Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Saint Peter restores walking to a lame man; thence he teaches the people that he had wrought this miracle not by his own power, but by Christ's, that they might believe in Him.
Vulgate Text: Acts 3:1-26
1. Now Peter and John went up to the temple at the ninth hour of prayer. 2. And a certain man who was lame from his mother's womb was being carried; whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, that he might ask alms of those entering the temple. 3. He, when he had seen Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked to receive an alms. 4. But Peter, gazing upon him with John, said: Look upon us. 5. And he was intent upon them, hoping to receive something from them. 6. But Peter said: Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, this I give thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk. 7. And taking him by the right hand, he lifted him up, and forthwith his feet and soles were strengthened. 8. And leaping up, he stood and walked; and he entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping, and praising God. 9. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. 10. And they knew him, that it was he who had sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and astonishment at that which had happened to him. 11. And as he held Peter and John, all the people ran to them at the porch which is called Solomon's, in amazement. 12. But Peter, seeing it, answered to the people: Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this, or why look ye on us, as if by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? 13. The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus, whom you indeed delivered up and denied before the face of Pilate, when he judged He should be released. 14. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted unto you; 15. but the Author of life you killed, whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. 16. And in the faith of His name, this man whom you have seen and known, His name hath strengthened: and the faith which is by Him hath given this perfect soundness in the sight of you all. 17. And now, brethren, I know that you did it through ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18. But God, what He had foreshewn by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. 19. Be penitent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, 20. that when the times of refreshment shall come from the presence of the Lord, He may send Him who hath been preached unto you, Jesus Christ, 21. whom indeed heaven must receive until the times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets from the beginning of the world. 22. For Moses said: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you of your brethren, like unto me; Him you shall hear according to all things whatsoever He shall speak to you. 23. And it shall be: every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. 24. And all the prophets, from Samuel and afterwards, who have spoken, have foretold these days. 25. You are the children of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham: And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. 26. To you first God, raising up His Son, hath sent Him to bless you, that every one may convert himself from his iniquity.
Verse 1: Now Peter and John Went Up
1. Now Peter and John. — The Greek prefixes epi to auto, that is "in the same place," i.e. together, alike. But this belongs to the end of the preceding chapter, as I have already said; though Cajetan, Pagninus, the Zurich version, and others refer it to chapter III, as if to say: Peter and John were going up to the temple together and alike; or, as Cajetan has it, about the same time at which the things we heard in chapter II were done. Saint Chrysostom notes the pairing of Peter and John, both here and in chapter VIII:14 and John XX:3, as a sign of the great union and friendship between them, that by their example they might teach Prelates and heads of congregations union and concord. For these two were the foremost, and as it were the two eyes, not only of the Church, but also of the Apostles. Indeed they follow the institution of Christ, who sent the Apostles two by two to evangelize, Matthew X:1 and Mark VI:7. Let Religious follow this example, who should never walk alone but always with a companion who is a witness and helper of life; so much so that Saint Thomas Aquinas was wont to call a Religious who walked alone "a solitary demon." For Castiglio recounts this among his other apophthegms in his Life.
Were going up to the temple. — For the temple was situated in a high place on Mount Zion, that it might be visible to the whole city; to which therefore one ascended by steps, on which many think the psalms were recited that are thence called Gradual. For the temple is the house both of the Most High God and of prayer, by which we converse with God and ascend to God in mind. For prayer is the elevation of the mind to God: thus Saint Chrysostom. Moreover, this temple was the court of the laity, not the Holy Place, much less the Holy of Holies: into the latter only the Aaronic priests had entry, into the former only the high priest once a year.
Learn here, against the heretics, that prayer made in the temple is better than elsewhere, and this for five reasons. The first is that prayer in the temple is the public invocation, praise, and adoration of God before the whole Church, and therefore greater and more honorable to God than that which is made elsewhere in solitude. The second, that in the temple God dwells as in His own house, and therefore that He may there exhibit His presence and hear petitions, as Solomon prayed, 3 Kings VIII, and as God promised him in the same place, chapter IX, verse 3, saying: "My eyes and My heart shall be there continually." The third, because in the temple, by reason of association, the prayers of one are aided by the prayers and merits of all present, and especially of the priest, who specifically offers sacrifice for all present. Therefore, just as a single coin not having the just weight, if it be given to a creditor, is rejected by him; but if it be mixed with many others, it is accepted and passes along with the rest: so too the prayer of one alone, if it be lukewarm, wandering, negligent, is rejected by God; but if it be joined to many other fervent prayers, it is borne up by their force and as if upon their wings, and flies up to heaven to God. The fourth, prayer made in temples is aided by the Saints whose bodies are buried there. The fifth, the same gives others an example of praying and edifies others.
Wherefore the fanatical heresy lately sprung up in Holland is to be condemned, which damns public temples and oratories and teaches that the assemblies of the faithful and the Church are only to be gathered and celebrated in private chambers, and there they assemble and celebrate their own, relying on the badly understood words of Christ against the Pharisees, those ostentators of their own devotion, Matthew 6:6: "But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret." For why did God command Moses to build so spacious a tabernacle and Solomon so august a temple, promising that He would in it hear the prayers of him and of the faithful, 3 Kings, chapters 8 and 9, except because He willed in it to be publicly worshipped and adored? Why did David, Christ, Peter and John so often go up here into the temple, if not for the cause of public prayer? Why have, from the time of Constantine, most pious Emperors, Kings, and Pontiffs in every age built so many basilicas, so many temples of such great extent and magnificence as we see everywhere on earth, except that the faithful, gathered in them in throngs, might unanimously and openly invoke and praise God? — according to that of the royal Psalmist: "I will confess to Thee in the great Church, in a heavy people," that is, in a great, indeed in a very great people, "I will praise Thee." And that of Christ: "With Thee is My praise in the great Church: I will pay My vows in the sight of them that fear Him," Psalm 21:26. And that: "O 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," Psalm 46:1.
Wherefore God is wont horribly to avenge the violation or overthrow of temples: nay even the Gentile historians narrate many and rare examples of those who fell into many and grave calamities because they had not shown the reverence due to the temples of their false gods. Hence Socrates Scholasticus, book VII of his History, chapter 22, wisely notes that the profanation of temples is a certain sign of God's wrath, and of an impending disaster to the commonwealth. So one should pay honor to God and His temples, that by his example he may teach others to do the same.
Theodosius the Emperor savored this, who so reverenced the temples that he would not enter them with arms and diadem, but laid both at their doors, often saying that he owed this reverence to those places in which the divinity and majesty of the Lord shine forth more abundantly. So it is related in the Council of Ephesus, chapter 21.
Saint Gregory Nazianzen, oration 19, praises Nonna his mother for so venerating the temples "that her voice was never heard in them, that she honored the holy things with silence, that she never turned her back on the venerable table, nor spat upon the divine pavement." For, as Saint Augustine rightly says in his Rule, and as is cited in dist. 42, can. 6: "In the oratory let absolutely nothing be done besides the worship of praying and psalmody, that what is constantly performed may agree with this name." For it is and is called a house of prayer: there therefore nothing else is to be done than to be at leisure for prayer. Saint Chrysostom, homily 2 on the second Epistle to the Corinthians, at the end, treating of the liturgy of the Church: "Some," he says, "are so unthinking, foolish, and dissolute that not only at the time when these things are done with the catechumens, but even in those things which are done with the faithful, they stand and chatter. Hence all things have been overthrown, hence all things have perished, and indeed at the very time when God was most to be appeased, we depart with Him more provoked."
