Homily 2 — Acts 1, verses 6 to 11

“So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel again?’” [a]

When the disciples mean to ask him something, they come to him together, so that their numbers may embarrass him into giving way. They knew perfectly well that in what he had said before — “No one knows about that day” (Matthew 24, verse 36) — he had simply declined to tell them. So they came near again and put the question. They would not have asked it if they had really been satisfied with that answer. Having heard that they were about to receive the Holy Spirit, they felt they were now worthy to be taught, and they wanted to learn.

They were also quite ready for freedom. They had no wish to throw themselves into danger; what they wanted was to breathe freely again. For what had happened to them was no light matter: the greatest peril had hung over them. And without saying anything to him about the Holy Spirit, they put this question: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” They did not ask when, but whether it would be “at this time,” so eager were they for that day. In fact it seems to me that they had no clear idea of what that kingdom was like, for the Spirit had not yet taught them.

And they do not say, “When will these things be?” but they come to him with greater honor, saying, “Will you at this time restore the kingdom again?” — as though it had already fallen. Back then they were still attached to the things of the senses, since they had not yet become any better than those who came before them; here, from now on, they have lofty thoughts about Christ. So since their minds are raised higher, he too speaks to them on a higher level. He no longer tells them, “About that day not even the Son of Man knows” (Mark 13, verse 32), but says, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own power” (Acts 1, verse 7). “You are asking about things too great for you,” he would say.

And yet even now they learned things much greater than this. To let you see that this is exactly so, look how many I will list. What, I ask you, was greater than what they did learn? They learned that there is a Son of God, and that God has a Son equal to himself in rank (John 5, verses 17 to 20). They learned that there will be a resurrection (Matthew 17, verse 9); that when he went up he sat at the right hand of God (Luke 22, verse 69); and, what is more astonishing still, that flesh is seated in heaven and worshiped by angels (Mark 16, verse 19), and that he will come again (Luke 21, verse 27). They learned what will take place at the judgment (Matthew 16, verse 27). They learned that they themselves will then sit and judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19, verse 28). They learned that the Jews would be cast out, and that the Gentiles would come in in their place (Luke 21, verse 24). Tell me, which is greater: to learn that someone will reign, or to learn when?

Paul learned “things that a man is not permitted to speak” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 4); the things that were before the world was made — he learned them all. Which is harder to learn, the beginning or the end? Clearly the beginning. Moses learned this, and when it was, and how long ago; and he counts out the years. And the wise Solomon says, “I will tell of things from the beginning of the world.” And that the time is near, they do know, as Paul says: “The Lord is near; do not be anxious about anything” (Philippians 4, verse 5). They did not know these things then, and yet he mentions many signs (Matthew 24). But just as he has only just said, “not many days from now,” because he wanted them to stay alert, and did not openly declare the exact moment, so it is here too.

However, it is not about the end of all things that they are asking him now, but “Will you at this time,” they say, “restore the kingdom to Israel?” And not even this did he reveal to them. They had asked about the end of the world before, too. And just as on that occasion he answered by leading them away from thinking their deliverance was near, and instead threw them into the middle of dangers, so he does on this occasion as well, but more gently. So that they would not imagine they were being wronged, and that his words were mere excuses, listen to what he says. He immediately gives them something to be glad about, for he adds: “But you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the farthest part of the earth” (Acts 1, verse 8). Then, so that they would ask no more questions, he was taken up at once.

So just as on the former occasion he had clouded their minds with awe and by saying, “I do not know,” here he does the same by being taken up. For they were very eager on this subject and would not have let it go; and yet it was very necessary that they should not learn it. Tell me, what do the pagans find harder to believe: that the world will come to an end, or that God has become man and was born of the Virgin? But I am ashamed to dwell on this point, as if it were some difficult matter.

