Acts 10:10

10. Trance Ecstasy. The Greek εκστασις , derived from εκ , out of, and στασις , standing or position. Mentally it designated the mind or soul out of its ordinary status in the body. This the word expressed in very different degrees. First, any ordinary excitement by which the mind was out of its ordinary state, as by surprise, Mark 5:42; Luke 5:26; or terror, Mark 16:8. Second, a withdrawal of the soul from the use of its outer senses to a condition in which its own conceptions appeared realities. Those conceptions might be framed by the soul itself, as in reveries and dreams; or they might be shaped to the soul by some other mind, as in revelations and in imparted visions. So this trance of Peter was dictated to his conception from a divine source; but not so the appearance of the angel to Cornelius, nor that of Jesus to Saul; for these are not called trance, the appearing object being not a mere conception, but an independent reality. Third, some have held that the soul may entirely leave the body, inanimate like a corpse, and depart to distant regions and deal with external objects. We know no such instance in Scripture except at death, as of Dives, or that of Paul, (2 Corinthians 12:2-4,) who certainly thought it in his own case a possibility. Pliny, the philosopher, however, narrates the case of one whose soul left his body, and in its absence his body was burned by his enemies! Augustine (“De Civitate Dei”) relates the case of a presbyter named Restitutus, whose body could be so abandoned by his soul.