Saint Maurice was wont to be in the temple with such reverence and devotion that he was never seen to sit, but always knelt, or stood with a fearful and pale countenance. Asked the reason, he said: "Shall I not fear, shall I not tremble, knowing that I stand here before God?" Thus Severus in his Life.
Indeed even the Abyssinians, all of them, even laymen, however aged, never sit in the temple out of reverence, but kneel, or at least stand leaning on staves if they are old or infirm; this men of weight, and Abyssinians themselves, have assured me at Rome.
Morally, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, in his Sentences: "Let this," he says, "be thy perpetual study, that thou mayest build up thy mind as a temple for God: for so thou shalt have Him as a spiritual statue in the inmost heart." The same Nazianzen prescribes the manner in his Monastica, saying:
Let God be the beginning and end of things to be done, etc.
If thou shalt be beneficent, thou shalt imitate God.
See thou be kindly, that thou mayest have God kindly.
See what is said at the end of the prophet Haggai.
At the ninth hour of prayer — which began at the third hour after noon, and ended at evening and sunset. For the Jews divided the day and night into four parts and watches, namely into the first, third, sixth, and ninth hour, and they piously began each from God and with prayers, according to that saying: "From Thee the beginning, with Thee it shall end." For the faithful are bound to begin all their works with God and to end them with Him. Hence the Psalmist, though distracted by the cares of his whole kingdom, says: "Seven times a day have I given praise to Thee," Psalm 118:164; and the Jews, returning from Babylon, "read in the volume of the law of the Lord their God four times in the day, and four times they confessed and adored the Lord," says Nehemiah, chapter IX, verse 3. Daniel also in Babylon "three times a day bent his knees, and adored and gave thanks before his God," Daniel chapter VI, verse 10, where I have set forth the reasons of this matter. Again the Psalmist, Psalm 118, verse 62: "At midnight," he says, "I rose to give praise to Thee." From which passages it is clear that there was a distinction of hours appointed for prayer before Christ among the Jews and ancients, and that the Church has rightly imitated the same, indeed has done it more perfectly through the seven Canonical Hours; namely, first, in honor of the Most Holy Trinity, that we may praise It every third hour, which we ought always to praise as do the angels; but since the cares and necessities of the body and of life do not permit this, let us at least do this at the beginning of each hour, namely at the first, third, sixth, and ninth, according to that saying of Lamentations chapter 2, verse 19: "Arise, give praise in the night, in the beginning of the watches."
Second, in thanksgiving for the benefit of creation. For in seven days God created all things, Genesis chapter 1.
Third, on account of the seven principal mysteries of redemption, which we recall at the same number of hours. For at the nocturnal hours Christ was both born and seized. At the first hour He was judged and rose again. At the third He was condemned, and sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. At the sixth He was crucified and ascended into heaven. At the ninth He died, and descended into Limbo to free the fathers. At evening He was taken down from the cross, and, all things being completed, was buried, which we recall at Compline: thus Saint Cyprian, sermon On the Lord's Prayer; Tertullian, Against the Psychics, chapter 10; Saint Athanasius, sermon On Virginity. See Bellarmine and Navarrus, tract On the Canonical Hours.
Moreover, among the Jews the principal hours of prayer were two, namely the first and the ninth, on account of the twofold continual sacrifice of the lamb which they offered at those hours, namely the morning sacrifice, which they offered in the morning at the first hour, and the evening, which they immolated at the ninth hour, of which I have spoken at Exodus chapter 29, verse 39. The Jews therefore gave both the beginning and the end of the day to God by solemn adoration and sacrifice. It is fitting that Christians do the same, much more.
Morally, learn here first, that piety obtains all things from God: for because Peter went up into the temple for the cause of piety and prayer, hence he merited to heal the lame man.
Second, that one good work disposes and paves the way to another: so here prayer paves the way to alms, alms to healing and miracle. For just as sin entices and calls forth another, as pride invites envy, envy quarrel, quarrel slaughter; so one virtue provokes another: for there is a chain among the virtues, just as among the vices, and as it were a covenant of comradeship: "Sleep allures sleep, and vigils give birth to vigils," says Saint Dominic Loricatus, as his Life has it.
Third, that for the devout and those going to prayer all things prosper, and that God by His marvelous providence directs, prospers, and exalts their affairs.
Finally, Saint Peter teaches the faithful here, especially Ecclesiastics, to observe the fixed times appointed by the Church for praying and for discharging the horary prayers, namely that they read them not all together and joined, but divided at their proper hours and times, as far as may be, and as far as each one's offices and occupations allow. For it is for this cause that they have been distinguished and distributed by the Church through the hours. In this matter the Most Illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine of pious memory excelled, who, though distracted by so many studies, lectures, and consultations, was nevertheless wont to recite each Hour separately and at the time fixed by the Church, e.g., the Nocturns by night, Prime at the first hour, Terce at the third, Sext at the sixth, None at the ninth.
Blessed Peter Damian relates, in his letter to Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, that Saint Severinus, Archbishop of Cologne, after his death appeared to a certain cleric, and by the touch of his hand alone instilled into him such heat that the flesh from his hand ran down to the bones, and said that he was relegated to the fires of Purgatory, on this sole charge and fault: "Because, set in the royal court," he said, "I was vehemently entangled in imperial counsels, and did not discharge the offices of the canonical synaxis through the distinct intervals of the hours. For in the morning, heaping all together at once, I had carefree leisure for the whole day amid the pressing business. On account therefore of this negligence of the hours, I bear the punishment of this burning." Baronius also reports the same from Damian, vol. XI, in the year of Christ 1062, where however he rightly judges that for Severinus we should read Peregrinus, who was made Archbishop of Cologne in the year of the Lord 1021, and presided for 16 years.
That great abbot Sabas, going to the Emperor Justinian on behalf of the affairs of his own monks, and treating these with him, when he heard the third hour, immediately withdrew from the emperor to the prescribed prayers of that hour; and when his companion Jeremias said that this was unbecoming and uncivil, he replied: "The Emperor does his office, we ours"; so his Life on December 5 has it.
Verse 2: A Man Lame from His Mother's Womb
2. A man — 40 years old, as is said in chapter IV, verse 22.
Lame. — There is no doubt that many others were healed by Peter and the Apostles, says Saint Chrysostom, and Luke sufficiently hints this at chapter V, verse 12; yet he narrates the healing of this one, both because it was more illustrious than the others, especially because it was done near the temple where there was a crowd of people; and because on its occasion Saint Peter delivered a sermon to the crowd by which he converted five thousand to Christ, as is plain in chapter IV:4.
Whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple. — Hence it is plain that among the Jews the poor, the sick, and the maimed begged at the doors of the temple, as is done at Rome and among Christians in many places; and this for four reasons: first, that they may cast into the minds of Christians (who rarely visit hospitals and prisons) the thought of almsgiving. Second, that by almsgiving they may dispose themselves to prayer, and may know that they themselves are beggars of God, and may in turn ask alms from Him and receive them. Again, beggars teach us the manner of praying and a pious rhetoric, namely to set forth our miseries to God affectionately, pitiably, and clamorously, and by celebrating His liberality and wealth, to beg as it were as a dole His help and grace. Hence Saint Chrysostom, homily On the Martyrs, which is in vol. V, second in order: "Prayers," he says, "are anticipated by prayers: those about to entreat the asking lame man hear him before they pray; nor does the lame man allow them to pray to those whom he asks, until he first receives what he wished." Third, that they may be admonished of human misery and frailty, mindful that the same may happen to themselves which they behold in the beggars. We are all formed of the same flesh, born under the same law, born bound by the same original sin and its penalties. Let them therefore lay aside their lofty spirits and crests, and give thanks to God that He has not placed them in the lot of beggars. Fourth, that they may earnestly seek the prayers of beggars, knowing that they receive more from them than they give. Wherefore Christ: "I," He says, "say to you, make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail, they may receive you into the everlasting dwellings," Luke chapter 16, verse 9. Beggars therefore are the doorkeepers of heaven, the chamberlains of God, not so much the clients of the rich as their patrons; thus Saint Chrysostom, homily 28 to the People.
