Chapter XIII: Part 13

The long expected favorite and friend of the Jewish people, having been thus hailed sovereign by their grateful voices, and having strengthened his throne and influence by his opening acts of liberality and devotion to the national faith, now entered upon a reign which presented only the portents of a course most auspicious to his own fame and his people’s good. Uniting in his person the claims of the Herodian and Asmonaean lines,――with the blood of the heroic Maccabees in his veins, ――crowned by the imperial lord of the civilized world, whose boundless power was pledged in his support, by the obligations of an intimate personal friendship, and of a sincere gratitude for the attainment of the throne of the Caesars through his prompt and steady exertions, ――received with universal joy and hope by all the dwellers of the consolidated kingdoms of his dominion, which had been long thriving under the mild and equitable administration of a prudent governor, ――there seemed nothing wanting to complete the happy auspices of a glorious reign, under which the ancient honors of Israel should be more than retrieved from the decline of ages. Yet what avails the bright array of happily conspiring circumstances, to prince or people, against the awful majesty of divine truth, or the pure, simple energy of human devotion? Within the obscurer corners of his vast territories, creeping for room under the outermost colonnades of that mighty temple whose glories he had pledged himself to renew,――wandering like outcasts from place to place,――seeking supporters only among the unintellectual mass of the people,――were a set of men of whom he probably had not heard until he entered his own dominions. They were now suggested to his notice for the first time, by the decided voice of censure from the devout and learned guardians of the purity of the law of God, who invoked the aid of his sovran power, to check and utterly uproot this heresy, which the unseasonable tolerance of Roman government had too long shielded from the just visitations of judicial vengeance. Nor did the royal Agrippa hesitate to gratify, in this slight and reasonable matter, the express wishes of the reverend heads of the Jewish faith and law. Ah! how little did he think, that in that trifling movement was bound up the destiny of ages, and that its results would send his name――though then so loved and honored――like Pharaoh’s, down to all time, a theme of religious horror and holy hatred, to the unnumbered millions of a thousand races, and lands then unknown;――an awful doom, from which one act of benign protection, or of prudent kindness, to that feeble band of hated, outcast innovators, might have retrieved his fame, and canonized it in the faithful memory of the just, till the glory of the old patriarchs and prophets should grow dim. But, without one thought of consequences, a prophetic revelation of which would so have appalled him, he unhesitatingly stretched out his arm in vindictive cruelty over the church of Christ, for the gratification of those whose praise was to him more than the favor of God. Singling out first the person whom momentary circumstances might render most prominent or obnoxious to censure, he at once doomed to a bloody death the elder son of Zebedee, the second of the great apostolic THREE. No sooner was this cruel sentence executed, than, with a most remarkable steadiness in the execution of his bloody plan, he followed up this action, so pleasing to the Jews, by another similar movement. Peter, the active leader of the heretical host, ever foremost in braving the authority of the constituted teachers of the law, and in exciting commotion and dissatisfaction among the commonalty, was now seized by a military force, too strong to fear any resistance from popular movements, which had so much deterred the Sanhedrim. This occurred during the week of the passover; and such was king Agrippa’s profound regard for all things connected with his national religion, that he would not violate the sanctity of this holy festival by the execution of a criminal, however deserving of vengeance he might seem in that instance. The fate of Peter being thus delayed, he was therefore committed to prison, (probably in castle Antonia,) and to prevent all possibility of his finding means to escape prepared ruin again, he was confined to the charge of sixteen Roman soldiers, divided into four sets, of four men each, who were to keep him under constant supervision day and night, by taking turns, each set an equal time; and according to the established principles of the Roman military discipline, with the perfect understanding that if, on the conclusion of the passover, the prisoner was not forthcoming, the guards should answer the failure with their lives. These decided and careful arrangements being made, the king, with his gratified friends in the Sanhedrim and among the rabble, gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the great national festival, with a peculiar zest, hightened by the near prospect of the utter overthrow of the advancing heresy, by the sweeping blow that robbed them of their two great leaders, and more especially of him who had been so active in mischievous attempts to perpetuate the memory of the original founder of the sect, and to frustrate the good effect of his bloody execution, by giving out that the crucified Jesus still lived, and would yet come in vengeance on his murderers. While such triumphant reflections swelled the festal enjoyments of the powerful foes of Christ, the unhappy company of his persecuted disciples passed through this anniversary-week with the most mournful reminiscences and anticipations. Ten years before, in unutterable agony and despair, they had parted, as they then supposed forever, with their beloved Lord; and now, after years of devotion to the work for which he had commissioned them, they were called to renew the deep sorrows of that parting, in the removal of those who had been foremost among them in the great work, cheering them and leading them on through toil and peril, with a spirit truly holy, and with a fearless energy, kindred with that of their divine Lord. Of these two divinely appointed chiefs, one had already poured out his blood beneath the executioner’s sword, and the other, their great leader, the _Rock_ of the church, was now only waiting the speedy close of the festal week, to crown his glorious course, and his enemies’ cruel policy, by the same bloody doom; meanwhile held in the safe keeping of an ever-watchful Roman guard, forbidding even the wildest hope of escape. Yet why should they wholly despair? On that passover, ten years before, how far more gloomy and hopeless the glance they threw on the cross of their Lord! Yet from that doubly hopeless darkness, what glorious light sprang up to them? And was the hand that then broke through the bands of death and the gates of Hades, now so shortened that it could not sever the vile chains of paltry tyranny which confined this faithful apostle, nor open wide the guarded gates of his castle prison? Surely there was still hope for faith which had been taught such lessons of undoubting trust in God. Nor were they thoughtless of the firm support and high consolations which their experience afforded. In prayer intense and unceasing, they poured out their souls in sympathetic grief and supplication, for the relief of their great elder brother from his deadly peril; and in sorrowful entreaty the whole church continued day and night, for the safety of Peter.

