Acts 16:25Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“About midnight,” the writer says, “they were singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” To the prisoners this seemed strange and extraordinary.

Let us compare our nights with that night. Our nights are spent in feasting, drunkenness, and disorder. In them there is sleep no different from death, or wakefulness worse than sleep.

Some sleep insensibly. Others stay awake to their own grief and misfortune, plotting, caring about money, devising how to avenge themselves on those who have wronged them, nourishing enmity, and recalling insulting words spoken during the day.

In this way they kindle the fire of anger and commit unforgivable deeds.

See how Peter slept. With him this happened by divine providence, because the angel had to come, and no one was to see what took place (Acts 12:6).

But let us leave the Greeks and turn the discourse to ourselves. To what has been said, one may add that they were persuaded of this amid dangers.

Therefore let us not be shameless. Let us think of that night, of the fetters, of the hymnody, and let us strive to do the same ourselves. Then we too shall open for ourselves not a prison, but heaven.

If we pray, we can open heaven itself. Elijah shut and opened heaven by prayer. There is also a prison in heaven. “Whatever you bind on earth,” Christ says, “shall be bound in heaven” (Mt 18:18).

Let us pray during the night and loose these bonds. That prayer looses sins can be shown by the widow (Lk 18:3), and by the friend who stood at the door at midnight and knocked (Lk 11:5).

Cornelius can show this, to whom the angel said, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God” (Acts 10:4).

Paul can also show it, for he says: “The true widow, who is left alone, hopes in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day” (1 Tim 5:5).

If he says this about a widow, a weak woman, how much more can it be said about men. I have already spoken to you about this, and I say it now.

Let us rise during the night. If you do not read many prayers, read one with attention, and that is enough. I ask nothing more. If not in the middle of the night, then at least toward morning.

Show that the night belongs not only to the body, but also to the soul. Do not allow it to pass in idleness. Render this repayment to the Lord. Or rather, it will return again to you.

Tell me, when we fall into difficult circumstances, whom do we not ask for help? If we quickly receive what we ask, we feel relief.

Where will you find someone whom you ask, who is ready to thank you because you ask him? Where will you find that there is no need to go and seek someone to ask, but that you always have Him ready?

Where will you find that there is no need for others, so that you ask through them? What can be greater than this?

He especially fulfills our requests when we do not run to others. So also a sincere friend especially reproaches us for distrusting his friendship when we ask him through others.

We act in the same way with those who ask us. We are especially favorable to them when they turn to us themselves, and not through others.

But what, you say, if I have offended Him? Stop offending Him. Approach Him with tears, and He will quickly have mercy on you for your former deeds.

Only say that you have offended Him. Say it from the soul and from the depth of the heart, and you will receive forgiveness in all things.

You do not desire your sins to be forgiven as much as He desires to forgive your sins. That you desire it little is clear from the fact that you do not wish either to keep vigil or to give from your possessions.

But He, in order to forgive us our sins, did not spare His Only-begotten, true, and enthroned Son. Do you see that He desires to forgive your sins far more than you do?

Therefore let us not be negligent, and let us not postpone this work. He is loving toward mankind and good. Only give Him an occasion. Even this He requires only so that we may not remain useless.

Otherwise He would have mercy on us even without this. As we devise and use countless means for the good of our servants, so He cares for our salvation.

“Let us come before His face with confession,” for He is good and merciful (Ps 94:2). If you do not call upon Him in truth, and do not cry from the heart, “Forgive me,” but only with the lips, what will He do?

What does it mean to call upon Him in truth? It means with a good disposition, with zeal, and from a pure heart.

Just as wine is said to be true when nothing is mixed with it, so it is here also. He who truly calls upon Him and truly asks Him asks unceasingly and does not depart until he receives.

But the one who does this hypocritically and wishes only to fulfill a rule does not call upon Him in truth.

Whoever you are, do not merely say, “I am a sinner.” Strive also to free yourself from this reputation. Do not merely say it, but be contrite.

If you are contrite, you make an effort. If you make no effort, you are not contrite. If you are not contrite, you are mocking.

Who, knowing that he is sick, does not do everything to be delivered from the sickness? Prayer is a great weapon. “If you,” Christ says, “know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father” (Lk 11:13).

Why, then, do you not wish to run to Him? He loves you. He can do more than all. He both wills and can. What prevents you? Nothing.

Therefore let us approach Him with faith. Let us approach bringing gifts pleasing to Him: freedom from remembrance of wrongs, forbearance, and meekness.

Even if you are a sinner, ask Him boldly for the forgiveness of sins, if you can present this good work on your part. Even if you are righteous, if you do not have freedom from remembrance of wrongs, you will gain no benefit.