Moreover, at Antwerp and in many other well-ordered cities throughout Germany and Belgium, beggars are not permitted to besiege the doors of the temple; or to beg publicly, much less throughout the temple, lest they disturb those praying, lest they move the infirm and pregnant women to nausea and miscarriage, and lest bold and clamorous beggars snatch away alms from other honest needy persons who are timid and bashful — indeed lest they emerge richer than the very givers, as has at times been detected. Therefore they appoint public Almsgivers, who go through the temple and ask alms, which they then suitably distribute through the hospitals among the needy according to each one's necessity and merits. This, as being more orderly, so also more salutary, has been ordained, and the second Council of Tours of old decreed it, chapter 5, and lately Blessed Charles Borromeo renewed it at Milan.
Which is called Beautiful — from "appearance" and beauty. For this is the gate which is described by Josephus, book XV of the Antiquities, chapter 14, as the most beautiful among the ten gates of the court; whence Baronius, in the year of Christ 34, judges it to be that which is called by the same Josephus "Corinthian," because it was made of Corinthian bronze, which was the most outstanding and praised metal among the ancients, and which, says the same Josephus, far surpassed the other gates (which were plated and gilded with silver) in beauty and honor, because it was clothed with thicker silver and gold, which Alexander, father of Tiberius, had poured upon nine gates. So also Ribera, book I On the Temple, chapter 32. It is likely that this gate was not the middle gate of the temple, that is, of the court, as some hold, but the outermost; for though Josephus, book VI of the Wars, chapter 6, hints that the blind and lame could enter the temple of the laity, that is, the court, yet it is not credible that they begged there, both because that did not befit the sanctity of the place, and because that place was only for Jews and clean persons, while the outermost was also for Gentiles and unclean. Therefore beggars, in order to ask alms both from Gentiles and unclean and from Jews and clean, placed themselves before the outermost gate of the outermost court. And thus Adrichomius graphically depicts it as the outermost, before the Court of the Gentiles, in his Chorographic plate of the city of Jerusalem; he also adds that this gate was the Eastern one, otherwise called Sur or Seir, and surnamed Beautiful because it was the greatest, highest, and most beautiful of all the gates, through which also was the principal entrance into the temple. King Jotham restored this gate when it had collapsed, 2 Paralipomenon chapter 27.
Verse 3: Asking to Receive an Alms
3. About to enter into the temple. — Why did they perform this miracle on the entrance rather than on the way out, after prayer? There are various reasons: First, because at the entrance the lame man at once met them asking alms from the Apostles, which therefore they bestowed on him at once; for he gives twice who gives quickly. Second, that by this beneficence they might prepare themselves for prayer, as I have already said. Third, that the divine liberality might be shown anticipating the Apostles' prayers. So Saint Chrysostom expounds, at the end of vol. I, in a certain sermon on chapter 3 of Wisdom: "O glorious merit of the Apostles," he says, "who first work in the temple before they themselves entreat the Lord; the virtue is shown before the prayer is sent before to the Lord: effects anticipate prayers; virtues precede desires: nor is it awaited that vows be sent up first to the Lord, because the Lord Himself acts before He is asked."
Asked. — "Because he saw them," says Chrysostom, "working miracles, and judged them to be pious from their very habit."
Verse 4: Look upon Us
4. Look upon us. — Peter commanded the lame man to look upon them: first, that he might rouse his attention to the coming miracle; second, that he might raise and direct his hope, as if to say: Fix your eyes, hope, and mind on us, as one about to receive something new and great from us; third, that the lame man, looking upon them, might see and know the manner of the miracle, namely that it proceeded from them by the invocation of the name of Jesus, and consequently might hear that word: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk"; and by that faith, taken by the right hand, might be raised up and healed: that he might therefore owe the miracle to Christ and give Him thanks, and might believe in Him, and profess and celebrate the same before others.
Morally: Peter taught how powerful even the mere sight of the Saints is. For as the basilisk slays by its sight those whom it looks upon; so the Saints by their sight breathe virtue, grace, and God's blessing upon those whom they behold. For this reason Saint Chrysostom, on chapter 1 and the last of Romans, writes that Saint Paul was so full of courtesy in salutations, because the salutation of the Saints alone is efficacious and powerful to bring salvation, just as the Blessed Virgin, saluting Elizabeth, sanctified her together with her child. Whence she exclaimed: "Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation was made in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy," Luke 1:43.
Truly Saint Ambrose, expounding that of Psalm 118, "They that fear Thee shall see me and shall be glad": "It is precious," he says, "to see a just man: for to most, the sight of a just man is an admonition of correction, but to the more perfect a joy." And presently: "The sight of the just heals, and the very rays of his eyes seem to infuse a certain virtue upon those who faithfully desire to see him." Thus the mere sight of Saint Francis pricked the beholders to compunction and inflamed them to the love of God and heavenly things, says Saint Bonaventure in his Life. Their Lives bear the same witness of Saint Dominic, Saint Francis Xavier, and Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga.
Verse 6: Silver and Gold I Have None
6. Silver and gold I have not. — The Apostles were poor in property, therefore rich in sense, spirit, and faith, as Saint James says, chapter 2:5. Hear Nazianzen, oration 27 On the Love of the Poor: "So poor a way of living did Peter prescribe for himself, that he drove off hunger with lupines." Lupines are bitter and rustic peas.
Excellently Saint Ambrose on that of Psalm 118:57, "My portion, O Lord": "He whose portion is God," he says, "is made the possessor of all nature, namely a kind of total lord with the Lord." He shows this by the example of Saint Peter, who, because, leaving all, he followed the Lord, himself merited to be lord of nature; for to the lame man asking alms he said: "What I have I give thee: In the name of Jesus Christ, arise and walk." Behold Peter, under the name of Christ, as if one Christ, and therefore made lord of all, repaired the damages of nature. How then could he feel the damages of nature?" Thus Saint Chrysostom rightly said: "The field of the poor man is the rich man's purse." And Saint Augustine, sermon 28 On the Words of the Apostle: "Let not thy poverty displease thee; nothing richer than it can be found. Wilt thou know how wealthy it is? It buys heaven. With what treasures can be compared what we see granted to poverty?" Hence Climacus too, in step 17, asserts that the poor monk is lord of the world, and because he has cast his care upon God, possesses by faith in Him all things and the nations as slaves. For "the Lord hath heard the desire of the poor: Thy ear hath heard the preparation of their heart," Psalm 9. Saint Augustine continues: "To God, he who lacks gold is rich, he bestows virtues and confers graces." And above: "The testimony of virtue to come is the profession of poverty. Whence the Apostle spoke: Having nothing, and possessing all things. He who has not gold, has faith, has virtue. Let us see what shines forth more. Gold, which no one keeps safely except by always hiding it? Gold, which gleams to the destruction of its master? Gold, which is sought through darkness, guarded through darkness? Gold, the searching for which holds the damned, the love of which makes a Judas? Gold, which in the avaricious soul is preferred to Christ, whose burdensome acquisition is a wretched possession." These things and more Saint Augustine scatters in the same place.
