Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Described here are, first, the conversion of St. Paul; secondly, two miracles of St. Peter, namely the healing of Aeneas the paralytic, verse 32, and the raising of the deceased Dorcas, verse 38.
Vulgate Text: Acts 9:1-43
1. And Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2. and asked of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues; that, if he should find any men and women of this way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3. And as he made his journey, it came to pass that he drew near to Damascus; and suddenly a light from heaven shone round about him. 4. And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute Me? 5. Who said: Who art Thou, Lord? And He: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest; it is hard for thee to kick against the goad. 6. And he, trembling and astonished, said: Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? And the Lord said to him: Arise, and go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do. 7. Now the men who went in company with him stood amazed, hearing indeed a voice, but seeing no man. 8. And Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. But they, leading him by the hand, brought him to Damascus. 9. And he was there three days, without sight, and he did neither eat nor drink. 10. Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision: Ananias. And he said: Behold I am here, Lord. 11. And the Lord said to him: Arise, and go into the street that is called Straight, and seek in the house of Judas one named Saul of Tarsus; for behold he prayeth. 12. And he saw a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hands upon him, that he might receive his sight. 13. But Ananias answered: Lord, I have heard from many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints in Jerusalem; 14. and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke Thy name. 15. And the Lord said to him: Go thy way, for this man is to Me a vessel of election, to carry My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. 16. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake. 17. And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and laying his hands upon him, he said: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. 18. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight; and rising up, he was baptized. 19. And when he had taken meat, he was strengthened. And he was with the disciples that were at Damascus, for some days. 20. And immediately he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God. 21. And all that heard him were astonished and said: Is not this he who in Jerusalem persecuted those who called upon this name; and came hither for that intent, that he might carry them bound to the chief priests? 22. But Saul increased much more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt at Damascus, affirming that this is the Christ. 23. And when many days were passed, the Jews consulted together to kill him. 24. But their plots were made known to Saul. And they watched the gates also day and night, that they might kill him. 25. But the disciples taking him in the night, conveyed him away by the wall, letting him down in a basket. 26. And when he was come into Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. 27. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the Apostles, and told them how he had seen the Lord on the way, and that He had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had acted boldly in the name of Jesus. 28. And he was with them, going in and going out in Jerusalem, and acting boldly in the name of the Lord. 29. He spoke also to the Gentiles, and disputed with the Greeks; but they sought to kill him. 30. Which when the brethren had known, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him away to Tarsus. 31. Now the church indeed throughout all Judaea, and Galilee, and Samaria, had peace, and was edified, walking in the fear of the Lord, and was filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit. 32. And it came to pass that Peter, as he passed through, visiting all, came to the saints who dwelt at Lydda. 33. And he found there a certain man named Aeneas, who had kept his bed for eight years, who was paralytic. 34. And Peter said to him: Aeneas, the Lord Jesus Christ healeth thee; arise, and make thy bed for thyself. And immediately he arose. 35. And all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him, who were converted to the Lord. 36. And in Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas. She was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did. 37. And it came to pass in those days that she was sick and died. Whom when they had washed, they laid her in an upper chamber. 38. And as Lydda was near to Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, asking him: Do not delay to come to us. 39. And Peter rising up went with them. And when he had come, they brought him into the upper room, and all the widows stood about him weeping, and showing him the coats and garments which Dorcas had made for them. 40. And they all having been put forth, Peter, kneeling down, prayed; and turning to the body, he said: Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. 41. And giving her his hand, he raised her up. And when he had called the saints and the widows, he presented her alive. 42. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43. And it came to pass that he stayed many days in Joppa with one Simon, a tanner.
Verse 1: Saul, Still Breathing Out Threatenings
Verse 1. SAUL. — He was so called from Saul, the first king of his tribe of Benjamin. For he who in Hebrew is called Saul is in Latin called Paul. Hence in verse 4, instead of Saule, Saule, the Greek and Syriac have Saul, Saul. From this St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome, epistle 27, hold that certain ones of the tribe of Benjamin were preserved in its general slaughter and destruction, Judges xx, 45, so that from it this Saul, the future Paul, might be born. Just as Saul was called in Hebrew as it were שאול schaul, that is, asked for, namely as king by the people and granted by God; so was this Saul named, "because he had been requested by the devil to harass the Church," says St. Jerome in his epistle To Philemon. Again, just as Saul persecuted David, so Saul persecuted Christ, the antitype of David, says St. Augustine on Psalm LI.
Symbolically, Saul and Saulus allude to שאל scheol, that is, hell, so called because it always demands and is never satisfied, according to that saying: "Hell insatiably opens its hollow throats." For Saul was as it were a hell ever gaping for the blood and slaughter of the faithful, but converted into Paul he became a heaven of all virtues, gaping for the salvation of the Gentiles. So Arator, treating of those who stoned St. Stephen:
"At the feet of Saul," he says, "they placed the garments of the savage one, / Which the Hebrew calls hell."
Again, Paul aptly by a Greek word and etymology alludes in Greek to σαλεύεσθαι, that is, to be tossed about and stirred, so that Saul is the same as restless, agitating all things, disturbing and harassing, as it were σάλος, that is, the surge and tumult of the sea; whence the Latin salum, that is, the sea and the boisterous strait. So Ambrosiaster, in chapter 1 to the Romans, verse 1. Finally Saul was σκύλμενος, that is, defective, flowing, delicate, light.
STILL BREATHING. — As if to say: He had not yet sated his cruelty and thirst for Christian blood by the killing of Stephen and of other Christian men and women, whom he was dragging to chains and tribunals, chapter viii, verse 2.
BREATHING OUT THREATENINGS AND SLAUGHTER. — Pagninus: breathing threats and slaughter, that is, speaking like a raging lion and belching forth the most atrocious and deadly threats. In this mystically was fulfilled that prophecy of Jacob about Benjamin (for Saul was descended from him): "Benjamin a ravenous wolf, in the morning shall eat the prey, and in the evening shall divide the spoils," as I have said from St. Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose and Bede, on Genesis XLIX, 27. He raged therefore as a wolf. Whence to mother Church he was Benoni, that is, son of sorrow: but changed into Paul, he became Benjamin, that is, son of the right hand. For this change of his was the work of the right hand of the Most High; and being reborn in Christ, he brought death to mother Synagogue, just as Benjamin did to his mother Rachel. Again, just as Benjamin among the twelve patriarch brothers was the least and last, so also was Paul among the Apostles. And just as Benjamin was preferred by Joseph with many privileges over his brothers, Genesis XLII, 44, so was Paul endowed by Christ above the other Apostles.
Whence St. Chrysostom marvels at God's power and the virtue of Christ's grace, inasmuch as it stopped, broke and changed Paul, raging and furious, in the very heat of his fury; nor did He wait until this fury subsided by raging: "That He might show," he says, "His power, conquering and overcoming the persecutor in the midst of his madness: For we most admire a physician when he can extinguish and utterly do away with a fever, when it is more virulent, and the flame of disease, when it is more violent." Doubtless this was the force of the prayers of St. Stephen and the faithful, and especially of the Blessed Virgin for Saul, as I have said in chapter vii, verses 57 and 59. The final cause was that God, through Saul, the most bitter enemy of Christians now converted, might confound the unbelief of the Jews and through him refute it. For who would not believe in Christ and Christianity, to whom Paul, once an enemy, gave such brilliant testimony? So St. Chrysostom, Œcumenius, and others. Now this ardor for raging in Paul arose both from zeal for the Mosaic law, as he himself says in Galatians 1, 19, and from the ardor of youth and disposition, and from envy of the glory of St. Stephen, Barnabas, and other faithful. For this envy broke out into killings, namely against him who, like in name, was so in fact related to him.
OF THREATENINGS AND SLAUGHTER. — Hence it is clear that Saul, besides Stephen, killed many other faithful. Whence he himself, repenting, says in Acts xxii, 4: "This way (the life of Christians) I persecuted unto death." And chapter xxvi, 10: "And when they were being killed, I cast my vote."
TO THE HIGH PRIEST, — who at that time was Annas, or, the year being completed, Caiphas, or one of Annas' sons, as I said in chapter IV, verse 6.
Verse 2: Letters to Damascus
2. LETTERS TO DAMASCUS. — Damascus was the capital of Syria, situated at the side of Lebanon, distant from Jerusalem a journey of five days, that is, 50 French leagues. Hence, just as Syria, so too Damascus was not subject to the Jews, but had its own king Aretas, II Cor. xi, 31. The Jews, however, had their own quarters in Damascus, where they administered and exercised the law over their own people: for Benadad, king of Syria, granted them this, III Kings xx, 34. Add that Aretas, persuaded by the Jews, agreed with them in the persecution of Christians, as is clear from II Cor. xi, 31.
Note here the ardor of Paul by which, having raged against the faithful at Jerusalem and in other places of Judea, he extended his fury against them as far as Damascus. This is what he himself says in chapter xxvi, verse 11: "And being yet more mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities: in which when I went to Damascus," etc. St. Justin adds against Trypho that the chief priests sent others also into other regions to seize and persecute Christians, perhaps by Paul's example and instigation. Moreover at Damascus rather than in other cities Saul searched out Christians, because he had heard that those scattered at the slaying of Stephen had fled there; inasmuch as in a Gentile and royal city not subject to the Jews, and remote, they thought they would be safe from the persecution of the Jews; and they would not consider themselves safe from it in other neighboring cities, being subject to Judea or in alliance with it.
OF THIS WAY, — that is, of this institution, namely the followers and professors of Christianity. See what was said in chapter II, verse 38.
MIGHT BRING THEM BOUND. — Therefore he was bringing many companions with him, whether soldiers or attendants, as is clear from verse 7, intending to ask for more from the head of the synagogue of the Jews at Damascus, if he had need of them.
TO JERUSALEM, — both because he wished these things to be done with greater authority, says St. Chrysostom, and because he knew that at Jerusalem Annas, Caiphas and the other Jewish leaders were most hostile to Christ and to Christians: but at Damascus the name of Christians was still obscure and almost unknown, and their hostility to Judaism, as Saul thought, and therefore he feared that the heads of the synagogue there might be more mild toward them.
Verse 3: As He Drew Near to Damascus
3. AS HE WAS APPROACHING DAMASCUS. — First, that at Damascus the miracle of his conversion and its outcome might appear more clearly, says the Glossa, since not at the beginning, but at the end of his journey and persecution, he is suddenly struck and changed from heaven. Secondly, that, struck with blindness, he might at once be led into Damascus to Ananias, who would help, catechize, and baptize him. Finally, Damascus has been notably ennobled by the conversion of St. Paul. Now this place, where St. Paul was converted, is half a mile distant from Damascus; and in memory of his conversion, posterity erected a church there in honor of St. Paul; in the same place even now Christians who live in Damascus are wont to be buried. This place is called by the Syrians Mergisafer. And the army of Christians in the holy war, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, marching toward Damascus, arrived there on the very day of St. Paul's conversion, and tarried there two days. So from Ludovicus Romanus, Bredembachius, and William of Tyre, Adrichomius, in his Description of the Holy Land, on Damascus: who also graphically delineates this place in a geographical table. The same was reported to me at Rome by serious men, eye-witnesses, who visited Damascus and the holy places.
SUDDENLY A LIGHT FROM HEAVEN SHONE ROUND ABOUT HIM. — The time and the magnitude of the light enhance the miracle. For this happened at noon when the sun is brightest, and therefore this light by its brightness surpassed the splendor of the sun, as Paul himself testifies in chapter xxvi, verse 13. Therefore this light was like a lightning bolt and a flashing, says Lyra; nor did it strike only the eyes of St. Paul, but also of all his companions, as he himself says in chapter xxvi, verse 14. And this, first, that this light might beat back and lay low the fury of his eyes and mind. So that, His mind being calmed, he might more attentively perceive the voice of Christ, says St. Chrysostom, homily On Bearing Reproofs. Second, that, like a wolf working in nocturnal darkness, he might be blinded by the outpouring of light, says St. Ambrose, in his book On the Blessings of the Patriarchs, on the blessing of Benjamin. Third, that this exterior light might disclose to him the inner darkness of his mind, according to that of Zephaniah 1, 17: "I will distress men, and they will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord." Fourth, that the exterior light might represent the interior light which God poured into Paul's mind, by which He revealed to him both Himself and the wickedness of his persecution, according to that which he himself says: "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, He has shone in our hearts," II Cor. iv, 6. And that: "All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for all that is made manifest is light. For which reason He says: Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you," Eph. v, 13. The same God thunders to every sinner, when in his mind there flashes a lightning bolt and the thought of death, judgment, hell, etc. Fifth, that by this light he might discern that he must henceforth walk in the light of the Gospel, of grace, and of good works, according to what he himself writes to the Ephesians v, 8: "You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord: walk as children of light. For the fruit of light is in all goodness, and justice, and truth." Sixth, this light was a symbol of Paul's doctorate, by which he was to enlighten all nations with the light of Christian doctrine and life, as he himself indicates in Acts xxvi, 18, that Christ had said to him. Furthermore, this light was shed by the glorious body of Christ. For Christ here appearing to Saul, as will be clear in verse 5, like a duelist with His light was striking him as with a star, blinding and laying him low, according to Habakkuk iii, 11: "The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation: in the light of Your arrows they shall go, in the brightness of Your glittering spear." So in the Transfiguration, the splendor of Christ's body breathed its rays upon Moses and Elijah, and even on the Apostles, Luke chapter ix, verse 31.
