CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
9:1 B ut Saul was still breathing forth threats and slaughter against the Lord's disciples. He was causing those who were present to suffer slaughter, and he was terrifying those who were absent by his threats.
9:4
Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? He did not say, 'Why do you persecute my members?', but Why do you persecute me? because he is still suffering from enemies in his body, which is the church. He declared that kindnesses bestowed upon his members are also done to him when he said, [ was hungry and you gave me to eat,! and he added in explanation, So long as you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me.
9:5
Iam Jesus, whom you persecute. He did not say, 'Iam God,' or 'Iam God's son.' Instead, he told him: Take on the infirmities!* of my humility and cast off the scales of your pride.
9:6
But arise and go into the city, and it will be told to you what you are to do. He [Jesus] did not immediately show him what was to be done. Instead, he foretold that he was to hear about it afterwards in the city, so that later when he arose he would be more firmly established in the good, to the extent that he had first become radically changed and had fallen away from his former error.'
1. Mt 25:35.
2. Mt 25:40.
3. Ac 9:18.
4. Greg., Reg. past. 3, 34 (PL 77:118B).
Chapter Nine 9:8
And when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing.
By no means would he have been able to see well again unless he had first been fully blinded. Also, when he had rejected his own wisdom, which was confusing him, he could commit himself totally to faith.
9:9
And for three days he could not see. Since he had not believed that the Lord had conquered death by rising on the third day, he was now taught by his own experience of the replacement of three days of darkness by the return of the light.
9:16
For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. [The Lord] said that he was not to be feared as a persecutor, but rather embraced as a brother, for he was soon to suffer along with the saints the troubles which he had earlier inflicted upon them.
9:18
And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes. Every dragon's body is said to be covered with scales. Therefore, because the Jews were called serpents and a brood of vipers,> this man, who had been an eager follower of their lack of faith, covered over the eyes of his heart, so to speak, with a serpent's skin. With the falling of the scales from his eyes under the hands of Ananias, however, his face showed that he had received the true light in his mind.
9:25a But his disciples took him by night. That is, Christ's disciples, for in the Greek the 'his' is not stated, but only 'disciples,' so that we may understand it in general, as the disciples of Christ, or of the church. For we do not read of Paul's having yet made disciples, but only of his having confounded the Jews who were living in Damascus.®
9:25b They let him down over the wall, lowering him 5. Mt 23:33.
6. Ac 9:22.
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in a basket. Even today this sort of escape is preserved in the church whenever someone who has been enveloped in the snares of the ancient enemy, or in the traps of this world, is saved through the defences of his hope and faith. For the wall of Damascus (which means drinking blood') is the adversity of the world. King Aretas (which means a descent ®) is understood to be the devil. The basket, which is usually constructed of rushes and palm leaves, designates the conjunction of faith and hope, for the rush signifies the freshness of faith, and the palm signifies the hope of eternal life.
Therefore, anyone who sees himself encircled by a wall of adversity should be quick to climb into the basket of the virtues, in which he may make his escape.
9:26
When he had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples. We are not to believe that he came to the apostles in Jerusalem immediately after he was baptized.
Rather, as he himself wrote to the Galatians,°? he first went away to Arabia and again returned to Damascus. Then, after three years, he came to Jerusalem, and saw Peter and remained with him for fifteen days, but he saw none of the other apostles except for James, the brother of the Lord.
And then, as Luke also tells,!° he came to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. It is not, however, readily apparent whether it was during the first or the second visit to Damascus that he survived the snares [of the Jews].'! Support for taking it as the second time can be found in the statement that after many days had passed the Jews made a plan about killing him.!2 Therefore Luke seems to have disregarded Arabia because he [Paul] preached very little there, as he himself said later, when he was speaking to King Agrippa: I preached first to the people of Damascus and Jerusalem, and in every
7. Jer., De nom. Hebr. (CC 72:110, 19/20).
8. 2 Co 11:32-33; Jer., De nom. Hebr. (CC 72:154, 3).
9. Ga 1:17-21; Jer., Comm. in Ga. 1, 1, 17 (PL 26:328A/B).
10. Ac 15:41.
11. Ac 9:23.
12. Ibid.
Chapter Nine region of Judaea, and to the gentiles.'* 9:27
But Barnabas took him [Paul] and brought him to the apostles. This Barnabas is the Cypriot, a Levite by birth, who is mentioned above as having laid the price of his field at the feet of the apostles.'4
9:29
He also spoke and disputed with the Greeks.
Note that he taught Greeks in Jerusalem, and Jews in Damascus,!5 which is a gentile city, even though this should signify that gentiles were to be included in the city of God and Jews were to fall into the faithlessness of the gentiles, in accordance with what Isaiah said, Lebanon shall be changed into Carmel and Carmel shall be regarded as a wasteland. '° 9:33
He [Peter] found there [at Lydda] a certain man named Aeneas, who had been confined to bed for eight years. This Aeneas signifies the ailing human race, at first weakened by pleasure, but healed by the work and words of the apostles. Since the world itself is raised up in four territories, and in this world the course of the year is divided into four seasons, anyone who embraces the unstable joys of the present is as though flattened upon his bed, devoid of energy for twice times four years. For the bed is that sluggishness in which the sick and weak soul takes its rest in the delights of the body, that is, and in all worldly pleasures.
