Homilies on Acts 8.1–9.1

[Lemma] “Now Peter and John were going up together into the temple at the hour of prayer.”

Everywhere these two are seen to have great concord with each other. Peter makes a sign to this man; they go to the tomb together; about him Peter says to Christ, “And what about this man?” The writer of the book passed over the other signs, but he tells the one that caused great amazement and astonished all. And see again that they did not come to it of set purpose; so pure were they of ambition, and they imitated their teacher. Why did they go up into the temple? Did they still live as Jews? No, but they do this for a useful purpose. For again a sign takes place that both confirms them and draws the others on, and a sign such as they had not yet done. The affliction was from nature, and beyond the art of medicine. Or rather, he had spent forty years in his lameness, as it says further on, and no one had healed him in all that time. You know that afflictions from birth are the hardest of all. So great was his misfortune that he could not even provide himself with necessary food. He was well known both from the place and from his affliction; and how, hear: “And a man lame from his mother's womb was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, to ask alms of those going into the temple.” So he was seeking to receive alms, and did not know who the men were. “Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter, fixing his eyes on him, with John, said, ‘Look at us.’” He hears this; but even so he does not get up; he stays, pestering them. Such is poverty: [even when refused, it persists. Let this shame us], who leap away in the middle of our prayers. See how Peter showed his gentleness at once by saying, “Look at us.” So their very appearance showed their character. “And he gave heed to them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, this I give you.’” He did not say, “I give you something much better than silver,” but what? “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, rise up and walk. And taking him by the right hand, he raised him up.” So too Christ did. Often he healed by a word, often by a deed, and often he also stretched out his hand, where people were weaker in faith, so that it might not seem to happen of itself. “And taking him by the right hand, he raised him up.” He did this to show the resurrection; for it was an image of resurrection. “And immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and walked about.” Perhaps testing himself and making a fuller trial, lest what had happened be an illusion … his feet were weak, not cut off. Some say that he did not even know how to walk. “And he went into the temple with them, walking.” Truly … They do not bring him along; he himself, by following, shows his benefactors … by praising God after leaping, not admiring those men, but God who had acted through them. So grateful was the man. [Let us look again] at what was said from the beginning. “They were going up,” it says, “at the hour of prayer, the ninth.” Perhaps it was at this time that they carried the lame man and laid him there, when people especially went into the temple. And so that no one might think that they carried him for some other purpose and not to receive alms, see how clearly he sets this out by saying, “They laid him to ask alms of those going into the temple.” That is why he also mentions places, giving proof of what he writes. “And how,” someone says, “did they not bring him to Christ?” Perhaps those who attended in the temple were unbelievers, since they did not bring him even to the apostles, though they saw them going in and having done such miracles. “He asked,” it says, “to receive alms”; perhaps he perceived from their appearance that they were pious men; that is why he also gave heed to them. And see how John everywhere keeps silent, while Peter answers for him too: “Silver,” he says, “and gold I have none.” He did not say, “I do not have it here,” as we say, but simply, “I have none.” What then does the lame man say? “And do you pass me by, your suppliant?” “No,” he says, “but receive from what I have.” Do you see how free from conceit Peter is, and not given to display even toward the man he benefits? The mouth, then, and the hand did everything. Such too were the Jews, lame; and when they should have asked for health, they ask rather for money, lying on the ground; for this reason too they attended the temple, to make money. What then does Peter do? He did not pass him by; he did not seek out some rich man; nor did he say, “Unless the miracle is done on that man, it is nothing great.” He expected no honor from him, nor did he heal him while some were looking on; for the man was at the entrance, not inside where the crowd was. Peter sought none of these things, nor did he proclaim it on going in, but drew the lame man to make his request by his appearance alone. And the wonder is that he quickly believed. For those freed from long afflictions scarcely believe even their own eyes. And having been healed, he was with the apostles from then on, giving thanks to God. “And he went into the temple with them,” it says, “walking and leaping and praising God.”