_Castle Antonia._――For Josephus’s account of the position and
erection of this work, see my note on page 95, (section 8.)
There has been much speculation about the place of the prison
to which Peter was committed. The sacred text (Acts xii. 10,)
makes it plain that it was without the city itself, since after
leaving the prison it was still necessary to enter the city by
“the iron gate.” Walch, Kuinoel and Bloomfield adopt the view
that it was in one of the towers or castles that fortified the
walls. Wolf and others object to the view that it was without
the walls; because, as Wolf says, it was not customary to
have public prisons outside of the cities, since the prisoners
might in that case be sometimes rescued by a bold assault from
some hardy band of comrades, &c. But this objection is worth
nothing against castle Antonia, which, though it stood entirely
separated from the rest of the city, was vastly strong, and by
its position as well as fortification, impregnable to any common
force;――a circumstance which would at once suggest and recommend
it as a secure place for one who, like Peter, had escaped once
from the common prison. There was always a Roman garrison in
Antonia. (Josephus, Jewish War, V. v. 8.)

In the steady contemplation of the nearness of his bloody doom, the great apostle remained throughout the passover, shut off from all the consolations of fraternal sympathy, and awaiting the end of the few hours which were still allotted by the religious scruples of his mighty sovran. In his high and towering prison in Castle Antonia, parted only by a deep, broad rift in the precipitous rocks, from the great terraces of the temple itself, from whose thronged courts now rung the thanksgiving songs of a rejoicing nation, he heard them, sending up in thousands of voices the praise of their fathers’ God, who still remembered Israel in mercy, renewing their ancient glories under the bright and peaceful dominion of their new-crowned king. And with the anthems of praise to God which sounded along the courts and porches of the temple, were no doubt heard, too, the thanks of many a grateful Hebrew for the goodness of the generous king, who had pledged his royal word to complete the noble plan of that holy pile, as suited the splendid conceptions of the founder. And this was the king whose decree had doomed that lonely and desolate prisoner in the castle, to a bloody and shameful death,――as a crowning offering at the close of the great festival; and how few among that vast throng, before whose eyes he was to yield his life, would repine at the sentence that dealt exterminating vengeance on the obstinately heretical preacher of the crucified Nazarene’s faith! Well might such dark visions of threatening ruin appal a heart whose enthusiasm had caught its flame from the unholy fires of worldly ambition, or devoted its energies to the low purpose of human ascendency. And truly sad would have been the lonely thoughts of this very apostle, if this doom had found him in the spirit which first moved him to devote himself to the cause which now required the sacrifice of life. But higher hopes and feelings had inspired his devoted exertions for _ten years_, and higher far, the consolations which now sustained him in his friendless desolation. This very fate, he had long been accustomed to regard as the earthly meed of his labors; and he had too often been threatened with it, to be overwhelmed by its near prospect. Vain, then, were all solemn details of that awful sentence, to strike terror into his fixed soul,――vain the dark sureties of the high, steep rock, the massive, lofty walls, the iron gates, the ever-watchful Roman guards, the fetters and manacles, to control or check the

“Eternal spirit of the chainless mind!――
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart.”

