Arator : You wickedly hurtful serpent, why do you still wish to call [us] back from the Lord and contrive your old pillaging on the newness of the law? O lover of death, whose very parent you are, why do you renew your warfare upon the redeemed? You come as a plunderer, but you lie there as plunder, and, bringing death [from a tree], you are destroyed by the branches of a second tree, O evil one, and since the cross of Christ, death is your portion of the wood. — ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 2 Basil of Caesarea : Beasts bear witness to the faith. Hast thou confidence in the Lord? "Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk and thou shalt trample under feet the lion and the dragon." With faith thou hast the power to walk upon serpents and scorpions. Do you not see that the viper which attached itself to the hand of Paul, whilst he gathered sticks, did not injure him, because it found the saint full of faith? If you have not faith, do not fear beasts so much as your faithlessness, which renders you susceptible of all corruption. — HOMILIES ON THE HEXAEMERON 9.6 Bede : When Paul had gathered a great bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire. The Apostle, having come out of the sea, kindled a fire because of the cold, as he warmed the hearts of those he had rescued from the tempests by his teaching with the ardor of love. The sticks are called any exhortations, which, capable of kindling charity, are as if cut from the integrity of the Scriptures, like branches cut with leaves. — Commentary on Acts Bede : A viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. Because the unclean spirit, repelled by the flame of virtues from the heart of the faithful, tries to inject the poison of persecutions into the teachers of truth to harm the hand, that is, to impede the work of spiritual doctrine. — Commentary on Acts John Chrysostom : Then Paul having taken brushwood, laid it on the fire. See how active he is; observe how we nowhere find him doing miracles for the sake of doing them, but only upon emergency. Both during the storm when there was a cause he prophesied, not for the sake of prophesying, and here again in the first instance he lays on brushwood: nothing for vain display, but with a simple view to their being preserved, and enjoying some warmth. — Homily on Acts 54 Oecumenius : The viper, having fastened onto the apostle's hand and not finding the cavity of sin, immediately sprang away and drove itself against the fire, as if collecting a penalty for itself, because it struck with its body something that belonged to no one. But we fear wild beasts, since we do not have the full armor of virtue. [THEODORET Q,18 in Gen.] — Commentary on Acts Tertullian : Finally, we often aid in this way even the heathen, seeing we have been endowed by God with that power which the apostle first used when he despised the viper's bite. What, then, does this pen of yours offer, if faith is safe by what it has of its own? That it may be safe by what it has of its own also at other times, when it is subjected to scorpions of its own. — Scorpiace Theodoret of Cyrus : And so the viper, which drove its teeth into the apostle's hand, since it did not find any entry of sin in him, immediately released him and threw itself into the fire by inflicting on itself a punishment, because it had made an attack against an impenetrable body. Therefore let us fear the beasts, if we do not possess the full armor of virtue. — CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 28.3