CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
5:3 nanias, why has Satan tempted your heart?
In another translation, following a Greek version, it reads thus: Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart?! Here it must be noted that the soul and mind of a man can be filled according to substance by no creature, but only by the creating Trinity, because only according to the operation and instigation of the will is the soul filled by those things which are created. Now
Satan fills someone's mind and the core of his heart, not, to be sure, by going into him and into his senses—if I may put it this way, entering the doorway of the heart—since this ts a power of divinity alone. But like a crafty, wicked, deceitful, and fraudulent deceiver, he draws the human soul toward dispositions for malice by thoughts and enticements of vices, of which he is full.2 Therefore Satan filled the heart of Ananias not by his own entering in, but by the injection of the venom of his malice.
5:4 You have not lied to men, but to God. He [Peter] said above? that he [Ananias] had lied to the Holy Spirit. It is therefore clear that the Holy Spirit is God, and that the error of Macedonius!* had been condemned before he was born.
5:5 Hearing these words Ananias fell down and expired. It was not on account of [this] accusation that he
[Peter] gave such a severe sentence to the transgressors, but in the spirit he foresaw future weeds which would by their
1. e.
2. Didymus/Jer., De spir. sancto 60 (PL 23:151A/B).
DRA C 525.
Chapter Five deformed character adulterate the simplicity of the church.
For from these the worst type of Sarabaits reportedly arose.
Although by no means did they give up their possessions, they pretended to preserve apostolic discipline.' He did not allow the culprits to be healed by any repentance, but in order to strike fear into the generations to come he took care to cut the noxious shoot out by its roots.2* And then there follows:
5:11-13 And a great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of this. .
. but of the rest, no one dared to associate with them. The punishment of the two who had fraudulently tried to be joined with them gave an example to the rest.
5:15 So that, when Peter came, his shadow at least might fall on some of them; and they were cured. At that time Peter visibly relieved the infirm by the shadow of his body. Now, he does not cease to strengthen the infirm among the faithful by the invisible screen of his intercession. And because Peter is a type of the church, it is beautifully appropriate that he himself walked upright, but by his accompanying shadow he raised up those who were lying down. So the church, concentrating her mind and love on heavenly things, passes like a shadow on the land, and here [on earth], with sacramental signs and temporal figures3* of heavenly things she renews those whom there
[in heaven] she rewards with everlasting gifts.4* Some 5 relate to this passage that saying of the Lord in the gospels,
He who believes in me, the works that I do he also will do, and greater than these he will do.
5:17 But the chief priest rose up and all those who were with him, that is, the sect of the Sadducees, and 4. Cassian, Coll. 18, 7 (CSEL 13:513, 17 seq.); Ben., Reg. 1, 6 (CSEL 75:18).
5. Aug., Tract. in Ioh. 44, 5; 71, 3 (CC 36:384, 22/27; 506, Zila 6. Jn 14:12.
Chapter Five a2 so forth. In Greek the word for sect (beresis) takes its name from the word for choice," because everyone chooses for himself what he thinks should be followed, scorning what others have said. Therefore the Sadducees, whose name is interpreted as 'righteous' (for they claimed to be what they were not, as we read below) entirely denied the resurrection of the body and said that the soul perishes with the flesh. Indeed, they did not even believe that there are any angels or spirits, and accepting only the five books of Moses, they scorned the honoring of the prophets.® Therefore it was they who especially supported the leaders in persecuting the apostles. They were moved by zeal because the apostles, with great power and miraculous signs, were giving witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord.
5:19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, and so forth. So that Thomas would not doubt that the Lord bore flesh and blood when he had seen Him entering with the doors closed,? behold, he himself, while he was still clothed in mortal flesh, made his departure with his companions though the doors were closed.
5:23 Indeed we found the prison diligently locked, the guards standing at the doors, but upon opening it we found no one inside. Why, profane Jew, are you prompted by blind frenzy to say that the Lord was taken away from the tomb by the thieving apostles?!° What, I ask, do you say—by whose trick do you believe that those same apostles were rescued from the locked prison?
5:24 They were puzzled as to what might come of this.
Thus they were not willing to give themselves up to faith.
7. Jer., Comm. in Ga. 3, 5, 19-21 (PL 26:417A); Isid., Etymol. 8, 3, 1.
8. Jer., Comm. in Mt. 3, 22, 23-32 (CC 77:205, 1802/1805, 1813/1815; 206, 1855-207, 1858); Isid., Etymol. 8, 4, 4.
9. Jn 20:26.
10. Mt 28:13.
Chapter Five For inborn malice keeps a treacherous heart closed, even in the face of unmistakable signs.
