Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Paul, departing from Ephesus, journeys through various cities of Asia and Greece into Macedonia; thence to Troas, where he recalls Eutychus from death; thence to Miletus, where, summoning the Elders of Ephesus, he commends the Church to them and bids his final farewell.
Note: All that Luke narrates in this chapter and onward until chapter XXVIII and the last, were done in one and the same year, namely the year of Christ 58, the second of Nero. See the Chronotaxis.
Vulgate Text: Acts 20:1-38
1. And after the tumult had ceased, Paul, calling the disciples to him and exhorting them, took his leave and set out to go into Macedonia. 2. And when he had walked through those parts and had exhorted them with much discourse, he came into Greece. 3. Where, when he had spent three months, plots were laid against him by the Jews as he was about to sail to Syria; and he took counsel to return through Macedonia. 4. And there accompanied him Sopater the son of Pyrrhus, of Beroea, and of the Thessalonians Aristarchus, and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy: and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. 5. These going before, waited for us at Troas; 6. but we sailed from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came to them at Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. 7. And on the first day of the week, when we had assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, being to depart on the morrow, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. 8. And there were many lamps in the upper chamber where we were gathered together. 9. And a certain young man named Eutychus, sitting on the window, being overpowered by deep sleep, while Paul discoursed long, sinking down in sleep, fell from the third loft to the bottom, and was taken up dead. 10. To whom when Paul had gone down, he leaned upon him, and embracing him said: Be not troubled, for his soul is in him. 11. Then going up and breaking bread and eating, and having talked at length until daybreak, so he set out. 12. And they brought the boy alive, and were not a little comforted. 13. But we, going aboard the ship, sailed to Assos, intending to take in Paul there: for so he himself had appointed, being himself to go by land. 14. And when he had met us at Assos, taking him in, we came to Mitylene. 15. And sailing thence, the next day we came over against Chios, and the day after we touched at Samos, and the next day we came to Miletus. 16. For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, lest he should be delayed in Asia. For he hastened, if it were possible for him, to keep the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem. 17. And from Miletus, sending to Ephesus, he called the elders of the Church. 18. And when they had come to him and were together, he said to them: You know from the first day that I came into Asia, how I have been with you for all that time, 19. serving the Lord with all humility, and with tears, and with trials which befell me from the plots of the Jews; 20. how I have kept back nothing that was profitable to you, but have preached it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, 21. testifying both to the Jews and to the Gentiles repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 22. And now behold, being bound in the Spirit, I go to Jerusalem, not knowing what things shall befall me there; 23. except that the Holy Spirit in every city testifies to me, saying: Bonds and tribulations await me at Jerusalem. 24. But I fear none of these things, neither do I count my life more precious than myself, so that I may consummate my course and the ministry of the word which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 25. And now behold, I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. 26. Wherefore I take you to witness this day, that I am clear from the blood of all. 27. For I have not shrunk from declaring to you all the counsel of God. 28. Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you bishops, to rule the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood. 29. I know that after my departure ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30. And of your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31. Therefore watch, keeping in memory that for three years I ceased not, with tears, to admonish every one of you night and day. 32. And now I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, who is able to build up and to give an inheritance among all the sanctified. 33. I have coveted no man's silver, gold, or apparel, as 34. you yourselves know; for such things as were needful for me and them that are with me, these hands have furnished. 35. I have shown you all things, that so laboring you ought to support the weak, and remember the word of the Lord Jesus, how He said: It is a more blessed thing to give than to receive. 36. And when he had said these things, kneeling down, he prayed with them all. 37. And there was great weeping among them all; and falling on the neck of Paul, they kissed him, 38. being grieved most of all for the word which he had said, that they should see his face no more. And they brought him to the ship.
Verse 1: Exhorting Them; He Bid Farewell; That He Might Go into Macedonia
EXHORTED THEM. — In Greek there is only προσκαλεσάμενος, that is, calling; whence the other neighboring word seems to have dropped out of the Greek, καὶ παρακαλεσάμενος, that is, and having exhorted; or as the Syriac has it, consoled them: for he called them for this reason, that he might exhort and console them in so great a sedition and tumult of Demetrius.
BID FAREWELL, — ἀπησπάσατο: the Syriac, kissed them; Pagninus and the Tigurine, embraced them. For the early Christians used to greet one another with a holy kiss, that is, by embracing one another, as Religious still do today after their example. See what is said on that passage: "Salute one another with a holy kiss," 1 Cor. 16:20, and 2 Cor. 13:12.
HE SET OUT, — wisely yielding to the fury of Demetrius and the silversmiths, lest they rise up against all Christians and slaughter them; while reserving himself for other provinces and labors. So St. Athanasius, knowing that he alone was sought by the Arians, and that the Christian cause concerning the homoousion turned upon his head, prudently withdrew himself everywhere by flight, and spent almost his whole life in exile and hiding; and by fleeing he broke and overcame the fury of his enemies.
THAT HE MIGHT GO INTO MACEDONIA, — to go thence to Jerusalem, as he himself determined in chapter 19, verse 21.
Verse 3: Plots Were Laid Against Him by the Jews
3. PLOTS WERE LAID AGAINST HIM BY THE JEWS. — Namely, they beset the roads to seize the alms which he was bringing to the faithful in Jerusalem, says Dionysius, and to kill him, says Lyranus.
Verse 4: And There Accompanied Him; Sopater; Of Pyrrhus; Of Beroea; Tychicus; Trophimus
4. AND THERE ACCOMPANIED HIM. — The Greek adds, as far as Asia.
SOPATER. — Some read Sosipater, for here by crasis it is called "Sopater." He was a kinsman of Paul, as is clear from Rom. 16:21. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Origen and others, on Rom. ch. 16. He is enrolled among the Saints in the Martyrology, June 25.
OF PYRRHUS, — namely the son; or, as Sedulius reads, the father.
OF BEROEA. — Bede refers this surname to Sopater, not to Pyrrhus, as if to say: Sopater was a Beroean by country, that is, born at Beroea: although Ado and Usuardus, in the Martyrology, June 25, read Pyrrhi-Beroeensis, as if this city were called Pyrrhi-Beroea. But concerning a city of this name, I have found nothing anywhere.
TYCHICUS. — He was Paul's assistant in carrying letters and instructions to those absent. Whence Paul calls him a most beloved brother, a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord, Eph. 6:21; Col. 4:7. He is enrolled among the Saints in the Roman Martyrology, on April 29.
TROPHIMUS. — He was an Ephesian sprung from the Gentiles: wherefore on his account Paul was arrested, the Jews suspecting that he had brought Trophimus the Gentile into their temple, chapter 21, verse 29. Of him we read thus in the Roman Martyrology, December 29: "At Arles, the birthday of St. Trophimus, of whom St. Paul makes mention writing to Timothy, who, ordained Bishop by the same Apostle, was first sent to that city to preach the Gospel: from whose preaching, as Pope St. Zosimus writes, all Gaul received the streams of faith;" on which account the Church of Arles contends for the primacy of Gaul, as Lorinus narrates here at length.
Verse 6: We Sailed After the Days of Unleavened Bread
6. WE SAILED AFTER THE DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD. — From this it is clear that at this time, namely the year of Christ 58, the legal observances still flourished among Christians, at least in name and as a shadow. For though Christians celebrated the Passover, they did not however celebrate the days of unleavened bread: these therefore were Jewish.
Note: Luke here changes from the third person to the first, saying we sailed, and continues so to the end of the book. Whence it is clear that Luke had hitherto been absent from Paul; but now, when Paul returned to Greece, he again attached himself to him: for with the rest Paul took him as a companion of the journey from Greece to Jerusalem, and thence to Rome. See what is said in chapter 16, verse 10. The reason why Luke again attached himself to Paul, Luke himself is silent on out of modesty, but Paul explains, 2 Cor. 8:19, namely that Luke, being celebrated among the Greeks both for his medicine and for his integrity and faith, and for his written Gospel, was chosen by the Churches as a companion of Paul's pilgrimage, to carry the alms of the faithful of Achaia and Macedonia to Jerusalem. For Paul prudently did not wish to carry them, but that the bearer be designated by the Churches, lest anyone might suspect that he had converted any of them to his own or others' use, as he himself there says.
Verse 7: On the First Day of the Week; To Break Bread; And He Prolonged His Speech Until Midnight
7. ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, — that is, the first day of the week (which is called sabbath from its principal day), or the first day after the sabbath, namely the Lord's Day: whereon Paul celebrated the Eucharist, to which the faithful had assembled according to custom. So St. Chrysostom, Bede, and St. Augustine, epistle 86. See what is said on 1 Cor. 16:1. This Lord's Day was one of those which fall within the 50 days from Easter to Pentecost; and in this respect it is called Pentecost by Chrysostom: otherwise that it was not the very Lord's Day of Pentecost is clear from verse 16, where Paul hastens to celebrate Pentecost at Jerusalem.
TO BREAK BREAD, — not corporal, as Lyranus and others would have it; but sacred, that is, to celebrate and receive the Eucharist, and after it the Agape. So the Syriac and St. Augustine, epistle 86, and indeed Calvin and Bullinger here. See what is said in chapter 2, verse 46. Note here the primitive custom of celebrating Mass on the Lord's Day, to which all the faithful assembled and at which they communicated: which Pope Anacletus, the fourth from St. Peter, afterwards sanctioned by a universal precept, as is found in his decrees II, Question VII, chapter Laici.
