Acts 19:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Acting in them through faith in love for mankind, it manifested the Apostle's holiness. Again, by the consent of grace, his body remained impassible and was not slain by the creature's poison. This may have been because the poison lost its destructive property. Or it may have been because the saint's body exhausted that power of corruption. Or it may have been because of some manner of divine economy known only to God, Who brings this about and changes it. By the consent of grace, the saint's body also fell beneath the sword. For it was not immortal by nature, though it worked miracles by grace. If it had been immortal by nature, we could reasonably seek the cause by which it fell beneath the sword contrary to nature. But if this body, even after sanctification, remained mortal by nature, there is no need to investigate the reason why the divine Apostle ended his life in the flesh in this way and not in another. For in whatever way God before all ages determined each man's life for his benefit, in that same way He wills to bring each man, righteous or unrighteous, to the fitting end of his life. If the logos of nature and the logos of grace were one and the same, then what happens according to nature but contrary to grace would be worthy of wonder and amazement. So too would what happens according to grace but contrary to nature. But since the logos of nature and the logos of grace differ from one another, it is clear and evident that as saints they worked miracles through grace. As men, however, they suffered passions according to nature. For grace does not abolish the passible principle of nature. Nor are the logoi of nature and grace in any way confused with each other. Let us understand that the grace of God, according to the divine economy concerning those guided by Providence, works all things in the saints, living and dead. Through them, as through its own instruments, it providentially cares for the salvation of others. But the saints produce this in others not according to the laws of nature, but by grace. This also applies to the body of Elisha. But since the souls of those who love God rejoice more in the intelligible meanings of things than in the facts narrated, we say that the surface of the body is the piety of the great Apostle. Because of this, he is to some "the fragrance of life unto life," and to others "the fragrance of death unto death" (2 Cor 2:16). The handkerchiefs are the manifest logoi of his contemplative vision. The aprons are the exalted modes of the practice of virtuous and active philosophy, for aprons are said to be carried in the hands. Those who receive these logoi and modes, which the body's surface sends forth like fragrance, receive healing from the infirmity oppressing them. That is, they receive them from the piety of the blessed Apostle. Some drive out the disease of ignorance by the logoi of contemplation, as by handkerchiefs. Others wholly destroy the sickness of vice by the virtuous modes of spiritual practice. In the same way, according to my judgment, the harsh winter that befell the Apostle is the burden of involuntary temptations. The island is the firm and unshaken habit of divine hope. The fire is the habit of knowledge. The brushwood is the nature of visible things. He gathered this with his hand, that is, with the perceptive power of the mind in contemplation. Through the intelligible insights flowing from this contemplation, he nourished the habit of knowledge. This habit heals the despondency caused to thought by the winter cold of temptations. The viper is the evil and destructive power hidden imperceptibly in the nature of sensible things. It bites the hand, that is, the perceptive activity of contemplation in the mind. Yet it does not harm the vigilant mind. The mind at once casts this destructive power into the fire, that is, into the light of knowledge. This power had attached itself to the active movement of the mind through the contemplation of sensible things. I understand the same concerning Elisha. Everyone who has become a dead man in sins is laid in the prophet's tomb, where his body was. This means that he comes into contact with memory, which preserves recollections of the prophetic life and sacredly keeps the body of the virtues. Such a man, by imitating the prophet's modes of practicing the virtues, returns again to life through his conversion. He passes from the deadness of vicious passions to virtuous life.

After preaching the Gospel in the synagogue for three months, Paul was forced by hostile attitudes shown by the Jews to turn to the pagans.

He gathered his hearers in the house of a pagan rhetorician named Tyrannus. In contrast to the magic spread there, which deceived many, the power of God revealed still more striking signs.

This was so that people might be drawn away from these delusions, and that the spiritual power of truth might open a path into their hearts; Acts 19:11-12.

The Apostle remained in this condition in Ephesus for about two years. During this time he wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians and the Epistle to the Galatians.

He preached the Gospel daily to the Jews and pagans who gathered to him. Thus all Asia rang with the preaching of the Lord Jesus.

There was no one there who had not heard the preaching of Christ, either from Paul himself or from those who had heard him.

This was helped especially by the fact that God worked many miracles by the hands of Paul. Even healings at a distance took place through him.

Handkerchiefs and aprons from his body were laid upon the sick and the demon-possessed, and they were healed.

"Such were, for example, persons wearing the consular stole. The purpose of both was to wipe sweat and the like from the face."

"It is noteworthy," says Bishop Michael, "that Paul did not personally perform these miracles himself. Others laid his things, perhaps even without his knowledge, upon the sick, and the sick recovered.

"Thus wonderworking power acts from the very things used by holy men. It acts, of course, upon those who use them with faith."

Ephesus, more than any other place, could see miracles from the Apostle. Paul's miracles there were extraordinary. They stood above all the miracles that had ever been performed in Ephesus.

The Apostle performed some miracles through the laying on of hands. His handkerchiefs and aprons, however, were laid upon the sick by others, no doubt in imitation of his actions.

It must be affirmed without doubt that, when performing miracles, Saint Paul uttered brief prayerful and absolving words in which he mentioned the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The faith of the Ephesians was so great that when, for some reason, Paul himself could not see and heal the sick, they laid upon them pieces of clothing used by Paul.

In doing this, they were convinced that these things, bearing traces of contact with the body of the great wonderworker, could communicate his wonderworking power. And they did not do so in vain.