Verse 4: And Falling on the Ground
4. AND FALLING ON THE GROUND. — As though struck and starred by the flashing light, as I have already said. For lightning lays low men, even animals, trees, houses and temples. To this light was joined the terrible voice of Christ, like thunder: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" For, as Job xxvi, 14 says: "Who shall be able to behold the thunder of His greatness?" So when the Seraphim with alternating voice cried out to God: "Holy, Holy, Holy, the lintels of the doorposts were shaken by the voice of him that cried," Isaiah vi, 3 and 4. Now not only Saul but all his companions also were laid prostrate on the ground by this light, as Paul relates in xxvi, 14. St. Gregory, homily 8 on Ezekiel, holds that St. Paul fell on his face: for penitents and those to be sanctified fall on their faces, as if soon to rise again through penance; but the impious and impenitent fall back on their backs, that they may never rise, as Judas fell and the soldiers about to seize Christ, John xviii, 6. This distinction however is not constant: for Goliath also, an unbeliever, dying fell on his face, I Kings xvii, 49.
Some hold that Paul came on foot and fell on foot; but the common opinion (which paintings everywhere express) is that he was on horseback and fell from his horse: first, because he was making a long journey, namely of five or six days from Jerusalem to Damascus; second, because he came as it were like a praetor surrounded by attendants. So Sanchez, Lorinus and others. Third, the same is suggested by Saul's high spirit and animosity; for swelling with pride and anger he was breathing threats and slaughter, granted from zeal for the law, as he saw it. Fourth, his fall and prostration suggest the same: for as it were dueling with Christ, thrown by Him from his horse, and dashed by a heavy fall — but, the One who struck him moderating and softening it so that he was not crushed nor overwhelmed — feeling His mighty hand, shaken and afflicted in his whole body, he immediately laid down his spirits and crests, and humbled and a suppliant gave himself to Christ the victor, saying: "Lord, what do You want me to do?" For if he had been on foot, his fall would have been slight and trifling, and not sufficient to subdue his ferocity. The contrary, however, is held by our Salmeron and others, and St. Augustine hints at it saying that he walked on foot, and it is probable: first, because Scripture nowhere mentions his horse or him as a rider; second, because the more religious Jews, like the Pharisees, such as Paul was, scarcely used horses, as I have said on Deut. xvii, 16; third, because he himself was a young man, as keen of hand, so swift of foot.
HE HEARD A VOICE. — In the Hebrew language, as Paul reports in Acts xxvi, 14. And in chapter xxii, 9, he asserts that he alone heard this voice, not his companions; for a glorified body, by the power of God assisting it, can cause itself to be seen and heard by one and not by the others, because it can diffuse the species of itself and of its voice to one and not to the others, as the Scholastics teach. "A voice was brought to Saul from heaven, that it might be shown that the preaching which was committed to him was heavenly," says Isidore of Pelusium, bk. I, epistle 400.
Morally, God in Paul gave a pattern and type of the conversion of sinners. For the light represents prevenient grace and the inner enlightenment of the mind; prostration on the ground, adversity; the voice, the reproof of the preacher, master, companion, etc.; the goad, the remorse of conscience; Ananias, the confessor; the blindness, the closing of the eyes and of the soul to earthly things, and the consideration of eternal and heavenly things; the three-day fast, satisfaction for sins through fasts and prayers; the falling of the scales from the eyes is the laying aside of excuses; Baptism is penance and confession, which is the second plank after shipwreck, and as it were a second baptism; food is frequent reception of the Eucharist; to be with disciples is to act with the upright. See St. Bernard, sermon On the Four Modes of Praying. So Salmeron here. Lord, flash forth Your lightning, like Paul's, into our souls, that we may turn to You with all our heart. Make us vessels of election, to celebrate Your glory throughout the whole world.
SAUL, SAUL. — In Greek and Syriac, Saul, Saul, for so was Saul called in Hebrew, and Christ here was speaking in Hebrew, as I have already said. This doubling is an indication, both of the deep sleep in which Saul was slumbering in his sin, and of the great love and compassion, equally efficacious and penetrating to Paul's inmost being, of Christ's calling, that He might strike and soften the hard and obstinate heart of Saul. Christ cries out, that He may pierce the ears and mind of Saul, who was most remote from Him. Hear St. Augustine, homily 14 among 50: "As far as the East is from the West, He has put our iniquities far from us. As far as the East is from the West: turn away from the West, turn to the East. Sins set for you, justice rises thence. In the West, the old man; in the East, the new. In the West, Saul; in the East, Paul." Therefore Christ cried out in the East, that in the West Paul might hear and obey.
WHY DO YOU PERSECUTE ME? — Christ has His head in heaven, His body on earth: for the mystical body of Christ is the Church, the members are the faithful. Saul could not persecute Christ in heaven: hence he persecutes Him on earth, namely in His faithful. Hear St. Augustine, tract 10 on the Epistle of St. John: "Do you not tremble," he says, "at the voice of the Head crying out from heaven for His members: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? He called the persecutor of His members His own persecutor." The same in his sermon On the Saints: "With His members still placed on earth, the Head was crying out in heaven, and was not saying: Why do you persecute My faithful? but: Why do you persecute Me?" So greatly does Christ love the Church and the faithful; so greatly does He unite Himself with them, that He wills to be their head, spirit, soul and life, as I said on I Cor. xii, 12. And St. Bernard, sermon On the Conversion of St. Paul: "Truly Saul has been caught; there is no place for dissimulation, no possibility of denying. In his hands are the letters of a most cruel embassy, of execrable authority, of iniquitous power. Why do you persecute Me? He says. Did he not persecute Christ, who was slaying Christ's members on earth? Or indeed did those persecute Christ who fastened that most holy body to the gallows of the Cross; and did he not persecute Him, who against His body, which is the Church, raged with iniquitous hatred? Finally, if He gave His own blood as the price of the redemption of souls, does not he seem to you to inflict a heavier persecution upon Him, who by malign suggestion, by pernicious example, by occasion of scandal, turns away from Him the souls which He has redeemed, than the Jew, who shed that blood? Recognize, dearest brethren, and tremble at the company of those who hinder the salvation of souls. A horrendous sacrilege indeed, which seems even to exceed the crime of those who laid sacrilegious hands on the Lord of Majesty." Note this moral teaching of St. Bernard about scandal.
Now if you weigh and press each of Christ's words, they have great weight, great pathos: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me" unto death, I who pursue you unto life, that from Saul I may make Paul? I am sweet, honeyed, and most loving toward you: in no matter have I injured you; never have I offended you even with a little word: why do you persecute Me as if an enemy? I am your innermost friend: I have inscribed you on My hands and in My heart, and I am eager to draw you into the inmost of My heart and to lay you up there, that you may dwell in its center: why do you persecute Me? I descended to earth for you, made man: and now again for you alone I descend from heaven to you. I poured forth tears for you, and bloody ones in the garden; for you I sweated and grew cold; for you I gave My blood and life, ready still to give them a thousand times if there were need: why do you persecute Me? For you I stretched out My hands on the cross to the Father, was pierced with nails, crowned with thorns, torn with scourges: why do you persecute Me? I have chosen you for My captain, destined you as Apostle and vessel of election: why do you persecute Me? In My Passion and on the Cross, afflicted for you with so many insults and torments, I uttered no complaint, no groan, no vow; about you I complain and justly complain; about you I groan, about you I send forth a mournful voice: why do you persecute Me, that is, My faithful, who are dearer to Me than life? Why are you eager to tear them from Me and destroy them? You persecute Me, who am Jesus, that is, your Savior, your salvation? Why do you destructively assault Me, your very self and your salvation? That I may perish, do you wish to slay yourself? These things, and far more inwardly in Paul's mind, Christ was speaking and as it were flashing.
Wherefore Saul, now converted, weighing this dignation and immense love of Christ, as it were running after him, everywhere proclaims this clemency of His toward him with the deepest sense of his soul, as in I Timothy 1, 15: "It is a faithful saying," he says, "and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first" (For, as St. Augustine says, sermon 10 On the Words of the Apostle: "None more fierce among persecutors: therefore none first among sinners." Whoever has at any time sinned and offended God, let him imitate and put on this spirit of compunction and humility of St. Paul, and preserve it through his whole life. So St. Chrysostom, bk. II On Compunction, and St. Augustine, bk. On True and False Penitence, ch. xiii). "But for this cause I have obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show all patience, for the information of those who shall believe in Him unto life everlasting;" "that all may say to themselves," says St. Augustine, sermon 9 On the Words of the Apostle: "If Paul was healed, why do I despair? If by so great a Physician so desperate a sick man was healed, why shall I not put my wounds to those hands, why shall I not hasten to those hands? That men might say this, therefore Saul was made from a persecutor an Apostle." Similar things are in I Corinthians xv, 9; to the Ephesians iii, 8, and elsewhere. See what is said there. Finally St. Augustine, on Psalm LXXII: "He himself," he says, "first Saul, afterwards Paul, that is, first proud, afterwards humble and small. For Saul, from which the name Saul is derived, you know was a proud and unbridled king: but Paul means small. Hear what manner of man Saul was, and what manner of man Paul is. What was he formerly? What? a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious. You have heard Saul, hear also Paul: For I," he says, "am the least of the Apostles. What is least, but I am Paul? And it follows: Who am not worthy to be called an Apostle: Why? because I was Saul. What is I was Saul? Let him himself say: because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God," he says, "I am what I am."
Wherefore the Church each year celebrates the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul: first, that she may set him before all sinners as an example of penance; second, that she may give thanks to God, who gave to the Church Paul the teacher of the Gentiles; third, that she may invoke the converted Paul, that from heaven he may convert sinners; for even now, although translated to heaven, he converts very many by his example, prayers, epistles.
Verse 5: Who Said: Who Art Thou, Lord?
5. WHO SAID: WHO ART THOU, LORD? — Paul, struck by the light of Christ and growing blind, was hearing Christ's voice; but with the splendor poured all around him acting upon him, he could not see and recognize Him distinctly. Therefore he asks who He is, whether an Angel or God; and he tacitly submits himself to Him as a servant, calling Him "Lord." Thus St. Chrysostom.
Note: Saul here saw Christ, though confusedly. For Ananias asserts this of him in v. 17, saying: "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to thee in the way, hath sent me." And in v. 27: "He related to them how on the way he had seen the Lord." Indeed Paul himself, in 1 Cor. xv, 8: "Last of all," he says, "He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time;" for although he afterward saw Christ many times, here only was he as one born untimely, because he was violently converted and reborn in Christ. So Tertullian, Against Praxeas, ch. xv; Primasius, St. Thomas, and the Gloss on 1 Cor. xv; though Ambrosiaster, Sedulius, and Haymo take this of the vision of Christ which Paul had in the temple, of which Acts xxii, 17. Moreover Christ seems to have descended here from heaven — yet without leaving it — to the air near Paul, for from there He emitted His voice (which Paul clearly and distinctly heard, so that he conversed with Him), as well as so great a light that it blinded him and laid his companions low. Thus St. Ambrose, On the Blessing of the Patriarchs, last chapter; St. Thomas, Part III, Q. 57, art. 6, ad 3, and others. See what was said in chapter III, 21. Therefore the body of Christ was then in two places, namely in heaven and in the air. Note this against Calvin and the Sacramentarians, who deny that Christ's body can be in heaven and in the Eucharist at the same time.
I AM JESUS — of Nazareth, as the Syriac adds here, and Paul in Acts xxii, 8. He does not say: I am God and the Son of God, but Jesus; because Paul did believe the divinity, but he was attacking the Incarnation, that is, Jesus, as if to say: "Receive the lowliness of My humility, and lay aside the scales of thy pride," says Bede from St. Gregory.
IT IS HARD FOR THEE TO KICK AGAINST THE GOAD. — This is a proverb taken from stiff-necked oxen which, when they are pricked by plowmen or charioteers with a goad (called βουκεντρα for that reason), kick back, but only press themselves more upon the goad and are pricked the more sharply: signifying in a similar manner that he who struggles against one stronger than himself — as Paul against Christ — does it in vain and to his own harm; for he provokes the wrath of the stronger, that He may inflict blows and wounds the heavier and more frequent upon him. Christ intimates that Paul up to this point had been kicking, as it were, against a goad against Him: for Christ had often pricked Saul's mind with the goads of miracles, of holiness, of St. Stephen's disputations, and of St. Barnabas's exhortations (as his Life records), that he might believe in Him; but Saul, kicking back, drove himself upon a stronger goad, which Christ here drove into him, casting him down and pinning him to the earth. "For the words of the wise are like goads and as nails fastened on high, which by the counsel of masters are given by one shepherd," says Eccles. xii, 11. Moreover, the harsh goad of a sinner's conscience is its own remorse and self-accusation. "Hard upon the soul is itself the accuser, judge, executioner, the gnawing worm," says Quintilian, Inst. Bk. V. Nor is there any doubt that Saul had often felt this goad of conscience. Therefore "it is hard for thee to kick against the goad": that is, it is hard for thee to fight against God; for thou provokest Him who, when stirred up, inflicts sharp and inescapable blows: just as he who kicks at the goad does not hurt the goad but himself, according to that saying of Plautus in Truculentus: "If thou strike at goads with thy fists, thy hands will smart the more." Wherefore Euripides wisely says in the Bacchae:
Rather would I offer Him sacred rites, than try to strike the goads with my heels, when I, a mortal, am but quickly roused to wrath against a God.
Verse 6: Trembling and Astonished
6. AND TREMBLING AND ASTONISHED, — at so great a light, voice, glory, power, and majesty of the present Christ, by which he felt himself blinded and pinned to the earth — especially because, conscious of guilt for his past persecutions and seeing himself laid hold of by Christ and in His power and hands, he feared lest He exact sharp and deserved penalties for his crimes. For God is wont first to strike sinners with the fear of punishments, of death, of judgment and Gehenna; and by this to move them to grief and detestation of their crimes; thence to hope of pardon, to the love of God and obedience. For fear is like the needle or bristle which draws in the thread of love, as St. Augustine says, tract 9 on the First Epistle of John. Furthermore, so great is the Majesty of the angels, and far more of God, that a man, seeing it, instantly falls down. So Daniel, ch. x, 16, when he saw the angel: "Lord," he says, "in the vision the joints of my bones are loosed, and there is no strength remaining in me." And Ezekiel, ch. ii, v. 2, having seen the glory of God: "I fell," he says, "upon my face." Indeed even Manoah, the father of Samson, said: "We shall surely die, because we have seen God," that is, the angel as God's vicar, Judg. ch. xiii, v. 22.
