Fathers

Loading…

What the Fathers say

Acts 17:29

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

For lest, when he says, "Being the offspring of God," they should again say, Thou bringest certain strange things to our ears, he produces the poet. He does not say, "Ye ought not to think the Godhead like to gold or silver," ye accursed and execrable: but in more lowly sort he says, "We ought not." For what says he? God is above this? No, he does not say this either: but for the present this - "We ought not to think the Godhead like unto such," for nothing is so opposite to men. …

Homily on Acts 38 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

"As some of your own poets have also said." One wise man, Aratus, said of Zeus: "We are his offspring." But the apostle says of the Creator: "We are His… offspring," — not asserting that the Creator and Zeus are one and the same — God forbid! — but applying this expression properly to the Creator, just as he called the altar an altar of Him (the Creator), and not of the one whom the Athenians worshipped. He called us the offspring of God, that is, the closest relatives, since from our race God was pleased to be born on earth. …

Commentary on Acts ↗