See how he cannot keep still, partly from pleasure, partly to stop their mouths. To me it seems that he leapt also so that no one might think it a pretense; for this could no longer be pretense. For if before he could not even take a step, and that though hunger was pressing him (for he would not have chosen to share his alms with those who carried him, if he could provide for himself), much less could he have pretended then. And how would he have pretended for men who had not given him alms? But the man was grateful even after his recovery. So he is shown trustworthy on both counts, from his thanksgiving and from what had happened. Yet he was not known to all; so they recognized him only on reflection. “And all the people,” it says, “saw him and recognized him, that this was the one who sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple.” And he did well to say “recognized,” as of one now hard to recognize because of what had happened; for we use this word of those who are recognized with difficulty. So it could well be believed that the name of Christ forgives sins, since it works such things. “And while the man who had been healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's, greatly amazed.” Out of his good will and affection toward them he did not leave them; perhaps also thanking and praising them. “And all the people ran together,” it says. “And when Peter saw it, he answered.” Again he both works and preaches. Then it was the matter of the tongues that roused them to listen; now it is this. Then he took his start from accusations, now from a suspicion. Let us see, then, how this speech differs from that one, and in what it agrees. That one took place in the house, when no one had yet come to them, nor had they done anything; but this one when all were marveling, [and the healed man was standing by, and no one doubted], as some did then, when they said, “They are filled with new wine.” And then he spoke with all the apostles; now with John only; for now he is confident and becomes more vehement. Such is virtue: having made a beginning, it goes forward and nowhere stands still. See too how it was arranged that the sign should take place at the temple, so that others too might take courage. For they do not do it in some corner, or secretly; but not inside the temple either, where the great crowd was. “How then was it believed?” someone says. Because the man who was healed himself proclaimed the benefit. For he would not have lied, nor would he have gone over to others. Either, then, they worked the sign there because it was a spacious place, or because the place was set apart. And see what happened: they went up for one purpose and do another. So too Cornelius was fasting and praying for one thing and sees another. Until then they everywhere name Christ “the Nazarene.” “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene,” he says, “rise up and walk.” For the time this was what was sought, that he be believed.

Let us not grow weary at the beginning of the account; but if someone, after achieving some good deed, has left off, let us take up the beginning again. If we get into the habit, we shall quickly reach the end; we shall quickly stand on the summit. “For zeal,” it says, “begets zeal, and indolence indolence.” The man who has achieved some small thing has received encouragement to go on to the greater, and from that to advance further still. And just as fire, the more wood it seizes, the more vehement it becomes, so too eagerness, the more pious thoughts it rouses, the better it is armed against the rest. What I mean is this. There stand in us, like thorns, perjury, lying, hypocrisy, deceit, villainy, reviling, mockery; in another part greed, robbery, injustice, false accusation, plots; again evil desire, uncleanness, licentiousness, sexual immorality, adultery; again envy, jealousy, anger, wrath, bearing malice, retaliation, blasphemy, and countless such things. If we achieve the first, not only are those achieved, but through them also the ones that follow. For the mind becomes stronger from then on for overturning them. For example: if the man who swears much removes this satanic habit, not only is this achieved by him, but another piety too is brought in. For no one, I think, of those who do not swear will readily wish to do anything else evil; but … for the man who wears a fine garment is ashamed to soil himself with filth; so too this man. And from this he will come to not being angry, nor striking, nor insulting. For if he once achieves the small things, the whole is accomplished. But often the opposite happens too: having once achieved something, we fall back through indolence into the same things, so that from this the matter comes to seem impossible. For example, we set ourselves a law not to swear; we kept it three days or four; after those, falling into some necessity, we scattered all the gain we had gathered; then we fall into indolence and despair, so as not to wish to take the same things in hand again; and naturally. For one who has built something for himself, and then sees the building pulled down, will be more slack about building again. But we must not be slack even so, but hold fast to our zeal again.