HE SAID: LORD, WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO? — These are the words of a soul fully pierced with compunction, humble, resigned, devout, surrendering and giving itself over to God. Whence St. Augustine, sermon 14 On the Saints: "Already," he says, "he prepares himself to obey who before raged to persecute. Already from a persecutor a preacher is being formed, from a wolf a sheep, from a foe a soldier. Let the sheep hear what it ought to do." From which it is clear that Paul was then, through such great contrition, not only justified, but excellently sanctified after the manner of St. Magdalene in Luke ch. vii. So commonly the interpreters, and namely St. Gregory, Moral. Bk. XI, ch. vi or vii.
St. Chrysostom here notes first that Paul was converted not by compulsion and necessity, but spontaneously and freely; for that is what his words signify. This is denied by Luther, Calvin, and others who hold that man's will is not free but enslaved, and that the grace given to Paul was so efficacious that it violently dragged him to Christ as thieves are dragged by the magistrate to prison — opinions condemned by the Council of Trent, session VI, canons 4, 5, and 6, and by St. Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, ch. xiii. There he teaches that God knocks at the mind by inward and outward persuasions, that it may convert itself; but that to consent or dissent to the calling belongs properly to man's will.
Note secondly, the greatness and efficacy of the grace by which Paul was drawn and converted. For by it he was suddenly made, from the bitterest persecutor, the highest friend of Christ. Whence St. Augustine often calls it most efficacious. Hear him, Bk. I to Simplicianus, Q. II: "How rabid," he says, "was the will, how furious, how blind in Saul? Who nevertheless was carried away by a single voice from above, when there came in his way a sight of such a kind that by it that mind and will, broken from its savagery, was turned back and corrected to faith." Hence St. Gregory, Dial. Bk. III, ch. xvii: "It is," he says, "a greater miracle to convert a sinner by the word of preaching and the comfort of prayer than to raise one dead in the flesh. For the Lord raised Lazarus in the flesh, but Saul in the mind," because He changed his mind wholly, so that from being diabolical it became more than angelic, as St. Gregory there shows. This grace, then, was so powerful that, first, it converted Paul's utmost hostility into the utmost service of Christ.
Secondly, that it abolished at once not only sins, but also the roots and depraved habits of sins: it is otherwise with other sinners. For if a drunkard or a lustful man be converted, although his past sins are remitted by penance and absolution, yet the habits of drunkenness and lust remain, which do not cease to prick and solicit him to his former indulgence and lust, until in a long time, by many contrary acts, they are torn out, or rather broken and lulled to sleep. But St. Paul, because he had most efficacious grace, and cooperated with it heroically by giving his whole heart to God and saying: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" — by this wiped away from his mind all habits of vice and, as it were, the very memory of them. Wherefore this light and impulse of divine grace suddenly changed him wholly into another, indeed a contrary man, so that from a lion he became a lamb, from a wolf a Shepherd, from a persecutor an Apostle.
Hence thirdly, this grace instilled in him such a love of Christ that he, who shortly before wished to kill Christ and Christians, now wished to die for them, and to spend his whole life for them, offering himself to all journeys, labors, persecutions, hunger, thirst, prisons, torments, deaths, that he might propagate Christ's glory and Church; so completely did he seem transformed into Christ. Whence he says: "To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." And: "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me." Hence he knew nothing else, savored nothing else, breathed nothing else with heart, mouth, and work, but Christ crucified, who, he says, delivered Himself for me; all other things which are in the world he counted as dung. Hence that zeal of winning souls for Christ, of becoming all things to all men, of running through the whole world preaching Christ, of prescribing the laws of Christian life to every age, sex, and condition; so that, indefatigable, day and night he ceased not to teach and preach Christ. In this his first conversion, then, Saul received grace, not only the common Christian grace given to other faithful, but also the Apostolic grace proper to the Apostles; and he was elected and created an Apostle from heaven by Christ, as will be clear from v. 15.
Note thirdly: Christ here as it were enters a duel with Saul, and conquers and casts him down; whence by the law of the duel He could have killed him, but, taking pity, He grants him his life: wherefore Paul, giving Him thanks, binds himself as a perpetual servant. Hence at the beginning of nearly all his Epistles he sets this title: "Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ." So Rupert. Similar was the speech of proud Turnus, conquered in single combat and laid prostrate by Aeneas, which Virgil graphically expresses, Aeneid XII, at the end:
He (Turnus), humble and suppliant, stretching out his eyes and his beseeching right hand: "I have indeed deserved this," he says, "nor do I beg pardon; use thy lot (kill me if thou wilt); but if any care of a wretched parent can touch thee — and thou hadst such a father in Anchises — pity, I beseech thee, the old age of Daunus; and either return me, or, if thou prefer, my body stripped of light, to my own. Thou hast conquered (and the Ausonians have seen the conquered stretch out his palms); Lavinia is thy wife: extend not thy hatred further." Aeneas stood fierce in arms, rolling his eyes, and held back his right hand, etc.
But as soon as he recognized the belt of his beloved Pallas, with which Turnus had girt himself, in indignation and vengeance he slew him. Far more mild and merciful then was Christ to Saul than Aeneas to Turnus. Paul therefore was as it were a proud and fierce rhinoceros which God subdued to Himself, indeed made into His own herald, according to that of Job xxxix: "Shall the rhinoceros be willing to serve thee? wilt thou bind the rhinoceros with thy thong to plough?" On which passage see St. Gregory, Moral. Bk. XXI, ch. ii and iii.
Morally, St. Paul here teaches us what we ought to answer when we feel divine inspirations and God calling us to amendment and sanctity or perfection, namely: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" For by this submission, resignation, devotion, readiness, with eagerness of soul prepared for all things, offering his whole self to God, he disposed himself and merited by congruity to be lifted up to the height of the apostolate and to become the doctor of the Gentiles. So Abraham, called by God, Gen. xii, 1, answered: "Here am I." So also Jacob, Gen. xxxi, 11, and Moses, Exod. iii, 4. And Ananias here, v. 10: "Behold I am here, Lord." And Isaiah, ch. vi, 8: "Here I am, send me." So also Samuel answered God who called him: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," 1 Kings iii, 10. And the Psalmist: "My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready: I will sing and I will give praise in my glory," Ps. cvii, 2. St. Francis, when hearing God speak in his heart, was wont — even when on a journey — to halt his step and gather his mind within himself, that he might attend to Him wholly; and immediately he would put into action what he had heard. Thus he reached the summit of sanctity, as St. Bonaventure relates in his Life.
Lastly St. Bernard, sermon 1 On the Conversion of St. Paul: "This indeed, brethren," he says, "is the form of perfect conversion. 'My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready': 'Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?' O word brief, yet full, yet living, yet efficacious, yet worthy of all acceptation, etc. Alas, do we not have more imitators of that blind man of the Gospel than of the new Apostle? 'What wilt thou' (says the Lord to that blind man) 'that I do for thee?' Far be it, O Lord: rather do Thou say what Thou wilt have me to do? For thus it is fitting, thus it is altogether worthy, that not my will should be sought from Thee, but Thine from me, etc. Thus indeed, thus the pusillanimity and perversity of many to this day demands that they be asked: 'What wilt thou that I do for thee?' — they themselves not asking: 'Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?'"
Verse 7: Arise, and Enter the City
7. ARISE, — "stand upon thy feet," as is given in ch. xxvi, 16.
AND ENTER THE CITY (Damascus), AND THERE IT SHALL BE TOLD THEE WHAT THOU MUST DO. — You will say: in Acts xxvi, 16, Christ is said to have spoken this to Saul: "For to this end have I appeared to thee, that I may make thee a minister and a witness of those things which thou hast seen, etc., I send thee to open their eyes, that they may be converted from darkness to light," etc. I answer: Christ told Saul in general that He wished to make him His herald; but in particular He wished him to be instructed concerning baptism by Ananias. For such is the sweet disposition of God, that, as angels are taught by angels, so men should be taught by men: of which there is a striking example in Sophronius, or rather John Moschus, in the Spiritual Meadow, ch. cxcix; and this lest some fanatic defend his errors and dreams by alleging an internal instinct of the Holy Spirit, as the Anabaptists do. So Cassian, Conferences II, ch. xv. Secondly, here, says St. Bernard, sermon 1 On the Conversion of St. Paul, "the usefulness of social life is commended, that, taught through a man, he himself also may, according to the grace given him, assist men." Thirdly, Paul, fasting and blind for three days, was instructed by God at Damascus; but he is sent to Ananias not so much to be instructed as to be baptized by him and cured of his blindness. Whence he says pointedly: "What thou must do": namely, to receive baptism, of which more in ch. ix.
THEY STOOD, — You will say: in ch. xxvi, 16, Paul says that his companions had been prostrated with him: therefore they were not standing. I answer first, "stood," that is, they were there, were stationed there, remained there; for "standing" here is opposed not to sitting or prostration, but to movement and going onward. Thus Magdalene is said to have stood behind beside the feet of Jesus and washed His feet: "standing," that is, kneeling, with bent knee, Luke vii, 38. Secondly, "stood," because after the prostration they raised themselves from the earth and stood up on their feet, that they might raise Saul up. For Saul alone, lying on the earth, was seeing Jesus and conversing with Him, and felt his mind being changed. God therefore permitted Saul's companions to remain in Judaism, that they might be witnesses to the Jews — beyond all exception — of this miraculous conversion of St. Paul, and of all the wonders that had happened in it. So St. Chrysostom and Œcumenius.
ASTOUNDED. — The Syriac, Pagninus, and the Zurich version: "astonished"; others, "mute"; for those who are astounded grow speechless: for fear and stupor snatch away the voice, just as they do the mind and memory: and the Greek ἐνεοί also signifies the mute and deaf.
HEARING INDEED THE VOICE, BUT SEEING NO ONE. — You will say: in Acts xxii, 9, the opposite is said, namely "they saw indeed the light, but they heard not the voice." I answer: there is added in that place, "of Him that spoke with me," that is, of Christ, as if to say: They heard my voice, not Christ's. So St. Augustine, on Psalm lxvii, Lyranus, Hugo, Vatablus and others here. Secondly, it can be said that they too heard the voice of Christ, but only confusedly: because, being astounded, they could not hear and understand His articulate voice distinctly.
Verse 8: And Saul Arose from the Ground
8. AND SAUL AROSE. — Partly of his own accord, obeying and leaning upon the voice of Christ, who said "Arise"; partly assisted and raised up by his companions.
HE SAW NOTHING. — Our translator reads οὐδέν, that is, nothing; some now read οὐδένα, that is, no one: which some restrict to Christ, as if to say, He no longer saw Christ, whom shortly before, while lying on the earth, he had seen. But that he saw nothing and was blind is clear from the fact that he had to be led into the city by his companions, as follows. For Christ struck Paul's eyes more with His light than those of his companions: he was blinded, but not they, namely, in order that they might be able to lead him into the city. So St. Chrysostom and Œcumenius. Wherefore the opinion of Dionysius is not probable — that Paul saw nothing because his mind was caught up from the senses into ecstasy. For that Paul was deprived not only of the use of his eyes, but also of the power of sight, is clear, because scales fell from his eyes when shortly after he was miraculously cured by Ananias. Whence it follows that the light was monstrously great which thus struck his eyes like a flash of lightning so dazzled them that it took away his sight — not by drying up the crystalline humor or wounding the ocular tunics, but by drawing little films like scales over them, of which v. 18. Notice here that Christ at first tempered this light, that Paul might in some manner, though confusedly, behold Him as glorious and surrounded with light; but then, withdrawing Himself, He intensified it, so that Paul, when he arose, felt himself entirely blinded: and this, first, that from it Paul might infer how great was the brightness, power, majesty, and glory of Christ — so Rupert; secondly, that, blinded outwardly, he might inwardly gather the eyes of his mind to consider those things that pertained to his salvation and that God required of him; thirdly, that by the blindness of the body he might atone for the blindness of the mind which he had freely put on by closing his eyes — indeed by resisting the light of the Gospel: whence St. Bernard, sermon 1 On the Conversion of St. Paul: "Happy," he says, "is the blindness by which the eyes, once badly enlightened in transgression, are at last in conversion salutarily blinded;" fourthly, that he might learn to close his eyes to earthly goods and open them to heavenly things, as if to say: Despise the earth, look up to heaven.
AND LEADING HIM BY THE HAND. — "See, he is being led as a captive of Christ, who had come to drag Christians to prison," says St. Chrysostom. What a spectacle of himself did Paul here present to the Jews and the citizens of Damascus? Of what kind, indeed, and how delightful to God, the Angels, Ananias, the Apostles, and all Christians?
Verse 9: Three Days Without Sight
9. AND HE WAS THERE THREE DAYS WITHOUT SIGHT, AND HE DID NOT EAT, — for the sake of prayer and penitence. For, as St. Chrysostom says, "he was pricked with compunction for what he had done, he was confessing, he was praying, he was beseeching God." Whence in these three days he learned from God the mysteries of the Christian faith and of the Gospel: for he soon began to preach them publicly, v. 20. Wherefore at the beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians: "Paul," he says, "an Apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ." And in v. 12 he says that he did not learn the Gospel from man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ. Hence Bede, Hugo, and the Gloss think that Paul during these three days was caught up to the third heaven, 2 Cor. xii, 2. But I have shown in that place that that rapture happened later. Therefore the reason Paul was sent to Ananias was not so much for the sake of teaching, as for being cured of his blindness and for baptism, namely, that he might be enlightened and baptized by him, says St. Chrysostom. The same, hom. 4 On the Praises of St. Paul: "Paul's blindness," he says, "was made the illumination of the whole world. For because he was seeing badly, God blinded him, that he might profitably see for the rest."
