Acts 10:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"Bound by the four corners and let down to the earth." The four corners indicate the four elements. The vessel that appeared signifies the coarser world, and the various animals are symbols of men's conditions.

This man, Cornelius, with his uncircumcised flesh, was a symbol of the whole inhabited world, because he had nothing in common with the Jews.

Everyone would have accused Peter as a transgressor of the Law. Therefore the Spirit arranged matters so that he would have a defense. For this reason he objects to the angel, since he had to observe the Law completely.

This, then, was arranged so that they would not accuse him. Perhaps he saw the vision after bending his knees.

What occurred was a divine work. He saw what was above, was in a state of trance, heard a voice from there, and confessed three times that the animals there were unclean.

The fact that the vessel came down from heaven and was taken up there again is a great proof of purity. This is done, then, for those to whom the event would be reported.

Peter himself had heard the Lord's command: "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles" (Mt 10:5). If even Paul needed circumcision and the offering of sacrifice, much more was this so at the beginning of the preaching, when they were still very weak.

Peter did not say that all were profane and unclean, but only those whom the Law also called profane and unclean. But God, having drawn the image of His Church, said that she should regard nothing as unclean for herself.

For to man everything is clean which he receives with thanksgiving and God's blessing. Yet if here there was a parabolic indication concerning the calling of the nations, so that those who had uncircumcised flesh should not be considered profane and unclean, Peter's speech still referred not to men, but to animals forbidden by the Mosaic Law.

The kinds of animals are taken in place of human qualities. From the description of Peter's vision it is known that in the vessel that came down from heaven were every kind of animal: reptiles, birds, and quadrupeds.

The word depicts in a veiled manner that those who are to turn to faith are under the dominion of various sins. They have become like quadrupeds through savagery, like reptiles through venom, or like birds through the lightness and instability of their nature.

Moreover, serpents are taken as a symbol of the Sadducees and Pharisees, and the fox as a symbol of Herod. Horses inflamed with passion for sexual union symbolize the pleasure-loving.

Sheep symbolize the most guileless people, kids the unsociable and unfeeling, and hedgehogs the rich. Of them the Lord said that with their thorns they pierce the word and make it unfruitful.

The sheet signifies the earth, and the beasts upon it signify the Gentiles.

Therefore it may be that twelve days after the birth of the Lord, the Magi were the first of the nations to come to see the Lord and worship Him. They were counted worthy not only to receive salvation for themselves, but also to bear witness to the salvation of all nations.

Peter heard: “Rise, kill and eat!” This means: rise with the mind from what is apprehended by sense. “Kill and eat” means: by cutting through with the logos, receive it spiritually and make it your own.

Or the sheet manifests the Church, which is built upon four principles, that is, upon the four generic virtues. The beasts and creeping things manifest the different dispositions of people from among the Gentiles who are about to turn to faith in Christ.

“Kill and eat” means this: first, by the word of teaching, kill vice in them. Then eat, receiving their salvation as the Lord made it His food.

Question: If, after the Resurrection, the Lord openly commanded, “Teach all nations” (Mt 28:19), why did Peter fear the revelation concerning Cornelius and the nations (Acts 10:11-48)? And why did the Apostles in Jerusalem, having heard what happened with Cornelius, reproach Peter (Acts 11:2)?

Answer: Certainly all-holy Peter, the head of the Apostles, feared the divine revelation concerning the Gentiles. For he did not know that, according to faith, there is no difference between circumcision and uncircumcision.

He did not clearly know that the Lord had spoken of teaching the Gentiles apart from manifest service according to the law. This lasted until the mystery of God’s ineffable counsel was shown to him by revelation.

He was convinced by the visible example of the sheet descending from heaven, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, equally given to him and to the Gentiles through one faith. Thus he learned that in Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Greek (Rom 10:12).

The Apostles in Jerusalem, likewise not knowing this, reproached him until they too learned the hidden riches of God’s goodness, which extends to all men.

For apart from legal service, there came the introduction of divine life and of a new service. For the soul voluntarily freeing itself from the body, there was given the possibility of instruction according to the will.

It received the pattern for the beginning of its other, more divine birth, or the grace of preaching. Therefore those to whom such a service had been entrusted needed instruction in each word from Him who entrusted it to them.

