{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-3073","native_reference":{"book_number":510,"chapter_from":28,"chapter_to":28,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":22,"verse_to":22},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ammonius of Alexandria</b>: The Jews call the faith in Christ a heresy, because \"everywhere it is spoken against.\" You see, the Jews themselves testify that Christ is preached everywhere, even though not all receive this preaching, as the text says, but some of the Jews or the Gentiles speak against it, while the heretics, in a different way, do not conform to the true faith. In fact, it was necessary that there be heresies, so that the elected might appear, and all might fulfill what had been predicted by the prophet Simeon about Christ: \"This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed.\"<br/><i>— CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 28.21-22</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Neither through letters, nor through men, have they made known any harm of thee. Nevertheless, we wish to hear from thyself: \"But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest\": and then forestalled him by showing their own sentiments. \"For as concerning this sect, it is known to us, that everywhere it is spoken against.\"<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 55</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"As for this sect, it is known to us,\" say they, \"that it is everywhere spoken against.\" True, but people are also everywhere persuaded, as \"some were persuaded, and some believed not.\"<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 55</i></p><p><b>Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius</b>: How disturbed I am, and in the greatest necessities, you will be able to judge from this little book which I have written to you, Demetrianus, almost in unadorned words, as the mediocrity of my talent permitted, that you might know my daily pursuit, and that I might not be wanting to you, even now an instructor, but of a more honourable subject and of a better system. For if you afforded yourself a ready hearer in literature, which did nothing else than form the style, how much more teachable ought you to be in these true studies, which have reference even to the life! And I now profess to you, that I am hindered by no necessity of circumstance or time from composing something by which the philosophers of our sect which we uphold may become better instructed and more learned for the future, although they now have a bad reputation, and are commonly reproved, as living otherwise than is befitting for wise men, and as concealing their vices under the covering of a name; whereas they ought either to have remedied them, or to have altogether avoided them, that they might render the name of wisdom happy and uncorrupted, their life itself agreeing with their precepts.<br/><i>— On the Workmanship of God, or the Formation of Man, Chapter I</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: Before he arrived. Paul was in Rome, the Jews had been commanded not to receive the preaching concerning Christ, and not only they alone, but also Jews everywhere in the world. How is this clear? We find in the books of the ancients that the priests and scribes and elders dwelling in Jerusalem, having written letters, sent them throughout the nations to the Jews everywhere, disapproving the teaching about Christ as foreign to God, and ordering by letters that it not be received. This, indeed, seems to be what the prophecy of Isaiah also means when it says: \"Woe to the land, wings of ships beyond the rivers of Cush, sending captives by sea, and clay letters upon the water.\" (Isa. 18:1-2) By this he indicates that even beyond the land of the Ethiopians and the ends of the earth the sound of wickedness concerning those dwelling in Judea went forth like ships flying, and their apostles bearing clay letters, sailing over the waters, and filling the sea, ran throughout the whole world, slandering the word concerning our Savior. It is still the custom among the Jews to call \"apostles\" the circular letters brought to them by their leaders. [EUSEBIUS]<br/><i>— Commentary on Acts</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"a50a004e0597872379bc8f6e30dbcd2821f936ddde7445b2ace28a9e166c7e04","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":3073,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"f271b9b20c796ffc2875f61a95365e990bacb484b54921089727b0adc94f3812","translator":null,"work":null}