Acts 8:26–40

Verse 26. This is desert. In construction, whether we regard the Latin or Greek, to be desert, may either agree to the way leading to Gaza, or the city itself, which formerly had been almost destroyed. Witham.—To the site of old Gaza, which was then a desert; above which was built the new Gaza, nearer the sea. V.—Beza frequently makes very free with Saint Luke, and in his annotations, an. 1556, says the text is wrong; it cannot be so.

Verse 27. An eunuch. It is likely a proselyte converted to the Jewish religion. He shews his zeal and devotion, says Saint John Chrysostom not only by coming to Jerusalem, but by reading the prophets in his chariot. Witham.

Verse 31. How can I, unless some one shew me, [3] or be a guide to me, as in the Greek. Let every one, and especially the unlearned, take good notice of these words, not to wrest the Scriptures to his own perdition. To follow his own private judgment, or his private spirit, is to make choice of a blind and incompetent guide, as to the sense of the Scriptures, and the mysteries of faith. See the preface to the gospel of Saint John. Witham.—It appears this eunuch was not one of those, who are now so commonly seen, who think the Scripture is every where plain, and the sense open to every body. Such would do much better to acknowledge, that they stand in need of a guide. Grotius, hic.—S. Jerom, in his letter to Paulinus, printed at the head of the Latin Bibles, shews the necessity of an interpreter. The apostles themselves could not understand the Scriptures till Christ gave them the knowledge; tunc aperuit illis sensum ut intelligerent scripturas. Lu. 24:45.

Verse 32–33. As a sheep, or a lamb, and so forth The eunuch, by divine Providence, was now reading the 53d chap. of Isaias, which is of Christ, and his sufferings.—In humility his judgment was taken away. The sense seems to be, that Christ having humbled himself, so as to undergo an unjust judgment, or condemnation to die on the cross, hath been again raised from the dead, and delivered from that judgment by his glorious resurrection, and ascension. Witham.

Verse 32–33. As a sheep, or a lamb, and so forth The eunuch, by divine Providence, was now reading the 53d chap. of Isaias, which is of Christ, and his sufferings.—In humility his judgment was taken away. The sense seems to be, that Christ having humbled himself, so as to undergo an unjust judgment, or condemnation to die on the cross, hath been again raised from the dead, and delivered from that judgment by his glorious resurrection, and ascension. Witham.

Verse 36. Here is water. This shews, that baptism is to be given with water. Witham.

Verse 38. We are not to suppose that in the administration of the sacraments in the primitive Church, nothing more was done than what we read, totidem litteris, in the Scripture. S. Augustin answers this, when he says: “insomuch that he saith, Philip baptized him, he would have it understood, that all things were done, which though in the Scripture, for brevity sake, they are not mentioned, yet by order of tradition we know were to be done.”