1 The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, of all things which Jesus began to do and to teach,
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VERS. 1.-- *I made a discourse.* That is, I wrote: because to write is to work. Or he says it thus, because by his deeds he deserved to be the writer of the Gospel. *I made.* The whole book of the Gospel is called one discourse, in that it has one sense: or the singular stands for the plural. The Gospel is a good announcement, by which is announced rest after labour, a kingdom after servitude, life after death. *Of all things.* Of the sayings and deeds of Christ which he judged worthy of his office or fit for his dispensation. *O Theophilus.* Theophilus is the same as friend of God, or lover of God: and if thou art a friend of God, it is written for thee. *Which Jesus began to do.* From the baptism of John by which Jesus was baptized, *until the day* on which he was taken up into heaven: because Luke wove the discourses concerning that whole time, who at the end of the Gospel wrote thus: *When he had blessed, he departed from them and was carried into heaven. To do.* He appoints or instructs a good teacher, one who does what he teaches.
2 Until the day on which, giving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the apostles whom he had chosen, he was taken up.
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VERS. 2.-- *Giving commandment to the apostles* to preach the Gospel *through the Holy Spirit,* through whom the Gospel was preached, because he inspired the words and bestowed confidence. Or, *giving commandment through the Holy Spirit,* that is, what the Son commands, this the Holy Spirit also commands. Or, he gave the commandment on account of the Spirit, because he would not command unless the Spirit were about to come. *He chose.* This turns to the praise of the apostles, whose acts he purposes to write. *Taken up.* Taken up by the Divinity, or by a cloud, as true man.
3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them, and speaking of the kingdom of God.
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VERS. 3.-- *Alive.* A living and proper body, not a phantasmal one, which the apostles also recognized as most well known. Or alive, in that after death he was living. Or alive, that is, no more to die. *Through days.* Yet he did not appear to them through forty continuous days: for John says that after the day of the resurrection four other days intervened. After which he appeared again through forty: because he had been dead for forty hours, for forty days he confirms that he lives. And by the forty a type of the present age may be understood, in which Christ is engaged in the Church: or because man, consisting of four elements, is instructed against the transgression of the Decalogue.
4 And eating together with them, he commanded them, that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard (saith he) by my mouth.
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VERS. 4.-- *Eating together with them.* He announces the signs of a true body, because not by one sense of the body, but by sight, by hearing, by touch, by appearing, by speaking, by eating together, he proved that he had risen. *The promise,* which he promised through Joel, as is had in what follows: and if it was made by Christ, yet it will be fulfilled by the Father. Or it is called *of the Father,* because it is promised in his Word, that is, in Christ.
5 For John indeed baptized with water: but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.
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VERS. 5.-- *For John.* When the Lord said: For John baptized with water, but you, etc., *as far as* that which was not done in the baptism of John. Baptism is given in two natures, namely the bodily and the spiritual: because the man who is baptized consists of two: namely of body and of soul, yet baptism is one, as the man is one. *But you,* etc. When Peter denied, the apostles were not baptized; not with water, but with the spirit: for after the resurrection it was said: *But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.* For they had not yet been confirmed by the resurrection of Christ and by the mission of the Spirit. But as circumcision was not necessary to the just before it was commanded to Abraham and to his posterity: so after the sacrament of the New Testament, that is baptism, was given in the place of circumcision by the Lord saying: *Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit*, etc., it is certain that none belongs to the body of Christ save the baptized, apart from those to whom the passion is reckoned in place of baptism. Likewise it is written when Paul was baptized: and it is not written when the other apostles were baptized: but we ought to understand that they were baptized on account of that: *Unless a man be born again,* etc.
6 They therefore who were come together, asked him, saying: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?
7 But he said to them: It is not for you to know the time or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power:
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VERS. 7.-- *It is not for you to know.* He does not say, it will not be, but *it is not:* noting that they are still weak, and therefore not fit for the knowing of the secret: but when he says: *It is not for you to know,* he shows that he himself knows, whose are all things that are the Father's, but that it is not expedient for them to know, but that they should so live as though they were to be judged daily. *Which the Father.* The time of that kingdom, he says, is so secret that it lies open only to the knowledge of the Father, *but you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit,* that what through the weakness of the flesh you cannot do, you may be able to do out of the power of the Holy Spirit. *In his own power.* This he said excusably as true man, but there is only one power of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: the Son also is the power of the Father.
