Acts 21
ButlerAnd he closes these inimitably beautiful, instructive, and affecting words of direct address with a simple loving commendation to God and to the word of his grace. By that gracious word of truth and promise, inwrought into the thoughts, the desires, the aims, and the life (he declares), God is able to build them up, and to give them the inheritance of those made holy. Favorite figures both, and richly expressive! Progress in the Christian life is gradual, by adding grace to grace; and so the holy character is divinely builded up. An inheritance is given only to children, and in its nature is a possession whose tenure is firm and lasting as the being of the possessor.
These farewell words are full of application to preacher and teacher, and to hearers. They show what to preach or teach: not merely that which is novel or learned, beautiful or stirring, but, with all that is attainable of these, that matter, style, and manner always and only contribute to the one supreme end of profitable teaching. And they intimate a fact that can not be too frequently or deeply pondered: that with every utterance and reception of God’s truth there comes to speaker and hearer either positive blessing or positive guilt! B.
Here we are taught: Our general business: serving the Lord; our special work: taking heed to ourselves and all the flock; the substance of our doctrine: repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; the places and manner of our teaching: publicly, and from house to house; the object and internal manner: warning every one, night and day, with all humility of mind and with tears; the faithfulness and integrity that are requisite: I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you; I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God; the innocence and self-denial to be used: I have coveted no man’s silver or gold; the patience and resolution to be exercised: none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus; and once more, the motives to engage us to all this: the Holy Ghost has made us overseers; the church we feed is the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Write this upon your hearts, and it will do yourselves and the Church more good than twenty years’ study of those lower things which often employ your thoughts; which, though they get you greater applause in the world, yet, if separated from these, will make you but “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.”
1. AND it came to pass, that after we were gotten from them, and had launched, we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto 2 Patara: and finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, we went aboard, and set forth. 3 Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and 4 landed at Tyre: for there the ship was to unlade her burden. And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to 5 Jerusalem. And when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way; and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city: 6 and we kneeled down on the shore, and prayed. And when we had taken our leave one 7 of another, we took ship; and they returned home again. And when we had finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, and saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day. 8 And the next day we that were of Paul’s company departed, and came unto Cæsarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and 9 abode with him. And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophecy. 10 And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judæa a certain prophet, named 11 Agabus. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man 12 that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to 13 Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. 14 And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done. 15 And after those days we took up our carriages, and went up to Jerusalem. There went 16 with us also certain of the disciples of Cæsarea, and brought with them one Mnason of 17 Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should lodge. And when we were come to Jeru- salem, the brethren received us gladly.
THE noble answer of the Apostle is as simple as it is sublime. To understand what it means is easy; to share in its sentiment is to make high attainment in grace. We need not ask ourselves if we could say this. Living a life of love to Christ, we may be sure that when he places us in such circumstances as those of Paul, his “grace will be sufficient for us.” For most of us, it may require more grace to take up the trivial duties and to endure the petty trials of our lives, than to utter some kindred senti- ment in times of great trial. Riddle.—The time will come when we shall rejoice, not so much because we had been comforted in sorrow and met with great prosperity, as because the will of God had been fulfilled alike in us and through us. How pure and serene is our life when that will alone directs us, and when not a trace of our own will remains behind! With such a frame of mind we become like unto God. Bernard.
1-7. Journey from Miletus to Cesarea.—The day of the painful parting on the shore at Miletus, Paul and his company (“after we had torn ourselves away,” Luke says) sailed southward before the wind to the island of Cos, forty miles. Thence rounding the point of Cnidus, they continued on to the larger island of Rhodes, opposite the southwest- ern corner of Asia Minor. This island has always “held an illustrious place among the islands of the Mediterranean”; and its capital (of the same name) was famous for its colossal bronze statue, 105 feet high, the chief of the seven world-wonders. B.— No view in the Levant is more celebrated than that from Rhodes toward the opposite shore of Asia Minor. The last ranges of Mount Taurus come down in magnificent forms to the sea; and a long line of snowy summits is seen along the Lycian coast, while the sea between is often an unruffled expanse of water under a blue and brilliant sky. Across this expanse and toward Patara, a harbor near the farther edge of these Lycian mountains, the apostle’s course was next directed. H.
