Acts 12:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Such also was the chief apostle Peter himself, who so quickly left Judea while escaping the dreadful persecutor, King Herod. But now the powerful persecutor had died. An even wider field for preaching was opened. Therefore Barnabas and Saul now freely return to Antioch. There they had been received with special goodwill, and from there they had gone to Jerusalem with the first gifts from the young Church of Antioch for the suffering Christians of the mother Churches. Expecting to have no small labors of evangelization, they took John Mark with them. This was about the year 44. Some Western scholars hold that the twenty-fifth verse was "inserted by the writer of Acts in order somehow to justify the transition from one narrative to another." Yet, as Nikolin rightly says, the twenty-fifth verse is by no means an unsuccessful insertion by the sacred writer. It is called forth by the course of the narrative. It bears witness to the attentiveness and deliberation with which the writer of Acts composed his work. Having begun to tell of Saul and Barnabas traveling to Jerusalem with alms (see Acts 11:29-30), the sacred writer incidentally relates the important events of those days in Jerusalem. These were the killing of Saint James and the miraculous release of the apostle Peter from prison (12:1-24). Yet he does not lose the thread of his account. He does not forget what he had begun to speak about. After setting forth the history of the apostle Peter's miraculous deliverance, the writer of Acts again returns to Saul and Barnabas. He had left them on the way to Jerusalem. He adds that, after fulfilling their commission, they returned from Jerusalem to Antioch, from which they had been sent. The final verse of chapter 12 is required by the very course of the narrative. It forms a necessary conclusion. Without this verse, the account would not be complete, or at least would have no ending. In addition, it has a relation to the following thirteenth chapter. It explains for us the presence of John, called Mark (see Acts 12:26), with Saul and Barnabas at the beginning of their missionary journey (see Acts 13:5-13). It also explains his later return to Jerusalem (see Acts 13:13). The connection between chapters 12 and 13 is such that it presupposes their sequential composition, one after the other. The difficulty is resolved more simply. One need only accept that chapter 13 begins a new, second part of the narrative. Then the peculiarity in the construction of the first verse of chapter 13 is easily understood.