CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
4:1 T= priests, the magistrate of the temple, and the Sadducees came, and so forth. The priests and the magistrate (or the praetor of the temple, as another text has it!*), who seem to have been the teachers and judges of the people, were grieved because a large crowd was assembling to hear the apostles. The Sadducees were grieved because they were preaching the resurrection.! Both [groups] indeed were grieved because they
[the apostles] were affirming that Jesus had been glorified by God the Father, and they [the priests and Sadducees] knew that he was the man whom they had killed.
4:4
And the number of men came to be five thousand. If we take the five thousand men fed by the Lord in the wilderness? as [standing for] the people established under the law but created anew by Christ's favor, they and this five thousand, who were instructed by the teaching of the apostles, can designate the people of the nations who would spiritually follow the mysteries of the same law. Also, it was well done that both [groups of five thousand] were granted their heavenly favor in the evening, for when the fullness of time came God sent his son.?
4:11
This is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has come to have the chief position in the corner. The builders were the Jews, while all the gentiles remained in the wasteland of idols. The Jews alone were daily reading the law and the prophets for the building
LAG 23:83 Mt22:23
2. Mt 14:13-21.
3. Ga 4:4.
Chapter Four up of the people. As they were building, they came to the cornerstone, which embraces two walls—that is, they found in the prophetic scriptures that Christ, who would bring together in himself two peoples, was to come in the flesh.
And, because they preferred to remain in one wall, that is, to be saved alone, they rejected the stone which was not one-sided, but two-sided. Nevertheless, although they were unwilling, God by himself placed this [stone]?* at the chief position in the corner, so that from two testaments and two peoples there might rise up a building of one and the same faith.
4:12
And salvation is not in any other. If the salvation of the world is in no other, but in Christ alone, then the fathers of the Old Testament were saved by the incarnation and passion of the same Redeemer, by which we also believe and hope to be saved. For although the sacramental signs>* differed by reason of the times, nevertheless there was agreement in one and the same faith, because through the prophets they learned as something to come the same dispensation of Christ which we learned through the apostles as something which has been done. For there is no redemption of human captivity [to sinfulness] except in the blood of him who gave himself as a redemption for all.
4:13
Having found out that they [the apostles] were without letters and simple men, they marveled. Unlettered men were sent to preach, so that the faith of those who believed would not be thought to have come about by eloquence and teaching instead of by God's power. As the apostle says, Not in the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made void.' They were called 'simple men'5 who were content with only their own language and natural knowledge, and did not know the study of letters, since for 'one's own' the Greeks use the word 'dtou.4*
4.1 Co 1:17.
5. 'Simple men': idiotae.
Chapter Four
4:22
For the man upon whom this sign of healing had been done was more than forty years old. According to the historical sense,5* this shows that the man's mature age [made him] invincible to detractors. Allegorically, however, [the passage signifies that] the people of Israel not only despised the manna and sought the base things of Egypt® for the forty years in the desert, but even in the land of promise they continued always to limp along with the rites of idols together with those of the Lord.™ Or, if the number forty signifies the fullness of the two-fold law (for four times ten makes forty), a transgressor of both, as it were by lying enfeebled, transcends a forty-fold perfection.
4:24
Lord, it is you who made heaven and earth, and so forth. Having heard the threats of the persecutors, they earnestly ask for the boldness to resist them through the power of signs.'
4:27
Against your holy servant Jesus, whom you have anointed. They explain the literal meaning of the name of Christ, about whom it was said and against your
Christ,® for Christ took his name from chrism, that ts, from anointing.°® It is accordingly said Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Spirit.
4:31
And when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken.Those who sought the power of a stout heart against the deception of their enemies received a token, in the shaking of the earth, that their prayer had already been heard. This was so that they might recognize that earthly hearts would pass away from those under whose feet the earth itself was shaken with dread at the coming of the Holy Spirit. And even the fear of those
6. Nb 11:4-6; 21:5.
7. Ac 4:29-30.
82) Pse2e2 9. Aug., De civ. dei 16, 38 (CC 48:544, 44).
10. Ps 45:7 (44:8)
Chapter Four who, by believing, were to be subject to the apostles, can be understood as joyful, since in shaking off their infirm depression" they had learned to rise with Christ and to taste of heavenly things.
4:32
There was one heart and one soul, however, for the multitude of believers. Those who had completely left the world behind by no means pushed themselves forward, one over the other, glorying in the nobility of their birth. Rather, as though born from the womb of one and the same mother, the church, they all rejoiced in one and the same love of brotherhood.
4:33
And with great power the apostles gave testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord.
The ranks of teachers and hearers are carefully distinguished: for the multitude of believers, having scorned their possessions, were joined with one another in a bond of charity, while the apostles, shining with the powers of Christ, were revealing mysteries to all.
4:36a Now Joseph, who was called Barnabas by the apostles. I think that this was the Barnabas who, as we read below,!! was appointed with Paul as an apostle of the nations; from which, since he was of Cypriot birth, !? after parting company with Paul he returned to his native island.
