Acts 12:3
And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also. Now it was in the days of the Azymes.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Videns autem quia placeret Judæis, apposuit ut apprehenderet et Petrum. Erant autem dies Azymorum.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ἰδὼν δὲ ὅτι ἀρεστόν ἐστιν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις προσέθετο συλλαβεῖν καὶ Πέτρον (ἦσαν δὲ ἡμέραι τῶν ἀζύμων),
Haydock's commentary
The days of the azymes. By this we may know about the time when St. James was executed. Peter was to be reserved till after the Pasch, because it was not usual for the Jews to put any one to a violent death on a festival day. They would not damp the joy of the solemnity by such actions. (Menochius)
Nothing can be more illiberal, nothing more unfounded, and unjust, than the accusation advanced by the translators of the Bible dedicated to King James. In their preface they say, that the Catholics keep the words, azymes, holocaust, pasch, &c. in their version, purposely "to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof, it may be kept from being understood." See the splendid Oxford edit. an. 1770.
So far from this, we open the window, to let in the light; we break the shell, that the kernel may be eaten: we put aside the curtain, that a sight may be had into the holy place; we remove the cover of the well, that the good and humble may get to the water of life. If we retain certain words in the original tongue, it is for the same reason as our adversaries retain others, such as Amen, Sabaoth, Alleluia, Jehova, &c.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XXVI on Acts xii. 1, 2
(Recapitulation.) “At that time,” it says, “Herod the king stretched forth his hands to afflict certain of the Church.” ( v. 1 .) Like a wild beast, he attacked all indiscriminately and without consideration. This is what Christ said: “My cup indeed ye shall drink, and with the baptism wherewith I am baptized, shall ye be baptized.” ( Mark x. 39 .) ( b ) “And he killed James the brother of John.” ( v. 2 .) For there was also another James, the brother of the Lord: therefore to distinguish him, he says, “The brother of John.” Do you mark that the sum of affairs rested in these three, especially Peter and James? ( a ) And how was it he did not kill Peter immediately? It mentions the reason: “it was the day of unleavened bread:” and he wished rather to make a display ( ἐκπομπεὕσαι ) with the killing of him. “And when he saw it pleased the Jews.” ( v. …
Eusebius The Church History of Eusebius, The Martyrdom of James the Apostle
4. And then, as the divine Scripture says, Herod, upon the death of James, seeing that the deed pleased the Jews, attacked Peter also and committed him to prison, and would have slain him if he had not, by the divine appearance of an angel who came to him by night, been wonderfully released from his bonds, and thus liberated for the service of the Gospel. Such was the providence of God in respect to Peter.
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).