Acts 17:28Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"As also some of your own poets have said: 'For we are also His offspring.'" The poet Aratus said this.

"He is not far," he says, "from each one of us" (v. 27). Thus, he says, He is near to all who are everywhere in the universe.

What can be greater than this? See how he overthrows local gods. Why do I say, "not far"?

He is so near that without Him it is impossible even to live. "For in Him we live and move and have our being."

He points, as it were, to a material example of this kind. It is impossible not to know the air that is poured out everywhere and is not far from each one of us.

Or rather, it is even within us. So also it is with the Creator of all.

See how Paul ascribes everything to Him: Providence, preservation, being, activity, and the continuation of all things.

The Lord is so near to us, says the Apostle, that without Him it is impossible to live. "For in Him we live and move and have our being."

He proves the nearness of the Lord by means of a sensible example. It is impossible, he says, not to know that air is poured out everywhere.

It is not only near each one of us, but also within us ourselves.

That we have received life from God, that we act and do not perish, all this he calls God's Providence and care for us.

"As also some of your own writers have said." One wise man, Aratus, said of Zeus: "Our race is from him."

But the Apostle says of the Creator: "For we are also His offspring." He does not affirm that the Creator and Zeus are one and the same. May it not be!

For in the holy Mysteries we depict His burial and proclaim His death. Through them we are born and formed, and are joined to the Savior beyond nature. For through them, as the Apostle says, "in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

Thus, the order of our reasoning is the order of interpretation. When the Gentiles are called into the Church, we must also set forth the commandments in sequence.

First, we show them that the Maker of the world and of all things in the world is the one God. In Him we live, and exist, and move; and we are His offspring. Therefore He must be loved not only for the gift of light and life, but also for the whole human race.

Then the established errors concerning idols must be destroyed, because the substance of gold, silver, or wood cannot contain divine power.

Not all can at once believe that salvation came into the world through the Cross. Prepare them through Greek history to see that such a thing is possible.

From this it is evident that, by citing a line from Aratus's Phaenomena, the Apostle shows by these words that he recognizes many opinions of the Greek philosophers as sound.

In addition, the Apostle indicates that under the name of the unknown God, the Greeks circumscriptively honored God the Creator, whom they were to know through the Son.

"For this purpose," Scripture says, "I have sent you to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, and by faith in Me receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified" (Acts 26:18).

Therefore the Greeks are the blind whose eyes needed to be opened, so that in the person of the Son they might know the Father, known to them until then only through indirect testimonies.

This verse, being difficult to understand, must be explained by the words of blessed Augustine.

He says that "the Apostle shows that God continually acts in what He has created. For we are in Him not as His substance.

"In the same way it was said that He has life in Himself (Jn 5:26). But since we are something other than He, we are in Him only because He so acts.

"This is His action by which He contains all things. His wisdom reaches firmly from one end to the other and orders all things beneficially (Wis 8:1).

"By this ordering we live and move and have our being in Him. From this one may conclude that, if He ceased to apply this action of His, then we would not live, move, or have our being in Him."

Augustine of Hippo, De Genesi ad litteram 4.12 (CSEL 28/1:109).

It is very true that "we are called God's offspring, not as proceeding from Him by nature, but as being willingly created by His Spirit and thus recreated by adoption."

Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job 20.16.41 (CCSL 143A:1033).

"For in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28), having been created and receiving life from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

For all things abide by the single will, good pleasure, and operation of the one Godhead in Trinity.

Therefore from the Spirit we all have life and movement. For the angels, living spirits, are from the Holy Spirit who gives life to all.

And souls become living spirits through Him. Therefore it is written that "God breathed into Adam's face the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen 2:7).

By this Scripture bears witness to the Spirit of God as the One who gives life.

From the knowledge of God's ever-existing being, immortality, and eternity, it follows that He alone lives essentially and is the source of our life. Our life depends on Him alone. Our living is nothing other than the shadow of a moving tree, which moves only when the tree moves. Thus we learn what we are, and on whom our life depends. It depends on Him who always lives, who cannot fail to live, and who gives life and movement to all. Thus we are persuaded, with the Apostle, to ascribe to Him our being, life, and movement: "In Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). From this our pride, pomp, and arrogance fall away.

The Apostle explains why he called the Lord “not far from each one of us,” see verse 27. It is because without God neither being, nor life, nor the movement of man is possible.

But can man do anything without God? Certainly he can. He can, independently and without compulsion, choose good or evil. He can direct his mind and will toward God or toward the devil, because he is free.

According to his own choice, man can turn away from God or turn toward Him.

In this realm, where the Lord has left man to himself, man’s free approach to God must take place. In response to this, God’s approach to man also takes place.

Meanwhile the inspired preacher continued his speech. Like clear streams from a life-giving spring, it flowed from his lips and gave life to the minds and hearts of his hearers.

It was a profound philosophy, unknown to them until then, yet at the same time simple to understand. With irresistible power it acted upon the heart.

It was a simple speech, yet each word pierced the soul of those who heard it like lightning. Each was clearly impressed upon their faces.

With extraordinary clarity he set forth the exalted understanding of God to which the greatest sages of the ancient world scarcely dared to ascend.

On the basis of well-known popular poets, he showed the whole unreasonableness of worshiping idols made by human hands.

“For in Him we live and move and have our being.” More exactly, “in Him.” This expression indicates and proves still more clearly God’s nearness to man.

By His omnipresence, God is presented as the all-embracing sphere in which all live. Outside Him there can be neither life nor movement, just as there can be none outside space and time.

“It is as though he points to a similar material example. It is impossible not to know the air, which is poured out everywhere and is not far from each of us. Better, it is even within us.

“So also is the Creator of all. See how Paul ascribes everything to Him: providence, preservation, being, action, and continuance. He did not say ‘through Him,’ but what indicates greater nearness, ‘in Him’” (Chrysostom).

The Providence of God has particular and general forms of action. God appointed times and places for the dwelling of men, so that by looking at these places and circumstances, people might know God.

At the same time, they can and must always and everywhere feel that our whole life depends on God. He is the cause of our being and the power that moves and preserves us.

"The Apostle proves the nearness of the Lord by means of a sensible example. It is impossible, he says, not to know that air is poured out everywhere and is not only near each one of us, but within us ourselves.

"That we have received life from God, that we act and do not perish, all this he calls God's Providence and care for us" (Theophylact of Bulgaria).