ACC ~ Acts 5 v3

THE ONE WHO COOPERATES WITH SATAN IS CUT OFF. CHRYSOSTOM: “Why has Satan filled your heart?” he says. If it was Satan who did this, why is the man responsible? Because he admitted the influence of Satan and was filled with it. He must be set right, he says. But he could not be set right. For the one who has seen such things and gained nothing from them, neither would he gain much by anything else. Therefore the matter could not simply be passed over, but, like gangrene, had to be excised to prevent it from infecting the rest of the body. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 12.

THE SPIRIT READS OUR HEARTS. GREGORY OF NYSSA: And of the Holy Spirit also, Peter says to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart, to lie to the Holy Spirit?” showing that the Holy Spirit was a true witness, aware of what Ananias had dared to do in secret, and by whom the secret was made known to Peter. For Ananias became a thief of his own goods, secretly, as he thought, from all people and concealing his sin. But the Holy Spirit at the same moment was in Peter, and detected his intent, dragged down as it was to avarice, and gave to Peter from himself the power of seeing the secret, while it is clear that the Spirit could not have done this had it not been able to behold hidden things. ON NOT THREE GODS.

A HUMAN SOUL DRAWN TO MALICE. BEDE: “Why has Satan filled your heart?” Here it must be noted that the soul and mind of a person 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 is 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.” Therefore Satan filled the heart of Ananias, not by his own entering in, but by the injection of the venom of his malice. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 5.3.

WARNING TO OTHERS. JEROME: For having made a vow they offered their money to God as if it were their own and not his to whom they had vowed it; and keeping back for their own use a part of that which belonged to another, through fear of famine which true faith never fears, they drew down on themselves suddenly the avenging stroke, which was meant not in cruelty toward them but as a warning to others. In fact, the apostle Peter by no means called down death upon them, as Porphyry foolishly says. He merely announced God’s judgment by the spirit of prophecy, that the doom of two persons might be a lesson to many. LETTER 130.14.

Acts