A man who has forgiven his neighbor cannot fail to receive complete forgiveness from God, because God is incomparably more loving toward mankind than we are. This is known to everyone.

What do you say? If you can say before God, “I was wronged, but I restrained my anger and overcame its stormy impulse according to Thy commandment,” will He not forgive you also? Certainly He will forgive.

Let us cleanse our soul from remembrance of wrongs. This will be enough for us also to be heard. Let us pray with attention and great zeal.

Then, being counted worthy of His great love for mankind, we may be granted the promised good things, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Do you wish to know what power there is in hymns to God? The three youths, by singing them, quenched the Babylonian furnace. Or rather, they did not quench it, but, what is far more wondrous, trampled the blazing flame underfoot like mud.

This hymnody entered the prison with Paul, loosed the bonds, opened the prison doors, shook the foundations, and struck the jailer with great fear.

"Praying," it says, "they were singing hymns to God." They sang to Him who had counted them worthy to suffer so much for the name of His Only-begotten Son.

So also Peter and the Apostles with him, when they had been beaten in the Jewish council, "departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of the Lord Jesus"; Acts 5:41.

Although the Apostles did not ask God in their hymn and prayer to free them from that gloomy dwelling, the all-bountiful and most man-loving Creator delivered them by a miracle.

He is the One "who knows what we need before we ask Him"; Mt 6:8.

After apologizing to the Apostles, the authorities asked them to leave the city. The preachers of Christ left Philippi.

Further on, in Acts 16:40-17:1, the sacred historian says, "they departed." This gives reason to think that the Evangelist Luke did not leave Philippi together with Paul and Silas.

Rather, he was left there for a time to order the newly founded Church; verses 24-40.

"What can be compared with the thoughts of Paul and Silas?" Saint John Chrysostom once exclaimed. "They endured beating, received many wounds and insults, were in extreme danger, were in fetters, and were kept in the inner prison.

"Yet even so they did not allow themselves to sleep, but kept vigil through the whole night. Neither the power of sleep overcame them, nor did suffering exhaust them, nor did fear bring them to despondency.

"Rather, all this stirred them still more and filled them with great joy. To the prisoners it seemed fearful and extraordinary." Still more astonishing was the earthquake.

"But the jailer especially marveled at Paul's love for mankind. He was amazed also at his courage, because, though he had the opportunity to flee, he did not flee."

"The description of the imprisonment in the Philippian prison; see Acts 16:19-40, is rich in detailed particulars. In its origin it could easily have been owed to Saint Silas, who was thrown into prison together with Paul."

But no large conclusions may be drawn from this. It does not follow that Silas was the author of Acts, even in part, as some suppose.

"It would be most natural," says Nikolin, "to expect here a narrative in the first person plural. Yet by some strange circumstance it breaks off as soon as Paul and Silas are arrested.

"After this, everywhere the first person plural is replaced by the designation Paul and Silas."

"Acts 18:5 reports Silas's arrival in Corinth, but does not mention his departure from there; see Acts 18:18. We must think that he remained in Corinth until he again joined the Apostle Paul in Philippi; see Acts 20:6.

"The name Silas, or Silvanus, occurs in the First Epistle of Peter, which Peter sent through him; see 1 Pet 5:12. This indirectly confirms the testimony of Acts.

"Silas accompanied Paul during his second journey and passed through the greater part of the regions to which the Apostle Peter directed his epistle; see Acts 15:40; 16:8.

"At the same time, one may suppose that Silas, after parting from Paul, went to Jerusalem. There he joined Peter and accompanied him to Babylonia.

"From this it is clear that Silas cannot be considered the writer of Acts; see Acts 18:19-20. Nor should he be understood under the word 'we.'"

In the city of Philippi, the Apostles Paul and Silas preached the Gospel and cast out a spirit of divination. The people rose against them, beat and wounded them, and handed them over to prison under strong guard.

The jailer was not satisfied with confining them in the inner prison. He fastened their feet in the stocks. What then do they do?

They are exhausted by beating and suffering from wounds. They cannot place their bodies comfortably, because the stocks confine the feet of both. What do they do then, when even those not exhausted yield to bodily weakness?

"At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God." Perhaps you think that only an apostolic spirit could be so exalted and unconquered by calamity and weakness. Not entirely so.

At the voice of the apostolic prayer, the other prisoners in the same prison also rose in spirit above calamity and bodily weakness. They were not Apostles and, in all likelihood, not even Christians, since this was a pagan city.

They did not give themselves over to sleep at midnight: "the prisoners were listening to them." Evidently the rapture of the apostolic prayer seized them powerfully, because the miracle was also wrought upon them: "everyone's bonds were loosed."