ACC ~ Acts 27 v21 - 26

OVERVIEW:

Paul the prophet now speaks quoting the words of an angel who refers to Paul’s commission from Jesus, which will not be set aside (note the “must”) and states the fact that all who sail with Paul have been given to him, that is, put under his spiritual protection. Paul concludes with his declaration of faith and a final detail of his prophecy. Here the Fathers speak of how God uses the instrumentality of creatures to establish Christ’s grace in the world. Bede sees the noisy waters of the sea as signifying the grace that is in Paul. Origen’s comment, somewhat tangential, nonetheless draws our attention to those above humans, the angels, whose ordering corresponds to the ordering of human souls “according to the dispensation of Christ.” Jerome, Chrysostom and Ammonius all bring out a similar concern, but they also give closer attention to the events of the narrative. Jerome points to the unequal merit of those saved as analogous to the difference between Lot and Zoar, reminding us that God hears the prayers of a righteous person. Chrysostom turns Jerome’s external perspective to an internal one. Chrysostom is aware of Paul’s certainty as portrayed in the text, and so he reflects on the course of events through Paul’s awareness of his responsibility to his fellow travelers, as a realization that he has a duty not just to appear in Rome but also to bring them to trust in him for their own safety and salvation. Ammonius’s comments bear resemblance to those of Chrysostom and Jerome. They begin with a quotation and refutation of a line from Homer’s Iliad. His refutation focuses, somewhat like Jerome, on how the impious are spared for the sake of the just one. By the end, however, Ammonius has given a hint that the events of Acts 27 can be read as a type of the holy man’s role who, like the father of the possessed boy in Mark, as mother/midwife brings nonbelievers to a new birth, through the stormy waters (of baptism) in Christ. He does this in the last lines that allude to the words of the distraught father in Mark 9 and to Elizabeth’s words to Mary that blessed is the one who believed that what had been foretold would come to pass. Ammonius suggests that merit is the burden of being pregnant with faith that must bear fruit in the transformed lives of others, a merit lost should faith be betrayed by not being passed on. So what Chrysostom portrays as being the consciousness of Paul, Ammonius suggests is to be the consciousness of all Christians.

27:23 | An Angel of God

AN ANGEL OF GOD STOOD BY ME. BEDE: He was not building himself up in saying this but was summoning them to faith. For this reason the sea was permitted to be stirred up, that both through that which was not heard and through that which was heard, the spiritual grace in Paul might be revealed. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 27.23.

THE WORK OF THE ANGELS. ORIGEN: Both good and bad angels are among people. Not by chance or without reason was that angel, for example, allotted to be the guardian of Peter or that other one for Paul or those of the children of the church, those that always “behold the face of their Father, who is in heaven.” Concerning these things there can be no doubt that, by the judgment of God, who clearly sees their ranking and the quality of our souls, these angels are allotted to the guardianship of each one of us by a certain mystical allotment according to the dispensation of Christ. HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 23.3.

27:24 | Do Not Be Afraid, Paul

A QUESTION OF MERIT. JEROME: You cannot deny that the prisoner and the jailers were of unequal merit. And what were the circumstances of that shipwreck involving the apostle and the soldiers? The apostle Paul described a vision afterwards and said that those who were on the ship had been given to him by the Lord. Are we to suppose that he to whom they were given and they who were given to him were of the same merit? Ten righteous people can save a sinful city. Lot together with his daughters was delivered from the fire. His son-in-laws would also have been saved, had they been willing to leave the city. Now, there was surely a great difference between Lot and his son-in-laws. One city out of the five was saved—Zoar, a place that lay under the same sentence as Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, but was preserved by the prayers of a holy man. Lot and Zoar were of different merit, but both of them escaped the fire. AGAINST JOVINIANUS 2.24.

PAUL SEIZES THE MOMENT. CHRYSOSTOM: See how, after such a storm, [Paul] does not speak to them by insulting them but desiring that later they will believe him. Therefore he takes the things he had said as a testimony of the truth of those things he will say. And he predicts two events: first, that they will land on an island, lose the ship, but be safe (and this was a prophecy and not a supposition), and second, that “he had to stand before Caesar.” CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 27.21-24.

A BIRTH TO NEW LIFE THROUGH RAGING WATERS. AMMONIUS: “God has granted safety to all,” so that what Homer says appears to be false: “I say that no one can avoid his fate, neither good man nor bad, even though he be noble.” And this means that it is impossible to escape the death that Fate establishes at the moment of birth. Therefore, without Paul, all would have died, if God had not granted life to them out of respect for the righteous. So if it had been sanctioned that all would have died, as it surely appears, he would have died, he that had not eaten for fourteen days and then had been shipwrecked: indeed those false words say, “neither good man nor bad,” so that it was necessary that both the good and the bad died together, being liable together to the evident danger of death. On the contrary, however, Scripture says that the righteous was saved from the evident danger, even though anyone else would have died in that circumstance. God thought it opportune that he go to Rome; God could have placed him in Rome, after taking him from Jerusalem through an angel, as he had put Habakkuk, after he took him from Judea, in Babylon, by the den of lions where Daniel was. But he did not do so, and, nevertheless, showed a miraculous event by saving Paul and his companions. He granted their souls to him, so that he might have benevolence for his brothers, but not the ship and its cargo, because the pious has no consideration for earthly things, nor is grieved by their loss. Here the impious live thanks to the pious; but sometimes the opposite happens, so that the impious dies before his time because of his iniquity, according to the command of God, as Ecclesiastes says, “Be not wicked, and be not stubborn, lest you die before your time.” I think that, thanks to God, these things happen in this way. Everything is possible for the one who believes, but he did not obtain salvation for his companions through faith or prayers but because he believed that what had been said to him would be. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 27.25-26.