Tropologically, St. Bernard, sermon 1 On the Conversion of St. Paul: "Surely," he says, "that Paul remains for three days without food, persisting in prayer, pertains chiefly to those who, newly renouncing the world, do not yet breathe in heavenly consolation. Let them too, then, wait upon the Lord in all patience, pray without ceasing, seeking, asking, knocking: for the heavenly Father will hear them in due season."
Verse 10: Now There Was a Certain Disciple Named Ananias
10. ANANIAS. — He was distinguished among the faithful, says St. Chrysostom, indeed Paul himself, ch. xxii, 12; St. Augustine, Quaestiones Evangelicae, Bk. II, Q. xlvii, considers him to have been a presbyter, but Œcumenius only a deacon, though one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ. The same is held by Dorotheus in his Synopsis, who also adds that he was afterwards made bishop of Damascus. Of him we read thus in the Roman Martyrology, on January 25th: "At Damascus, the birthday of St. Ananias, who baptized that same Apostle. After he had preached the Gospel at Damascus, Eleutheropolis, and elsewhere, he was scourged with rods and torn under the judge Licinius, and at last, crushed with stones, he completed his martyrdom."
Mystically, the ravening wolf of Benjamin — namely Saul — is sent to Ananias, that is, to the grace and mercy of God, that he might obtain pardon from it and be transformed into a sheep. Otherwise St. Augustine, sermon 14 On the Saints: "He was led," he says, "to Ananias, and 'Ananias' is interpreted 'sheep' (in I know not what language: certainly not Hebrew, nor Syriac, nor Greek). Behold, the ravening wolf is led to the sheep — to follow her, not to seize her: and lest the sheep be terrified at the wolf's seizing, the Shepherd Himself from heaven, because He was doing all things, announced to the sheep that the wolf would come, but would not rage; yet so monstrous a reputation had gone before that wolf that the sheep, when she heard his name, could not but be disturbed." And shortly after: "Savagery is forbidden the wolf. The wolf is led captive to the sheep. By the Lamb who died for the sheep, the sheep is made safe from the wolf."
Verse 11: Go Into the Street That Is Called Straight
11. GO INTO THE STREET, — into the public way. For a city is divided into regions, regions into streets or public ways, streets into houses. Whence from vicus (street) is derived vicinus (neighbor), who lives in the same street.
STRAIGHT, — which was long and straight, as at Rome across the Tiber there is a street called Longara, because it is very long and very straight.
ONE SAUL BY NAME, OF TARSUS. — Refer the "by name" to Saul, not to Tarsus. For Paul's proper name was Saul, and his surname was "of Tarsus," from his fatherland; because he was born at Tarsus, which is the metropolis of Cilicia. Hence the Zurich version, like the Greek, puts a comma after "name," as if to say: Seek in the house of Judas a certain man whose name is Saul; and his fatherland is Tarsus. For by these signs He points out Saul to Ananias, lest someone else offer or thrust himself in his place. Furthermore, Tarsus was so renowned for navigation, merchandise, and wealth, that from it the neighboring sea and any other great sea was called by the Hebrews "Tharsis": wherefore Solinus Polyhistor, ch. xlvii, calls Tarsus the mother of cities.
FOR BEHOLD HE PRAYETH. — Note: the "for" gives the reason why He commands Saul to be approached, and removes all fear from Ananias, as if to say: Do not fear, Ananias, to approach Saul, who shortly before was the persecutor of the faithful: for now he is not the Saul that he was; now he no longer persecutes, but prays, that he may dispose himself for a better life and for baptism. So St. Chrysostom, Hugo, and Lyranus. The Syriac differs, joining these words to what follows; for it renders: "For behold, while he himself was praying, he saw in a vision a man named Ananias." But the Greek text agrees with and supports our Latin version.
12. AND HE SAW A MAN. — This verse in the Roman and Greek Bibles is enclosed in parentheses; for it contains the words, not of Christ speaking to Ananias, but of Luke the historian reporting them, as if to say: At the time when Ananias was sent by God to Saul, Saul himself, while praying, saw in a vision — not corporeal (for he was blind) but imaginary — Ananias coming to him and curing him; and this for this end, that when soon Ananias arrived, Saul, enlightened by him, might recognize him from his voice and appearance which he had seen in the vision, and receive him as one sent by God to him.
Verse 13: Lord, I Have Heard from Many of This Man
13. LORD, I HAVE HEARD. — So great was Saul's cruelty, so great the report of his fury, that at the mere name of Saul, Ananias — although sent by God to him — shuddered. Whence he excuses himself, as if to say, says St. Chrysostom: "I fear him, lest he perchance lead me to Jerusalem. Why dost Thou cast me into the mouth of the lion? Why dost Thou betray me to him?" The sheep fears to go to the wolf, not knowing the wolf has been changed into a sheep, as I said a little before from St. Augustine.
Verse 14: And Here He Hath Authority
14. AND HERE HE HATH AUTHORITY, — that is, in this place, namely at Damascus, for the Greek is ὧδε. "Hic" here therefore is an adverb, not a pronoun.
Verse 15: He Is to Me a Vessel of Election
15. HE IS TO ME A VESSEL OF ELECTION (that is, a singularly chosen instrument), — Saul. For the Hebrews call any instrument כלי "keli," that is, "vessel." Thus "vessels of song," Amos vi, 5, are musical instruments; "vessels of war," Gen. xlix, 5, are arms and armed men with which war is waged; "vessels of death," Ps. vii, 14, are swords and weapons by which death is inflicted. Hence the Zurich version translates, "He is to Me a chosen organ," that is, a man most select and most outstanding, says Vatablus.
You will ask, why is Paul called a vessel, that is, a chosen instrument? I answer first, because God chose him out of so many thousands of thousands of men in preference to the rest, even to the Apostles, to evangelize everywhere, to Jews as well as to Gentiles. Whence, explaining this election of his, He adds: "That he may bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel." Hence it is clear that Saul, in his first conversion, received the Apostolate and Apostolic grace, and was created an Apostle by Christ.
Secondly, "vessel of election," that is, of predestination, as if to say: Paul was from eternity predestined by God to great grace and glory, according to Gal. i, 15: "But when it pleased Him, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace." So St. Jerome, in that place. In a similar manner the Apostle calls the predestined "vessels unto honor," as it were of gold and silver; and the reprobate "vessels unto dishonor," as of clay and earthenware. 2 Tim. ii, 20.
Thirdly, St. Chrysostom thinks this election regards both Saul's keen and ardent disposition, and his zeal for the divine Law, as if to say: God chose Saul ardent and zealous, that He might correct this ardor and zeal and transfer it to Christ, that is, that he might be a keen and zealous defender and herald of Christ. For so arduous an office of the Gospel and of the Apostolate required a heroic disposition which, aided and imbued with the grace of God, would overcome all difficulties, dangers, and persecutions. For cold and phlegmatic men, even though holy, are less fitted to break through such hard things. Whence St. Chrysostom, asking why God chose Saul, fierce and wild, answers: that a man fitted to slay Christians might be turned to the slaying of errors — namely, that he might cut the throats of Judaism and paganism.
Fourthly, Paul was a "vessel" chosen, that is, holy, both because he kept virginity and the spirit of virgins in a body unsullied, as in a holy vessel, as is clear from 1 Cor. vii, 7; so St. Gaudentius, tract. 8, vol. II of the Library of the Holy Fathers: for, as Cicero says, Tusculan. I: "The body is, as it were, a vessel and a kind of receptacle of the soul;" and also because he was an organ of the Holy Spirit. For just as in an organ the breath and air, breathed in by the bellows, resound and produce a sweet melody, so in Paul and in his mouth the Holy Spirit resounded and produced a heavenly harmony, which seized to itself men — even fierce and barbarous ones — and delighted the very angels. "Amphion," it is said, "moved stones by singing," and Paul did so far more. Virgil celebrates Orpheus, Georgics IV, with his voice and song,
Soothing the tigers and driving the oaks with his song.
The true Orpheus — Paul, I say — with the Holy Spirit playing through him, softened and tamed the bestial, oaken, and stony hearts of men. He therefore was the vessel, that is, the organ, lyre, flute, trumpet, and melodious and tuneful chelys of the Holy Spirit. Whence St. Jerome, ep. 61 to Pammachius: "Where," he says, "is the vessel of election, the trumpet of the Gospel, the roar of our Lion, the thunder of the Gentiles, the river of Christian eloquence, who marvels at, more than he speaks of, the mystery hidden from past generations and the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God?"
Fifthly, he was "a vessel of election," because he strenuously and ardently cooperated with the divine call and election, according to that: "His grace in me hath not been void, but I have labored more abundantly than all they." 1 Cor. xv, 10. And that: "If any man shall have cleansed himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and profitable to the Lord, prepared unto every good work." Labor and love are twins, says Plato: because what one loves, one labors for, and refuses no labor for the beloved, just as Paul for Christ, whom he loved supremely, refused none, but all he sought after. Paul therefore was a prodigy of nature, a miracle of grace, the astonishment of the Gentiles, the terror of the Jews, the portent of the universe, the chosen servant of God, the select and beloved Apostle of Christ. So masters call those servants chosen and beloved who at once carry out all their commands and immediately complete all their works and affairs.
Sixthly, just as the sun in Eccles. xliii, 2, is called "an admirable vessel, the work of the Most High," because the sun is the vessel of light by which God illumines the whole world, so also St. Paul; for he was as it were the sun of the world. Whence St. Chrysostom, on Romans ch. i: "Paul's tongue," he says, "shone above even the sun itself, surpassing all others in the doctrine of the word; whence by the Gentiles he was believed to be Mercury." Acts xiv, 11, and Bk. I On Providence: "None is greater than Paul, or even equal to him."
Seventhly, St. Jerome, on Hosea ch. viii: "Paul," he says, "is a vessel of election, because he is the vessel of the Law and the armory of the sacred Scriptures." Just as St. Anthony of Padua, on account of his skill in Holy Scripture, was called by the Pontiff the "Ark of the Testament."
Eighthly, others would have St. Paul properly called "vessel of election" because he was full of wisdom and grace, so much so that all nations have drunk from his fulness. So Origen, Periarchon Bk. III, and St. Ambrose, sermon 11 On Sts. Peter and Paul. This is what the Wise Man says in Prov. xx, 15: "There is gold and a multitude of jewels: but the lips of knowledge are a precious vessel."
Ninthly, St. Thomas, in the preface to the Epistles of St. Paul, explaining of him what was said by Ecclesiasticus, ch. l, v. 10, of Simon the high priest: "As a vessel of solid gold, adorned with every precious stone: Paul," he says, "was a vessel of gold by reason of wisdom, solid by reason of charity, adorned with all the other virtues." See more in him.
Tenthly, Paul was "a vessel of election" because he was chosen and destined to suffer many labors, persecutions, and tribulations for Christ and the Gospel. For this is the reason Christ adds, saying: "For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name;" of which there is more in that place.
Finally, do you wish to know to what great and sublime things Saul was chosen by God and raised? Hear St. Chrysostom, hom. 18 on Romans ch. xi, in his Morals, where he compares him to heaven and prefers him to it: "For the heaven," he says, "though it has been seen for so long a time, has not greatly moved men: but Paul, having preached for a brief time, has drawn the whole world. For the heaven, keeping its limit and canon, stands at the same station; but the sublimity of Paul's mind transcends all the heavens and converses with Christ Himself. So great is its beauty, that even God Himself proclaims it. The stars, when they were made, the angels admired; but Paul God Himself admired, saying: 'He is to Me a vessel of election.' That heaven is often covered by a cloud; but no temptation overshadowed Paul's mind, but in the very midst of storms it surpassed by its splendor the very brightness of noonday. For that sun which shone in Paul did not send forth such rays as could be darkened by the gathering of temptations, but then most especially shone forth. Whence he also said: 'My grace is sufficient for thee. For My power is made perfect in infirmity.' Let us therefore emulate him, and even that heaven, nor the sun, nor this whole world will be anything compared to us."
The same, On Compunction of Heart, Bk. II: "Paul," he says, "walking upon the earth, was holding the very summit of heaven, etc. But his love and the desire which he had for the charity of Christ had not only penetrated the three heavens, but had also entirely transcended them all, and had come even to Christ Himself, like an immense flame which would fill the whole earth, and ascending thence, when all things were filled, would come even to the very heights of heaven; but, surpassing all things even thence, would transcend even the air which is above heaven: and when it had filled the spaces and the things which are there, it would ascend even to the third heaven, and would fill all these things with one and the same fire; so that it would leave no space of earth or of heaven, indeed not even of the heavens, empty." See the same, at the end of the Epistle to the Romans, and the eight homilies he wrote on the Praises of St. Paul, at the end of vol. III, where in the eighth he compares and prefers Paul to all, not only to the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Saints, but also to the Angels, Cherubim, and Seraphim. Is not this the vessel of election? How happy are those upon whom this election of God falls? Thrice and four times blessed are they whom God has from all ages destined for Himself as vessels of election. Would that Christ, our love, deign to choose and call us also with His rare election and holy calling; and that we in return might equally respond to His calling and grace, and so continually increase in it and transcend it. For this is the one way to outstanding virtue and sanctity. Pray for us, St. Paul, that we may be made partakers of thy admirable election and calling. Amen.
