Acts 3:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore he wanted to receive alms and did not know who Peter and John were. So that no one might think he was being carried for some other reason and not to receive alms, see how clearly the writer presented this in the words: “whom they carried and laid daily at the gate of the temple called Beautiful. To ask alms from those entering the temple.” He also mentions the place in order to present proof of what he writes. Why, you ask, did they not bring the lame man to Christ? Perhaps those sitting at the temple were unbelieving men. They did not bring him to the apostles either, though they saw them entering the temple and though they had already performed so many miracles.

The writer of the book makes exact mention of both place and time in order to give an account of what he describes. If so, why does he not name the lame man? It is because the apostles did not know his name, for this man was completely unknown to them. Perhaps this was so that it would not seem that they performed healings as a sign of gratitude or through partiality. Then no one, not even the most shameless, could suspect them of deception, as though some of their acquaintances, out of gratitude to the apostles, invented healings supposedly performed on themselves. But why did they not learn the lame man’s name after his healing? Because they had no time to occupy themselves with something that brought no benefit. It seems to me that many did not know this man’s name either.

The cripple sat at the Beautiful Gate. He could neither walk nor reach the threshold of the entrance. Guilt barred the way. Who, then, had always bravely carried lame Israel and sought to bring it near the Beautiful Gate, which receives its true meaning from the name of Jesus? Isaiah, Daniel, and those like them, who with prophetic lips sang of the wonders of Christ shining in the darkness. And He who has the name instructs us about the gates in this way: "I am the door for you. He who refuses to enter by Me is a thief and a robber" (cf. Jn 10:1).

Since the people of Israel showed stubbornness not only during the earthly life of the Lord, but even from the very time when the Law was given, they were, as it were, lame from their mother’s womb. And just as Jacob, after his wrestling with the angel, is portrayed as having received the blessing yet also limping, so this people, which seemed to have overcome the Lord during the Passion, was blessed in some of its members through faith and became lame in others through unbelief. Augustine, De civitate Dei 16.39.

After the sacred historian, in the first two chapters of his narrative, has told us how the opening of the Kingdom of God, or the Church of Christ on earth, was prepared, begun, and accomplished, he now recounts a remarkable and extraordinary event. This event had great significance for the success of the apostolic preaching, for aiding the inner condition of the first Christian community, and for its outward relations and position in Jerusalem. It was the miraculous healing by the Apostle Peter of a man lame from birth.

“Lame from his mother’s womb”: he was already more than forty years old (Acts 3:22), which made the miracle of his healing all the more striking. The Lord once miraculously healed a man blind from birth (Jn 9:1 and following). The apostle Peter heals a man lame from birth, and the Lord’s promise is fulfilled: that one who believes in Him will do the same works that He did (Jn 14:12). “At the gate of the temple called Beautiful”: this name is found nowhere else, and no doubt arose from the special beauty or magnificence of these gates in comparison with the other gates of the temple. They were probably the chief eastern gates, in Solomon’s porch, leading into the court of the Gentiles. Josephus describes them as the most beautiful, surpassing all the other gates of the temple in beauty.

The man had been lame from birth and had so little control of his legs that others carried him. They did this daily and always placed him at the most visible gates. These were called “Beautiful” because of their material, red bronze, and because of their fine workmanship. A multitude of people passed by them, and from this crowd the cripple received his daily alms. He had sat there for many years (see Acts 3:10), and therefore many knew him personally as an unfortunate man. This detailed portrayal of the lame man shows that the object for the apostles’ miraculous action was not chosen by them, but prepared by the Lord. So it was also with the man born blind, who was born in that condition not because of his parents’ fault, but so that the works of God might be revealed in him (Jn 9:3).