Acts 17:24
God, who made the world, and all things therein; he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Deus, qui fecit mundum, et omnia quæ in eo sunt, hic cæli et terræ cum sit Dominus, non in manufactis templis habitat,
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ὁ θεὸς ὁ ποιήσας τὸν κόσμον καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ, οὗτος οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς ὑπάρχων κύριος οὐκ ἐν χειροποιήτοις ναοῖς κατοικεῖ
Haydock's commentary
God...dwelleth not in temples. He who is infinite cannot be confined to space; nor stand in need of what human hands can furnish. Temples are not for God, but for man. It is the latter who derives assistance from them. The same may be observed of all exterior acts of worship. They are serviceable, inasmuch as they proceed from, or powerfully assist, interior devotion, by the impressions which exterior objects leave upon the soul. The reciprocal action of one upon the other, in our present state of existence, is great and inevitable. (Haydock) See chap. vii. above, ver. 48.
God, indeed, dwelleth in the temple, yes, and in the soul of the just man, but he is not confined there, as the idols were to their temples. Hence the prayer of Solomon at the consecration of the temple: if heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thy immensity, how much less this house, which I have erected? God dwelleth there, then, to receive the prayers and sacrifices of the faithful, but not as though he needed any thing. See ver. 25.
God is not contained in temples; so as to need them for his dwelling, or any other uses, as the heathens imagined. Yet by his omnipresence, he is both there and every where. (Challoner)
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
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XIX. That the Philosophers Have Attained to Some Portion of Truth
Since, then, the Greeks are testified to have laid down some true opinions, we may from this point take a glance at the testimonies. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, is recorded to have said to the Areopagites, “I perceive that ye are more than ordinarily religious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with the inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if ha …
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XI. Abstraction from Material Things Necessary in Order to Attain to the True Knowledge of God
“For it was not from need that God made the world; that He might reap honours from men and the other gods and demons, winning a kind of revenue from creation, and from us, fumes, and from the gods and demons, their proper ministries,” says Plato. Most instructively, therefore, says Paul in the Acts of the Apostles: “The God that made the world, and all things in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped by men’s hands, as if He needed anything; seeing that it is He Himself that giveth to all breath, and life, and all things.” And Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect, says in this book of the Republic , “that we ought to make neither temples nor images; for that no work is worthy of the gods.” And he was not afraid to write in these very words: “There will be no need to build temples. …
Tertullian Against Praxeas, Early Manifestations of the Son of God, as Recorded in the Old Testament; Rehearsals of His Subsequent Incarnation
But you must not suppose that only the works which relate to the (creation of the) world were made by the Son, but also whatsoever since that time has been done by God. For “the Father who loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand,” loves Him indeed from the beginning, and from the very first has handed all things over to Him. Whence it is written, “From the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God;” to whom “is given by the Father all power in heaven and on earth.” “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son”, from the very beginning even. For when He speaks of all power and all judgment, and says that all things were made by Him, and all things have been delivered into His hand, He allows no exception (in respect) of time, because they would not be all things unless they were the things of all time . …
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XXXVIII on Acts xvii. 16, 17
Observe how he meets with greater trials among the Jews than among the Gentiles. Thus in Athens he undergoes nothing of this kind; the thing goes as far as ridicule, and there an end: and yet he did make some converts: whereas among the Jews he underwent many perils; so much greater was their hostility against him. “His spirit,” it says, “was roused within him when he saw the city all full of idols.” Nowhere else were so many objects of worship to be seen. But again “he disputed with the Jews in the synagogue, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain of the philosophers of the Stoics and Epicureans encountered him.” ( v. 18 .) It is a wonder the philosophers did not laugh him to scorn, speaking in the way he did. “And some said, What does this babbler mean to say?” insolently, on the instant: this is far from philosophy. …
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XXXVIII on Acts xvii. 16, 17
(Recapitulation.) ( b ) “And while Paul waited,” etc. ( v. 16 .) It is providentially ordered that against his will he stays there, while waiting for those others. ( a ) “His spirit,” it says, “within him” παρωξύνετο . It does not mean there anger or exasperation: just as elsewhere it says, “There was παροξυσμὸς between them.” ( ch. xv. 30 .) ( c ) Then what is παρωξύνετο ? Was roused: for the gift is far removed from anger and exasperation. He could not bear it, but pined away. “He reasoned therefore in the synagogue,” etc. ( v. 17 .) Observe him again reasoning with Jews. By “devout persons” he means the proselytes. For the Jews were dispersed everywhere before (mod. text “since”) Christ’s coming, the Law indeed being henceforth, so to say, in process of dissolution, but at the same time (the dispersed Jews) teaching men religion. …
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).