At Patara he found, in a vessel bound over the open sea to Phenicia, a favoring providence by which his progress toward Syria was hastened. The 340 miles to Tyre was run in about two days. Here the vessel tarried seven days for change of cargo. And here Paul sought for and found a small com- pany of Christian disciples, with whom he remained in happy, helpful fellowship, ministering the word and ordinances. Another beautiful and impressive picture of the harmony of Christian communion and the strength of Christian affection was witnessed on the Tyrian shore at the hour of parting. “They all brought us on our way, with wives and children” (the first definite mention of the latter in the Acts): “and we kneeled down on the shore, and prayed.”
By the same vessel they sailed southward thirty miles to Ptolemais, the ancient Aecho (Judges 1:3) and modern Acre. Having the best harbor on the
Syrian coast, and an easy access to the great central plain of Esdraelon (the natural passage-way of armies and caravans to and from the East), this celebrated locality has ever been the landing-place and starting-point of hostile enterprises and commercial ventures; and therefore it has been termed “the key of Syria.” At Ptolemais Paul remained one day with the brethren, and the next day traveled by land the thirty-six miles to Cesarea. (See maps, pp. 61, 94.)
8,9. Philip the Evangelist and his Four Daughters.—After a silence of twenty years following upon
Ruins of Tyre.
Philip’s ministry in Samaria and to the Ethiopian treasurer, we meet him in Cesarea, which had ever since been his home. Cesarea—the seaport built by Herod the Great, and named in honor of the Emperor Augustus—was sixty miles northwest from Jerusalem, and was the residence of the Roman governors (or procurators) of the province of Judea. The incidents connected with Cornelius, narrated in chapter 10, and with Herod Agrippa, chapter 12: 19–23, occurred here.
Concerning the four daughters of Philip, Luke merely relates impressions made by what seemed peculiar in their history: that they had all remained unmarried, and that all had received the gift of prophecy referred to by Peter (Acts 2: 18). He seems to use the term prophecy in its ordinary meaning, as a divine inspiration to interpret and unfold truth, not to predict future events. He states no connection on their part with the subsequent prediction of Agabus. He does not even imply that they, like the disciples at Tyre (v. 4), had foretold Paul’s coming trouble.
10,11. Agabus predicts Paul’s Bonds and Imprisonment.—This prophet we have met before (11: 27–30) as the foreteller of famine in the reign of Claudius. He comes now down from the interior hill country, perhaps from Jerusalem, to forewarn Paul of assault and arrest at the capital, whither he is bound. In imitation of the expressive symbolic acting sometimes employed by the ancient Jewish prophets (Isa. 20: 2; Jer. 13: 1; Ezek. 4: 1, etc.), this Christian prophet took Paul’s girdle, and with it bound his own hands and feet. Using the prophetic form of the Old Testament, “Thus saith the Lord,” yet changing it to suit the new dispensation of the Spirit, he cites the Holy Ghost as explicitly announcing Paul’s capture and imprisonment in Jerusalem. The prediction was fulfilled not many days after.
12–14. Entreaty of the Christian Disciples, with Paul’s Reply, and their Acquiescence in Christ’s Recognized Will.—The correctness of the previous prophecy of Agabus, and the vivid symbol whereby he now impressed this prediction, produced in their hearts a deep conviction of the certainty of future evil to Paul at Jerusalem. Under this conviction they unitedly besought him not to go to the place of danger. They interpreted the mission and intimation of Agabus as a warning given to avoid and so avert the peril. But Paul understood it better. Long years before, at the very outset of his sublime career, he had learned from his Lord what “great things he must suffer for his sake.” And frequent experience had already verified this word, and made its meaning familiar. So that these new, more specific and intense premonitions of coming trial, clearly intimated by the Holy Ghost (outwardly by various prophets, and inwardly by impressions upon his own consciousness), carried their full weight of meaning to his spirit. Yet his steadfastness to duty, though confronted here with a prospect of danger unto death, yielded not. No ordinary mea-
Responding to the impression produced by these intense words of Paul, recognizing in them a clear indication of that divine will by which his career had been so marvelously guided, the true-hearted disciples ceased all further opposition, and acquiesced in his decision as expressing the will of the Lord Jesus. And the fact is singularly suggestive, that the very disciples who would have hindered Paul’s arrest at Jerusalem, by that arrest were privileged with an unrestrained fellowship with him for two long years.