5:28 And you want to bring this man's blood upon us.
The high priest had forgotten the doom which he had called down upon himself and his own when he said, His blood be upon us and upon our children."
5:34 But a certain one stood up in the council, a Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel. This Gamaliel, as Clement indicates,!2 was a companion of the apostles in faith, but by their decision he remained among the Jews so that he might be able to calm their fury in such a storm as this.
5:36 For some time ago Theudas rose up, and so forth.
This Theudas, as Josephus relates,!3 by his power over them persuaded many who were brought out of the city to throng to the banks of the Jordan. And, since he was a magician, he said that he was a prophet and that he could provide a way across when the waters of the river were parted by his command. Under the command of the procurator Fadus a throng of horsemen overtook him, and after the slaying and capture of many they brought his head back to Jerusalem.
5:37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up. Josephus!' also writes about this Gaulanite of the city Gamala who, when he was drawn into the undertaking by a certain
Pharisee called Sadducus, urged the people not to lose their freedom by paying tribute to the Romans, showing from the law that the Lord alone was to be served and that they who were bringing tithes to the temple should not pay eet 27625:
12. Ps.-Clem./Rufin., Recog. 1, 65, 2 (GCS 51:45, 2/4).
13. Eusebius/Rufin., Hist. eccl. 2, 11 (GCS 9, 1:131, 20-133, 3); Josephus, Ant. ud. 20, 5, 1.
14. Eusebius/Rufin., Hist. eccl. 1, 5 (GCS 9, 1:47. 11/14; 49, 1); Josephus, Ant. Iud. 18, 1, 1; Bell. Iud. 2, 8, 1).
Chapter Five
tribute to Caesar. This heretical sect grew so large that it even stirred up a large part of the Pharisees and the people, so that they believed that the Lord Christ should be asked, 'Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?''5
15. Jer., Comm. in Tt. 3, 1/2 (PL 26:590D-591A); Mt 22:17.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE
1. Macedonius, a fourth-century Arian bishop of Constantinople, was asserted by Didymus the Blind (c. 380) to be the founder of an heretical sect, the Pneumatomachians, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. They were customarily designated as Macedonians in the writings of the fathers, though the association of Macedonius with this sect is no longer generally accepted
(The Catholic Encyclopedia 12, 174; New Catholic Encyclopedia 11, 453-454). At least three of Bede's known sources for his Commentary on Acts, however, make this identification: Eusebius/
Rufin., Hist. eccl. 10, 26 (GCS 9, 2:990, 11/13; Aug., Ep. 185, 11, 48 (CSEL 57:42, 6/7); Isid., Etymol. 8, 5, 44.
2. Bede plays here on the double meaning of the verb curare:
'He did not allow them to be healed (curari).
. .he took care (curavit) to cut the noxious shoot out by the roots.'
3. 'Sacramental signs and temporal figures': sacramentis temporalibus figurisque. See notes 11 and 16 to ch. 1.
4. Bede's comment on this verse is built around four uses of umbra and its derivatives, one in each sentence, functioning as structural pivots for the development of a fundamental analogy between Peter's healing action in the Acts story and the saving actions of the church, of which Peter is a type. Umbra refers to Peter's actual 'shadow' in the first and third sentences of the comment, which deal with the literal story. Coming between these two sentences, the second sentence concerns Peter's continuing, spiritual saving action through the power of his intercession, which is referred to by the umbra-derivative umbraculo, which I have translated 'screen,' though the word also carries overtones of the meaning, 'protection.' Finally, the third sentence introduces the idea that Peter is a type of the church, and the fourth sentence points to the dual nature of the church, her spiritual, heavenly concerns on the one hand, and her earthly role of dispensing grace through the visible signs of the sacraments on the other. In this sentence Bede passes from the heavenly to the earthly church by inserting a phrase which includes another derivative of umbra, the adverb umbratice. I have translated the phrase 'she passes like a shadow on the land,' but Bede perhaps intends a richer meaning, using the unusual word umbratice to
Notes to Chapter Five
suggest the 'spiritual' or 'contemplative' nature of the church.
In any case, notice that the progression of Bede's structural wordplay here mirrors the progression of his thought, in that uwmbra is used with its literal meaning 'shadow' in the two sentences concerned with the literal sense of the Acts story, while the umbra derivatives have more abstract, extended meanings in the two sentences which deal with the allegorical meaning of the story.
The word play is not found in the passage from Augustine's Tractates on the Gospel of John referred to at the end of Bede's comment.
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