9:34
Aeneas, the Lord Jesus Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed. When Peter had cured him of paralysis, he commanded him to rise at once and make his bed. Spiritually this informs us that whoever has received into his heart the firm foundation of faith will not only shake off the torpor in which he has been lying idle, but will also produce the good works in which he will be able to rest
13. Ac 26:20.
14. Ac 4:37.
15 RAG 9 22:
16. Is 29:17.
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after his toil.
9:36
Now at Jaffa there was a woman disciple by the name of Tabitha, which means Dorcas, that is, 'deer,' or 'fallow deer,' signifying souls exalted by the practice of virtues although contemptible in the eyes of men. For the blessed Luke would not have provided the meaning of the name if he had not known that there was strong symbolism2* in it. The deer and the fallow deer are animals which are similar in nature, though different in size. They dwell on high mountains, and they see all who approach, no matter how far away they may be. Hence in Greek they are called dorcades from the sharpness of their vision.!"
So it is with the saints. As they dwell on high by the merits of their works, through mental contemplation they simultaneously direct their attention with wisdom toward things above, while always watching out for themselves with prudent discretion. Moreover, these animals are clean according to the law,'® but timid and unwarlike according to their nature as Martial depicts it:!9 The boar is feared because of his tusk; the stag's horns defend him. What are we unwarlike fallow deer except prey? Does not this clearly describe those who are content to live simply and with discretion in their course of action, as it were walking with split hooves, and ruminating in continual meditation on the word of God?3* A person who has met with spiritual death, if it was out of ignorance or infirmity, may nevertheless deserve to be revived for the integrity of his right intention, just as is shown to have happened through Peter to that woman to whom we can very rightly apply what is written [above] concerning the deer.
9:37a Now it happened in those days that she became ill and died. When, out of the frailty of mortal nature, the 17. Isid., Etymol. 12, 1, 15.
18. Lv 11:3; Dt 14:6.
19. Isid., Etymol. 12, 1, 22, which includes the epig. of Mart. (13, 94).
Chapter Nine saints do some wrong; it is as though in the days of good works they meet with death as the result of their unlooked— for infirmity. However, when they soon resort to tears, raise their minds to the hope of the virtue which is to be recovered, invoke the help of the saints, and reflect upon their good acts which they had temporarily abandoned, they undoubtedly do as follows:
9:37b When they had washed her they laid her in an upper room, and the other things which are recounted about the summoning of Peter and the display of the almsdeeds of Dorcas.?° 9:39a And all the widows stood around him [Peter] weeping. The widows are the repentant soul's holy thoughts, which for a time had lost the vigor of their original purpose, as though they had lost for a time the guidance of a husband. They must humbly pray for the soul which has done wrong.
9:39b And they showed the tunics and cloaks which Dorcas had made for them. They interceded for the dead woman, not with their voices, but by means of her own works, for almsdeeds free one not only from the second death, but also from the first.
9:40
He said, 'Tabitha, arise.' And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. A most perfect order in her rising from death, that she would first open the eyes of her mind, and then, upon recognizing
Peter's voice, that she would sit up and receive the light of her discretion, which she had lost, and that she would live according to the teaching of those who had come to her aid.
9:41
Giving her his hand, he raised her up. When she 20. Ac 9:38-39.
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was touched by Peter's hand, Tabitha rose again, since there is no better way for the soul which has become weak because of its sins to regain its strength than the example of the saints.
NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE
1. 'Take on the infirmities of my humility': humilitatis meae infirma suscipe. One might consider emending infirma to infima and translating 'the lowliness of my humility.' Manuscript support, however, is evidently unanimous for infirma. See note
7 to ch. 4 and note 2 to ch. 8.
2. 'Great symbolism': magnum mysterium. See note 2 to ch. 1.
3. Bede often uses the metaphor of the animal which is clean according to the law, i.e., which has a divided hoof and which chews the cud. Ruminare is the verb for 'chews the cud' in both
Lv 11:3 and Dt 14:6, and this is Bede's verb in the present comment, which I have translated 'ruminating.' When Bede encounters one of the clean animals in a biblical text, as in Ac 9:36, he takes it as an image of Christ or of the saints, because the split hoof represents discrimination of good and evil or 'discretion in their course of action,' and the rumination represents 'continual meditation on the word of God.' For a discussion of several similar passages in Bede's other commentaries and homilies, see
Andre Crepin's article in Famulus Christi, ed. Gerald Bonner (London: SPCK, 1976), especially note 6, pp. 187-189. Bede's most famous use of this metaphor, in the Caedmon story in HE
4, 24, is by ee by Philip J. West in Monastic Studies 12 (1976), 217-226.