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Act_21:18 to Act_22:29
This being the case, and seeing that it was impossible that the presence of a man so eminent, so much talked of, and so well known to many of the foreign Jews in Jerusalem, could fail to attract attention, it was thought advisable that he should perform some overt act which might make it apparent that he was himself an observer of the law. The course they proposed was somewhat remarkable. There were four disciples who had taken the Nazarite vow, of which seven days remained unexpired, at the end whereof they would shave their heads and present their offerings. It was suggested that Paul should join himself to them, and present his offering with theirs; or, as some understand, defray the expense for the offerings of the whole party, and announce beforehand to the priest the responsibility he incurred. This would show his approval of, and his concurrence in a peculiar Jewish rite; nor could this be in any way inconsistent in him, or repugnant to his own conscience, seeing that he had formerly undertaken such a vow on his own account. The participation indicated was also quite regular. The offerings were somewhat expensive for a poor man, and therefore it was considered a very graceful thing for any one to help him by taking a share in or providing the offerings, whereby he was considered to make himself in some sort a party in the vow.
Paul accordingly took the course recommended, but its object was altogether frustrated by the circumstances that took place the day before its completion. Some Jews from Ephesus had observed Paul walking the streets of the city with Trophimus, whom they knew to be a Gentile. They took invidious notice of this circumstance, and when they afterwards found Paul, they contended that he had brought Trophimus in with him, though from the crowded state of the temple courts they could not perceive that person. They therefore laid violent hands upon Paul; and shouting, “Men of Israel, help!” declared that this was the man who went about every where preaching against the temple and the law, and who had even crowned his enormities by bringing Greeks into the holy place. Nothing could be better calculated than this to raise a violent commotion among a Jewish crowd in the temple courts. The living mass was quickly stirred into rage, and the rage as quickly grew furious. Paul would, in all likelihood, have been killed on the spot, but that the assailants were unwilling to pollute the temple with blood. They then dragged him down the steps from the court of the women into the outer court, and they had no sooner passed than the Levitical porters shut behind them the Corinthian gates. The mob then began beating Paul, in the want of readier means to take his life; but the delay which had occurred in removing him from the inner court was the means of his preservation. The worship in the temple courts was in fact conducted under the supervision of Roman soldiers. Among the excited multitudes crowding the temple at the great festival, all animated by hatred of the Roman government, the signs of whose power in “the city of the great King” were an abomination in their eyes, outbreaks of popular fury had been so frequent, that it had become the custom, on such occasions, to send a strong force into the fortress, called the Tower of Antonia, which stood at the south-west corner of the temple area, with the cloisters of which it communicated by means of a staircase. This fortress stood high enough to overlook the courts of the temple, from one, at least, of the four smaller towers that rose at its angles. The sentinels stationed here could plainly observe all that took place in the temple area, and on the slightest sign of disturbance, might give the alarm to the commandant and the soldiers, who, being always under arms, were ready at a moment’s notice to pour down the staircase into the court. Thus it was in the present case. At the first alarm the commandant himself, attended by some centurions, and a strong body of troops, hastened down into the temple; and at their appearance the mob desisted from their murderous violence, and fell back a little. As Paul was obviously the exciting cause of this uproar, the commandant, whose name was Lysias, caused him to be apprehended, and bound, in the Roman fashion, by two chains, one from each wrist to the wrists of two soldiers. Lysias then endeavored to learn who his prisoner was, and what offence he had committed; but finding it impossible to get at the truth in the tumult, he rested in his own conclusion, that he was the Egyptian impostor whom the governor Felix had lately defeated on Mount Olivet, and who had himself escaped, and baffled the search made for him. Note: This man (a Jew doubtless) had come from Egypt into Judea, where he gave himself out to be a prophet, and collected in the desert 10,000 men (4,000 of whom were organized Sicarii or “murderers”), whom he persuaded to follow him to the Mount of Olives, where they should see the walls of Jerusalem fall down at his command, so that they might march over the ruins into the city, purposing to take the city by force, seize the Roman garrison, and assume the government of the people. Felix, however, marched out against him, and easily dispersed his host, slaying 400 and taking 200 prisoners; but the adventurer himself escaped with gone of his most attached followers. Being thus still alive, Lysias supposed that he might secretly have found his way into the city and temple; nor was the fact that the Jews were beating Paul calculated to undeceive him, seeing that the man’s designs had been from the first exceedingly unpopular in Jerusalem.