Although some people are of the opinion that Paul's colleague was instead the man [mentioned] above, who was put up with Matthias for the casting of lots regarding the office of apostle,'4 they do not adequately take into consideration the fact that according to the more correct copies, this man [of Ac 4:36] is named Barnabas, and that man [of Ac 1:23] is named Barsabbas (with the change of a letter), and in The Book of Hebrew Names the former is interpreted son of consolation, and the latter son of rest.15
11. Ac 13:1-3.
12. Ac 4:36.
13. Ac 15:37-39.
14. Ac 1:23-26.
15. Jer., De nom Hebr. (CC 72:144, 22/24).
Chapter Four ao 4:36b Which is interpreted son of consolation. Wherever the sacred scriptures give the names of things or persons with an interpretation, it certainly indicates that a more sacred sense is contained in them. Rightly, therefore, is a person called a son of consolation, who, despising present things, is consoled by the hope of things to come. And to be sure, the Holy Spirit is given the name Paraclete because through the inner pouring out of his favor he grants the paraclesis, that is, the consolation,!® of heavenly joys to those who have distress in the world. Thus blessed Peter, on account of the grace of the same Spirit, was called Barjona, that is, son of the dove..'7 It continues:
4:37
And he brought the price and placed it at the feet of the apostles. Concerning this Arator [wrote]:'®
They {the apostles] approved of the abandonment of that which they avoided touching, and they taught that gold, which they spurned, should be trampled under foot.
Anything from which earthly cares come to the heart ts in the same way cast to the ground.
16. Isid., Etymol. 7, 3, 10 and 12.
17. Mt 16:17; Jer., De nom. Hebr. (CC 72:135, 22); Isid., Etymol. 7, 9, 4.
18. Arat., De act. ap. 1 (CSEL 72:36, 407/410).
NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR
1. In In his Retr. on this verse (CC 121:123, 1/6), Bede states that praetor, the reading of codex 4, is a better translation of the Greek otgatny6¢ than is the word found in other manuscripts of the Latin text, magistratus, which is the appropriate translation of exwv (see HTR 30, 46).
2. Ac 4:11 reports Peter as quoting Ps 118:22 (117:22), also cited in Mt 21:42: 'The stone rejected by the builders has come to have the chief position in the corner.' Peter adds 'you' to identify the builders with his hearers, but he does not continue the quote, which in both the psalm and the gospel goes on: 'By the Lord has this been done.' Bede's comment develops the antithesis between the builders, whom he identifies as the Jews at the opening of his comment, and the action of God, who 'by himself' (per se) made use of Christ the cornerstone. This is a good illustration of Bede's concordance exegesis, making use not only of the text of the Acts verse, but also of the continuation of the quotation from the psalm or from Matthew's gospel.
3. 'Sacramental signs': sacramenta. See note 11 ch. 1.
4. In his Retr. on this verse (CC 121:123, 11/18), Bede moderates his earlier comment, stating that the phrase 'without letters' (sine litteris) does not mean that the apostles did not know their letters, but that they did not have skill in the art of grammar. He cites the Greek to support this view, and then he goes on to observe that idiotae, the Greek word which was transliterated in the Latin text of Acts, is properly translated with inperiti ('unskilled'), as it is in the case of 2 Co 11:6.
Z 5. 'According to the historical sense': iuxta historiam. See note to ch. 1.
6. The words 'limp along' (claudicabat) in this sentence and 'enfeebled' (debilis) in the following sentence are, it must be admitted, rather odd word choices if read only in relation to the immediate context of the sentences in which they occur.
However, Bede uses these words in a pattern of wordplay structure throughout his commentary on the story of the cure of the lame beggar, and his repetition of these words in the present comment serves to call our minds back to the rich theological metaphor which he has built in his interpretation of this story.
Notes to Chapter Four Bib) He first used these two words in a literal sense in introducing the lame beggar in the first sentence of his comment on Ac
3:1—Peter and John first cured a lame man (claudus) who had been enfeebled (debilem). Then, in the following comments, claudus becomes a key term used both literally and metaphorically in the comment on Ac 3:2a, where Jacob's limping (claudicante) is taken as a symbol of the Israelites' being lame
(claudus) through their infidelity (see note 1 to ch. 3). 'Enfeebled'
(debilis) similarly occurs as a metaphorical leitmotif in the second sentence of the comment on Ac 3:2b, and in the first sentence of the comment on Ac 3:6.
7. 'In shaking off infirm depression': infirma gravedine discussa. Some manuscripts have infima rather than infirma, the reading adopted by Laistner. /nfima might be translated: 'in shaking off the heaviness belonging to this world below,' a reading which would conform to Bede's frequent use of similar antithetical constructions. Here 'the world below' would be effectively balanced by 'the heavenly things' (caelestia) mentioned later in the same sentence. Although such a reading may be considered a possibility, I have adopted Laistner's reading because of two parallel situations later in the Commentary (see the comments on Ac 8:26b and 9:5, and the notes to these passages). In these cases, too, an infima reading would produce an aesthetically pleasing antithesis characteristic of Bede's style, but in both of these later cases the manuscripts are apparently unanimous in reading infirma.