What Does Acts 10:25 Mean?

(25) **Fell down at his feet, and worshipped him.**—The attitude was the extremest form of Eastern homage. So Jairus had bowed down before Jesus (Matthew 9:18), so St. John bowed before the angel (Revelation 22:8). Peter’s answer, in strong contrast with the words and acts, the very ceremonial, of those who claim to be his successors, shows that he looked on it as expressing a homage such as God alone could rightly claim. For man to require or receive it from man was an inversion of the true order, The language of the angel in Revelation 22:9—“See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant . . . worship God”—implies the same truth. Both bear their witness, all the more important because not controversial, against any *culius* of saints or angels that tends to efface the distinction between man and God. We must not pass over the parallelism between St. Peter’s words and those of St. Paul at Lystra, “We also are men of like passions with yourselves” (Acts 14:15).