ACC ~ Acts 3 v2

LAME WITHOUT FAITH. BEDE: Because the people of Israel were found rebellious not only after the Lord’s incarnation but even from the earliest times when the law was given, they were as if lame from the mother’s womb. This was well prefigured by Jacob’s being blessed, indeed, but lame when he wrestled with the angel, for this same people, when they prevailed over the Lord in his passion, was in some of [its members] blessed through the faith but in others lame through infidelity. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 3.2A.

THE BEAUTIFUL GATE. BEDE: The beautiful gate of the temple is the Lord. Whoever enters through him will be saved. Enfeebled Israel, being unable to walk to this gate, was brought there by the words of the law and the prophets, so that they might request help from those who were entering into the interior places of the wisdom of the faith which they were to hear. Those who place the prophecies of things to come are, as it were, hearers at the gate. But Peter is the guide into the temple. To him, in virtue of his strong profession of faith, the epithet of “rock” and the keys of heaven were given. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 3.2B.

LAME ISRAEL CARRIED BY THE PROPHETS. ARATOR: The feeble man is laid at the Beautiful Gate. The poor man is not strong enough to go farther or to touch the threshold of the gate. His guilt denies him entrance. Who are those accustomed to carry Israel, lame in its heart, and who strive to bring it to the gate [called] beautiful, which signifies Jesus by its name? Isaiah, Daniel, and those like them who proclaim with prophetic voice in obscure [words] the manifest miracles of Christ; and he who has the name of the gate thus himself warns, “I am the gate for you; he who refuses to enter through me will be a guilty thief.”ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 1.

Acts