THAT HE MAY BEAR MY NAME: — First, as a herald boldly proclaims and bears in his proclamation the name of his prince, the lawgiver, whose laws and edicts he promulgates; secondly, as a Prophet bears and sets forth in his oracles the name of God, saying: "Thus saith the Lord;" thirdly, as an ambassador freely bears and sets forth the name of the King by whom he is sent; fourthly, as a soldier and standard-bearer intrepidly and bravely bears and sets forth the name and insignia of his commander; fifthly, as a doctor bears and sets forth the name of his Author, whose books and doctrine he teaches and explains. Furthermore, Paul bore Christ's name in his heart by most ardent love, in his mouth by most efficacious eloquence, in his work by continuous and most grievous labors and sufferings, in his Epistles by wisdom and most fervent zeal. Whence he says: "I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body," Gal. vi, 17; for these marks are as it were the characters of the name of Jesus.
BEFORE THE GENTILES. — Hence his title is, "Doctor of the Gentiles," 1 Timothy 2:7.
AND KINGS, — as before Agrippa, king of Judaea, Acts 26, before Nero, and the kings of other provinces, very many of which he visited in his evangelizing. Similar was the election and calling of St. John Chrysostom: for to Flavian the Patriarch praying in the morning an angel appeared, and commanded him to go to the monastery in which Chrysostom was leading the monastic life, and to consecrate him a priest: "For he," said the angel, "is to be, like Paul, a vessel of election and will encompass the whole world by his word." And when Chrysostom, a lover of silence and the monastic life, sought to escape that honor and burden, an angel also appeared to him, commanding him not to resist Flavian, but to acquiesce, saying: "What God has decreed, who shall be able to avoid?" So has the Life of St. Chrysostom.
AND TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. — These are placed last, as if more worthy than the Gentiles, inasmuch as they were the sons of Abraham, and consequently to them properly Christ had been promised and sent: yet Paul experienced them as the most hostile to himself, equally as enemies of Christ.
Verse 16: How Great Things He Must Suffer for My Name
16. FOR I WILL SHOW HIM HOW GREAT THINGS HE MUST SUFFER FOR MY NAME'S SAKE. — God showed this to Paul, both by internal inspiration (for God is wont to suggest impending grievous evils to His Saints, and as it were to forewarn them, that they may come to them more prepared and courageous); and by external means, as when through Agabus He foretold him the chains which a little later he underwent at Jerusalem, ch. 21:11; and by daily experience, since He daily made him undergo new and greater persecutions and crosses. Thus often in Scripture "to show" is the same as actually to exhibit, to bestow, to do, as when the Psalmist so often prays: "Show us, O Lord, Your mercy." Show, that is, exhibit, bestow, do. And Daniel, ch. 3, v. 44: "Let all be confounded who show (that is, do) evil to Your servants." And Psalm 4:7: "Who will show (give) us good things." And Psalm 50: "You have shown (made) Your people hard things." And Psalm 70:20: "How great tribulations have You shown (sent upon) me."
Note: For the word "for" gives the reason of the preceding, namely why Paul is to be a vessel of election and how he is to bear the name of Christ before Jews and Gentiles, as if to say: Paul will be for Me a vessel of election, because in bearing My name before the Gentiles and kings he will suffer many and great things for Me generously and steadfastly. Whence it is clear that Paul and other elect servants of God are chosen and destined by God more for suffering many things for Him than for acting. For the service of God, equally as the apostolate, consists more in much suffering than in operation; namely: "To do brave deeds is Roman; to suffer brave things is Christian," indeed Apostolic and Pauline. For first, Paul and the Apostles, evangelizing the new and paradoxical faith, namely that Christ crucified is God and the Savior of the world, that continence, sobriety, mortification of desires, etc. must be observed, encountered many mockers, contradictors, and persecutors. Secondly, God deservedly inflicted this penalty on Saul for his sins. Hear St. Augustine, sermon 14 On the Saints: "Show," he says, "to the persecutor not only Your goodness, but also Your severity: let him suffer what he caused others to suffer; let him too feel what he inflicted on others. I," He says, "will show him what he must suffer for My name's sake: he who acted against the name, let him suffer for the name. O merciful severity! You see Him preparing the iron, He is about to cut, not to slay." Thirdly, because Christ had suffered much more for him and from him: it was therefore fitting that he too should repay Christ, and suffer many things for Him. Fourthly, because it was fitting that the preacher of Christ crucified should preach Him more by example than by word: for this is more efficacious and more persuasive. Fifthly, because it is an act of greater fortitude to suffer brave things than to do them, being far more difficult. Sixthly, because that ardent love, infused into him by Christ, could not be satisfied except by great and many labors and tribulations endured for Him. Whence he himself says: "We glory in tribulations," Romans 5:3; especially because he saw himself loved so greatly by Christ, affected by so many benefits, and namely flowing with divine consolations in the midst of persecutions. "For, as he himself by experience says, 2 Cor. 1:5, as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also through Christ does our consolation abound:" therefore as much as tribulation and desolation grew, so much also did the consolation of God grow.
Furthermore, how many and how grievous things Paul constantly suffered for Christ is clear both from the following chapters of this book to the end, and from the Epistles of St. Paul, and especially the whole 11th chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians. For Christ prepared for him a great glory and crown in heaven, which he had to merit through great labors and sorrows. "For the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us," Rom. 8:18. Wherefore it is the highest dignity and glory to suffer many great things for Christ: which God gives not to all, but to His elect and beloved, as to St. Paul and the like. See what was said at ch. 5, 41.
By a similar vision and a token of much suffering, St. Francis Xavier was called from heaven, and as it were enlisted as Apostle of the Indians. For while at Rome he was ministering to the sick in the hospital, God in dreams revealed and represented to him the immense labors and hardships which he was to undergo in India for the glory of His name. Beholding which, Xavier eagerly said: "More, Lord, more, more;" and he repeated this in so loud a voice that he roused and startled Father Simon Rodriguez, his companion in the room, from sleep. The same man also seemed to himself in his dreams more frequently to bear on his shoulders a black Indian, like an Ethiopian, so heavy that under such a burden he could not lift up his head. Reporting this himself to Father James Lainez, then his companion: "Even now," he said, "from this dream I feel such bodily fatigue and as it were bruising in my limbs, as if I had really wrestled with that Indian." So among others reports Father Lucena, a serious theologian, in book 1 of the Life of Xavier, ch. 7.
Verse 17: Laying His Hands on Him
17. LAYING HIS HANDS ON HIM. — Calvin holds that Ananias administered to Saul the sacrament of Confirmation. For this is called the laying on of hands. Whence he infers that it can be conferred not only by Bishops, but also by Presbyters and others (for such was Ananias). But he errs: for Saul had not yet been baptized; therefore this laying on of hands was not Confirmation, which must follow baptism; but partly it was a healing and illumination of Saul, according to that of Christ, Mark, last chapter: "They shall lay hands upon the sick, and they shall recover;" partly it was a disposition and preparation for baptism. For thus formerly hands were laid upon catechumens by a priest, that he might pray for them and invoke God's blessing upon them: of which ceremony witnesses are St. Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, ch. On Baptism; St. Cyprian, epist. 56; St. Augustine, book On Faith and Works, ch. 4; and the Fourth Council of Carthage, canon 85. Add that many things were peculiar in Saul: for being called from heaven, taught by Christ, he received the substance of the Sacrament without the Sacrament — namely, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, which is the effect of the sacrament of Confirmation, without this sacrament. Finally he was filled with the Holy Spirit not through the laying on of Ananias' hands, as Calvin maintains, but through baptism, as I shall presently say.
BROTHER SAUL. — Of old Christians called one another brothers, and women sisters, namely in spirit, not in flesh: for all reborn by the same baptism had the same Father Christ, and the same Mother the Church, in which they lived more amicably and harmoniously than blood brothers in the same paternal home. For though Paul was not yet really a Christian, because not yet baptized, yet he was so by desire, and that most ardent; for he had now plainly put on the faith, love, and spirit of Christ.
THE LORD JESUS HAS SENT ME. — "He inserts the name Jesus, to signify that by His power healing is brought, as Peter signified when he restored the gait to the lame man," ch. 3:6, says St. Chrysostom. Therefore laying his hand upon Saul, naming and tacitly invoking Jesus, he dispelled the blindness, and restored sight to him.
THAT YOU MAY SEE (through this laying on of my hands, and the invocation of Jesus), AND BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, — in baptism, which I shall presently confer on you. That this is so is clear from what immediately follows: "And immediately there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight." Where nothing is added about the Holy Spirit, but he adds about Him:
Verse 18: Scales Fell from His Eyes
18. AND IMMEDIATELY THERE FELL FROM HIS EYES AS IT WERE SCALES, — similar to the scales of fish, say Lyranus and Cajetan. Hence it appears that Paul's blindness was not intrinsic, namely situated in the injury of the organ, such as in the drying up or extinction of the crystalline humor, or of the ocular tunic; but extrinsic, namely that his eyes were covered with films, as it were with scales. Similar was the blindness of Tobit, which was naturally dispelled by the gall of a fish. Whence concerning it ch. 11:14: "And there began," he says, "a whiteness to come out of his eyes, like the skin of an egg, which Tobias taking, drew from his eyes, and immediately he received his sight." Therefore as the dung of swallows falling into the eyes of Tobit, and there coalescing with the humor flowing from the brain, or with phlegm, covered them with a film and blinded him, so also here that light striking Paul's eyes, by its heat and hidden power led down humors from the brain into his eyes, and there coagulated them, so that they grew together into films like hard scales, and thus covered the eyes and blinded them. A similar blindness today befalls many from a flowing humor, congealed into a film and veiling the eyes, which skilled surgeons often cure by their art, removing the film with a needle. But in Paul the removal of the film and blindness was miraculous, because it was done by the sole laying on of Ananias' hands and invocation of the name of Jesus: for Ananias did not remove the film and scale by wiping with the gall of a fish, or extracting it with a needle.
Tropologically: St. Gregory, book 33 of the Morals, ch. 24, takes the scales as the veil of carnal wisdom, or of excuses and hypocrisy: "The hardness of the carnal covering," he says, "had pressed him (Saul) down, and therefore he did not see the rays of the true light. But after his proud resistances were vanquished, the scales of his defenses fell from his body, but before that they had already fallen, under the Lord's rebuke, from the eyes of his heart, when prostrate he said: Lord, what would You have me do? With the scales repulsed, the arrow of truth had now reached the inmost parts of his heart, when, having laid aside the elation of pride, confessing as Lord Him whom he had assailed, and not knowing what to do, he asked. Whence he heard: I am Jesus — as if to say, take up the weakness of My humility, and lay aside the scales of your pride. Yet it must be known that these scales of defenses, although they cover almost all the human race, especially press down the minds of hypocrites and crafty men. For they refuse to confess their faults the more vehemently in proportion as they blush more quickly to be seen by all as sinners. Therefore the simulation of sanctity once rebuked, and hidden malice once detected, throws up the scales of defense, and repels the sword of truth." Hypocrites therefore and self-lovers are blind. For simulation is a scale, bald excuse is a scale, self-love is a scale, which veils for them the eyes of the mind, and takes away the sight of truth. But these scales Jesus through Ananias, that is, through the grace of God, and through preachers, confessors, and other spiritual men, dissolves and dispels.
AND RISING HE WAS BAPTIZED. — For not before baptism was he filled with the Holy Spirit, especially since this descent and filling of the Holy Spirit at that time was made through the visible sign of fire, or fiery tongues. This sign however was not ordinarily given except in Confirmation, and occasionally in Baptism; as here, in favor of Paul, God gave it to him. There was another reason in the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Peter's sermon over Cornelius, before he was baptized, ch. 10:44, as I shall say there. Nyssen, in his oration On St. Basil, and St. Jerome, on Ezekiel 1, add that Paul received his sight, not by the laying on of Ananias' hands, but by baptism; so that there is here a hysterologia (reversal of order). But the contrary is truer, as I have already said; for the orderly sequence of the context demands it. So commonly the Interpreters. Paul adds, Acts 22:14, that Ananias in exhorting him said: "The God of our fathers has preordained you, that you should know His will, and see the Just One (Christ), and hear the voice from His mouth; because you shall be His witness to all men, of those things which you have seen and heard: Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins."
AND HE WAS BAPTIZED. — For though already before, when he said, "Lord, what would You have me do?" his sins had been forgiven through contrition, yet this contrition included a vow and obligation of baptism: by which therefore Saul here discharged himself. Again he was baptized, that he might be initiated into Christianity, and that he might become capable of Confirmation, Ordination, and the other Sacraments: for of these baptism is the door.
St. Ambrose, sermon 31, holds that Saul changed his name in baptism, and was called Paul. But the contrary is truer, concerning which see ch. 13:9.
Furthermore, through baptism Saul received the Holy Spirit and His fullness. For in baptism all sins, and all the penalties of sins, are washed away, and grace, charity, and all the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit are infused. Wherefore it is not likely that Saul received the fullness of these by the bare laying on of Ananias' hands, which was not a Sacrament, but a mere ceremony and symbol of prayer. Therefore he received it through baptism, which is the first and principal Sacrament of Christ and the Church. Furthermore, by a special gift of God Saul, being an Apostle and soon to be a preacher, received in this a far greater fullness than the rest of the faithful.
Verse 19: When He Had Taken Food, He Was Strengthened
19. AND WHEN HE HAD TAKEN FOOD, HE WAS STRENGTHENED. — For, as St. Chrysostom says, "he was weakened by the journey, and by fear, and by fasting, and by sadness," namely the compunction of the soul.
