Acts 17:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Why, you ask, did they not remain here? Why did they not perform signs? If Paul remained for a considerable time where he was stoned, how much more could he have remained here. Why, then?

It was not God’s will that they constantly perform signs. If those who are persecuted conquer without signs, this is no smaller a sign than performing signs.

Just as God now conquers without signs, so He often willed to conquer then also. The Apostles did not have recourse to signs, as Paul also says: “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23).

To those seeking signs and wisdom, we impart that by which another could not persuade even with the help of signs, and yet we persuade. This is the great sign.

When the preaching was spreading, see how often they had recourse to signs. More signs had to be performed for believers than for others. Therefore they were performed. Yet the Apostles performed them when they were departing and arriving.

“They sent Paul away,” the writer says, “as though he were going to the sea.” Why? So that the Jews would not easily seize him.

In this way those who sent Paul away could do something great by themselves. With him they would have done and accomplished still more. But for the moment they wished to deliver him from danger.

See what care all the disciples showed for the chief Apostles. It is not as we do now. We have separated from one another and divided ourselves into great and small.

Some of us are puffed up, and others envy. They envy because we are arrogant and do not wish to be equal with them.

There is harmony in our body because there is no arrogance among its members. There is no arrogance because all the members necessarily need one another. The head needs the feet, and the feet need the head.

God has arranged the same thing among us. Yet we still do not wish to be equal with others, though even apart from this we ought to have love among ourselves.

Do you not hear how outsiders also condemn us when they say that friendship is useful? Laypeople need us, and we exist for them.

Indeed, there would be neither teacher nor ruler if there were no students and subjects. Nor would they display their works, because they could not do so.

As the earth needs the farmer and the farmer needs the earth, so it is here also. What recompense will a teacher receive if he cannot show those whom he has taught?

What recompense will the students receive if they have not benefited from good teaching? Thus we equally need one another. Leaders need subordinates, and the abbot needs those under obedience. Leaders exist for the sake of many others.

No one in any matter can be sufficient by himself. Whether there is need to ordain, or to give counsels and judgments, one receives greater honor from the assembly and the multitude.

For example, the poor need those who give, and those who give need those who receive. “Let us consider one another,” the Apostle says, “to stir up love and good works” (Heb 10:24).

Therefore communion with the Church has great power. What someone cannot do by himself, he will do together with others.

For this reason the necessary prayers are offered here especially for the whole world, for the Church in every place, for peace, and for those in danger.

Paul expresses this when he says: “So that many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift granted us through the intercession of many” (2 Cor 1:11). That is, thanksgiving should be rendered by many.

He also often asks for their prayers for himself. See what God says concerning the Ninevites: “Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons?” (Jon 4:11).

“Where two or three,” Christ says, “are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). If two can do much, how much more can many?

Let it be granted that you have power even alone, but not as much as with others. And why are you alone? Why do you not gather many? Why do you not become a cause of love?

Why do you not establish friendship? You do not have the greatest glory of virtue. As evil done in agreement with others offends God more, so good done in agreement with others is more pleasing to Him.

“Do not follow the multitude to do evil,” Scripture says (Ex 23:2). “They have all turned aside, they have all become utterly useless” (Ps 13:3), and have become like those rejoicing in their malice.

Take care to acquire friends before you acquire household possessions, and before everything else. If “the peacemakers” are “sons of God” (Mt 5:9), how much more is the one who gains friends?

If one who merely reconciles is called a son of God, what will the one who makes the reconciled into friends be counted worthy to receive?

Let us carry out this trade: making friends of those who are at enmity, joining those who are neither enemies nor friends with one another, and before all others, joining ourselves.

If a man has allowed enmity in his house and does not live in harmony with his wife, he will have no credibility when he tries to reconcile others. He will hear the words: “Physician, heal yourself” (Lk 4:23).

So also shall we hear them here. What enmity do we have? The enmity of the soul with the body, and of vice with virtue.

Let us stop this enmity and destroy this warfare. Then we shall also instruct others with peace, great boldness, and no reproaches from conscience.

Anger opposes meekness. Avarice opposes contempt for riches. Envy opposes goodwill. Let us stop this warfare, cast down these enemies, set up these trophies, and establish peace in our city.

For we have our own city and government, citizens, and a multitude of foreigners. Let us drive out the foreigners, lest our citizens be corrupted.

Let no foreign and unhealthy teaching enter us, and no fleshly way of thinking. Do we not see that if an enemy is caught in a city, he is judged as a spy?

Let us therefore drive out the foreigners, or rather, not only foreigners, but also enemies. If we notice some thought hostile to us, yet clothed in the garment of a citizen, let us hand it over to the ruler, the mind.

We have many such thoughts. They are hostile in their essence, but they cover themselves in sheepskin.

Persians may remove their tiara, trousers, and shoes, put on other clothing used among us, shave their heads, and speak the local language. Under this outward appearance they hide their hostility.

If you subject them to questioning, you uncover what is hidden. So it is here also. Subject this thought to a thousand examinations, and at once you will see its hostile mind.

To show you an example of these spies whom the devil sends to reconnoiter us, let us expose at least one of them and question him carefully before the tribunal.

If you wish, let us present some of those whom Paul exposed: “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom,” he says, “in self-made worship, humility, and severity to the body, with a certain neglect concerning the satisfying of the flesh” (Col 2:23).