8 But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.
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VERS. 8.-- *But you shall receive.* The knowledge of the times is taken away, but the divine help of which they stand in need is applied: in this manner, when something is taken from children, another thing is given lest they be utterly saddened. *Of the Holy Spirit coming upon you.* When the Spirit shall come upon you, he will not bring the kingdom of Israel, or the kingdom of God in Israel, as you think, but he will bestow upon you the power of bearing witness of me, and the time of that kingdom is so far off, that first the fame of the Gospel shall run through not only Jerusalem, but all the borders of Judaea and of Samaria, and even the bounds of the world round about. *In Jerusalem and in all Judaea.* The consequence of order is preserved in the names of the places: to Jerusalem succeeds the nearest province of Judaea, to which Samaria is joined by situation, and thereafter the fellowship of the whole earth is brought in. *In Jerusalem.* Mystically: in the vision of peace, in the confession of the true faith: in the keeping of the commandments of God: and he foretold that they would preach among those who shall have made themselves strangers from the earth, through whom, as through the spokes of a wheel, from the middle of the earth where he wrought salvation, spiritual grace and saving doctrine flowed out through the whole world.
9 And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight.
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VERS. 9.-- *And when he had said these things.* Mark records it otherwise, saying: *And the Lord Jesus indeed, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven*. But because Luke added more significantly: *When he had said these things, he was lifted up,* he shows that, those discourses being finished which he had recorded, the Lord ascended the heavens.
10 And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments.
11 Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you have seen him going into heaven.
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VERS. 11.-- *Galilaeans, why stand you looking up to heaven?* In whom there ought to be a more prudent understanding, because the Galilaeans excelled the rest of the Jews in wisdom. Or, Galilaeans, the changeable, because by the instability of their sense they will have forgotten the commandments of God.
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount that is called Olivet, which is nigh Jerusalem, within a sabbath day's journey.
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VERS. 12.-- *Then they returned,* etc. The return of the apostles from Mount Olivet to Jerusalem signifies the Church, which, ascending from the active into the contemplative, descends again into the active manner of life. For Mount Olivet was called by the ancients the mount of three lights: namely of the lamp shining out from the temple, and of the sun rising on the other side, and of the oil, a natural light on the mount itself: which three things befit perfection, on account of the light of the divine Word shining out from the Church, on account of the brightness of the sun of justice, on account of the lustre of a pure conscience.
13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James of Alpheus and Simon Zelotes and Jude the brother of James.
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VERS. 13.-- *And when they were come in.* In the Greek it is put thus: *When they had entered the city, they went up into the upper room, where were abiding Peter,* etc. In the Greek the order of the names is thus: *Peter and Andrew, James and John, Simon Zelotes and Judas of James. The upper room,* etc. It is a place in the upper part, signifying that they who are lifted from the earth ascend to the higher things of knowledge and of virtue. The upper room is called the third roof, a figure of charity built up upon faith and hope. But charity is poured forth in our hearts through the Spirit. *Peter and John.* Peter is put first, because he is prince and shepherd. Peter and John are deservedly put first, who ran together to the tomb, because they loved more than the rest. The first (if it is right to say it) loved more than the rest: the other, Jesus loved most. The catalogue of the apostles is therefore set down, lest outside these any false ones be received: and equal places of each are set down, the degrees of merits distinguishing them. These are the twelve sons of Jacob; the twelve fountains of the desert, which Israel found in Elim; the twelve loaves of proposition; the twelve stones on the vestment of the high priest; the twelve signs of the zodiac; the twelve stones of the altar; the twelve stones lifted out of the Jordan; the twelve oxen under the brazen sea; the twelve stars in the crown of the spouse; the twelve foundations; the twelve gates; the twelve months of the year; the twelve hours of the day; the twelve fruits of the tree of life. *Zelotes.* Zelotes is the same who in the Gospels is called Chananaeus. Chana is interpreted *zeal.* For he was of a village of Galilee where the Lord turned water into wine. He, after James his brother, ruled the Church of Jerusalem. The son of perdition perishing, the number of the apostles remained imperfect, for according to the likeness of the moon the Church waxes and wanes: but old things pass away, and new things are made.