You will ask, in what year from the nativity and passion of Christ was Paul converted? Some answer that he was converted in the year next after the passion of Christ, which was the 33rd from His nativity, for in the year 34 Christ suffered in March, and in the same year, on December 26, Stephen was stoned: thence almost after a month, namely in the year 35 of Christ, on the 25th of January, St. Paul was converted. It favors this, that Paul was converted by the prayers of St. Stephen as he was being stoned: therefore soon after his stoning: otherwise his prayers, throughout the whole year in which Saul was permitted to rage against the Churches, would have been ineffectual and as it were void. So Eusebius in his Chronicle; William Durandus, book 7 of the Rationale of Divine Offices, ch. 4; Christopher of Castro, in the Chronology of the Mother of God; and Adrichomius, in his Chronology, who says Paul was converted in the year 35 of Christ on the fourth day of the week, or Wednesday. Hither can also be reduced Hippolytus of Thebes and Evodius, who say Stephen suffered in the seventh year from Christ's death, and Paul was converted soon after his slaying: for there for "year" it seems we should read "month," as I said in ch. 7, v. 57. Furthermore, what the Alexandrian Chronicle writes is paradoxical, that Stephen was stoned in the first year of Emperor Claudius, and Paul converted in the second year of the same. For the first year of Claudius falls in the 43rd year from Christ's nativity, which was the ninth from Christ's death and ascension.
On the other hand, others think that Paul was converted in the 2nd year from Christ's death, which was the 36th from His nativity, so that precisely from the day of Christ's death until the day of St. Paul's conversion two years intervened, except for two months which elapsed from January 23, on which Paul was converted, until March 25, on which Christ suffered, as also 34 years earlier He had been announced and conceived, made man in the Virgin's womb. So judge Œcumenius, Sanchez, Lorinus, Baronius, and Pererius in the Prolegomena to the Epistle to the Romans, disputation 1, number 24. The Roman Martyrology favors this, and Usuard's, and Isidore, in the book On the Life and Death of the Saints, ch. 71, who say Paul was converted in the second year from the ascension of Christ. Although others answer to this that these authors reckon as year 1 from the ascension that which flowed immediately from the ascension to the Kalends of January, on which a new year was begun, that being the second; yet commonly men speak and reckon otherwise, and by "second year" mean a biennium. Reason also favors it, because what Luke narrates after the slaying of St. Stephen — about Saul's persecutions, the conversion of Samaria, the journeys and deeds of Philip, and the Church already gathered at Damascus — do not seem to have been able to occur in one month, but easily require a year; unless someone should say that many of these things happened after St. Paul's conversion, but Luke placed them earlier, that he might at the same time finish weaving in the deeds of Philip, who succeeded St. Stephen. This opinion, as more common and more conformable to the Martyrologies, seems also truer. God therefore permitted, after Stephen's prayers, Paul to rage yet a whole year, that he might pour out the whole poison of his malice, and so be more easily cured, and that thereby the greater grace and power of God Himself in converting him might shine forth throughout the whole world: for though God hears the prayers of His own, He does not immediately fulfill them, but at a time fitting and convenient for His counsels and decrees. Whence first He permitted him to rage against the Christians throughout all Judaea, before he should go and harass foreigners, namely the Damascenes, as he himself intimates ch. 26:11, where he says that he persecuted them through all the synagogues. The same is intimated in ch. 8:2. But he could not do this in one month, but in one year. For Judaea is broad and vast, especially because, as it is said there in v. 3, Saul searched the houses of individuals, and the faithful, after Stephen was killed, were scattered through all the regions of Judaea and Samaria, all of whom Saul, breathing threats, was eagerly striving to seize and exterminate.
Hence it follows that Saul was converted in the 34th year of his age, and so served Christ for as many years afterwards; for he died in the 68th year of his age, says St. Chrysostom, whom I cited in the Proem on St. Paul. Wherefore, as for what some quote from St. Chrysostom, in the homily On the Princes of the Apostles, saying of Paul: "For thirty-five years he served the Lord with all readiness," and from this gather that Paul was converted in the beginning of the 35th year of Christ, not the 36th — I have not until now found this in St. Chrysostom. But if St. Chrysostom does say it, he seems to have followed the Chronicle of Eusebius then recently published, which marks Paul's death in the 14th year of Nero, which was the 70th of Christ. For if you number the years of Christ from 36, in which Paul was converted, to 70, in which he is set in Eusebius' Chronicle as slain, you will find Paul's years after his conversion to be 35. But the Chronicle errs here. For that St. Peter and Paul were killed in the 13th year of Nero, not the 14th, Baronius proves from this, that in year 14 on June 29, when the Apostles were slain, Nero was not alive; for he was killed about the beginning of June of that 14th year. Therefore by this reckoning of Baronius it must be said that Paul served Christ 34, not 35 years.
AND HE WAS WITH THE DISCIPLES WHO WERE AT DAMASCUS FOR SOME DAYS. — St. Chrysostom reads, "for three days": for instead of τινας, that is, "some," he reads τρεῖς, that is, "three"; he also adds the reason for this stay: "This consolation," he says, "of Paul having been brought (converted) compensated the grief which the faithful had conceived from the death of Stephen: nor can it easily be estimated with how much joy all triumphed, and what thanks they gave to God, and what congratulations they offered to Saul."
Verse 20: Immediately He Preached Jesus in the Synagogues
20. AND IMMEDIATELY (εὐθέως, that is, straightway) IN THE SYNAGOGUES HE PREACHED JESUS. — Hence it is clear that Paul, during those three days in which he remained blind at Damascus, had been taught by Christ, and had received infused knowledge, and an understanding of the Scriptures concerning Christ: for he immediately began to preach Him, and to dispute with the most learned Jews and convince them. Note here Paul's wonderful change, his sudden spirits and fires. "He did not blush," says Chrysostom, "at the change, nor did he fear to destroy those things in which formerly he was renowned."
This indeed is the force and energy of the Holy Spirit, concerning which St. Gregory speaks splendidly, hom. 30 on the Gospels: "Behold," he says, "with the eyes of faith opened, I gaze upon David, Amos, Daniel, Peter, Paul, Matthew, and I wish to consider what kind of artificer this Holy Spirit is, but in the very consideration I fail. For He fills the boy harpist (David), and makes him a Psalmist. He fills the cattle-herding shepherd plucking sycamores, and makes him a Prophet. He fills an abstinent boy, and makes him a judge of elders. He fills a fisherman, and makes him a preacher. He fills a persecutor, and makes him a doctor of the Gentiles. He fills a publican, and makes him an Evangelist. O what an artificer is this Spirit! no delay is made for learning into whatever He shall will. For as soon as He has touched the mind, He teaches; and to have only touched is to have taught. For as suddenly as He illuminates the human soul, He changes it; He suddenly denies that it is what it was, suddenly exhibits what it was not. Let us consider our holy preachers, what He has found them on this day, what He has made them," etc.
THAT (ὅτι, that is, "that") HE IS THE SON OF GOD. — So the Tigurine, Pagninus, and others.
Verse 21: All Who Heard Him Were Amazed
21. AND ALL WHO HEARD HIM WERE AMAZED, — namely the Jews, and the unbelieving Gentiles, says St. Chrysostom; nay even the faithful and Christians wondered at so great and sudden a change in Saul, so that, as they said of Saul prophesying: "Is Saul also among the prophets?" 1 Sam. 10, so also they said of Saul: "Is Saul among the Apostles? Does he preach Jesus, who used to persecute Jesus?" says St. Gregory, book 4 on the 1st book of Kings, ch. 10.
WHO FOUGHT AGAINST, — ὁ πορθήσας; the Tigurine, who raged; Vatablus, who laid waste, or pillaged. "Fought against," therefore, that is, attacked, eagerly endeavored to overthrow and extinguish: for it is taken in an inchoate, not a perfect act: for neither the Church, nor the faithful constant in faith, can be overthrown or destroyed by any persecution. So the Psalmist says, Ps. 128:1: "Often have they fought against me from my youth up," that is, attacked; for it follows: "and indeed they could not against me," as if to say: They attacked me, but they did not prevail, they did not overthrow me. They marvel deservedly, that Saul, a little before a fierce attacker of the Church, immediately becomes a more fierce defender of the same.
Verse 22: Saul Was Much More Strengthened
22. BUT SAUL WAS MUCH MORE STRENGTHENED, — that is, was growing stronger, as the Tigurine renders, was becoming more powerful, was taking on greater strength and spirit, was attacking the Jews more vigorously.
AND CONFOUNDED THE JEWS, — συνέχυνε, that is, troubled; the Syriac, terrified. To confound here therefore does not properly mean to affect with shame, but to move, to disturb, to render perplexed: so that they did not know how to extricate themselves and to solve Paul's arguments.
AFFIRMING, — συμβιβάζων, that is, comparing and fitting together, namely comparing and putting together the times of the promised Messiah and the oracles of the Prophets among themselves, and confirming from the comparison and agreement of all that Christ crucified is that blessed seed promised to Abraham and the Prophets, in whom were to be blessed, that is, justified and saved all nations, that is, that Christ is the Messiah, the savior and redeemer of the world. For Saul gathered together testimonies concerning Christ from Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other Prophets, and showed that all things agreed with one another; and that they said nothing other than "that," that is, "this" Jesus crucified by the Jews "is" the Messiah, or "Christ."
Verse 23: When Many Days Were Fulfilled
23. AND WHEN MANY DAYS WERE FULFILLED, — namely after three years. For Saul went from Damascus into Arabia, thence returned to Damascus, where these very ambushes were laid against him, escaping which he set out for Jerusalem, as he himself narrates Gal. 1, 17 and 18. See what was said there. For if this expulsion of Saul from Damascus had happened before this triennium, namely before his departure into Arabia, as some hold, so that he then had to flee from Damascus secretly, indeed be let down through the wall in a basket; certainly he would not have openly returned thither after three years, for he would have cast himself into manifest peril of life. So Baronius.
Verse 24: They Watched the Gates
24. AND THEY WATCHED THE GATES ALSO. — For the Jews had persuaded Aretas, king of Damascus, that Saul was a traitor and a spy, as I said at 2 Cor. 11:32. See what was said there.
Verse 26: He Tried to Join Himself to the Disciples
26. AND WHEN HE WAS COME INTO JERUSALEM, HE ATTEMPTED TO JOIN HIMSELF TO THE DISCIPLES, — that is, to the Christians, especially to Peter and the Apostles: for he confesses that he went to Jerusalem for the cause of seeing Peter, as the Prince of the Apostles and of the Church, Gal. 1:18. For "to join" the Greek is κολλᾶσθαι, that is, to glue oneself; for as paper to paper by glue, so a Christian is glued to a Christian by charity: for although three years had now passed from Paul's conversion, yet because he himself throughout that time had lain hidden in Arabia, therefore his conversion and mind were still unknown and suspect to many on account of his former life, and his fierce persecution of the faithful, lest perchance he should pretend to be converted, in order to spy out and harass Christians: as do the betrayers of Christians in England.
Verse 27: Barnabas Took Him and Brought Him to the Apostles
27. BUT BARNABAS, — who had intimately known Saul's character and ways, and had certainly known of his conversion, being from boyhood familiar with Saul and a fellow disciple under Gamaliel as master, and who continually solicited him to conversion; as his Life has it. He therefore led Saul to the Apostles, that he might be admitted by them not only among the Christians, but also among the Apostles, as one created an Apostle by God, indeed chosen as a vessel of election.
AND HOW HE HAD ACTED BOLDLY IN DAMASCUS IN THE NAME OF JESUS, — ἐπαρρησιάσατο, that is, openly, freely, confidently had acted in the name of Jesus, that is, with great liberty, confidence, boldness, and fortitude in the synagogues of the Jews had taught and shown that Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah. See concerning this word what I noted at ch. 4:29.
Note: "In the name of Jesus," that is, by the name of Jesus, in place of Jesus. So the Tigurine. Or, "in," that is, concerning the name of Jesus, teaching, namely, that He is Jesus, that is, the savior of the world. Thirdly, it can be rendered, how he confidently taught in the name of Jesus, that is, the name of Jesus, namely that Jesus is truly Jesus, that is, the savior of the world. For words of contact, both corporeal and spiritual, such as to teach (for the Teacher's voice touches the ears and mind of the disciple), among the Hebrews are constructed with the ablative through the preposition "in," as "to touch in the hand" is to touch the hand; "to strike in the head" is to strike the head: so "to teach in the name of Jesus" is to teach the name of Jesus, namely Jesus: for the name is set metonymically for the thing whose name it is, namely for the person named.
Verse 28: Going In and Going Out
28. AND HE WAS WITH THEM, GOING IN AND GOING OUT, — that is, dwelling and conversing with them familiarly, continually and everywhere: for to go in and go out, with the Hebrews, signifies every kind of act, as if to say: Whatever he did, he did with them, he was continually and perpetually engaged with them. See what was said at ch. 1:21.
Verse 29: He Spoke Also to the Greeks
29. HE SPOKE ALSO TO THE GENTILES. — The word "Gentiles" is not in the Greek, nor the Syriac, nor the Latin Gothic, as Mariana attests, nor in Bede, nor in Chrysostom and the other Greek Interpreters; whence Mariana judges it to be superfluous. The Roman Codices however, corrected by command of Clement VIII, have it, as do the other Latin ones. Furthermore, it is not likely that Saul here preached to the Gentiles; for this Peter first did by command of God to Cornelius the Centurion, as we shall hear in the next chapter; nor would even Jews converted to Christ have allowed him to evangelize the Gentiles, as for this very reason they expostulated with St. Peter, ch. 11, v. 3. Therefore it can first be said that here Greeks and Gentiles are the same: for Luke wished to explain what these Gentiles were, by calling them Greeks. For "Greeks" the Greek has not Ἕλληνας, but Ἑλληνιστάς, that is, those who Hellenize, that is, Jews in Greece, namely born, or educated and conversant among the Gentiles; or, as the Syriac renders, Jews who knew Greek. The same therefore is "he spoke to the Gentiles," as "he disputed with the Greeks," namely with Jews coming from Greece. "Gentiles" therefore here are called Jews born or conversant among the Gentiles. For these are called Greeks, in Greek Ἑλληνισταί: for at that time Greek was the same as Gentile, as I said at ch. 6:1.
