Chapter 7
[Acts 7:2] -- The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, etc. It should be noted, according to the words of Stephen, that it was not as it appears in Genesis, that God spoke to Abraham after the death of his father, who certainly died in Haran, where the son also lived with him; but before he dwelt in the same city, even then when he was in the region of Mesopotamia, of which it is a city.
[Acts 7:3] -- "Leave your country and your kindred and come into the land I will show you." Then he left the land, etc. The land and kindred of Abraham refers to the homeland and race of the Chaldeans, from where he had long since left, who now lived in Mesopotamia, but because he left with hope of returning and longing, he hears from the Lord: "Leave your country." Not to physically move himself, which he had already done, but to remove the love of it from his mind. Therefore, what follows: Then he left the land of the Chaldeans, does not signify a physical departure, but a departure of the mind, by which he separated himself forever from the conversation and people of the Chaldeans. Because according to the belief of the Chroniclers, in the same year he left Chaldea, entered Mesopotamia, stayed in Haran, and was led into the promised land.
[Acts 7:6] -- For his seed shall be a stranger in a foreign land, and they shall subject them to slavery and mistreat them for four hundred years. It should not be understood as if he said that this seed would be mistreated or subjected to slavery for those four hundred years, but by a hyperbaton it should be read that his seed would be strangers for four hundred years, during part of which time slavery also occurred. For it is written: "In Isaac shall your seed be called" (Gen. XXI), and from the year of Isaac's birth to the year of the exodus from Egypt four hundred and five years are counted, which Scripture, in its manner, calls four hundred years, during which that seed would be strangers, either in the land of Canaan or in Egypt. It can also be understood that from Isaac's fifth year, when through the son of the bondwoman, affliction began, the labor of four hundred years is counted.
[Acts 7:14] -- Joseph called his father Jacob and all his kin, seventy-five souls. He follows the Septuagint in saying this, but in the Hebrew truth, only seventy souls are found. And if you wish to count the series of souls in Genesis, adding Jacob himself and Joseph with his two sons who were in Egypt, you will find only seventy souls.
[Acts 7:16] -- And he died and our fathers, and they were carried over to Shechem. Concerning Joseph alone, Scripture relates that his bones were transferred from Egypt and buried in Shechem. But from these blessed Stephen’s words and from the writings of Saint Jerome, who lived in those places, it should be noted that the other patriarchs were also buried there, although the memory of Joseph is deservedly more celebrated, since he himself commanded that this be done with his bones, and the city itself belonged to his tribe. Indeed, Jerome in the history of blessed Paula relates thus: "He passed (he says) through Shechem, not as many mistakenly read Sichar, which is now called Neapolis, and around Jacob’s well, built on the side of Mount Garizim, over which the Lord sat, he entered the church." And soon after: "And from there (he says) turning, he saw the tombs of the twelve patriarchs." Likewise in the book about the best kind of translation: "The twelve patriarchs are not buried in Arbes, but in Shechem." But understandably, what follows troubles:
[Acts 7:16] -- And they were placed in the tomb which Abraham bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. For Genesis teaches that Abraham bought the place of the tomb from Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, in Cariatharba, for four hundred silver shekels, in which Abraham himself, Isaac, Jacob, and Adam the first man were buried. And also Jacob, returning from Mesopotamia, received a portion of the field near the city of Shechem, where he pitched his tents, from Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred lambs given. Therefore, Abraham did not buy the sepulcher from Hamor the Shechemite but from Ephron the Hittite, in which the twelve patriarchs were not buried, but in Shechem, as we have said. However, blessed Stephen, speaking commonly, follows the common opinion more in his speech. For combining two narratives together, he aims not so much at the proper order of the surrounding history as at the cause in question, which was being discussed. For he who was accused of teaching against the holy place and the law proceeds to show how Jesus Christ is shown from the law to be promised, and that they did not choose to serve Moses then, nor the Lord now. These things I have said as I could, not prejudicing a better judgment, if one be present. Moreover, where it is said: From the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem, it is written in the Greek example: From the sons of Hamor, who was in Shechem, which seems to agree more with the history of Genesis, though it may have happened that the same Hamor had a father and son named Shechem.
[Acts 7:17] -- But when the time of the promise which God had confessed to Abraham was drawing near, namely that which was said: And after these things, they will go out and serve me in this place.
[Acts 7:27] -- Who made you a ruler and judge over us? In his entire speech, he convicted them, already then being contrary to the law and Moses.
[Acts 7:37] -- This is Moses who said to the sons of Israel: God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me. Like me, visible in the flesh, but more wonderful in majesty and more terrible in majesty than I. He says, lest the doctrine of Christ be thought new and foreign, it is Moses himself, whom your fathers did not wish to obey, who preaches and says that he will come in the form of a man and will give the precepts of life to all souls.