Saint Ambrose gives another reason, book X, epistle 82: "He glories," he says, "in poverty, as one truly fleeing contamination." As if to say: To Saint Peter, opulence was contamination; poverty was a glory: this he wished in some way to display, that he wished utterly to renounce. Surely Jacob, poor and a pilgrim in Egypt, so abounded that he imparted blessings of all good things to his sons, Genesis 49:2. On which matter Saint Ambrose, book II On Jacob and the Blessed Life, chapter 9: "Who," he says, "so rich in his kingdom as he in a foreign place? In short, he blessed kings. Nor was he without reason no pauper, since he lacked nothing; he was not poor who did not think himself poor. And who would call him poor, of whom the world was not worthy in comparison?"
I have read the lives of very many Saints, and have found that those alone excelled in the abundance and weight of miracles who excelled in poverty and austerity of life, as though the gift of miracles had been suitably decreed by God as the wage and reward of these: such were Saint Bernard, Saint Dominic, and the three Saints Francis, namely of Assisi, of Paola, and Xavier, who, most poor in India, raised twenty-five from the dead, to say nothing of other things.
I have read in weighty authors that when Saint Thomas Aquinas came to Pope Innocent IV, before whom by chance a great quantity of coined gold was being counted out, and the Pontiff had said to him: Dost thou see, Thomas, that the Church can no longer, as of old when she first began, say: "Silver and gold have I not"? — he modestly answered: "This must be confessed, Holy Father; but neither can the Church now, as the primitive Church, say to the lame man: Arise, walk, be healed." And yet it is certain that the Church lawfully and profitably, indeed necessarily, possesses moneys and estates, as Bellarmine learnedly demonstrates against John Wycliffe, vol. I, book I On Clerics, chapter 26. But God in His most great wisdom has so distributed His gifts according to the exigency of things and times, that the Church, at first poor, shone with miracles for the conversion of unbelievers; but, those being converted, no longer needing miracles, defends her right and dignity by the wealth and gifts of the faithful: nay, He has bestowed also upon some outstanding holy Pontiffs in her, especially those zealous for poverty, the grace of miracles, such as Saint Martin, who among other things called three dead men back to life, of whom the Church sings: "This Martin, poor and humble, enters heaven rich," etc. And Saint Gregory, whose life and miracles John the Deacon wrote in four books: but although this man too was rich in income, in spirit he was nevertheless very poor; and so his patrimony, which was very large, and once made Pontiff, he poured out all the revenues and resources of the pontificate as alms, by which, as truly the father of the poor, he nourished and sustained all the poor of Rome and throughout all of Italy, and indeed in the Holy Land and other provinces.
But what I have, this I give thee. — As if to say: The power of working miracles which I have, I apply to thee, and through it I bestow health upon thee. For Peter had this power as a permanent thing, not by way of a habit (for no habit can be given that physically performs any miracle whatever), but as it were a habit: for he had God's assistance in the manner of a habit, so that through God's omnipotence prepared for him, as often as he willed, so often he might bring forth a miracle. Therefore Peter held God and God's power as it were in his hand, and through it he was as it were omnipotent. Behold what God's friendship and sanctity accomplishes! Behold how God communicates Himself and all His own to His Saints!
Therefore Peter says: "What I have, this I give thee," as if to say, Ambrose says, on that Psalm 118:57, My portion, O Lord: "My portion is Christ. In my portion I am rich; in my portion I am powerful. How could Peter feel the losses of his own portion, who was repairing the losses of nature?" Indeed he is happier who possesses God than he who would possess all of nature: for the latter often suffers his own losses, the former none. Hence Saint Ambrose adds concerning him who possesses God: "Thy portion," he says, "is not dried up by aridity, not washed away by rain, not burned by cold, not shaken by tempest. It is more powerful, what earthly parts cannot equal."
Morally: here Saint Peter teaches that we should be liberal in sharing the gifts received from God: for they are communicated by God for this very reason. Therefore let each one give what he has. He who has wealth, let him give wealth; he who does not have it, let him extend his hand, give his tongue by consoling, teaching, etc.; let him extend his heart by sympathizing, praying, etc. "Be a god to the wretched," says Nazianzen, oration 27, that in turn you may merit God, and that He may be God to you, that is, beneficent and liberal.
Wherefore the avaricious rich are unlike Peter and God; as Jerome says, To Eustochium, On Guarding Virginity, chapter 14: "Although they keep silent in speech, they speak by their work: Faith and mercy I do not have; but what I have, silver and gold, I do not give thee."
In the name of Jesus Christ, — who, namely, is Christ the Messiah promised to the Jews.
Of Nazareth, — namely, originating from the little town of Nazareth, whom therefore the Jews called "the Nazarene" out of contempt; indeed they affixed this title to His cross: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Therefore God now exalts Him, thus humbled, and in the name of the Nazarene heals thee and restores to thee the bloom of youth and the vigor of thy limbs. For "Nazarene" in Hebrew is the same as "flowering," and "making to flower." Such Christ became through the resurrection, according to that of Psalm 27:7: "My flesh has flowered again."
Verse 7: His Feet and Soles Were Strengthened
7. Immediately. — That it might be apparent that the healing was instantaneous, and therefore not natural and medicinal, but divine. This sudden healing was a symbol of our resurrection, which will happen in a moment. Hence Saint Augustine, homily 28 On the Words of the Apostle: "The testimony," he says, "of a swift resurrection is the swiftness of one rising from weakness in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." Peter performed this miracle in the year 34 of Christ, namely the same year in which on Good Friday Christ suffered, on Easter rose again: whence on the fortieth day He ascended into heaven, and on the fiftieth day at Pentecost sent the Holy Spirit: for shortly after Pentecost, of which the preceding chapter speaks, Peter performed this his first miracle. Therefore Luke here recounts the fruits of Christ's passion, and its effects.
His bases were strengthened, — namely the legs and shins, for the mass of the body is supported by these as by bases, says Lyranus.
And the soles. — In Greek sphyra, which Beza translates "little hammers," that is the bones standing out next to the ankles: but coldly; for sphyron means the whole foot, so as to be distinguished from the shin. Hence sphyroo is the same as "to shoe," and eusphyros, "well-shod." Wherefore Pagninus and the Tigurine version less correctly translate sphyra as "ankles." Better do Our Translator and the Syriac translate it as "soles," namely the feet, on which the whole body stands; which in paralytics, when watery humor flows down into them, are dissolved, in the lame they are contracted, weak and crippled.
Mystically: this lame man raised up by Peter signifies the Jews, whom Peter brought to the faith by this miracle of healing as it were limping souls, says Nyssen, oration On Saint Stephen. And Saint Ambrose, sermon 2 On the Encomia of Saints Peter and Paul, teaches that Saint Peter rightly performed his first miracle in the strengthening of the lame man's feet, to show that he himself was the foundation of the Church: "That just as," he says, "in the Church he holds the foundation of faith, so also in man he might strengthen the foundations of the limbs (which are the feet); that he might now walk no longer trembling and weak, but robust and strong upon the rock of the Church." Wherefore Saint Peter more often worked this miracle in the lame.
