Chapter 13
[Acts 13:2] -- The Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them. This seems to have happened after the death of Herod, who died in the third year of the reign of Claudius, which, according to the chronicles, is the thirteenth year after the passion of the Lord. Since it is clear that Paul, along with Barnabas, was set apart for the apostleship after so much time had passed since the Lord's passion, it becomes evident that those who wrote or accepted the book we mentioned above about the death of Saint Mary are greatly mistaken. For it is written in that same fabrication, as we have often said, that in the second year after the Lord's ascension, when that most blessed Mother of God was about to die, the apostles, who had already been dispersed throughout the world to preach, suddenly came together in a cloud to visit her; among them was Paul, recently converted to the faith, and immediately made an apostle to the Gentiles with Barnabas. But it happened very differently: that is, he was not ordained an apostle in the second year after the Lord's passion, but in the thirteenth. Anyone who believes blessed Luke understands this; and thus the aforementioned book about the death of blessed Mary, being obviously mistaken in its timing, also proves to be of dubious faith in other respects.
[Acts 13:6] -- They found a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, whose name was Barjesus. In Greek it adds more: Which is interpreted as Elimas.
[Acts 13:8] -- However, Elymas the magician (for so his name is interpreted) withstood them, seeking to turn away the proconsul from the faith. And this too is more in the Greek: Because he was gladly listening to them.
[Acts 13:9] -- But Saul, who is also Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, and so on. Just as Barnabas' name was changed immediately after his renunciation, so that instead of Joseph he was called Barnabas, which is, instead of "increased," "son of consolation." For after he was increased and added to the number of the elect, he immediately deserved to be both called and to be "son of παράκλησις," that is, "of consolation" through the received grace of the Spirit; so Saul, after receiving the rank of apostleship, was named Paul. Because he had become humble from being proud, he was rightly called Paul instead of Saul: for Saul was named after the impious and persecutor king Saul, but Paul is named from humble and small spirit. For Paul means "small." Hence, interpreting his own name in a certain way, he himself would say: For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God (I Cor. XV).
[Acts 13:11] -- And immediately a mist and darkness fell upon him. The name of darkness in Greek is placed in the singular number σκότος, which the Latin interpreter did not follow, because this name does not have a singular number in Latin as we have similarly taught above.
[Acts 13:19-20] -- And destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, He allotted their land to them by lot, as after four hundred and fifty years, and after this He gave them judges. How this number can be understood, we said in the preceding book of our exposition. But it should be known that in the Greek it is written differently: And destroying the nations in the land of Canaan, seven, He allotted their land to them by lot. And after this, about four hundred and fifty years, He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. How this agrees with the statement which is contained in the book of Kings, that from the exodus of Israel from Egypt until the building of the temple, there were four hundred and ninety years, is not within our capacity to explain, unless perhaps he followed the popular saying in speaking, which is proven that blessed Stephen did in the discourse held with the Jews about the burial of the twelve patriarchs.
[Acts 13:21] -- And God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And in this place concerning the kingdom of Saul, the apostle seems to have followed popular opinion, as we have already said in the previous book; but what I said there, because Eusebius, following Josephus, assigned forty years to the rule of Samuel and Saul, divided equally between them, subsequently, upon more diligent inspection of the histories of Josephus, I saw that he did not write those forty years of that age but assigned twelve only to Samuel and twenty years to Saul. But also, having more carefully reread the books of Chronicles, I noticed why Eusebius did not want to follow the authority of Josephus in this place, just as he did not in the years of Joshua, to whom Josephus attributes twenty-six years, while he thought it better to annotate twenty-seven. This, therefore, was the reason: because if he followed him, he could by no means have the prescribed number of four hundred and eighty years from the exodus of Israel from Egypt until the temple began to be built, but would find in his codices ten years less of the same age. This he endured because, following the Septuagint interpreters, he neglected to place Ahialon the judge, who ruled the people for ten years after Abessa, in his Chronicles. But realizing that ten years of the prescribed calculation were missing in the sacred history according to the Edition he followed, he took care to add these from his own where it seemed convenient and less contrary to the sacred history. Thus, he adds one year to the times of Joshua, eight to the times of Samuel and Saul, and to complete the tenth number, he includes the fourth year of Solomon's reign, in which the temple began to be built: which whoever follows the Hebrew truth finds should not be done. And what I wrote in the preceding book, that the judges ruled the people from Moses to Samuel for three hundred and ninety-six years, I followed the authority of the Chronicles, not yet noticing that it does not agree with the Hebrew truth.
[Acts 13:25] -- He said: "Whom you think me to be, I am not." In Greek it is more fully said: "I am not the Christ."
[Acts 13:26] -- "Men, brothers, sons of the lineage of Abraham, and those among you who fear God." In Greek it adds: "Listen."
[Acts 13:32-33] -- "And we declare to you the promise made to our fathers, that God has fulfilled this to our children." In Greek it reads more consistently: "That God has fulfilled this to their children." It follows:
[Acts 13:33] -- "Raising up Jesus, as it is also written in the second psalm." The holy Father Hilary thus remembers this place: "But what is now in the psalm: 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you' (Psalm II), does not pertain to the birth from the Virgin, nor to the regeneration of the bath, but to the Firstborn from the dead, according to apostolic authority. For in the book of the Acts of the Apostles it is said thus: 'We announce to you the good news of the promise made to our fathers; God has fulfilled this to our children, raising our Lord Jesus Christ, as it is written in the psalm: You are my Son; today I have begotten you, when he raised him from the dead, no longer to return to decay' (Acts XII). Therefore, this voice of God the Father according to the Apostle is heard on the day of resurrection." And shortly after, recalling the opinion of the Apostle, where he says about him: "Who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Philippians II), and so on: "And in the glory of God the Father, today he is born begotten, that is, in the enduring form of God previously, the assumption of the form of a servant is honored by the reward of death, and a new but not unusual nativity happens under time, since to resume the glory of God the Father, who was found in the form of a servant from the form of God, the firstborn from the dead was born."
[Acts 13:41] -- "Look, despisers, and be amazed, and perish." In Greek it is written thus: "Listen, despisers, and be amazed; look, and perish."
[Acts 13:43-44] -- They were speaking, urging them to remain in the grace of God. Hence in the Greek follows a verse, which our Codices do not have: But the word was spread throughout the whole city, and then what we have is added: On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of God.