_A PRISONER IN BONDS._
"Having found a ship crossing over unto Phœnicia, we went
aboard, and set sail.... We sailed unto Syria, and landed at
Tyre: for there the ship was to unload her burden.... When we
were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly.... Then
the chief captain came near, and laid hold on him, and commanded
him to be bound with two chains; and inquired who he was, and
what he had done.... But Paul said, I am a Jew, of Tarsus in
Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and I beseech thee, give me
leave to speak unto the people."--ACTS xxi. 2, 3, 17, 33, 39, 40.
"And they gave him audience unto this word; and they lifted up
their voice, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth:
for it is not fit that he should live.... But on the morrow,
desiring to know the certainty, wherefore he was accused of the
Jews, he loosed him, and commanded the chief priests and all the
council to come together, and brought Paul down, and set him
before them."--ACTS xxii. 22, 30.
"And after five days the high priest Ananias came down with
certain elders, and with an orator, one Tertullus; and they
informed the governor against Paul."--ACTS xxiv. 1.
"And Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for
thyself. Then Paul stretched forth his hand, and made his
defence."--ACTS xxvi. 1.
The title we have given to this chapter, "A Prisoner in Bonds,"
expresses the central idea of the last eight chapters of the Acts.
Twenty years and more had now elapsed since St. Paul's conversion on
the road to Damascus. These twenty years had been times of unceasing
and intense activity. Now we come to some five years when the external
labours, the turmoil and the cares of active life, have to be put
aside, and St. Paul was called upon to stand apart and learn the
lesson which every-day experience teaches to all,--how easily the
world can get along without us, how smoothly God's designs fulfil
themselves without our puny assistance. The various passages we have
placed at the head of this chapter cover six chapters of the Acts,
from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth. It may seem a large extent
of the text to be comprised within the limits of one of our chapters,
but it must be remembered that a great deal of the space thus included
is taken up with the narrative of St. Paul's conversion, which is
twice set forth at great length, first to the multitude from the
stairs of the tower of Antonia, and then in his defence which he
delivered before Agrippa and Bernice and Festus, or else with the
speeches delivered by him before the assembled Sanhedrin and before
Felix the governor, wherein he dwells on points previously and
sufficiently discussed.[236] We have already considered the narrative
of the Apostle's conversion at great length, and noted the particular
directions in which St. Paul's own later versions at Jerusalem and
Cæsarea throw light upon St. Luke's independent account. To the
earlier chapters of this book we therefore would refer the reader who
wishes to discuss St. Paul's conversion, and several of the other
subjects which he introduces. Let us now, however, endeavour, first of
all, to gather up into one connected story the tale of St. Paul's
journeys, sufferings, and imprisonments from the time he left Miletus
after his famous address till he set sail for Rome from the port of
Cæsarea, a prisoner destined for the judgment-seat of Nero. This
narrative will embrace from at least the summer of A.D. 58, when he
was arrested at Jerusalem, to the autumn of 60, when he set sail for
Rome. This connected story will enable us to see the close union of
the various parts of the narrative which is now hidden from us because
of the division into chapters, and will enable us to fix more easily
upon the leading points which lend themselves to the purposes of an
expositor.
[236] Thus in ch. xxiv. 10-16 he enlarges upon the subject of "the
Way which they call a sect," a topic and a name fully discussed
above on pp. 32, 33.
