Acts 9:18

ὡς for ὡσεὶ with אAB.

παραχρῆμα omitted with אABCHP. Not represented in Vulg.

18. ὡς λεπίδες, as it had been scales. The word λεπίς is used by Hippocrates as a technical term for a disease of the eye, and λεπίζω is found (Tob 3:17; Tob 11:13) used to describe the peeling-process by which such a disease was cured. καὶ ἐλεπίσθη�, ‘and the whiteness pilled away from the corners of his eyes’ (A.V.). λευκώματα is rendered in the margin (Tob 2:10) ‘white films’; they were clearly something like the ‘scales’ which caused Saul’s blindness, and a process for the cure thereof is called (Acts 3:17) λεπίσαι τὰ λευκώματα, ‘to scale away the whiteness of Tobit’s eyes.’ St Paul (Acts 22:11) ascribes his blindness to the glory of the heavenly light, and it may have been some secretion, caused by the intensity of that vision, which formed over them, and at his cure fell away. Some have thought that his constant employment of an amanuensis, and the mention of the large characters in which he wrote in his Epistle to the Galatians (Acts 6:11) ‘ye see in what large letters I have written to you,’ are indications that the Apostle suffered permanently in his eyesight from the heavenly vision.

On the recovery of St Paul’s sight, Chrysostom remarks καὶ ἵνα μὴ νομίσῃ φαντασίαν τις εἶναι τὴν πήρωσιν, διὰ τοῦτο αἱ λεπίδες.

καὶ�, and he recovered his sight. Render thus also in the previous verse.

καὶ�, and he arose and was baptized. In the fuller account (Acts 22:16) we learn that the exhortation to be baptized was part of the message with which Ananias was charged, and so he was divinely commissioned to receive Saul thus into the Christian Church.