Memorable is what we read in the life of Saint Edward, king of England, written by Aelred, who flourished in the year of the Lord 1164, namely that a certain man crippled in both feet was sent by Saint Peter to Saint Edward, to tell him that he would be healed if Edward, having placed him upon his own shoulders, would carry him to the church of Saint Peter. Wherefore Edward immediately did this, and so He restored to him full health and the use of walking. Moreover Saint Peter had revealed to the cripple that he wished to have Edward as a partner in this miracle, since he was very devoted to him: for he had vowed a vow to visit the threshold of Saint Peter at Rome; but he commuted the vow, by command of the Pontiff, at the petition of the English, into this church, which he built in honor of Saint Peter.
Tropologically: those limp who now incline to vice, now to virtue, now to faith, now to heresy, whom Peter strengthens — that is, the Pastor and Prelate by the power of the Word and grace of Christ, Hebrews 12:13. For this limping is dangerous, as being near the final ruin, and exceedingly injurious and odious to God. For it compounds and joins God with the demon, and opposes him to God as a kind of rival, indeed sets him before God. Wherefore Elijah, 1 Kings 18:21, says to the people: "How long do ye limp in two directions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." And Joshua, last chapter, 19: "Ye cannot serve the Lord: for God is holy and strong, He is jealous, nor will He pardon your wickedness, etc. Ye are witnesses, that ye yourselves have chosen the Lord for yourselves, that ye may serve Him." And Moses, Deuteronomy 32:16: "They provoked Him with strange gods, and stirred Him to wrath with abominations." And verse 39: "See that I alone am, and there is no other God besides Me." And Christ, Matthew 6:24: "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." And Paul, 2 Corinthians 6:14: "Be ye not yoked together with infidels. For what fellowship hath righteousness with iniquity? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? Or what concord hath Christ with Belial?"
So Politicians in the Republic join heretics with Catholics, and thus overturn the faith and at the same time the Republic. Such were the Cuthaeans, or Samaritans, transferred from Assyria into Samaria, who worshipped the God of Israel, and at the same time the gods of the Assyrians, 2 Kings 17:33. Such men are like chameleons; for they conform themselves to all according to the variety of places and persons: with heretics they speak heretically, with Catholics catholically; with the pious and chaste they feign piety and chastity; with the impious and impure they spout impiety and impurity; they flatter those present, they tear apart those absent; they are double-tongued, triple-tongued, indeed all-tongued. They sit on two stools, indeed on all: their faith is slippery, and therefore none. Truly our Frusius said of the great variety of sects of this age: "Why is one faith now played on so many strings?" Such a Proteus was Julian the Apostate; says Nazianzen, oration Against Him, who with Constantine and Christians was Christian, with the Gentiles a Gentile; now cloaked, now in toga; more changeable than a top, possessing the mind of a polyp; two-headed like an amphisbaena; ambiguous as a mule; more inconstant than the Euripus, more changeable than the moon, more mobile than a ball, more varied than a hydra.
Excellently Cassian, Conferences 6, chapter 12: "The mind of the just," he says, "ought not to be like wax, which always yielding to the impress of those sealing it, is shaped according to their form and image, etc.; rather it ought to be like a kind of adamantine seal, so that our mind, always guarding the inviolable form of its own character, may by the quality of its own state stamp and transform whatever things impinge upon it, but itself can be marked by no impingements." Aeschines once charged Demosthenes that, having changed his faction, he had surpassed the Euripus itself in inconstancy, and was a Euripist and of uncertain faith. How many Euripists there are today, who have no faith except Greek, or Punic faith!
Verse 8: Walking and Leaping
8. Walking and leaping. — In him therefore was fulfilled that oracle of Isaiah, chapter 35:6, concerning Christ and the Apostles: "Then shall the lame leap as a stag," says Saint Cyril, Catechesis 17. Note: Here there was a double miracle: first, that the straightness and firmness of the feet was restored to the lame man; second, that he immediately walked promptly, indeed leaped. For those who have not walked for a long time, even though they be sound and strong in their feet, like prisoners, nevertheless from long disuse of walking, cannot walk with ease; but gradually learn to walk and acquire the use and facility of walking by walking, as experience confirms: so Sanchez.
Verse 10: Filled with Wonder and Ecstasy
10. And they were filled with wonder and ecstasy, — thambous kai ekstaseos; Pagninus and the Tigurine, "they were filled with admiration and astonishment"; the Syriac, "with admiration and ecstasy"; the Gothic Bible which Mariana cites, "with astonishment and consternation of mind." Ecstasy here signifies the greatest amazement, by which, astonished and struck, as it were of moved mind, they were carried out of themselves, just as in ecstasy or rapture properly so called the mind is rapt from earthly things to heavenly. Hence Saint Augustine explaining that of Psalm 30: "I said in my excess (in Greek en ekstasei, in Hebrew בחפזון bechippazon, that is in trepidation and fear) of mind: Every man is a liar. By excess of mind," he says, "two things are understood: either fear, or intention toward heavenly things, so that in some manner earthly things slip from memory."
Verse 11: As He Held Peter and John
11. But when he held (so the Greek and the Syriac: therefore some wrongly read "they held"; others, "they saw") Peter and John, — namely the lame man healed by Peter. But why did he hold them? Oecumenius answers, out of fear, lest, if separated from them, he should fall back into lameness; for when his right hand was taken by Peter, he had become whole. Better does Saint Chrysostom judge that he did this out of love, reverence, and gratitude, that he might tightly embrace his healers, hold them so that he could not be torn from them, and might display and proclaim them to all the people.
To the porch which is called Solomon's, — before which Peter had healed the lame man: for the lame man lay begging before the gate of this porch, which was called Beautiful; but raised up by Peter, with him through the gate he entered into this porch, celebrating the miracle and Peter the author of the miracle. Hence the people, in order to see this, ran both to the lame man cured and to Peter who cured him.
You will ask, what was the porch of Solomon? Note: The Temple of the Jews properly had two parts, the Holy and the Holy of Holies: into the former only the priests entered, into the latter the high priest alone once a year. Therefore for the people a court was added before the Holy, so that the people might watch the sacrifices in it and pray to God. This court was twofold: the first of the Jews, the second of the Gentiles and unclean. That of the Jews was bipartite: for its first part, near the Holy, in which was the altar of holocausts, was given over to the priests; the latter to the laity, but to the clean. Moreover it was not permitted under penalty of death for the Gentiles, e.g. the Romans, to pass from their court into the court of the Jews, nor for the Jews into the court of the priests, witness Josephus, Wars book VI, chapter 6. Now the Interpreters answer this question in three ways.
First, some hold that this porch was attached externally to the Holy itself, which therefore, like the Holy, was twenty cubits long, ten wide, as is said in 1 Kings 6:3, just as we see at Rome porches attached externally to the Basilicas of Saint Peter, Saint Lawrence, Saint Cecilia, and others, through which one enters the basilicas; so Adrichomius in his Description of Jerusalem. But it stands against this that into this porch, indeed into the court of the priests, which was before the porch, no one except an Aaronic priest was allowed to enter. But Peter entered into this porch, and the lame man and all the people.
