Ammonius of Alexandria — Commentary on Scripture

Acts 16:29

From this event it can be established that the faith of people is something in their power. See how, after such a fright, only the jailer believed. And yet, most of all, those imprisoned should have been moved to believe, since they had experienced a greater wonder when they saw their iron chains suddenly broken. Being foolish, they were frightened at the moment when the foundations of the prison were shaken and the doors were opened. But being despisers of God, after such a sign, they forgot what had happened, so that they did not speak to the jailer or to anyone about the terror that had happened. For, no doubt, had they heard from the jailer or from the followers of Paul the reason for such a wonder, they would perhaps have been converted. I think that a similar event happened in hell, when our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, descended there tasting death for a brief time. The foundations of the earth were shaken and the chains of all were loosed. Whoever went to meet the Savior and believed in him was saved like the jailer and his house. Whoever rejected him and did not endea…

From this event it can be established that the faith of people is something in their power. See how, after such a fright, only the jailer believed. And yet, most of all, those imprisoned should have been moved to believe, since they had experienced a greater wonder when they saw their iron chains suddenly broken. Being foolish, they were frightened at the moment when the foundations of the prison were shaken and the doors were opened. But being despisers of God, after such a sign, they forgot what had happened, so that they did not speak to the jailer or to anyone about the terror that had happened. For, no doubt, had they heard from the jailer or from the followers of Paul the reason for such a wonder, they would perhaps have been converted. I think that a similar event happened in hell, when our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, descended there tasting death for a brief time. The foundations of the earth were shaken and the chains of all were loosed. Whoever went to meet the Savior and believed in him was saved like the jailer and his house. Whoever rejected him and did not endeavor to investigate the strange miracle stayed in hell. Just as those who followed Paul, after the chains were loosed, came out of the prison in the morning, so Christ, coming back from hell in the dark of earliest morning and having been freed—as it was not fitting for him, being God, to be held by death—arose, and in the first place appeared to his faithful disciples and the women around Mary, and comforted them and confirmed them in faith by saying, “Take heart.” He was then assumed into heaven, where he remains with God his Father. Likewise, the followers of Silas, who came out of the prison, visited Lydia and the brothers and departed.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 16.29-30

Acts 16:40

How great was their modesty and charity! Paul and Silas would not have put up with leaving, even though they had been dismissed by the magistrates, if they had not been able to go to the poor woman and the others, whom they called brothers, and made themselves their equals.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 16.40

Acts 17:7

In the same manner, their fathers accused Jesus by saying that he called himself king. The former, however, even though they had a kind of charge that was, on the surface, likely to deceive because the one charged was living, how could these latter hide their lying when they were saying that they, the apostles, were proclaiming Jesus a king, who, according to these accusers, was dead? That is, unless he was alive but was not visible. Concerning such a one, the kings of the earth never had need to fear, unless they should see him when entirely visible. But, as it seems from their proclamation of the truth, they knew that even though he was not visible, he was still truly king, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 17.8

Acts 17:12

They did not investigate like skeptical people, because they had already believed, but like people who were unaware of the prophets’ ancient doctrine. Or rather, they believed more because, after examining the Scriptures, they saw that the circumstances of the incarnation of the Lord agreed with the words of the ancient prophets.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 17.12-13

Acts 17:29

He teaches that the human mind cannot comprehend God as he is according to nature. Their mouths, which say the deity is of human form, are closed with these words. Indeed, one can mold or sculpt or draw people and images of people, or one can paint the likeness of any earthly thing. God, however, is similar to no human work. According to the word of the apostle, the deity is absolutely undetermined, incomprehensible, without image, incorporeal, not similar to human form or any other thing.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 17.29

Acts 17:31

Surely if God overlooked from the foundation of the world the transgressions committed by people out of ignorance, and he gives to each the forgiveness of transgressions, fittingly did he come among us at the end of the ages, in order that his boundless love of humankind might be received in accord with the measure that he reveals his presence.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 17.30

Acts 18:6

“Your blood be on your own heads.” These words are obscure, but I think they mean this: Whoever does not believe in Christ, who is life, seems to kill himself by passing from life to death and shedding, as it were, his own blood through his self-inflicted death. Therefore he means that when you kill yourselves through disbelief, you receive the punishment of murder, so I am innocent. Following this train of thought it may be also said that he who kills himself is punished by God as a murderer. Similarly if a person is the reason why someone kills himself, he will be guilty in the same way.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.6

Acts 18:24

He was learned in the Scriptures, able to dispute with those who questioned him and able to demonstrate that the recent events were in agreement with the Old Testament.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.24