AND HE PROLONGED HIS SPEECH UNTIL MIDNIGHT. — For at first, after Christ's example, the Eucharist was celebrated in the evening after the sermon or exhortation, and was and was called the Lord's Supper; Paul therefore, about to bid his last farewell, prolonged his speech to midnight. Note here Paul's fervor in preaching, and conversely the people's devotion in hearing, "that they might hear that trumpet and behold his lovely countenance," says Chrysostom. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether this night and evening was the preceding one, the beginning of the Lord's day and light, or the following one, ending the day: for a feast had two vespers, namely the first and the second, as it still has in the Ecclesiastical Office. St. Jerome, epistle 28 to Lucinus, seems to take it as the ending one, saying: "Would that we could fast at all times, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles that the Apostle Paul and the believers with him did on the days of Pentecost and on the Lord's day. Nor however are the Manichaean heretics (who taught that one ought to fast on the Lord's day, even if no one was to communicate) to be accused, since carnal food ought not to be preferred to spiritual." They fasted therefore on the Lord's day, not because of a precept, but out of reverence for the Eucharist, which they were about to receive. But there is no fast on a day beginning, but ending. Therefore, on the Lord's day ending, they celebrated the Eucharist, not beginning.
Verse 8: Many Lamps
8. MANY LAMPS, — both to dispel the darkness of the night, and to adorn the mysteries and celebration of the Eucharist, as even now altars shine with candles at Mass, on which rite see Baronius here.
Verse 9: Sinking Down in Sleep
9. SINKING DOWN IN SLEEP, — κατενεχθεὶς ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου, that is, overcome by sleep, says Budaeus. For Paul's discourse was prolonged into midnight. Famous is the example of Machetes, ever-watchful in spiritual Conferences, in Cassian, book V On the Institutes of Renunciation, chapter 29.
Verse 10: He Fell from the Third Loft; He Leaned Upon Him; And Embracing
10. HE FELL FROM THE THIRD LOFT. — The Syriac: from the third story. St. Chrysostom makes the devil the author of Eutychus's fall and death, that he might disturb this feast and joy of the Christians and the fruit of Paul's sermon, and bring sorrow upon it with so sad an event.
HE LEANED UPON HIM, — the Greek and Syriac: fell upon him, like Elijah, 1 Kings 17:21, and Elisha, 2 Kings 4:34, who lying upon the dead boy raised him: so Bede.
AND EMBRACING. — The Greek word συμπεριλαβών, that is, embracing all around, denotes Paul's most close embrace on every side, as if he wished to pour out the bowels of his compassion, charity, and mercy upon him. "St. Eutychus, raised by St. Paul, followed St. John the Evangelist; suffering at Tela among the Vaccaei in Spain, with his martyrdom completed he gloriously passes to the Lord in the year of Christ 112," says L. Dexter in the Chronicle.
Verse 11: So He Set Out
11. SO HE SET OUT. — The Syriac: then he set out.
Verse 12: And They Were Not a Little Comforted
12. AND THEY WERE NOT A LITTLE COMFORTED. — That is, they received the greatest consolation. Beautifully Bede: "In the midst of the words, he says, of preaching, an occasion of healing occurred, that by the sweetness of the miracle the discourse of doctrine might be confirmed, and the labor of the vigils kept off, and the memory of the master now about to depart might be more closely fixed in their minds."
Verse 13: Assos; Intending to Go by Land
13. ASSOS. — A city in Aeolis near Troas, called by another name Apollonia, says St. Jerome in Hebrew Places.
INTENDING TO GO BY LAND. — Chrysostom: "about to enter on foot by land"; for this is πεζεύειν, namely to walk on foot, or to come by a journey on foot. Whence Chrysostom notes that Paul made the journey on foot, but ordered his companions to sail, lest they undergo the labor of a journey on foot. So St. Francis and the Apostolic men walk on foot as much as they can, after the example of Christ, who with great labor and weariness walked about Judea and Galilee on foot, and ran through villages and castles, everywhere evangelizing the kingdom of God: nor is He ever read to have ridden, but once was carried on an ass, namely when, as Messiah, King of Judea, He entered Jerusalem with solemn pomp on the day of Palms. Therefore Paul went on foot, both that he might greet faithful friends on a journey on foot, and that he might everywhere evangelize, and out of zeal and example of mortification.
Verse 14: Taking Him In
14. TAKING HIM IN, — namely Paul, into our ship: so the Syriac. All these things Luke narrates in the first person, because he himself was present at all of them, and was a great part of them.
Verse 15: Chios; Samos; We Came to Miletus
15. CHIOS. — A well-known island between Samos and Lesbos, fertile in excellent wine, which is commonly called Malvoisie, on which see Pliny, book XIV, chapter 7.
SAMOS. — An island in the Ionian Sea, native land of Pythagoras and the Samian Sibyl, inventor of clay vessels, which are thence called Samian. Whence that of the Poet:
They say that king Agathocles dined on earthenware,
And often loaded his sideboard with Samian clay.
For Agathocles, made king from a potter, dined from earthen vessels, that he might always remember that he had been a potter and a potter's son.
The Greek, the Syriac, and St. Chrysostom add: and we turned aside to Trogyllium. Now Trogyllium is a promontory opposite Samos, having near it a small island, also called Trogyllium. So Strabo, book XIV.
WE CAME TO MILETUS. — This city was a famous one of Ionia, the native land of Thales, fruitful in the best wools: which were therefore called Milesian. Of it Paul says, 2 Timothy 4:20: "I left Trophimus sick at Miletus": which since it cannot be verified of this coming of Paul to Miletus, for Trophimus accompanied Paul from Miletus all the way to Jerusalem, and on account of him Paul was arrested there, chapter 21:29, nor even of that journey on which, bound at Jerusalem, he was sent to Rome to Nero, which were Paul's first Roman chains: for on that journey he did not sail to Miletus, but to Melite, or Malta, last chapter, verse 1; hence it follows that this happened after Paul's first Roman chains, namely after, free from them, he had gone to Spain. And he revisited Miletus and other cities of Asia: at that time therefore he left Trophimus sick at Miletus. Whence it follows that the second epistle to Timothy was written by Paul not from his first, as many would have it, but from his second Roman imprisonment, as I have shown there.
Verse 16: To Sail Past Ephesus; The Day of Pentecost
16. TO SAIL PAST EPHESUS. — See Paul here like a thunderbolt, nay rather like an angel, swiftly flying over so many cities, so many nations, such great spaces of land and sea. Beautifully says St. Chrysostom, homily 2 On the Praises of St. Paul: "Paul, he says, walking on earth so conducted himself in all things as if he enjoyed the company of angels. For though still bound to a passible body, he rejoiced in their perfection, and though subject to so many frailties, he strove to appear in no way inferior to the heavenly Powers. For as if winged he flew over the whole world teaching, and as if incorporeal he despised all labors and dangers, and as if already possessing heaven he utterly despised all earthly things, and as if he were already living with the bodiless ones themselves, so he watched with constant intention of mind: and to angels indeed has often been committed the care of various nations, but none of them so governed the people entrusted to him as Paul governed the whole world. To Michael was committed the nation of the Jews, but to Paul lands and seas, and the dwelling of the whole world." And soon after: "How is this not admirable and unforeseen, when speech leaping forth from a tender tongue puts death to flight, dissolves sins, illuminates the darkness of blindness, and by a wonderful change converts earth into heaven?"
THE DAY OF PENTECOST, — the Christian one and according to the rite of Christians, says Epiphanius, heresy 75, Hugo, Lyranus, Cajetan, and others; not the Jewish, according to the rite of the Jews. See what is said in chapter II, verse 1. Hence the antiquity of the feast of Pentecost is clear, namely from the time of St. Paul.
Verse 19: Serving the Lord with All Humility; And with Tears; And Temptations
19. SERVING THE LORD WITH ALL HUMILITY. — For nothing is more admirable than such great humility in such great sublimity of Paul. A rare bird in the lands. Beautifully says St. Gregory, book II, epistle 54 to John Bishop of Ravenna, who claimed the pallium for himself: "We wish, he says, to be adorned with the pallium, perhaps unbecoming in our manners: while nothing shines more splendidly on an Episcopal neck than humility," especially if one humbles himself before those by whom he is harassed and despised, as he says again, book II, epistle 24, according to that of Psalm 9: "Behold my humility from my enemies." See St. Augustine, book X of the Confessions, chapter IV, and St. Bernard, sermons 23 and 42 on the Canticle. Memorable is what Sophronius writes, or rather John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 210: Two Bishops, he says, were at variance; one of them, in order to settle the matter, went with his Clergy to the other, and falling at his feet said: "Forgive, Lord, we are your servants." The other, overcome by this humility: "You are mine, he says, both lord and father." Moschus concludes: "And do you, when you have an enemy, do likewise, and you will overcome. Wherefore the humble man has greater glory than a king, because he is praised by all." He recounts other similar things in chapters 218 and 219. Note: the Apostle says humility is the service of God. For by nothing more does one profess himself a servant of God than if he humble himself and prostrate himself profoundly not only before God Himself, but even before any men whatsoever for God's sake. "Great is the power of God alone, and He is honored by the humble," says Ecclesiasticus, chapter III, verse 21.