Thus sublimely calm, sat Peter in his prison, waiting for death. Day after day, all day long, the joyous feast went on beneath him:――the offering, the prayer and the hymn varying the mighty course, from the earliest morning supplication to the great evening sacrifice. Up rolled the glorious symphony of the Levites’ thousand horns, and the choral harmony of their chanting voices,――up rolled the clouds of precious incense to the skiey throne of Israel’s God,――and with this music and fragrance, up rolled the prayers of Israel’s worshiping children; but though the glorious sound and odor fell delightfully on the senses of the lonely captive, as they passed upwards by his high prison-tower, no voice of mercy came from below, to cheer him in his desolation. But from above, from the heaven to which all these prayer-bearing floods of incense and harmony ascended, came down divine consolation and miraculous delivery to this poor, despised prisoner, with a power and a witness that not all the solemn pomp of the passover ceremony could summon in reply to its costly offerings. The feeble band of sorrowing Nazarenes, from their little chamber, were lifting unceasing voices of supplication for their brother, in his desperate prospects, which entered with his solitary prayer into the ears of the God of Hosts, while the ostentatious worship of king Agrippa and his reverend supporters, only brought back shame and woful ruin on their impious supplications for the divine sanction to their bloody plans of persecution. At last the solemn passover-rites of “the last great day of the feast” were ended;――the sacrifice, the incense and the song, rose no more from the sanctuary,――the fires on the altars went out, the hum and the roar of worshiping voices was hushed, and the departing throngs poured through the “ETERNAL” and the “BEAUTIFUL” gates, till at last the courts and porches of the temple were empty through all their vast extent, and hushed in a silence, deep as the ruinous oblivion to which the voice of their God had doomed them shortly to pass; and all was still, save where the footfall of the passing priest echoed along the empty colonnades, as he hurried over the vast pavements into the dormitories of the inner temple; or where the mighty gates thundered awfully as they swung heavily together under the strong hands of the weary Levites, and sent their long reverberations among the walls. Even these closing sounds soon ceased also; the Levite watchmen took their stand on the towers of the temple, and paced their nightly rounds along the flat roofs, guarding with careful eyes their holy shrine, lest the impious should, under cover of night, again profane it, (as the Samaritans had secretly done a few years before.) And on the neighboring castle of Antonia, the Roman garrison, too, had set their nightly watch, and the iron warriors slumbered, each in his turn, till the round of duty should summon him to relieve guard. Within the _dungeon keep_ of the castle, was still safely held the weighty trust that was to be answered for, on peril of life; and all arrangements were made which so great a responsibility seemed to require. The prisoner already somewhat notorious for making unaccountable escapes from guarded dungeons, was secured with a particularity, quite complimentary to his dexterity as a jail-breaker. The quaternion on duty was divided into two portions; each half being so disposed and posted as to effect the most complete supervision of which the place was capable,――two men keeping watch outside of the well-bolted door of the cell, and two within, who, not limited to the charge of merely keeping their eyes on the prisoner, had him fastened to their bodies, by a chain on each side. In this neighborly proximity to his rough companions, Peter was in the habit of passing the night; but in the day-time was freed from one of these chains, remaining attached to only one soldier. (This arrangement was in accordance with the standard mode of guarding important state-prisoners among the Romans.) Matters being thus accommodated, and the watch being set for the next three hours, Peter’s two _fast_ companions, finding him but indifferent company, no doubt, notwithstanding his sociable position, soon grew quite dull in the very tame employment of seeing that he did not run away with them; for as to getting away _from_ them, the idea could have no place at all in the supposition. These sturdy old veterans had probably, though Gentiles, conformed so far to Judaical rituals as to share in the comfortable festivities of this great religious occasion, and could not have suffered any heathenish prejudices to prevent them from a hearty participation in the joyous draughts of the wine, which as usual did its part to enliven the hearts and countenances of all those who passed the feast-day in Jerusalem. The passover coming so many months after the vintage too, the fermentation of a long season must have considerably energized “the pure juice of the grape,” so that its exhilarant and narcotic powers could have been by no means feeble; and if the change thus wrought by time and its own inherent powers, at all corresponds to that which takes places in cider in this country under the same circumstances, the latter power must have so far predominated, as to leave them rather below than above the ordinary standard of vivacity, and induce that sort of apathetic indifference to consequences, which is far from appropriate in a soldier on duty over an important trust. Be that as it may, Peter’s two room-mates soon gave themselves quietly up to slumber. If any scruple arose in their heavy heads as to the risk they ran in case of his escape, that was soon soothed by the consideration of the vast number of impassable securities upon the prisoner. They might well reason with themselves, “If this sharp Galilean can manage to break his chains without waking us, and burst open this stout door in spite of bars, without rousing the sentinels who are posted against it on the outside, and make his way unseen and unchecked through all the gates and guards of Castle Antonia――why, let him. But there’s no use in our losing a night’s rest by any uneasiness about such a chance.” So stretching themselves out, they soon fell into a sound sleep, none the less pleasant for their lying in such close quarters; for it is natural to imagine, that in a chilly March night in Jerusalem, stowing three in a bed was no uncomfortable arrangement. Circumstanced as he was, Peter had nothing to do but conform to their example, for the nature of his attachment to them was such, that he had no room for the indulgence of his own fancies about his position; and he also lay down to repose. He slept. The sickening and feverish confinement of his close dungeon had not yet so broken his firm and vigorous frame, nor so drained its energies, as to hinder the placid enjoyment of repose; nor did the certainty of a cruel and shameful death, to which he was within a few hours to be dragged, before the eyes of a scoffing rabble, move his high spirit from its self-possession:――

“And still he slumbered
While in ‘decree, his hours’ were numbered.”