Again, so that the disciples might not say, “Why do you leave the matter unsettled?” he adds, “which the Father has put in his own power.” And yet he declared that the Father’s power and his own were one, as in the saying, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he wills” (John 5, verse 21). If, where there is work to be done, you act with the same power as the Father, do you not know with the same power where there is something to be known? Surely raising the dead is much greater than learning the day. If the greater lies within your power, much more the lesser.

When we see a child crying and stubbornly wanting something from us that is not good for him, we hide the thing, show him our empty hands, and say, “Look, we don’t have it.” Christ has done the same thing here with the apostles. But the child, even when we show him our empty hands, keeps on crying, because he knows he has been fooled. Then we leave him and go off, saying, “Someone is calling me,” and we give him something else instead, to take his mind off what he wanted, telling him it is much nicer than the other thing, and then we hurry away. Christ acted in the same way. [e]

The disciples asked to have something, and he said he did not have it. On the first occasion he frightened them. Then they asked again to have it now. He said he did not have it; and this time he did not frighten them, but after showing them the empty hands he did this, and gives them a reason that satisfies them: “which the Father,” he says, “has put in his own power.”

What? You do not know the things of the Father? You know him, and not what belongs to him? And yet you have said, “No one knows the Father except the Son” (Luke 10, verse 22), and, “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (First Corinthians 2, verse 10) — and you do not know this! But they were afraid to ask him again, in case they should hear him say, “Are you also still without understanding?” (Matthew 15, verse 16). For they feared him much more now than before.

“But you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Just as on the earlier occasion he had not answered their question — for it is a teacher’s part to teach not what the student chooses, but what is good for him to learn — so here, for this reason, he tells them ahead of time what they ought to know, so that they will not be troubled. In truth, they were still weak. But to give them confidence, he lifted up their souls and kept back what was painful. Since he was about to leave them very soon, he says nothing painful in this conversation.

But how? He speaks of the very things that would be painful as great things, all but saying, “Do not be afraid, for you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria.” For since he had said, “Do not go on the road of the Gentiles, and do not enter any town of the Samaritans” (Matthew 10, verse 5), what he left unsaid there he adds here: “and to the farthest part of the earth.” And having said this, which was more frightening than all the rest, he fell silent, so that they would not question him again. “And when he had said these things, while they were watching, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight” (verse 9).

Do you see that they did preach the good news and carry it out? For great was the gift he had given them. “In the very place where you are afraid,” he says — that is, in Jerusalem — “preach there first, and afterward to the farthest part of the earth.”

Then, to confirm what he had said, “while they were watching, he was taken up.” It was not “while they were watching” that he rose from the dead, but “while they were watching, he was taken up.” Yet even here the sight of their eyes was not enough for everything. At the resurrection they saw the end but not the beginning; at the ascension they saw the beginning but not the end. In the first case it would have been unnecessary to see the beginning, since the Lord himself who spoke these things was there, and the tomb showed clearly that he was not in it; but in the second they needed to be told the rest by the words of others. So since their eyes were not enough to show them the height above, or to tell them whether he had actually gone up into heaven or only seemed to go up into heaven, see what follows.

They knew it was Jesus himself from the fact that he had been talking with them — had they seen him only from a distance, they could not have recognized him by sight — but that he has been taken up into heaven, the angels themselves tell them. Notice how it is arranged that not everything is done by the Spirit, but the eyes also do their part.

But why did “a cloud receive him”? This too was a sure sign that he went up to heaven. Not fire, as in Elijah’s case, nor a fiery chariot, but “a cloud received him”; and this was a symbol of heaven, as the prophet says: “who makes the clouds his chariot” (Psalm 104, verse 3). This is said of the Father himself. That is why he says “on a cloud” — in the symbol, he means, of divine power, for no other power is seen appearing on a cloud. Listen again to what another prophet says: “The Lord sits upon a light cloud” (Isaiah 19, verse 1).

