Acts 15:29Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

After this, the council states the very rules which, by its decree, Christians from among the Gentiles must strictly fulfill in life. In general they are free from the yoke of the Law. Yet first the council expresses the unalterable force of these rules as binding for them, saying that this seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.

The ordinance of the Jerusalem Council would have been binding for Christians from among the Gentiles already because it was a council. In it the voice of the Catholic Church was expressed, and especially of the Church of Jerusalem, the Mother of all Christian Churches.

From this Church the word of God had gone forth (1 Cor 14:36), and it continued to be guided by the Apostles of Christ themselves. Yet the ordinance becomes still more unalterably binding because it was inspired by the Spirit of God Himself, who gave life to the assembly.

It must also be said that this law, the law against using the blood of animals, was not only in the Mosaic Law. It existed much earlier, in the patriarchal law, at the very time when, after the renewed world came forth from the ark, God gave permission to use animals for food.

The law concerning blood, as the life of animals, is there founded on respect for life in general.

As for things sacrificed to idols, the question about them was later raised again by the Corinthian Christians. It was resolved anew in the Apostle Paul's epistle to them.

Paul's resolution there must not be regarded as some repeal of the rule established at the Jerusalem Council, where Paul himself was among the foremost. It should be regarded only as an explanation of the sense in which the rule was established in Jerusalem.

What was forbidden was not the thing itself, but the notion associated with the thing. This would apply if someone considered what had been sacrificed to idols as something consecrated to idols, treating it with reverence, or ate it to the scandal of others.

Otherwise, something would not be a thing sacrificed to idols if it were in no way considered to be such.

At the same time, for the temporary pacification of the parties, it prescribed for Christians from among the Gentiles certain rules of abstinence. These concerned things either contrary to the spirit of the new Christian law, or contrary to human nature, such as things strangled and blood.

"Farewell" was the customary closing greeting in the letters of Greeks and Romans (cf. Acts 23:30).

"See how brief the epistle is, and how it contains nothing superfluous, no intricacies and no syllogisms, but only the decree. In it was contained the legislation of the Spirit" (Chrysostom).

First, there is a natural reason, as the Mosaic Law itself explains to us: "the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev 17:11). That is, blood is in some manner the receptacle of the soul, the nearest instrument of its activity, and the principal active force of life in animals.

Second, there is a moral reason. The eating of blood would reveal an exceedingly coarse and cruel sensuality. As experience shows, it would have a harmful influence on the spiritual qualities of man.

In addition, in the Old Testament there was also a ritual reason. The Law of Moses says that God commanded the Israelites to use blood for the altar, in order to cleanse their souls, "for this blood makes atonement for the soul" (Lev 17:11).

By virtue of this, blood represented something holy. It was, as it were, a prefiguration of the blood of Christ, the Most Pure and Divine Lamb, which He shed on the Cross for the salvation of the world (Heb 10:4; 1 Jn 1:7).

That Christians in the West were forbidden to eat morticinia is witnessed, among others, by Pope Gregory III, around 731. In his canones poenitentiales he prescribes penalties for one qui morticinia comederit.

In our Book of Needs there is a special prayer for those who have eaten defiled foods. See also canon 131 of the Nomocanon attached to the Great Book of Needs.

"If this is pleasing to the Spirit, then it is not a human teaching," says Saint John Chrysostom. "And us is said in order to show that they themselves also accept it, though they belong to the circumcision."

"The Apostles say, It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, not placing themselves on the same level as the authority of the Spirit. Rather, they subject themselves to the Spirit, as those then instructed by Him. By this they show that they have, as it were, one vision, one thought, and one authority with the Spirit. The decree pleased the Apostles as something they proclaimed ministerially."

"It is remarkable that neither Peter nor John dared, without the whole Church, to make decrees concerning circumcision, though they recognized this as necessary. Yet even all together they would not have relied on themselves, had they not been convinced that this was pleasing also to the Holy Spirit."

As for the decrees themselves, they are precisely those proposed by the holy Apostle James, though in different words. The decree was conciliar and therefore, so to speak, legislative. Yet it is offered for fulfillment only as something good, that is, worthy of free reception. What instructive lack of pretension!

"Great then was the respect for teachers," says Saint John Chrysostom. "And see how brief the epistle is. It contains nothing superfluous, no artifices, no syllogisms, but only the decree, in which the legislation of the Spirit was accomplished. By burden they mean the Law."

"Farewell!" This was the customary closing greeting among Greeks and Romans (cf. Acts 23:30).