Acts 13:15
And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them, saying: Ye men, brethren, if you have any word of exhortation to make to the people, speak.
Open Acts 13:15 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Post lectionem autem legis et prophetarum, miserunt principes synagogæ ad eos, dicentes : Viri fratres, si quis est in vobis sermo exhortationis ad plebem, dicite.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν ἀπέστειλαν οἱ ἀρχισυνάγωγοι πρὸς αὐτοὺς λέγοντες· Ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί, εἴ τίς ἐστιν ἐν ὑμῖν λόγος παρακλήσεως πρὸς τὸν λαόν, λέγετε.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XXVIII on Acts xiii. 4, 5
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. …
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XXVIII on Acts xiii. 4, 5
(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. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily XXI on Rom. xii. 4, 5
And this is a species of teaching too. For “if ye have any word of exhortation,” it says, “speak unto the people.” ( Acts xiii. 15 .) Then to show that it is no great good to follow after virtue unless this is done with the proper rule, he proceeds, “He that giveth” ( μεταδιδοὺς , imparteth), “let him do it with simplicity.” For it is not enough to give, but we must do it with munificence also, for this constantly answereth to the name of simplicity. Since even the virgins had oil, still, since they had not enough, they were cast out from everything. “He that defendeth” (A.V. ruleth, προἵστάμενος ,) “with diligence;” for it is not enough to do undertake the defence. …
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).