of charisms. For as the body in baptism is surrounded and overwhelmed with water, so the Apostles were as it were surrounded and overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit and His gifts.
Fourth, it signifies ardor and zeal. For their baptism was fiery, not watery; for the Holy Spirit, sitting upon them in the form of fire, set their hearts on fire. This is what St. John the Baptist himself replied to the Jews questioning him about his baptism: "I indeed baptize you in water unto penance, but He that shall come after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire," Matt. 3:11.
Hence theologians distinguish a threefold baptism: of water (fluminis), of spirit (flaminis), and of blood (sanguinis). Of water is the common one, which is done through water. Of blood is martyrdom: for this expiates every sin, just as baptism does. Of spirit is this baptism of the Apostles, and also of those who, contrite, desire the sacrament of Baptism but cannot receive it because of lack of water or a minister. For they are justified by their contrition along with the wish for baptism, which the Spirit (flamen), that is, the Holy Spirit, breathes upon them. Finally, this baptism was the greatest miracle of the renewed world. Wherefore truly St. Chrysostom on the Acts says: "This very thing is the greatest miracle; that the whole world ran together to other miracles, drawn by twelve poor and illiterate men."
Not after many of these days, — namely on the tenth day from now, at Pentecost; but Christ did not wish to indicate a definite day to them, "that they might always be watchful, says St. Chrysostom, and more anxiously await the promise, for grace is not given, I say not given, except to one who is watchful. Do you not see what Elias says to his disciple? If you shall see me when I am taken away, so shall it be to you — that is, you shall obtain what you ask for," namely my double spirit, 4 Kings 2. "So neither was grace given immediately to Paul, but three days intervened, during which he was blind, and meanwhile he is purged and prepared by fear. For as those who dye purple first prepare with other colors that which will receive the dye, lest the bloom be diluted and faded: so here also God first prepares the solicitude of the soul, and then infuses grace. For the same cause He did not send the Spirit at once, but on the fiftieth day."
Verse 6: Lord, Wilt Thou Restore the Kingdom of Israel?
6. Therefore they who had come together, — not the Apostles alone, but also other disciples, before whom Christ ascended. "They come together at once, says St. Chrysostom, that by a certain bashfulness and reverence of the multitude they may extort what they desire to know." The word therefore hints that the Apostles thought Christ as the Messiah, after His resurrection, was now about to restore the long-fallen kingdom of Israel, and therefore was about to send the Holy Spirit to restore it, and that this was the promise of the Father through the Prophets. For Amos chapter 9:11 prophesies thus: "In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and I will rebuild the breaches of its walls," etc. And Hosea 14:6: "I will be as the dew of Israel, he shall spring as the lily, and his root shall break forth as that of Lebanon." And Joel 3:20: "Judea shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation," etc. "And the Lord shall abide in Sion." And Obadiah v. 17: "In Mount Sion there shall be salvation, and it shall be holy; and the house of Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them." Finally Gabriel the Archangel, announcing Christ's birth to the Virgin Mother of God: "The Lord God, says he, will give to Him the seat of David His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob forever," Luke 1:32.
If (that is, whether, in the sense in which Pagninus, the Tigurine and others translate) at this time (of Your resurrection, glory and triumph) WILT THOU RESTORE (in Greek apokathistáneis, that is, you restore in the present) the kingdom of Israel? — In Greek tō Israēl, that is, to Israel, as if to say: Israel has now lost the kingdom; nay, it has been transferred to Herod the Idumaean and foreigner. We know from the prophecies, especially Jacob's in Gen. 49:10, that the scepter being now transferred, the Messiah is shortly to come to restore it to Israel: will You then now perform this? For we know and believe that You are the Messiah, that is, the new and true David of Israel. They erred in this, that they thought the kingdom of the Messiah would be temporal, like that of David and Solomon, not spiritual. But this was the common error of the Jews of that age (as it is now of all). Whence John and James asked for the right and left in Christ's kingdom, Matt. 20:20; and the two disciples going to Emmaus: "We were hoping, they said, that He would have redeemed Israel," Luke 24:21. Wherefore Christ gives no solution to their direct question, because they were still incapable of it, but blunting their curiosity, indirectly and tacitly resolves the same — namely that the Holy Spirit would come, that they might intrepidly propagate Christ's spiritual kingdom by faith, in Judea and Samaria and the whole world. For the spiritual Israel is the faithful and Christian people, to which carnal Israel will be aggregated at the end of the world, when this kingdom shall become glorious and shall beatify all the Saints in soul and body forever.
Verse 7: It Is Not for You to Know the Times or the Moments
7. It is not for you to know the times, — successions, decrees and events of times.
Or the moments. — In Greek kairoús, that is, opportunities of times; so Pagninus and others; the Tigurine, "articles of times"; Vatablus, "opportunities," namely of action. Our [translator] learnedly calls them and renders them momenta, because momentum here does not signify an instant, but the weight and inclination of time. So Cicero, book V On Ends, says: "Inclinations of things and the moments of times"; and Horace book I, ep. 6: "Times decaying at fixed moments." Again Cicero, book VI, ep. 10 to Trebatius: "We will observe all moments (that is, occasions), nor let pass any place for helping and easing you." For momentum grammarians derive from moveo (I move); for momentum, or occasion, is as it were a weight moving the thing and inclining it toward the matter to be done: hence "great momenta of judgments and of the greatest affairs" are called those which have great weight and efficacy, so that the matter may incline this way or that. So also the Wise Man, ch. 11:23, said: "moment of the balance," in Greek rhopḗ, that is, the inclination, motion, propensity of the balance or scale. So we commonly say: "Favor in courts has great moment, but learning little."
Morally: God carries out the vicissitudes, beginnings, middles and ends of kingdoms and of all things by His moments and at the opportune time. For opportunity in doing a thing brings great moment and weight, ease, and grace. And if it is lacking, God provides that it be present through fitting modes of His providence, which He has stored up in the secret treasures of His wisdom, by which He causes all the successes of things and times to be aptly connected with one another, and as it were to fit together like links, so as to make an elegant chain. Wherefore Boethius, book IV On Consolation, prose 6, teaches that providence is the series of causes and things in the mind of God, which knits all things in their orders by wondrous and tight, but secret, knots: the ancients called it fate. For the Stoics said fate was a certain entanglement of preceding and following causes, and a connection like a chain. But because they judged that this, as undeclineable and unavoidable, imposes necessity and takes away liberty from the will of man and angel; hence rightly they are impious, nay foolish, who use the word "fate" even in speaking. Hear St. Augustine, tract 37 on John: "O if your heart were not foolish (fatuum), you would not believe in fate (fatum)."
So God fittingly and opportunely brought it about that the kingdom and monarchy of Cyrus and the Persians succeeded the monarchy of the Chaldeans; that Alexander and the Greeks then succeeded Darius and the Persians; that the Romans succeeded these, who would diminish the kingdom of Israel by Pompey and Augustus, by intruding the foreign king Herod, and a little later, on account of the slaying of Christ, would destroy it through Titus and Vespasian: so that with the kingdom of Israel and Judaism abolished, the kingdom of Christ and Christianity would succeed, to which Israel will be aggregated at the end of the world — and this opportunely and fittingly. For then God will send Henoch, from whom as from a patriarch the Israelites are sprung; and Elias, who was a Jew, and the most celebrated prophet of the Jews, to whom therefore announcing Christ, the Jews will believe as their own fellow-citizen and prophet, just as to Henoch, as their own father and patriarch.
By His own example God teaches us the same, namely that we should do all things opportunely, and zealously seize occasions for doing the work well, nor let them slip away. For, as Cato says: "Occasion is hairy in front, bald behind, so that, when it has passed, you cannot grasp it." And Ovid: "Medicine is effective in due times: wines given in time are useful, / and given at an unfit time they harm." The admonition of Phocylides was: "Obey the occasion, and do not breathe against the winds;" of Menander: "Occasion is much more powerful than laws, and is the cause of many things: most swiftly it changes things, and itself most swiftly slips away and flies off;" of Vegetius, book III On Military Matters, ch. 26: "Occasion in war is wont to help more than valor;" of Demosthenes, speech against Leptines: "Small occasions are the causes of great things;" of another: "Occasion is the soul of actions;" of Livy, book II, Decade 3: "Armed and intent on these things, neither fail your own occasion nor give the enemy his own occasion." So those who consort with girls give the demon occasion to tempt them with lust; those with the proud, with pride; those with gluttons, with gluttony; for if you grant him even a thread or a hair, from it he will plait a rope for you which you will scarcely break with all your strength. Antigonus replied to Pyrrhus when he was provoking him to war: "His soldiering was no more of arms than of times: Pyrrho, if when he had become weary of his life, that quite many ways lie open to perdition:" so Plutarch in his Pyrrhus; Themistocles to a young man who had neglected an opportunity: "O young man, he says, late indeed have we both begun to be wise, but we have begun." So Plutarch in his Apophthegms. The doctrine of Scipio Africanus was: "One should not fight unless either opportunity invites or necessity urges." So Plutarch in his Life. Wherefore the prudence of the Gentiles shone most of all in seizing opportunity. Pliny says excellently, book XV, chap. 24: "The mulberry, he says, sprouts last of all, and yet bears fruit among the first: so those who wait for the proper time for finishing a thing, even if they begin later, finish more quickly." The same author, book XI, chap. 6 and 10: "Bees do not perform their work on fixed days, but as often as the convenience of the sky invites them: so each opportunity must be seized in its own time." Finally St. Chrysostom, book I On Compunction: "As in bodies and pipes, unless one first checks the inflowing humour, with the fount of evil unobstructed, he does all in vain: so likewise we, unless we guard against occasion as the fount of evil." Moreover this same principle applies not only in deeds, but also in words and sayings; for a word spoken at the right time will accomplish more than a thousand spoken inopportunely. Truly the Wise Man, Prov. 25:11: "Golden apples on beds of silver, is he who speaks a word in its season." Therefore let the Christian apply these things to himself, and use every opportunity for doing good, that he may increase his heavenly gains, which he can wonderfully increase daily, if he seizes opportunities, just as the merchant seizes opportunity for trading, the soldier for conquering. For after this brief time and opportunity, there will be no time or opportunity for gaining.
Verse 8: But You Shall Receive Power
8. But you shall receive power — dýnamin, that is, might, strength, force, efficacy, which was so great in the Apostles that they subjected to Christ kings, tyrants, fierce and barbarous peoples, and the whole world, although they themselves were few, poor, untaught, of no rank. This is what Christ says, Luke 24:49: "I send the promise of My Father upon you: but tarry in the city, until you be endued with power from on high." St. Bernard says excellently, sermon 85 on Canticles: "You have need of strength, he says, and not just any, but that with which you may be clothed from on high. For this, if it be perfect, easily makes the soul victor over itself, and thus renders it unconquered against all things. For it is the vigour of soul that knows not how to yield in defending reason. Or thus: Vigour of soul, in itself, compels or directs all things according to reason," etc. "Happy the soul which, with angels looking on, presented at once joy and a marvel of itself, so that it heard them speaking of it: Who is this that comes up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her Beloved? Otherwise she strives in vain, if she leans not." And soon after: "Why should not all things be possible to one leaning upon Him who can do all things? Of what great confidence is the cry: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me? Nothing makes the omnipotence of the Word clearer than that He makes omnipotent all who hope in Him." And below: "Leaning upon the Word and clothed with power from on high, no force, no fraud, no enticement henceforth shall you be able either to cast down when standing, or to subjugate when ruling."
Of the [Spirit] coming upon [you]. — In Greek epelthóntos, in the aorist, that is, when, or after, He shall have come. For first the Holy Spirit was given personally to the Apostles, and then, existing in them and indwelling them, He poured His own power and gifts into them; just as the sun, after it has risen, diffuses its rays into the world; on which more in chapter II.
Of the Holy Spirit. — Who, of what kind, and how great this Spirit is, I shall say at the beginning of chapter II.
And you shall be to Me [witnesses]. — "To Me," that is, to My incarnation, death, redemption, resurrection, ascension, and the other mysteries which I have hitherto accomplished; as if to say: You shall teach and bear witness that I am the Son of God, who was incarnate and crucified for the salvation of men, and therefore that I am the Saviour of the world, and that men ought therefore to believe in Me in order to be saved, for outside of Me there is no salvation.
Witnesses, — through miracles, through the holiness of life, through preaching, wisdom and efficacy not human but divine, as if to say: You have seen, O disciples, O My sons, My life, you have heard My doctrine, you have beheld My miracles, journeys, labours, contradictions, torments, death, cross, resurrection; soon you shall behold My ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit; everywhere you have seen My love and zeal toward men, which drew Me from heaven to earth and to the cross: go, bear witness, and teach these things in the whole world, that men may love and care for their own salvation, just as I have loved and cared, that they may love Me back who love them: behold, I ascend, to prepare for them a place in heaven: persuade them, therefore, to despise the vain riches and pomps of the earth, to fear God's judgement and hell, and to seek and aspire after heaven. Behold of what kind and of how great worth these witnesses were to Christ.
