Bede : I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. He did not say: I am God, I am the Son of God, but he says: Accept the weakness of my humility and lay down the scales of your pride. — Commentary on Acts Cyprian : For consider what glory it is to set aside the lusts of this life, and to oppose a mind withdrawn from all commerce with nature and the world, to all the opposition of the adversary, and to have no dread of the cruelty of the torturer; that a man should be animated by the suffering whereby he might be believed to be destroyed, and should take to himself, as an enhancement of his strength, that which the punisher thinks will aggravate his torments. For although the hook, springing forth from the stiffening ribs, is put back again into the wound, and with the repeated strokes of the whip the returning lash is drawn away with the rent portions of the flesh; still he stands immoveable, the stronger for his sufferings, revolving only this in his mind, that in that brutality of the executioners Christ Himself is suffering more in proportion to what he suffers. For since, if he should deny the Lord, he would incur guilt on His behalf for whom he ought to have overcome, it is essential that He should be seen to bear all things to whom the victory is due, even in the suffering. — Pseudo-Cyprian On the Glory of Martyrdom John Chrysostom : And he said, Who art Thou Lord? thus in the first place confessing himself His servant. And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest: think not thy warring is with men. — Homily on Acts 19