Acts 9:9
And he was there three days, without sight, and he did neither eat nor drink.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et erat ibi tribus diebus non videns, et non manducavit, neque bibit.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- καὶ ἦν ἡμέρας τρεῖς μὴ βλέπων, καὶ οὐκ ἔφαγεν οὐδὲ ἔπιεν.
Haydock's commentary
Three days. During the time, he neither eat nor drank, to testify his sorrow for his past conduct. He likewise spent the time in prayer, to prepare himself for the reception of grace. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xix.)
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
Tertullian On Baptism, Another Objection: Abraham Pleased God Without Being Baptized. Answer Thereto. Old Things Must Give Place to New, and Baptism is Now a Law
Here, then, those miscreants provoke questions. And so they say, “Baptism is not necessary for them to whom faith is sufficient; for withal, Abraham pleased God by a sacrament of no water, but of faith.” But in all cases it is the later things which have a conclusive force, and the subsequent which prevail over the antecedent. Grant that, in days gone by, there was salvation by means of bare faith, before the passion and resurrection of the Lord. But now that faith has been enlarged, and is become a faith which believes in His nativity, passion, and resurrection, there has been an amplification added to the sacrament, viz., the sealing act of baptism; the clothing, in some sense, of the faith which before was bare, and which cannot exist now without its proper law. …
St Augustine Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist, Chapter 21
Chapter 21. 47. Petilianus said: "Accordingly, as we have said, the Lord Christ cried, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he said, Who art Thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Christ of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.’ And so presently it goes on, ‘But Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man.’ See here how blindness, coming in punishment of madness, obscures the light in the eyes of the persecutor, not to be again expelled except by baptism! Let us see, therefore, what he did in the city. …
St Augustine The Correction of the Donatists, Chapter 6
22. For who can possibly love us more than Christ, who laid down His life for His sheep? And yet, after calling Peter and the other apostles by His words alone, when He came to summon Paul, who was before called Saul, subsequently the powerful builder of His Church, but originally its cruel persecutor, He not only constrained him with His voice, but even dashed him to the earth with His power; and that He might forcibly bring one who was raging amid the darkness of infidelity to desire the light of the heart, He first struck him with physical blindness of the eyes. …
St Augustine The Harmony of the Gospels, Of Some Who are Mad Enough to Suppose that the Books Were Inscribed with the Names of Peter and Paul
16. For when they made up their minds to represent Christ to have written in such strain as that to His disciples, they bethought themselves of those of His followers who might best be taken for the persons to whom Christ might most readily be believed to have written, as the individuals who had kept by Him on the most familiar terms of friendship. And so Peter and Paul occurred to them, I believe, just because in many places they chanced to see these two apostles represented in pictures as both in company with Him. For Rome, in a specially honourable and solemn manner, commends the merits of Peter and of Paul, for this reason among others, namely, that they suffered [martyrdom] on the same day. Thus to fall most completely into error was the due desert of men who sought for Christ and His apostles not in the holy writings, but on painted walls. …
St John Chrysostom A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily XIX on Acts viii. 26, 27
“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.” ( ch. ix. 1, 2 .) He fitly mentions Paul’s zeal, and shows that in the very midst of his zeal he is drawn. “Yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter,” and not yet sated with the murder of Stephen, he was not yet glutted with the persecution of the Church, and the dispersion. Lo, this was fulfilled which was spoken by Christ, that “they which kill you shall think they offer worship to God.” ( John xvi. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Marcella
1. When Abraham is tempted to slay his son the trial only serves to strengthen his faith. When Joseph is sold into Egypt, his sojourn there enables him to support his father and his brothers. When Hezekiah is panic-stricken at the near approach of death, his tears and prayers obtain for him a respite of fifteen years. If the faith of the apostle, Peter, is shaken by his Lord’s passion, it is that, weeping bitterly, he may hear the soothing words: “Feed my sheep.” If Paul, that ravening wolf, that little Benjamin, is blinded in a trance, it is that he may receive his sight, and may be led, by the sudden horror of surrounding darkness, to call Him Lord Whom before he persecuted as man.