15. From Cesarea to Jerusalem. Conclusion of Paul’s Third and Last Missionary Journey.**—The word carriage, used here in the sense of “things carried,” as in Judges 18: 21 and 1 Sam. 17: 22, would be better rendered baggage. The whole phrase here employed is expressed by one Greek participle, and indicates the packing of their effects in preparation tion for departure. B.—They packed their baggage or luggage. Paul and his companions were not privileged on their sacred errands with exemption from the common inconveniences of travel. So he had a “cloak” that he “left at Troas with Carpus,” and requested Timothy to bring. An ancient military historian calls the luggage of his army “impedimenta.” And human life, whether in travel or at home, has its necessary encumbrances. O. E. D.
16,17. Still under the care of the disciples at Cesarea, Paul then completed his third and last great missionary tour at Jerusalem. The subsequent return to Antioch, as in the two previous journeys, was prevented by his arrest and imprisonment. B.—This fifth visit of Paul to Jerusalem since his conversion is the last of which we have any certain record. The state of the city, thronged with the excited multitudes who had come up to the Feast of Pentecost, might well recall to him not only the warnings that had encountered him at every step, but the deed of blood in which he himself, twenty-five years before, had played the part for which he never ceased to feel remorse. S.
Twelve years of unhindered travel and ministry, substantially covering the Greek portion of the Roman Empire, he had been permitted to accomplish. Five years of ministry in bonds—mainly in Cesarea and Rome—he is now to enter upon. This ministry is for the most part private, exercised in behalf of individuals or of small gatherings of disciples. Its public part, which is that chiefly reported and recorded, consists of successive defenses, which, in the result, prove to be aggressive triumphs, of Christianity. B.
18. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present. 19 And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought 20 among the Gentiles by his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; 21 and they are all zealous of the law: and they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to cir- 22 cumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? the mul- 23 titude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this 24 that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; them take and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are no- 25 thing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from
26 strangled, and from fornication. Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them. 27 And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they 28 saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted 29 this holy place. (For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, 30 whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.) And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and 31 forthwith the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the 32 chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them: and when they saw the chief captain and 33 the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he 34 had done. And some cried one thing, some another, among the multitude: and when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the 35 castle. And when he came upon the stairs, so it was, that he was borne of the soldiers for 36 the violence of the people. For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him. 37 And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak 38 unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men 39 that were murderers? But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. 40 And when he had given him licence, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people.
18-26. An Endeavor to remove the Unfounded Suspicions of Believing Jews, which became the Occasion of Paul’s Arrest by Unbelievers.—On the day succeeding the first private reception and welcome given to Paul and his company, a more public conference was held with James and the elders of the Church. To them Paul made full report of his ministry among the Gentiles; and they rendered a united thanksgiving for what God had thus wrought. Then, knowing well the temper of the Jewish Christians and their misapprehensions concerning Paul and his teaching, and realizing the crisis existing in the relations between believing Jews and Gentiles on account of Paul’s position and teaching, the elders wisely sought to bring about a desirable unity. This they did by suggesting that the apostle should take a simple part in an ancient ceremonial of the Jewish law.
If we would form an intelligent and fair judgment respecting this counsel and Paul’s compliance with it, these considerations must have due weight. With convincing power and world-wide acceptance Paul had preached salvation by grace, through a justifying faith, resting and centering alone upon Christ’s sacrifice and exaltation. This doctrine indirectly yet positively antagonized the long-cherished reverence and reliance of the Jew, Christian or unbeliever, in behalf of his legal or ceremonial obedience and worship. B.—Paul had opposed the external observance of Judaism only so far as the justification and sanctification of men were made to depend upon it. It was his principle that no one should abandon the national and civil relations in which he stood at the time of his conversion except for important reasons; and in accordance with this principle he allowed the Jews to adhere to their peculiarities, among which was the observance of the Mosaic law (1 Cor. 7: 18). N.—Yet the apostle had taught that the ceremonials instituted by Moses were not essential to salvation. He had declared the Gentiles to be free from all obligation to the Jewish ceremonial law. And this freedom of the Gentiles James and the elders were careful to recognize afresh, even while counseling Paul to conciliate the large body of Jewish Christians.