Again note the "with all humility": for it is not enough to humble oneself in one matter occasionally and once, but in all things, profoundly and always. Paul therefore humbled himself in heart, in word, in walking, in greeting, in food, in dress, and in all other things. Add: the "all" can be taken for full and perfect humility, so that there is an enallage by which the whole universal is put for the whole entire, namely "all" for what is perfect and complete in all parts and numbers. Every humility therefore is full, profound, deepest humility. Thus in Exodus 33:19, God says to Moses: "I will show you all good," that is the highest good, namely Myself, "to you." Paul learned this from Christ and taught it by word and example to all the faithful, Eph. v. 1.
For Christ, although He was in the form of God, emptied Himself for them throughout His whole life, being born in a manger, living in a guest-room, having nowhere to lay His head, dying on a gibbet. Wherefore approaching the baptism of John, when John out of the greatest reverence forbade Him and said: "I ought to be baptized by Thee, and Thou comest to me?" He replied: "Suffer it now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice." Matthew 3:15. "All justice is humility," says the Gloss, which subjects itself not only to superiors and equals, but also to inferiors; just as on the contrary all injustice is pride, by which one even sets himself before his superior: for it takes away from him his right and the subjection due to him. Therefore as in every act of virtue humility intervenes, by which one humbly subjects himself to God and His law, so in every act of sin pride mingles itself, by which one proudly shakes off the yoke and law of God: humility therefore fulfills, nay surpasses, all justice and every debt that is owed to God, neighbor, and oneself: for to God it subjects itself by religion, to neighbor by charity, the body by continence it subjects to the soul, the soul to the spirit, the spirit to God. Secondly, St. Ambrose, book I, on chapter III of Luke: "This, he says, is justice, that what you wish another to do, you yourself begin first, and exhort others by your example. If Christ has washed for us, nay has washed us in His own body, how much more ought we to wash our sins?" This is what Christ cried: "Learn of Me because I am meek and humble of heart," Matthew 11. Thirdly, "all," that is the highest justice, Christ and Paul fulfilled. For great humility and justice it is to submit oneself to a superior, greater to submit to an equal, greatest to submit to an inferior: as Christ, although He was the Holy of Holies, yet bowed His head to John for baptism, as if seeking from him purification and sanctification, as a sinner and penitent, as did the others who were baptized with the baptism of penance by John. Beautifully says St. Gregory: "This, he says, is the highest justice and sanctity, if by the merit of virtue we are highest, by humility we are lowest." This Christ the Lord, who is the eternal Wisdom of the Father, taught earnestly and continually, and therefore from the bosom of the Father and the highest of the heavens descended to the lowest of the earth and the womb of the Virgin, for this end: that He might refute the erroneous judgment of the world, which falsely teaches that if we have anything of wisdom or virtue, we should display it, exalt it, seek to be honored and preferred to others. St. Thomas Aquinas, when asked by what sign one truly holy and perfect could be recognized, replied: By humility, contempt of self, flight from honor and praise. If on the contrary, he said, you see anyone, when he is neglected, set behind, mocked, give a sense of grief or indignation, cast down his face, wrinkle his nose, frown his brow, know that he is not holy, not great, even if he should work miracles. For he shows in his contempt his pride, sadness, anger, impatience, and therefore makes himself vile and contemptible. On the contrary St. Ambrose, book V on Luke, on that passage, Blessed are the poor: "Humility of spirit, he says, is the riches of virtues." Fourthly, "all justice," that is every increase of justice and humility, namely that you daily humble yourself more and more, until you arrive at the summit, or rather at the center of humility. So Christ descended from heaven into the womb, from the womb into the manger, from the manger into the Jordan, from the Jordan into the cross, from the cross into hell; whence by the merit of so great a descent, He gloriously ascended from hell and leapt back into heaven, nay above all the heavens; namely He taught you and me, that if from one place, office, rank in which you were eminent, were honored, were respected by all, you are sent and rolled down to another place, office, rank in which you are pressed down, neglected, despised by all, you should willingly descend thither and say with Christ: "Thus it becomes us to fulfill all justice." And if you do this, be certain that with Christ you will ascend to the highest degree of honor, as St. Francis ascended by his humility to the highest of the heavens.
Wherefore wisely St. Augustine, epistle 56 to Dioscorus: "To Him (the humble Christ, he says), I would have you, my Dioscorus, with all piety subject yourself, nor build any other road for yourself to grasp and obtain the truth, than that which has been built by Him who as God sees the weakness of our steps. But that is the first humility, the second humility, the third humility, and however often you should ask, this I would say; not that there are not other precepts to be spoken, but unless humility precede, accompany, follow, and be set before us as a model on which to gaze, and beside us to which we may cling, and imposed upon us by which we may be restrained: while we are now rejoicing about some good deed, pride wrests it all from our hand." He gives an apt example: "Therefore as that most noble Rhetor (Demosthenes) when he was asked what seemed to him to be observed first in the precepts of eloquence, is said to have answered, pronunciation: when asked what second, the same, pronunciation; what third, said nothing else than pronunciation. So if you should ask, and however often you should ask, about the precepts of the Christian religion, I should be free to answer nothing but humility. To this most healthful humility, which our Lord Jesus Christ that He might teach was humbled, the most unskilled knowledge is opposed, etc., so that we may seem learned and erudite."
AND WITH TEARS. — In Greek, and with many tears, both of compunction, for my own sins and those of all the faithful; of compassion, for so many infirmities and miseries of Christians; of prayer, that by tears I might obtain from God and as it were buy the grace necessary for the whole Church; of zeal and charity, by which I bewailed the obstinacy of the Jews and Gentiles, struggling not so much against Christ and me as against themselves and their own salvation. See on the fruit of tears St. Basil, homily 4 On Thanksgiving, and his disciple St. Ephrem, who was wholly a man of compunction and tears, vol. II, on that passage, Take heed to thyself, chapter ix, and what I have said on Jeremiah chapter ix, verse 1, and Lamentations i, 2, and chapter iii, verse 48. Beautifully Chrysostom, homily 2 On the Praises of St. Paul: "As, he says, parents who are wounded by the deaths of their children receive some consolation when they are wet with tears, and grieve more when they are forbidden to grieve; so Paul night and day received consolation from tears: for no one with such great feeling bewailed his own misfortunes as he did those of others." Whence he says Romans 9:2: "I have great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I myself wished to be anathema from Christ for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh." And 2 Corinthians 2:4: "Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears (drenching the letter), not that you should be saddened, but that you may know what charity I have more abundantly toward you." For, as Chrysostom says: "Such is the force of spiritual labor pains, that he who brings forth such a birth would rather be wearied six hundred times, than see one of those who have been born perish and be corrupted." This is Paul's testament, in which he gives them his final warnings and the model of his own life, that they may impress it on themselves and continually set it before their eyes for imitation. Christ gave similar farewells to the Apostles in John chapters xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, just as Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David and Tobias did when about to die. For the last words of parents are efficacious, and cling to the minds of children, as it were "a pebble for one departing," as Cicero says in book IV De Finibus.
AND TEMPTATIONS, — that is, vexations, distresses, afflictions. Thus temptation is taken for tribulation in Hebr. xi, 37: "They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they died in the slaughter of the sword." And in James i, 2: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations." For in tribulation one should rejoice; but concerning temptation properly so called, namely as the lure to sin, one should not rejoice, but rather grieve and tremble.
Verse 20: I Have Withheld Nothing Useful; Publicly and from House to House
20. I HAVE WITHHELD NOTHING USEFUL, — that is, of those things which could profit your souls. So the Syriac. "For just as it is a mark of envy to conceal certain things, so it is a mark of folly to say everything," says Chrysostom. Hence God speaks only what is useful. "I am the Lord thy God who teach thee profitable things," He Himself says in Isaiah XLVIII, 17. Let Doctors and Preachers imitate this, so as to teach not showy, curious, or flattering things, but useful ones that contribute to the salvation of souls. See St. Basil, Homily 11 on the Hexaemeron. Sidonius Apollinaris speaks beautifully, book VIII, epistle 4: "Now, he says, is the time to read serious things, to write serious things, and to think rather of perpetual life than of memory; and, mindful that after our death our works rather than our little writings will be weighed." Secondly, and more genuinely, you may refer the term 'useful things' not only to useful doctrine, but to anything else useful for salvation. Hence Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, and Vatablus translate it 'in what way have I shrunk back or refused' (for this is what ὑπεστειλάμην means) 'any of those things that pertained to your benefit,' as if to say: I have refused neither danger nor labor, provided only it pertained to your benefit.
PUBLICLY AND FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE. — Hence it is clear that it is not enough for a Bishop and Pastor to teach publicly in general, but he must also privately teach and admonish individuals, especially when they are uninstructed, or entangled in grave or scandalous sins. For he ought to imitate the Shepherd of the sheep, who knows each sheep individually, cherishes, feeds, cares for, and heals it if it is sick, as Jacob did when shepherding the flocks of Laban, Genesis xxxi, 39. This is what the Wise Man warns, Proverbs xxvii, 23: "Be diligent to know the countenance of thy cattle, and consider thy flocks." For care and providence concern particular things, not universals.