Secondly, others hold that this porch was the court of the Jews itself, and that it is called Solomon's, both because it was erected by Herod in the same place and area in which Solomon had once erected his own; and to distinguish it from the outermost porch, namely the court of the Gentiles, which Herod added to the court of the Jews: so Ribera, On the Temple book I, chapter 16ff. For he holds that Solomon built only the court of the Jews, not the court of the Gentiles, but that this was added by Herod, and so the court of the Jews is called the porch of Solomon, but the court of the Gentiles the porch of Herod. Therefore the porch of Solomon was the temple of the Jews, in which Christ taught and worked miracles. But it stands against this that this porch was the outermost, as Josephus calls it, and that the beggars sat before the court — not the inner one of the Jews, but the outermost one of the Gentiles, so that they might beg alms both from the Gentiles entering and from the Jews. For it was not fitting for sordid and putrid beggars to sit constantly in such great number in a place most holy to the Jews: nor would the Jews have permitted it, especially lest by their clamor and tumult they should be disturbed in their sacrifices and prayers. For they themselves were religious in sacred matters, indeed superstitious; and practiced that common saying: "The blind and lame shall not enter into the temple," 2 Samuel 5:8, although no law had established it. So also among the Romans the station of beggars was at the bridge, as it still is, as is clear from Juvenal, Satire 4, and Martial, book X, Epigram 5. So Sanchez.
Thirdly therefore others hold that the porch of Solomon was the court of the Gentiles, or certainly part of it. For this was as it were the temple of the Gentiles, in which they themselves adored God, and before it and its Beautiful gate sat the beggars. This court was such as we see at Rome in palaces, namely under the open sky, yet so that on the sides it had covered porticoes resting on columns, into which in time of rain or heat the people might withdraw, and for this reason it is called the porch of Solomon — not because Solomon prayed in it (for he prayed in the court of the Jews, as being a Jew and king of the Jews), but because this porch from the burning of the temple done by the Chaldeans remained surviving, at least in good part, so that it could easily be restored by Zerubbabel, and afterwards by Herod, says Oecumenius. So Villalpandus, On the Temple book III, chapter 9, where he confirms this from the fact that the Gentiles, who could only frequent the court of the Gentiles, approached Philip in the porch of Solomon to see Jesus. Therefore Jesus was then dwelling in the court of the Gentiles, John 12:20. The same, On the Temple book V, disp. IV, chapters 67 and 68, at the end, confirms the same from Josephus, Antiquities book XX, chapter 14, where he says that this porch was the outermost of the temple, and calls it "the work of Solomon," not of Herod. Therefore into this porch, as Peter was entering with the healed lame man, the people ran in crowds, and as Peter was preaching, five thousand were converted. From this it is clear that this porch, which could hold so many thousands, was huge, and therefore was the very court of the Gentiles. For it is called "porch," both because it was outermost, and because for the unclean and profane Gentiles it was as it were unclean and profane in respect to the court of the Jews, which for the faithful and holy Jews was as it were clean and holy, and was called the temple, not the porch. For so even now we call vestibules before temples "porches," not the temple or part of the temple, because they are outermost and outside the temple. Therefore the court of the Gentiles was called "porch," to distinguish it from the court of the Jews, which was called "temple," to which the court of the Gentiles externally lay adjacent as a porch.
Verse 12: By Our Own Power or Holiness
12. Or by power. — The Interpreter reads in the Greek exousia, that is, by power. Wherefore the Syriac too translates beschultanan, that is, "by our authority." Hence the Sultans of Egypt, Babylon, and the Tartars are called by the same name as the princes and Emperors of those nations. Now some read eusebeia, that is, by piety, and so in the Latin Bibles read Lyranus, Hugo and Dionysius. Calvin ineptly twists these things against the invocation of Saints, as if there were no power in them and their relics. For Peter does not mean this, but only to teach that the power of working miracles, which he was known to have from the effect, was not his own, that is, of his own strength, but of God's, and granted to him freely by Him: for the Saints, says Saint Gregory, book II, Dialogues 30, work miracles either by prayer, or by power, that is, sometimes by invoking God, sometimes through God's power communicated to themselves, by commanding demons, diseases, etc., to depart.
Verse 13: The Holy One and the Just
13. And the Just One, — both formally and causally, that is, justifying all others, so that no one of men is just except him who has received justice from Christ and refers it back to Him as received.
Morally: Note here that the first Saints did not ascribe their miracles and gifts to themselves, but rendered them with thanksgiving and glorification to God, to whom they belong, and said with the Psalmist: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give glory"; which when we do, God pours forth new graces upon us: for grace is congruous to and is given to the grateful, which is taken away from the ungrateful. See Saint Gregory, homily 9 on Ezekiel, near the end: "Therefore," he says, "holy men always render praise to the Creator, that they may persist with true stability in the virtue which they receive."
And the faith which is through Him (that is, in Him) has given entire health, — holokleria, that is integrity of body and limbs, namely of the feet. Chrysostom otherwise: Faith, he says, which through Him, namely Christ, is preached and evangelized, gave health to the lame man: but the faith preached by Christ is faith in Christ Himself; but Peter for the sake of modesty does not immediately express this, but veils and circumscribes it, lest he offend the Jews who were averse to Christ, until gradually insinuating himself into their minds he might declare the same and clearly proclaim it.
Verse 16: In the Faith of His Name
16. And in the faith of His name. — As if to say: Through faith and invocation of the name of Christ, through the faith by which we believe in Christ and acknowledge and proclaim Him as Savior; or through the faith which we have for the name of Christ, that is, for Christ Himself named and invoked by me, "this lame man, whom ye have seen and know, has been strengthened," that is consolidated and healed, "His name," namely Christ's, as if to say: Christ in whom I believe, named and invoked by me, has strengthened and cured this lame man, not I by my medicine or by my power. Here there is a triple Hebraism. First, the preposition "in" is put for "through": "in faith," that is "through faith." Secondly, "faith of the name" is here called passively the faith which is held toward Christ's name, that is toward Christ Himself: for not actively is the faith of Christ here called that which Christ has in Himself (for in Christ there was not faith, but vision); but passively, namely that which we have toward Christ, by which we believe Christ. Thirdly, the name of Christ is by metonymy called Christ Himself named and invoked; or certainly the invocation itself of the name of Christ.
Note: The miraculous healing is here attributed to faith as to a cause not primary, but instrumental. First, faith is the cause applying to us the merits of Christ, through which we are healed. Secondly, faith is a disposition toward the health of mind and body. Thirdly, faith and invocation are as it were an impetratory cause of healing: for it itself is a prayer either tacit or express, which obtains health from God; whence it also merits it, not de condigno, but de congruo. Therefore the principal physical cause of the cure of the lame man was God, the instrumental was Saint Peter, lifting up and raising the lame man with his hand. But the principal moral cause, namely meritorious, was Christ and His merits; the instrumental was the faith of Saint Peter, for the three reasons and modes which I have just enumerated; so Saint Thomas, On Power, Question VI, ad 19.
Secondly, how great is the power of excellent and heroic faith: for this obtains from God all the things which it believes and hopes for, according to Christ's promise, Mark 11:24: "All things whatsoever ye ask for in prayer, believe that ye will receive, and they shall come to you." Such is the faith of miracles, through which Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus and the like brought forth so many and such great wonders.
