Bede : The man was over forty years old on whom this sign of healing was performed. According to the history, the perfect age of the man is indicated amidst the invincible critics. Allegorically, however, the people of Israel did not only seek the Egyptian impurities in the desert for forty years, despising manna, but even in the promised land, they always limped between the rituals of the Lord and of idols. Or if the number forty signifies the double fullness of the law (for four times ten makes forty), the transgressor of both, like a weak person, lying down, surpasses the forty-like perfection. — Commentary on Acts Irenaeus : They were confounded, therefore, both by this instance of healing ("for the man was above forty years old on whom this miracle of healing took place"), and by the doctrine of the apostles, and by the exposition of the prophets, when the chief priests had sent away Peter and John. [These latter] returned to the rest of their fellow-apostles and disciples of the Lord, that is, to the Church, and related what had occurred, and how courageously they had acted in the name of Jesus. — Against Heresies Book III John Chrysostom : The miracles shut their mouths: they would not so much as let them finish their speech, but cut them short in the middle, most insolently. "For all men glorified God for that which was done. For the man was above forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was showed." — Homily on Acts 10