Acts 18:26

It must be noted that we must believe that women passed on the faith: see how completely desirous of salvation Apollos was, for even though he was an educated man and was well versed in the Scripture’s secrets, he did not consider it worthless to learn the fullness of the faith from a woman. He did not become conceited as if he were receiving a rebuke from a woman that “you should learn more fully the things concerning God the Word’s ordaining.” Therefore [Priscilla] explained to him in her teaching the things of faith, and Apollos listened and received them, for while he knew that Jesus was the Christ and the servant of God and concluded so from the Scriptures, his knowledge was imperfect, since he did not know what had been spoken and prophesied to the apostles through the Holy Spirit. And so the circle of Aquila, being followers of Paul, laid out more clearly to him the way of God, such as worship in the Spirit and the circumcision not by hands and whatever else had been spoken for the perfection of the church.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.25

Acts 18:26

How did this man, who had only been baptized according to John’s baptism, have the Holy Spirit, but his followers did not? To this it must be said that for this reason was he boiling with the Spirit: being enlightened by the grace of God, he knew precisely and taught from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. And this very knowledge did not allow him to keep quiet, but he himself, doing the work of an evangelist, taught, as did his disciples, about Jesus.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.25

Acts 19:5

Therefore the baptism of John was an exhortation to repentance only, but it did not provide a purification from sins. This, then, is the difference between the baptism of John and that of the faithful: the baptism of the faithful gives the gift of the remission of sins. While baptizing, John said, “I baptize you for the one coming after me, and I ask you to believe in him, because he is the Lamb of God.” Now the one who faithfully baptizes says, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” so that you may believe in the consubstantial Trinity. He washes the baptized thoroughly, strips away his previously existing superstition, and re-clothes him with Christ, as he purely proclaims the true faith. Furthermore, it must be noted first that after baptism into Christ, the Holy Spirit descends upon those baptized when the one baptizing lays his hands on them, and second that those baptized with the baptism of John did not possess the Holy Spirit. How then did Apollos, who had only been baptized with John’s baptism, burn with the Spirit? Even if Apollos b…

Therefore the baptism of John was an exhortation to repentance only, but it did not provide a purification from sins. This, then, is the difference between the baptism of John and that of the faithful: the baptism of the faithful gives the gift of the remission of sins. While baptizing, John said, “I baptize you for the one coming after me, and I ask you to believe in him, because he is the Lamb of God.” Now the one who faithfully baptizes says, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” so that you may believe in the consubstantial Trinity. He washes the baptized thoroughly, strips away his previously existing superstition, and re-clothes him with Christ, as he purely proclaims the true faith. Furthermore, it must be noted first that after baptism into Christ, the Holy Spirit descends upon those baptized when the one baptizing lays his hands on them, and second that those baptized with the baptism of John did not possess the Holy Spirit. How then did Apollos, who had only been baptized with John’s baptism, burn with the Spirit? Even if Apollos burned with the Spirit, it is not said that he possessed the Holy Spirit. In fact, he neither was speaking in tongues nor prophesying. Therefore, it is one thing to burn with the Spirit and another to possess the Holy Spirit. Whoever possessed the Holy Spirit had it dwelling within him, and the Spirit itself spoke from within. Many of these things are referred to previously, as when the Spirit spoke to Philip, to Peter, to the apostles and to Paul and his companions, when he ordered them either to speak or not speak the word in certain cities. Whoever burned with the Spirit did this or that through an external illumination and impulse, as one led by the Spirit, just as someone might be led or protected by an angel. Now, do not say to me, “How is it possible for one who does not share in the Spirit to burn with the Spirit?” For it is necessary to establish what is unseen on the basis of what is seen. If the sun and fire, being outside of us, by drawing near to our bodies or also to be at a small distance, as is the case with fire, warm our bodies, what should we say about the divine Spirit that is truly hot and sets our interior person on fire, even if the Spirit does not live within but is without? It is possible, in the way that everything is possible to God, that someone be set on fire, even if the heat is not dwelling within.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 19.5

Acts 19:19

Every sinner must confess his sins and, through his self-conviction, turn away from continuing to commit them, so that he may become just according to the passage, “Confess your sins first so that you may be justified,” and the passage, “Just is the man who accuses himself.” The idolaters and magicians were so many in Ephesus that they prepared magicians’ books at a high price, as if these books held the most noble things in life. Upon believing in Christ, they did not sell them, even though there were many who wanted to obtain them, but they burned them. And they did this first so that no one could take part in their soul-destroying ruin, and second so that they could have no profit from it. For just as it is forbidden to offer to God the value of a dog or profit from impurity, so also did they judge it an injustice to lay at the apostles’ feet money from such a source.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 19.18

Acts 20:23

It must be noted that the prophets do not know everything but only what the Holy Spirit reveals to them. So see how Paul, like a prophet, foretells “that chains and afflictions await me,” and that the Ephesians will never see him again and that there will arise among them heretics and some of bad faith, and yet about the first of these he confesses not to know what exactly their end shall be. So although the Lord revealed to him everything else, this one thing he hid from him, namely, what would happen to him after the chains and afflictions, lest, being puffed up and knowing that everything would arrive at such a point, [Paul] fail out of negligence. Instead, so that he, dreading the weakness of the flesh, would beg God to deliver him from trials, the Spirit left this end unclear for him.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 20.22

