And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one that worshipped God, did hear: whose heart the Lord opened to attend to those things which were said by Paul.
Glossa Ordinaria
A seller of purple. A queen clothed in royal purple, or a weaver of purple, or one selling purple, signifies the Church, which sells purple while she pours out blood for Christ, that life may be purchased. Purple rightly designates blood by colour and by nature, because it is made from the blood of shellfish. Lydda constrained the apostle, with his companions, to enter her house: because the Church received with devout heart the preaching rejected by the Jews.
English is machine-translated from the public-domain Latin (Glossa Ordinaria, Migne, Patrologia Latina 113-114, 1852; digital text from Corpus Corporum, mlat.uzh.ch), since no public-domain English translation exists. It is not a scholarly translation. Please report errors.