Acts 7:30
And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the desert of mount Sina, an angel in a flame of fire in a bush.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et expletis annis quadraginta, apparuit illi in deserto montis Sina angelus in igne flammæ rubi.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Καὶ πληρωθέντων ἐτῶν τεσσεράκοντα ὤφθη αὐτῷ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ τοῦ ὄρους Σινᾶ ἄγγελος ἐν φλογὶ πυρὸς βάτου·
Haydock's commentary
In a flame of fire, in a bush.3 Literally, in the fire of a flame of the bush. The sense must be, that the bush seemed on fire, and in a flame, and yet was not consumed. (Witham)
3 In igne flammæ rubi, en phlogi puros batou. In flamma ignis rubi.
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 XV on Acts vi. 8
Whence, I pray you, did that grace bloom upon the countenance of Stephen? (Recapitulation.) The writer gives him this report above, that he was “full of faith.” ( ch. vi. 8 ). For it is possible to have a grace that does not consist in works of healing: “For to one is given the grace of the Spirit ( 1 Cor. xii. 8, 9 ) in such and such wise ( τοιὣσδε ). But here, it seems to me, it says that he was also gracious to look at: “They saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.” “Full of faith and of power”: ( v. 15 ) which is also the character given of Barnabas “he was a good man, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.” ( ch. xi. 24 .) Whence we learn that the sincere and innocent are, above all others, the men to be saved, and that these same are also more gracious. “Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words.” ( v. …
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XVI on Acts vii. 6, 7
“And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.” ( v. 30 .) Do you mark that it is not hindered by lapse of time? For when he was an exile, when a stranger, when he had now passed much time in a foreign land, so as to have two sons, when he no longer expected to return, then does the Angel appear to him. The Son of God he calls an Angel, as also he calls Him man. (Appears) in the desert, not in a temple. See how many miracles are taking place, and no word of Temple, no word of Sacrifice. And here also not simply in the desert, but in the bush. “When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him.” ( v. 31 .) Lo! he was deemed worthy of the Voice also. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Rusticus
8. Others may think what they like and follow each his own bent. But to me a town is a prison and solitude paradise. Why do we long for the bustle of cities, we whose very name speaks of loneliness? To fit him for the leadership of the Jewish people Moses was trained for forty years in the wilderness; and it was not till after these that the shepherd of sheep became a shepherd of men. The apostles were fishers on lake Gennesaret before they became “fishers of men.” But at the Lord’s call they forsook all that they had, father, net, and ship, and bore their cross daily without so much as a rod in their hands.
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).