{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-2799","native_reference":{"book_number":510,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":1,"verse_to":1},"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>Augustine of Hippo</b>: The Holy Spirit, through whom love is shed abroad in our hearts, which is the fulfilment of the law, is designated in the gospel as \"the finger of God.\" Is it not because those very tables of the law were written by the finger of God, that the Spirit of God by whom we are sanctified is also the finger of God, in order that, living by faith, we may do good works through love? Who is not touched by this congruity, and at the same time diversity? For as fifty days are reckoned from the celebration of the Passover (which was ordered by Moses to be offered by slaying the typical lamb, to signify, indeed, the future death of the Lord) to the day when Moses received the law written on the tables of stone by the finger of God, so, in like manner, from the death and resurrection of Him who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, there were fifty complete days up to the time when the finger of God—that is, the Holy Spirit—gathered together in one perfect company those who believed.<br/><i>— ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER 16.28</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: And when the days of Pentecost were completed, they were all together in the same place. This is in the upper room, which they are said to have ascended. For whoever desires to be filled with the Holy Spirit must necessarily transcend the dwelling of the flesh through the contemplation of the mind. Just as the forty days during which the Lord conversed with His disciples after His resurrection signify the Church's journey in this world with the risen Christ, so the fiftieth day, on which the Holy Spirit is received, fittingly expresses the perfection of blessed rest, by which the labor of the temporal Church will be rewarded with eternal denarius. For the number forty itself, when computed by its equal parts, adds that denarius and makes fifty. The half of the number forty is twenty, a quarter is ten, a fifth is eight, an eighth is five, a tenth is four, a twentieth is two, a fortieth is one. Twenty, ten, eight, five, four, two, and one make fifty. The figure of this calculation is easily evident, because the present conflict generates for us the eternal joy of the jubilee, as the Apostle says: For our momentary and light affliction works for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure (II Cor. IV). Our true blessedness, however, is the eternal vision of the most high and blessed Trinity, wherein we glory in the immortality of both body and soul. For we consist of the four well-known qualities of the body. In the inner man, we are commanded to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind. And this is the perfect denarius of life, to rejoice in the present vision of divine glory. It is to be noted historically that among the ancients, the day of Pentecost, that is, the fiftieth day on which the law was given, was counted from the slaughter of the lamb. However, as the blessed Augustine explains, the fiftieth day here is counted not from the Lord's Passion, but from His resurrection, on which the Holy Spirit was sent. He, by the return of the old sign's example, most manifestly consecrated the Lord's day by His coming. At that same point in time, He showed that the true Pascha is to be celebrated on the Lord's day. For just as here, so also there God appeared in the vision of fire, as Exodus says: And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire (Exod. XIX).<br/><i>— Commentary on Acts</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: And when the days of Pentecost were completed, they were all together in the same place. Some Codices incorrectly have, Pentecosten. For Pentecoste in the nominative case means fiftieth; Pentecostes in the genitive, fiftieth's; Pentecosten in the accusative, fiftieth. However, no rule of speech allows us to say Pentecosten, when it should be said: When the fiftieth day was completed; or certainly as it is read in Greek in the singular number: And when the fiftieth day was completed. But truly in the prayers of the same day, it should be said: And celebrating the most sacred day of Pentecost, that is, the fiftieth. From the usage of this word, it is thought by some who do not know the Greek language that the solemnity of this day should also be called Pentecosten in the nominative case.<br/><i>— Retractions on Acts</i></p><p><b>Cassiodorus</b>: \"When the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place,\" etc. When fifty days had passed, as the Lord Christ had promised them, there was suddenly a mighty sound from heaven as the Holy Ghost came, and heavenly fire appeared above the heads of all who were sitting in the house, and they began to speak the tongues of various nations. As the news spread, men from various peoples who had gathered in Jerusalem came and wondered at them who, being Galileans, spoke of the wonderful works of God in the tongues of the peoples. Some, looking at the phenomenon reasonably, thought rightly that it had been granted by a gift of God; others, stupidly mocking, rather ascribed it to drunkenness.<br/><i>— Complexiones on the Acts of the Apostles</i></p><p><b>Ephrem the Syrian</b>: When the blessed apostles<br/>were gathered together<br/>the place shook<br/>and the scent of Paradise,<br/>having recognized its home,<br/>poured forth its perfumes,<br/>delighting the heralds<br/>by whom<br/>the guests are instructed<br/>and come to his banquet;<br/>eagerly he awaits their arrival<br/>for he is the Lover of mankind.<br/><i>— HYMNS ON PARADISE 11.14</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Dost thou perceive the type? What is this Pentecost? The time when the sickle was to be put to the harvest, and the ingathering was made. See now the reality, when the time was come to put in the sickle of the word: for here, as the sickle, keen-edged, came the Spirit down. For hear the words of Christ: \"Lift up your eyes,\" He said, \"and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.\" And again, \"The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few.\" But as the first-fruits of this harvest, He himself took our nature, and bore it up on high. Himself first put in the sickle. Therefore also He calls the Word the Seed. \"When,\" it says, \"the day of Pentecost was fully come\": that is, when at the Pentecost, while about it, in short. For it was essential that the present events likewise should take place during the feast, that those who had witnessed the crucifixion of Christ, might also behold these.<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 4</i></p><p><b>Leo the Great</b>: To the Hebrew people, now freed from Egypt, the law was given on Mount Sinai fifty days after the immolation of the paschal lamb. Similarly, after the passion of Christ in which the true Lamb of God was killed, just fifty days after his resurrection, the Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles and the whole group of believers. Thus the earnest Christian may easily perceive that the beginnings of the Old Covenant were at the service of the beginnings of the gospel and that the same Spirit who instituted the first established the Second Covenant.<br/><i>— SERMON 75</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled.\" That is, at Pentecost, about that feast itself, when the season of spiritual ripeness brings the sickle, when because of the feast many of those who had crucified him were present, and in order that they might receive the reproach for their own murder.<br/><i>— Commentary on Acts</i></p><p><b>Rabanus Maurus</b>: The Law was given on Mount Sinai, the Spirit on Mount Sion, the Law on an elevated place in the mountain, the Spirit in an upper room.</p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: The first infusion of the Holy Spirit into the congregated disciples took place at \"the third hour.\" Peter, on the day on which he experienced the vision of Universal Community, (exhibited) in that small vessel, had ascended into the more lofty parts of the house, for prayer's sake \"at the sixth hour.<br/><i>— On Prayer</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Further: since in the self-same commentary of Luke the third hour is demonstrated as an hour of prayer, about which hour it was that they who had received the initiatory gift of the Holy Spirit were held for drunkards; and the sixth, at which Peter went up on the roof; and the ninth, at which they entered the temple: why should we not understand that, with absolutely perfect indifference, we must pray always, and everywhere, and at every time; yet still that these three hours, as being more marked in things human-(hours) which divide the day, which distinguish businesses, which re-echo in the public ear-have likewise ever been of special solemnity in divine prayers? A persuasion which is sanctioned also by the corroborative fact of Daniel praying thrice in the day; of course, through exception of certain stated hours, no other, moreover, than the more marked and subsequently apostolic (hours)-the third, the sixth, the ninth.<br/><i>— On Fasting</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"b912dba0db6d7c4b8a3ce214ec01d0e5dae91c2ceaf2bb0cd244e0975b5dbbd2","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":2799,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"6af7b5e8a4a006dacb937d34bb9a3a3e804aa07448249984c821f77e3f917a11","translator":null,"work":null}