Homily 55 — Acts 28, verses 17 to 31

“And it came to pass that after three days Paul called together the leading men of the Jews. And when they had come together, he said to them, ‘Brothers, though I have done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was handed over as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. When they had examined me, they wanted to let me go, because there was no cause for death in me. But when the Jews spoke against it, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar — not that I had anything to accuse my nation of. For this reason, then, I have called for you, to see you and to speak with you, because it is for the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.’” [a]

He wanted to clear both himself and others. Himself, so that they would not accuse him and hurt themselves by doing so; and the others, so that it would not look as though the whole thing was their doing. For a report was likely going around that he had been handed over by the Jews, and that was enough to alarm them. So he addresses this, and defends his own conduct. “How, then, is it reasonable that they should hand you over without a cause?” The Roman governors, he says, are my witnesses; they wanted to let me go.

“How was it, then, that they did not let you go?” “When the Jews spoke against it,” he says. Notice how he softens his account of their charges against him. If he had wanted to make matters worse, he could have used these facts to bear down on them harder. That is why, he says, “I was compelled to appeal to Caesar.” So his whole speech is forgiving in spirit. “What then? Did you do this so that you might accuse them?” No, he says: “not that I had anything to accuse my nation of,” but so that I might escape the danger. For it is for your sake “that I am bound with this chain.” That is how far I am, he says, from any hostile feeling toward you.

Then they too were so won over by his speech that they, in turn, made excuses for those of their own nation: “And they said to him, ‘We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers who came here has reported or spoken any harm about you’” (verse 21). Neither through letters nor through people have they made known any harm about you.

“Nevertheless, we want to hear it from you yourself”: “But we desire to hear from you what you think” (verse 22). And then they got ahead of him by showing their own feelings: “For as for this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against.” “And when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging. To them he explained and testified to the kingdom of God, trying to persuade them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets, from morning till evening. And some believed the things that were spoken, and some did not believe” (verses 23 and 24). They did not say, “We speak against it,” but, “it is spoken against.” [b]

Then he did not answer at once, but gave them a day, and they came to him, and he reasoned with them, it says, “both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. And some believed, and some did not believe. And when they did not agree among themselves, they left, after Paul had spoken one word: ‘The Holy Spirit spoke well through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying, “Go to this people, and say: You will indeed hear, but will not understand; and you will indeed see, but will not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, so that they may not see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them”’” (verses 25 to 27). But when they were leaving, divided against each other, then he reproaches them — not because he wanted to reproach those who did not believe, but to strengthen those who did.

“Isaiah spoke well,” he says to them. So it is to the Gentiles that it is given to know this mystery. No wonder, then, if they spoke against it: this was foretold from the beginning. Then again he stirs their jealousy over the Gentiles: “Let it be known to you, then, that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen to it. And when he had said these words, the Jews left, and had a great debate among themselves. And Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house, and welcomed all who came in to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things about the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him. Amen” (verses 28 to 31). This shows the freedom he now had: he was unhindered in Rome, he who had been hindered in Judea; and he stayed there teaching for two years. And what of the years after these? [c]

“When they had examined me,” he says, “they found nothing in me” (verse 18). When they ought to have rescued him, they “handed him over into the hands of the Romans.” And such was the excess of it: because they had no power to condemn him, they handed him over as a prisoner. “Not that I had anything to accuse my nation of” (verse 19) have I come. See how friendly the expression is: “my nation.” He does not treat them as strangers.

He does not say, “I do not accuse them,” but, “I have nothing to accuse them of,” even though he had suffered so many evils at their hands. But he says nothing of all this, and he does not make his speech offensive. Nor does he seem to be sparing them as a favor. For this was the main point: to show that they handed him over as a prisoner to the Romans, when those were the ones who ought to have condemned him. “For this reason,” he says, “I wanted to see you” (verse 20): so that no one would be able to accuse me and say what would naturally occur to anyone — that I escaped their hands and have come here for this. I have not come to bring trouble on others; I myself was fleeing from trouble. “I was compelled to appeal to Caesar.” [f]

Notice that they, too, speak to him more mildly. “We ask,” they say, and they want to speak in defense of those at Jerusalem. When they ought to accuse them, they plead for them; and by the very act of clearing them, they in fact accuse them. For this very thing was proof that they knew they were very much in the wrong. If they had been confident, they would at least have done this, so that he would not be able to tell the story his own way; and besides, they shrank from coming. And by their many attempts they showed… “As for this sect,” they say, “we know that it is spoken against everywhere” (verse 22). True — but people are also persuaded everywhere, as in fact they were here: “some were persuaded, and some did not believe. And when they had appointed him a day,” and so on (verses 23 to 25).