See here the dignity of the Apostles, concerning which St. Chrysostom speaks excellently in his homily On St. Andrew, which is extant in Surius on November 30: "Nothing such, he says, ever was, as the Apostles were. These men, while being ministers of the Word of God, handled Him incarnate, who as God has no figure. They followed Him walking, who is present everywhere. They reclined at table together with Him, who is circumscribed by no place. They heard the voice of Him who made all things by His word. They enclosed the world itself with their tongue, as with a kind of net. They went round the ends of the earth in their courses. They uprooted errors as tares; they cut down altars as kinds of thorns; they slew idols as wild beasts; they drove out demons as wolves; they gathered the Church as a kind of flock; they gathered the orthodox as wheat; they cast out heresies as chaff; they dried up Judaism as hay; they burned the sect of the Greeks as kinds of stubble with fire; they cultivated human nature with the cross itself as with a kind of plough, and the word of God they scattered as a kind of seed; in sum, all their deeds shone like certain stars. Wherefore the Lord said to them with a clear voice: You are the light of the world. For the Christian man has his East, namely Him who was born of the Virgin: he has his dawn, namely Him who was the parent of baptism; he has his splendour, the grace of the crucified Christ; rays, those admirable tongues; day, that future age; noon, the time during which the Lord remained on the cross itself; west, the abode of the sepulchre; evening, that brief death; the brilliance of the sun, the resurrection from the dead. You are the light of the world. Behold these stars, and be astonished at their splendour."
In Jerusalem. — Apollonius, an ancient ecclesiastical writer, says Eusebius, book V of his History, chap. 18, at the end, "mentions a certain Thrasea, a martyr, who claimed that he had received as it were from the tradition of the elders that the Saviour had commanded His Apostles not to depart from Jerusalem before the twelfth year." But this is to be taken with a grain of salt: for it is sufficiently established from the Acts that, on account of the slaying of Stephen, which happened a little after Christ's ascension, the Apostles were dispersed; and that their division throughout the provinces of the world took place before the twelfth year, many historians and doctors teach. For 1. James, who fell as a martyr before the twelfth year, journeyed to the Spains and there evangelized, the Spanish Annals and continuous tradition constantly assert.
Verse 9: And When He Had Said These Things
9. And when He had said these things, — and the other things which St. Luke, Matthew, and Mark recount at the end of the Gospel. It is likely that Christ, after dinner was finished, having first summoned the Apostles and other disciples (whom Luke, verse 15, numbers as 120) led them out from Jerusalem through the middle of the city, with the Jews restrained by divine power, stupefied and astonished, into the Mount of Olives, and on the way turned aside into adjoining Bethany, as Luke says, Gospel chap. 24:50, in order to take leave of Magdalen, Martha, and Lazarus, and likewise led them out with Him, that He might impart to them the vision and consolation of His ascension, as being most dear to Him: so Suarez, part III, disp. 51, sect. 2. All these things easily indicate an hour spent after dinner, before Christ arrived at the Mount of Olives and there ascended, taking leave of His own. What were the most sweet and final colloquies of the God-bearing Mother and Christ, likewise His embraces of her and of the disciples, and many other things which Luke passes over in silence for the sake of brevity, we can contemplate but cannot narrate. St. Augustine, sermon 6 On the Ascension, which is 179 On the Seasons, says that the Apostles said these things to Christ (understand by heart rather than by mouth): "Lord, why do You forsake us in ascending, You who chose us by going before us on the way? Lord, when shall we receive Your words, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, from afar, and taste the balsam of Your dripping and dewy grace from Your lips and mouth? Either teach us where You ascend, or do not desert us when You ascend: as though we have been left, with the shield of Your kindness gone, naked in the open, like wards bereft of the feathered covering of an embracing mother. When will You come to us, who have redeemed us? Your death was our sin; let Your ascension be our pledge, lest we be too much overwhelmed and submerged in grief, we who, behold, [are surrounded] by the vast groans of the underworld," — and that Christ answered them through the angels sent down from Him: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven shall so come," etc. Wherefore in sermon 7 he calls these two angels two praetors and two palace-officials of the heavenly empire. "For it was fitting, he says, that heavenly consolers be sent, lest the fishermen remain afraid." Our Ludovicus de Ponte, in his meditation on the Ascension, piously and probably meditates that Christ as He went away into heaven, in order to impress upon His disciples a greater faith, hope, love, and reverence for Himself, gave them His hands and feet to kiss (so that they might touch the sacred marks of the wounds in them), from which a most sweet odour exhaled, whereby their hearts were wonderfully refreshed and strengthened: and to His mother He also offered His side to be kissed, into which she longed to hide herself, and in it to ascend with Christ. The disciples therefore with the greatest love and reverence kissed the hands and feet of Christ, just as Magdalen and her companion women had kissed them, John 20:17, and Matt. 28:9.
He was lifted up. — "He was not suddenly snatched away," as Elijah and Enoch, "not stealthily taken up, but lifted up while they were watching," says St. Bernard, On the Steps of Humility, chap. 1; the same author, sermon On the Ascension: "What grief and fear, do you think, brothers, burst upon the Apostolic hearts when they saw Him lifted up from them and raised into the air, not aided by ladders, not supported by ropes, although accompanied by angelic attendance, yet not propped up by their help, but stepping in the multitude of His strength?" "Lifted up" therefore by Himself and by His own power through the gift of agility, and that gradually and step by step, in order longer to feed the eyes of His gazing disciples. For this is what Luke means, Gospel chap. 24:50: "And lifting up His hands, He blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He departed from them, and was carried up into heaven." From which words it is clear, first, that Christ lifted up His hands, both that He might pray and call upon God to bless the Apostles; and that, by raising and lowering, or certainly by placing His hands transversely, as Jacob did, Gen. 48:14, He might form the sign of the cross, as our Greiser teaches, book III On the Cross, chap. 16. For through the merit of the cross He obtained for us every blessing. Hence the custom has grown up in the Church, that both in public and sacred Offices, and in the private blessings of Prelates, Priests, Saints or parents, he who blesses forms the sign of the cross over the one whom he blesses; which St. Basil testifies to be an Apostolic tradition, book On the Holy Spirit, chap. 27.
Secondly, it is clear that Christ blessed the disciples, that is, called down upon them the help and grace of the Father.
You will ask: for what reasons did Christ ascend into heaven soon after His resurrection. I answer: The first is, that He might confirm His law and doctrine and show them to be heavenly. For He had come down from heaven to teach them, and therefore returned thither as the only-begotten Son of God, according to that of John iii, 13: "No one has ascended into heaven, save He who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven." Whence St. Maximus, homily 2 On Pentecost: "Just as the eagle, he says, forsakes the lowly, seeks the heights, and ascends near to the heavens, so also the Saviour forsook the lowly things of hell, sought the higher places of paradise, and penetrated to the summits of the heavens."
The second, that He might unlock heaven, closed to men by Adam's sin, and show that His kingdom is not earthly and temporal, as the disciples thought, but heavenly and eternal: wherefore His followers ought to despise the earth and all earthly things. For, as St. Augustine says, Sermon 175 On the Times: "With Christ there did not ascend pride, nor avarice, nor lust; no vice of ours ascended with our Physician. And therefore, if we desire to ascend after our Physician, we must lay down our vices and sins."
The third, that He might give to His body, so humbled and afflicted on earth, its just reward and glory: for the fitting and proper place of a glorified body is heaven, not earth; the latter is the place of things subject to generation and corruption. Whence St. Augustine, Sermon 107 On the Times: "Our Samson here, he says, having taken away the gates and the dominion of hell and death, ascended through a whirlwind into heaven."
That Christ ascended gradually: for this is what is meant by "He withdrew, and was carried up." The Manichees thought that Christ had stopped at the sun's heaven, and therefore worshipped the sun as a kind of deity, drawing this from what is written in Psalm xviii, 5: "In the sun He has set His tabernacle." St. Augustine reports and ridicules this in Tract 34 on John. It is certain that Christ ascended above all the heavens. For so the Apostle asserts, Eph. iv, 10. See what is said there. It is of faith that Christ ascended to the throne of God the Father, not only as Christ is God, but also as He is man, and there sat as it were at His right hand. For so the Apostle teaches, Col. iii, 1; for because Christ humbled Himself on the cross below all creatures, He thereby merited to be exalted above all, Phil. ii, 10.
Sixth, Christ by His death unlocked heaven, which had been closed by the sin of Adam and his posterity; whence He also was the first to ascend thither. Hence too He led with Him in triumph all the souls of the holy Fathers and Patriarchs, whom He had brought out of limbo. For this is what the Psalmist says, Psalm LXVII, 19, and after him Paul, Eph. iv, 8: "Ascending on high, He led captivity captive." Moreover, the chief of them rose with Christ, as is evident in Matt. xxvii, 53, and consequently ascended with Christ in glorified bodies, as the firstfruits of His resurrection. This is what Micah ii, 13 says: "For He shall go up that opens the way before them."
Seventh, when Christ penetrated the heavens by the gift of subtlety, as Lord and King, the whole heavenly court and absolutely all the angels came to meet Him, as Sts. Cyprian, Epiphanius, and Gregory of Nyssa (in his sermon On the Ascension) and others have taught, and as is sufficiently gathered from that text, Heb. i, 6: "And when He again brings the first-begotten into the world, He says: And let all the angels of God adore Him"; and they, marveling at His glory, asked: "Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments from Bozrah?" etc., Isaiah LXIII; and they sang the words of three prophets: "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates, and the King of glory shall enter in," Psalm xxiii. Whence St. Augustine, Sermon 3 On the Resurrection: "All the heavenly hosts, he says, beheld Christ glorious by His wounds, bringing back spoils from the tyrant's camp, and admiring the gleaming standards of His divine power, they greeted Him with such resounding hymns and led Him along rejoicing: Who is this King of glory?" This is what the Psalmist exults, Psalm LXVII, 18: "The chariot of God is attended by ten thousands; thousands of those who rejoice: the Lord is among them in Sinai, in the Holy place." And Psalm xlvi: "All ye nations, clap your hands; shout unto God with the voice of joy. For the Lord is high, terrible: a great King over all the earth, etc. God is ascended with jubilee: and the Lord with the sound of trumpet."
Eighth, Bede, in his book On the Holy Places, ch. VII, testifies that the solemnity of this day, returning each year, was illuminated by heavenly prodigies in the very place where Christ ascended. "For on the day of the Lord's Ascension every year, he says, after Mass is finished, a violent gust of wind is wont to come down from above and prostrate to the ground all who are in the church. Throughout that whole night the lamps burn, so that the mountain and the surrounding places seem not only to be illuminated but even to be ablaze." Concerning the place of the Ascension I shall speak at verse 12.
And so wise and holy souls perceive. Christ therefore by ascending strengthened in the faithful the faith of beatitude and the heavenly kingdom, and sharpened their hope: "For wherever the body shall be, there also will the eagles be gathered together," Matt. xxiv, 28. And St. Augustine, Sermon 3 On the Ascension: "Christ's death, he says, gave us life, His resurrection raised us up, His ascension consecrated us." And St. Bernard, Sermon 2 On the Ascension: "Let us seek, he says, the things that are above, for there assuredly is our treasure, Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, in whom dwells all the fullness of the divinity bodily."
Secondly, that He might teach us how meritorious humility is before God, and might efficaciously persuade us of it. For, as the Apostle says, Eph. iv, 10: "He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things." Thus St. Francis by humility ascended to the Seraphim, as St. Bonaventure testifies from a vision of a certain Saint. Whence St. Bernard, Sermon 2 On the Ascension: "For you cannot ascend, he says, unless you have first descended, since by an eternal law it is established that everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. O perversity, O abuse of the sons of Adam! For although it is most difficult to ascend, and easiest to descend, they themselves both ascend lightly and descend with greater difficulty."
Thirdly, that He might teach us to perform heroic works of virtue and to endure hardships, even martyrdom, according to that of the Apostle, 2 Tim. ii, 10: "Therefore I endure all things for the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with heavenly glory"; in explanation of which he adds: "It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him, we shall live also with Him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him." God the Father, therefore, by exalting Christ to His right hand, "made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," as the same Apostle says, Eph. ii, 6. For, as St. Leo says, Sermon 1 On the Ascension: "Since Christ's Ascension is our advancement, and where the glory of the Head has gone before, there also the hope of the body is called, let us, dearest brethren, exult with worthy joys and rejoice with godly thanksgiving. For today not only have we been confirmed as citizens of paradise, but in Christ we have penetrated even to the heights of the heavens." The same, Sermon 2: "Let earthly desires not press down minds called above; let perishable things not occupy those chosen for eternal goods; let deceitful enticements not delay those who have entered the way of truth; and let these temporal things be so traversed by the faithful that they recognize themselves to be pilgrims in this valley, in which, even if certain comforts allure, they are not to be wickedly embraced but bravely passed through." And earlier: "This faith, increased by the Lord's Ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, was not terrified by chains, prisons, exiles, famine, fire, the mauling of beasts, nor by the most refined tortures of persecutors. For this faith throughout the whole world not only men, but also women, and not only beardless boys, but even tender virgins, contended even to the shedding of their own blood." And St. Gregory, Homily 29 on the Gospels: "Behold, he says, this one comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills, etc. Do you wish to know His leaps? From heaven He came into the womb, from the womb into the manger, from the manger to the cross, from the cross to the tomb, from the tomb He returned to heaven. Because He exulted as a giant to run His course, that we might say to Him: Draw us after You; we will run after You in the fragrance of Your ointments. Whence, dearest brethren, it behooves us to follow with the heart where we believe Him to have ascended in body. Let us flee earthly desires; let nothing now please us in lowly things, since we have a Father in heaven." And St. Augustine, Sermon 3 On the Ascension: "Let us ascend after Him, even by means of our own vices and passions: if indeed each of us strives to subdue them and grow accustomed to stand above them, he constructs from them a step by which he may ascend higher. They will lift us up, if they are beneath us: of our own vices we make ourselves a ladder, if we trample those vices." And St. Bernard, Sermon 4 On the Ascension: "What, he says, can seem heavy to him who always considers in his mind that the sufferings of this time are not worthy compared to the glory to come? What can he covet in this wicked age, whose eye always sees the good things of the Lord in the land of the living, always sees the eternal rewards? — for I shall pass over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God." And below: "Mount, Lord, upon this ass, trample down these bestial motions, for they must be tamed, lest they prevail to dominate; for unless they are trodden under, they will trample us; unless they are pressed down, they will oppress us, etc. Follow also the cross as it ascends, lifted up from the earth, that you may be placed not only above it, but also above the whole world by the height of your mind, etc.; let no allurements of the world incline you, let no adversities cast you down." See the same author, Sermon 6.