Thirdly, how great a faith, hope and love we ought to bear toward Christ, whom God has given us as redeemer, savior, mediator, and giver of every good, through whom He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, as Saint Paul in wonder teaches and pours forth in the whole of chapter 1 to the Ephesians. Hence he himself elsewhere everywhere sounds and resounds nothing but Jesus and Christ, saying that he preaches nothing, knows nothing, hopes nothing, loves nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified; indeed that he himself does not live in himself, but Christ: "I live," he says, "yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
The same was the sense of the first faithful, as Saint Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans: "My love is crucified," and consequently both my faith and my hope is crucified; Saint John, who in his Gospel and Epistles breathes nothing but the love of Christ, which he drew from His breast; Saint Polycarp, Saint Dionysius, Saint Lawrence, etc., who, drunk with the love of Christ, went to fires, gibbets and lions as it were to feasts. Wisely Saint Nazianzen in his Sentences: "Some," he says, "value gold, others silver, others delicate tables, that is the trifles of life. But I count Christ as the equivalent of the most ample wealth: whom would that I might at some time gaze upon with pure mind; let the world have the rest." Excellently Saint Bernard, On Conscience, chapter 1: "When the love of Christ," he says, "has absorbed the whole affection of man, so that, neglectful and unmindful of himself, he feels nothing but Jesus Christ alone and the things which are of Jesus Christ, then at last is charity perfect in him. Poverty is not burdensome to him; he does not feel injuries, laughs at insults, despises losses, counts death gain; indeed he does not even think himself to die, since he knows rather that he passes from death to life." And chapter 3: "Let the body press, let the world drag, let the devil gnash, the conscience will be secure," fixed in Christ. Truly Thy name, Jesus Christ, is oil poured forth. See the same, sermon 14 on the Canticle.
Verse 17: You Did It through Ignorance
17. Ye did it through ignorance, as did also your princes. — But the ignorance of the princes was far more culpable than that of the people, as being most gross or even affected: yet because this too in some way diminished the audacity, impudence and irreverence toward God in the crime, in that it diminished the voluntary (for they would have sinned more grievously had they killed Christ, knowing namely that He Himself was the Messiah and Son of God, voluntarily and with deliberate malice), therefore it is alleged here by Peter as a cause excusing the killing of Christ, not in total, but in part. Hence Christ, praying for them on the cross: "Father," He said, "forgive them, for they know not what they do." And Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 8: "For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory."
Verse 18: What God Foreshewed That Christ Should Suffer
18. But God, what things He foreannounced (so the Greek and the Roman, not "who," as some read) that Christ should suffer, — as follows, as if to say: The sufferings and torments of Christ, which God foretold through the Prophets, and all the oracles concerning Christ about to suffer, He fulfilled through you and your ignorance, by which it came about that Christ in fact suffered all those things which the Prophets had foretold He would suffer.
Verse 19: That Your Sins May Be Blotted Out
19. That they may be blotted out. — Not covered over, as the heretics wish, not scraped only on the surface, but plainly blotted out and abolished, and, as the Syriac, expunged: as letters were once expunged from waxed tablets, and now are expunged from parchments.
Verse 20: When the Times of Refreshing Shall Come
20. That when the times of refreshing shall have come. — Vatablus, "of refocillation," namely from sins and the wrath of God, understand: that ye may be saved, or that ye also may be refreshed. Refreshing, or, as the Syriac translates, tranquillity and quiet, he calls eternal salvation and beatitude, by which from the heat of temptations, persecutions and afflictions of this life, by which in the sea of this life we are constantly tossed and burned, we shall rest and be refreshed. Saint Peter alludes to the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jews soon to take place through Titus, and to the troubles of the Jews, by which scattered throughout the whole world they are continually driven, from which they will be freed at the end of the world.
Furthermore this refreshing will come to those repenting and converted to Christ from the presence of the Lord, that is from the Lord Himself present and beholding. For "presence," the Greek has prosopo, which Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, translates "from the person of the Lord"; Cajetan, "from the face of the Lord": because, he says, the face of Christ will be the object and cause of beatitude. For the vision of Christ's divinity is the object of essential beatitude; but the vision of His same humanity is the primary object of accidental beatitude. Hence Vatablus explains it as if to say: What a refreshing it will be, when Christ will again be seen. Sanchez notes that for "refreshing" the Greek is anapsyxeos, which word signifies both resurrection and refreshing; and both fit this passage, as if to say: When anapsyxis shall have come, which is resurrection and reanimation (for psyche is the soul), that very thing will then fulfill the measure of its own name; for to you the just it will be a refreshing, and equally a resurrection from death to a blessed life. Hence in verse 21 he calls the same thing the restitution of all things. Therefore by this single word he encompasses two articles of the Creed, namely: "I believe in the resurrection of the flesh," and, "life everlasting."
Who has been preached. — So also Pagninus, the Tigurine and Vatablus, reading in the Greek prokekerygmenon, as if to say: heralded and proclaimed; others read prokecheirismenon, that is "prepared," as the Syriac translates, and so reads Irenaeus, book III, chapter 12; Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, translates "foredesignated": perhaps he reads proorismenon.
Verse 21: Whom Heaven Must Receive
21. Whom heaven indeed must receive. — It is ambiguous, says Cajetan, whether he means that Jesus receives heaven, as a king receives a kingdom; or rather that heaven receives Jesus, as a place receives what is placed in it; for both are true, and both fit this passage; and the former involves the latter. The former sense is more august, the latter simpler, if with the Syriac you translate it: whom heaven must contain. From which against the Ubiquitarians you may conclude that Christ's body is not everywhere, as His divinity is everywhere. But from this Berengarius contended that Christ is not in the Eucharist, as being shut up in heaven; whom Beza followed: Note, he says, that Christ is contained by heaven, against those who, instead of holding that we must ascend to heaven by faith, in order to be united to our Head, most obstinately maintain that Christ must be called back from heaven, like some Jupiter Elicius. But it must be answered: We do not teach that Christ is to be called from heaven to the Eucharist, as if leaving heaven by local motion He should descend to us (for this will only happen on the day of judgment), but that remaining in heaven, by the omnipotence of God He presents Himself in the Eucharist (whether this happen by replication of His body, or by acquisition only of a new place, about which the Scholastics dispute among themselves), and that invisibly and indivisibly, while in heaven He is visibly and divisibly with respect to place: for in one place is Christ's head, in another His neck, in another His breast, in another His feet, while in the Eucharist all Christ's members are in the same place, and at the same point of the host. For Christ in the Eucharist is as the soul in the body, namely whole in the whole and whole in any of its parts.
Moreover note that Christ, after His ascension into heaven, occasionally appeared visibly on earth, as to Saint Paul, when He converted him, Acts chapter IX, verse 1, and to Saint Peter. For when he himself had fled from prison at the request of the Christians, Christ met him, and to Peter asking, "Lord, whither goest Thou?" He answered: "I go to be crucified again." From which Peter understood that God willed him to return to prison and prepare himself for the cross and martyrdom. In memory of which apparition, at Rome outside the gate of Saint Sebastian, in the very place of Christ's apparition, a chapel was erected, which is commonly named "Domine quo vadis?" Thus He appeared to Saint Anthony after his victory in the struggle with demons, says Saint Athanasius in his Life; likewise to Saint Tarsilla, witness Saint Gregory in Dialogues book IV, chapter 16. Wherefore Saint Thomas and Cajetan judge that Christ then for a brief time left heaven, and descended to earth to Saint Peter, Paul, Anthony, etc. Others think that these visions were imaginary; or even real, not of Christ's body, but of an aerial body formed by an angel, which represented Christ, just as before the incarnation the Word appeared in an aerial body to Abraham, Jacob and the other Patriarchs and Prophets.
It seems truer that Christ at some times was simultaneously in heaven and simultaneously on earth, and in both places was really and properly seen, as when He appeared to Saint Peter and Paul. For, as is here said, He did not leave heaven, and yet He was on earth and appeared to Saint Peter and Paul. Therefore He was then simultaneously in both. Saint Chrysostom suggests this. But Christ seems to have left heaven for a brief time when He descended to the Blessed Virgin at her death: for with her He again ascended gloriously into heaven. Incidentally then He left heaven. Therefore what is here said, "it behooves Him to receive heaven," understand that He has firmly placed the throne of His glory in heaven, so that from it He is not to descend gloriously and publicly, except on the day of judgment, with which it does not conflict that He descended secretly, invisibly and incidentally to the Blessed Virgin. So Suarez, part III, Question 58, at the end.