But Paul was falsely charged with going further and saying more than this. The charge came from the false brethren—a few in every church, who had professed Christianity and entered its fold only to misuse their position by perverting honest disciples back to the old, formal, and lifeless Judaism. This insidious, undermining work (we remark in passing) was the great obstacle and hindrance in the introduction of Christianity; and to its counteraction
Paul’s greatest intellectual and personal efforts were addressed. That these false teachers should have reported, and that the large numbers of sincere Christian Jews should have believed, that Paul had gone a step further and forbidden the practice of long familiar Jewish rites, is not strange. Much less was it strange that these Jewish Christians should be prejudiced against the apostle, and alienated from him and from the Gentile disciples. For, remember, this was with them a period of painful transition, in which all the old fixed religious convictions and habits were to be exchanged for, supplanted by, the new; the old involving, too, so much outward doing, and gratifying a natural self-righteousness, while the new demanded an inward spiritual faith, and gave self no resting-place. Consider, also, that the training of these “many thousands of Jews who believed” had instilled in them a peculiar reverence for the Mosaic institutions, as originating directly with Jehovah, and hallowed by centuries of observance. They could not but be “all zealous of the law,” and regard with alarm and almost aversion the man who was charged with causelessly desecrating that which they counted divine and held so dear.
No place nor time was so opportune to correct this false charge, to make the correction reach as far as the falsehood had been disseminated, even wherever Paul had been or was known. The Jerusalem Church was the center and source of Jewish-Christian sentiment. It everywhere led and controlled this sentiment. Christian Jews, too, were here from every part of the world that Christianity had reached. The false report corrected and the prejudice based upon it broken here and among this representative multitude, they would die out and disappear elsewhere. Proving to this vast throng of believing and unbelieving Jews, he would prove to all everywhere that he still recognized the ceremonial law as from God, and as such still revered and regarded it. He had shown this, indeed, in coming to this great festival. He had shown it by circumcising Timothy, and by his own vow and ceremonial at Cenchrea. But now he will prove it again in the sight of all the Jews—in their very Temple. Thus he will again “become a Jew to Jews, that he may gain the Jews” (1 Cor. 9: 19).
Four men of the Jerusalem Church, who had taken a temporary Nazarite vow (Num. 6), were about entering upon the ceremonial purification by which the vow was completed. The elders’ counsel was that Paul should associate himself with these men in this closing ceremony, and himself defray the expense of the offerings to be presented in the Temple. B.—Not that he should make himself a Nazarite, but merely that he should perform such preparatory rites as would enable him to take part with these Nazarites in the conclusion of their solemn service. J. A. A.—This counsel Paul willingly accepted, and proceeded to act upon.
From the fact that the apostle was seized by unbelieving Jews while engaged in this ceremonial service with the avowed design of conciliating Jewish believers, it has been inferred, even by so wise a man as John Knox, that the policy here advised and carried out was inconsistent with true Christian principles. But it certainly harmonized with those principles as laid down in the Epistles to the Corinthians and the Romans. And the record here gives no support to such an inference. The history that follows rather intimates that the end sought may have been fully attained. The knowledge that Paul was assaulted while showing his regard for their law (he having been some days visibly engaged in the ceremonial) may have drawn out the deeper sympathy of Jewish Christians in his behalf; and so more firmly united the great body of Jewish and Gentile believers in the subsequent persecutions and perils of their common Christian faith.
27-30. Paul assaulted by Jews and dragged from the Inner Court of Israel into the Outer Court of the Gentiles. (See Vol. I., Sec. 178.)—A low balustrade of stone, with pillars at regular intervals inscribed with a warning to Gentiles against entrance into the sacred limits beyond, fenced off the Inner Court of Israel from the Outer Court of the Gentiles. One of the stones containing this inscription was recently discovered in the Mohammedan cemetery by Mr. Ganneau. (See Vol. I., p. 621.)
It was within the fenced Inner Court, open only to worshiping Israelites, that some Ephesian Jews (of the province of Asia) encountered Paul—whose person seems to have been well known—with his band of Nazarites. Mistakenly inferring that one of these men was an Ephesian Greek (also well known to them), and too much blinded by hate to see clearly, they rushed upon the apostle, and loudly summoned the crowd of worshipers to aid in seizing him. With the same breath they denounced him as a renegade Jew, whose false, malevolent teaching everywhere among the Gentiles had spread suspicion and created hostility against the people, the Law, and the Temple of the Jews; a renegade, who even now dared to pollute the sanctity of this holy place by bringing into it Greeks (rather Gentiles, in accordance with the prevalent New Testament antithesis of Jews and Greeks). Such a charge instantly stirred to fury the masses always congregating at this festival period in and near the Temple, as the words were swiftly circulated among them. Responding to the wild cry of Help, as if Paul were the assailant and their sanctuary needed defense against his sacrilegious assault, the excited crowd fell upon the apostle, and, dragging him down into the Gentile Court, sought to beat him to death. Then the great doors of the “Beautiful” gate were closed by the Levites, to exclude the rioters from the holy court, and to prevent its possible profanation by bloodshed.
