Chapter V

_THE IMPRISONMENT AT CÆSAREA._
A.D. 58.

STANDING then on the stairs, and beckoning to the crowd with his chained hands to invite their attention, the Apostle began to address them in the Hebrew language. Charmed by the accents of their own beloved tongue, the multitude listened with the deepest silence while he tried to dispel their prejudices against himself. Beginning with the well-known circumstances of his birth and education at Tarsus and Jerusalem, he declared that he was a Jew like themselves, that he had been brought up according to the strictest requirements of the Law, and had hated, persecuted, and endeavoured to extinguish the sect of the Christians (Acts xxii. 3–5). He then proceeded to recount the wonderful circumstances of his conversion on the way to Damascus[1081], of his blindness, cure, and baptism (Acts xxii. 6–16), and how on his return to Jerusalem, as he was praying in the Temple, he fell into a trance[1082], saw that Saviour who had appeared to him on his memorable journey, and was commanded by Him to leave Jerusalem, and preach the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts xxii. 17–21).

Up to this point the multitude listened to the Apostle with the deepest attention, but no sooner had he spoken of his mission to the Gentiles, than they broke out into such furious cries of rage and indignation that the previous clamour appeared as nothing in comparison. The thought of uncircumcised heathen being placed on an equality with the children of Abraham was unbearable. _Away_, they cried, _with such a fellow from the earth, it is not fit that he should live_, and while some flung dust into the air, others cast off their clothes, as if they would stone him on the spot (comp. Acts vii. 58). This fresh outbreak of frantic violence filled the commandant with still greater perplexity. Unable to understand the language in which the Apostle spake, he could only infer from the results it produced that his prisoner had been guilty of some enormous offence. He therefore gave orders that he should be conveyed into the castle, and, since other means had failed, that the secret of his guilt should be ascertained by torture. As in the case of the Saviour’s crucifixion[1083], a centurion was deputed to superintend the scourging, and like a common malefactor the Apostle was on the point of being stretched or fastened to the post to receive the lashes, when he turned to the centurion and enquired whether it was lawful to scourge one who was a Roman citizen and uncondemned (Acts xxii. 25)? Astonished at such a question, the centurion ordered the scourging to be suspended, and hurrying to the commandant, bade him take heed what he was doing, for the prisoner was a Roman citizen. Upon this Lysias himself hastened to the spot and enquired whether the news was true, and on his replying in the affirmative, remarked that he had purchased this privilege for a large sum, on which St Paul informed him that he was free-born (Acts xxii. 28). Thus assured of the true position of his prisoner, the commandant ordered the instruments of torture to be instantly removed, and was in no little alarm at the turn affairs had taken.

For the present, indeed, he was obliged to keep him in the Tower, but on the morrow he determined to make a second effort to ascertain the nature of his prisoner’s offence, and therefore summoned a meeting of the Sanhedrin, and bringing down the Apostle from the Tower to the hall Gazith[1084] placed him before them. Casting a steadfast and scrutinizing glance (Acts xxiii. 1) on the faces of those assembled, many of whom must have been familiar to him, St Paul began by proving that he had lived a conscientious[1085] life before God up to that very day. This assertion so offended the high-priest that he commanded those standing near to strike him on the mouth, whereupon the Apostle, filled with indignation at so brutal an insult, replied, _God shall smite thee[1086], thou whited wall[1087]. For sittest thou to judge me according to the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?_ To this the bystanders rejoined, _Revilest thou God’s high-priest?_ and St Paul, recovering himself, answered that he did not know or consider that Ananias was high-priest, otherwise he would not so have spoken, for it was written in the Law, _Thou shalt not revile the ruler of thy people_ (Ex. xxii. 28).

By this time, however, the Apostle had seen only too clearly that there was little prospect of his obtaining an equitable decision from his judges. Knowing, therefore, that there were both Pharisees and Sadducees among them, and that however much they might be united in persecuting him, they were sundered from one another by a deep gulf on one important article of faith, he exclaimed, as indeed he could say with truth, that he was brought to trial, because he had testified of the hope of Israel, and of the resurrection of the dead (Acts xxiii. 6). He had scarcely pronounced these words, when there was an instant division in the Council. The Pharisees present were united in his favour, and a hot debate ensued between them and the Sadducaic faction, who denied any Resurrection and the existence alike of angels and spirits[1088]. While the latter party were furious against him, the former declared they could find no fault in him, and if, as he had said in his speech on the stairs, an angel or a spirit had indeed spoken to him[1089], they would not criminate him on this account.

A scene of great confusion now ensued (Acts xxiii. 10), in the midst of which Claudius Lysias being afraid lest the Roman citizen should be torn in pieces by them, ordered a detachment to go down instantly, and bring him into the barracks. Thus the Apostle was delivered from the most imminent danger, and in the evening his anxieties were relieved by the appearance of his Divine Master in a vision of the night, bidding him be of good cheer, and declaring that, as he had _testified unto Him in Jerusalem, so he must testify also at Rome_ (Acts xxiii. 11).

The following morning however had hardly dawned, before a fresh danger revealed itself. Disappointed on the previous day in their malicious designs, more than forty of the Jews bound themselves by a solemn vow that they would neither eat nor drink till they had put the Apostle to death. Accordingly they went to the chief members of the Sanhedrin, and proposed that they should present themselves before the commandant and request him to allow St Paul to be brought down and placed a second time before them, in order that they might resume the enquiry so tumultuously interrupted, and they, on their part, undertook that he should not reach the council-chamber alive, for they would murder him on his way down from the fortress.

But their design in some way reached the ears of the Apostle’s nephew[1090], who was now present in Jerusalem, and he no sooner heard of the danger which threatened his uncle, than he obtained admittance into the barracks, and imparted to him the intelligence. Thereupon St Paul called one of the centurions, and requested him to take the young man to Claudius Lysias, for he had something to tell him. The officer complied, and conducting him to the commandant told him of St Paul’s message. Claudius Lysias received the young man kindly, and leading him cautiously aside enquired what he wished to say. The other thereupon acquainted him with the plot that had been laid, and was dismissed with strict injunctions not to divulge the fact that he had given this information.

Thus assured of the danger that threatened his prisoner, and knowing that he was responsible for his safety as a Roman citizen, Lysias resolved to send him away that very night under a strong escort to Cæsarea, and there leave him in the hands of the governor Felix. Summoning therefore two of the centurions, he gave orders that 200 of the legionary soldiers, with 70 cavalry and 200 spearmen[1091], should be in readiness to proceed thither by nine[1092] in the evening. In the meantime he wrote to the governor a dispatch, giving a fair and clear account of the case, save in the statement that he had rescued St Paul in the first instance because he had discovered he was a Roman citizen, and in the suppression of all allusion to his intention to scourge him (Acts xxiii. 26–30).

At the time appointed the escort was ready, and mounted on horseback[1093] between the two Roman soldiers, to whom he was chained, the Apostle was conducted from Jerusalem to Antipatris[1094]. Here the soldiers halted after their long night-march, and while the cavalry proceeded to Cæsarea, the legionary troops, no longer necessary to the Apostle’s safety[1095], returned to the fortress of Antonia. It was probably during the afternoon of the day succeeding[1096] their departure that the cavalry reached Cæsarea, and the officer in charge immediately delivered up his prisoner to the governor, with the dispatch from Claudius Lysias. Felix[1097] read it, and enquired to what province the prisoner belonged[1098], and having ascertained that he was a native of Cilicia, replied that he would hear and decide his case as soon as his accusers had arrived, and ordered that for the present he should be kept in _Herod’s prætorium_[1099] (Acts xxiii. 35).