And this took place while they were listening with great attention to what he was saying, and in answer to a question that mattered greatly to them, with their minds fully roused and wide awake. On Mount Sinai, too, the cloud was there because of him; for Moses also entered into the darkness, but the cloud there was not because of Moses. And he did not merely say, “I am going,” so that they would not grieve again, but said, “I send the Spirit” (John 16, verses 5 and 7); and that he was going away into heaven, they saw with their own eyes. What a sight they were given!

“And while they were looking intently toward heaven as he went up,” it says, “look, two men stood by them in white clothing, who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven —’” They used the word “this” to point to him, saying, “this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come” — and again pointing, “in this way” — “in the same manner as you saw him going into heaven” (verses 10 and 11).

Again, their outward appearance is cheering: “in white clothing.” They were angels in the form of men. And they say, “Men of Galilee”: by saying this they won the disciples’ trust. That was the point of it; otherwise, what need was there to tell them their country, when they knew it well enough? By their appearance, too, they drew the disciples’ attention and showed that they were from heaven. But why does Christ himself not tell them these things, instead of the angels? He had told them everything beforehand: “What if you see the Son of Man going up where he was before?” (John 6, verse 62).

Moreover, the angels did not say, “whom you saw taken up,” but “going into heaven.” The word for it is going up, not being taken up; the phrase “taken up” belongs to the flesh. For the same reason they say, “He who has been taken up from you will come in this way” — not “will be sent,” but “will come.” “He who went up is the same one who came down” (Ephesians 4, verse 10). The same holds for the phrase “a cloud received him,” for he himself mounted the cloud. Of the expressions used, some are fitted to the disciples’ understanding, and some are in keeping with the divine majesty. [f]

Now, as they watch, their thoughts are lifted up; he has given them no small hint of what his second coming will be like. For “will come in this way” means with the body, which is what they wanted to hear; and it means that he will come again to judge “in this way,” on a cloud. “And look, two men stood by them.” Why does it say “men”? Because they had shaped themselves completely as men, so that those who saw them would not be overwhelmed. “Who also said”: their words, too, were meant to comfort. “Why do you stand gazing up into heaven?” They would not let them wait there for him any longer.

Here again these tell the greater thing and leave the lesser unsaid: that “he will come in this way,” they say, and that “you must look for him from heaven.” As for the rest, they called them away from that sight to what they were saying, so that the disciples, since they could not see him, would not imagine that he had not gone up at all, but would be among them again while they were talking, before they knew it. For if on an earlier occasion they said, “Where are you going?” (John 13, verse 36), they would have said it much more now.

“Will you at this time,” they say, “restore the kingdom to Israel?” They knew his mildness so well that even after his suffering they ask him, “Will you restore?” And yet he had told them before, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but the end is not yet,” nor will Jerusalem be taken. But now they ask him about the kingdom, not about the end. Besides, he does not speak with them at great length after the resurrection. So they put this question, thinking that they themselves would be held in high honor if this came about. [g]

But he did not openly declare that this restoration was not going to happen — for what need did they have to learn it? That is why they do not ask again, “What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world?” They are afraid to say that; instead they ask, “Will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” — for they thought there was such a kingdom. But he, I say, had shown in parables that the time was not near; and here, where they asked, he gave his answer: “You will receive power,” he says, “when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” “Has come upon you,” not “has been sent,” to show that the Spirit is equal in majesty. How then do you dare, you who fight against the Spirit, to call him a creature?

“And you will be witnesses to me.” Here he hinted at the ascension. “And when he had said these things”: things they had heard before, which he now brings back to their minds. “He was taken up”: it has already been shown that he went up into heaven. “And a cloud received him”: “Clouds and darkness are under his feet,” says the Scripture (Psalm 18, verse 9, and Psalm 97, verse 2). For this is what the phrase “and a cloud received him” declares: that he is the Lord of heaven. As a king is known by the royal chariot, so the royal chariot was sent for him.