You will ask whether in similar manner heaven, purgatory and hell hold and shut up the souls of other men, so that they cannot leave from there before the day of judgment? Some hold that the souls of the damned never go out of hell, and consequently never appear to men. The reason is that they are bound to hell as to a perpetual prison and gehenna. Again, that in hell there is no redemption. So holds Dominicus Soto, in IV, dist. 45, Question I, art. 4, ad 1; Victoria, Reading on Magic, num. 27; and Abulensis, on 2 Kings chapter IV, Q. 56. But others more probably opine that souls dwelling both in hell and purgatory, as also in heaven, occasionally go out and appear to the living, and this for this end: that they may more efficaciously show them either the celestial glory, or the punishments and fires of hell, whether in words or in reality through flames, and so strike into them greater hope, or fear and terror. Nor does this take anything away from the glory of the former, or from the punishment of the latter, because each carries both with them. Therefore the damned when they appear carry with them their own prison, namely the fire to which they are bound, as is clear from many of their apparitions. So Saint Thomas thinks, in IV, dist. 45, Question I, art. 1, ad 3; Abulensis, on chapter 25 of Saint Matthew, Question 753; Alphonsus Mendoza, Question V Scholastic. On the True Apparitions of the Dead, and our Peter Thyraeus, book I On the Apparitions of Spirits, num. 117 and 249, who however rightly adds that souls from heaven and from hell more rarely appear by themselves and personally, but more frequently this happens through angels. Again, that souls from heaven appear as often as it pleases them: but souls from purgatory and hell cannot leave, nor appear, except by special dispensation of God.
Until in the time of the restitution of all things, — until the day of judgment, on which He will restore man, fallen into sin, troubles and death, to God, glory and happy immortality, and so will restore the ruins of the angels. Likewise then together with man He will restore heaven, the elements and the whole world to their primeval integrity, incorruption and splendor. For there will then be a renewal and as it were a regeneration of the whole world, as the Apostle teaches, Romans chapter 8, verse 21, and Saint Peter, 2 Epistle, chapter 3, verse 13.
Of all things, — not only of times, as the Syriac translates; but also of men and of all things, as I have already said.
From the age. — Hebrew מעולם meolam, as if to say: Who the Prophets from of old, from ancient ages, before some thousands of years foretold this restitution of the world, to be made by Christ on the day of judgment.
Verse 22: Moses Indeed Said
22. Moses indeed said. — Of the many Prophets he cites one, and that the chief one, namely Moses, who clearly prophesied concerning Christ the Savior, Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 18. I have explained his oracle there: wherefore here I shall not weave it again.
Verse 23: Shall Be Destroyed from among the People
23. He shall be exterminated from the people. — Moses, Deuteronomy 18, has: "I (God) will be the avenger": which words Saint Peter here explains and interprets paraphrastically: for when God leaps forth to vengeance, He exterminates and slays either by bodily death, or by spiritual and eternal death. Both are here signified. For the Jews, unbelieving in Christ, were cut off bodily by Titus, and spiritually are punished by eternal death in gehenna.
Verse 24: These Days
24. These days, — of the advent and redemption of the Messiah, namely Christ.
Verse 25: You Are the Sons of the Prophets
25. You are the sons of the Prophets. — "Sons," namely spiritual sons in faith and religion, as if to say: You embrace and believe the oracles of the Prophets and follow their faith, as their true sons in piety. As they therefore believed in the Christ who was to come and foretold Him, so you also believe in the same now born, suffered and risen, lest you degenerate from the faith and spirit of your forefathers, or even apostatize.
And of the covenant. — That is, of the divine covenant, pact and promise. Note the Hebraism: the Jews are called sons of the covenant, because to them belongs the covenant which God made with Abraham their father: for God promised to Abraham and his descendants the Messiah and His blessing, that is, grace, justice and salvation, as if to say: You are the sons of Abraham, and consequently sons of the covenant which God made with Abraham; and of the promise which He gave him concerning the redemption and salvation through the Messiah: now therefore, since that promise is shown and offered to you from God through me, eagerly and (as they say) with both hands receive it. For just as you are sons and heirs of Abraham, so also of the promise made to him by God. Thus also Christians are called sons of the New Testament, because they are enrolled in it through faith, and to them belong the Sacraments, grace and all the goods which in the New Testament Christ promised and bestowed upon Christians.
In thy seed. — In thy son, namely in Christ to be born from thy seed and descendants. So the Apostle explains, Galatians chapter III, verse 26, and Peter himself in verse 26, saying "raising up His Son": this therefore is the blessed seed promised to Abraham.
Shall be blessed (that is, shall be justified and shall receive all grace and glory) all the families of the earth, — namely all nations. For God's blessing is efficacious, not merely verbal, as is that of men; but real, which actually confers and bestows the good that it speaks and pronounces: for God's blessing is doing good, not in any ordinary way, but excellently and divinely. For this becomes God and God's immense liberality and munificence. For it is fitting that great things be given by the Great, as Alexander the Great used to say. On this blessing of Abraham, see what I said in Genesis chapter XII, verse 3.
Verse 26: To You First God, Raising Up His Son
26. To you first. — For first and directly Christ was sent to the Jews, as the Messiah promised to their fathers. Hence He is called by the Apostle "minister of the circumcision," Romans XV, 8, that is, of the circumcised, namely the Jews, because in person He preached to them alone.
Raising up, — anastesas in the aorist, that is, when He had raised Him up. Peter alludes to that saying of Moses: "God will raise up a Prophet for you," which he cited in verse 22. Now "raising up" means resuscitating, namely after He raised Him from the dead. For after the resurrection Christ poured out His blessing, that is, the Holy Spirit, grace and salvation, abundantly upon the Jews. For "resurrection" in Greek is called anastasis.
Blessing you. — Because He will bless you, that is, do good to you, by giving rivers of graces in this life, and of glory in the life to come, that on the day of judgment you may hear from Him: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Thus "He who was crucified blessed His own crucifiers," says Saint Chrysostom.
See here what a great evil sin is, and how greatly to be fled and execrated; and on the contrary how great is the goodness of God and Christ, since He transfers us sinners from the power of the devil, sin and hell into the kingdom of grace and love of His Son, and makes us heirs, indeed kings of heaven — so that we ought rightly to admire it, give thanks and celebrate it our whole life, as did Saint Paul, Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Pelagia and other penitents, indeed through all eternity, as the Blessed do in heaven. Therefore Christ was indicated and proclaimed to the whole world by Saint John the Baptist with this title, as it were a sign: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world," John I, 29. Following him, Saint John the Evangelist throughout the Apocalypse points to Christ as the Lamb slain and immolated for our sins, and proclaims that He is adored and praised as such by the Blessed in heaven, as in chapter V, 6: "I saw a Lamb standing as if slain, etc., and twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, etc., saying: Worthy art Thou, O Lord, to receive the book and to open its seals, for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall reign upon the earth." And chapter VII, 9; chapter XIV, 1; chapter XV, 3; chapter XIX, 7; chapter XX, 9 and 22.
Wherefore Micah, rightly admiring this surpassing gift of Christ, thus concludes his oracles concerning Christ, chapter VII, 18: "Who is a God like unto Thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of Thy inheritance?" And shortly after: "He will turn again and have mercy on us, and will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old." See what is said there.