14 All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
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VERS. 14.-- *Mary,* etc. The Virgin is distinguished from the women, who nevertheless is sometimes called woman not for corruption, but for sex. Behold, the beginning of the nascent Church is adorned with the flower of virginity. *In the midst of the brethren.* That is, of the sons, whose Father in heaven is one. Peter is said to have stood in the midst: as it were condescending with a common compassion. This example is to be taken by the shepherds of the Church. This number of a hundred and twenty agrees with the age of Moses, that as under this number, Moses being dead, Jesus succeeded, who led the people into the land of promise, so to the old law the princedom of Christ succeeded in the Church, leading the true Israel to the kingdom of heaven.
15 In those days Peter rising up in the midst of the brethren, said (now the number of persons together was about an hundred and twenty):
16 Men, brethren, the scripture must needs be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was the leader of them that apprehended Jesus:
17 Who was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.
18 And he indeed hath possessed a field of the reward of iniquity, and being hanged, burst asunder in the midst: and all his bowels gushed out.
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VERS. 18.-- *He possessed a field.* Not because he possessed a field, but because his was the price of the field, who sold the Lord of life. The land of the living being lost, Judas possesses the field of blood and of death by the eternal memory of his crime and of his name. Yet he did not possess the potter's field bought with the price of blood, who forthwith punished in himself the crime of the betrayal, but *he possessed* is said for *he caused it to be possessed.* Some ridiculously expound the field possessed by Judas to be hell. Others think that he possessed that field, from this, that he was buried in it with the strangers. *The bowels.* The bowels, which are the seat of fraud, burst asunder by so great a crime, were not able to contain themselves. But deservedly are the bowels poured out through the seat of guile, not through the place of the kiss, that is, the mouth with which he kissed Jesus, though with a false surface, but through the other in which was the venom of hidden malice.
19 And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: so that the same field was called in their tongue, Haceldama, that is to say, The field of blood.
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VERS. 19.-- *Their,* that is, of them that dwell in Jerusalem, because although both spoke Hebrew, yet the property of the tongue of the men of Jerusalem differed from the Galilaeans, of whom the apostles were: which is shown in the passion of the Lord, where Peter also, unwilling, was betrayed by his own tongue to be a Galilaean.
20 For it is written in the book of Psalms: Let their habitation become desolate, and let there be none to dwell therein. And his bishopric let another take.
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VERS. 20.-- *Desolate, and let there be none,* etc. Until Matthias, chosen in his stead, be taken up. Or, let it not be Judas himself who dwells in it, but let another be taken up in his stead, who was judged unworthy of repentance.
21 Wherefore of these men who have companied with us, all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us,
22 Beginning from the baptism of John, until the day wherein he was taken up from us, one of these must be made a witness with us of his resurrection.
23 And they appointed two, Joseph, called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.
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VERS. 23.-- *Two.* Clement relates that these two who were set up for the lot of the apostolate were of the number of the seventy disciples. *Who was surnamed.* He lingers in the praise of Barnabas: because Matthew has it for praise, that he is chosen by lot. The praise of Barnabas is heaped up, lest he should seem to be rejected as unworthy: which was afterwards declared; because with Paul he is ordained apostle of the Gentiles, having been reserved for that office. *Justus.* It is either Latin or Hebrew: and it is interpreted *sparing,* or *lifted up. And Matthias,* who is interpreted *given,* or *the gift of God*: to whom the gift of the apostolate was conferred by the Lord, or he is interpreted *the cloth of God.* Deservedly is he passed over at small worth in the praise of men, who was just, says Arator.
24 And praying, they said: Thou, Lord, who knowest the heart of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen,
25 To take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own place.
26 And they gave them lot, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.