See again how he silences them not by miracles but by the law and the prophets, and how we always find him doing this. And yet he could have worked signs as well; but then it would no longer have been a matter of faith.

In fact, this itself was a great sign: his reasoning from the law and the prophets. Then, so that you will not think it strange that they did not believe, he brings in the prophecy that says, “You will indeed hear, but will not understand” — true now more than then — “and you will indeed see, but will not perceive” (verse 26) — more now than then. This is not said of the first group, but of the unbelievers. “How, then? Did it go against the prophecy that those others believed?” “Go,” it says, “to this people” — that is, to the unbelieving people. He did not say this to insult them, but to take away the stumbling block. “Let it be known to you, then,” he says, “that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They,” he says, “will listen to it too” (verse 28). “Then why are you reasoning with us? Did you not know this?” “Yes, but I did it so that you might be persuaded, and so that I might clear myself and give no one a handle against me.”

It was the unbelievers who withdrew. But see how they no longer form plots against him. For in Judea they held a kind of tyranny. Why, then, did the providence of God arrange for him to go there, when the Lord had said, “Get out of Jerusalem quickly” (Acts 22, verse 18)? So that their wickedness might be shown, and Christ’s prophecy that they would not bear to hear him might prove true; so that everyone might learn that he was ready to suffer anything; and so that what happened might be a comfort to those in Judea, for there too the brothers and sisters were suffering many grievous evils.

But if he suffered like this while preaching Jewish teachings, how would they have put up with him if he had preached the teachings of Christ’s glory? While he was “purifying himself” (Acts 21, verse 26) he was unbearable; how could he have been bearable while preaching? What do you charge him with? What have you heard?

He had said nothing of the kind. He was simply seen, and he stirred up everyone against him (Acts 24, verse 18). Well might he, then, be set apart for the Gentiles; well might he be sent far away, destined there too to speak to the Gentiles. First he calls the Jews; then, having shown them the facts, he comes to the Gentiles. [h]

“The Holy Spirit spoke well,” and so on. But this saying, “The Spirit said,” is nothing to wonder at, for an angel too is said to speak what the Lord says. But it is not so with the Spirit. When someone speaks of the things an angel said, he does not say, “The angel spoke well,” but, “The Lord spoke well.” “The Spirit spoke well” — as if to say, “It is not me you are refusing to believe.” But God foreknew this from the beginning.

“He reasoned,” it says, “with boldness, unhindered” (verse 31). For it is possible to speak with boldness and yet be hindered. Nothing checked his boldness; but in fact he also spoke unhindered. “He reasoned,” it says, about “the things concerning the kingdom of God” — notice, nothing about the things of the senses, nothing about the things of this present life. But what are we to say of his affairs after the two years?

The writer leaves the hearer thirsting for more. The pagan authors do the same in their writings, for knowing everything makes the reader dull and jaded. Or else he does this because he could not set it out from his own personal knowledge. [j]

Notice the order of God’s providence: “I have been much hindered from coming to you… having a great desire these many years to come to you” (Romans 15, verses 22 and 23). But he fed them with hopes: I am in a hurry to go to Spain, and “I hope,” he says, “to see you on my journey, and to be sent on my way there by you, once I have first enjoyed your company for a while” (Romans 15, verse 24). Of this he says, I will come and be refreshed together with you, “in the fullness of the blessing of the good news” (Romans 15, verse 29); and again, “I am going to Jerusalem to serve the saints” (Romans 15, verse 25). This is the same thing he has said here: “I came to bring alms to my nation” (Acts 24, verse 17).