Thus in Belgium I have seen vigilant Pastors going round their parish house by house, and greeting, addressing, consoling, admonishing, and exhorting each one individually; which won for them in a remarkable way the love, confidence and reverence of their subjects. Paul says he did this, verse 31: "For three years, he says, night and day I ceased not with tears to admonish every one of you." For,
"He desired to present absolutely every man to God, and as far as in him lay he did present them all: for as if he had begotten the whole world, so was he troubled, so did he run, so did he hasten to bring all into the kingdom of God by teaching, promising, meditating, and also by interceding for them and by terrifying them, and by driving away the demons that corrupt souls: sometimes by letters, sometimes by penance, now by speech, now by deeds, through his disciples, through himself, he sought to lift up those who were tottering, to confirm those standing, to raise up those lying on the ground, to heal the contrite, to enliven the torpid with the oil of exhortation, to thunder terribly against enemies, to gaze threateningly upon foes after the manner of some excellent general, and a physician carrying the instruments of his art: he himself was the protector of those at war, he himself the assiduous minister of the sick, and one man performing the persons and exercise of all offices everywhere." He adds the reason: "Although he stood lofty on the citadel of all virtues, yet he overcame every flame by the special ardor of charity. For as iron cast into fire becomes wholly fire, so Paul, kindled with charity, became wholly charity: who, as though he were the common father of the whole world, so in his love for all imitated their very own parents — nay, surpassed all not only carnal but even spiritual fathers in solicitude and piety; spending money, words, body, and soul for those whom he loved."
Verse 21: Testifying; Penance Toward God
21. TESTIFYING, — that is, publicly and freely preaching, says Chrysostom. For the Apostles were public witnesses of Christ and of the Gospel. See what was said on chapter x, verse 42.
PENANCE TOWARD GOD. — Penance, although it is not a theological virtue like faith, hope, or charity, which directly and primarily regard God as their object, yet indirectly it too in its own way tends toward God. For just as sin is an offense against God, so penance is a reconciliation with God: because it is, as it were, a satisfaction for the offense done to God.
Verse 22: Bound in the Spirit
22. BOUND IN THE SPIRIT. — Our Mariana explains it thus, as if to say: The Spirit foretells that I will be bound in Jerusalem. Others say: I know that bonds await me; therefore I regard the matter as if I were already bound by them. Others more simply say: I am proceeding to Jerusalem under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, to whom I am as it were bound and chained. For He so possesses me that I seem not so much to act as to be acted upon by Him, according to Romans viii, 14: "For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Moreover, the Holy Spirit instills in me a spirit, that is, an impulse, a desire, an ardor of going to Jerusalem; which so strongly impels me thither that, bound to Him, I seem to be borne along; just as clouds are driven by the wind in every direction, so as to seem bound to it, according to Hosea IV, 19: "The spirit hath bound him up in its wings." The cause of this impulse was: first, because in this same year, after a few days, the Blessed Virgin was about to depart from Jerusalem to heaven, as I shall say in chapter xxi, 17. The Holy Spirit therefore drove Paul to Jerusalem, that before her departure he might greet the Blessed Virgin, and commend to her both his own faithful and the Churches as well as the impending struggles with the Jews and Nero. The second cause was that the Holy Spirit willed Paul to be sent in chains from Jerusalem to Rome, that with St. Peter he might found and establish the Roman Church.
Verse 23: The Holy Spirit in Every City Testifies to Me; Bonds and Tribulations Await Me at Jerusalem
23. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN EVERY CITY TESTIFIES TO ME, — through the mouths of faithful prophesying; for in the early days many of the faithful received the gift of prophecy, as we saw in chapter ii, 17, and xiii, 1.
BONDS AND TRIBULATIONS AWAIT ME AT JERUSALEM. — "That where he once persecuted the Church, there he might now contend for the Church," says Bede. For this was glorious both for Christ and for Paul.
Verse 24: But I Fear None of These Things; So That I May Finish My Course; The Gospel of the Grace of God; Nor Do I Count My Life More Precious Than Myself
24. BUT I FEAR NONE OF THESE THINGS, — οὐδενὸς λόγον ποιοῦμαι, that is, I take no account of any of the things spoken; I esteem them as nothing, I do not care, I do not fear. "Paul, says Chrysostom, Homily 2 On His Praise, hastened to the confusions and injuries which he endured for the zeal of preaching, more than to the delights of good things; desiring death rather than life; poverty rather than wealth: and desiring labor far more than others desire rest after labor; choosing sorrow more than others choose pleasure; praying more zealously for enemies than others pray against enemies. For he had converted the world, which we are perverting." He adds the reason: "Because he reckoned not only cities, peoples, armies, provinces, money, and powers as cheap as sand; but, on account of the sweetness of Christ, he did not even admire the dignity of Angels or Archangels, nor did he covet anything like it. For what was greater than all things, he enjoyed the love of Christ: with this he counted himself happier than all others; without this he wished to be the companion neither of Dominations nor of Principalities; but with this love he chose rather to be the lowest, indeed even among the number of the punished, than without it among the highest and most honored. For to enjoy the charity of Christ — this was his life, his world, his angels, his present, his future, his kingdom, his promise, his innumerable goods; while apart from these he placed nothing in the part of sorrows. For of those things which are had here, he reckoned nothing harsh, nothing even sweet. Thus he despised all that we behold, as already-rotten grass is wont to be despised." For him, therefore, to live was Christ, and to die for Him was gain.
SO THAT I MAY FINISH MY COURSE. — The Greek adds μετὰ χαρᾶς, that is, with joy. For the Apostle rejoiced that an occasion of martyrdom was given him, by which he might fly forth to Christ, whom he loved more than his own heart and his own soul. Hence he says: "Having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ," Philippians i, 23. And on the day his death and martyrdom were imminent, he exclaimed exulting: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: as for the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me in that day," II Timothy iv, 7.
THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD, — Because the Gospel is the announcement and showing forth of the grace of Christ, both through the efficacious preaching of the Apostles, and through the Sacraments which confer grace ex opere operato, and through the examples of the Saints, and through the abundant grace which Christ of His own accord instills into His faithful. Hence it is also called the law of grace.
NOR DO I COUNT MY LIFE MORE PRECIOUS THAN MYSELF. — "Soul," that is life, by metonymy. The Translator reads τιμιωτέραν ἐμαυτῷ, that is 'more precious than myself,' as if to say: I value my life no more than myself; but I have consecrated myself to Christ and to the Gospel; therefore I am ready to lavish and lose my life as well as myself for Christ. The Greek has τιμίαν ἐμαυτῷ, that is, I do not hold or count my soul precious or dear to me, namely for Christ's sake — as if to say: I am ready to die for the Gospel. "And yet by dying he made it more precious, since he was acquiring for it so great a merit," says St. Augustine, Question LVII on Leviticus. So David says, Psalm cxviii, 109: "My soul is continually in my hands, and I have not forgotten Thy law"; as if to say: For Thy law I expose my soul to every danger, and bear it as it were in my hands, ready freely to give it to any enemy I meet. The emperor Heliogabalus, as Lampridius testifies in his Life, used to say: "One must die in royal style, so that death may have no equal"; he said it, but did not perform it: but Paul said it and indeed performed it. See St. Bernard, sermon 30 on the Canticle.
Let Apostolic men and Religious imitate Paul, so that, prodigal of health and life, they may count themselves as lost, and freely — nay, exultantly — offer both to Christ and lavish them for Him. There is a Spanish axiom: "The captain greedy of glory should account life as nothing." What then should the soldier — nay, the standard-bearer — of Christ say, who aspires to heavenly and eternal glory, that he may reign with Christ unto all ages? Paul indeed bore in his heart these golden sayings of St. Nazianzen, premeditated: "Virtue alone is to be reckoned life. Set death always before your eyes as present: for thus it will come to pass that, when you must meet it, you may stand superior. Lay up treasure for everlasting ages. This life is nothing but smoke, the flower of the grass, a dream, an ever-turning wheel. Plough the sea of life utterly naked. Strive that your soul, by its nature unstable, may be fixed and constant in you. Do not leave your wealth in tombs. For no funeral honor can be compared with a noble reputation." And that other passage of the same Nazianzen, oration 19: "Life and death are improperly so called. For this life is the mother of corruption, and so a continual death; but death is the gate of blessed life. There is one life, to look toward life. There is one death, sin: for it is the destruction of the soul." Finally, for Paul to live was Christ, and to die was gain.
Verse 26: I Am Clean from the Blood of All
26. I AM CLEAN FROM THE BLOOD OF ALL. — As if to say: If any of you perish, he will perish by his own fault, not mine. For I have fulfilled my office by teaching, exhorting, admonishing. Here that common saying holds true: "From a pastor is required care, not cure," according to that saying of the angels, Jeremiah li, 9: "We have cured Babylon, and she has not been healed." Paul alludes to Ezekiel iii, 17: "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman over the house of Israel. If, when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, thou announce it not to him, etc., the wicked himself shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hand." See what is said on chapter xviii, 6.
St. Gregory speaks excellently, Homily 12 on Ezekiel, explaining that passage: I have made thee a watchman over the house of Israel, etc. His blood will I require at thy hand: "because, he says, the very man kills him who by his silence handed him over to death. In both of these things one must weigh how the sins of subjects and of those set over them are bound together: for where the subject dies by his own fault, there he who is in charge, because he was silent, is held guilty of his death. Weigh then, dearest brothers, weigh, that even our being unworthy Pastors is also in part from your fault, you over whom such men have been set. And if at any time you slip into iniquity, that too arises from this guilt of ours, that you have no one resisting and crying out against your evil desires. You therefore spare both yourselves and us, if you cease from evil deeds; we spare you and ourselves, when we do not keep silent about what displeases. O how free from the blood of those committed to him was that excellent preacher, who said: I am clean from the blood of all! For I did not shrink from announcing to you the whole counsel of God. If he had not announced it, he would not have been clean of blood. But from those to whom he was zealous to announce all the counsel of God, he was clean from their blood." Then applying the same to himself and to his own, he adds: "By which voice we are summoned, we are bound, we are shown to be guilty, we who are called priests, who, beyond the evils that are our own, add also the deaths of others; because we kill as many as we daily see going to death while we keep tepid silence. The blood, therefore, of the dying is required at the hand of the watchman, because the sin of the subject is reckoned as the fault of him in charge, if he has been silent. Therefore there is something he can do, even when the subject is dying, to free himself: let him rise, watch, withstand evil deeds, as it is written: Run, hasten, rouse thy friend, give not sleep to thine eyes, nor let thine eyelids slumber."
