Atos 17
Origen of Alexandria · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Atos 17:27
"You are near, Lord, and all your commandments are truth." God says elsewhere, "I am a God who is near and not a God who is far away, says the Lord." For the power of God is everywhere according to the word of creation and providence. Knowing this, Paul, addressing the Greeks as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, says, "We do not seek God far from us, for in him we live and move and are," and "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the earth." He is thus, for his part, close, but if we ourselves make no effort, though he be close, to draw near to him, we will not enjoy his nearness. For this reason, sinners are far from God: "Behold, those who distance themselves from you perish." But the just ones strive to approach God, for he is not present to them just as a creator, but he even shares himself with them: "And Moses alone draws near to God, but the rest do not draw near." According to the degree of will and perfection, the one who approaches God is that one about whom Paul says, "The one joined to the Lord is one spirit." — PALESTINIAN CATENA ON PSALM 118.151
Atos 17:28
"Being as one outside the law to those outside the law." He came to Athens, he found philosophers, and he did not use the words of the prophets or from the law, but as one perhaps recalling this pagan teaching from a school of rhetoric he spoke to the men of Athens. For [Paul] said, "Just as some of your poets have said, 'For we are his offspring too.' " In this place, he was as one outside the law to those outside the law, in order to gain the lawless. It is as if he were to say "I was doing nothing contrary to the law in making this concession to them, but I was keeping myself bound by the law of Christ, in order to gain the lawless." — COMMENTARY ON 1 CORINTHIANS 43