Do you notice how he did not foresee everything — that sacred and divine head, the man higher than the heavens, who had a soul able to take in everything at once, the holder of the first place — Paul? The man whose very name, to those who know him, is enough to rouse the soul, to make it watchful, to shake off all sleep!

Rome received him in chains, coming up from the sea, saved from a shipwreck — and Rome was saved from the shipwreck of error. Like an emperor who has fought a sea battle and won, he entered that most imperial city. He was nearer now to his crown. Rome received him in chains, and saw him crowned and proclaimed the victor. There he had said, “I will be refreshed together with you”; but this was the beginning of a race once more, and he added trophies to trophies, a man who could not be beaten. Corinth kept him two years, and Asia three, and this city two for this time. He entered it a second time as well, when he also reached his end. So he escaped that time, and after filling the whole world, he brought his life to a close in this way. [l]

Why did you want to learn what happened after these two years? Those years were just like these: chains, tortures, fights, imprisonments, ambushes, false accusations, deaths, day after day. You have seen only a small part of it? However much you have seen, such is he in all the rest. It is like the sky: if you see one part of it, go wherever you like and you will see it just like this. It is like the sun: though you see its rays only in part, you can guess the rest. So it is with Paul. You have seen his acts in part; they are all like this throughout, teeming with dangers. He was a heaven with the Sun of Righteousness in it — not a sun like the one we see — so that the man was better than heaven itself.

Do you think this is a small thing — that when you say “the Apostle,” everyone at once thinks of him, just as when you say “the Baptist,” they at once think of John? To what could one compare his words? To the sea, or even to the ocean? But nothing is equal to them. His streams are more abundant than this sea of ours, purer and deeper, so that one would not be wrong to call Paul’s heart both a sea and a heaven, the one for its purity, the other for its depth.

He is a sea whose voyagers are not people sailing from city to city, but people sailing from earth to heaven. If anyone sails on this sea, he will have a prosperous voyage. On this sea it is not winds, but, in place of winds, the Holy and Divine Spirit that carries along the souls sailing on it. There are no waves here, no rock, no sea monsters: all is calm. It is a sea calmer and safer than a harbor, with no bitter salt water, but a pure spring, sweeter than honey, and brighter and clearer than the sun. It is a sea without precious stones or purple dye like ours, but with treasures far better than those. Whoever wants to go down into this sea needs no divers and needs no oil, but a great deal of love for humankind; and he will find in it all the good things that are in the kingdom of heaven. He will even be able to become a king, to take the whole world into his possession, and to be held in the highest honor. Whoever sails on this sea will never suffer shipwreck, but will know all things well.

But just as those who have no skill in this visible sea of ours are suffocated when they try to dive in it, so it is with that other sea. That is exactly what happens to the heretics, when they attempt things beyond their strength. So one must know the depth, or else not venture in. If we are to sail on this sea, let us come well girded. “I could not,” he says, “speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to fleshly ones” (First Corinthians 3, verse 1). Let no one without endurance sail on this sea. Let us provide ourselves with ships — that is, zeal, earnestness, prayers — so that we may cross the sea in quiet. For this truly is the living water.

It is as if someone were given a mouth of fire: such a mouth does the man get who knows Paul well. It is as if someone had a sharp sword: so, again, such a person becomes invincible. And to understand Paul’s words, a pure life is needed as well. That is why he said, “You have become people who need milk, since you are dull of hearing” (Hebrews 5, verses 11 and 12). For there is, there truly is, a sickness of hearing. Just as a weak stomach could not take in wholesome food that it finds hard to digest, so a soul that has become swollen and feverish, slack and limp, could not receive the word of the Spirit. Listen to the disciples saying, “This is a hard saying: who can listen to it?” (John 6, verse 60). But if the soul is strong and healthy, everything is very easy, everything is light; it becomes loftier and more buoyant, better able to soar and lift itself on high.

Knowing these things, then, let us bring our soul into a healthy state. Let us strive to be like Paul, and imitate that noble soul, hard as diamond, so that, walking in the steps of his life, we may be able to sail through the sea of this present life, come to the harbor where there are no waves, and attain the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father and the Holy Spirit together, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.