Verse 27: The Whole Counsel
27. THE WHOLE COUNSEL. — The Syriac: 'the whole will,' that is, everything that God wills to be done by you, namely the things useful for your salvation, as I said on verse 20.
Verse 28: Take Heed to Yourselves and to the Whole Flock; In Which the Holy Spirit Has Placed You as Bishops; To Rule; The Church of God Which He Acquired with His Own Blood
28. TAKE HEED TO YOURSELVES, AND TO THE WHOLE FLOCK. — As if to say: First watch over yourselves and your own salvation and perfection, then over the rest of the faithful committed to your care. For a pastor ought to take first care of himself, then of his flock. For the more he cares for and perfects himself, the more he will care for and perfect the flock: just as the more a mother cares for herself and eats, the more milk she has with which to suckle her infant. Hence St. Gregory, painting the ideal of the true Pastor in his Pastoral Rule, places as his first gift cleanness of heart: "The action of the Bishop, he says, ought to surpass the action of the people just as much as the life of the Shepherd is wont to be distant from the flock. It is therefore necessary that he be clean in thought, outstanding in action, discreet in silence, useful in word: near to each one in compassion, lifted above all in contemplation: a companion to those doing well through humility, set firm against the vices of those who fall through zeal for justice: not lessening care for inward things in the occupation with outward, not abandoning provident care for outward things in solicitude for inward." So says he at the beginning of the Pastoral, which he then expounds point by point in the whole book.
Philo wisely says in his Legation to Caius: "As Angels rule the heavens, and the heavens the elements, so beasts are ruled by man, the body by the soul, every lower thing by a higher." Better still, St. Chrysostom in books III and VI On the Priesthood teaches that a Bishop ought to stand out in the people in doctrine and sanctity, just as an Angel stands out among men, a shepherd among sheep, a master among disciples, and, as Nazianzen says in his Apology on Flight, as the mind and the head in the body. "The life of the prince should be the censure of the people," says Trebellius in his Life of Valerian. For this reason Archbishops wear the pallium: "That cloak woven of wool which they wear on their shoulders," says Isidore of Pelusium, "designates the skin of that sheep which the Lord sought when it was straying, and, when found, lifted on His own shoulders." See what is said on Ezekiel iii, 4.
IN WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS PLACED YOU AS BISHOPS — For Episcopal care, office, jurisdiction, and power was instituted by the Holy Spirit through Christ. The Holy Spirit therefore bestows and lays all these things upon each Bishop when they enter on their Episcopate. Now at Ephesus there was one Bishop, namely Timothy. He calls them "Bishops," therefore, meaning the chief Presbyters: for these, together with the Bishop, as it were as Bishops, watched over the Church and ruled it. Hence in verse 17 he called them "elders," that is, Seniors and Presbyters. See what is said on Philippians i, 1. Now he did not summon the Bishop of Ephesus, because he was Timothy, who was with Paul, as is clear from verse 4 and following. Add that Paul summoned several Bishops indeed, namely those who were Bishops of the cities of the province of Ephesus (for Ephesus was the metropolis). For this is what he says in verse 25: "You shall see my face no more, all you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God." Thus St. Irenaeus understood it, book III, chapter xiv, saying: "Paul, calling together at Miletus the Bishops and Presbyters who were from Ephesus and from the other neighboring cities, testifying many things to them, added," etc.
TO RULE, — ποιμαίνειν, that is, to feed, according to what was said by Christ to Peter, the chief of Pastors: "Feed My sheep," John, last chapter. "Feed by word, feed by prayer, feed by example," says St. Bernard; for this reason Christ said three times to Peter: "Feed." So Psalm xxii, 1: "The Lord ruleth me;" the Hebrew has 'feedeth me.' Let Bishops and Pastors therefore remember that their governing is feeding, that to rule is to feed — not themselves, but the sheep.
THE CHURCH OF GOD (Greek, the Church of the Lord and God; Syriac, the Church of the Messiah, that is, of Christ: whence follows), WHICH HE (Christ) ACQUIRED WITH HIS OWN BLOOD. — Hence it is plain that Christ is God, against the Arians: for He, being God, in the flesh which He assumed, poured out the blood with which He bought and redeemed the Church.
For Erasmus ineptly and distortedly, supplying weapons to the Arians, expounds it thus: "In which the Holy Spirit has placed you as Bishops to rule the Church of God (the Father), which He (Christ) acquired with His own blood." If this is not falsifying Scripture, what is? Moreover, "the great price of the Son's blood vehemently demands and exacts the watchful care of Pastors, and warns that the Prince of Pastors Himself will most diligently guard and preserve His peculiar people," says Bishop Vigilius, book II Against Eutyches. From this again the Apostle warns the faithful, saying: "You are bought with a great price: glorify and bear God in your body," I Corinthians vi, 20.
Verse 29: Ravening Wolves
29. RAVENING WOLVES. — The Syriac: 'fierce.' Heretics are wolves, says St. Ambrose, book VII on Luke chapter x, on the verse 3: I send you as lambs among wolves: "Wolves, he says, are beasts that lie in ambush around sheepfolds, prowl around the shepherds' huts, do not dare to enter the dwellings of houses, watch for the dogs' sleep and the absence or laziness of the shepherd, attack the throat of the sheep so as to strangle them swiftly: wild, rapacious, and by nature stiffer in body so that they cannot easily turn, they are carried along by a certain impetus of their own, and thus are often deceived. If they see a man first, a certain force of nature drives them to snatch his voice from him: but if a man sees them first, they are said to be put into a panic." And presently applying this: "Are not heretics, he says, to be compared to those wolves, who lie in wait for the sheep of Christ, growl around the sheepfolds rather by night than by day? For night is always upon the perfidious, who try to obscure the light of Christ with the mists of perverse interpretation. They prowl therefore around the folds, but they do not dare to enter the stables of Christ. They watch for the absence of the Shepherd, and so they strive either to kill the Pastors of the Churches or to drive them into exile, because while the pastors are present they cannot fall upon Christ's sheep: hard and rigid in mental intention, they are by no means wont to be turned aside from their error. If they have caught anyone by the cunning circumvention of their mind, they make him fall silent; but if you recognize the contrivances of their impiety, you will not have to fear the loss of a holy voice. They aim at the soul, they attack the throat, they inflict a wound on the vital parts. Heavy are the bites of heretics, who, more grave and rapacious than the beasts themselves, know no limit of avarice and impiety. They have the clothing of a sheep, the deeds of a robber: outside is a sheep, inside a wolf. Does he not seem to you a wolf, who with insatiable cruelty for human slaughter, desires to glut his rage with the death of faithful peoples? He howls, he does not preach; he who denies the Author of voice, and with sacrilegious speech utters bestial murmuring, who does not confess the Lord Jesus, the Bishop of eternal life. We have heard his howlings, when the sword was sent into the world; he displayed sharp teeth and swollen mouth, and supposed that he had taken voice from all men, when he alone had lost it." Wherefore St. Clement, according to the mind of the Apostles, book VIII of the Constitutions, chapter xviii, commands that they be uprooted as plotters against the Church, undoers of the flock, contaminators of the inheritance, who surpass the Jews in false religion and the Greeks in impiety.
Verse 30: And from Among Yourselves Shall Arise; To Draw Away Disciples After Them
30. AND FROM AMONG YOURSELVES SHALL ARISE. — Paul was here a true prophet: for even while he was still living, Hymenaeus, Alexander, Phygellus, and Hermogenes had risen up against him, as he himself attests in I Timothy i, 20, and in his second Epistle, chapter i, 15.
TO DRAW AWAY (τοῦ ἀποσπᾶν, that they may snatch away by guile and fraud from Christ, who alone is the master of all, Matthew xxiii, 10) DISCIPLES AFTER THEM. — For the source of heresy is ambition, and the seeking after a teacher's office and disciples. "All (heretics) are puffed up, says Tertullian, book On Prescription, chapter xli. All promise knowledge. They are full catechumens before they are taught. The very women among heretics — how forward they are, who dare to teach," etc.
Verse 31: Watch; For Three Years; Night and Day I Ceased Not, with Tears Warning Every One of You
31. WATCH. — "It is fitting, says the Antiochene, Homily 411, that the Pastor, being wholly mind and eye, should bear a rod or staff full of eyes and vigilant, after the manner of Argus, so that not even one of the flock entrusted to him may become an outcast." So the Cherubim were full of eyes, Ezekiel i, 18, and Apocalypse iv, 6. The life of Pastors, therefore, is vigilance. See St. Gregory, book II, Indiction x, epistle 33, and St. Bernard, sermons 76 and 77 on the Canticle.
FOR THREE YEARS. — not a full and complete three years, but two complete years and a third begun for three months: for so long he remained at Ephesus, as I said in chapter xix, 10.
