Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsActs 7
English College of Douai–Rheims
Read Acts 7 in the BibleActs 7:48
Not in houses.
The vulgar Heretics allege this place against the corporal being of Christ in the B. Sacrament & in Churches: by which reason they might have driven him out of all houses, Churches, and corporal places, when he was visible in earth. But it is meant of the Divinity only, & spoken to correct the carnal Jews: ◦ who thought God either so to be contained, compassed, and limited to their Temple, that he could be no where else, or at least that he would not hear or receive men's prayers and sacrifices in the Churches of the Gentiles, or elsewhere, out of the said Temple. And so as it maketh nothing for the Sacramentaries, no more doth it serve for such as esteem Churches and places of public prayer no more convenient nor more holy than any other profane houses or chambers. For though his person or virtue be not limited to any place, yet it pleaseth him condescending to our necessity and profit, to work his wonders and to be worshipped of us in holy places rather than profane.
- ◦ God is not contained in place, yet he will be worshipped in one place more than in another.
Acts 7:58
They stoned him.
Read a marvelous narration in S. Augustine of one stone, that hitting the Martyr on the elbow, rebounded back to a faithful man that stood near. ◦ Who keeping and carrying it with him, was by revelation warned to leave it at Ancona in Italy: whereupon a Church or Memory of S. Steven was there erected, and many miracles done after the said Martyr's body was found out, and not before. Aug. to. 10. ser. 38. de diversis in edit. Paris.
- ◦ Relics.
Original Douay–Rheims Annotations — English College of Douai–Rheims. CC0 1.0
Acts 7:33
Holy ground.
[1] If that apparition of God himself or an Angel, could make the place and ground holy, and to be used of Moyses with all signs of reverence and fear: [2] how much more the corporal birth, abode, and wonders of the Son of God in Jewry, and his personal presence in the B. Sacrament, may make that country and all Christian Churches & altars holy? And it is the greatest blindness that can be, to think it superstition to reverence any things or places in respect of God's presence or wondrous operation in the same. See S. Hierom. ep. 17. 18. 27. of the holy land.