If this does not seem superfluous to one who needs it, one may say that every word of the divine commandment requires its own definite mode of instruction and revelation.

For in general the mode of carrying out a word cannot be known without revelation from Him who spoke that word. Knowing this, pious Peter had already received from the Lord the word about preaching among the Gentiles.

Yet he did not immediately proceed to the work. He awaited instruction from the One who gave the word concerning the mode of carrying it out.

There may also have been something else, besides what has been said, in which the great Peter was instructed through the sheet descending from heaven and the various animals within it.

In particular, the whole human race, or a definite person within it who has received knowledge of the divine majesty through faith, clearly learns the need to suppress his sense perception completely.

Because of sense perception, constantly seeing the appearance of a thing, he regarded God’s creation as corruptible in itself and incapable of being cleansed from corruption and mixture.

Through the sheet and the animals in it, the manifest world was shown. It is apprehended by thought in the logoi through the invisible. Or the invisible world was shown in the impressions of sensible things.

This world exists for the man who knows, and it is fit for spiritual food. Therefore the voice was given to him: “Rise, Peter, kill and eat” (Acts 10:13).

From what is he commanded to rise? Clearly, Peter is commanded to rise from habit in sense and attachment to it. Or he is to rise from a base disposition toward beings, or from righteousness practiced according to the law.

He is to do this so that, by the mind alone, freed from every sensible fantasy, he may contemplate the logoi of sensible things stripped of their coverings. He will then understand that nothing made by God is unclean.

The one who contemplates visible creation manifested in the logoi from the intelligible world, or the impressions of intelligible things from the well-ordered arrangement of manifest things, will be convinced that nothing visible is unclean.

He will be as one who contemplates a sheet descending from heaven. He will perceive no antipathy that could appear in the logoi of beings. For corruption and warfare with one another exist only in sense.

In the logoi there is no opposition at all. The sheet is the sensible world, consisting of the four principles as elements, and held together by them.

The creeping things, beasts, and birds of heaven are the different logoi of created things. For sense they are unclean, but for the mind they are clean, nourishing, and serve to sustain intelligible life.

The voice that sounded three times teaches practical, natural, and theological philosophy. For the one who has risen must hear it not once, but twice and three times.

He must offer in sacrifice the creation of manifest things and eat it in contemplation, because he follows God wholly and with a pure heart.

The one who has risen from passionate attachment to manifest things has sacrificed their movements. Having successfully brought practical philosophy to completion, he has tasted virtue.

The one who has risen from false opinion about beings has sacrificed the outward forms of manifest things. By tasting the invisible logoi, he has successfully brought natural contemplation in the Spirit to completion.

The one who has risen from the falsehood of polytheism has sacrificed the very essence of beings. By faith he has tasted the Cause of these beings, being filled by the power of theology.

Every contemplative mind that has the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph 6:17), kills within itself the movement of manifest creation and successfully accomplishes virtue.

By cutting away from itself the fantasy of the forms of sensible things, it finds truth in the logoi of beings. According to this truth, natural contemplation is formed.

The one who has come to be beyond the essence of beings finds the radiance of the divine and unapproachable Monad. In this radiance the mystery of true theology is established.

Or perhaps apostolic greatness is determined from above, and the all-glorious Peter rises from the power proportionate to nature to a gracious inheritance.

With God’s help, by the sword of reason, he is to offer the vicious human passions in sacrifice. He is to prepare good food, useful for reason and produced for spiritual digestion, through renunciation of the former life, passionate and beastlike.

For they say that blood is the mark of an animal. When it is slaughtered, the blood must ordinarily flow out completely. The difference among the living creatures named may indicate the variegation of human passions.

The creeping things indicate those wholly possessed by the desiring principle, barely crawling among earthly things. The beasts indicate those who madly stir up the whole incensive principle within themselves, to each other’s destruction.

The birds indicate those who raise up their whole rational principle through the audacity of arrogance and the haughtiness that comes from it. “They have spoken unrighteousness on high; they have set their mouth in heaven” (Ps 72:8-9).

The co-worker of God, the great Peter, offered all these in sacrifice with the sword of the Spirit. He made some thirst for heavenly things, others meek, humane, and restrained toward one another, and still others lovers of God and humble.

