And there came there certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.
Read Chapter 14
John Chrysostom
AD 407
it says. These too they often drag: but be not thou angry; on the contrary, preach thou the word with gentleness. Hath one insulted you? Hold your peace, and bless if you can, and thou also hast preached the word, hast given a lesson of gentleness, a lesson of meekness. I know that many do not so smart under wounds, as they do under the blow which is inflicted by words: as indeed the one wound the body receives the other the soul. But let us not smart, or rather feeling the smart let us endure. Do you not see the pugilists, how, with their heads sorely battered, they bite their teeth into their lips, and so bear their smarts kindly? No need to grind the teeth, no need to bite (the lips). Remember your Master, and by the remembrance you have at once applied the remedy. Remember Paul: reflect that thou, the beaten hast conquered, and he the beater, is defeated; and by this have you cured the whole. It is the turning of the scale a moment and you have achieved the whole: be not hurried aw...
O that Jewish madness! Among a people that had so honored the Apostles, they had the hardihood to come, and to stone Paul. And they dragged him out of the city, being afraid of those (others)—Supposing he had been dead. (k) Howbeit, etc. and came into the city.
Indeed children of the devil, that not in their own cities only, but also beyond them, they did these things, and as much made it their study to make an end of the preaching, as the Apostles were in earnest to establish it!— and having persuaded the multitude and stoned Paul, they dragged him out of the city. (e) So then, the Gentiles regarded them as gods, but these dragged him, out of the city, supposing he had been dead. Having persuaded the multitude— for it is not likely that all thus reverenced them. In the very city in which they received this reverence, in the same were they thus terribly ill treated. And this also profited the beholders. Lest any man, he says, should think of me above that which he sees me to be, or that he hears anything from me.