“Look, two men stood by them”: so that they would break out in no cries of grief, and so that it would not go with them as it did with Elisha (Second Kings 2, verse 12), who tore his clothing when his master was taken up. And what do they say? “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in this way.” And, “Look, two men stood by them” — with good reason, for “by the mouth of two witnesses every word will be established” (Matthew 18, verse 16; Deuteronomy 17, verse 6), and these two say the same things. And it says they were “in white clothing.”

Just as they had already seen an angel at the tomb, who even told them their own thoughts, so here too an angel is the herald of his ascension — although the prophets had often foretold it, as they had the resurrection. Everywhere there are angels. So it was at his birth: “For what is conceived in her,” says one, “is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1, verse 20); and again to Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary” (Luke 1, verse 30). So at the resurrection: “He is not here; he has risen, and is going ahead of you” (Luke 24, verse 6); “Come and see!” (Matthew 28, verse 6). And so at the second coming. For so that they would not be utterly bewildered, it is added, “will come in this way” (Matthew 25, verse 31).

They catch their breath a little: he is really to come again, and to come in this way, and not be beyond approach! And that phrase too — that it is “from them” he is taken up — is not added idly. Of the resurrection, Christ himself bears witness, because of all things this is the most wonderful, next to his birth — or rather, even above his birth: his raising himself to life again. For “Destroy this temple,” he says, “and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2, verse 19).

“Will come in this way,” they say. So if anyone wants to see Christ, if anyone is grieved that he has not seen him, let him hear this and show a life worth admiring, and he will certainly see him and not be disappointed. For Christ will come with greater glory, though “in this way,” that is, with a body; and it will be far more wonderful to see him coming down from heaven. But what he will come for, they do not add.

“Will come in this way”: this confirms the resurrection. For if he was taken up with a body, much more must he have risen again with a body. Where are those who do not believe in the resurrection? Who are they, I ask you? Are they pagans, or Christians? I do not know. But no, I know very well: they are pagans, who also do not believe in the work of creation. For the two denials go together: the denial that God creates anything out of nothing, and the denial that he raises up what has been buried. But then, being ashamed to be thought people who “do not know the power of God” (Matthew 22, verse 29) — and so that we will not lay this at their door — they claim: “We do not say it in that sense, but because the body is not needed.” [l]

Truly it is fitting to say here, “The fool will speak foolishness” (Isaiah 32, verse 6). Are you not ashamed to refuse to grant that God can create out of nothing? If he creates out of matter that already exists, how is he different from human beings?

“But where do evils come from?” you ask. Even if you do not know where they come from, should you for that reason bring in another evil while you seek to know about evils? Two absurdities follow from this. If you do not grant that God made the things that are out of things that were not, you will be all the more ignorant of where evils come from; and on top of that you bring in another evil, the claim that evil is uncreated. Think what it means: when you want to find the source of evils, you are both ignorant of it and add another one to it. Search for the origin of evils, and do not blaspheme God.

“And how do I blaspheme?” he says. When you make out that evils have a power equal to God’s, an uncreated power. For look at what Paul says: “For the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1, verse 20). But the devil would have both come from matter, so that nothing may be left by which we might come to know God.

For tell me, which is harder: to take what is by nature evil — if indeed there is any such thing; I am speaking on your own principles, since there is no such thing as evil by nature — and make it good, or even a partner in producing good? Or to make something out of nothing? Which is easier (I am speaking of qualities): to bring in a quality that does not exist, or to take a quality that exists and change it into its opposite? Where there is no house, to make the house; or, where it has been utterly destroyed, to make that very same house exist again? Why, as this is impossible, so is that: to make a thing into its opposite.

Tell me, which is harder: to make perfume, or to make filth work as perfume? Say which of these is easier — since we are subjecting God to our reasonings; no, not we, but you — to form eyes, or to make a blind man see while he stays blind, and see more sharply than one who has sight? To turn blindness into sight, and deafness into hearing? To me the other seems easier. Well then, do you grant God what is harder, and not grant him what is easier?