Let us consider what Holy Scripture intends to manifest through the interpretation of the name “Joppa,” the city in which all-holy Peter, the great foundation of the Church, beheld this vision.

“Joppa” is interpreted as “watching,” signifying the vigilance fitting for those who struggle in practical philosophy. It is located on a high seashore and would be overwhelmed by waves if the city’s site were not so high.

For this reason, Joppa seems to me to manifest virtue, built like a city on the height of knowledge, not far from involuntary temptations.

It has near it, like the sea, an attachment to the senses not yet completely uprooted. For this reason it needs watchfulness, lest unclean demons, hiding under the guise of involuntary temptations, cause an invasion of voluntary passions.

Since Joppa belongs to the portion of the tribe of Issachar, and “Issachar” is interpreted as “reward” and “pain,” it is also permissible to think this.

Joppa is the protective habit of practical philosophy, guarding the soul from the invisible assaults of evil spirits. And the great Apostle probably urges the one who has risen from this habit to transfer his mind to the knowledge of things above.

Therefore, let the one who has settled on the height of practical philosophy, which allows watchfulness, be called one who lives in Joppa.

But the one who dwells on Zion of Jerusalem, that is, who has ascended the watchtower for the sake of the “vision of peace,” for so “Jerusalem” is interpreted, is far from every sensible attachment.

For in the literal sense, the sea is located far from Zion. Being on the summit of knowledge, he receives by spiritual vision only the intelligible ideas of beings.

He separates them in the mind from the externally manifest forms of those beings. He receives the images of divine things, insofar as they are permitted to be seen, which shape his mind toward what is more divine.

Therefore the one who has settled in Joppa is the struggler in practical philosophy, watchfully observing the snares of the enemies. The one who dwells on Zion is the contemplative, beholding with the mind alone the beauty of divine things.

If the vessel of the sheet is lifted up again into heaven, we must understand this in the following way. After the great Peter received the spiritual logoi of sensible things existing together with intelligible things, God again takes them to Himself.

By this He teaches that there is absolutely nothing unclean among sensible things whose logoi abide near Him. Therefore the great Apostle, knowing the meaning of visible things, was instructed not to call any human being unclean.

He also learned that there is no partiality with God, the partiality that produces unjust division among beings. Without any delay, the Apostle fulfilled the divine command.

He offered in sacrifice for spiritual life those who voluntarily performed circumcision of the heart by the Word of grace. He also offered those who renounced all impurity of the vices of unbelief and ignorance, as though renouncing the extreme flesh.

Yet he cut away nothing belonging by nature to the flesh, nothing that arose from God’s creation and was not formed by passionate will. For nothing that accords with nature is unclean, because it owes its existence to the divine Cause.

Thus it becomes clear that the Creator commanded the Gentiles to be received into the bosom of the Church. "Kill and eat!" By this He commands, "Remove what they were, and make them like yourself."

The one who is converted becomes another man. Saul died, because Paul began to live.

The four corners to which the sheet was tied symbolize the four quarters of the world, to which the Church extends. She herself is "the city of our God, on His holy mountain" (Ps 47:2), spreading her rejoicing over all the earth.

The sheet's descent from heaven means that the Church is preserved, just as she is enlarged, only by the coming of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore John also says in Revelation: "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" (Rev 21:2). The four corners may also depict the Evangelists, through whom the Church is watered and raised up by heavenly mercy.

It seemed strange to Peter that the voice from heaven commanded him without qualification to kill and eat creatures among which the unclean were so mixed with the clean.

More than this, the very presence of the unclean among them apparently defiled the whole sheet. Therefore, with his characteristic liveliness and self-confidence, he answered: "No, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean."

"This word depicts in a hidden way that those who turn to the faith are under the dominion of various sins. They were likened either to four-footed creatures through cruelty, or to creeping things through venom, or to birds through the lightness and instability of their nature."

As for the seeming impossibility, in reality, of what occurred in the vision, it must be said that ecstasy granted Peter different eyes. In other words, one must remember that this took place in a vision.

A vision cannot be measured by ordinary methods of weight, capacity, and measurement.