Secondly, Bellarmine answers, in book 1 On the Roman Pontiff, ch. 22, that Saul disputed with the Gentiles, not by drawing them to the faith, but by defending the Christian faith from their calumnies.
Thirdly, by "Gentiles" here can be understood Gentile proselytes, that is, those converted to Judaism: for they, being already Jews in religion, were capable of Christianity.
Fourthly, if you absolutely wish here to understand Gentiles remaining in gentilism, say with Sanchez that these things happened after the conversion of Cornelius by St. Peter, ch. 10, who opened the door of faith and the Church to the Gentiles. For these things happened after the triennium from St. Paul's conversion: for he spent three years in Arabia, as I said at v. 23; thence returning to Damascus, on account of the snares of the Jews he fled to Jerusalem, and there spoke to the Gentiles, as is here said. Wherefore since Paul was converted in the year 36 of Christ, add three years, and you will have the year 39 of Christ, in or after which these things happened: before which Cornelius seems to have been converted by Peter, about whom in the next chapter. There is therefore here a hysterologia (reversal of order). For Luke wished to weave Paul's affairs through with continuous thread, then to take up the deeds of St. Peter.
BUT THEY SOUGHT TO KILL HIM. — "On account of his so fierce and effectual disputation for the Christian name," says St. Chrysostom. For it is likely that he disputed with his own synagogue of Jews who were from Cilicia, about which in ch. 6:9, who as they had stoned Stephen, so also intended to stone Saul, the more so, because he, as it were a deserter and traitor of the Synagogue, was the most fierce defender of the Christians. For he himself, being a man of Tarsus and a Cilician, had formerly been, with St. Stephen, of the Synagogue of the Cilicians.
Verse 30: They Brought Him Down to Caesarea
30. THEY BROUGHT HIM DOWN TO CAESAREA. — Which by Philip the Tetrarch was surnamed Philippi. The Syriac says he was led down by night, namely that he might depart more safely in the silent night. Furthermore, he seems to have departed by the command of God, who appeared to him in the temple, as he himself says, ch. 22, v. 17; for that vision of his which is narrated in that chapter seems to have happened at this time. Furthermore Paul fled, not out of fear, but out of fortitude. "For the strong preacher of God did not wish to be held within walls, because he sought the field of contest," says St. Gregory, 2 Dialogues.
Verse 31: The Church Had Peace
31. THE CHURCH. — In Greek ἐκκλησίαι, that is, churches in the plural: for there were many particular churches throughout Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria, which made up one total and universal.
HAD PEACE. — For now from the persecution and slaying of Stephen, who was killed at the end of the year 34 of Christ, the fifth year was being passed, namely the year 39 of Christ, as I said a little before: in which same year, in his last year of empire, Tiberius Caesar, on the testimony of Eusebius in his Chronicle, hearing of the wonders which Christ had done in Syria, judged that He ought to be held and worshipped as God, concerning which he referred to the Senate: "The Senate, because it had not first approved, rejected it. Caesar persisted in his opinion, threatening danger to the accusers of Christians," says Tertullian, Apology, ch. 5. And this was no small cause of peace for the Church: thus God submits peace after persecution, joys after sad things, namely "after clouds, Phoebus (the sun)."
WAS BUILT UP, — was growing in number and virtue of the faithful: for these are as living stones building the house of God, which is the Church, Eph. ch. 2, v. 20.
WALKING IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD. — This filial fear is the same as charity. For as charity uniquely loves God, so it supremely fears and takes care lest in any way it offend Him. This is the fear of the Saints, of which the Psalmist says: "Fear the Lord, all His Saints, for there is no want to them that fear Him." And Ps. 2: "Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling." Prov. 14: "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life." Eccli. 1: "The fear of the Lord is glory, and a cause of glorying." And ch. 21: "The consummation of the fear of God is wisdom." And ch. 25:15: "The fear of God has set itself above all things. Blessed is the man to whom it is given to have the fear of God: he that holds it, to whom shall he be likened? The fear of God is the beginning of His love." And ch. 40, v. 28: "The fear of the Lord is like a paradise of blessing, and they have covered him above all glory."
AND IN THE CONSOLATION. — The Greek παρακλήσει signifies three things, namely consolation, exhortation, and advocacy: hence the Holy Spirit is and is called Paraclete, because He provides these three to the Saints. Whence the Greek and Syriac have, "and the consolation of the Holy Spirit was great," according to that of Psalm 30:20: "How great is the multitude of Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hidden for them that fear You!" This is the hidden manna promised and given to him that overcomes, Apoc. 2:17. See what was said there. With these divine consolations St. Xavier abounded in his Indian labors, when he cried out: "It is enough, O Lord, it is enough: for the human heart in this life cannot contain so great a torrent of Your delight." And the Psalmist, Ps. 76: "My soul refused to be comforted: I was mindful of God, and was delighted." St. Bernard splendidly, sermon On the Words of the Apostle, The kingdom of God is not meat and drink: "Joy," he says, "of the kingdom of God, etc., is joy in the Holy Spirit. Whence indeed does this joy come, except it proceed from justice and peace? Let them therefore proceed as cells of honey." And presently: "This is the twofold joy which you have in the Holy Spirit, from the memory of future goods, and the toleration of present evils." The same, sermon 4 on the Vigil of the Nativity: "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice. Rejoice over the bestowal, again rejoice over the promise: for both the thing is full of joy, and the hope is full of joy. Rejoice, because you have already received the gifts of the left hand: rejoice, because you await the rewards of the right. His left hand, he says, is under my head, and His right hand shall embrace me. The left indeed lifts up, the right takes up. The left heals and justifies, the right embraces and beatifies. In His left hand are merits, but in the right are rewards contained." See more in St. Augustine, sermon 20 on Ps. 118; Gregory, hom. 36 on the Gospels; Chrysostom, hom. 4 on 2 Cor.; Cassian, Conference 4, ch. 5; St. Bernard, on the Canticle, serm. 1, 2, 3, 74, etc.
Verse 32: As Peter Passed Through All
32. WHILE HE WAS PASSING THROUGH ALL, — as the head of the faithful, surveying all, just as a prince of the faithful walks through the regions subject to himself, surveying everything, providing for all and giving judgment. For "to walk through" in Scripture is the act of princes, and denotes authority and the right of ruling, as I have shown at Zech. 1:10 and 11. "As a leader in an army," says Chrysostom, "walking about He considered what part was united, what adorned, what needed His coming: see Him running about everywhere and being found first."
Morally: let Pastors here learn from the Prince of Pastors to go about and visit their subjects, as among other things the Council of Trent commands, session XIV, ch. III On Reform, namely: "From the greater ox the lesser learns to plough."
Note: Luke here omits much — for example, that St. Peter in this journey (which Baronius reckons lasted two years) came to Antioch, and there, as in the metropolis of Syria, to which there was a great influx of Jews, and to which many Christians fleeing in the dispersion that took place after the murder of Stephen had escaped, fixed his pontifical see, founding the Church of Antioch (which afterwards Saul and Barnabas augmented by preaching, so that the disciples were first named Christians at Antioch, ch. XI, ver. 26). This St. Jerome, in ch. II on Galatians, and Eusebius in the Chronicle, judge he did in the last year of Tiberius, which was the year of Christ 38; although Baronius and others suppose the same to have been done in the following year, the first of the Emperor Caius Caligula, the year of Christ 39. Moreover, St. Peter sat there as Pontiff for 7 years, namely until the 2nd year of Claudius, which was the year of Christ 44, in which year, going to Rome and there raising up the Roman Church, he transferred thither with his own person the Pontifical see and the whole right of the supreme Pontificate, as Baronius shows from St. Gregory, Damasus, and others, in the year of Christ 39. There also he refutes Onuphrius Panvinus, who against the consensus of the ancients holds that St. Peter first founded the Roman Church and then the Antiochene. Furthermore, he is said to have fixed his see there, not because he was attached to that city and never set foot outside it — for this is false: he went about visiting the faithful of other cities and evangelizing unbelievers — but because he made that Church the first of all the Eastern Churches, inasmuch as he himself was its Bishop, who at the same time was Pontiff of the world. He therefore annexed the pontificate to that Episcopate, until he transferred both to Rome.
TO THE SAINTS. — Of old all Christians were called "Saints," because called to holiness and sanctified in baptism, they lived a holy life, as I have often said in the Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul.
LYDDA. — It was a city situated by the sea between Joppa and Jerusalem, one of the eleven toparchies of Judaea, fifth in order. In the time of St. Jerome it was called Diospolis, that is, the city of Jupiter. In this place, says William of Tyre, book VII of the Sacred War, ch. xxii, the glorious sepulchre of the noble martyr George is shown to this day, in which according to the outer man he is believed to rest in God, in whose honor the Emperor Justinian commanded a church to be built with great zeal and devotion. For St. George was beheaded in that city: wherefore even now it is called "St. George's," as Adrichomius writes from Vitriacus, Brembachius, and others in his Description of the Holy Land.
Verse 33: A Certain Man Named Aeneas
33. AENEAS. — The Syriac has Anias. For Anias is a Hebrew and Syriac name meaning a poor, humble, meek one of the Lord; Aeneas is Latin.
Verse 34: Arise, and Make Thy Bed
34. HEALS THEE. — Thus assertively read the Greek, Latin, Roman, and Syriac. For asserting with sure faith and hope, and curing by His own assertion through the power of Christ, Peter heals Aeneas. Yet St. Gregory, in book XXIII of the Morals, ch. xiii or xv, the Gloss, and the Interpreters, read it optatively: "May He heal thee." The matter comes to the same. For Peter's assertion implicitly contains an optation, a prayer and invocation of Christ, by whose power Aeneas was healed.
AND MAKE THY BED, — that is to say: Do not stretch out thy bed, but gather it up: take up thy mat and walk; for He does not command him to make the bed, that is, to arrange it that he may lie down upon it, since He heals him and raises him from the bed.
Mystically: "Arise, and make thy bed, that is to say: Shake off the torpor in which thou hast lain weary, and prepare good works in which thou mayst rest." Thus Bede. And St. Gregory, book XXIII of the Morals, ch. xv: "What is it to say, Arise, but: forsake the evils thou hast committed? And what is it to say, Make thy bed, but: work the causes of reward in which thou shouldst rest? — that he may both leave behind by rising what he has done, and find by making the bed what he shall have done. Which two things the Prophet briefly comprehends, saying: Turn away from evil, and do good. For to turn away from evil is to rise from that in which one lay; but to do good is to prepare the works of reward in which one ought to rest."
Note: Christ often required faith from those whom He healed, saying: Believest thou that I can do this? — because the sick themselves, or their parents or friends, asked Christ to heal them; wherefore in turn He rightly demanded this faith of them. But here Peter was not asked by Aeneas; rather he himself anticipated him, that the miracle might be the more illustrious in proportion as the benefit was the more liberal. St. Chrysostom adds that Peter did this not so much for the private benefit of the paralytic as for the common good, namely that thereby he might confirm believers in the faith and invite unbelievers to it; and for that cause he cured him spontaneously and liberally, exacting no faith of him, nor any preparation or condition.
Verse 35: Lydda and Saron
35. SARON. — "Saron, Sarona, and Lassaron," in Greek Assaron, is a mountain, and a notable city which Joshua took, ch. XII, having slain its king. From it the whole level region which extends from Caesarea of Palestine as far as Joppa is called Saron, and it is rich and most fertile, suited therefore for fattening flocks; on which account the king's animals were pastured there. This region, "according to the quality of the soil, brought forth continual fruits of the faith for Peter as he preached," says St. Jerome in the Places of the Hebrews, and after him Adrichomius; for all the Lyddites and Saronites, having seen this miracle of Peter, were converted to the Lord, as Luke here adds. Then was fulfilled that oracle of Isaiah, who prophesied of the flowering and happy propagation of the Church, ch. xxxv, ver. 2: "The glory of Lebanon hath been given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Saron: they themselves shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God."
Verse 36: A Certain Disciple Named Tabitha
36. IN JOPPA. — "Joppa," says Adrichomius from St. Jerome, Josephus, and others, which is also called Japho, that is, beauty or comeliness, a most ancient city, founded by Japheth, son of Noah, before the flood, situated by the sea on a high promontory, with a rocky, steep, and lofty shore, strongly fortified with citadel and walls. It is the port of Jerusalem and of all Judaea, to which timber and stones for the construction of the temple were brought from Lebanon by rafts, and hence by wagon along the land route to Jerusalem. The port is most violent: on which account it is suited to piratical raids; for which use it was often occupied in the time of the Maccabees. Here Jonah boarded ship when he fled from the face of the Lord into Tharsis, that is, Cilicia. The Maccabees often seized and fortified it. In this place D. Peter raised Tabitha from the dead: here, lodging with Simon the tanner (whose house was set under a rock by the sea, where afterwards a chapel was built for St. Peter), he received the men sent from Caesarea by Cornelius the centurion, dispatched there at the warning of an angel. On its shore are shown the rocks to which Andromeda is said to have been fastened with chains, to be devoured by a sea-monster, had Perseus not freed her. Finally, at Joppa pilgrims disembark, and by a day-and-a-half's journey by land arrive at Jerusalem.
DISCIPLE (fem.), — that is, a Christian woman, just as the disciples — namely of Christ and the Apostles — were first called Christians.
