Chapter 7
[Acts 7:1] -- Then the high priest said. In the Greek text, it is added to Stephen; and then it is appended: "Are these things so?"
[Acts 7:2] -- Brothers and fathers, hear: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham. Because the blessed Stephen was accused of speaking blasphemy against Moses and God, at the very beginning of his speech he very vigilantly addressed their slander by saying that the same God who spoke to the fathers and prophets was the God of majesty and glory. Even when he reached the times of Moses in his speech, he praised him with fitting words, but proved that those people had always been rebellious and disobedient to his words. It is also noteworthy how skillfully he spoke; thus, he began to speak to his persecutors as if he were afraid of them: Brothers and fathers, hear. What could be gentler, what could be more gracious in winning over his audience, than to commend the Savior? He began gently so that he would be listened to for a long time. And since he had been accused here of speaking against God and the law, just as he showed that he was preaching the true God at the beginning of his speech, he also explained their law to them in such a way that he was seen as a proclaimer of that law of which he was accused of being a destroyer. Indeed, as his speech progressed, when he refuted both their new and old errors, he clearly showed how great was the authority of his spirit, and how free his soul was from the fear of the enemy.
[Acts 7:16] -- And they were placed in the sepulcher that Abraham had purchased for a sum of silver. In the Greek it is written: Our father Abraham, which the blessed Stephen added while speaking gently to his listeners so he would be heard longer and more willingly.
[Acts 7:17] -- But when the time of the promise which God had confessed to Abraham approached, it is better written in Greek: Which God had promised to Abraham.
[Acts 7:31-32] -- And as he came near to observe, the voice of the Lord came: I am the God of your fathers. In the Greek it is written thus: A voice came from heaven saying to him: I am the God of your brothers, remove the sandals from your feet. For the place where you stand is holy ground. This place, according to moral sense, admonishes us that while standing in the Church, which is rightly called holy ground, we should renounce dead works.
[Acts 7:42] -- And he handed them over to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets. He says this in the singular because among the Hebrews there is one book of the twelve prophets, and not twelve books, according to the number of those same prophets. The host of heaven, however, is sometimes referred to as the army of angels: but in this place, it seems more consistent that he called the host of heaven the stars, since he immediately adds the testimony of the prophet, in which the star of their god is taken in place of God; they are convicted of having accepted the tabernacle of Moloch instead of the tabernacle of the true God.
[Acts 7:51] -- Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. He shows them that the circumcision of the foreskin, in which they gloried against the grace of the Gospel, is of no avail for salvation, who were proven to have unclean thoughts and hearing. And at the same time, by speaking these things as if interpreting, he explains to them what the Angel signified when he appeared to Moses in the flame of fire from the bush, so that the bush burned but was not consumed. For the fire indeed signifies the Holy Spirit; the bush, which is a kind of thorn, figuratively denounced the sins of that people. Therefore, the Lord appeared to Moses in the bush having fire, but not consumed, to indicate that He Himself indeed came with the enlightenment and fervor of the Holy Spirit to instruct the people, but He would not consume the sins of that same people, although He would always oppose them with His pious benefits amidst the thickest thorns of their wickedness.
[Acts 7:56] -- Behold, I see the heavens opened. What we say in Latin as "I see," in Greek is called θεωρῶ, from which is derived the name of the theoretical, that is, contemplative life. Through this, some of the elect, still retained in this life, with the eye of the heart more diligently cleansed, have deserved to behold divinely elevated the joys of the future life, as at present saint Stephen, as Paul, when he was caught up to the third heaven, and many others at other times. Hence also God is called Θεὸς in Greek, because He sees all things, and all things are naked and open to His eyes.
[Acts 7:60] -- Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And having said this, he fell asleep. Beautifully he says "fell asleep," and did not say "died." For he offered the sacrifice of love and fell asleep in the hope of resurrection.