I. St. Paul, after parting from the Ephesian Church, embarked on board
his ship, and then coasted along the western shore of Asia Minor for
three days, sailing amid scenery of the most enchanting description,
specially in that late spring or early summer season at which the year
had then arrived. It was about the first of May, and all nature was
bursting into new life, when even hearts, the hardest and least
receptive of external influences, feel as if they were living a
portion of their youth over again. And even St. Paul, rapt away in the
contemplation of things unseen, must have felt himself touched by the
beauty of the scenes through which he was passing, though St. Luke
tells us nothing but the bare succession of events. Three days after
leaving Miletus the sacred company reached Patara, a town at the
south-western corner of Asia Minor, where the coast begins to turn
round towards the east. Here St. Paul found a trading ship sailing
direct to Tyre and Palestine, and therefore with all haste transferred
himself and his party into it. The ship seems to have been on the
point of sailing, which suited St. Paul so much the better, anxious as
he was to reach Jerusalem in time for Pentecost. The journey direct
from Patara to Tyre is about three hundred and fifty miles, a three
days' sail under favourable circumstances for the trading vessels of
the ancients, and the circumstances were favourable. The north-west
wind is to this day the prevailing wind in the eastern Mediterranean
during the late spring and early summer season, and the north-west
wind would be the most favourable wind for an ancient trader almost
entirely depending on an immense main sail for its motive power. With
such a wind the merchantmen of that age could travel at the rate of a
hundred to a hundred and fifty miles a day, and would therefore
traverse the distance between Patara and Tyre in three days, the time
we have specified. When the vessel arrived at Tyre St. Paul sought out
the local Christian congregation. The ship was chartered to bring a
cargo probably of wheat or wine to Tyre, inasmuch as Tyre was a purely
commercial city, and the territory naturally belonging to it was
utterly unable to furnish it with necessary provisions, as we have
already noted on the occasion of Herod Agrippa's death. A week,
therefore, was spent in unloading the cargo, during which St. Paul
devoted himself to the instruction of the local Christian Church.
After a week's close communion with this eminent servant of God, the
Tyrian Christians, like the elders of Ephesus and Miletus, with their
wives and children accompanied him till they reached the shore, where
they commended one another in prayer to God's care and blessing. From
Tyre he sailed to Ptolemais, thirty miles distant. There again he
found another Christian congregation, with whom he tarried one day,
and then leaving the ship proceeded by the great coast road to
Cæsarea, a town which he already knew right well, and to which he was
so soon to return as a prisoner in bonds. At Cæsarea there must now
have been a very considerable Christian congregation. In Cæsarea
Philip the Evangelist lived and ministered permanently. There too
resided his daughters, eminent as teachers, and exercising in their
preaching or prophetical functions a great influence among the very
mixed female population of the political capital of Palestine. St.
Paul and St. Luke abode in Cæsarea several days in the house of Philip
the Evangelist. He did not wish to arrive in Jerusalem till close on
the Feast of Pentecost, and owing to the fair winds with which he had
been favoured he must have had a week or more to stay in Cæsarea. Here
Agabus again appears upon the scene. Fourteen years before he had
predicted the famine which led St. Paul to pay a visit to Jerusalem
when bringing up the alms of the Antiochene Church to assist the poor
brethren at Jerusalem, and now he predicts the Apostle's approaching
captivity. The prospect moved the Church so much that the brethren
besought St. Paul to change his mind and not enter the Holy City. But
his mind was made up, and nothing would dissuade him from celebrating
the Feast as he had all along proposed. He went up therefore to
Jerusalem, lodging with Mnason, "an early disciple," as the Revised
Version puts it, one therefore who traced his Christian convictions
back probably to the celebrated Pentecost a quarter of a century
earlier, when the Holy Ghost first displayed His supernatural power in
converting multitudes of human souls. Next day he went to visit James,
the Bishop of Jerusalem, who received him warmly, grasped his
position, warned him of the rumours which had been industriously and
falsely circulated as to his opposition to the Law of Moses, even in
the case of born Jews, and gave him some prudent advice as to his
course of action. St. James recommended that St. Paul should unite
himself with certain Christian Nazarites, and perform the Jewish rites
usual in such cases. A Nazarite, as we have already mentioned, when he
took the Nazarite vow for a limited time after some special
deliverance vouchsafed to him, allowed his hair to grow till he could
cut it off in the Temple, and have it burned in the fire of the
sacrifices offered up on his behalf. These sacrifices were very
expensive, as will be seen at once by a reference to Numbers vi.
13-18, where they are prescribed at full length, and it was always
regarded as a mark of patriotic piety when any stranger coming to
Jerusalem offered to defray the necessary charges for the poorer Jews,
and thus completed the ceremonies connected with the Nazarite vow. St.