In the words of this false charge against Paul (v. 28), again we note (as often before) the evidence furnished by enemies of the vast extent and effectiveness of this apostle’s work for Christ and men: This is the man—that hath taught all men everywhere! Unbelievers and believers—all had heard, or heard of, him. B.
The extreme corruption and wickedness, not only of the mass of the Jewish people, but even of the rulers and chief men, is asserted by Josephus in the strongest terms: “For that time was fruitful among the Jews in all sorts of wickedness, so that they left no evil deed undone; nor was there any new form of wickedness, which any one could invent, if he wished to do so. Thus they were all corrupt, both in their public and their private relations; and they vied with each other who should excel in impiety toward God and injustice to men.” At the same time Josephus testifies to the existence among them of a species of zeal for religion—a readiness to attend the feasts, a regularity in the offering of sacrifice, an almost superstitious regard for the Temple, and a fanatic abhorrence of all who sought to “change the customs which Moses had delivered.” G. R.
31-33. Interposition of the Roman Tribune, and Binding of Paul. (See Frontispiece, Vol. I.)—The fortress Antonia (the castle here referred to) stood alone on a precipitous rock, near ninety feet high, at the northwest corner of the Temple. It was likewise a work of Herod the Great. The fortress was seventy feet in height. It appeared like a vast square tower, with four other towers at each corner, three of them between eighty and ninety feet high—that at the corner next to the Temple above a hundred and twenty. From this the whole Temple might be seen, and broad flights of steps led down into the northern and western cloisters, or porticoes, of the Temple, in which, during the Roman government, their guards were stationed. Milman.
Instantly upon receiving tidings of the uproar from these guards, the chief captain—or tribune, commanding one division (one sixth) of a Roman legion of six thousand men—hastened down with a body of soldiers into the Temple Court. The only thought of this man, Lysias by name, in interposing his armed force, was to check the turbulence of a Jewish mob, or to suppress a riot. He cared not about saving an innocent man from murderous violence. With a theory that Paul was a certain well-known insurgent leader, he was rather inclined to second the purpose of the infuriate Jews. His seizing and binding Paul seem to have been only the preliminary steps to this. Yet, with the Roman style of justice, he demands of Paul’s assailants to know who their victim was, and of what they accused him.
34-36. Paul borne up the Castle Stairs amid Malignant Outcries of the Jews.—No accusation could they make. Their hate furnished the only reason for their violence. To rescue Paul from this violence was the tribune’s duty, and therefore he commanded the soldiers to whom the apostle was chained to bear him up the stairway of the fortress. And as this was done, the same passionate, murderous cry that thirty years before had rung through the vast area of the Temple Court and Castle was heard again: Away with him! Before, it was actuated by hatred to Divine purity, truth, and love, incarnated in the person of Christ; now, coming from another generation filled with like malevolent spirit, it is hatred to Christ’s most faithful witness and messenger.
37-39. Brief Colloquy between Paul and Lysias.—As the absent governor’s representative, the tribune felt the grave responsibility, not only of preserving the public peace, but of dealing (as he supposed), in the person of this prisoner, with a fanatic insurgent, an Egyptian Jew, whose efforts at insurrection had troubled the whole administration of Felix. This Egyptian impostor had gone into the great Desert of Judea with four thousand assassins, secretly organized into bands. B.—He returned with thirty thousand men, whom he had deluded into the belief that he was the Messiah, and that he would restore the kingdom to Judah; he encamped on the Mount of Olives, threatening to overpower the Roman garrison, and promising that the walls of Jerusalem should fall down. He was attacked by Felix, and his followers dispersed or slain, the Egyptian himself escaping. S.—We find in Josephus a full account of the transaction, which happened under the government of Felix, and, what is remarkable, Josephus does not mention his name, but everywhere calls him “the Egyptian,” and “the Egyptian false prophet.” M. H.
