After the death of Ananias and Sapphira, great fear and great reverence fell upon the city. The apostles met daily in Solomon's Portico on the eastern side of the Temple Mount, performing many signs and wonders. The people gathered in such numbers that they began to carry their sick out into the streets and lay them on cots and pallets, that as Peter came by his very shadow might fall on some of them.
The shadow healed: 'and they were all healed.' The crowds came also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits. The episode is a foundational text for the Catholic and Orthodox theology of the saint's mediation — the holy person becoming an instrument of grace by his very physical presence. It is also the earliest scriptural attestation of the principle of contact relics: the shadow of Peter touches what Peter himself does not, and the healing flows through Peter's holiness.