Acts 22:23
And as they cried out and threw off their garments, and cast dust into the air,
Open Acts 22:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Vociferantibus autem eis, et projicientibus vestimenta sua, et pulverem jactantibus in aërem,
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- κραυγαζόντων τε αὐτῶν καὶ ῥιπτούντων τὰ ἱμάτια καὶ κονιορτὸν βαλλόντων εἰς τὸν ἀέρα,
Haydock's commentary
Threw off their garments. Or pulling them open to shew themselves ready to stone him. (Witham)
This is nicely descriptive of the fury of a populace, who, when unable to vent their rage in some more effectual way, indignantly throw into the air, and against the object of their indignation, such harmless trifles as dust, clothes, &c. (Menochius)
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 XLVIII on Acts xxii. 17-20
See how he thrusts himself (into danger), I came, he says, after that vision, “to Jerusalem. I was in a trance,” etc. Again, this is without witness: but observe, the witness follows from the result. He said, “They will not receive thy testimony:” they did not receive it. And yet from calculations of reason the surmise should have been this, that they would assuredly receive him. For I was the man that made war upon the Christians: so that they ought to have received him. Here he establishes two things: both that they are without excuse, since they persecuted him contrary to all likelihood or calculation of reason; and, that Christ was God, as prophesying things contrary to expectation, and as not looking to past things, but fore-knowing the things to come. How then does He say, “He shall bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and children of Israel?” ( Acts ix. …
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XLVIII on Acts xxii. 17-20
(Recapitulation.) ( b ) But let us review what has been said. ( a ) “And when I was came again to Jerusalem,” etc. ( v. 17 .) How was it, that being a Jew, and there brought up and taught, he did not stay there? Nor did he abide there, unless he had a mind to furnish numberless occasions against him: everywhere just like an exile, fleeing about from place to place. ( c ) “While I prayed in the temple,” he says, “it came to pass that I was in a trance.” (To show) that it was not simply a phantom of the imagination, therefore “while he prayed” (the Lord) stood by him. And he shows that it was not from fear of their dangers that he fled, but because they would “not receive” his “testimony.” ( v. 18 .) But why said he “They know I imprisoned?” ( v. 19 .) Not to gainsay Christ, but because he wished to learn this which was so contrary to all reasonable expectation. …
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).