He slept. And from that dark prison-bed what visions could beguile his slumbering thoughts? Did fancy bear them back against the tide of time, to the humble, peaceful home of his early days,――to the varied scenes of the lake whereon he loved to dwell, and along whose changeful waters he had learned so many lessons of immortal faith and untrembling hope in his Lord? Amid the stormy roar of its dark waters, the voice of that Lord once called him to tempt the raging deep with his steady foot, and when his feeble faith, before untried, failed him in the terrors of the effort, His supporting hand recalled him to strength and safety. And had that lesson of faith and hope been so poorly learned, that in this dark hour he could draw no consolation from such remembrances? No. He could even now find that consolation, and he did. In the midst of this “sea of troubles,” he felt the same mighty arm now upholding him, that bore him above the waters, “when the blue wave rolled nightly on deep Galilee.” Again he had stood by those waters, swelling brightly in the fresh morning breeze, with his risen Lord beside him, and received the solemn commission, oft-renewed, to feed the flock that was so soon to lose the earthly presence of its great Shepherd. In the steady and dauntless execution of that parting commission, he had in the course of long years gone on in the face of death,――“feeding the lambs” of Christ’s gathering, and calling vast numbers to the fold; and for the faithful adherence to that command, he now sat waiting the fulfilment of the doom that was to cut him down in the midst of life and in the fullness of his vigor. Yet the nearness of this sad reward of his labors, seemingly offering so dreadful an interpretation of the mystical prophecy that accompanied that charge, moved him to no desperation or distress, and still he calmly slept, with as little agitation and dread as at the transfiguration, and at the agony of the crucifixion eve; nor did that compunction for heedless inattention, that then hung upon his slumbering senses, now disturb him in the least. It is really worth noticing, in justice to Peter, that his sleepiness, of which so many curious instances are presented in the sacred narrative, was not of the criminally selfish kind that might be supposed on a partial view. If he slept during his Master’s prayers on Mount Hermon, and in Gethsemane, he slept too in his own condemned cell; and if in his bodily infirmity he had forgotten to watch and pray when death threatened his Lord, he was now equally indifferent to his own impending destruction. He was, evidently, a man of independent and regular habits. Brought up a hard-working man, he had all his life been accustomed to repose whenever he was at leisure, if he needed it; and now too, though the “heathen might rage, and the people imagine a vain thing,――though the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together” against him, and doomed him to a cruel death, ――in spite of all these, Peter would sleep when he was sleepy. Not the royal Agrippa could sleep sounder on his pavilioned couch of purple. In the calm confidence of one steadily fixed in a high course, and perfectly prepared for every and any result, the chained apostle gave himself coolly to his natural rest, without borrowing any trouble from the thought, that in the morning the bloody sword was to lay him in “the sleep that knows no earthly waking.” So slept the Athenian sage, on the eve of his martyrdom to the cause of clearly and boldly spoken truth,――a sleep that so moved the wonder of his agonizing disciples, at the power of a good conscience and a practical philosophy to sustain the soul against the horrors of such distress; but a sleep not sounder nor sweeter than that of the poor Galilean outcast, who, though not knowing even the name of philosophy, had a consolation far higher, in the faith that his martyred Lord had taught him in so many experimental instructions. That faith, learned by the painful conviction of his own weakness, and implanted in him by many a fall when over confident in his own strength, was now his stay and comfort, so that he might say to his soul, “Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the help of my countenance and my God.” Nor did that hope prove groundless. From him in whom he trusted, came a messenger of deliverance; and from the depths of a danger the most appalling and threatening, he was soon brought, to serve that helping-God through many faithful years, feeding the flock till, in his old age, “another should gird him, and carry him whither he would not.” He who had prayed for him in the revelation of his peculiar glories on Mount Hermon, and had so highly consecrated him to the great cause, had yet greater things for him to do; and to new works of love and glory he now called him, from the castle-prison of his royal persecutor.

_Ten years._――This piece of chronology is thus settled. Jesus
Christ, according to all common calculation, was crucified as
early as the _twentieth_ year of the reign of Tiberius. Irenaeus
maintains that it was in the _fifteenth_ of that reign. Eusebius
and Epiphanius fix it in the _eighteenth_, or, according to
Petavius’s explanation of their meaning, in the _seventeenth_
of his actual reign. Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Jerome,
and Augustin, put it in the _sixteenth_. Roger Bacon, Paulus
Burgensis, and Tostatus, also support this date, on the ground
of an astronomical calculation of the course of the moon, fixing
the time when the passover must have occurred, so as to accord
with the requirement of the Mosaic law, that it should be
celebrated on a new moon. But Kepler has abundantly shown
the fallacy of this calculation. Antony Pagus, also, though
rejecting this astronomical basis, adheres to the opinion of
Tertullian, Jerome, &c. Baronius fixes it in the _nineteenth_
of Tiberius. Pearson, L. Cappel, Spanheim, and Witsius, with
the majority of the moderns, in the _twentieth_ of Tiberius. So
that the unanimous result of all these great authorities, places
it as early as this last mentioned year. A full and highly
satisfactory view of all these chronological points and opinions,
is given by the deeply learned Antony Pagus, in his great
“Critical Historico-Chronological Review of Baronii.” Saecul. I.
Ann. Per. Gr.‒Rom. 5525. ¶ 3‒13.

Now, from Josephus it is perfectly evident that Agrippa did not
leave Rome until some time after the beginning of the reign of
Claudius, and it is probable not before the close of the first
year. Counting backwards through the four years of Caligula,
this makes _five_ years after the death of Tiberius, and _eight_
on the latest calculation from the death of Christ; while
according to the higher and earlier authority, it amounts
to _nine_, _ten_, _eleven_, or to _twelve_ years from the
crucifixion to Agrippa’s arrival in Judea. And moreover, it
is not probable that the persecution referred to occurred
immediately on his arrival. Indeed, from the close way in which
Luke connects Agrippa’s death with the preceding events, it
would seem as if he would fix his “going down from Jerusalem
to Caesarea,” and his death at the latter place, very soon
after the escape of Peter. This of course being in the end of
Claudius’s _third_ year, brings the events above, down to the
_eleventh_ or _twelfth_ from the crucifixion, even according to
the latest conjecture as to the date of that event. Probably,
however, the connection of the two events was not as close as
a common reading of the Acts would lead one to suppose.