[Acts 7:42] -- Did you offer to me victims and sacrifices for forty years in the desert? Although they offered libations to the Lord out of necessity, they are said to have truly served idols with their hearts turned away, from the time when they transformed gold into the head of a calf. For afterwards, we read that they offered certain things to the Lord, not out of will, but as we learn from this place, out of the fear of punishments and the destruction of those who fell because of idols. However, the Lord regards not what is offered, but the will of the one offering. Therefore, wherever there was an occasion, they always turned back to Egypt in their hearts.
[Acts 7:43] -- And you took up the tabernacle of Moloch. Although, he says, you appeared to bring victims and sacrifices to the tabernacle of the Lord, yet in your whole intention of heart, you embraced the shrine of Moloch. But Moloch, or Melchom, as it is often read, is the idol of the Ammonites, which is interpreted as your king.
[Acts 7:43] -- And the star of your god Remphan. You have forsaken (he says) the true and living God, and you have taken the star of Remphan, that is, your own creation, as God. But it signifies Lucifer, to whose worship the Saracen people were enslaved in honor of Venus. And because Remphan (as I said) means either your creation or your rest, the prophet subsequently added, and said:
[Acts 7:43] -- The figures which you have made to worship them. It is understood, you have adopted them conjointly.
[Acts 7:43] -- And I will carry you beyond Babylon. Because of these (he says) sacrileges, you will be taken captive not only into Babylon but also beyond Babylon. Nor is the first martyr to be thought erring because he said beyond Babylon instead of beyond Damascus, as written in the prophet (Amos V). He considered the understanding more than the word, because they were led into Babylon beyond Damascus, just as beyond Babylon.
[Acts 7:44] -- The tabernacle of testimony was with our fathers in the desert. Because they said he was acting against the holy place, here he shows that the Lord does not greatly esteem decorated stone but desires the splendor of heavenly souls. Where he wants it to be understood that just as the tabernacle was in the wilderness before the construction of the temple, so they should understand the temple itself to be destroyed when a better state succeeds. As Jeremiah once foretold, saying: Do not trust in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord (Jerem. VII). And after some time: I will do to this house, in which my name is called, and in which you have trust, as I did to Shiloh, where my name dwelled at the beginning, and I will cast you away from my face (Ibid.).
[Acts 7:49] -- Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. This is not to be understood carnally, as if God has members placed in heaven and on earth, as we do when we sit, but to indicate that he is within and above all, he claimed that heaven is his throne and the earth his footstool. To show that he encompasses everything, elsewhere he declares that he measures the heavens with his palm, and the earth he encloses with a handful. Spiritually, however, heaven suggests the saints, and the earth the sinners, because God inhabits and presides over the former while condemning and casting down the latter.
[Acts 7:49] -- Or what is the place of my rest? Not a golden or marble earthly dwelling place, but as the Prophet follows: Upon whom does my Spirit rest, if not upon the humble and quiet one, who trembles at my words (Isaiah LXVI)?
[Acts 7:53] -- You who received the law as ordained by angels. The law is indeed ordained by angels, in the hand of a mediator.
[Acts 7:56] -- Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Since the Lord Christ is the perfect Son of both God and man, why did the blessed martyr prefer to call Him the Son of man rather than the Son of God, when it would seem to bring more glory to call Him the Son of God rather than the Son of man, except that by this testimony the unbelief of the Jews would be confounded, as they remembered that they crucified a man and did not wish to believe Him to be God? Therefore, to strengthen the patience of the blessed martyr, the gate of the heavenly kingdom is opened, and lest the innocent man being stoned waver on earth, the crucified God-man appears crowned in heaven. Hence, because standing is the posture of one fighting or assisting, he rightly saw Him standing at the right hand of God, whom he had as a helper among the persecuting men. Nor does it seem discordant that Mark describes Him as sitting at the right hand of God, which is the position of one judging, because even now He invisibly judges all things, and in the end He will come as the visible judge of all.
[Acts 7:58] -- And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the Lord suffered outside the gate, who chose us from the world into His heavenly kingdom and glory, and Stephen, as if a stranger to the world, is stoned outside the city. For he did not have a lasting city here, but sought the one to come with his whole mind. And by just change of things, the martyr directs his gaze from the world’s heart to the heavens, the persecutor of hard neck sends his hands to the stones. Hence Arator says: “Rebellious Judea, you deliriously seize stones against Stephen, you who [will] always be stony in your harsh crime.”
[Acts 7:60] -- But kneeling down, he cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” For himself indeed he prayed standing, for his enemies he knelt, because their greater iniquity demanded the greater remedy of supplication. And the wondrous virtue of the blessed martyr, who was so fervent with zeal that he openly reproached the guilt of their disbelief to those he was held by, so burned with love that even in death he prayed for those by whom he was killed.