Acts 28:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"Nevertheless, we would like to hear you." At the same time they already express their opinion beforehand, adding: "for we know that this teaching is everywhere spoken against." They did not say, "We oppose it," but, "It is everywhere spoken against," so as to turn condemnation away from themselves.

"We desire to hear from you what you think." See how meekly they too speak. "We desire to hear," they say. At the same time they also want to justify those others. Therefore they came on the appointed day.

This proves that they did not consider themselves entirely right and felt timid. If they had not felt timid, they would have gathered and attacked him at once. But now, not daring to do this, they did not come immediately. Their repeated coming also proves that they felt timid.

The Jews call faith in Christ a heresy. Yet they themselves testify that Christ is preached everywhere, though not all receive this preaching. Some among the Jews and the Greeks even oppose it.

In presenting the teaching, he found it necessary to touch upon his own circumstances. He supposed that they were somewhat known to them and therefore needed to remove suspicion. But he learned that the Roman Jews had not heard of him.

When Paul declared that he was bound for the hope of Israel, they asked him to unfold his thoughts about this. They said, "We hear that this teaching is much disputed." Paul appointed a day and expounded to them the teaching about the Kingdom of God. He proved from Moses and the prophets that Jesus is the true Messiah.

But his preaching found faith in few, and he had to repeat Isaiah's rebuke to his contemporaries (Acts 28:26-28).

In response to the apostle's speech, the Jews said that they not only did not know him, but had not even heard of him. They probably said this in pretense, though it is difficult to determine the motive for such pretense. It is hard to think that, being in lively communication with Jerusalem and knowing about Christianity, the Roman Jews had not until then heard of the chief preacher of the Christian teaching, against whom Judaism everywhere was especially armed.

The answer of the Jews was very diplomatic. Divisions within their own community, arising from disputes about Christ, had aroused such indignation against them among all that some ten years earlier they had suffered a ruinous and shameful expulsion from Rome by decree of the emperor Claudius.

This decree, it is true, had not been carried out with full severity. Yet the Jews did not wish to expose themselves again to so ruinous a disaster. Therefore they gave an indefinite answer, declaring, how truthfully we do not know, that they had received no bad report about the apostle, either in writing or by word of mouth.

We have received no letters, and so forth. The Jews are speaking untruthfully, or at least not the full truth. If they had heard disputes about the Christian teaching (v. 22), they could not have failed to hear and know about Paul, almost the chief laborer and preacher of this disputed teaching.

Perhaps in the most recent period, the time of Paul's trial before Festus, when he demanded Caesar's judgment, they had received neither letters nor oral reports about him. Yet they could not have failed to hear about the apostle's earlier activity.

The answer of the Roman Hebrews to the Apostle Paul's first speech was rather restrained and evasive. They immediately guessed what Paul was speaking to them about in veiled terms. They expressed readiness to listen to this, in their opinion, disputed teaching, but not now, at another time.

According to Saint John Chrysostom, "they do not agree with him, and, having heard a reproach from him, they withdraw, not daring to say anything. For there it was no longer permitted them to do anything against him. It is astonishing how everything, not only what serves our safety, but also what is contrary to it, turns to our good."