They also claim that souls are made of God’s own being. Do you see how many ungodly and absurd ideas are here? In the first place, wanting to show that evils are not from God, they bring in something more ungodly than that: that evils are equal to him in majesty, and that God existed before none of them — granting even them this great privilege! Next, they claim that evil cannot be destroyed; for if what is uncreated can be destroyed — you see the blasphemy! So it comes to this: either nothing belongs to God, if these do not; or these are God! Third, as I said before, on this point they defeat themselves and bring fresh anger down on their own heads. Fourth, they claim that disordered matter has such a built-in fitness. Fifth, that evil is the cause of God’s goodness, and that without it the Good would not have been good. Sixth, they block off from us the ways of coming to know God. Seventh, they bring God down into human beings, and even into plants and logs.

For if our soul is made of God’s being, and its passing into new bodies brings it at last into cucumbers and melons and onions, why, then God’s being will pass into cucumbers! If we say that the Holy Spirit shaped the temple of our Lord’s body in the Virgin, they laugh us to scorn; and if we say that he dwelt in that spiritual temple, again they laugh. Yet they themselves are not ashamed to bring God’s being down into cucumbers and melons and flies and caterpillars and donkeys, inventing a new fashion of idol worship. Let it not be, as the Egyptians have it, “The onion is God”; let it be, “God in the onion”!

Why do you shrink from the idea of God entering a body? “It is shocking,” he says. Why, then, your idea is far more shocking. But no, of course — how could it be? — the very thing that is shocking is not shocking, so long as it is into us that he enters! “But your idea really is shocking.” Do you see how filthy their ungodliness is?

But why do they not want the body to be raised? And why do they say the body is evil? Then tell me, by what do you know God? By what do you have knowledge of the things that exist? And the philosopher — by what means is he a philosopher, if the body contributes nothing to it? Deaden the senses, and then learn something of the things one needs to know! What would be more foolish than a soul, if from the start it had its senses deadened? If the deadening of just one part — I mean the brain — ruins it altogether, what would it be good for if all the rest were deadened? Show me a soul without a body. Do you not hear the physicians say that the presence of disease badly weakens the soul? How long will you put off hanging yourselves?

Is the body material? Tell me. “Of course it is.” Then you ought to hate it. Why do you feed it, why do you take care of it? You ought to get free of this prison.

And there is more. “God cannot overcome matter unless he grapples with it; for he cannot give it orders” — what weakness! — “until he closes with it and takes his stand through the whole of it,” so you say! A king does everything by giving commands; but God — not by commanding evil!

In short, if evil had no share in any good, it could not exist at all. For evil cannot exist unless it takes hold of some part of what belongs to virtue; so if it had once been wholly unmixed with virtue, it would have perished long ago. That is the condition of evils. Suppose a man is utterly dissolute and puts no restraint on himself at all: will he live ten days? Suppose a robber has no conscience in his dealings with anyone, and is like that even toward his fellow robbers: will he be able to live? Suppose a thief has no shame at all, does not know what it is to blush, and steals openly in public. It is not in the nature of evils to exist unless they have at least some small share in good. So, on these men’s own reasoning, it was God who gave evils their existence. Suppose a city of wicked men: will it stand? And let them be wicked not only toward what is good but toward one another. Why, such a city cannot possibly stand. Truly, “claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1, verse 22).

If bodily substance is evil, then all visible things exist to no purpose and in vain — water and earth and sun and air; for air is a body too, though not a solid one. So it is fitting to say, “The wicked have told me foolish things” (Psalm 119, verse 85). But let us not put up with them; let us stop our ears against them. For there is — yes, there is — a resurrection of bodies. The tomb that is in Jerusalem declares it, and so does the pillar he was bound to when he was flogged. For “we ate and drank with him,” it says. So let us believe in the resurrection and do what is worthy of it, so that we may attain the good things to come, through Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom be power and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and forever and ever. Amen.