Fourth, that He might cheer the angels by His presence and glory and adorn heaven; for "its lamp is the Lamb," Apoc. xxi, 23. Whence too they acclaimed Him: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory," Apoc. v, 12. Add, that He might sit at the right hand of God as a companion to the Father, by whom He had been sent into this world, as Œcumenius says on chapter iii, verse 21. St. Augustine puts it splendidly, Sermon 37 On the Times: "With what marvelous mystery, he says, does our Jesus Christ — by the touch of His body or by the passage of His glory — sanctify, vivify, and illumine in a single moment every creature? For He consecrates the waters when He is baptized; He sanctifies the earth when He is buried; He raises the dead when He rises again; He glorifies the heavens when He ascends to heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father."
Fifth, that from heaven He might send the Holy Spirit and continually plead our cause with the Father, showing Him His sacred wounds. "For such a high priest it was fitting that we should have, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens," Heb. vii, 26. "Thus He, who became more distant in His humanity, began to be more present by His divinity," says St. Leo, Sermon 2 On the Ascension.
Sixth, that He might render to the Holy Trinity an account of His mission accomplished on earth, and offer to It honor, joy, and glory for the redemption of mankind now achieved. Whence St. Cyprian, in his sermon On the Ascension, asserts: "Neither by the tongues of men, nor of angels, nor by anyone's keenness of intellect can it be expressed what the Father's joy was at the return of His Son: just as if any addition to that joy could possibly have been made." And St. Epiphanius, oration On the Ascension: "Christ, he says, triumphing with immense joy, offered to the Father the sheep of human nature placed upon His shoulders, and for such a gift He obtained the gift of the Holy Spirit to give in return." And St. Chrysostom, sermon On the Ascension: "Christ, ascending into heaven, offered to the Father the firstfruits of our nature, and the Father marveled at the gift offered, both because such great dignity was offering it, and because what was being offered was defiled by no stain. For with His own hands He received what was offered, and made it a sharer of His own throne, etc. That is the nature which heard: You are earth, and into the earth you shall return." And below: "Today angels and archangels saw our nature gleaming with immortal glory upon the Lord's throne."
Morally: Christ ascended in the presence of the Apostles and disciples, as if carrying their eyes and heart (and would that ours too!) with Him into heaven, teaching us first that with the Apostles we should follow Him into the stars with the eyes of our mind, and dwell in mind among heavenly things. For He is our love; and where love is, there also are eye and heart. Wherefore the Apostle, Col. iii, 1: "Seek the things that are above, he says, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: mind the things that are above, not the things upon the earth." For our homeland is heaven, but earth is exile and a prison.
And a cloud received Him. — You will ask: what and of what sort was this cloud? First, Cajetan here and Medina, Part III, Question LVIII, article 4, judge that this cloud was not a cloud, but a splendor which Christ's body diffused from itself as He approached heaven, the like of which is found in the Milky Way. But splendor is one thing, a cloud another: the former is clear and subtle, the latter dark and dense. Add that this cloud veiled Christ, that the disciples might no longer see Him: it was therefore a true cloud.
Secondly, Abulensis, Paradox V, chapter IX, supposes that this cloud was for Christ as a seat and throne, by which partly He covered His nakedness, partly He ascended gloriously as in a litter from the earth on high, not lifted up by Angels, but by His own power. But this cloud received and hid Christ when He had been carried on high. Whence St. Augustine, Sermon 179 On the Times, calls it lofty. Therefore it did not serve Him as a seat, nor on earth, but received Him in the air; for Christ ascended upright, not seated: this position befits a glorious body. Therefore this cloud was rather borne by Christ than that it bore Him, says Œcumenius.
Thirdly, then, and genuinely, this cloud was a true cloud, but gleaming with glorious and extraordinary light, brought or produced by God for this purpose: to cover Christ's body and remove it from the Apostles' eyes, and at the same time to display by its brightness the majesty of Him who was ascending. So Suarez, Part III, disputation LII, section 2, and St. Chrysostom, who adds: "This cloud was a symbol of heaven, declaring that He ascended in the very sign of divine power, according to that of Psalm ciii: Who makes the cloud Your ascent." For everywhere in Scripture God's majesty is said to be covered and veiled by clouds. Whence also the Saints will be caught up in clouds to meet Christ in the air, 1 Thess. iv, 17. Furthermore, Christ did not carry this cloud with Him into heaven, but left it in its place in the air.
Note: Christ ascended gradually as far as the Apostles' sight could reach: then a cloud took Him from view; and immediately, like a lightning flash, by the gift of agility He launched Himself into the empyrean heaven — not as though passing from one extremity to another without traversing the middle, as Abulensis thinks (Paradox V, ch. xiii), but successively traversing each heaven with marvelous speed, so that as the supreme Lord of all things He might take possession of all and in a way sanctify them by His presence, according to Eph. iv, 10: "That He might fill all things." So Suarez, disp. ii, sect. 2. Note here the power of Christ's gift of agility: by it suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, like a lightning flash, He hurled Himself out of the air to the summit and pinnacle of the empyrean heaven — a space that is vast and almost immeasurable. Alpharabius, a noted astronomer among the Arabs, asserts that the firmament, that is, the eighth sphere in which the fixed stars are, is so distantly set from the earth that scarcely could anyone reach it in eight thousand years.
Other Astronomers teach that the earth is eighty million miles distant from the concave of the firmament: and that the thickness of the firmament itself is the same, namely eighty millions: how great then must be the distance, thickness, and breadth of the ninth and tenth heavens, and any others above them, and most of all of the empyrean heaven? The same teach that any star placed at the equinox covers each hour 42 millions of miles: that a millstone, if it should fall from the firmament, would fall for ninety years before reaching the earth: that in four thousand years you would scarcely arrive at the convex of the firmament, even if you ascended straight up daily a hundred miles, as I have shown at Genesis i, in the work of the fourth day. All these distances Christ traversed almost in a moment, and He brings it about that holy souls after death traverse them as it were in a moment also. Think on these things, console yourself with them when some labor wearies you, when a slow and sluggish body tires you in pious work.
Finally, Abulensis, Paradox V, ch. xxxiv, holds that Christ, after the resurrection, being already glorious, put on no garments at all, but always remained naked and clothed only in the splendor of His glory when He appeared to the disciples; and consequently He passed naked from earth into heaven, surrounded only by the cloud and the light. His reason is that otherwise He could not have shown the wound of His side to Thomas and offered it to be touched; for garments would have shut out Thomas's hand. But the answer is that Christ after the resurrection took such garments as did not cover or clothe the five wounds; or if they did cover them, they could easily be drawn back at the places of the wounds, so that He might show them to the disciples and prove from them that He had the same body which had received the wounds. For Christ appeared to Magdalene as a gardener, and to the two disciples going to Emmaus as a pilgrim: He had therefore an attire and garments which seemed to onlookers to be those of a gardener and of a pilgrim: therefore likewise He ascended into heaven clothed, so long as He was seen by the Apostles; but when the cloud received Him, He let fall His garments. For a glorified body is clothed by its endowment of brightness in the likeness of God, who is robed in light as with a garment, Ps. ciii. Wherefore the Blessed in heaven are clothed not in a garment but in glory.
Furthermore, that Christ ascended in a red and purple garment is the opinion of Fredericus Nausea in his Catechism, ch. xxxvi, who proves it from Isa. lxiii, 2: "Why then is Your garment red?" and Apoc. xix, 13: "He was clothed in a vesture sprinkled with blood," namely that this signifies the bloody victory of Christ won by His blood. Others judge that Christ ascended in a white robe, for this befits a glorified body. Whence Christ's garments at the Transfiguration were made white as snow; and the Blessed were seen by John clothed in white robes, Apoc. vii, 9, and in white linen, Apoc. xix, 14. But because Christ in the presence of the Apostles almost concealed His glory and showed it only sparingly, that He might converse familiarly with them and be seen and touched, I would therefore believe that He appeared to them in the common garment which He used to wear in life, so that He would seem to be the same one who had risen and not another; and that in the same garment He ascended, yet so that as He ascended He poured into it the rays of His glory, and made it shine with a brightness partly white and partly purple. For thus the endowment of brightness and light in the Blessed in heaven will be colored and varied. For in Martyrs it will be purple, in Virgins white, in Doctors green, says D. Soto on Book IV, dist. XLIX, at the end.
Verse 10: And While They Were Looking On
10. And while they were looking on, — atenízontes, that is, straining, and with eyes intent and fixed, and, as St. Ambrose says (Sermon 60), suspended: for teínō means "I stretch," and the alpha-prefix adds and intensifies the meaning. Who could express, or even conceive in mind, the admiration, joy, love, hope, and all the motions and emotions of the Apostles' souls? St. Bernard, Sermon 3 On the Ascension, adds that they wept. The Apostles' type was Elisha, as Christ's was Elijah ascending into heaven in a chariot of fire. Whence Elisha, gazing intently upon him, cried out: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the driver thereof." And: "I beseech you that a double portion of your spirit may be in me," 2 Kings ii, 9 and 12.
Two men, — two angels appearing in assumed bodies, as if two excellent and glorious men.
In white garments. — For this color denotes their purity and Christ's glory and triumph. Whence John, of the Blessed who follow Christ, says in Apoc. xix, 14: "And the armies that were in heaven followed Him in white garments, clothed in fine linen, white and clean." St. Gregory notes, Homily 49 on the Gospels: "At Christ's birth, I do not read that white-robed angels appeared: because at the Nativity God appeared as humble, in the Ascension He was shown as sublime man."
Verse 11: Men of Galilee
11. Men of Galilee. — For the Apostles were natives of Galilee, but the angels allude to the etymology and meaning of the name. For "Galilean" in Hebrew is the same as "one who migrates"; as if to say: Be Galileans! Migrate from earth to heaven in mind and life, fighting bravely against the world, the flesh, and the devil. For the Galileans were warlike and pugnacious, as Josephus attests, who as a leader of the Galileans fought bravely with them against Vespasian and the Romans, as he himself relates in his book On the Jewish War.
Why do you stand looking? — The Syriac: "Why do you stand and look up," that is, look up fixedly, as it were with firm and steady foot? As if to say: You have looked up enough: for Christ has now been removed from your eyes; you cannot see Him any longer; but know that He will return for judgment, that He may take you with Him into heaven. Therefore return home, and prepare yourselves for the Apostolic ministry which He has committed to you, and for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Morally, the Apostles teach us: frequently to look up to heaven with the eyes both of mind and of body, and to long for it, considering that in this world we are pilgrims, but that we have heaven for our homeland. For we are enrolled as fellow-citizens of the Saints and members of God's household. To the Saints therefore the earth is exile, and sōma (body) is sēma (tomb) — that is, the body is a prison, as Plato used to say: both because in it the soul is bound, oppressed, afflicted, tortured by a thousand miseries as if in a prison, even as on a rack; and because by the desires and temptations which it suggests to the soul, it creates for it a danger of damnation and hell; and because the saints aspire to their treasure and their love, namely to Christ, the Blessed Virgin, the Angels and Saints, and to the Most Holy Trinity, that by its vision they may be made blessed, and may always adore, love, and glorify it. Thus St. Martin was always gazing at heaven, and was distinguished from others by this very mark, so that he was commonly nicknamed "the heaven-watcher." Whence also, when he was about to die in a burning fever, he prayed lying on his back with his eyes intent upon heaven; and when his disciples begged him to turn his body for a while, until the force of the disease should subside, and to rest face down, he said: "Let me look at heaven rather than earth, that my spirit may be directed on its journey, since it is now going to the Lord." So Sulpitius in his Life.
St. Anthony, spending whole nights in prayer, standing in the same footprints, with the same eyes lifted on high, gazed upon the rising sun with the same eyes with which he had gazed upon its setting, says St. Athanasius.
St. Magdalene was lifted up to heaven by angels seven times daily, not only with her eyes but with her whole body, and there she heard the music of heavenly melody, as her Life records.
