Acts 4:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Those men are in difficulty, while these rejoice. Those are filled with great shame, while these do all things with boldness. Those are in fear, while these are without fear. Tell me, who was really afraid? Was it those who said, “so that it may spread no further among the people”? Or was it those who said, “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard”? These are in gladness, boldness, and the greatest joy. Those are in sorrow, shame, and fear, because they feared the people. These said what they wished. Those did not do what they wished. Who was in bonds and dangers? Was it not especially these? Therefore let us cleave to virtue. Let these words not be merely for pleasure or some consolation. This is not a theater, beloved, nor a place of those who play the lyre or perform tragedies. There the fruit is only enjoyment, so that the day passes and the enjoyment disappears. And would that there were only enjoyment, and no other harm together with the enjoyment. But each man goes home from there as from some infected place, having taken into himself much of what happens there. Thus a young man takes from there certain sounds of diabolical songs, whatever he could retain in memory, and often sings them at home. An old man, being more restrained, does not do this. Yet he remembers all the words that were spoken there. But from here you go away with nothing. Is this not shameful?

But the healed man, who was there with the apostles, stood as silent and irrefutable confirmation of the truth of the apostolic testimony. Then, having sent the accused out, they conferred about how to proceed. The opponents of Christ openly confessed among themselves that the truth was on the side of the accused. Nevertheless, after calling the apostles back, they strictly forbade them to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But the apostles answered: “Judge whether it is right before God to listen to you rather than to God. We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (vv. 19-20). The apostles had received directly from Christ Himself the appointment to be His witnesses throughout the whole world, and first of all in Jerusalem. Yet Christ Himself had once said: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do” (Mt 23:2-3). Therefore the apostles had to show obedience to the Sanhedrin as guardian of this order. They owed this not only according to their former purely Jewish concepts and beliefs. They owed it also on the basis of the Lord’s teaching that, even with the opening of the New Testament, the Old Testament order of things would continue for a time. Thus two duties were demanded of the apostles at the same time. These duties stood in such a relation to one another that, by fulfilling one, they violated the other. Yet the apostles did not deliberate over how to escape this difficulty. Calmly and firmly they declared that in this case they could not be obedient. They had to fulfill a higher commandment, the commandment of God Himself. On the other hand, their own conscience did not permit them to be silent. It did not permit them to conceal the truth concerning that of which they were firmly and unquestionably convinced by experience.

When the demands of earthly authority are not contrary to the divine demands, both must be fulfilled (Mt 22:21). But when they are contrary and irreconcilable, then only the divine demands must be fulfilled, with refusal to the earthly authority. Such is the meaning of the apostolic speech.

Truth becomes for them a holy thing, which no power can compel them to renounce. So also the apostles did not yield a single step before threats. With resolute firmness they answered that they could not but speak of what they had seen and heard. They acted by the command of God. Therefore the command of the Sanhedrin meant nothing in comparison with God’s.” “Eyewitnesses, according to the principles of human knowledge, are the first reliable witnesses of truth. In this respect no field of human knowledge has witnesses like these. The fact that about nineteen centuries have passed since that time has in no way diminished the force of their testimony. Consequently, the evident truth to which they testified has not been diminished. If men fall away into unbelief, and today very many fall away, they do so for no other reason than lack of sound judgment. They do not wish to examine matters, and they are carried away by phantoms. To these phantoms the flattery of a corrupt heart readily gives a certain appearance of probability. Poor souls! They perish while imagining that at last they have found an ancient path. They especially rejoice that they were the first to enter that track and became leading guides for others. But there is little joy in sitting on the seat of destroyers” (Bishop Theophan, in Domestic Conversation, 1871).