Tertullian

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky?

“After that, Pentecost is a most joyous space for conferring baptisms; wherein, too, the resurrection of the Lord was repeatedly proved among the disciples, and the hope of the advent of the Lord indirectly pointed to, in that, at that time, when He had been…”

These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It is only the third hour of the day!

“The first infusion of the Holy Spirit into the congregated disciples took place at "the third hour." Peter, on the day on which he experienced the vision of Universal Community, (exhibited) in that small vessel, had ascended into the more lofty parts of the house…”

You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

“By thus departing from Judaism itself, when they exchanged the obligations and burdens of the law for the liberty of the gospel, they were fulfilling the psalm, "Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast away their yoke from us; "and this indeed (they did)…”

In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.

“Whence Aaron is called "Christ," from the "chrism," which is "the unction; "which, when made spiritual, furnished an appropriate name to the Lord, because He was "anointed" with the Spirit by God the Father; as written in the Acts: "For truly they were gathered together…”

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.

“For they both raised the dead, which God alone (can do), and restored the debilitated to their integrity, which none but Christ (can do); nay, they inflicted plagues too, which Christ would not do.”

But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God.”

“We who are without fear ourselves are not seeking to frighten you, but we would save all men if possible by warning them not to fight with God.”

At this, they yielded to Gamaliel. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and released them.

“The prisons there, and the bonds, and the scourges, and the big stones, and the swords, and the onsets by the Jews, and the assemblies of the heathen, and the indictments by tribunes, and the hearing of causes by kings, and the judgment-seats of proconsuls…”

All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

“But he was Moses still, even when he was not visible. So also Stephen had already put on the appearance of an angel, although they were none other than his human knees which bent beneath the stoning.”

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

“He is seen by Stephen, at his martyrdom by stoning, still sitting at the right hand of God [Acts 7:55] where He will continue to sit, until the Father shall make His enemies His footstool.”

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money.

“There is the (infamous) Simon of Samaria in the Acts of the Apostles, who chaffered for the Holy Ghost: after his condemnation by Him, and a vain remorse that he and his money must perish together, he applied his energies to the destruction of the…”

You have no part or share in our ministry, because your heart is not right before God.

“If you did know it, you ought to have known this also, that you should have nothing more to do with that profession of yours which, of itself, fore-chants the climacterics of others, and might instruct you of its own danger.”

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

“If Philip so "easily" baptized the chamberlain, let us reflect that a manifest and conspicuous evidence that the Lord deemed him worthy had been interposed.”

As Saul drew near to Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

“Indeed, when I hear that this man was chosen by the Lord after He had attained His rest in heaven, I feel that a kind of improvidence is imputable to Christ, for not knowing before that this man was necessary to Him; and because He…”

“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

“Then it was, too, that Paul, when he believed, was baptized; and this is the meaning of the precept which the Lord had given him when smitten with the plague of loss of sight, saying, "Arise, and enter Damascus; there shall be demonstrated to thee…”

In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which is translated as Dorcas), who was always occupied with works of kindness and charity.

“And so, if it were agreed that even the blessed apostles had granted any such indulgence (to any crime) the pardon of which (comes) from God, not from man, it would be competent (for them) to have done so, not in the exercise of discipline…”

“No, Lord!” Peter answered. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

“When, then, on being cursed, I smite (with my tongue, ) how shall I be found to have followed the doctrine of the Lord, in which it has been delivered that "a man is defiled, not by the defilements of vessels, but of the things…”

and said, “You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

“Besides, the Lord would not have been censured for partaking of food with Jews, but with heathens, from whose board the Jewish discipline excludes (its disciples).”

He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.

“That Peter is struck, that Stephen is overwhelmed by stones, that James is slain as is a victim at the altar, that Paul is beheaded has been written in their own blood.”

Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

“We can point you also to the deaths of some provincial rulers, who in their last hours had painful memories of their sin in persecuting the followers of Christ. Vigellius Saturninus, who first here used the sword against us, lost his eyesight.”

They traveled through the whole island as far as Paphos, where they found a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus,

“Both he and that other magician, who was with Sergius Paulus, (since he began opposing himself to the same apostles) was mulcted with loss of eyes.”

But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith.

“Many attempts were also wrought against the apostles by the sorcerers Simon and Elymas, but the blindness which struck (them) was no enchanter's trick.”

For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

“Now who was it that said; "Let there be light? " And who was it that said to Christ concerning giving light to the world: "I have set Thee as a light to the Gentiles" -to them, that is, "who sit in darkness and in…”

But some believers from the party of the Pharisees stood up and declared, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”

“He then cursorily touches on his own conversion from a persecutor to an apostle-confirming thereby the Acts of the Apostles, in which book may be found the very subject of this epistle, how that certain persons interposed, and said that men ought to be circumcised…”

After much discussion, Peter got up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that the Gentiles would hear from…

“Moreover, in that dispute about the observance or non-observance of the Law, Peter was the first of all to be endued with the Spirit, and, after making preface touching the calling of the nations, to say, "And now why are ye tempting the Lord, concerning…”

Now then, why do you test God by placing on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?

“And since there are some who sometimes assert that they have nothing to do with the law (which Christ has not dissolved, but fulfilled), sometimes catch at such parts of the law as they choose; plainly do we too assert that the law has deceased…”