Ammonius of Alexandria : "I am clean of the blood of all." … The false teacher is guilty of the souls that receive his teaching, as if he had poured out their blood, which is our life. By saying "I am clean," he means, "I give witness that my teaching has deprived none of life everlasting but that it sets forth a heavenly kingdom. Anyone, therefore, not persuaded by me should consider himself as his own murderer, for I am innocent of the blood of all who hear me and do not believe." — CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 20.26 Bede : Because I am clean from the blood of all of you. He believed himself to be clean from the blood of his neighbors by the fact that he did not spare their sins from being struck. — Commentary on Acts John Chrysostom : Do you mark how he terrifies them, and troubled and afflicted as their souls are, how hard he rubs them? But it was necessary. "For I have not shunned," he says, "to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Why then, he who does not speak, has blood to answer for: that is, murder! Nothing could be more terrifying than this. He shows that they also, if they do it not, have blood to answer for. So, whereas he seems to be justifying himself, in fact he is terrifying them. — Homily on Acts 44 John Chrysostom : "I am pure," he says, "from the blood of all men." This was fit and proper for Paul to say, but we dare not say it, conscious as we are of numberless faults. Wherefore for him the ever vigilant, ever at hand, the man enduring all things for the sake of the salvation of his disciples, it was fit and proper to say this: but we must say that of Moses, "The Lord was wroth with me for your sakes" (Deut. iii. 26), because ye lead us also into many sins. For when we are dispirited at seeing you make no progress, is not the greater part of our strength struck down? — Homily on Acts 44 John Chrysostom : Why then, this only is to be a teacher, to declare, to preach, to instruct, shrink from nothing, to exhort night and day: but if, while one is doing all this, nothing comes of it, ye know what remains. Then ye have another justification: "I am pure from the blood of all men." Think not that these words are spoken to us only: for indeed this speech is addressed to you also, that ye should attend to the things spoken, that ye should not start away from the hearing. — Homily on Acts 44 Oecumenius : "I am innocent," he says, "of the blood of all men," if you, being drowsy, perish because of the murderer of souls; for of the teacher, he says, For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore he who does not speak is responsible for their blood, that is, for their slaughter. He therefore shows that even those who do not act would be responsible for that same blood; and on that account he exhorts them. — Commentary on Acts