So also Lardner, in his Life of Peter, says, “The death of
Herod Agrippa happened before the end of that year,” in which he
escaped. (Lardner’s Works 4to. Vol. III. p. 402, bottom.)

Natalis Alexander fixes Peter’s escape in the _second_ year
of Claudius, and the _forty-fourth_ from Christ’s birth, which
is, according to his computation, the _tenth_ from his death.
(Church History, Saec. I. Cap. vi.)

_A chain on each side._――That this was a common mode of
fastening such prisoners among the Romans, appears from the
authorities referred to by Wolf, (Cur. Philology in Acts xii. 6,)
Kuinoel and Rosenmueller, (quoting from Walch,) and Bloomfield,
all in loc.

_Quaternion._――That is, a band of _four_. See Bloomfield in
defense of my mode of disposing them about the prison,――also
Rosenmueller, &c. Wolf quotes appositely from Polybius; but
Kuinoel is richest of all in quotations and illustrations.
(Acts xii. 4, 5.)

THE DELIVERANCE.

Peter was now quietly sleeping between his two guards, when his rest was suddenly broken by a smart blow on the side, too energetically given to be mistaken for an accidental knock from the elbow of one of his heavy bed-fellows. Rousing his senses, and opening his eyes, he was startled by a most remarkable light shining throughout his dungeon, which his last waking glance had left in utter darkness. In this unaccountable illumination, he saw standing before him and bending over him, a form in which he could recognize only the divine messenger of deliverance. The shock of such a surprise must have been overwhelming; ――to be waked from a sound sleep by an appearance so utterly unearthly, might have struck horror into the stoutest heart; but Peter seems to have suffered no such emotion to hinder his attendance to the heavenly call. The apparition, before he could exercise thought enough to sit up of himself, had raised him up from his bed, and that without the slightest alarm to his still slumbering keepers,――for “immediately the chains fell from his hands,”――a motion which by the rattling of the falling irons should have aroused the sleepers if any sound could have impressed their senses. The impulse of the now unmanacled captive might have been to spring forth his dungeon without the slightest delay, but his deliverer’s next command forbade any such unnecessary haste. His first words were, “Gird thyself; and tie on thy sandals.” Before laying himself down, he had, as usual, thrown off his outer garments and loosened his girdle, so that his under dress need not so much confine him in sleep as to prevent that perfect relaxation which is necessary for comfortable repose. Just as now-a-days, a man in taking up such a lodging as often falls to a traveler’s lot, will seldom do more than pull off his coat and boots, as Peter did, and perhaps unbutton his waist-band and suspenders, so that on a sudden alarm from his rest, the first direction would very properly be, to “gird himself,” (button his trowsers,) “and tie on his sandals,” (put on his shoes or boots.) The next direction given to Peter, also, “Cast thy garment about thee,” (put on thy coat,) would be equally appropriate. The meaning of all this particularity and deliberation was, no doubt, that there was no need whatever of hurry or slyness about the escape. It was not to be considered a mere smart trick of jail-breaking, by which Peter was to crawl out of his dungeon in such a hurry as to leave his coat and shoes behind him, but a truly miraculous providence insuring his deliverance with a completeness and certainty that allowed him to take every thing that belonged to him. Having now perfectly accoutred himself in his ordinary style, Peter immediately obeyed the next order of his deliverer,――“Follow me.” Leaving his two bed-fellows and room-mates sleeping hard, without the slightest idea of the evacuation of the premises which was so deliberately going on, to their great detriment, Peter now passed out through the open door, following the divine messenger in a state of mind altogether indescribable, but still with just sense enough to obey the directions which thus led him on to blissful freedom. The whole scene bore so perfectly the character of one of those enchanting dreams of liberty with which painful hope often cheats the willing senses of the poor captive in slumber, that he might well and wisely doubt the reality of an appearance so tempting, and which his wishes would so readily suggest to his forgetful spirit. But passing on with his conductor, he moved between the sentinels posted at the doors, who were also equally unaware of the movement going on so boldly under their noses, or rather _over_ them, for they, too, were faster bound in slumber than their prisoner had been in his chains; and he now stepped over their outstretched bodies as they lay before the entrances. These soldiers, too, evidently looked upon their duty as a sort of sinecure, rationally concluding that their two stout comrades on the inside were rather more than a match for the fettered and manacled captive, and that if he should be at all obstreperous, or even uneasy, the noise would soon enough awake them from their nap. And thus excessive precaution is very apt to overshoot itself, each part of the arrangement relying too much on the security of all the rest. The two passengers soon reached the great iron gate of the castle, through which they must pass in order to enter the city. But all the seeming difficulties of this passage vanished as soon as they approached it. The gate swung its enormous mass of metal self-moving through the air, and the half-entranced Peter went on beneath the vacant portal, and now stood without the castle, once more a free man in the fresh, pure air. The difficulties and dangers were not all over yet, however. During all the great feast-days, when large assemblies of people were gathered at Jerusalem from various quarters, to guard against the danger of riots and insurrection in these motley throngs,――the armed Roman force on duty, as Josephus relates, was doubled and tripled, occupying several new posts around the