St. Mary of Oignies dwelt with the angels and Saints in heaven, so that she could distinguish them from one another, and even really heard the Saints themselves and conversed familiarly with them; concerning which Cardinal James of Vitry writes wonders, in chapter viii of her Life.
St. Francis gazed so constantly and so affectionately into heaven that he ascended into heaven with his body: for so great was the force of his love and desire that it lifted up with itself the mass of his body. Wherefore he is depicted treading with his foot upon the globe of the earth, looking up to heaven with this motto: "The things that are above, not the things upon the earth."
Our Holy Father Ignatius, founder of our Society, used to climb up to the rooftop terrace, where he could freely look up into heaven, and there, with his eyes fixed on heaven, he would weep abundantly and adore God. Whence that saying of his: "How sordid the earth seems to me, when I gaze at heaven!" So Ribadeneira, Book V of his Life, chapter 1.
This Jesus, — who has been and always will be Jesus to you, that is, Savior: whose mellifluous Name therefore carry continually in heart and on lips, saying: "Jesu, our redemption, our love and desire, God, creator of all, man at the end of times, what mercy overcame You, that You should bear our crimes?"
So He shall come, as you have seen Him going, — led by His own power, not by another's help, says St. Chrysostom.
Into heaven. — Here the angels press three things upon the Apostles, and they appeared to them for three reasons: first, that what the disciples could not see with the eyes of the body — namely Christ arriving in heaven — they might teach and confirm by their words; second, that they might console the Apostles and instruct them to gaze upon and await Christ by faith rather than by bodily sight; third, that they might signify that Christ had ascended to a certain unchangeable state and to fellowship with eternity. For this is what they say: "So He shall come as you have seen Him going into heaven," that is, in the same glory and majesty, and with the same soul and body, which can be altered or changed by no duration of time. These words are weighed in this way by Ignatius, epistle 40 to the Smyrnaeans, by Chrysostom and Bede on Acts, and by Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, ch. XXIV, and On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. XXXI.
Verse 12: From the Mount of Olives
12. Then they returned to Jerusalem, from the mount which is called Olivet, — from the olive trees and olives with which it is planted and fruitful, as is the Tiburtine mountain near Rome. Hence it is clear that Christ ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives. Whence elsewhere this mountain is called holy and renowned. Zechariah seems to have alluded to this (chapter xiv, verse 4) when he says: "His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem on the East." See what is said there. But why from there? I answer: First, because there He began His Passion, when praying in the garden He sweated water and blood, and soon, betrayed by Judas, was seized, bound, and dragged to Annas and Caiaphas; therefore it likewise befitted Him to end and put the crown upon His Passion and earthly life there; that where He unjustly suffered the penalty, there also His justice and innocence might be declared and glorified. Behold again, how the instruments and places of Christ's Passion are turned into His glory and triumph.
Second, because on this mountain Christ often prayed and spent the night, as is evident in Luke ch. xxi, xxii, and xxiii, just as David did when fleeing Absalom, 2 Kings ch. xv.
Third, that He might ascend gloriously in the sight of the impious and Jewish Jerusalem, which had cast Him down and slain Him, and so, with Judaism abolished, might sanction and make illustrious Christianity. For the Mount of Olives is of such height that from it can be seen almost all the streets of Jerusalem (and even the Dead Sea).
Fourth, because the olive grove and oil are a symbol of the grace and mercy which Christ bestowed upon us on this mountain in suffering and in ascending. For the same reason, in this place He as judge will sit when He returns at the end of the world to carry out the universal judgment. For this is to happen in the valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies under the Mount of Olives and stretches in a small space between it and the city of Jerusalem, so that the unbelieving and impious Jews, who spurned the oil and honey of His Passion and Ascension, may there feel and taste the vinegar and gall of His wrath and vengeance.
Fifth, because the Mount of Olives, just as the olive itself, is a symbol of the Church and of the Saints. For the olive is a symbol of peace, concord, modesty, obedience, almsgiving, splendor, and eternity — all of which qualities belong to the Church and to the Saints, as I have shown at Jer. xi, 16; Zech. xiv, 4; and Apoc. xi, 4.
Note three continuous miracles by which on the Mount of Olives God illuminated Christ's Ascension. First, Christ, as a memorial of Himself and of His Ascension, imprinted upon this rocky mountain, as upon wax, and left imprinted, the vestiges of His sacred feet, which by no means could be effaced through so many centuries, and there even now they remain intact and visible, although pilgrims for the sake of devotion approach, that they may carry away with them as if relics small particles of earth as it were sanctified by Christ's feet. So St. Jerome, in his Places of the Hebrews; St. Paulinus, epistle 11 to Severus; Sulpitius, Book II of his Sacred History; Bede, On the Holy Places, ch. vii; recent Geographers, and pilgrims to the Holy Land. Furthermore, these vestiges of Christ are turned toward the West, and look toward the Catholic Roman Church gathered from the Gentiles, to which He, as her Head, was about to send, as twin and illustrious eyes, St. Peter, His Vicar on earth, and St. Paul, the Teacher of the Gentiles. So Adrichomius and others, in their Description of Jerusalem.
Second, the place from which Christ ascended has never allowed itself to be covered, paved, or adorned with marble, the ground always rejecting and casting off whatever human hands tried to set upon it in their zeal to ornament it, as St. Paulinus, already cited, attests.
Third, in the same place there was afterward erected a round and magnificent temple in honor of the Ascension by St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, which contained within it the footprints of Christ; whose roof, in that portion through which Christ's body ascended, could never be roofed over or vaulted, but His passage from earth to heaven remains continuously open, as we see at Rome in the Pantheon. So St. Jerome and Bede in the place already cited. Add a fourth: of wind and breeze, which I have recounted in Bede's words at verse 9.
Furthermore, St. Athanasius — or rather Anastasius (for in Questions III and VIII he cites Epiphanius and Gregory of Nyssa, who were later than St. Athanasius) — in his Questions on Holy Scripture, Question XXXVII, teaches that Christians worship God and Christ by turning themselves to the East for this reason: because Christ ascended on the Mount of Olives, which is to the East of Jerusalem. He brings forward there two other reasons. The first is that the sun rises in the East: whence in that direction we do not venerate and invoke the sun, as the ancient Romans and Gentiles did, but God the author of the sun, who as it were shines forth upon us with the sun, that He may prosper for us all light and the whole day. The second is that, mindful of paradise — which was in the East, Gen. xxviii according to the Septuagint, and from which we fell through sin — we may pray to be restored to it.
Finally, many think that Antichrist, the rival of Christ and of His Ascension and glory, will on the Mount of Olives be lifted up on high by the help of demons, so that he may seem to be ascending into heaven; but Christ will strike him down and slay him with the breath of His mouth, 2 Thess. ii, 8.
A Sabbath day's journey, — that is, distant from Jerusalem by such a space as the Jews on the Sabbath were allowed to cover by walking. (For the Sabbath was prescribed for the Jews with such religious strictness that they were not allowed to undertake any journey except a small one, as is clear from Ex. xvi, 29.) Many judge this to have been two miles. A mile is a space of a thousand paces; the Syriac translates "seven stadia," that is, 875 paces. But that this journey was less is clear: both from Josephus, who in Book VI of the Wars, ch. iii, asserts that Jerusalem is distant from the Mount of Olives by five stadia, but from its summit by six — and a stadium contains 125 paces, so five stadia make 625 paces; and from St. Jerome, epistle 151 to Algasia, Question X, where from R. Akiba, Simeon, and Hillel he defines the Sabbath day's journey as a walk of two thousand feet — where by "feet" he means not paces, as some would have it, but feet as the word sounds: now five feet make a pace; therefore two thousand feet make 400 paces; and from Origen as cited by Œcumenius, who says the Sabbath day's journey is a measure of two thousand cubits, and a cubit is a foot and a half: two thousand cubits therefore make three thousand feet, which make 600 paces; and from William, Archbishop of Tyre, who in Book VIII of the Sacred War, ch. xi, says that the Mount of Olives is a mile distant from the city of Jerusalem.
This view is favored by the fact that Joshua, ch. iii, verse 3, commanded that the people advancing to battle should be distant from the ark by a space of two thousand cubits: namely because this was a Sabbath day's journey, which on any day, even the Sabbath, the Levites could complete and approach the ark when there was need. This agrees with the opinion of Josephus, who counts 625 paces from Jerusalem to the foot of the Mount of Olives, but to its summit, from which Christ ascended, counts six stadia, which make 750 paces. The Sabbath day's journey is therefore half an Italian mile, plus 200 or 450 paces. St. Chrysostom thinks that the phrase "having the journey of a Sabbath" is added because Christ ascended on the Sabbath day, as if to say: Granted that Christ ascended on the Sabbath, it was nevertheless lawful for Him to go that day with the Apostles to the Mount of Olives, because that journey is small and permitted on the Sabbath. But it is certain that Christ ascended on Thursday — for if from Passover you number forty days, you fall upon Thursday: and Christ ascended on the fortieth day from His resurrection.
Furthermore, in what month and on what day Christ ascended is not certain, and the Doctors disagree, because they disagree in fixing the day of Christ's Passion and Passover. For many think that Christ suffered and died in April: some on the 16th, some on the 2nd, some on the 3rd; more in March: some on the 7th, some on the 23rd, some on the 30th. The more common opinion — that of St. Augustine, Book XVIII On the City [of God], last chapter; Tertullian, Against the Jews, ch. viii; Chrysostom, sermon On the Nativity of St. John the Baptist; St. Thomas, on John ch. ii; Antoninus, Platina, Usuard, and Suarez, Part III, disp. xl, sect. 5 — is that Christ suffered and died on March 25, just as on the same day He was incarnate; and consequently rose on March 27, ascended into heaven on May 5, and sent the Holy Spirit on May 15. The same is expressly affirmed by Lucius Dexter, prefect of the praetorium, in his Chronicle, which he dedicates to St. Jerome, just as in turn St. Jerome dedicated to him his treatise On Ecclesiastical Writers: this Chronicle, eagerly sought by Baronius and many others, was finally rediscovered after Baronius's death and edited.
Verse 13: When They Had Entered into the Upper Room
13. And when they had entered into the upper room, they went up. — So the Roman editions punctuate. But from the Greek it is clear that the punctuation should be different, and that the comma should be placed after entered, not after upper room. For thus the Greek has it: Kaì hóte eisēlthon, anébēsan eis tò hyperōon, hoû ēsan kataménontes, hó te Pétros kaì Iákōbos, etc., that is: And when they had entered (namely the city or rather the house), they went up into the upper part of the house, where Peter and James, etc., were staying; which reading is clear and gives a plain sense. For the ancient Hebrews, equally with the Romans, lived in the upper part of the house, and there had ample halls for banquets, gatherings and suppers, which they accordingly called coenacula (upper rooms). Whose this house and upper room was is not certain. Nicephorus, bk. I of his History, ch. xxviii, and Cedrenus think it belonged to St. John the Evangelist; Theophylact, on Matt. xxvi, judges it was Simon the leper's; Euthymius in the same place says it was Joseph of Arimathaea's, or Nicodemus's, or some similar powerful Christian man's. More probably Baronius, in the year of Christ 34, judges it to have been the house of Mary, mother of John surnamed Mark, who was the cousin of Barnabas, to whom Peter, freed from prison, betook himself, and where he found the rest of the disciples gathered for prayer. The same Alexander also testifies in the Life of St. Barnabas: "In that upper room, he says, the Lord kept the Passover; in it He appeared to the Apostle Thomas after He had risen from the dead; thither, after He had been received up into heaven, the disciples with the rest of the brethren — one hundred and twenty, among whom were Barnabas and Mark — came together from Mount Olivet; thither the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples in tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost. There now stands the great and most holy Sion, the greatest of all churches." St. Jerome, epist. 27, mentions the same church set on Sion, and Bede in De Locis Sanctis, ch. iii; and they add that in it was placed the column to which Christ was bound and scourged, of which I have said more at the end of the Chronotaxis. The Roman Martyrology favors this, which on March 25 marks the day of death of St. Latro, namely St. Dismas, for he was crucified with Christ on the same day and in the same place.
Hence it is clear that this upper room (coenaculum) was on Mount Sion, near the citadel of David. Adrichomius adds, in Descriptio Jerusalem, n. 6: "In this same upper room, by Peter's first sermon, three thousand Jews were converted and baptized. There also James, the Lord's brother, surnamed Justus, was made first bishop of Jerusalem by the Apostles, and Stephen and the other six Deacons were ordained; there the Apostles seem to have celebrated the first Council (Acts xv) and, at their dividing, to have published the Apostles' Symbol of the catholic faith. In the same place St. Helena built a most ample temple, in whose porch she enclosed the upper room; afterward in the place of this upper room a monastery of the Franciscans was built, etc. The Turks have made for themselves a palace out of their monastery, and they hold this place in such veneration that they do not enter it except unshod."
Peter. — Peter both here and elsewhere is consistently named first by the Gospel, because he is first of the Church and head of the Apostles. So St. Chrysostom and many others.
James of Alphaeus, — namely his son, who was surnamed Justus, and was the first bishop of Jerusalem, whose feast the Church celebrates on May 1. For the earlier James, the brother of John, was the son of Zebedee.
