Acts 10:12Meaning & 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.

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

Or the covering reveals the Church, which is built on four principles, that is, on the four generic virtues. The beasts and creeping things reveal the differing characters of men from the Gentiles who are about to turn to faith in Christ.

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

Question: If, after the Resurrection, the Lord plainly commanded, “Make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19), why was Peter afraid of the revelation concerning Cornelius and the nations (Acts 10:11-48)? And why did the Apostles in Jerusalem rebuke Peter when they heard what had happened with Cornelius (Acts 11:2)?

Answer: Most holy Peter, the head of the Apostles, was indeed afraid of the divine revelation concerning the Gentiles. He did not yet know that, according to faith, there is no difference between circumcision and uncircumcision.

Nor did he clearly understand that the Lord spoke of teaching the Gentiles apart from the manifest service according to the Law. This remained so until the mystery of God’s ineffable counsel was revealed to him.

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

The Apostles in Jerusalem also did not know this, and therefore they rebuked him. They did so until they, too, learned of the hidden riches of God’s goodness, which extend to all men.

Apart from the legal service, there came the introduction of divine life and of a new service. For the soul that freely releases itself from the body, the possibility of voluntary instruction was offered.

It received a pattern for the beginning of its other and more divine birth, or the grace of preaching. Therefore those entrusted with such a ministry needed instruction, concerning every word, from the One who had entrusted it to them.

If this does not seem superfluous to one who needs it, we may say that every word of a divine commandment requires its own definite mode of instruction and revelation. In general, the mode of accomplishing a word cannot be known without revelation from Him who spoke the word.

Knowing this, the pious Peter had already received from the Lord the word about preaching among the Gentiles. Yet he did not immediately undertake the deed. He waited to be taught by the Giver of the word concerning the manner of its accomplishment.

Perhaps there was also something else in which, beyond what has been said, the great Peter was taught through the sheet lowered from heaven and the various animals in it.

In particular, the whole human race, or a particular man within it, receives by faith the knowledge of the divine Majesty. He plainly learns the need to subdue his sense perception completely.

Because of this sense perception, constantly seeing the outward appearance of a thing, he had considered God’s creature corruptible in itself. He thought it incapable of being purified from corruption and mixture.

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

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

From where is he commanded to rise? Clearly, Peter is commanded to rise from habit in sense perception and attachment to it. Or he must rise from a low disposition toward beings, or from righteousness practiced according to the Law.

Thus, by the mind alone, freed from every fantasy of sense, he may contemplate the logoi of sensible things stripped of their coverings. He may understand that nothing produced by God is unclean.

The one who contemplates visible creation sees it as manifested in its logoi from the intelligible world. Or he sees the impressions of intelligible things from the good order of manifest things, like a sheet lowered from heaven.

He will be assured that nothing visible is unclean. He will see no antipathy that could be disclosed in the logoi of beings. Corruption and conflict with one another exist only in sense perception. In the logoi, every opposition is wholly absent.

The sheet is the sensible world, composed of four principles as of elements, and held together by them. The creeping things, beasts, and birds of heaven are the diverse logoi of things that have come into being.

For sense perception they are unclean. For the mind they are pure, nourishing, and serve to sustain intelligible life.

The voice heard 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 sacrifice the creature of manifest things and eat it contemplatively, because he follows God wholly and sincerely.

The one who rises from passionate attachment to manifest things sacrifices their movements. Having successfully completed practical philosophy, he tastes virtue.

The one who rises from a false opinion about beings sacrifices the outward forms of manifest things. Eating the invisible logoi, he successfully completes natural contemplation in the Spirit.

The one who rises from the falsehood of polytheism sacrifices the very essence of beings. By faith he tastes the Cause of these beings, being filled with the power of theology.

Every contemplative mind possesses the spiritual sword, which is the Word of God (Eph 6:17). It slays within itself the movement of manifest creation and successfully realizes virtue.

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 above the essence of beings finds the radiance of the divine and unapproachable Monad. In this radiance the mystery of true theology is built up.

Or perhaps the apostolic greatness is determined from above. The all-glorious Peter rises from the power proportionate to nature toward the good inheritance that comes by grace.

With God’s help, by the sword of reason, he sacrifices the vicious passions of men. He prepares good food, useful for reason and produced for spiritual digestion, through renunciation of the former life, passionate and beastlike.

For blood is said to be the sign of the animal. When it is slaughtered, the blood must usually flow out completely. The difference among the named living creatures perhaps indicates the variety of human passions.

Creeping things indicate those wholly possessed by the appetitive principle, crawling with difficulty among earthly things. Beasts indicate those who madly stir up the whole irascible principle within themselves for one another’s destruction.

Birds indicate those who raise their whole rational principle through the insolence of arrogance and the haughtiness that comes from it. “They have spoken iniquity on high; they have set their mouth against heaven” (Ps 72:8-9).

The great Peter, fellow worker of God, sacrificed all these by the sword of the Spirit. He made some thirst for heavenly things. Others he made meek, humane, and restrained toward one another. Others he made lovers of God and humble.

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

“Joppa” is interpreted as “watchfulness,” signifying the vigilance fitting for those who struggle in practical philosophy. Since it lies on a high seashore, it would be engulfed by waves if the city’s position were not so elevated.

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

Near itself, as though near the sea, it still has an attachment to the senses not yet wholly torn away. Therefore it needs watchfulness. Otherwise unclean demons, hiding under the guise of involuntary temptations, may cause an assault of voluntary passions.

Since Joppa belongs to the allotment of the tribe of Issachar, and “Issachar” is interpreted as “wage” and “labor,” we may further understand Joppa in another way.

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

Therefore let the one who dwells on the height of practical philosophy, which allows watchfulness, be called a dweller in Joppa.

But the one who dwells on the Zion of Jerusalem has ascended the watchtower for the sake of “vision of peace,” for so “Jerusalem” is interpreted. He is far from every sensory attachment, since, in the literal sense, the sea is far from Zion.

Being on the summit of knowledge, by spiritual sight he receives only the intelligible ideas of beings. He separates them in the mind from the outwardly manifest forms of those beings.

He receives the images of divine things, insofar as they are permitted to be seen. These form his mind for what is more divine.

Therefore the one who dwells in Joppa is the struggler in practical philosophy, vigilantly watching the traps of the enemies. The one who dwells on Zion is the contemplative, who by mind alone beholds the beauty of divine things.

If the vessel of the sheet is taken up again into heaven, then we should understand this in the following way. After the great Peter receives the spiritual logoi of sensible things that exist together with intelligible things, God takes them back to Himself.

Through this He teaches that there is nothing unclean at all among sensible things whose logoi abide near Him. Therefore the great Apostle, learning the meaning of visible things, was taught that no man should be called unclean.

He was taught that there is no partiality with God, that partiality which produces an unjust division among beings. Without any delay, the Apostle fulfilled the divine commandment.

He sacrificed for spiritual life those who voluntarily accomplished circumcision of the heart by the Word of grace. He also sacrificed those who, as from foreskin, renounced every uncleanness of the vices of unbelief and ignorance.

Yet he cut away nothing belonging by nature to the flesh, nothing that came from God’s creation and was not formed through a passionate will. For nothing according to nature is unclean, because it owes its being to the divine Cause.

And generally of all it is said: "Man, being in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts" (Ps 48:13, Vulg.).

Solomon shows the true man, that is, the incorrupt man, when he says: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole man" (Eccl 12:13, Vulg.).

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.