Suburban Banshee wrote a lovely column here

https://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com/?wref=bif

about the reading for Sunday, June 29th, celebrating the Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.  Her discussion is both hilarious and informative. The reading from Acts 12:5-17 is about the rescue of Saint Peter from the dungeons of Herod, after Herod had executed Saint James the Apostle. An angel shows up and kicks/pokes Peter to wake him and tell him to get dressed and follow the angel out. She says of this violence,

“Must have been an angelic drill sergeant.”

Then Suburban Banshee makes a case for this particular angel of the Lord, as actually being Jesus, because when the angel says ‘Follow me’ he uses the phrase that Jesus used when he said “Follow me” elsewhere. 

… in which case we might be talking male bonding through mild bodily harm to a buddy.

The whole discussion of the passage is full of this kind of commentary: Greek words and how they were used in the New Testament, parallel passages, callbacks to other moments.

SB’s discussion goes beyond the actual Sunday reading and discusses the rest of the story. When Peter shows up where other disciples are hiding out, a maid servant answers the door and recognizing him (they all know he was arrested and is likely to die swiftly), rushes off to tell the others that he is safe, leaving him outside the locked door, knocking and knocking. The blog mistress points out that this is a gentle call back to the moment when a maidservant recognizes Peter in the courtyard of the high priest and accuses him of being a follower of Jesus. 

It’s very lovely commentary. 

After Peter was set free by the angel, all the soldiers who were guarding him, including the ones who were chained to him as they all slept, were executed by Herod, in order to prevent them from telling their story.

In Acts 5:19-26, Peter and John, together, were set free by an angel. They had been put in prison by the authorities for preaching, and when they were sent for, the jailers opened the inner prison doors and found no-one. Peter and John were discovered preaching in the temple, but the authorities didn’t dare move in on them because the people were convinced that they came from God. 

Herod figured he would short circuit that discussion by killing everyone who knew about the prison break.

This is an important set up to the story of Saint Paul being imprisoned and freed by an angel in Acts 16. An earthquake sets Paul and Silas free. When the jailer realizes that the doors of the prison have been opened he is going to kill himself. His prisoners have escaped so he will be executed. Paul calls out to him not to do it because his prisoners are all still accounted for. The jailer and his whole family promptly convert. 

I find this progression absolutely fascinating.

Here is an engraving of Saint Paul from the National Gallery of Art in DC. Public domain like the heading which is Saint Peter by an anonymous artist around 1616.