Surprised at the ease and naturalness with which Paul addressed him in Greek, “as these insurgents probably communicated with their followers only in the dialect of their country,” the Roman captain puts a plain question of fact, to which Paul answers as plainly. He said, “I am a Jew; not a characterless vagabond from Egypt, nor even a native of Judea (where insurgents and insurrections were bred), but a citizen of refined and wealthy Tarsus in Asiatic Cilicia.” This direct, clear answer swept away at once the tribune’s suspicion. More than this, too, did Paul’s intelligent address and courageous bearing accomplish. Beholding him so un-
The whole scene is sublime beyond expression. Like all the marked events and crises of Paul’s grandly effective career, it neither requires nor admits any imaginative gloss or coloring. All these signal incidents are best apprehended and most impressively conveyed in the simple form of the Scriptural record. B.
40. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying, Men, brethren, and fathers, near ye my defence which I make now unto you. (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,) I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day. And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished. And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do. And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldst hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. 17 And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee: and when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncon- 26 demned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take 27 heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. Then the chief captain came, and said 28 unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, 29 With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief cap- tain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.
1-16. Paul’s voluntary statement, or first de- fense, was made to the maddened Jews massed in the vast Outer Court of the Temple, from the top of the stairway to the adjoining fortress Antonia. His quiet poise of manner and his respectful, dignified courtesy of address helped to calm their excitement. By calling this mob of persecutors Brethren, he both acknowledged and claimed a common nationality with them. The old men who were there, priests, rulers, and rabbis, of eminence as leaders and teach- ers, some of whom had just repeated the act of thirty years before by stirring up the people to per- secution, Paul yet addresses with the venerable term Fathers. His use, too, of the Hebrew tongue (that is, the then current Aramaic or Syro-Chaldaic dialect of Palestine, which had gradually supplanted the older Hebrew of Judea since the captivity) helped further to attract their attention and to con- ciliate their feeling at the outset.
With great wisdom and tact he shapes his whole address. He defers to their manifestly hostile feel- ing by calling it a defense (Greek, apology). He avows himself a Jew, refers to his pure Jewish blood, his place of birth, and his early and thorough training in the knowledge and practice of the law, at Jerusalem. He recalls that which they also well knew of his early life. He repeats the story of his surpassing zeal and frenzy in the active persecu- tion of Christian disciples; how he went even to Damascus for this purpose, under commission of the high priest and elders. He thus dwelt upon his fiercely fanatical career in order that the question might arise in their minds by anticipation, what had wrought so extreme a change. Surely they must feel and know that nothing less than an irresistible motive, a conviction of truth absolutely conclusive, could have turned a man of such indomitable, fiery zeal so utterly against himself and his kindred and associates, against all his previous beliefs, practices, prejudices, and hates.
Then he tells the marvelous story of his conver- sion. He details the miracle of Christ’s appear- ance and words by the way; and the subsequent visit and message of Ananias in Damascus. He characterizes Ananias as “a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there”; and declares that he spake in the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel. By the God of their fathers, therefore, he had been changed from a persecutor into an advocate of Christ. Pass- ing over the interval of three years, he proceeds to narrate a miraculous occurrence in Jerusalem.
17-21. Christ’s Second Appearance in the Tem- ple, and his Command that Paul should go forth to Distant Foreign Nations.—It was while in the Tem- ple, and while praying there—thus implying his loyalty to the Jewish sanctuary and its worship, and disproving the charge of hostility and profanation— that Christ came to him again. Not in a foreign country and an alien temple, but in their own sacred, time-hallowed precincts, where their own Jehovah had manifested his presence and recorded his name, this Christ had appeared to him. So appearing in Jehovah’s Temple, Paul suggests by implication, this Christ must be from God, their God. As it was the fervency of prayer that ushered Paul’s spirit into a state of trance, so it was his need of direction, in- tensely felt and fervidly expressed, that brought Christ a second time into close personal communion with him. This interview is not referred to in Luke’s previous account (ch. 9). Paul introduces it here to explain and justify his going to the Gen- tiles. From this point of view, the colloquy with Christ is specially instructive.
Christ’s reason for Paul’s instant departure from Jerusalem—“for they will not receive thy testimony concerning ME”—implies His knowledge that Paul’s great desire was to remain and preach Christ among the Jews of Jerusalem. This desire Paul makes even more evident to his present hearers by show- ing how he demurred to Christ’s command. They knew, he said, what a persecutor of Christians he had been; and this fact would give his new testi- mony for Christ the more weight with them. Thus Paul more than hints to the listening Jews that his strong desire was to remain among his own people. But he goes on faithfully to recite Christ’s impera- tive direction (His only reply) to depart, and to min- ister among far nations.