For example, the devil wished to introduce the heresy of the Judaizers. If he had introduced it directly, he would have persuaded no one.

See, then, how he did it. “There is no need,” he says, “to spare one’s flesh. Not to cling to food, but to abstain, this is philosophy, this is humility.”

Even now, together with the heretics, he has wished to bring us down to the worship of creation. See how he arranged his deceitful scheme.

If he had said, “Worship creation,” he would have been exposed. But what does he say? “God is created.” Let us expose him before the tribunal of judges who understand the meaning of the apostolic writings.

Let us bring him to them. They will discern what is preaching and what is empty talk.

Many gather possessions as though in order to have something to give to the poor, but they gather them unjustly. This too is an evil thought.

Let us reject and expose it, so that we may not be caught. Let us escape all the snares of the devil and faithfully hold sound doctrine.

Then we may pass through the present life safely and be counted worthy of 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.

Thus the prince of this world fiercely pursued the great preacher of the Kingdom of Christ. Yet he himself did not know what blow he was preparing against his dominion over the world.

For with such fury and haste he drove the apostle of the Gentiles into the very centers of the most enlightened paganism.

The brethren accompanied the Apostle Paul to the seashore. There he boarded a ship, which brought him to Athens, the capital of all educated mankind.

Moreover, the Jews who were Paul's enemies were evidently pursuing him everywhere along the road.

The best means of escaping their pursuit and for a time concealing his trail from them was a sea voyage. Paul probably undertook this when he went from Berea to the sea.

Timothy, who seems to have remained in Philippi (Acts 16:40), joined the apostle either in Berea or on the way to that city.

"See what care all the disciples showed for the chief apostles. Communion with the Church has great power. What a man cannot do by himself, he will do together with others.

"For this reason prayers are offered here especially for the whole world, for the Church in all its bounds, for their well-being, and for those in dangers."

"Thus those who sent Paul away could do something great by themselves. With him they would have done and accomplished even more, but for the time being they wished to deliver him from danger."

"As for leaving Silas and Timothy in Berea, this was done to continue the preaching there. This had partly been practiced earlier in Philippi (see Acts 16:40), and later in Thessalonica.

"From there Paul commanded Silas and Timothy to return to him quickly in Athens. One may think that, despite Paul's brief stay in Athens, Timothy came to him there (see 1 Thess 2:18-3:2).

"So also he had come from Philippi to Thessalonica. Their more prolonged meeting occurred in Corinth, where the Apostle Paul remained for a longer time."

Saint John Chrysostom, as a profound venerator of the holy Apostle Paul, expresses joy at his arrival in the center of Greek culture, Athens. He says: "It is good that they were brought by God into Macedonia, for Greece was already renowned."

"Leaving Macedonia was very bitter for the apostle. He had been summoned there in such an extraordinary way, and his activity there had proved especially fruitful.

"It was more bitter because the cause lay in the Jews. They were so close to his heart that, for their conversion, he was ready to sacrifice his own salvation.

"It was especially grievous for Saint Paul that the Jews not only did not convert themselves. Displeasing God and opposing men, they also prevented the apostle from speaking to the Gentiles so that they might be saved.

"In this way they filled up the measure of their sins (1 Thess 2:16). Only one conviction strengthened the apostle.

"The sacred ministry of the Gospel of God which he performed (Rom 15:16) was determined by the will of God Himself.

"Sorrows and persecutions are necessary for those who serve Christ, since through them we must enter the Kingdom of God.

"Only this conviction gave the apostle strength, with hope for the good shoots of the seed already sown, to turn to new places where the word of the Gospel had not yet sounded."

Since he was not yet able to visit such Macedonian cities as Thessalonica, the apostle took care to strengthen the Church there through his two epistles, written soon afterward from Corinth.

In the first of them he wrote: "we were gentle among you, as a nurse cherishes her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to impart to you not only the Gospel of God, but also our own souls, because you had become dear to us" (1 Thess 2:7-8).

"Each of you, as a father does his children, we exhorted and encouraged and charged to walk worthily of God, Who calls you into His own Kingdom and glory" (1 Thess 2:11-12).

"You remember, brethren, our labor and toil: working night and day, so as not to burden any of you, we preached to you the Gospel of God" (1 Thess 2:9).

This was said against idlers, of whom there were many in Thessalonica.

Further, the apostle announced that the Thessalonians would have to endure many temptations (see 1 Thess 3:2-4; 5:2-3).

This will be a terrible time for the sons of darkness. But for those counted worthy of temptation, it will be an object not of fear, but of joyful expectation.

Especially terrible will be the son of perdition (2 Thess 2:3), the Antichrist, who exalts himself above everything. And now the mystery of lawlessness is at work.

But it will not be fulfilled until the one who restrains is taken out of the way (2 Thess 2:7). That is, until laws and lawful bearers of right and justice cease to be recognized and respected.

When the lawless one is revealed, the Lord Jesus will slay him with the spirit of His mouth and destroy him by the manifestation of His coming (2 Thess 2:8).

"To communicate to the Christians of newly founded Churches a correct view of the state, civil authority, and the relation of the Church to the state was a matter of high importance for the apostle.

"Only such a view could preserve Christians from those deeply grievous consequences which would follow from a contemptuous, and still more a rebellious, attitude toward representatives of the civil order of law."