Simon Zelotes, — that is the Cananaean; for the Hebrew קנא (cana) means to be zealous: hence Cananaeus is the same as Zelotes. So Gagneius. Baronius adds that he was so called from his homeland, namely from Cana of Galilee: whence, with Nicephorus, bk. VIII, ch. xxx, he conjectures that this Simon was the bridegroom at the marriage in Cana of Galilee (John ii. 1), from whom Christ called him away to the apostolate. Whatever the case about the bridegroom, it seems plain that this Simon was called Cananaean from his homeland Cana; but because Cananaean in Hebrew means the same as Zelotes, and this fit Simon, since he burned with zeal, as St. Jerome says (epist. 53 to Riparius), hence he was likewise surnamed Zelotes, just as Cephas was called Peter, because the rock of the Church: as if you were to designate a St. Gregory as Vigilantius (Watchful), or a Theodore as Deusdedit (God-given), or a Phrontiscus as Prudentius. So Rome was originally called Valentia; for rhṓmē in Greek means the strength in which the Romans excelled: so Pliny, bk. III, ch. v, and Solinus Polyhistor, ch. i.
Jude of James. — Supply: brother. This Jude is elsewhere surnamed Thaddaeus, as it were "breasted": for tad in Syriac is the same as Hebrew שד sad, that is breast; elsewhere Lebbaeus, that is little heart (for in Hebrew לב leb means heart), just as Scipio Nasica was called Corculum ("little heart") for his outstanding wisdom, as Cicero attests in Tusculan I; or little lion (for he is so called לבי labi). There were therefore these four brothers, namely James who is called the Less, or of Alphaeus, or the brother of the Lord; Joseph, Simon and Jude (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark xv. 47): all kinsmen of Christ, of whom He chose three as Apostles — James, Simon and Jude. So many think; but this is to be discussed at Matt. ch. xiii, v. 55. The other things that could be said concerning the calling, order, office, dignity, and life of the Apostles, belong to ch. x of St. Matthew.
Verse 14: These All Continued with One Mind in Prayer
14. These all continued with one mind in prayer. — Note here the three virtues to which the Apostles devoted themselves, that they might dispose themselves for the coming of the Holy Spirit: the first is prayer; the second, unanimity; the third, perseverance. For these provoke and attract the Holy Spirit to themselves, as being divine and most dear to Him. Add a fourth: familiarity and devotion toward the Blessed Virgin, of whom there follows: "With the women and Mary the mother of Jesus." For she, since she is daughter of God the Father, mother of the Son of God, spouse of the Holy Spirit, obtains whatever she wills. For what would a daughter not obtain from a father, a mother from a son, a spouse from a spouse? Note: For perseverantes, the Greek has proskarteroûntes, which means to be assiduous, to persist, to insist upon some arduous and prolonged matter, and not to depart from it, but to endure and bravely overcome the troubles, labors, fatigues, tedium, temptations, etc., which either the difficulty of the matter, or the enemy's craftiness, or the weakness of nature suggests — such as we experience in prayer, especially long and continuous prayer, by which the human mind is stretched like a bow and continually extended toward heavenly and divine things.
With the women, — of whom the standard-bearer and chief in love and fervor was St. Magdalene.
And Mary the mother of Jesus. — As if she were the matron of this sacred assembly and family of Christ. For Christ, the head of the family, going away into heaven, therefore left on earth His most loving Mother, that in His place she might be as it were mother of the Apostles and of all the faithful.
St. Bernard wonders that she is set here in the last place: "Was it so, he says, that she even then put herself forward as the last of women, that she should be set as the last of all?" He gives the cause: "Since Mary was so much greater, she humbled herself not only beneath all but even before all. Worthily she was made first who, being first of all, made herself last. Worthily she was made the lady of all who showed herself the handmaid of all. Worthily, finally, she was exalted above the angels, who with ineffable meekness bent herself even below widows and penitents, below her from whom seven demons had been cast out. I beseech you, little children, emulate this virtue, if you love Mary, if you strive to please her." So he, in the sermon On the Words of Apoc. xii, "A great sign." With these words agrees the likeness of the Blessed Virgin which Nicephorus (bk. II, ch. xxiii), drawing from ancient images and from Epiphanius, paints thus: "The character, form and stature of her were such (as Epiphanius says): She was in all things modest and grave, speaking very few words and only what was necessary, easy of access and most affable, showing her honor and reverence to all: of middle stature, though there are some who say that she somewhat exceeded the middle height. She used a becoming freedom of speech toward all men, without laughter, without disturbance and especially without anger; she was of a complexion resembling wheat, with golden hair, sharp eyes having pupils somewhat tawny like olives in color; her eyebrows were arched and decently dark, her nose rather long, her lips blooming and full of sweetness of words; her face was not round, nor sharp, but somewhat longish, her hands and likewise her fingers rather long. She was, finally, free from all pomp, simple and never feigning her countenance, drawing nothing of softness with her, but cherishing pre-eminent humility; with the garments which she wore she was content with their natural color, as the holy veil of her head shows even now. And to put it briefly, in all her affairs there was much grace divinely present." In a similar way then Luke here sets down and depicts the Blessed Virgin, such as she was in herself, and such as she showed herself: least, because she bore herself as the least; lowest, because she presented herself as the lowest. This holy matrons of households imitated, like St. Monica, who "was a handmaid of Thy servants, O Lord, etc. Thus she took care, as if she had borne them all; thus she served, as if she had been born of them all," as St. Augustine says, Confessions bk. IX, ch. ix. And St. Paula, of whom Jerome says in her Epitaph: "That which is the first virtue of Christians, she cast herself down with such humility that one who had not seen her, and had longed to see her for the celebrity of her name, would not believe it was she, but the last of little maidservants. And though she was surrounded by frequent choirs of virgins, in dress, voice, habit, and gait she was least of all."
And His brethren, — namely the kinsmen both of Jesus and of Mary; for the Hebrews call these brethren. These kinsmen, then, were faithful, and believed in Christ. Hence they joined themselves to the Apostles, and with them awaited the Holy Spirit.
Verse 15: In Those Days Peter Rising Up
15. In those days Peter rising up. — Here is the other part of the chapter, in which Luke recounts the substitution of Matthias in Judas's place. Here Peter begins to exercise his office and primacy, and performs his first act; namely, he sees to it that the Apostolic college, diminished by Judas's fall, should be restored and completed by the substitution of another Apostle. For he knew that the care not only of the faithful but also of the Apostles had been committed to him by Christ, as their president and chief, when he heard from Him: "And thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren," Luke xxii. 32. St. Chrysostom, homily 3, marveling at this pastoral and watchful solicitude of Peter, says: "How fervent he is, how well he knows the flock entrusted to him by Christ! How he is foremost in this choir, and everywhere first of all begins to speak!" And further: "He first of all assumes authority in the business, as one who has all in his hand. For to him Christ said: 'And thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.'" Oecumenius follows St. Chrysostom: "Peter rises, he says, and not James, as being more fervent and as the one to whom the presidency of the disciples was committed." This is what the word "rising up" signifies — namely, first, as it were standing forth before the rest, eminent, and higher in standing and rank. Second, rising up as one about to preach and to act concerning the affairs of the whole college and of the Church, that he might rouse the attention of his hearers and call the minds, faces and ears of all to himself, and might be conveniently and easily approached by each one. Third, the "rising up" signifies the pastoral vigilance of Peter, as one who like a shepherd stands erect and looks around and surveys the whole flock. Fourth, it signifies confidence of mind and loftiness, that as the vicar of Christ he dares to take upon himself His office, to succeed Him, and to fill up and perfect the assembly of the Apostles begun by Him. Fifth, by rising up in the zeal of modesty he showed honor to the whole assembly of the Apostles and of the Church, and saluted them, and especially the Blessed Virgin, who was present, says St. Chrysostom. So a teacher about to begin a lesson rises and salutes his disciples.
In the midst. — Symbolically the word "midst" denotes the golden mean, in which the pastor and prelate must excel, that among subjects who are of differing — indeed contrary — disposition, judgment and will, he should bear himself as a middle one, leaning by affection and favor toward no side, but showing himself to all impartial, benevolent and friendly — indeed a father — and so binding and uniting in himself all those who differ among themselves, just as the head unites in itself all the senses and members of a man. See what was said on Habakkuk ch. iii, v. 1. Second, the "in the midst" hints at the modesty by which St. Peter, though superior to the others, nevertheless bore himself among them as a brother rather than as a father, following the example of Christ, whose Vicar he was, who says (Luke xxii. 27): "I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth." Golden is the maxim of St. Bernard: "If you are eminent, be as one of the flock."
For St. Peter could alone, as Chrysostom teaches, have chosen the successor of Judas and designated the twelfth Apostle; but he did not wish to, both that he might show that he did not lord it over the clergy but rather give and initiate an example of moderate governance; and that he might add greater weight to the one elected, and procure for him greater love and reverence, as one chosen by the vote of the rest; and finally, in so great a matter, that he might inquire God's will through the suffrages and lots of the Church. For to constitute an Apostle properly seemed to belong to God. Wherefore the Supreme Pontiffs, by St. Peter's example, do not easily decide anything of greater moment, especially concerning matters of faith, except by the counsel and decree of bishops gathered for it from the whole world in an Ecumenical Council. For the Holy Spirit fully and plainly assists the head of the Church when that head is joined to its members and to the whole body (which the bishops represent). For the whole Church is the one and uniquely beloved spouse of the Holy Spirit. Hence again in early times only those were ordained bishops whom the people had requested, that they might be the dearer to the people, and the people the dearer to them. Hear St. Leo, epist. 87 or 89: "Let the votes of the citizens be awaited, the testimonies of the peoples, the judgment of the honored, the election of the clergy; which things are wont in the ordinations of priests to be observed by those who know the rules of the Fathers." To the peoples, then, belonged the votes — that is, desires and testimonies — but to the clergy alone the right of electing.
And there was a multitude of men. — In Greek onomátōn, that is, of names, namely of persons ("heads") who are reckoned by name. It is a metonymy. Similar is Apoc. iii. 4: "Thou hast a few names" — that is, persons and men — "in Sardis." See what is said there. Climacus writes that from these 120, on whom the Holy Spirit descended, fourteen heresiarchs proceeded. Our Salmeron cites Climacus on that text 1 John ii. 19: "They went out from us, but they were not of us;" but in Climacus I have not so far found this very thing. Surely St. Paul (xx. 30) says: "From your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." So great is the weakness, inconstancy and vanity of men, even of holy men.
Verse 16: Men, Brethren
16. Men, brethren: — First, St. Peter calls the Apostles brethren, because all the Apostles were equal in their Apostleship and as it were brothers, even though he himself was their president. Thus the Pontiff calls the Cardinals and Bishops brethren. Second, he calls all the rest of the faithful brethren by kinship — not of flesh but of faith, of regeneration, of baptism, not of the womb. Brethren, then, that is Christians. Thus all Christian women were called and called one another sisters. Thus Paul throughout the Epistles calls the faithful brothers and sisters. The reason is that Christ founded the Church as His family, in which He willed that the faithful should be most closely conjoined to one another and should love one another as brothers, having the same Father Christ, the same Mother the Church, the same womb of baptism, the same house — namely the temple — the same table of the Eucharist, the same education, the same Sacraments, the same heavenly fatherland, etc. The word "brethren," then, denotes the highest conjunction of the faithful and the mutual sharing of all good things. For, as Aristotle says (Ethics bk. VIII, ch. xi): "To brothers are common parents, womb, blood, birth, upbringing, house, distinction of family, family property, patrimony, discipline, morals." Wherefore the Psalmist worthily exults (Ps. cxxxii): "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together! Like the ointment on the head," etc. Hear Tertullian, Apology ch. xxxix: "That we call ourselves brethren, he says, they reproach for no other reason, I think, than because among themselves every name of blood is feigned in affection. But we are also your brothers (O Gentiles) by the law of nature of one mother, though you are scarcely men, because bad brothers. But how much more worthily are they both called and held brothers who have acknowledged one Father — God; who have drunk in one Spirit of holiness; who from one womb of the same ignorance have started up to one light of truth?" etc. "From family substance we are brothers, which among you mostly breaks up brotherhood. Therefore since we are blended in mind and soul, we have no hesitation about the sharing of property: all things are undivided among us except wives." And Minucius, in the Octavius: "We are called brothers, he says, as men of one God the Parent, as sharers of faith, as co-heirs of hope."
Who was guide, — not as a captain, but as a guide of the way: for this is what the Greek hodēgós properly means. Hence Pagninus translates "guide of the journey"; Vatablus, "the one pointing out the way."
