Annotation CCXXVI

”It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.” — Acts 9:5

On the true reading of this passage.

Thomas Cajetan, in this place, following the judgment of Erasmus, says that in the Greek text this sentence is not had — “It is hard for thee to kick against the goad” — nor likewise the clause which follows, “And trembling and astonished, he said, Lord, what wilt thou have me do?” But that this is false, all the Greek copies printed [by the press] convince, in which these [words] are thus read: “Σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν. Τρέμων τε καὶ θαμβῶν εἶπεν, κύριε, τί με θέλεις ποιῆσαι” [It is hard for thee to kick against the goads. And trembling and amazed he said, Lord, what wilt thou have me do?]. And that words of this kind ought to be placed in this passage, the very narration of Paul, in the 26th chapter of Acts, confirms — where the Apostle, narrating what happened to him on the road to Damascus, thus says:¹ “When we had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking in the Hebrew tongue, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.’” Thus exactly the narration of Luke squares with the narration of Paul; for if he [Luke] had passed over these words, he would not have fully narrated the words of God to Paul.