NIGHT AND DAY I CEASED NOT, WITH TEARS WARNING EVERY ONE OF YOU. — See here, O Pastor, Paul's vigilance, assiduity, and tears in admonishing and exhorting individuals, and imitate it. Thus we read that St. Ambrose, St. Bernard, and St. Dominic heard penitents and admonished them with tears. What heart so stony as not to be softened by these tears? Who would not weep when Paul wept? For as St. Chrysostom, weighing these words of Paul, says, Homily 12 on the Epistle to the Colossians: "From what fountain did such streams flow forth, as the tears from his eyes?" And a little later: "What fountain do you wish to compare with these tears? That one in paradise which waters the whole earth? But you would call nothing equal."
Note the word 'every one': for although Paul is directly addressing the elders, in them he is addressing the rest of the faithful, whom he held individually in his heart and on his lips. As if to say, St. Chrysostom here at the end of Homily 44: "If it were possible to break open and show our heart, you would see within, in great breadth, all of you — women, children, and men. For so great is the force of charity that it makes the soul wider than the heaven. 'Be enlarged toward us,' Paul said, II Cor. vii, 'you are not straitened in us.' He had all of Corinth in his heart and said: 'Be ye also enlarged.'" Father Gaspar Barzaeus, the disciple and vicar of St. Francis Xavier — indeed, in apostolic spirit a second Xavier in India — writes among other things to his companions in Europe: "I greet all and each of the Society in the bowels of the charity of Christ: I bear the image of each impressed on my mind so vividly, that they themselves, beholding it, would recognize themselves from it alone: if it did not so happen for someone, it would be because he himself, out of humility, has formed another self in his soul — namely, a base, abject, useless one — while I have painted and sculpted in my heart the same man as conspicuous and illustrious in the virtues and gifts of God." This same thing, more than Gaspar, Xavier, and all the others, Paul did, bearing and turning over all the faithful in his memory, mind, and affection of benevolence, as also in the effect of beneficence, like a mother and nurse continually.
Verse 32: And Now I Commend You to God; And to the Word of His Grace; Who Is Able; To Build Up; Inheritance; Among All the Sanctified
32. AND NOW I COMMEND YOU TO GOD, — praying that He Himself may direct, guard, and increase you. Let the Pastor here learn from Paul that he must pray for the sheep committed to him.
AND TO THE WORD OF HIS GRACE, — that is, to the Holy Spirit, says the Interlinear Gloss; others, to the Son, through whom grace and truth came to be, John i, 17; others, to the Gospel, which confers grace beyond Moses and the law, so that it is a prosopopoeia. For the Gospel is feigned as if a living person full of spirit, breathing Spirit and grace upon its heralds, as if to say: 'May the Gospel and its spirit direct and guard you, and form you such that you may be worthy to take possession of the inheritance among the sanctified.' This sense is plausible and pleases our Sanchez. Others take 'word,' that is, the Gospel and its preaching, as a hypallage: "I commend you to the word," that is, "I commend the word and preaching of the Gospel to you," through which a way to grace is opened — to seek it, to preserve and increase it, and if it is lost, to recover it. But these explanations are gaping and somewhat harsh. For there follows: "Who is able." Therefore 'the word of grace' by a Hebraism is grace itself, just as 'the word of the Gospel' is the Gospel itself, as if to say: I commend you to God and to His grace. Just as Luke said, chapter xiv, 25, that Paul and Barnabas had been delivered by the Antiochenes to the grace of God. He calls grace 'word,' both because the Hebrews metonymically call every thing 'word,' and because grace was promised to us by the word of God through Christ, and because it is given by the word and command of God. For it is enough for God to say in a word: 'Be holy, patient, humble'; and at once I shall be such. For the word of God is efficacious: for to say, with God, is to do. Hence there follows: "Who is able." Where the Syriac translates: 'which is able.' Also because by the word, namely the Gospel, grace is offered and announced, as if to say: I commend you to God and to His evangelical grace, which was promised by the word of God, foretold by the word of the Prophets, exhibited by the word of Christ, and announced to you by my word. So Mariana, who however says that 'word' is redundant by Hebraism. Sanchez agrees, explaining thus: "I commend you to the word of grace," that is, to the divine promise, which liberally offers grace to all. As if he were to say: I beseech the Lord that He Himself may grant you what He promised His own — namely His inheritance to those who are sanctified. This is nothing other than asking that those from whom Paul was departing might so be sanctified that they would be worthy for God to bestow on them the word of grace — that is, the grace promised by the word, that is, by the Gospel — or a gracious word. Finally, 'word' is often taken in Scripture for a fact and a work, which is done by the powerful word and command of God, as if to say: I commend you to God and to His power and to the powerful operation of His grace: for He Himself is mighty, and through His grace He will mightily build up your Church, and each of you, that you may become the house, indeed the temple of God, here by grace, hereafter by glory.
WHO IS ABLE. — The Greek ὅς the Syriac and others refer to λόγῳ, that is, 'word.' More plainly, our author and others refer it to God.
TO BUILD UP, — ἐποικοδομῆσαι, that is, to build upon, as if to say: 'I have laid the foundations of your Church; I ask God that He may build upon them and complete its structure, both with grace and with glory and the heavenly inheritance.'
INHERITANCE, — in the heavens, which is God Himself, whom He will give to us as to His own sons. "The heirs of God, says St. Augustine, sermon 119 On the Times, are heirs in such a way that God Himself is our inheritance. This inheritance is not lessened by the abundance of possessors, nor is it made narrower by the multitude of co-heirs, but it is as great for many as for few; as great for each as for all. He has not made you the kind of heir who succeeds to a dead man, but one with whom you will live forever;" nay, as St. Ambrose says on Psalm cxviii: "The whole emolument remains, and grows the more for individuals the more it has been acquired by many." It is otherwise with an earthly inheritance, which the more it is divided among many, the smaller it becomes for each.
AMONG ALL THE SANCTIFIED. — The Syriac: 'among all the saints,' that is, 'in the midst of' or 'with' all the saints: for only the saints are capable of this inheritance.
Verse 33: I Have Coveted No Man's Silver or Gold or Apparel
33. I HAVE COVETED NO MAN'S SILVER OR GOLD OR APPAREL. — The same Moses did and said, Numbers 16, and Samuel, I Kings xii. This therefore is a Mosaic, this a Prophetic, this an Apostolic work: "Freely you have received, freely give," says Christ, Matthew x.
Wonderful liberty, vigor, and authority of persuasion accrues to a preacher and confessor if he refuses all gifts. St. Jerome speaks beautifully to Nepotian: "Let us, he says, never seek, and rarely accept when asked. For I know not how it is that he who begs you to bestow, judges you, when you have accepted, the more contemptible: and it is a wonder, if you despise the petitioner, how much more he will afterwards venerate you."
Thus St. Columban, rebuking Theodoric, king of the Gauls, for his crimes, refused the royal banquet sent to him by the king, saying: "The Most High rejects the gifts of the impious," Ecclesiasticus xxxiv. He had scarcely uttered the words when all the vessels in which the banquet was contained were burst asunder; whereby the king, terrified, promised that he would be in his power in all matters.
Similar was the continence and constancy of St. Anthony of Padua: for the tyrant Ezzelino, whom Anthony had gravely rebuked for his murders and robberies, sent to him certain of his men with splendid gifts, whom he had ordered to seek by prayers and all importunity that he should accept them: if he did so, they were to behead him on the spot; if he did not accept, they were to bear patiently whatever he said. So when they, with feigned humility, were urging him to accept the gifts, Anthony in a most free voice said: "Depart at once with your impious gifts, lest by the falling of the roof or the gaping of the earth we too be enveloped in your destruction." When they were dismissed, Ezzelino, on learning the matter, ever afterward venerated him as a holy man.
Equal was the virtue of St. Bernardine of Siena, who, freely rebuking the Duke of Milan in a sermon, when a golden cup full of gold had been sent to him by the duke, rejected it indignantly: and when the envoys insisted that he should accept it and would not cease to press him, Bernardine, rising and bidding them follow, went on to the prison where the debtors were being held, and freed every one of them that day from their chains by paying the money they owed.
Verse 34: And to Those Who Are with Me, These Hands Have Ministered
34. AND TO THOSE WHO ARE WITH ME, THESE HANDS HAVE MINISTERED. — This excellence, this glory is almost peculiar to Paul, that amid such great labors and the affairs of all the Churches, he yet provided sustenance with his hands not only for himself but also for all his companions, who were often many, as we saw in verse 4.
Verse 35: I Have Shown You All Things; And to Remember the Word of the Lord Jesus; It Is More Blessed to Give Than to Receive
35. I HAVE SHOWN YOU ALL THINGS. — "All things," namely not only abstinence from gifts, labors, tears, hardships, preaching, but also the work of my hands, that I might teach you to bear with the weak and to provide for their infirmity. Secondly, the Syriac and Vatablus aptly restrict 'all things' to the work of the hands, so that by a Graecism it is to be understood as διά, that is 'through,' as if to say: 'Through all things I have shown you that working in this way, as I have worked, one must accommodate oneself to those weak in faith, and not accept anything from them, lest they themselves, being lovers of their money, suppose that the money is sought, not themselves and their salvation.' For the Apostle is speaking literally of this weakness of faith and pusillanimity of soul.