Verse 17: He Obtained Part of This Ministry
17. He obtained part. — As if to say: Judas, as it were by lot, or by lot obtained a portion (sors), that is a share — namely the twelfth place in the ministry, that is, of our apostolate. Note: The apostolate is here called a "lot" (sors), because to each of the Apostles this dignity came not by nature, not by lineage (as the high-priesthood came to the firstborn descendants of Aaron by right of primogeniture), not by right, not by merit, but by the mere good pleasure and grace of God, who without any merits of theirs chose these twelve out of so many millions of men, called them and co-opted them as His ambassadors and Apostles by His good pleasure — so that on God's part there was a determined will and decree to choose these, not others; while on the Apostles' part it was a most happy chance and lot; just as if God had cast dice over them and the fortunate throw had fallen upon them: because they themselves had no right, merit, rank or order toward the Apostolate. In a similar way Saul was made king by lot from a herdsman, and David from a shepherd. So every believer is by lot — that is, by grace, not by merit — called from unbelief and sin to faith and the worship of God, according to that of the Apostle: "Who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light," Col. i. 12. And: "In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will," Eph. i. 11. Therefore let the believer not be proud of his faith, nor the just man of his righteousness, nor the bishop of his episcopate, nor the Apostle of his apostolate, because this good lot fell to him not from his own worthiness but from the mere grace and liberality of God, who deigned to choose and call them to it, while infinitely many others — more noble, more learned, better, more suitable, etc. — were passed over.
Hence it is clear that Judas shared not only the rank of apostolate but also the ministry, and consequently preached the Gospel, cast out demons, worked miracles, just as the other Apostles did when sent by Christ through Judaea and Galilee. So St. Augustine, bk. III Against the Letters of Petilian, ch. lv; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 7; St. Leo, serm. 16 On the Passion of the Lord. Nazianzen adds, in Christ Suffering: "That by the words of His teaching He begot many sons." He was therefore at first not only holy but also, by zeal for his preaching, sanctifying others, until, made treasurer by Christ, he began to have and to love the moneybags, and from that became a thief and the betrayer of Christ. So Tertullian, On the Soul, ch. iv, and others.
For "lot" (sortem) the Greek has klēros: whence Clergy and Clerics are so called who, set apart from the laity as the Lord's lot and inheritance, are deputed to His special worship and to the service of the Church for the procuring of sacred things. Hence when clerics are made by the bishop and receive the clerical tonsure, they hear and learn from him to say daily that of Psalm xv. 5: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup: it is thou who wilt restore my inheritance to me." For just as of old the Levites had no inheritance among their brethren, but the Lord — that is, the Lord's offerings and victims — was their inheritance (Num. xviii. 6, 23), so in the new Testament the lot of the clergy is God and God's worship and service, that they may accordingly learn not to seek goods on earth but in heaven. Wherefore St. Jerome, to Nepotian: "Let the cleric, he says, first interpret his own name, and once the definition of the name has been brought forward, let him strive to be what he is called. For if it is called klēros in Greek or sors in Latin, therefore they are called Clerici either because they are of the Lord's lot, or because the Lord Himself is the lot — that is, the portion — of clerics."
Tropologically: learn here that there is no fellowship so holy that it does not have its dregs, its blemish. What wonder? Christ in His own assembly, in His own family, had Judas. Hear St. Augustine, purging his own monastery of a scandal that had happened in it (epist. 137): "However much, he says, the discipline of my house may be vigilant, I am a man, and I live among men; nor do I dare claim for myself that my house should be better than the ark of Noah, where among eight persons one reprobate was found; or better than the house of Abraham, where it was said: 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son'; or better than the house of Isaac, to whom it was said of his two twins: 'Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated'; or better than the house of Jacob himself, where the father's bed was defiled by a son; or better than the house of David himself, whose son lay with his sister, whose other son rebelled against his father's so holy gentleness; or better than the cohabitation of Paul the Apostle, who nevertheless, if he had dwelt among all good men, would not have said what I recalled above: 'Without are fightings, within are fears'; nor would he have said when speaking of Timothy's holiness and faith: 'I have no man who is so genuinely solicitous for you; for all seek their own things, not the things which are Christ's'; or better than the cohabitation of the Lord Christ Himself, in which eleven good men tolerated the treacherous and thieving Judas; or better, finally, than heaven, from which angels fell." Then he adds a noteworthy testimony: "But I simply confess to your charity in the presence of the Lord our God, who is witness over my soul, that since I began to serve God, how hard it has been to find better men than those who have made progress in monasteries, so I have found none worse than those who have fallen in monasteries; so that from this I think it is written in the Apocalypse: 'Let the just be more just, and the filthy be filthy still.' Therefore even though we are saddened by some purgings, we are nevertheless consoled also by many ornaments. Do not therefore, on account of the lees by which your eyes are offended, detest the wine-presses from which the Lord's storehouses are filled with the fruit of more luminous oil."
Verse 18: And He Indeed Possessed a Field
18. And he indeed possessed a field. — Judas properly did not possess the potter's field, because he gave back the price, and going away hanged himself; but with it the priests bought the field for the burial of strangers: yet he is said figuratively to have possessed it, namely because he possessed the price, with which the field was afterwards bought. Since, therefore, this field was procured with Judas's money, hence Judas is said to have possessed it by catachresis. For by right what is bought with my money is reckoned mine. Whence St. Gregory, Moralia bk. I, ch. ix: "He possessed, he says, that is, he caused it to be possessed." And in Greek it is ektḗsato, which the Tigurine version renders "prepared"; Oecumenius and Vatablus, "acquired," by the priests' purchase. Differently Rabanus: "he possessed," namely because Judas was buried in it. But this is uncertain, and does not satisfy: for one buried does not possess the whole field or cemetery, but at most his own grave and slot. Finally John Alba in his Chosen Texts, ch. xcviii: "He possessed the field with the wages of iniquity," that is, he says, the field was possessed or bought from the wages of his iniquity. So in ch. viii: "In humility his judgment was taken away," that is, he was taken away by humility of judgment, or by humble judgment, or by abject punishment, that is, by a shameful and most abject death. A similar hypallage is at Eccli. xlix. 18: "His bones (Joseph's) were visited, and after death they prophesied," that is, Joseph prophesied concerning them (namely his brothers) being visited by God after his death, and concerning his bones being carried into Canaan, gave them charge. For in Genesis l he says: "God will visit you, carry up my bones with you." Thus Alba.
Of the wages of iniquity. — The thirty pieces of silver of Judas, with which the field was bought, are called "the wages of iniquity," because they were the wages and price of the betrayal and selling of Christ, which was the highest iniquity: namely, the highest simony, the highest sacrilege, the highest parricide, indeed Christ-murder and God-murder. For with that price Christ was sold to the cross and to death.
And being hanged burst asunder in the midst. — For "hanged" the Greek has prēnḕs genómenos, which Beza and Bullinger render "he cast himself headlong"; for they think Judas ended his life not by a noose but by a fall. But they err; for at Matt. xxvii. 5 it is expressly said of him: "And going away he hanged himself with a noose," in Greek apḗnxato, that is he strangled himself: so the Syriac. Therefore the prēnḕs genómenos render literally with Oecumenius, Erasmus, Vatablus and many others as "headlong," or "with the head cast down and prone to the ground," as St. Augustine reads (bk. I Against Felix the Manichaean, ch. iv) — which is the posture of those who are hanged; or, "hurling himself down." For it seems Judas, the better to hasten his death, with a rope inserted on his neck and fastened to a tree, hurled himself from it, so that by the strong force and swing of his heavy body he might immediately tighten the noose around his neck, and so suffocate himself.
Theophylact adds (on Matt. xxvii. 5) that Judas, the noose having broken, survived, and at length after Christ's resurrection ended his life by a fall. "Know, says Theophylact, that he indeed put the noose about his neck, and as he hung from the tree, with it bent down he survived, God willing either to preserve him for repentance, or for ridicule and disgrace. For they say that he labored under dropsy, so that he could not pass through a wheel-rut, and then fell forward or was thrown headlong, and burst asunder in the midst, that is was torn apart, as is said in the Acts." Others add other things from Papias, Oecumenius and Euthymius on Matt. xxvii — that Judas, the noose having burst, survived Christ, his body however swollen, and so when he could not move, was crushed and torn apart by an oncoming wagon. But these things agree little with St. Luke here, and with St. Matthew (ch. xxvii. 5), who says: "Going away he hanged himself with a noose;" in Greek apḗnxato, he strangled, that is suffocated and killed himself. For "being hanged he burst asunder in the midst," as follows. I say therefore that Judas, after returning the silver pieces, in order to free himself from the anguish of conscience, immediately hanged himself, and by the hanging strangled himself, so that by the weight of his body, or rather by the vengeance of the deity, he burst in the midst; "that the knot of the noose might kill the throat through which the voice of betrayal had gone forth," says Bede; and that his sacrilegious soul might go forth not through the mouth by which he had perfidiously kissed Christ, but through his bowels, like a beast or wild animal torn apart. In a similar way the blasphemer Arius, like another Judas, poured out his impious soul with his bowels and through his bowels into the privy, as Nazianzen says in his oration on St. Athanasius.
Furthermore Juvencus the poet and Bede in De Locis Sanctis, ch. iv, write that Judas hanged himself from a fig tree which in his time still stood at Jerusalem. The common opinion among us, says Mariana, holds that he was hanged from an elder tree: namely at Rome they used to hang dogs annually from an elder, because they had not barked when the Senonian Gauls were creeping into the Capitol, as Pliny says, bk. XXIX, ch. iv. And that tree is fit for hanging, both because of its hardness, as the same Pliny attests in bk. XVI, ch. xxxix; and because it is fruitless, and therefore among the unhappy trees which they appointed for hanging the guilty, according to that of Livy, bk. I: "Go, lictor, veil his head, hang him on an unhappy tree."
From the fall of Judas we learn first, how great an evil is avarice; for this was the cause of his crime and betrayal. Second, how deeply those fall who stand on a high step and slip down from it, so that of them it may be said: "They are raised on high, that they may fall with a heavier crash." It is commonly said: from the sweetest wine, if corrupted, comes the most sour vinegar; from Lucifer, the devil; from an Apostle, an apostate; from a monk, a heresiarch; from a saint, a scoundrel. Third, how great a sin is despair. For Judas sinned more by despairing than by betraying Christ; for despair drove him to the noose and to gehenna: "For as breath is shut off by a noose, so the Holy Spirit is shut off by despair," says St. Augustine (homily 27 of the 50). Wherefore St. Leo, sermon 16 On the Passion: "Thou, he says, most impious man, seed of Canaan and not of Judah, no longer a vessel of election but a son of perdition and death, didst believe the devil's promptings to be more useful to thee, that, inflamed by the torches of avarice, thou shouldst burn for the gain of thirty silver pieces, and not see what riches thou wert losing." And soon after: "Whence the crime of thy bargain is not to be detested for this reason, that thou didst esteem the Lord cheaply, but because thou didst sell thy own Redeemer, that thou mightest spare thyself. And rightly was thy punishment committed to thee, because for thy own torment no one could be found more cruel than thyself."
Verse 19: Haceldama, the Field of Blood
19. Haceldama. — In Syriac חקל דמא chakal dema, and so this field seems to have been called; for the Jews after the return from captivity did not speak pure Hebrew but corruptly and half-Chaldee, that is, in Syriac or Syro-Chaldee. So Pagninus, in his Hebrew Names.
That is, the field of blood. — This interpretation of the Syriac name was not added by St. Peter, as Hugo would have it, since he was speaking to Syrians in Syriac, but by St. Luke, who, writing in Greek to Greeks, interpreted by Greek the Syriac word Haceldama. This field was called, first, "of the potter"; because from its clay potters formed potter's vessels. Second, "the field of Judas," because purchased with Judas's money, as I said at v. 18. Third, "of blood"; because bought with the price of Christ's blood — and this by God's counsel, that, when they wished to bury and conceal their crime and the purchase under the appearance of piety, the field itself should be a perpetual monument of their homicide, indeed of their Christ-murder; that, as often as they named the field of blood, so often they should remember Christ's blood shed by themselves, says St. Chrysostom, and should know that this blood was to be expiated by no other blood than their own — as was done by Titus and the Romans.
Verse 20: Let Their Habitation Become Desolate
20. For it is written (Ps. lxviii. 26): Let their habitation be made desolate. — As if to say: Let the impious city of the parricides, indeed of the Christ-killers, namely Jerusalem, in which they themselves dwell securely as if unconquerable, be taken, burned and laid waste by Titus and the Romans. The same Christ predicted to them, groaning and weeping: "Behold, your house shall be left to you desolate," Matt. xxiii. 38.