temple, and, as the same historian particularly mentions, on the approaches of castle Antonia, where its foundations descended towards the terraces of the temple, and gave access to the colonnades of the temple. On all these places the guard must have been under arms during this passover, and even at night the sentries would be stationed at all the important posts, as a reasonable security against the numerous strangers of a dubious character, who now thronged the city throughout. Yet all these peculiar precautions, which, at this time, presented so many additional difficulties to the escaping apostle, hindered him not in the least. Entering the city, he followed the footsteps of his blessed guide, unchecked, till they had passed on through the first street, when all at once, without sign or word of farewell, the mysterious deliverer vanished, leaving Peter alone in the silent city, but free and safe. Then flashed upon his mind the conviction of the true character of the apparition. The departure of his guide leaving him to seek his own way, his senses were, by the necessity of this self-direction, recalled from the state of stupefaction, in which he had mechanically followed on from the prison. With the first burst of reflection, he broke out in the exclamation, “Now I know of a truth, that the Lord has sent forth his messenger, and has rescued me out of the hand of Herod, in spite of all the expectation of the Jewish people.” Refreshed and encouraged by this impression, he now used his thoroughly awakened senses to find his exact situation, and after looking about him, he made his way through the dark streets to a place where he knew he should find those whose despairing hearts would be inexpressibly rejoiced by the news of his deliverance. This was the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where the disciples were accustomed to assemble. Going up to the gate-way, he rapped on the door, and at once aroused those within; for in their sleepless distress for the imprisoned apostle, several of the brethren had given up all thoughts of sleep, and, as Peter had suspected, were now watching in prayer within this house. The noise of a visitant at this unseasonable hour of the night, immediately brought to the door a lively damsel, named Rhoda; who, according to the Jewish custom of employing females in this capacity, acted as portress of the mansion of Mary. Prudently requiring some account of the person who made this late call, before she opened the door of the persecuted Christians to an unknown and perhaps an ill-disposed character, she was struck with almost frantic joy at hearing the well-known voice of the much mourned Peter, craving admittance. In the highth of her thoughtless gladness, she ran off at once to make known the delightful fact to the disciples in the house, without even seeming to think of the desirableness of admitting the apostle, perhaps because she very naturally wanted to tell such pleasant news first herself. Bursting into the room where the disciples were at prayer for their lamented leader, whom they supposed to be then fast bound for death in the dungeon of Antonia, she communicated the joyful fact, that “Peter was before the gate.” A declaration so extravagantly improbable, at once suggested the idea of her having lost her wits through her affectionate sorrow for the sufferings and anticipated death of the great apostle, and they therefore replied, “Thou art crazy.” Rhoda, somewhat excited by such a provoking expression of incredulity, loudly repeated her slighted piece of good news, and so gravely maintained the truth of it, that some of the more superstitious at last began to think there must be something in it, and seriously suggested, that it must be a supernatural messenger come to give them notice of his certain doom,――“It is his guardian angel.” Peter, however, was all this while standing outside during this grave debate about his real entity, and shivering with the cold of a chilly March night, grew quite impatient at the girl’s inconsiderate folly, and knocked away with might and main, making a noise of most unspiritual character, till at last the disciples determined to cut short the debate by an actual observation; so opening the door to the shivering apostle, the light brought his material existence to a certainty beyond all doubt. Their amazement and joy was bursting forth with a vivacity which quite made up for their previous incredulity; when the apostle, making a hushing sign with his hand,――and with a reasonable fear, too, no doubt, that their obstreperous congratulations might be heard in other houses around, so as to alarm the neighbors and bring out some spiteful Jews, who would procure his detection and recapture,――having obtained silence, went on to give them a full account of his being brought out of prison by the Lord, and after finishing his wonderful story, said to them, “Tell these things to James and the brethren.” From this it would seem that the apostles were all somewhere else, probably having found that a temporary concealment was expedient for their safety, but were still not far from the city. His own personal danger was of so imminent a character, however, that Jerusalem could not be a safe place for him during the search that would be immediately instituted after him by his disappointed and enraged persecutors. It was quite worth while, therefore, for him to use the remaining darkness of the night to complete his escape; and without staying to enjoy their outflowing sympathies, he bade them a hasty farewell, and, as the historian briefly says, went to ANOTHER PLACE. Where this “other place” was, he does not pretend to tell or know, and the only certain inference to be drawn from the circumstance is, that it was beyond the reach or knowledge of the mighty and far-ruling king, who had taken such particular pains to secure Peter’s death. The probabilities as to the real place of his retirement will, however, be given, as soon as the sequel of events in Jerusalem has been narrated, as far as concerns the discovery of his escape.

