Acts 12:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“And seeing that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded further and seized Peter also.” O great impiety! Did he please them by committing murders without cause and in vain? “Then were the days of Unleavened Bread.” Again the Jews’ excessive scrupulosity about days is evident. Yet they were not hindered from killing. They did it even at such a time. Murder was pleasing to them, and indeed unjust murder. Great was Herod’s madness, for he served their impious passions. He ought to have done the opposite and restrained their frenzy. Instead he inflamed it and became a sort of executioner of the diseased, not their physician. Yet he had many examples, both his grandfather and his father Herod. The former suffered many calamities for the slaughter of the infants (Mt 2:16). The latter, who killed John the Baptist (Mt 14:10), endured a cruel war.

"And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also." So that no one might say the apostles go toward death undaunted and fearless because God snatches them away from it, God permitted even the foremost among them to be handed over to death: Stephen and James.

By this God shows the killers themselves that He does not remove them even from this, nor does He hinder them here.

The killing was a deed pleasing to their disordered passions, and it was a lawless killing. It was necessary to put an end to their impulse. Yet Herod, like an executioner of the sick and not their physician, incites them.

He did this though he had seen thousands of examples in the life of his grandfather and of his father Herod.

"Now these were the days of Unleavened Bread." See Acts 12:4.

In the year 44 a new persecution arose in Jerusalem against the Church, this time from the ruler of Judea, Herod Agrippa. Wishing to please the people, he had already put to death one of the first apostles, James the son of Zebedee, brother of John. He wished also to put Peter to death, and had already imprisoned him. But on the very night after which death awaited him, God freed him from prison through His angel. Soon afterward He also struck the persecutor. Perhaps from this very time we must date the activity outside Palestine, among Jews and Gentiles, of the apostles themselves. They were twelve, or more precisely, after the death of James, eleven. Their number was soon supplemented by their most zealous fellow-laborer, Paul.

While Barnabas and Saul, sent by the Church of Antioch with aid for the poor brethren in Judea (Acts 11:30), were there fulfilling the commission entrusted to them, the Church’s peace was disturbed. She had enjoyed this peace after the persecution that began with the killing of Stephen. Now persecution was raised against the believers in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa I. Herod Agrippa I was the son of Aristobulus, grandson of Herod the Great (Mt 2:1), and nephew of Herod Antipas of Galilee (Mt 14:3 ff.). During the last three years of his life, like his grandfather, he ruled all Palestine with the title of king. Thus, as the Church of Christ increased in the number of her members and grew inwardly, opposition to her from the unbelieving Jewish world also intensified.

The general approval with which the Jews greeted this bloody deed became still more evident because of the great masses of people gathered in Jerusalem for Pascha. This stirred the king, who delighted in the voice of popular approval, to strike the Christians even more cruelly. He did this by arresting the most renowned of the apostles. For this purpose the Apostle Peter was seized. Yet before Pascha there was no time to finish his trial. The Jews themselves did not wish to put him to death during the feast. Therefore he was kept in prison until the seven sacred days had passed. Then he was to be put to death with the greatest possible solemnity, before an immense gathering of the people.

Seeing that this pleased the Jews, that is, the representatives of Judaism, or generally that part of Jerusalem’s population hostile to Christians. Although Herod was a Jew by birth, he did not persecute the sect hated by the representatives of Judaism out of zeal for the Jewish Law. He did it from a desire to win the favor of these representatives and this part of the people. Reared from childhood in Rome and frivolous in character, he scarcely believed in a Jewish manner. He began the persecution of Christians only for the sake of his own elevation in the eyes of the people. The representatives of the Jewish ecclesiastical hierarchy saw the king’s favor toward them. They also knew that the highest Roman authority favored him. No doubt they lifted up their heads.

The seizure of Peter and his imprisonment to please the Jews shows that king Herod carried out the killing of James and the tormenting of other Christians on religious grounds. This is why these very acts of torment against Christians pleased the Jews. If, for example, the Apostle James had been executed for some crime, there could have been nothing in this pleasing to the Jews. But if one tormented men for the faith to please the Jews, then it was necessary to seize the man most desired by them for this purpose. He had to be the most prominent of all the spreaders of Christianity at that time. Such a man, more than any other, was known to all as Peter. He had spoken for all on the day of Pentecost after the healing of the lame man.