And his bishopric let another take. — Here St. Peter combines two verses from different psalms. For the former is found in Ps. lxviii. 26; the latter is read in Ps. cviii. 8. For "bishopric" the Hebrew has פקדתו pekuddato, that is his prefecture, his rule and primacy — namely the apostolate of Judas — "let another take," that is, Matthias. Note: in the whole of Ps. cviii David imprecates harsh things on the betrayer Judas, and on the Jews in the type and person of Doeg his betrayer before Saul, as St. Augustine and Theodoret teach there. Wherefore it is full of threats and curses, and indeed some count as many curses as Judas had received pieces of silver — namely thirty. The first is at v. 6: "Set thou a sinner over him," as if to say, set up over him an impious judge and tyrant, to judge him sharply and punish him. The second: "And let the devil stand at his right hand," as if to say, let the Devil — that is, the slanderer — stand by him, to accuse him before the judge and to condemn him as guilty of death. Again, in the divine judgment let the devil properly receive power over him, accuse him, hold him, hurl him down, harass him and drive him to the rope. Thus Satan entered into Judas, John xiii. "The Devil, says St. Augustine on Ps. cviii, stood at the right hand of Judas when he preferred avarice to wisdom, money to his own salvation, in order to betray Christ; and thus he refused to be possessed by Christ, but by the devil." Third: "When he is judged let him go forth condemned" to present and eternal death. Fourth: "And let his prayer become sin," that is, an offense — as if to say, the prayer of so impious a man, now as if condemned and despairing, praying for remission not so much of guilt as of punishment, may rather offend and exasperate the judge, both man and God. So Theodoret renders the Chaldaic, "Let his prayer be unto condemnation." What good is to be expected for him to whom nothing remains but prayer, which is turned into torment for him — indeed, into sin? Fifth: "Let his days be few." So Judas survived his betrayal by but a few hours, and immediately hanged himself. Sixth: "And his bishopric let another take." See and compute the rest. Episkopos in Greek is the same as éphoros, that is overseer, superintendent, guardian, watcher, who attends and watches over some matter as a Prefect: for the office of a bishop is episkopeîn, that is, to attend to the matter committed to him. Whence at II Esdras xi. 22 Azzi is called "Bishop," that is overseer and prefect "of the Levites." And Cicero was bishop of the coast of Campania; for so he says, bk. VII, ep. to Atticus: "Pompey wishes me to be, since this whole Campania and the maritime coast has a Bishop, to whom the levy and the chief business may be referred." And the emperor Arcadius, Digest On Offices and Honors: "Those, he says, are properly called Bishops, who preside over bread and other things sold publicly."
Verse 21: During All the Time the Lord Jesus Went In and Out Among Us
21. Who have been assembled with us. — Pagninus and the Tigurine version: "have lived with."
During all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, — that is, during which He lived among us; this is a Hebraism: for among the Hebrews, to go in and to go out signifies the whole course and conduct of life, namely all actions, words, gestures, and deeds. Secondly, to go in and out before an assembly or people is to preside over them, to lead and govern them. For it belongs to a leader to go out before the people, like a shepherd leading his sheep; thus Moses says, Deuteronomy 31:2: "I can no longer go out and come in," that is, lead and govern the people. And Solomon, II Chronicles 1:10: "Give me, he says, wisdom and understanding, that I may go out and come in before Your people;" explaining which he adds: "For who is able to judge this Your people, who are so great?" To go in and out, therefore, is the same as to judge and rule the people.
Verse 22: Beginning from the Baptism of John
22. Beginning from the baptism of John. — For from there began the Gospel and the deeds of Christ. For John in his baptism announced and pointed out Christ to all, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world," John 1:29; and therefore Christ willed to be baptized by him, and from there to begin His preaching.
A witness of His resurrection. — An Apostle, therefore, is the same as a witness of Christ's resurrection, and consequently of His other mysteries and deeds, which terminate and conclude in the resurrection as in their end and goal. For Christ was born, suffered, and died for this purpose: that He might rise again, and by His resurrection abolish sin and death and raise us from them, according to Romans 4:25: "Who was delivered up for our offences, and rose again for our justification." See what is said there. For at first this article of the resurrection was most difficult to believe: hence the Apostles emphasized it most, and once it was believed, easily persuaded others of the rest. Therefore St. Peter wishes such a one to be chosen who is conscious of all the deeds of Christ from the baptism of John until the ascension into heaven, and who can be a witness of these as well as of the resurrection, so as to testify and say: "Behold, He who ate, who drank, who was crucified, the same has risen," says St. Chrysostom.
Verse 23: And They Appointed Two — Joseph and Matthias
23. And they appointed. — The Apostles and the rest of the faithful by common consent named from the whole number two more excellent in faith, virtue, and knowledge of the affairs of Christ; then they set them apart as candidates for the Apostolate, that they might cast lots over each, which would designate the Apostle. All these things were done under the direction of St. Peter, who was the leader of this whole work. Hence St. Augustine, in book I Of the Acts with Felix the Manichean, chapter IV, for "they appointed" reads "he appointed," namely Peter with the Apostles and through the Apostles. Moreover, both were of the number of the 72 disciples, says Bede following Clement of Alexandria.
Joseph. — This Joseph appears to have been the brother of James the Less and of Jude the Apostles, and the son of Alphaeus and Mary, and therefore a kinsman of Christ. Hence among the matrons standing by Christ crucified, this one is named "Mary the mother of James and Joseph," Matt. 27:56. This Joseph was afterwards made Bishop of Eleutheropolis in Palestine, says Dorotheus in his Synopsis; he is recorded among the Saints in the Roman Martyrology, on July 20, in these words: "On the same day, the birthday of Blessed Joseph, who was surnamed Justus, whom the Apostles together with Blessed Matthias set up to fill the place of the Apostolate of Judas the betrayer; but when the lot fell upon Matthias, he nevertheless devoting himself to the office of preaching and sanctity, and enduring much persecution from the Jews for the faith of Christ, rested in Judea with a victorious end; of whom it is also reported that he drank poison and suffered nothing harmful from this on account of the faith of the Lord." St. Dionysius mentions the same one, chapter 11, saying: "That very divine peace and tranquillity which St. Justus (for Joseph was surnamed Justus) calls silence."
Who was called Barsabas. — Barsabas is the same as son of Sabas, just as Barabbas is the same as son of Abbas; Bartimaeus is the same as son of Timaeus, Bar-jona is the same as son of Jonas, or John: for the father of St. Peter was called John, and by contraction Jonas. Whether the same should be said of this Barsabas, namely that his father was called or surnamed Sabas, is uncertain. For "sabas" can be taken as an appellative, not as a proper name, signifying either an oath, or satiety, or return, so that Barsabas is the same as son of an oath (just as Bersabee is the same as well of an oath, Genesis 21:31), or of satiety, or of return, or of conversion: so St. Jerome and Pagninus, in the Hebrew Names. This Barsabas is different from Barnabas, the cousin of St. Paul, who was likewise called Joseph, Acts 4:36.
Who was surnamed Justus, — from his outstanding justice and sanctity, just as his brother James was surnamed by the same the just and the brother of the Lord. For "Justus" is not Hebrew, as Bede and others think, but a Latin name, and is properly either a first name or a surname, just as today many have the name Justus: wherefore in Greek he is likewise called Ioustos. Thus the Evangelists, writing in Greek, use many Latin words as if they were Greek. Such are praetorium, flagellum, colonia, legio, sudarium, census.
See here how the just and holy are not always more suited to prelatures. For he is more apt who has the talent of ruling and governing, which consists more in prudence and grace than in sanctity, as St. Teresa used to say, who consequently wished Superiors to be elected prudent and discreet rather than holy, if either were lacking.
Many think this Joseph was the brother of St. James the Less, Simon, and Jude: for St. Matthew suggests in chapter 13, verse 35, that these four were brothers; and therefore Christ did not will the lot to fall upon him, both lest He seem to prefer so many of His own kinsmen over outsiders; and lest four brothers be at the same time in the college of the twelve Apostles: just as the Canons take care that a father and son not at the same time hold a benefice in the same Church; and many Chapters refuse to admit several brothers into their college of Canons, lest they conspire among themselves and wish to dominate the rest, and thus stir up factions and schisms.
Matthias. — Matthias in Hebrew is the same as מתן יה mattan ja, that is, gift of God, or one given by God. Hence Bede thinks his name was an omen that he was to be given the apostolate. Hence the name Matthias is almost the same as Matthanias and Nathinaeus: indeed Pagninus calls Matthias none other than Matthanjach. The same is the name with a doubled letter thau, Matthathias, who was the father of Judas, Jonathan, and Simon the Maccabees, and means the same as gift of the Lord, or slaying of the Lord; for he himself slew the leader of Antiochus out of zeal. Indeed Matthias was similar in zeal to Matthathias, indeed superior. Bede and others add that Matthias in Hebrew is the same as little one of God, because he was the last of the Apostles, and because he was raised to the apostolate by the merit of humility, according to that saying of Christ, Matthew chapter 11, verse 25: "I confess to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones:" But I do not see how Matthias is the same as little one of God, unless you say that by the exchange of the letter m with p (because both are labials) Matthias is the same as Pethias: for pethi in Hebrew means a little one; or certainly that Matthias is composed of מה אתה יה ma atta ja, that is, what art Thou, God? What art Thou, Lord, what am I? Thou the abyss of being and of all good, I the abyss of nothing and of all evil. Thus Michael is the same as who is like God? Clement of Alexandria, book IV of the Stromata, thinks Matthias was Zacchaeus, who was called by Christ from the sycamore tree and made one of the 72 disciples, and afterwards substituted by the Apostles for Judas and made an Apostle, was called Matthias. But since Zacchaeus was a chief of the publicans, as appears from Luke 19:2, many think he was a Gentile: for this name and office was infamous among the Jews; but the Apostles of Christ were all Jews, none Gentiles. So thinks Tertullian, book IV Against Marcion, 37, with whom St. Cyprian seems to agree, epistle 63 to Caecilius, St. Ambrose and Bede on Luke chapter 19. But St. Jerome refutes this argument, epistle 146, from the fact that St. Matthew was a publican, and yet a Jew, and therefore an Apostle: again the publican who went up to the temple to pray with the Pharisee was a Jew, Luke 18:10. Wherefore Euthymius, Lyranus, Cajetan, Montanus, Jansen, Salmeron, and Barradius hold that Zacchaeus was a Jew, in Luke chapter 19, both because in the same place, verse 9, he is called "son of Abraham;" and because he says to Christ: "If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore fourfold," which was a precept to the Jews, Exodus 22:1, not to Gentiles.
Verse 24: Thou, Lord, Who Knowest the Hearts of All
24. And praying they said. — The Apostles teach that common and public prayer must precede the election of a Pastor and Bishop, that God may grant the most worthy; for from him depends the salvation or perdition of the flock. Thus Christ, about to designate the Apostles, spent the whole night in prayer, Luke 6:12. Thus the Council of Trent, session 24, chapter 1, commands that, when the Bishopric is vacant, public prayers be appointed throughout the whole diocese for the election of a good Pastor.
Who knowest the hearts of all. — The Greeks call and invoke God in a single word more significantly, kardiognōsta, Lord, inspector of the heart, who alone inspects and sees through the recesses and depths of the heart, that is, of the mind, who searches all its hiding places, who sees through the free and secret thoughts, counsels, desires, intentions of every mind, even though often veiled, disguised, and unknown to the mind itself; and therefore Thou knowest best who is most apt for this office of the apostolate. For men are often deceived in choosing, because they look only at outward things and cannot see hearts, in which often many things lie hidden which make a man most worthy or unworthy of the pastorate and office: God therefore alone is kardiognōstēs, not man, not angel.
Show whom Thou hast chosen. — These two, Joseph and Matthias, seem to have been almost equal in gifts, says the Gloss; or to have stood as exceeding and exceeded, so that, although one surpassed the other in one thing, yet in another he was surpassed by the same, so that the Apostles did not know which should be preferred to the other; therefore they invoked God, that He might designate the more apt. For they knew that they, as the new Church of Christ, were close to His heart and care, and that He would be present in a matter of such importance; and just as He had once chosen the eleven Apostles, so now He would point out the twelfth. They sensed this confidence inspired in them by Him, and therefore they pray confidently, not doubting that they would obtain their wish, and what they pray for they would obtain.
Verse 25: That He Might Go to His Own Place
25. To take the place. — In Greek klēron, that is, lot, concerning which see verse 17.
From which Judas by transgression fell. — Pagninus and the Tigurine version translate, "whence Judas by transgression fell away," that is, from which by transgression (namely betrayal, despair, and self-strangulation) Judas fell away. It is a metalepsis. In Greek ex hēs parébē, which some translate, "from which he wandered," so that parébē is put for parexébē, and parábasis for parekbasis, that is, digression, alteration. For our vocation and state is as it were a road and a course, in which we run straight to the goal, that we may obtain the prize of heavenly glory: from which they wander who tend into trackless ways, and turn and bend their course elsewhere.
That he might go to his own place, — worthy of himself, namely into the noose he tied for himself, says Oecumenius; or, into hell; because hitherto he had occupied a place not his own, and by his own demerits he made the place of damnation his own, says Cajetan. St. Bernard subtly says on Psalm 90, sermon 8: "To his own place, that is, he says, that suspended in the air he might burst as the colleague of the aerial powers; inasmuch as the true God and likewise true man, who had come from heaven to work salvation in the midst of the earth, this betrayer of His, neither did heaven receive nor did earth sustain, according to that saying: If not in the heavens, stand wherever you wish."
Was Judas then in his own place, when he was in the apostolate? Not at all: for as Cajetan says, "he went to his own place, because hitherto he had occupied a place of apostolate and ministry not his own." For although he seemed distinguished by the apostolate, in reality he did not have the apostolate, because he was not using it as he ought. So plainly also pastors who do not attend to ruling their sheep have nothing less than the pastoral dignity, from which they themselves cast themselves down by their own carelessness and sloth. Wherefore St. Bernard, in his sermon to pastors gathered in synod, on that Davidic saying: They were confounded, because God despised them, Psalm 52:6, addresses pastors thus: "And you, he says, are confounded in your acts: not honored, but burdened with your dignities, because God despised you." Take these things as said morally: for it is certain that literally Judas had a true apostolate, and impious pastors have a true pastorate.
