ACC ~ Acts 2 v5 - 13

OVERVIEW:

Luke now recounts how Jews “from every nation under heaven,” thus, representatives from all the world, heard the witness of Peter as he proclaimed the new Sinai. The list of nations, perhaps taken from similar lists and then added to, is meant also to show the universality of the proclamation and the unification of those separated by the confusion at Babel. The Fathers generally do not remark on the notion of all Israel representatively present, though they do mention once again the theme of the undoing of Babel (ARATOR) and find different “allegorical” (ARATOR), “mystical” (BEDE) or fulfillment (CYRIL OF JERUSALEM) forms of significance in the reference to new wine. Chrysostom picks up the familiar theme of the power of speech given to uneducated men.

2:6 | The Multitude Bewildered

DEVOUT PEOPLE PERPLEXED. CHRYSOSTOM: Notice their piety: they do not pronounce judgment in haste but are perplexed. The reckless ones, on the other hand, pronounce at once, saying, “They are filled with new wine.” Now it was in order that they might comply with the law and appear three times each year in the temple that they lived there, the “devout men from all nations.” Notice that the writer does not flatter them: he does not say that they did not pronounce judgment. What does he say? “And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered.” This is quite likely, since they thought that things were coming to a head for them because of the outrage committed against Christ. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 4.

2:8-11 | Hearing of God’s Wonderful Works

THE UNCOUTH RUSTIC HAS OVERCOME THEM ALL. CHRYSOSTOM: Even Plato, who talked a great deal, is now silent. His voice was heard everywhere, not only among his own people but also among the Parthians, the Medes, the Elamites, in India, in short, in every part of the earth and to the ends of the world. But where is the arrogance of Greece now? Where the name of Athens? Where the ravings of the philosophers? He of Galilee, he of Bethsaida, he, the uncouth rustic, has overcome them all. Are you not ashamed (confess it!) at the very name of your vanquisher’s country? And if you hear his own name as well, that he was called Cephas, you will hide your faces even more. For this has utterly defeated you, because you believe it is a disgrace; you believe that glibness of tongue is praiseworthy and lack of glibness a disgrace. You did not travel the road that ought to have been followed. Instead, you left the road to the kingdom, so easy and smooth, and walked the road that was rough, steep and laborious. Therefore, you did not arrive at the kingdom of heaven. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 4.

THE CHURCH GATHERS SCATTERED LANGUAGES. ARATOR: Long after the old ark had overcome the waters of the sea, malicious people wished to extend their tower [of Babel] into heaven. In them, irreligious hearts divided the forms of their speech, and the good will in these arrogant confederates perished with their voice. At that time there was a confusion of language for a homogenous race; now there is one [language] for many since [that language] rejoices at the appearance of the coming church, [a language that] will have harmonious sounds; and [the church] brings about a return of eloquence in peace for the obedient [apostles], and the humble order gathers again what arrogant people scattered. ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 1.

2:13 | The Mockery of Others

THE NEW WINE OF THE TRUTH. ARATOR: Also, the error that they are moved by new wine is, by allegorical reasoning, the truth—the intoxicating teaching of heaven has filled them from a fresh spring. New vessels have taken on new liquid and are not spoiled by the bitter [liquid] that filled the old vats, [the new vessels] drinking in from the vine which, with Christ as the cultivator, gave a banquet in words [and] from which those waters that he transformed are red, and he made the poor flavor of the [old] law boil in the books of the church. ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 1.

NEW WINE IN NEW SKINS. BEDE: These mockers nevertheless mystically bore witness to truths, for they [the disciples] were not filled with the old wine, which ran short in the marriage of the church, but with the new wine of spiritual grace. For now new wine had come in new skins, since the apostles reechoed the wonderful works of God not “in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the Spirit.” COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 2.13.

NEW WINE OF THE NEW COVENANT. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: For in truth the wine was new, the grace of the New Testament. But this new wine was from a spiritual vine, which already had often borne fruit in the prophets and sprouted forth in the New Testament. For just as in the order of nature the vine, remaining ever the same, brings forth new fruit according to the seasons, so too the same Spirit, remaining what he is, having wrought in the prophets, now manifested something new and marvelous. His grace had indeed been granted to the fathers in times past, but now it came in superabundance; in their case they received a share of the Holy Spirit, now they were baptized in all fullness. CATECHETICAL LECTURE 17.18.