Let us, then, set ourselves daily laws; let us begin for the time with the easy things. Let us cut off the frequent swearing of our mouth, let us put a bridle on the tongue; let no one swear by God. There is no expense here, no labor here, no long practice needed here; it is enough to will it, and the whole is done; for the matter is one of habit. I exhort and beg you, let us bring such zeal to it. Tell me: if I had ordered you to contribute money, would not each of you eagerly have contributed according to his means? If you saw me in the utmost dangers, would you not have cut off even some of your own flesh, if it were possible? I am in danger now too, and great danger; and if besides this I were living in a prison, or had received countless blows, or had been sent to the mines, I would not have grieved more than this. Stretch out your hand to me, then. [Consider] how great the danger is, not to be able to achieve even this smallest thing (I call it smallest as far as labor is concerned). What shall I say then, when I am accused: “Why did you not reprove them? Why did you not command? Why did you not make a law? Why did you not restrain those who would not obey?” It is not enough for me to say that I admonished. “But a more vehement rebuke was needed,” he says, “since Eli too admonished.” But God forbid that I should compare you with those sons. He too admonished and said, “No, my sons, do not do so; it is an evil report that I hear about you.” But further on the Scripture says that he did not admonish his sons. It says this because he did not do it vehemently or with rebuke. For is it not absurd that in the synagogues of the Jews the laws are so strong, and if the teacher commands, everything is done, but that here we are so despised and cast aside? It is not my own glory I care about (for my glory is your good repute), but your salvation. Every day we shout in your ears, but no one listens; and we show nothing vehement. I fear that we shall render account on the coming day for this untimely and excessive indulgence. So with a great and loud voice I proclaim to all, and testify, that those who commit this transgression, who utter what comes from the evil one (for this is what the oath is), are not to set foot on the thresholds of the church. Let the present month be the time appointed for you to set this right. Do not tell me that [the needs of business compel you to swear, since otherwise people do not believe you]; meanwhile cut off those oaths that come from habit. I know that many will laugh at us; but it is better for us to be laughed at now than to weep then; and those who laugh will be those who are mad. For who, tell me, that has any sense will laugh at the keeping of a commandment? And if they do laugh, such people will laugh not at us but at Christ. Did you shudder at what was said? I too know it. If I had brought in this law, the laughter would be mine; but if the lawgiver is another, the mockery passes over to him. Christ was once spat upon, and struck on the head, and slapped. He bears these things now too, and there is nothing strange in that. That is why hell has been prepared, that is why there is the undying worm. See, again I say it and testify: let whoever wishes laugh, let whoever wishes mock; we are set for this, to be laughed at and mocked, to suffer everything. “We are the refuse of the world,” according to the blessed Paul. If anyone will not keep this command, I forbid him by my word, as with a trumpet, to set foot on the thresholds of the church, whether he is a ruler or the very one who wears the diadem. Either remove me from this office, or, while I remain in it, do not surround me with dangers. I will not bear to go up to this throne without achieving great things; for if this is not possible, it is better to stand below. For nothing is more wretched than a ruler who benefits those he rules in nothing. Exert yourselves still more and pay attention, I beg you; or rather, let us exert ourselves, and there will certainly be some gain. Fast, call upon God, and we with you, so as to root out this destructive habit. It is no great thing [for you] to become teachers of the world; it is no small thing to have it heard everywhere that in this city no one swears. If this happens, you will receive the reward not only of your own good deeds but also of your zeal for your brothers; for what I am to you, you will become to the world. Others will certainly imitate you; you will certainly be a lamp set on a lampstand. “And is this,” someone says, “the whole?” This is not the whole, but it is the beginning of the rest. The man who does not swear will certainly come to further piety too, willing or unwilling, from shame and from fear. “But many,” he says, “will not bear it, but will leap away.” But better one man doing the will of the Lord than ten thousand lawless. It is from this indeed that everything has been overturned, everything turned upside down: that, as in the theaters, we desire a crowd, not an approved crowd. For what can a mob profit, tell me? Do you want to learn that the saints are the multitude, not the many? Lead out to war a million men and one saint; let us see who achieves more. Joshua the son of Nun went out to war, and alone achieved everything, so that the others were of no use. The great crowd, beloved, when it does not do the will of God, differs in no way from those who do not exist. I pray, then, and wish, and would gladly even be cut to pieces, to adorn the church with a multitude, but an approved multitude; if this is not possible, I wish the few themselves to be approved. Do you not see that it is better to have one precious stone than countless obols? Do you not see that it is better to have a healthy eye than to be weighed down by much flesh while the eye is blinded? Do you not see that it is better to have one healthy sheep than countless sheep full of mange? Do you not see that good children, though few, [are better than many diseased ones]? Do you not see that in the kingdom there are few, but in hell many? What have I to do with the multitude? What is the profit? None; rather, it is a harm to the others. For it is the same as if someone, when he could have ten healthy men, should bring in ten thousand sick men to join the ten. The many who achieve nothing will procure for us nothing but punishment then and disgrace in the present. For no one will say in our praise that we are many, but blames us because we are useless. At any rate, this is what they always say to us when we say, “We are many”: “But bad,” they say. See, again I forbid it, and I cry aloud with a loud voice, let no one think it a joke: I will exclude and bar those who do not obey; and as long as I sit on this throne, I will give up none of its rights. If someone brings me down, I am no longer accountable; but as long as I am accountable, I cannot overlook it, not because of my own punishment, but because of your salvation; for I love your salvation exceedingly. For this I am stung and pained. But be persuaded, so that both here and in the time to come you may receive a great reward, and we may enjoy together the eternal good things, by the grace and loving-kindness of his only-begotten Son, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, power, honor, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.

