Acts 3:17
And now, brethren, I know that you did it through ignorance, as did also your rulers.
Open Acts 3:17 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et nunc, fratres, scio quia per ignorantiam fecistis, sicut et principes vestri.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Καὶ νῦν, ἀδελφοί, οἶδα ὅτι κατὰ ἄγνοιαν ἐπράξατε, ὥσπερ καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες ὑμῶν·
Haydock's commentary
You did it through ignorance, but such as could not excuse the chief of you. (Witham)
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 IX on Acts iii. 12
“And His name, through faith in His name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.” Seeking to declare the matter ( ζητὥν τὸ πρἅγμα εὶπεἵν ), he straightway brings forward the sign: “In the presence,” he says, “of you all.” As he had borne hard upon them, and had shown that He Whom they crucified had risen, again he relaxes, by giving them the power of repentance; “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.” ( v. 17 .) This is one ground of excuse. The second is of a different kind. As Joseph speaks to his brethren, “God did send me before you ( Gen. xlv. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John, John 18.37
[3.] But let us not merely read of these things, but bear them in our mind; the crown of thorns, the robe, the reed, the blows, the smiting on the cheek, the spittings, the irony. These things, if continually meditated on, are sufficient to take down all anger; and if we be mocked at, if we suffer injustice, let us still say, “The servant is not greater than his Lord” ( c. xiii. 16 ); and let us bring forward the words of the Jews, which they uttered in their madness, saying, “Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil” ( c. viii. 48 ); and, “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub.” ( Luke xi. 15 .) For on this account He bare all these things, in order that we might walk in His footsteps, and endure those mockings which disturb more than any other kind of reproach. …
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).