TABITHA. — In Hebrew צבי tsebi means the same as glory, beauty, a pleasant thing, beloved and desirable: for which reason the land of Israel is called tsebi, Daniel xi, 15, and Jeremiah III, 19: "How, He says, shall I place thee among the sons, and give thee a desirable land (in Hebrew tsebi, tsibot), the goodly heritage of the hosts of the Gentiles? See what is said in both places. From it tsebi and tsebia means a roe, a small doe, a roebuck. The Syrians, changing the letter tsade into tau, say tabitha for tsebia. In Greek it is called δορκάς, from δέρκειν, that is, from seeing; for the does, or roes, are gifted with most acute sight. Thus also the Syriac Tabitha alludes to the Hebrew nabat, that is, I discern, I see; because this animal has a sharp keenness of eye. Hence Pliny, book xxviii, ch. ii, teaches that does, like roes, do not have bleary eyes, and moreover see by night as well as by day.
Luke therefore intimates that this disciple was aptly called Tabitha, that is, Dorcas (Doe), because she was like a doe — namely: first, that she was watchful and sober, as does are, says St. Chrysostom. Secondly, that she had ascended into the mountains of virtues with the Blessed Virgin, just as does seek out and leap into the mountains. Thus St. Jerome on Ezekiel XLV. Thirdly, that she was chaste, timid, and modest, and shunned the sight of men, as the doe is — according to that of Canticles VIII, 14: "Flee, my beloved, and be like to the roe and to the young hart upon the mountains of spices." Fourthly, that with the keenness of mind and faith she had penetrated the heavens, and given to prayer had penetrated heavenly things. Fifthly, that she was lovable and full of works of charity and mercy. For the roe is a symbol of grace, love, and benevolence, according to that of Canticles II, 9: "My beloved is like a roe and a young hart;" and Prov. v, 19: "A most dear hind, and a most agreeable fawn." Let girls now be such, and they will be does.
Such a doe was St. Margaret, queen of Scotland, wholly poured out in alms to the poor and persevering in prayer, of whom St. Aelred the Abbot in her Life, in Surius on 10 June: "Nothing," he says, "was firmer than her faith, more constant than her countenance, more enduring than her patience, weightier than her counsel, more just than her judgment, more pleasant than her conversation:" who, as she was dying, hearing that her dying king had fallen with his son in battle: "I give Thee thanks, O Lord," she said, "because Thou crackest me with this sorrow, and inflictest this just penance for my sins."
Verse 37: They Laid Her in an Upper Room
37. THEY LAID HER IN AN UPPER ROOM, — namely in the higher and more public part of the house: "For she had ascended by good works to the highest things," says St. Jerome on ch. XLI of Ezekiel.
Verse 38: Be Not Slothful to Come to Us
38. BE NOT SLOTHFUL. — The Zurich and Pagninus versions: Be not burdened; others, do not delay, do not tarry. For ὀκνῆσαι signifies all these. For it is not likely that they should accuse St. Peter of slothfulness; or that they would have called him sluggish if, when called, he had not come at once.
Verse 39: Showing Him the Tunics
39. AND PETER RISING UP. — "Briskly, in keeping with Apostolic humanity, he came," says St. Cyprian, book I On Works and Almsgiving, ch. II.
SHOWING HIM THE TUNICS, — to display both the charity and piety of Tabitha, and their own bereavement, in that they were destitute of such a caretaker and as it were a mother, that by both they might move St. Peter to call her back to life. Thus St. Chrysostom.
Similar is what Abdias writes in the Life of St. John the Evangelist, namely that widows showed to him, when he had returned from Patmos, the garments which Drusiana of Ephesus, now deceased, used to make for them: by which thing St. John, being moved, called her back to life.
Thus St. Martin at the gate of Amiens, cutting off half of his cloak and giving it to a naked poor man, deserved on the following night to see Christ displaying that very piece of the cloak, and to hear Him glorying before the choirs of angels: "Martin, still a catechumen, has clothed Me with this garment," as Sulpitius relates in his Life, ch. II.
Thus Martyrius, wrapping a leper in his cloak and carrying him on his shoulders, felt that he had wrapped and carried Christ. For from Him he heard: "Martyrius, thou hast not blushed for Me upon the earth; I will not blush for thee above the heavens," as St. Gregory relates at length in homily 39 on the Gospels.
Thus St. Francis, stripping himself of his clothes and clothing the poor man with them, saw on the following night a beautiful and great palace with military arms, marked with the sign of the cross of Christ, and heard that this would be his and his soldiers', as St. Bonaventure relates in ch. I of his Life.
St. Catherine of Siena, stripping herself of her tunic and giving it to a poor man, saw on the next night Christ wearing this tunic, conspicuous with pearls and sparkling gems, and from Him heard: "I will give thee an invisible garment that shall ward off from thee every harmful chill of both man (outer and inner)." From that time she never felt the harshness of winter: wherefore she used the same garments in winter as in summer; and by His promise she knew that she would enjoy without end a most excellent glory in heaven. So her Life records. Wherefore rightly did St. Job say, ch. xxxi, ver. 19: "If I have despised him that was perishing, because he had no covering, and the poor man without garment. If his sides have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleeces of my sheep."
WHICH DORCAS MADE FOR THEM, — both by buying cloth, and by making garments out of it, and sewing them, as we read in the Lives of women, even princesses and queens — for instance St. Elizabeth, daughter of the king of the Hungarians, and St. Elizabeth, queen of Portugal, and the like — that they did for the poor; whom many in this age strenuously imitate with great benefit to the poor and a greater example to the world. The Greek adds μετ' αὐτῶν οὖσα, that is, while she was with them, while she lived and dwelt among them: by which words Luke notes the humility and kindly familiarity of Dorcas, that she, herself rich and a giver of alms, lived among poor widows and dealt with them as a mother with daughters, or as a sister with sisters, conversing amicably with them, working, mending, and using their work to make garments for many poor people. Thus St. Chrysostom. "Whence Peter perceived that what was so asked could be obtained, and that Christ's aid would not be lacking to widows praying, since He Himself was clothed in the widows," says St. Cyprian in the place already cited.
Verse 40: Tabitha, Arise
40. AND ALL BEING PUT FORTH, — that he might pray to God more secretly and more effectively, says Lyranus.
TABITHA, ARISE. "In the name of Jesus Christ," as St. Cyprian adds, for he raised her not in his own name but in the name of Christ, invoked either by voice or in mind.
AND SHE OPENED HER EYES, — which in the dead are wont to be closed. "By opening her eyes, He showed that death is like a sleep," says St. Chrysostom.
SHE SAT UP. — that is to say: She who lay as if dead, now raised, lifted herself up and sat alive.
Verse 41: Giving Her His Hand, He Raised Her Up
41. AND GIVING HER HIS HAND, HE LIFTED HER UP, — onto her feet, so that she who had sat up in bed as if alive but still weak, now raised by Peter, might rise from the bed and stand firm on her feet. By giving her his hand, then, first, he signified that he had raised her by his own hand, that is, by his help and aid, just as Christ holding the maiden by the hand recalled her to life, Matth. ch. IX, 25. Secondly, he made her, who had risen but still sat weak, firm and strong, that she might stand and walk. Thirdly, taking her by the hand he handed her over alive to the widows and Christians. Morally Arator:
That hand deserved to touch the right hand of Peter, / Which had been bounteous to the poor.
Hence Peter, by touching her, tacitly commended her beneficence.
WHEN HE HAD CALLED THE SAINTS, — namely the Christians.
HE PRESENTED HER ALIVE, — παρέστησεν, that is, set her up; and, as the Zurich version, exhibited her alive. It is likely that Tabitha, being a merciful and pious woman, had departed in a state of grace, and so was destined for heaven, or at least for Purgatory: wherefore having been recalled to life by Peter, she was sure of her salvation. Otherwise Peter would have done her not a benefit but rather a harm, if he had recalled her from a certain state of salvation to a doubtful one.
Whence our Lorinus rightly judges, and at length Bellarmine, book II On Purgatory, ch. VIII, that it seems certain that he who has once escaped the danger of damnation does not undergo it again. Again, neither from the number of the damned nor from the blessed is anyone raised. Tabitha therefore was either recalled from Purgatory; or, if she had nothing to be purged, her beatitude was suspended, because God was determined to send her back to mortal life, at the prayer of St. Peter.
Thus St. Salvius, who afterwards was Bishop of Albi, when after his death he had been caught up to heaven, and there had heard the voice of God: "Let him return to the world, since he is needful to our Churches"; he groaned: "Alas, alas, O Lord," he said, "why hast Thou shown me these things, if I was to be deprived of them? Behold, today Thou castest me out from Thy face that I may return to the fragile world, and may not be able to come hither again: Take not, I beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy mercy from me; but I beg that Thou suffer me to dwell here, lest, falling from it, I perish. And the voice that spoke to him said: Go in peace: for I am thy guardian until I bring thee back to this place." Thus Gregory of Tours, Hist. of the Franks, ch. I.
Hence in the Life of St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow and Martyr, we read that, when he had raised from death a certain Peter, and had brought him as a witness of a field that had been sold by him before the tribunal of the wicked king Boleslaus, after Peter had given his testimony, he asked of him: "Wilt thou, Peter, that out of gratitude I ask of the Lord that thou be permitted to abide with us on earth for some years?" To which Peter replied: "I, holy Father, would not wish to remain in this life, which I rather think should be called death; but I seek that blessed life in which the face of God is seen present. I am in Purgatory; I hope soon to migrate to the heavenly ones. Do thou, I beseech thee, my Father, pray for me, that this may quickly come to pass." Stanislaus promised that he would see to what was asked, and Peter, returning to the tomb, again breathed forth his soul.
Thus St. Christina the Astonishing, having died and been brought to Purgatory, seeing the dreadful punishments of souls, received an option from God: "I give thee, He said, an option: either to remain now forever with Me in glory, or to return to the earth, and there to expiate the punishments of these souls and free them from these things, and to bring it about that men, converted to Me by the example of thy penance and life, may abstain from their crimes and come to themselves, and, all things being completed, to return to Me with great increase in heaps of merits." She immediately replied that she wished to return to her body; and having returned, she underwent admirable crosses and penances for those souls, which being completed, she gloriously passed over to God. So her Life records, in Surius on June 23, ch. III and following, which Jacobus of Vitry, Bishop and Cardinal, praises.
It is memorable what we read in the Acts of Canonization of St. Ignatius our Father, that he proposed to Father James Laynez, who succeeded him in the Generalate, this question: "If God should give thee the option, either to go at once to heaven, or to remain in this life with the salvation of thy soul in doubt, and yet should show thee that in this life thou couldst render Him some signal service, which wouldst thou choose?" And when Laynez had answered: "I would choose to go to heaven and to make my salvation sure," — "But I," said St. Ignatius, "would choose to remain in life, that I might fulfill the desire of God, and render Him the service desired by Him. For I do not doubt that He, who is far more faithful and more liberal than I, would have care for my salvation, nor would He permit that this my choice, made for His glory, should turn to my harm with the uncertainty and peril of my salvation; but rather would He far more guard and assure it. This is my judgment and confidence concerning the divine goodness," — heroic indeed, worthy of Ignatius, nay, worthy of God.
Verse 43: With One Simon a Tanner
43. WITH ONE SIMON A TANNER. — Not a courtier, as Hugo and Dionysius hold, but a tanner, namely one who macerated or treated hides, that from them greaves and shoes, or breastplates and garments might be made; for this is in Greek called βυρσεύς. St. Chrysostom notes Peter's modesty, in that he chose lodging not with Tabitha and other rich persons, but with a plebeian tanner. For since he was Prince of the Church, he did not disdain the poor, but rather chose to abide with them, as their companion and table-fellow; and to give them courage he turned aside from Tabitha's house, lest he should seem to receive the favor of hospitality on account of the miracle, but that his benefit might be pure and unalloyed. Perhaps also because she was a virgin or a widow, with whom it was not seemly for a man, especially the Prince of the Apostles, to abide. Therefore he chose Simon's house, because Simon was known to him, or because he was more ardently invited by him. Add that this tanner's house was outside the city by the sea, as is said in ch. X, ver. 6, where even now its remnant is shown to pilgrims from its ruins, says Gagnaeus; nay, there was a chapel erected to St. Peter, as I said at ver. 36. "For the Apostles sought out places set apart from the cities, being lovers of solitude and quiet," says Œcumenius. For tanners, lest by the stench of the macerated hides they should infect the public air, were of old wont to be relegated outside the cities, or to remote places, as is even now done. Hear Artemidorus, book I, ch. xv: "To practice tanning is evil for all: for the tanner handles dead bodies, and is therefore shut out from the city."
Again, note the greatness of love and spirit in Simon, who, although a tanner, dared to invite and receive at his table and continual hospitality the very supreme Head and Pontiff of the Church, and to feed and treat him liberally according to the dignity of the person, as far as his means and resources allowed.
Excellently St. Leo, sermon 2 On Lent: "To no one," he says, "is his estate small, who has a great spirit, nor does the measure of mercy and piety depend upon the size of one's family means. The opulence of good will never lacks merit even in slender means. This good will is most opulent, because it does not depend on possibility, but is reckoned to have done whatever it efficaciously desires. By it the poor distribute generous alms; the weak, scarcely able to touch themselves because by infirmity they cannot, are wasted by many afflictions of the body; the unlearned preach the Evangelical doctrine throughout the whole world; because for the works which we cannot perform, the efficacious affection of good will is abundantly substituted. And every single person, though one, by the will alone is made manifold, because through it he can embrace the labors and ministries of many. Furthermore, this affection excites ardent prayer, by which we ask of God that He may perform through others what we desire and cannot perform: but ardent prayer obtains what it asks. Hence St. Bernard, serm. 16 on the Psalm Qui habitat: 'Rightly,' he says, 'is he not heard, who feigns to cry out, either not asking at all, or asking lukewarmly and remissly. Indeed in the ears of God a vehement desire is a great cry; but conversely a remiss intention is a low voice.'"