Verse 26: And the Lot Fell Upon Matthias
26. And they gave lots to them. — The Syriac, "and they cast lots"; Pagninus, "and they gave their lots"; the Tigurine, "and they sent forth their lots"; for in Greek it is autōn, that is, of them in the genitive, not to them in the dative.
You ask first, what and of what kind were these lots? I answer: Some, like Gagneius, think it was a scrutiny of votes. Our Salmeron and Sanchez agree, who think the Apostles prayed that God would illuminate their minds and declare to whom He wished them to give their vote, and that this is called the lot. They prove it from the fact that for "he was numbered with," the Greek is sygkatepsēphisthē, that is, he was co-opted by common ballot. But thus it would not have been a lot and a casting of lots, but an election: nor would the lot have fallen upon Matthias, but he would have been made an Apostle by right of votes.
Secondly, St. Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 5, part III, whom St. Antoninus, Turrianus, Baronius, Sanchez, and others follow, thinks it was a certain divine sign; but what kind it was, he does not explain. "It seems to me, says Dionysius, that Scripture called the lot something divine and of an excellent gift, by which he was introduced into the most sacred choir, who was declared by divine election." St. Antoninus, part I, title 6, chapter II, thinks it was a ray sent from heaven onto Matthias, just as Pope Gregory the Great and some others were pointed out by a ray of light. Dionysius the Carthusian thinks it was a dove descending from heaven onto Matthias, just as St. Fabian was made Pope by the descent of a dove. Others think it was the gift of prophecy or wisdom breathed upon Matthias.
If you object: How then are the Apostles said to have given them lots? I answer, in this sense, that the Apostles predetermined this sign by divine instinct, saying: Upon whom the ray, or the dove from heaven shall descend, he by God's judgment will be an Apostle; and then they prayed God Himself to show and bring forth these lots, just as Eliezer the servant of Abraham did, seeking a wife for Isaac, and by the sign of the offering of the water-jar he recognized and chose Rebekah, Genesis 24:14. In a similar way, the Gentiles called the oracles and answers of their gods lots, because they were given by the gods and their priestlings, as the consultant by lot, and often through divinations. Hence in Valerius, book I, to be commanded by lots is the same as to be commanded by oracles.
But to give or cast lots signifies not this, but something far different, as is clear to anyone from the common signification and use of the terms. For in a lot the outcome is fortuitous and is expected from chance, that he should win upon whom the lot has fallen as a fortunate die. I say therefore that the Apostles cast lots properly so called, as the words sound, and that the lot fell upon Matthias. Moreover, by what means and in what manner these lots were cast is uncertain. Our Lorinus and Mariana think that the name of Matthias was inscribed on one paper and the name of Joseph on another, and so each was thrown into an urn and mixed together, so that whichever was drawn out first would be the Apostle; and that the name of Matthias was drawn out first.
We know that there were various reasons and methods of casting lots among the ancients. For, Proverbs 16:33, into the bosom were thrown little papers, dice, balls, or pebbles; in Homer, Iliad I, into a helmet; in Plautus in Casina, into a bucket; in Cicero, book IV Against Verres, into a water-jar; in Virgil, Aeneid VI, into an urn. In what way and method the Apostles used, is uncertain: it is certain that God through it declared Matthias, both by directing the lot to fall upon Matthias, according to that saying of Proverbs 16:33: "Lots are cast into the bosom, but they are disposed by the Lord;" and by adding some heavenly thing, e.g. a ray or something similar, by which He would confirm the lot, as St. Dionysius and the others already cited think. Likewise St. Augustine, sermon 2 on Psalm 30, and Origen, homily 23 on Joshua; and this lest Matthias be inferior to the rest of the Apostles, who had been chosen by Christ Himself. This is clear from the prayer of the Apostles preceding the lot, by which they asked God to designate the more suitable: but there is no doubt that God heard this common prayer of the Apostles and the Church and made them obtain their wish. Wherefore this lot was human, if you regard the Apostles casting lots; the same was nevertheless divine, if you consider the ballot which God added to it. For this St. Dionysius says, who certainly knew that lot best. And thus this third opinion is to be joined with the second.
You ask secondly, with what conscience the Apostles entrusted so great a matter to the lot, that is, to chance and fortune? Some, from the Gloss, answer first that they did rightly, because the candidates for election were equal in external endowments: for then a matter can be decided and determined by lot. Hence St. Augustine, epistle 119, chapter 20, and epistle 180, teaches that it should be decided by lot which priests should assist the faithful in time of persecution, and which should flee. The same is to be held in time of plague or similar necessity. In the same way Plato decrees, On the Republic, dialogue 5, that the equality of the lot should be used in the republic to avoid the offenses of many, so that we should invoke God and good fortune in prayers, that they themselves direct the lot to that which is most just; for God is the moderator of fortune, and indeed He Himself is active and fortune-bestowing fortune. And Plutarch, in the Morals: "As in a democracy, he says, to whom command falls by lot, he ought to command; so in the life of men what the lot has given, must be taken in good part."
Secondly, the Apostles followed the examples of Holy Scripture. For thus Saul was made king by lot, I Samuel 10:20. Thus Achan was detected by lot, Joshua 7:16. Thus the promised land was divided by lot among the 12 tribes, Joshua 15, etc. Hence St. Jerome on Jonah chapter 1; St. Augustine, sermon On St. Matthias; St. Chrysostom and Bede here, and St. Thomas I II, Question 95, article 8, think that the Apostles, still rude and inexperienced, did this from the custom of the Fathers of the Old Testament, before they had received the Holy Spirit, and therefore after receiving Him did not do this in the election of Deacons, chapter 6, just as now every lot in the elections of Pastors and Ecclesiastics is forbidden by Canon Law, as is clear from chapter Ecclesia, on divinations, near the end. For by the law of nature, divine and human, to benefices, especially those having the care of souls attached, the worthier must be chosen, as the Council of Trent decrees, session 24, chapter 18 On Reform; and the same is taught throughout by Theologians with St. Thomas, whom our Lessius cites and follows, book II On Justice, chapter 34, doubt 14. In a similar way the Romans, although Gentiles, passed a law that no priest should be made by lot or price, as Dio relates, book II of Roman History.
Thirdly and genuinely, the Apostles cast this lot lawfully, because they did so by divine instinct, by which God tacitly promised that He would manifest His will through it, and would designate the more suitable. So our Lessius, book II On Justice, chapter 43, doubt 9, in whom see more on the division and variety of lots, which of them is lawful, which unlawful. For in a similar way God commanded Samuel to give lots for the making of Saul as king, and Joshua for the apprehension of Achan and for the division of the holy land, of which I spoke a little before, and St. Francis to take by lot the sayings of Holy Scripture which first occurred in the Gospels, and to take them up as a rule of life, as St. Bonaventure relates.
Excellently St. Augustine, sermon 2 on Psalm 30, explaining that saying: "In Thy hands are my lots": "A lot, he says, is a thing indicating the divine will in human doubt." And presently he interprets the lot as the grace of God: "Because in a lot, he says, there is not election, but the will of God. For where it is said, This one does, that one does not do, merits are considered, and where merits are considered, it is an election, not a lot. But when God finds no merits of ours, by the lot of His will He made us safe, because He willed, not because we were worthy. This is the lot."
And the lot fell upon Matthias. — From this lot, that Matthias was the first Cleric, and that Clerics took their origin and name from him, St. Augustine thinks on Psalm 67: "For both Cleri, he says, and Clerici I think were called from this, who are ordained in Ecclesiastical grades, because Matthias was elected by lot, whom we read was first ordained through the Apostles. For Clericus is so called from klēros, that is, lot, because by lot he is admitted into the lot of the Lord." Isidore agrees with St. Augustine, book II Etymologies, chapter II, and St. Antoninus in the place cited a little before, although it seems otherwise to others. Indeed we do not read of any Cleric older than Matthias; and from this opinion the name of Clergy began with the Apostles, indeed from the Apostles, and the first cleric was an Apostle.
Morally: First, by this lot Christ taught that, in election to ecclesiastical offices, He does not wish account to be taken of consanguinity. For He preferred Matthias, an outsider, in the Apostolate to Joseph His own kinsman. Secondly, that each one ought to await his vocation from God and be content with it: just as Joseph did not grieve that Matthias was preferred to him, nor on that account became more sluggish in preaching the Gospel, but served Christ equally vigorously in other duties, as I said above. For many having suffered rejection from a bishopric or office, have brought in schism or heresy. As Tertullian, Novatus, and in our age Luther. Thirdly, the apostolate and similar preeminences and grades do not fall under merit of condignity: for God chose Matthias and the other Apostles by lot, not by merit.
In a similar way other heroes sent by God for the defense or reformation or illumination of the Church, such as Sts. Augustine, Jerome, Basil, Chrysostom, Benedict, Bernard, Dominic, Francis and the like, were chosen for this by lot, that is, by the grace of God. Yet they disposed themselves to this grace and merited it congruously by their profound humility, acknowledging themselves to be plainly unworthy and unfit for so great a work, and that they were destined to it by the lot and gift of God (which is what the name Matthias means, as I said). Wherefore St. Francis, when asked by many what grace or goodness he had on account of which he had been exalted by God to so great a height of sanctity and authority, that he drew the whole world to himself and to love and veneration of himself: For you, they said, are not noble, not rich, not learned, not eloquent, not handsome; why then does the whole world run after you? He answered: For this reason God chose me to this, because I have nothing in which I can glory, that He might show this work to be not of man, but of God.
Let us imitate his humility and join to it an immense zeal for propagating the glory of God, and God will accomplish great things through us. Thus David was made so great a Prophet and Psalmist, because he felt and said: "In Thy hands are my lots," Psalm 30:16. Thus the impious in admiration will say of the Saints despised and humbled in this life, but on the day of judgment exalted and glorified: "These are they whom we once held in derision and as a parable of reproach. We fools accounted their life madness, and their end without honor. Behold how they are numbered among the Sons of God and their lot is among the Saints," Wisdom 5:3. Whence late repenting and groaning they add: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth," etc. Rightly have you erred, because you said: "Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither, let there be no meadow which our luxury shall not pass through," etc. "This is our portion, and this is our lot. Let us oppress the poor just man," etc., Wisdom 2:9. On the contrary, "Blessed is the barren and undefiled, etc., and the eunuch, who has not wrought iniquity with his hands, nor thought wicked things against God. For there shall be given to him the choice gift of faith, and a most acceptable lot in the temple of God," Wisdom 3:13. Wherefore Ecclesiasticus admonishes, 17:24: "Know, he says, the justices and judgments of God, and stand in the lot set forth and of the prayer of the most high God. Go in unto the parts of the holy age with the living and those who give praise to God." As if to say, Stand and constantly persevere in the lot set before you, that is, in your vocation, both of new life and of a certain holy state. Likewise persist in the lot of prayer, that is, that you frequently pray to God and obtain grace, by which you may worthily live your vocation. For this is the most useful prayer, if you continually pray in all things: Lord, direct me by that lot, that state, those ways by which You foresee me to live holily, and to come with unstumbling foot straight to heaven and the lot of the Blessed. "Go in unto the parts," as if to say, Through good works advance, that the part of the holy age, that is, the future heavenly glory may fall to you, and so begin it here by praising God in mouth and work, with the just who still live and give praise to God. For in the heavens the praise of God will be perpetual.
And he was numbered. — In Greek, sygkatepsēphisthē, that is, he was co-opted by common ballots, as if to say, All with one voice praised and approved the divine lot, and through it the election of Matthias. Vatablus translates, "he was added by votes to the number of the eleven Apostles"; Pagninus, "he was added by votes to the eleven Apostles." Whence you should not rightly conclude that the lot of Matthias was the votes, but that votes were added to the lot. Matthias therefore was elected by a threefold ballot: first of the lot, secondly of God and the divine sign, thirdly of the Apostles praising the lot and the ballot of God.
Add that sygkatepsēphisthē by catachresis is transferred to any election, and signifies the same as to be chosen, to be reckoned, to be numbered, as Our [Vulgate] translates, whether this be done by votes, or by lot, or by another method.
I saw and venerated at Trier the relics of St. Matthias in the cathedral church, to whom these titles are assigned, which St. Antoninus recounts in the place already cited: "He was most learned in the law of the Lord, pure in body, prudent in mind, sharp in solving questions of Holy Scripture, provident in counsel, ready in discourse, performer of many signs, with hands stretched out to heaven, as a martyr he rendered up his spirit to God." Clement of Alexandria recounts three axioms of St. Matthias. First, book II of the Stromata: "We must admire present things," namely that we should admire the visible works of God, and from them ascend to the invisible, admiring and contemplating in them God's majesty, power, wisdom, and goodness. Second, book III: "If a neighbor has sinned with the elect, the elect has sinned. For if he had so conducted himself as the word or reason commands, his neighbor would have so revered his life that he would not have sinned." Thus the contemporaries of St. Bernardinus, even while he was still young, revered his sanctity so much that in his presence all composed themselves to modesty and said: Be silent, Bernardinus is present. Third, book VII, which Eusebius also cites, book III of the History, chapter 29: "We must fight against the flesh, and yield nothing at all to its pleasure and lust; but the soul must be nourished with the food of wisdom, and with the meals of knowledge always be increased to greater things."