so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 12. Aprons. It is likely such as he used in working, cured diseases, and cast out devils. What wonder, then, if God work miracles by the relics of martyrs and saints, to testify the sanctity of his servants, and to encourage others both to give them a reasonable honour, and to imitate their lives? Witham.—Thus was fulfilled the promise which Christ had made his disciples, that is that they should perform greater miracles than he himself had done. S. Chrysostom repeats more than once, that these clothes raised the dead, and that the apostles’ shadow chased away all maladies, and triumphed over death. Perhaps the unprejudiced reader may observe in this verse some reason for paying due regard to the relics, or whatever has belonged to the saints.