St. Gregory speaks excellently, Homily 18 on Ezekiel: "Which of us, he says, if he had converted one rich man of this world to the service of Almighty God, and saw himself in want and that man not providing him the necessities of life, would not at once despair of his salvation? Who would not say that he had labored in vain? Who would not fall silent in his exhortation toward one in whom he did not see, first of all, the fruit of good work being borne? But Paul, established by gentleness on the summit of the virtues, persisted, preached, loved, and completed the good he had begun, and by enduring and persevering brought the hearts of his disciples to mercy." Hence for 'sustain,' the Greek has ἀντιλαμβάνεσθαι, which, says Vatablus, properly means to hold back with outstretched hand one who would otherwise fall or depart. Paul therefore, that he might cause no loss of any soul at all, was careful not to give any handle to the weak who might be alienated from Christ — that they should not refuse to be burdened with expense — but rather extended his hand to them.
Let Preachers and Confessors note this. By a similar reasoning, however, the same may be extended to any infirmity and any of the weak: for the preacher, and whoever strives to heal souls and save them, ought to tolerate, indeed to overcome and to heal every kind of infirmity: and so it is a sign of heroic virtue to bear patiently and generously any infirmity of one's neighbor, whether of body or of soul, as I have shown at length on Galatians vi. St. Chrysostom speaks beautifully here, Homily 40, at the end: "Let us, he says, show ourselves easy of access for conversation; let us await our neighbors; do not say: If I see anyone waiting, I become worse: but rather when you see it, take hold of and extinguish its passion. Do you see one who is sick, and yet make the disease worse? Let us above all do this — to outdo one another in honor. Therefore if you have outdone in honor, you have adorned yourself with great honor, hastening that you may be honored the more. Let us yield first place to others everywhere: let us not call to mind any of the evils done against us, but only whatever good there has been. Nothing makes a friend so much as a tongue eager in gratitude, a mouth accustomed to speak well, a soul without arrogance, contempt of vainglory, contempt of honor." And a little earlier he says that this expansion of charity is a sign that surely shows us to be sons and disciples of Christ, just as the diadem and the purple robe show the king. This greatness of soul and love is necessary for the Apostle, that it may absorb all the unrefined and tasteless manners of the faithful and the unbelieving, just as a mother by the greatness of her love absorbs all the troubles and follies of her little child.
AND TO REMEMBER THE WORD OF THE LORD JESUS. — This saying nowhere exists in writing: therefore Paul received the fact that Christ said it from the tradition of the Apostles, or by revelation, just as Clement also, who cites the same saying of Christ, Bk. IV of the Constitutions, chap. III; although St. Chrysostom, Oecumenius, and Lyranus deduce it from that saying of Christ: "Give to everyone who asks of thee," Luke VI, 30. And: "Lend, hoping for nothing thereby," ibid., v. 35. And: "When thou makest a feast, call the poor, etc., and thou shalt be blessed, because they have not wherewith to make thee recompense," Luke XIII (XIV), v. 23. Of like kind is also that saying of Christ which is nowhere written, but Jerome cites it on chap. V to the Ephesians: "Never be joyful, except when you have seen your brother in charity." Clement cites more, Bk. II of the Constitutions, chap. XL; Justin, Against Trypho; Ignatius, epistle to the Smyrnaeans. Whence it is clear that not all the sayings of Christ have been written down, but some have been handed down by hand; and therefore traditions are to be admitted.
IT IS MORE BLESSED TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE — temporal goods. For in spiritual things, as in the Sacraments, the receiver receives grace, not the giver, and therefore is more blessed than the giver. The Syriac: more blessed, or better, is he who gives than he who receives. First, because to give is a sign of abundance, but to receive is a sign of want, says St. Augustine, Bk. III Against Maximinus, chap. XIV. Where he also adds that this axiom does not hold in divine things. For granted that the Father gives, and the Son receives divinity from the Father, yet the Son is as blessed as the Father: because the Son, He says, receives all things from the Father, and consequently abundance and equality itself.
Secondly, because giving is a sign of liberality, receiving of necessity or cupidity — as if to say, "More blessed is the bounty of the giver than the want of the receiver," says Cassian, Bk. X On the Institutes of the Renunciant, chaps. XVIII and XIX.
Thirdly, because the love of the benefactor toward the one benefited is greater than the love of the latter toward the former: because the former works more nobly, says Aristotle, Bk. IX of the Ethics. Whence too he is the more free: for he who receives, obligated by the gift received, is as it were bound to the giver. What greater reward of a benefit, what fuller compensation, than the increase of beatitude? Wherefore Seneca, Bk. I On Benefits, chap. V: "A benefit," he says, "cannot be snatched away: for it is not a thing but an action." And further down: "A house can be snatched away, and money and a slave, in which the name of the benefit hung; but it itself is stable and unmoved." Hence Mark Antony in the poet Rabirius, when his fortune had failed and he saw nothing left to himself, exclaimed: "This I have, whatever I have given." Whom Martial followed:
Beyond fortune lies whatever is given to friends:
What thou hast given, those alone thou wilt always keep as wealth.
Wherefore Pliny, in his Panegyric on Trajan, celebrates him for this: that in accepting the empire from Nerva, he gave him as much as he had received: "Thou wast besought," he says, "by adoption and called." As if to say: Nerva gave thee the empire, thou hast given it back to him. Therefore thou alone art the only one who, for so great a gift, by receiving has done equal in return — nay, hast laid the giver under more obligation: for, the empire being shared, thou hast become more careful, he more secure. Hence Plutarch, in his book On the Precepts of Statesmanship, says that friends are the support of the republic, "which love guards," says Claudian, Bk. XII. Wherefore Alexander of Macedon, when asked where he kept his treasures, pointed to his friends, since these alone ought to be reckoned the true treasures. Hence the Hebrews express this proverb of Christ and Paul paronomastically thus: "It is more blessed" מָשֵׂאת מִתֵּת misset, that is, to give more than to receive, take, or carry off: for he who takes despoils another or deprives him of his own. But it belongs to the blessed (beati) to make blessed (beare) and to enrich, not to deprive and make poor and wretched. Thus Franciscus Vallesius, Sacred Philosophy chap. LXXXVIII: It is more blessed, he says, to give, because the limit of liberal giving is not an emptying of goods, but an addition of better ones, namely of honor and dignity. Receiving, however, is a mark of want or illiberality. And for this reason Aristotle thinks that those who confer benefits love more than those upon whom they are conferred, inasmuch as they obtain a greater good thereby. So too sons are loved more by their parents than they love them in return. On the contrary, those who have received withdraw more quickly from friends than those who have given, because clearly when the usefulness is gone, nothing remains for them in friendship except the memory of illiberality; whereas to the others there always remains the sweet recollection of benefits. So Vallesius from Aristotle. Fourthly, because he who gives is more honorable, and he who receives more lowly, says St. Jerome to Nepotian. Famous is that line of Publilius Syrus in his Mime: "Whoever accepts a benefit sells his liberty." On the contrary, in evils and injuries, "it is more blessed to receive them than to inflict them." Hence St. Chrysostom wrote Homily 78 to the People with this title: That it is better to suffer injury than to inflict it: "For to the patient man," he says, "God opens up the whole of heaven, makes him a citizen of the Saints, absolves him from sins, crowns him with righteousness." And presently: "Thou hast not been afflicted by injury, but crowned, made wiser in soul, established as like to God, freed from anxiety over money, having attained the kingdom of heaven." And earlier: "Do this therefore, and looking up to heaven, consider that there thou hast been made like unto Him who sits above the Cherubim." This paradox of Christ and Paul, then, is the antistrophe to the former.
Fifthly, because to give is regal and divine, to receive plebeian and human. For God gives all things and receives nothing; and in this consists His beatitude, His opulence and His immense goodness, by which, like an overflowing sea, He pours out His own things upon creatures: for to receive is the failing of misery and infirmity, but to give is of fullness, beatitude and magnificence, according to that of the Psalmist: "I said to the Lord: Thou art my God, for Thou hast no need of my goods," Ps. XV (XVI), 1. Hence God in Hebrew is called Shaddai, that is, cornucopia. Clement of Alexandria, Bk. II of the Stromata, chap. IX: "The image of God," he says, "is the man who does good." And Nazianzen, oration 16 On the Care of the Poor: "Nothing," he says, "has man so divine as to do good. Be a god to the unfortunate." St. Leo, Sermon 10 On Lent: "Where," he says, "God finds the care of mercy, there He recognizes the image of His own piety." God the Father gives to the Son His own nature: the Father and the Son give the same to the Holy Spirit: the Son gave Himself to us in the manger and on the cross, and daily gives Himself wholly in the Venerable Sacrament. All His creatures imitate God. For the heavens give light and influence, fire gives heat, air gives the breeze by which we breathe, the earth gives fruits of every kind, the sea so many fish, animals give wool and flesh, the sun gives to all rays, vigor, and life. Whence the Emperor Leo used to compare beneficent men to the sun, which imparts its splendor and heat to all. Jupiter, Mars, and the rest were enrolled among the gods on account of their benefactions, says Pliny, Bk. II, chap. VII. Indeed Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second king of Egypt, used to say that "it is more royal to enrich than to grow rich," says Aelian. And Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of the Persians, according to Plutarch in his Royal Apophthegms, used to say that as a prince his hand for giving — namely the right — was very long, but the other one for taking away — namely the left — was contracted and very short: "For it is more royal to add than to take away." So God is long-handed in giving, but short-handed in receiving — nay, no-handed at all. Thus Bion always used to say that "it is more desirable to bestow one's own harvest on another, than to pluck another's," says Laertius, Bk. IV, chap. VII. Demosthenes, when asked "what men have like God?" answered: "to do good." So Maximus, sermon 8. Xenophon used to say: "It is much more glorious and praiseworthy to leave behind a multitude of benefactions than of trophies." So Stobaeus, sermon 46. Agesilaus "used to say it was more pleasant to him to enrich his soldiers than himself." So Plutarch in his Laconian sayings.