_Bright light._――Some commentators have attempted to make
out an explanation of this phenomenon, by referring the whole
affair to the effects of a sudden flash and stroke of lightning,
falling on the castle, and striking all the keepers senseless,
――_melting_ Peter’s chains, and illuminating the place, so that
Peter, unhurt amid the general crash, saw this opportunity for
escaping, and stepping over their prostrate bodies, made his way
out of the prison, and was out of sight before they _came to_.
The most important objection to this ingenious speculation is,
that it directly contradicts every verse in Luke’s account of
the escape, as well as the general spirit of the narrative.
Another weighty reason is, that the whole series of natural
causes and effects, proposed as a substitute for the simple
meaning, is brought together in such forced and uncommon
coincidences, as to require a much greater effort of faith
and credulity for its belief, than the miraculous view, which
it quite transcends in incredibility. The introduction of
explanations of miracles by natural phenomena, is justifiable
only so far as these may illustrate the _accompaniments_ of
the event, by showing the mode in which those things which are
actually mentioned as physical results, operated in producing
the impressions described. Thus, when thunder and lightning are
mentioned in connection with miraculous events, they are to be
considered as _real_ electrical discharges, made to accompany
and manifest the presence of God; and where lambent flames
are described as appearing in a storm, they, like the _corpos
santos_, are plainly also results of electrical discharges.
So too, when mighty winds are mentioned, they are most
honestly taken to be _real_ winds, and not deceptive sounds or
impressions; and when a cloud is mentioned, it is but fair to
consider it a real cloud, made up, like all other clouds, of
vapor, and not a mere non-entity, or a delusion existing only
in the minds of those who are mentioned as beholding it. But
where nothing of this kind is spoken of, and where a distinct
personal presence is plainly declared, the attempt to substitute
a physical accident for such an apparition, is a direct attack
on the _honesty_ of the statement. Such attempts, too, are
devoid of the benefits of such illustrations as I have alluded
to as desirable; they bring in a new set of difficulties with
them, without removing any of those previously obstructing the
interpretation of the facts. In this case, the only circumstance
which could be reasonably made to agree with the idea of
lightning, is the mention of the bright light; while throughout
the whole account, the presence of a supernaturally mysterious
_person_, acting and speaking, is perfectly unquestionable. The
violation of all probability, shown in this forced explanation,
will serve as a fair instance of the mode in which many modern
German critics are in the habit of distorting the simple,
manifest sense of the sacred writers, for the sake of dispensing
with all supernatural occurrences. (See Kuinoel for an enlarged
view and discussion of this opinion. Other views of the nature
of the phenomenon are also given by him, and by Rosenmueller, on
Acts xii. 7.)

Morning dawned at last upon the towers and temple-columns of the Holy City. On the gold-sheeted roofs and snowy-pillared colonnades of the house of God, the sunlight poured with a splendor hardly more glorious than the insupportable brilliancy that was sent back from their dazzling surfaces, streaming like a new morning upon the objects around, whose nearer sides would otherwise have been left in shade by the eastern rays. Castle Antonia shared in this general illumination, and at the first blaze of sunrise, the order of Roman service announced the moment for relieving guard. The bustle of the movement of the new sentries towards their stands, must at last have reached the ears of Peter’s forsaken companions. Their first waking thoughts would of course be on their responsible charge, and they now became for the first time aware of the important deficiency. In vain did their heavy eyes, at first winking with sleepiness, but now wide open with amazement, search the dim vacancy for their eloped bed-fellow. The most inquisitive glance fell only on the blank space between them, scarcely blanker than the forlorn visages of the poor keepers, who saw in this disappearance the seal of their certain death, for having let the prisoner escape. But they had not much time to consider their misfortune, or condole upon it; for the change of sentries now brought to the door the quaternion whose turn on duty came next. With a miserable grace did the unhappy occupants of the cell show themselves at the open door, with the empty chains and fetters dangling at their sides, from which their late companion had so curiously slipped. Most uncomfortable must have been the aspect of things to the two sentinels who had been keeping their steady watch outside of the door, and who shared equally with the inside keepers, in the undesirable responsibilities of this accident. There stood their comrades with the useless chains displayed in their original attachments; but, _amazing!_ what in the world had they done with the prisoner? The ludicrous distress and commotion resulting from this unpleasant revelation, was evidently well appreciated even by the sacred historian, whose brief but pithy expression is not without a latent comic force. “There was no small stir among the soldiers to know what was become of Peter.” A general search into all the holes and corners of the dungeon, of course, ensued; and the castle was no doubt ransacked from top to bottom for the runaway, whose escape from its massive gates seemed still impossible. But not even his cloak and sandals, which he had laid beside him at the last change of guards,――not a shred, not a thread had been left to hint at the mode of his abstraction. Yet this was so bad a story for the ears of the royal Agrippa, that it would not do to give up the search while any chance whatever remained. But all rummaging was perfectly fruitless; and with sorrowful hearts, they now went with their report to the vindictive king, to acknowledge that most unpardonable crime in Roman soldiers,――to have slept on their posts, so that a prisoner of state had escaped on the eve of execution.

Baronius, (Church Annuals, 44, § 8,) speaking of Peter’s escape
from his chains, favors us with a solemn statement of the
important and interesting circumstance, deriving the proofs
from Metaphrastes, (that prince of papistical liars, and grand
source of Romish apostolical fables,) that these very chains
of Peter are still preserved at Rome, among other venerable
relics of equal authenticity; having been faithfully preserved,
and at last found after the lapse of four hundred years. The
veritable history of this miraculous preservation, as given by
the inventive Metaphrastes, is, that the said chains happened
to fall into the hands of one of Agrippa’s servants who was a
believer in Christ, and so were handed down for four centuries,
and at last brought to light. It is lamentable that the list
of the various persons through whose hands they passed, is not
given, though second in importance only to the authentic record
of the papal succession. This impudent and paltry falsehood will
serve as a fair specimen of a vast quantity of such stuff, which
litters up the pages of even the sober ecclesiastical histories
of many papistical writers. The only wonderful thing to me about
this story is, that Cave has not given it a place in his Lives
of the Apostles, which are made up with so great a portion of
similar trash.