Acts 20:26

“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

Acts 20:30

“In order to draw away the disciples after them.” Heretics strive to make the people their own instead of the Lord’s, so that they might boast in themselves, when the name of the heretics is attached to these people, and so that they can profit from the name. For example, from Mani comes Manichaean, from Arius, Arian, and from Nestorius, Nestorian, and the other types of heresies. Paul himself checked this beforehand when he silenced and censured those who were saying, “I’m Paul’s; I’m Apollos’s; I’m Cephas’s,” since he did not want their faith to be explained by the name of a person but by Christ’s name; he wanted them all to be called Christians, even though they had been taught by different teachers. Accordingly, whenever all the teachers strive for the same goal of proclaiming the true faith, of profiting the students while suppressing their own names, they are called, by the same name, Christians. If, however, the teachers pervert any of the teachings of the church, then the title of Catholic is denied, and they are called after the name of the teacher.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 20.29-30

Acts 20:32

He demonstrates obscurely and secretly that the Father, who is God, and his Son Jesus, the God-Word, are one. He does not speak in the plural “to those capable,” but with a unifying name he indicates the singular being of both by saying “to the one capable.” Thus we know, from what Paul says in preparing the churches of Asia, that there is one being of both Father and Son and that they are and subsist as two, not according to mere names but in truth.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 20.32

Acts 23:9

“What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” These words are obscure or something is missing for the completion of the sentence, which would be, “If a spirit or an angel has told to him what to say in order to avoid dangers, he is being deceptive.” Otherwise, what the Pharisees say must be understood in the sense, “Look! He’s clearly talking about the resurrection, since he’s been taught either this teaching on the resurrection by the Holy Spirit or an angel.”

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 23.9

Acts 27:12

Since Paul was a prophet, he announced the danger, which would have threatened them on the ship. But he was not able to convince them to spend the winter in Crete, so that it was not fate that dragged them into danger but their will.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 27.10

Acts 27:24

“God has granted safety to all,” so that what Homer says appears to be false: “I say that no one can avoid his fate, neither good man nor bad, even though he be noble.” And this means that it is impossible to escape the death that Fate establishes at the moment of birth. Therefore, without Paul, all would have died, if God had not granted life to them out of respect for the righteous. So if it had been sanctioned that all would have died, as it surely appears, he would have died, he that had not eaten for fourteen days and then had been shipwrecked: indeed those false words say, “neither good man nor bad,” so that it was necessary that both the good and the bad died together, being liable together to the evident danger of death. On the contrary, however, Scripture says that the righteous was saved from the evident danger, even though anyone else would have died in that circumstance. God thought it opportune that he go to Rome; God could have placed him in Rome, after taking him from Jerusalem through an angel, as he had put Habakkuk, after he took him from Judea, in Babylon, by the d…

“God has granted safety to all,” so that what Homer says appears to be false:
“I say that no one can avoid his fate, neither good man nor bad, even though he be noble.” And this means that it is impossible to escape the death that Fate establishes at the moment of birth. Therefore, without Paul, all would have died, if God had not granted life to them out of respect for the righteous. So if it had been sanctioned that all would have died, as it surely appears, he would have died, he that had not eaten for fourteen days and then had been shipwrecked: indeed those false words say, “neither good man nor bad,” so that it was necessary that both the good and the bad died together, being liable together to the evident danger of death. On the contrary, however, Scripture says that the righteous was saved from the evident danger, even though anyone else would have died in that circumstance. God thought it opportune that he go to Rome; God could have placed him in Rome, after taking him from Jerusalem through an angel, as he had put Habakkuk, after he took him from Judea, in Babylon, by the den of lions where Daniel was. But he did not do so, and, nevertheless, showed a miraculous event by saving Paul and his companions. He granted their souls to him, so that he might have benevolence for his brothers, but not the ship and its cargo, because the pious has no consideration for earthly things, nor is grieved by their loss. Here the impious live thanks to the pious; but sometimes the opposite happens, so that the impious dies before his time because of his iniquity, according to the command of God, as Ecclesiastes says, “Be not wicked, and be not stubborn, lest you die before your time.” I think that, thanks to God, these things happen in this way. Everything is possible for the one who believes, but he did not obtain salvation for his companions through faith or prayers but because he believed that what had been said to him would be.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 27.25-26

Acts 27:32

After they realized that their bad will had caused them to fall into dangers, they began to believe Paul by thinking that the appropriate words of the righteous were more effective for their salvation than the fate in danger, which has no name. In fact, if they had believed in fate, like the Gentiles, after despising the words of that pious man, they would have allowed the sailors to escape by saying, “Let them go. This has nothing to do with our salvation.” But they did not speak nor act so foolishly, neither were they deceived or enticed by ignorance. Therefore, based on these facts, many must reject their opinion about fate and fortune.

CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 27.31-32