Sixthly, because he who receives receives only temporal things; but he who gives receives from God spiritual things, namely grace and glory; and from the receiver he receives prayers, blessings, thanksgivings, and praises of God. Wherefore Agapetus, the Roman Deacon, among the admonitions which he gives to the Emperor Justinian — Vol. II of the Library of the Holy Fathers — gives this as the 50th: "Love more those who beg to receive benefits from thee, than those who strive to offer thee gifts: for of the latter thou art made debtor to render thanks, but the former give thee God as surety, claiming for Himself, and reckoning as pertaining to Himself, whatever thou hast bestowed upon suppliants, and rewarding with good recompenses thine intention as pious as it is humane. The sun's part, surely, is to illuminate the world with rays, but the prince's virtue is to have mercy on the needy."
You will say: therefore mendicant Religious are more unhappy, inasmuch as they receive; but the secular and the rich are more happy, inasmuch as they give them alms. I answer by denying the consequence. First, because they do not beg from concupiscence or compelled by want, but from virtue and free choice; for they have chosen voluntary poverty, so that they may be like Christ, who urged it by word and example as a most useful means to perfection.
Secondly, because Religious gave all their possessions at once and once for all to Christ and to the poor, when they entered Religion. They were therefore more liberal, and consequently more blessed, than the rich, who give out their goods little by little and sparingly, and reserve far more for themselves. Hence St. Basil, when the senator Syncletius had entered a monastery but reserved some things for himself lest he be a burden to anyone, said: "Syncletius, thou hast lost a senator, and hast not made a monk," as Cassian reports, Bk. VII On the Institutes of the Renunciant, chap. XIX. St. Hilarion, as St. Jerome attests in his Life, refusing gifts to Orion: "No one," he says, "gives out better than he who reserves nothing for himself." See Jerome Platus, Bk. III On the Good of the State of Religion, chap. XX.
Thirdly, because the Religious gives more to the rich man than he receives from him, as St. Francis used to say; for he gives spiritual things, receives corporal; gives heavenly, receives earthly; gives eternal, receives temporal; gives heaven, receives the soil — according to that of Christ: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail, they may receive you into eternal dwellings," Luke XVI, 9. Excellently does Hermas, the disciple of Paul, say in Bk. III, chap. III: "Just as the vine is supported by the elm, so is the rich man helped by the prayer of the poor man." This book, under the title of The Shepherd, is often cited and celebrated by the Fathers; but errors regarding the denial of penance to the lapsed seem to have been interpolated into it by the Novatians, on which account it was rejected as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius; it stands at the beginning of Vol. V of the Library of the Holy Fathers. Indeed Paul had both: for he was poor, and yet gave as a rich man — which is most perfect and most blessed. For, as Cassian says, Bk. X On the Institutes of the Renunciant, chap. XIX: "By his own labor he prepares with pious solicitude not only the sufficiency of his own need, but also that which he may bestow on the needy, hastens, adorned with a twofold grace: that he both possesses the perfect nakedness of Christ by the rejection of all his own things, and exhibits by his labor and his affection the munificence of a rich man."
There are those who imitate the Saints in many things: this most beautiful example of Paul alone scarcely has rivals, scarcely a follower. Some here cite the book On Riches by Pope Sixtus III, where he responds variously to the objection just raised. But let the Reader know that this book is inscribed to Pope Sixtus III, although it was issued by the Pelagians, who contended that all Christians, even those abounding in offspring, ought to renounce riches and be poor — which was Pelagius's error. For thus the sixth article of his heresies, condemned at the Council of Diospolis, runs: "That baptized rich men, unless they renounce everything, if they should seem to do any good, it is not reckoned to them, nor can they have the kingdom of God." See St. Augustine, Bk. II On Original Sin, chap. XI, and epistle 106 to Paulinus. This was first noted concerning this book by the Doctors of Louvain, and Lindanus, Baronius, and Possevinus. See Baronius, in the year of Christ 440, chap. VII.
Verse 36: With Knees Bent
36. WITH KNEES BENT. — It was familiar to the Apostles and the early Christians to pray often during the day, and that with knees bent, as St. Stephen seems to have done, Acts ch. VII, v. 59; and St. Peter, ch. IX, v. 40. St. James, the brother of the Lord, from frequent genuflection had knees calloused like a camel's. St. Chrysostom adds, hom. 3 on Matthew, that he also had a calloused forehead, because in praying he prostrated himself on the ground and pressed it down. In the Life of St. Martha, in St. Anthony and others, we read that she adored and invoked God with bent knees a hundred times by day and a hundred times by night. We read something similar concerning St. Bartholomew in his Life in Ribadeneira and others. They learned this from Christ, who "with knees bent prayed, saying: Father, if Thou wilt, remove this cup from Me," Luke XXII, 41. Daniel did the same before Christ, ch. VI: "Three times a day," it says, "he bent his knees and adored and gave thanks before his God." Yes, even Solomon, the most magnificent of the Kings: "For he had fixed both knees (let our worthless and dainty ones, who bend one knee before God in the manner of the Jews, take note of this) on the ground, and had spread his hands toward heaven," Bk. IV (III) Kings, ch. VIII. Thus St. Peter, by praying with bent knees, hurled down Simon Magus as he was flying through the air toward heaven, and dashed his knees, as St. Maximus attests, tom. 5 On the Birthday of SS. Peter and Paul. For this position is the gesture of one supplicating, accused, praying, and reverencing the divine Power.
Rupert gives a mystical and physical cause, Bk. VI on the Canticle, that the knees correspond to the cheeks (genae), and through sympathy move them to tears: "But the tears of the penitent and of those who pray are the wine of the angels." Hear Rupert explaining that of Canticle VI, 7: As the rind of the pomegranate, so are thy cheeks: "In the womb," he says, "nature formed us in such a way that the knees are opposite the cheeks: whence the knees (genua) are also named from the cheeks (genae). For there they cling to each other, and are akin to the eyes, the indicators of tears and of mercy. Finally, they say man is begotten and formed folded together, so that the knees are upward, by which the eyes are shaped to be hollow and recessed. Hence it is that men, while they prostrate themselves to their knees, weep at once. For nature wished us to recall the maternal womb, where we sat in darkness before we came forth to the light. Surely whoever diligently attends to this cause, knowingly and reasonably praises and approves that to holy and learned thoughts it is familiar to bend the knees more frequently to the most high God, and to apply tearful cheeks to bent knees, so that the Creator who dwells on high may look upon and reflect again how He formed us in the womb. Hence also that of holy Job admonishes us with these words: Remember, I beseech Thee, that as the clay Thou hast made me, and Thou wilt reduce me to dust. Hast Thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?" And a little further on in the same place: "Truly, not to God alone, but also to men, a composition of this sort is sweet to behold and lovable: and the more reverend a man stands, the more often and the more affectionately he, bending his knees, lets fall his cheeks or his eyes or his whole head." So Rupert.
Moreover, this was familiar to the Apostles and to Paul at departure, that those bidding farewell, together with their own, prayed alike with knees bent — both that they might seal their teaching with prayer, and that they might invoke God to preserve and confirm the same in the minds of their disciples against all assaults of temptations and persecutions. Hence Paul did the same at Tyre, ch. following, v. 5: "With knees bent," says Luke, "we prayed on the shore." For granted that it was then paschal time (for Paul was hastening to celebrate Pentecost at Jerusalem, v. 16), at which, on account of the honor of Christ's resurrection, the faithful are accustomed to pray standing, and that from the time of the Apostles, as Justin records, question CXV To the Orthodox; nevertheless at that time this custom had not yet been introduced. So Baronius. Add that this custom of standing at paschal time has more place in the public prayers of the Church and in the ecclesiastical offices, as the Council of Nicaea sanctioned, canon 28 or 29, than in private ones, such as these prayers of Paul were. Hence even now many of the faithful at paschal time pray in church with knees bent. By Paul's example our Fathers, when about to set sail from Lisbon for India for the cause of the Gospel and to bid Europe a last farewell, are accustomed with their companions on the shore in prayer to give one another a final salute. Hear our Nicholas Trigautius, an eyewitness — nay, a companion — in the Life of Gaspar Barzaeus, Bk. I, chap. 5: "It was then customary," he says, "for those generous citizens of the whole world, as the Christians of old did to Paul, to accompany them all the way to the shore, and from time to time, with knees bent, to implore the help of God, of the Virgin and of the Saints" — as a sign of communion and charity, praying for the departing a happy journey, for themselves the memory and imitation of them, and for both rich grace of God, namely, the magnet of love is love: if you wish to be loved, love. Hence to the Galatians IV, 14, he says: "Ye received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus, etc.; because, if it could have been done, ye would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me." Let the faithful here learn with what love and reverence they ought to attend upon their Pastors, Preachers, Confessors, etc.
Verse 37: Falling Upon Paul's Neck, They Kissed Him
FALLING UPON PAUL'S NECK, THEY KISSED HIM. — The Syriac: they embraced him. An embrace therefore is called a kiss, because it joins head to head, and through that, as it were, mouth to mouth. See what was said of the holy kiss, 2 Corinthians XIII, 12. Wonderful was the love of the faithful toward Paul, inasmuch as he was their teacher, Apostle, father, the cause of their salvation and of every good thing of theirs,