When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
All Commentaries on Acts 7:54 Go To Acts 7
John Chrysostom
AD 407
When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
See, once more, the wrong-doers in trouble. Just as the Jews are perplexed, saying, What are we to do with these men? so these also are cut to the heart. Acts 4:16 And yet it was he that had good right to be incensed, who, having done no wrong, was treated like a criminal, and was spitefully calumniated. But the calumniators had the worst of it in the end. So true is that saying, which I am ever repeating, Ill to do, is ill to fare. And yet he (in his charges against them) resorted to no calumny, but proved (what he said). So sure are we, when we are shamefully borne down in a matter wherein we have a clear conscience, to be none the worse for it.— If they desired, say you, to kill him, how was it that they did not take occasion, out of what he said, that they might kill him? They would fain have a fair-seeming plea to put upon their outrage. Well then, was not the insulting them a fair plea? It was not his doing, if they were insulted: it was the Prophet's accusation of them. And besides, they did not wish it to look as if they killed him because of what he had said against them— just as they acted in the case of Christ; no, but for impiety: now this word of his was the expression of piety. Wherefore, as they attempted, besides killing him, to hurt his reputation also, they were cut to the heart. For they were afraid lest he should on the contrary become an object of even greater reverence. Therefore, just what they did in Christ's case, the same they do here also. For as He said, You shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of God Matthew 26:64, and they, calling it blasphemy, ran upon Him; just so was it here. There, they rent their garments; here, they stopped their ears. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him.