Baronius, in connection with this passage, suggests the castle
of Antonia as the most probable place of Peter’s confinement.
“Juxta templum fortasse in ea munitissima turri quae dicebatur
Antonia.” (Baronius, Church Annuals, C. 44, § 5.) A conjecture
which certainly adds some weight to my own supposition to that
effect; although I did not discover the coincidence in time to
mention it in my note on page 194.

Meanwhile, with the early day, up rose the royal Agrippa from his purple couch, to seize the first moment after the close of the passover for the consummation of the doom of the wretched Galilean, who, by the royal decree, must now yield the life already too many days spared, out of delicate scruple about the inviolate purity of that holy week. Up rose also the saintly princes of the Judaic law, coming forth in their solemn trains and broad phylacteries, to grace this most religious occasion with their reverend presence, out of respectful gratitude to their great sovran for his considerate disposition to accord the sanction of his absolute secular power to their religious sentence. Expectation stood on tiptoe for the comfortable spectacle of the streaming life-blood of this stubborn leader of the Nazarene heresy, and nothing was wanting to the completion of the ceremony, but the criminal himself. That “desideratum, so much to be desired,” was, however, not so easily supplied; for the entrance of the delinquent sentinels now presented the _non-est-inventus_ return to the solemn summons for the body of their prisoner. Confusion thrice confounded now fell on the faces that were just shining with anticipated triumph over their hated foe, while secret, scornful joy illuminated the countenances of the oppressed friends of Jesus. But on the devoted minions of the baffled king, did his disappointed vengeance fall most cruelly; in his paroxysm of vexation, and for an event wholly beyond their control they now suffered an undeserved death; making so tragical a catastrophe to a story otherwise decidedly comical, that the reader can only comfort himself with the belief that they were a set of insolent reprobates who had insulted the distresses of their frequent victims, and would have rejoiced in the bloody execution of the apostle.

King Herod Agrippa, after this miserable failure in his attempt to “please the Jews,” does not seem to have made a very long stay in Jerusalem. Before his departure, however, to secure his own solid glory and his kingdom’s safety, as well as the favor of his subjects, he not only continued the repairs of the temple, but instituted such improvements in the fortifications of the city, as, if ever completed, would have made it utterly impregnable even to a Roman force; so that the emperor’s jealousy soon compelled him to abandon this work; and soon after he left Jerusalem, and went down to Caesarea Augusta, on the sea-coast, long the seat of government of Palestine, and a more agreeable place for the operations of a Gentile court and administration, (for such Agrippa’s must have been from his Roman residence,) than the punctilious religious capital of Judea. But he was not allowed to remain much longer on the earth, to hinder the progress of the truth, by acts of tyranny in subservience to the base purposes of winning the favor of his more powerful subjects. The hand of God was laid destroyingly on him, in the midst of what seemed the full fruition of that popular adulation for which he had lived,――in which he now died. Arrayed in a splendid and massy robe of polished silver, he seated himself on the throne erected by his grandfather Herod, in the great Herodian theater at Caesarea, early in the morning of the day which was appointed for the celebration of the great festal games, in honor of his royal patron, Claudius Caesar. On this occasion, to crown his kingly triumph, the embassadors of the great commercial Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, appeared before him to receive his condescending answer to their submissive requests for the re-establishment of a friendly intercourse between his dominions and theirs,――the agricultural products of the former being quite essential to the thriving trade of the latter. Agrippa’s reply was now publicly given to them, in which he graciously granted all their requests, in such a tone of eloquent benignity, that the admiring assembly expressed their approbation in shouts of praise, and at last some bold adulators catching the idea from the rays of dazzling light which flashed from the polished surfaces of his metallic robe, and threw a sort of glory over and around him, cried out, in impious exclamation, “It is the voice of a God, and not of a man.” So little taste had the foolish king, that he did not check this pitiful outbreak of silly blasphemy; but sat swallowing it all, in the most unmoved self-satisfaction. But in the midst of this profane glory, he was called to an account for which it ill prepared him. In the expressive though figurative language of Luke,――“immediately the messenger of the Lord struck him, because he gave not the glory to God.” The Jewish historian, too, in a similar manner assigns the reason. “The king did not rebuke the flatterers, nor refuse their impious adulation. Shortly after he was seized with a pain in the belly, dreadfully violent from the beginning. Turning to his friends he said, ‘Behold! I, your god, am now appointed to end my life,――the decree of fate having at once falsified the voices that but just now were uttering lies about me; and I, who have been called immortal by you, am now carried off dying.’ While he uttered these words he was tortured by the increasing violence of his pain, and was accordingly carried back to his palace. After five days of intense anguish, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh of his reign; having reigned four years under Caius Caesar, and three under Claudius.” Thus ended the days of the conscience-stricken tyrant, while the glorious gospel cause which he had so vainly thought to check and overthrow, now, in the words of Luke, “grew and was multiplied;” the spiteful Jews having lost the right arm of their persecuting authority, in the death of their king, and all Palestine now passing again under the direct Roman rule, whose tolerant principles became once more the great protection of the followers of Jesus.