Ananias signifies in the Hebrew tongue, _sheep_. The gentle sheep then baptized the impious Saul, and made him the pious Paul. He baptized the wolf and made him a lamb. He changed his name with his character; and he was then a true proclaimer of God's church, who had before afflicted it with fierce persecution. He would flee from the machination of the Jewish people, and consented to be let down in a basket over the wall: not because he would not suffer death for the faith of Christ, but because he would flee from immature death; for he had first to gain many a man to God by his great wisdom, and afterwards with great honour stretch out his neck to martyrdom. Much greater torments he suffered afterwards for Christ's name, than he had ordered for {393} christian men before his conversion. Saul the impious scourged the christians, but after his conversion the pious Paul for the name of Christ was often scourged. Once he was stoned almost to death, so that his persecutors left him for dead, but in the morning he arose and went about his preaching. He was frequently in great peril, both by sea and by land, in the waste, among thieves, from hunger and from thirst, and from many watchings, from cold, and from nakedness, and from many prisons: he so hastened with his preaching, as though he would bring all mankind to God's kingdom: as well with precepts as with prayers and with letters, he ever stimulated to the will of God. He was led to heaven as far as the third flooring, and there he saw and heard God's secret, which he might not make known to any man. He bewailed with weeping the sins of other men, and to all the faithful he showed fatherly love. By his handicraft he toiled for his own and his companions' support, and in addition thereto there was nothing known in true piety which his instruction did not confirm. The other apostles lived, by God's command, by their teaching, free from danger; but, nevertheless, Paul alone, who by worldly craft was a tent-wright, would not receive the sustenance allowed, but by his own toil provided for his own and his companions' need. His precepts and his acts are to us inscrutable, but happy will he be who obeys his admonitions with diligence. GOSPEL. Dixit Simon Petrus ad Jesum: et reliqua. "He forsook all worldly things, and followed Jesus only," as this gospel says, which ye now at this service have heard. "At that time Peter the apostle said to Jesus, Behold we have left all worldly things, and follow thee only: what wilt thou do for us in reward thereof?" etc.