As the soldiers were removing Paul along the court to the stairs of the fortress, the people pressed after them with yells and execrations, shouting, “Away with him! away with him!” And at the foot of the stairs the pressure became so great, that the soldiers to whom Paul was chained had to take him in their united arms, and carry him up the steps.
At this moment the apostle, with great resolution and presence of mind, turned to the commandant, who was close to him; and asked him respectfully in Greek, “May I speak with thee?” Lysias was surprised to be accosted in that language by one whom he took for the Egyptian adventurer; and he asked, in return, if he had been mistaken in that supposition. Paul at once explained his familiarity with Greek, and asserted his claim to considerate treatment, by declaring himself to be a native of Tarsus in Cilicia—“a citizen of no mean city;” and then requested that he might be allowed on the spot to address the people. This was rather a strange request; but it was granted by Lysias, probably in the knowledge that the prisoner was now safe from the mob, and in the hope of gathering some information for his own guidance. In this expectation he was, however, disappointed, for Paul, facing round on the stairs where he stood, and making with his chained hands his usual motion to invite attention, began to speak in the Hebrew tongue, of which Lysias understood not a word. Curious to know what so notorious a heretic could have to say, and charmed by the accents of their beloved tongue, a profound stillness was immediately obtained, and not a word Paul uttered was unheard. Indeed, his speech was, up to the point which he purposely reserved to the last, admirably suited to win attention and dispel prejudice, by showing that he was not, as his adversaries alleged, a contemner of the Mosaic law, and of the religion of his country, and that he had not hastily and rashly, but only for most weighty reasons, embraced the Christian faith. He showed that he was a Jew born, brought up in the strictest principles of their religion, and who had hated, persecuted, and endeavored to extinguish Christianity. He then recounted, the wonderful circumstances by which he had been brought to embrace the Christian faith; and proceeded to mention that he afterwards, while praying in the temple, saw Jesus, and was commanded by Him to leave Jerusalem, and preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
No sooner had this word passed his lips, than the dead silence which had prevailed was suddenly broken by the most horrible outcries of rage and indignation, to which the previous uproar was as nothing. The sea of heads below was broken by hands tossed tumultuously aloft in ungovernable passion. Many cast dust into the air in frantic expression of their rage, while others tore off their robes, as if to disencumber themselves for instant vengeance, and over all the cry arose in accents of intense hissing hate—“Away with such a fellow from the earth! It is not fit that he should live!”
Lysias, who had not understood Paul’s speech, could only infer from these signs that he must be some notable offender. He, therefore, ordered him to be removed into the castle; and that the truth which, as it seemed, could not be otherwise reached, should be forced from the prisoner himself by the torture of the scourge. According to Roman custom, a centurion was appointed to superintend the punishment, as was the case also at our Lord’s crucifixion. But as they were strapping the apostle’s hands and feet to the whipping-post, he said quietly to the centurion, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?” The centurion so very well knew that it was not only not lawful, but was a highly penal offence against the dignity of Roman citizenship, that, directing the executioner to stay his uplifted hand, he hurried off frightened to the commandant, and said to him, “Take heed what thou doest, for thus man is a Roman.” On hearing this, Lysias himself hastened to the spot, and asked Paul if it were really true that he was a Roman citizen; and, on his answering affirmatively, remarked somewhat incredulously, that this high privilege had cost himself a large sum of money. We know, in fact, that it was a purchasable privilege, and that its price was very high. And that Lysias had needed so to acquire it, shows, together with his name, that he was a Greek by birth, for every native of Italy was born a citizen of Rome. Paul answered simply, “But I was free born.” He was of course instantly released from the whipping-post, and the executioner dismissed. But although he had not actually been scourged, the commandant knew that, in case the prisoner were vindictive, he had exposed himself to disgrace, if not punishment, by having bound him in order to his being scourged like a slave. All was, therefore, now civility and attention; and although Lysias could not take the responsibility of releasing him, or even of dispensing with the ordinary bonds, Paul had no reason to complain of the treatment he received in the Tower of Antonia.