For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.
All Commentaries on Acts 28:20 Go To Acts 28
John Chrysostom
AD 407
that it might not be in any man's power to accuse me, and to say what (naturally) might suggest itself (τὰ παριστάμενα), that having escaped their hands I have come for this: not to bring evils upon others, but myself fleeing from evils. I was compelled to appeal unto Cæsar. Observe them also speaking more mildly to him. We beg, say they: and wish to speak in exculpation of those (at Jerusalem). (e) Whereas they ought to accuse them, they plead for them: by the very fact of their exonerating them, they do in fact accuse them. (b) For this very thing was a proof that they knew themselves exceedingly in the wrong. Had they been confident, they would at any rate have done this, so that he should not have it in his power to make out his story in his own way, and besides they shrank from coming. And by their many times attempting they showed * * (f) As for this sect, it is known to us, say they, that it is everywhere spoken against.