22,23. Why and how Paul’s Address was in- terrupted.—To the story of the apostle’s life and conversion, even to the statement about Christ’s second appearance, the vast throng crowding the Temple area had listened silently and intently; and they remembered well the miraculous part of it the next day. They seem to have felt the man’s sincerity. They uttered no doubt respecting his main assertion, that a direct power from above and not any influence of other minds had transformed the persecutor into the disciple of Christ. But when he spoke “this word”—better, this saying, referring to the whole direction of Christ—then instantly was aroused the old, deep-seated, and incurable envy and jealousy at the thought that the Gentiles could be fellow-heirs with them of Jehovah’s promised mercy, and subjects of their glorious Messiah. Then, on the instant, reason and reverence were forgotten; all sense of right and justice was overborne in a great outburst of mad rage. Although their Prophets and Psalmists had plainly proclaimed the ultimate world-wide ministry of the Messiah and the extension of God’s saving mercies to all peoples, the Jews had never accepted the fact, could never abide the thought. For its statement by Christ they rose upon him at Nazareth and during the week of his passion. For this statement they murdered Stephen; and, at Antioch and Corinth, had sought to murder Paul. And now, in their frantic impotence of wrath, they shout out their murderous execrations and demands, rending off and tossing up their outer garments, with handfuls of dust, into the air.
24-26. Paul’s Announcement of Roman Citizenship arrests the Examination by Scourging.**—By the violent outcry of the Jews not only was Paul silenced but the Roman commander was led to infer that the apostle’s defense (which the captain had not understood) had only strengthened their conviction of his guilt. Partly from this impression, and partly to gratify the Jewish populace (always a politic custom of the Roman rulers), the tribune directed that he should be tortured to confession by the scourge. The implements of such extorted confession (here called examination), including the posts, the binding thongs, and the knotted whips, were always at hand in a Roman fortress.
“But when they stretched him out for the whips,” or as they were binding him to the inclined post with leather thongs, Paul asserts, as at Philippi, his Roman citizenship. This he does in a sharply pointed question to the centurion charged with the scourging. To punish an untried and uncondemned Roman, especially to torture such a one with the scourge, was by Roman law one of the highest crimes. At once the centurion hastens to his commanding officer with the warning intelligence that Paul was a Roman.
27-29. The Tribune’s Second Colloquy with Paul, and its Effect.**—Instantly the astonished and alarmed chief captain came to his prisoner (girded for the scourge) to know if it were really so. Not for a moment did he doubt Paul’s assertion; for death was the penalty of a false claim to Roman citizenship. Such citizenship involved the highest political rights and civil privileges. It was acquired chiefly by parentage or purchase. By “a great sum” Lysias had purchased it. To Paul it had descended by inheritance.
Paul’s appeal had instant full effect. The thongs were untied and he removed from the dishonoring implements. Lysias, too (like the magistrates at Philippi), was greatly alarmed, because the mere binding of Paul to the scourge-post might have been punished with death. But now, as before, the apostle manifested no aggrieved or vindictive feeling. In part it had been a just self-honor, but chiefly regard for the dignity of the great cause he represented, that led him to declare his citizenship. He was always willing to suffer shame when such suffering was demanded by, or would in any wise further, his ministry of Christ and of truth among men. Otherwise, in the interest of Christianity, he claimed all the honor and respect due to a true manhood, and all the rights of human citizenship. B.
At first under the republic all Roman soldiers were Roman citizens. “But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art and degraded into a trade.” With the distinction between the praetorian and legionary soldiers all necessary connection between citizenship and military service ceased to exist. In strict conformity with this state of things we find that Claudius Lysias was a citizen by purchase, not because he was a military officer. H.
Wholly at a loss what to do with the apostle, compelled to keep him in custody for the safety of his life, having received vastly higher impressions of Paul’s character and standing, yet still ignorant who he was, and what the crime alleged against him by the Jews, Lysias naturally seeks the aid of the Sanhedrim, or great Jewish Council. He therefore summons its members to assemble on the morrow for a hearing of the case, hoping thereby to obtain sufficient understanding to guide his own future course. B.