[Lemma] “But when Peter saw it, he answered the people: Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?”

This address is full of greater boldness than the earlier one. He does this not because he was afraid in the former, but because those men, being scoffers and jesters, would not have borne it. That is why, when he began that one, he also turned their attention by his opening, saying at once, “Let this be known to you, and give ear to my words.” Here he does not need this preparation. For they were not careless: the sign had turned them all, and so they were full of fear and astonishment. That is why he did not need to begin from there, but from another point, the one by which he most won them over: thrusting away the glory they were giving him. For nothing so helps and puts the hearers at ease as for the speaker to say nothing great about himself, and even to remove the suspicion of it. So they glorified themselves the more by despising glory and by showing that what had happened was not human but divine, and that they deserve to wonder along with the people, not to be wondered at. Do you see how, being clean of ambition, he pushes away the glory directed at himself? So too did the men of old, as Daniel said, “And as for me, it is not by the wisdom that is in me”; and again Joseph, “Is not the interpretation of them through God?”; and David, “When the lion and the bear came, in the name of the Lord I tore them apart with my hands.” And these men now: “Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” This is not ours either, he says; for it is not because we are worthy that we drew down God’s favor. “The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers.” See how he continually thrusts himself back upon the forefathers, so as not to seem to be bringing in some new doctrine: there he mentioned the patriarch David, and here Abraham and his house. “Glorified his servant Jesus.” Again he speaks humbly, as in the opening. Then at last he dwells on their crime and magnifies what had been done, and does not, as before, throw a shadow over it. He does this wishing to draw them on the more; for the more he showed them answerable, the more this came about. “Glorified,” he says, “his servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.” Two charges: that Pilate wished to release him, and that when he wished it, you did not. “But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead; of this we are witnesses.” As if he said, In his place you asked for a robber. He made the matter very grave. For since he had them under his hand, he now strikes hard. “The Author of life,” he says. Here he establishes the belief in the resurrection. “Whom God raised from the dead.” So that no one may say, How is this clear? he no longer takes refuge in the prophets but in himself, since he was now worthy of belief. For then, when he said that he had risen, he brought in David as witness; but now, saying the same thing, he brings in the apostolic band. “Of this,” he says, “we are witnesses.” “And on the basis of faith in his name, his name has made strong this man whom you see and know; and the faith that is through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.” Seeking to state the fact, he adds the sign at once. “In the presence,” he says, “of you all.” Since he had laid hold of them sharply and had shown that the crucified one had risen, he eases off again, giving them room for repentance, and says, “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.” “You acted in ignorance”: that is one excuse; the second, “as did also your rulers.” So Joseph said to his brothers, “God sent me ahead of you.” Or rather, what he said briefly there, “delivered up by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” he widens here: “But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.” At the same time he shows that, if this is shown, the deed is not theirs, and that it happened by God’s plan. By saying “what he foretold” he hints at the words with which they reviled him on the cross, saying, “If he wants him, let him save him; for he said, I am the Son of God. He trusted in him; let him come down now from the cross.” Was this nonsense, then, you fools? Far from it! It had to happen so, and the prophets bear witness. So it was not from weakness of his own that he did not come down, but from power. And he sets it in the form of a defense on behalf of the Jews, so that they may accept it. “He fulfilled it thus,” he says. Do you see … ? “[Repent therefore,]” he says, “and turn.” And he does not say, “from your sins,” but “so that your sins may be blotted out,” meaning the same thing. Then he adds the gain: “so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” Here he shows that they had been worn down and had been worked over by many evils. That is why he spoke so, knowing that this word would suit one who suffers and is looking for comfort.