Acts 13:12

If the apostles understood these (figurative meanings of the Law) better, of course they were more careful (with regard to them than even apostolic men). But I will descend even to this point of contest now, making a separation between the doctrine of apostles and their power . Discipline governs a man, power sets a seal upon him; apart from the fact that power is the Spirit, but the Spirit is God. What, moreover, used (the Spirit) to teach? That there must be no communicating with the works of darkness. Observe what He bids. …

9. Haste, Lord, and act; stir us up, and call us back; inflame us, and draw us to Thee; stir us up, and grow sweet unto us; let us now love Thee, let us “run after Thee.” Do not many men, out of a deeper hell of blindness than that of Victorinus, return unto Thee, and approach, and are enlightened, receiving that light, which they that receive, receive power from Thee to become Thy sons? But if they be less known among the people, even they that know them joy less for them. For when many rejoice together, the joy of each one is the fuller in that they are incited and inflamed by one another. Again, because those that are known to many influence many towards salvation, and take the lead with many to follow them. And, therefore, do they also who preceded them much rejoice in regard to them, because they rejoice not in them alone. …

As soon as they were ordained they went forth, and hasted to Cyprus, that being a place where was no ill-design hatching against them, and where moreover the Word had been sown already. In Antioch there were (teachers) enough, and Phœnice too was near to Palestine; but Cyprus not so. However, you are not to make a question of the why and wherefore, when it is the Spirit that directs their movements: for they were not only ordained by the Spirit, but sent forth by Him likewise. “And when they were come to Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.” Do you mark how they make a point of preaching the word to them first, not to make them more contentious? The persons mentioned before “spake to none but to Jews only” ( ch. xi. 19 ), and so here they betook them to the synagogues. …

(Recapitulation.) “And when they were come to Salamis,” the metropolis of Cyprus, “they preached the word of God.” ( v. 5 .) They had spent a year in Antioch: it behooved that they should go hither also (to Cyprus) and not sit permanently where they were (the converts in Cyprus): needed greater teachers. See too how they remain no time in Seleucia, knowing that (the people there) might have reaped much benefit from the neighboring city (of Antioch): but they hasten on to the more pressing duties. When they came to the metropolis of the island, they were earnest to disabuse ( διορθωσαι ) the proconsul. But that it is no flattery that (the writer) says, “he was with the proconsul, a prudent man” ( v. 7 ), you may learn from the facts; for he needed not many discourses, and himself wished to hear them. And he mentions also the names. …

[2.] But what means, “according to the flesh?” According to what is in sight; according to the life that now is; according to the discipline of the Gentiles. Then, lest he should seem to be at variance with himself, (for he had convinced both the Proconsul, ( Acts xiii. 12 .) and the Areopagite, ( Acts xvii. 34 .) and Apollos; ( Acts xviii. 26 : through Aquila and Priscilla) and other wise men, too, we have seen coming over to the Gospel;) he said not, No wise man, but, “Not many wise men.” For he did not designedly ( ἀποκεκληρωμένως ) call the ignorant and pass by the wise, but these also he received, yet the others in much larger number. And why? Because the wise man according to the flesh is full of extreme folly; and it is he who especially answers to the term “foolish,” when he will not cast away his corrupt doctrine. …