Acts 23:2

"And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth. Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?" What hardihood, what shamelessness! Therefore Paul set him down with a rebuke "God shall smite thee thou whited wall." Accordingly Ananias himself is put to a stand, and dares not say a word: only those about him could not bear Paul's boldness. They saw a man ready to die. For the wrong was not to be put up with, for to hold his peace under such treatment would have been to embolden the tribune to sacrifice him to his enemies, as a person who might be insulted with impunity. He both shows that he suffers willingly what he suffers, and thus excuses himself before them, not that he wished to excuse himself to them-since as for those, he even strongly condemns them-but for the sake of the people. "Violating the law, commandest thou me to be beaten?" Well may he say so: for to kill a man who had done them no injury, and that an innocent person, was a violating of the law. For neither was it abuse that was spoken by him, unless one would call Christ's words abusive, when He says, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, for ye are like unto whited walls." True, you will say: but if he had said it before he had been beaten, it would have betokened not anger, but boldness.

They are the words of boldness, rather than of anger; he did not choose to appear in a contemptible light to the tribune. For suppose the tribune himself had spared to scourge him, only as he was about to be delivered up to the Jews, his being beaten by their servants would have more emboldened him: this is why Paul does not attack the servant, but the person who gave the order. But that saying, "Thou whited wall, and dost thou sit to judge me after the law?" is instead of, Being thyself a culprit: as if he had said, And thyself worthy of stripes without number. See accordingly how greatly they were struck with his boldness; for whereas the point was to have overthrown the whole matter, they rather commend him.

We read in the Acts of the Apostles that someone, ordered by Ananias the high priest, struck Paul because he said, "God will strike you, oh whitewashed wall." And even to this day, the Ebionites, under orders from their illegitimate high priest, strike the apostle of Jesus Christ with their calumnies, and Paul says to such a high priest of the Word, "God will strike you," and such a high priest is beautiful from without and a whitewashed wall but "within full of dead bones and every filth." But why do I speak about Paul …? It is my Lord, Jesus Christ, himself who speaks: "I have given my back to scourgings, and my cheeks to slaps, and my face I did not turn from the shame of being spit upon." The simple know of these things as happening at one particular time, when Pilate scourged him, when the Jews plotted against him. I, however, see Jesus daily giving his back to scourgings: go into synagogues of the Jews, and see Jesus scourged by their blasphemous speech. See those gathered from among the nations plotting against the Christians, how they seize Christ, and he gives his back to scourgings. Consider the Word of God insulted, reviled, hated by unbelievers. See that he gave his cheeks to be slapped, and after he taught "Should someone slap you on one cheek, offer him the other," that he himself did the same.

"Know ye not that we are to judge angels? " Again, of how open censure (does) the free expression (find utterance), how manifest the edge of the spiritual sword, (in words like these): "Ye are already enriched! ye are already satiated! ye are already reigning!" and, "If any thinks himself to know, he knoweth not yet how it behaves him to know I" Is he not even then "smiting some one's face," in saying, "For who maketh thee to differ? What, moreover, hast thou which thou hast not received?

Then, as the same Josephus doth witness, king Agrippa made Ismael, the son of Phebeus, priest. But when he was sent by the people to Rome about a certain suit, and was kept there by Popea, wife to Nero, Agrippa putteth in his place one Josephus, whose name was Chabus, the son of Simon.