James advised St. Paul to adopt this course, to unite himself with the
members of the local Christian Church who were unable to defray the
customary expenses, to pay their charges, join with them in the
sacrifices, and thus publicly proclaim to those who opposed him that,
though he differed from them as regards the Gentiles, holding in that
matter with St. James himself and with the apostles, yet as regards
the Jews, whether at Jerusalem or throughout the world at large, he
was totally misrepresented when men asserted that he taught the Jews
to reject the Law of Moses. St. Paul was guided by the advice of
James, and proceeded to complete the ceremonial prescribed for the
Nazarites. This was the turning-point of his fate. Jerusalem was then
thronged with strangers from every part of the world. Ephesus and the
province of Asia, as a great commercial centre, and therefore a great
Jewish resort, furnished a very large contingent.[237] To these,
then, Paul was well known as an enthusiastic Christian teacher,
toward whom the synagogues of Ephesus felt the bitterest hostility.
They had often plotted against him at Ephesus, as St. Paul himself
told the elders in his address at Miletus, but had hitherto failed to
effect their purpose. Now, however, they seemed to see their chance.
They thought they had a popular cry and a legal accusation under which
he might be done to death under the forms of law. These Ephesian Jews
had seen him in the city in company with Trophimus, an uncircumcised
Christian, belonging to their own city, one therefore whose presence
within the temple was a capital offence, even according to Roman
law.[238] They raised a cry therefore that he had defiled the Holy
Place by bringing into it an uncircumcised Greek; and thus roused the
populace to seize the Apostle, drag him from the sacred precincts, and
murder him. During the celebration of the Feasts the Roman sentinels,
stationed upon the neighbouring tower of Antonia which overlooked the
Temple courts, watched the assembled crowds most narrowly,
apprehensive of a riot. As soon therefore as the first symptoms of an
outbreak occurred, the alarm was given, the chief captain Lysias
hurried to the spot, and St. Paul was rescued for the moment. At the
request of the Apostle, who was being carried up into the castle, he
was allowed to address the multitude from the stairs. They listened to
the narrative of his conversion very quietly till he came to tell of
the vision God vouchsafed to him in the Temple some twenty years
before, warning him to leave Jerusalem, when at the words "Depart, for
I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles," all their pent-up
rage and pride and national jealousy burst forth anew. St. Paul had
been addressing them in the Hebrew language which the chief captain
understood not, and the mob probably expressed their rage and passion
in the same language. The chief captain ordered St. Paul to be
examined by flogging to know why they were so outrageous against him.
More fortunate, however, on this occasion than at Philippi, he claimed
his privilege as a Roman citizen, and escaped the torture. The chief
captain was still in ignorance of the prisoner's crime, and therefore
he brought him the very next day before the Sanhedrin, when St. Paul
by a happy stroke caused such a division between the Sadducees and
Pharisees that the chief captain was again obliged to intervene and
rescue the prisoner from the contending factions. Next day, however,
the Jews formed a conspiracy to murder the Apostle, which his nephew
discovered and revealed to St. Paul and to Claudius Lysias, who that
same night despatched him to Cæsarea.[239]
[237] See Lightfoot's _Ignatius_, vol. i., p. 452, upon the
presence of Jews in the towns and cities of Proconsular Asia.
Antiochus the Great transported two thousand Jewish families to
these parts from Babylonia and Mesopotamia.
[238] Inscriptions, according to Josephus, were graven in Greek
and Latin on stones fixed in a wall or balustrade which ran round
the Temple, warning the Gentiles not to enter on pain of death:
see Josephus, _Wars_, V. v. 2; _Antiqq._, XV. xi. 5. One of these
stones was discovered some twenty years ago by M. Clermont
Ganneau, with the inscription intact. It had been buried in the
ground on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, where this learned
Frenchman discovered it. A transcript of it can now be seen in
Lewin's _St. Paul_, ii. 133. The inscription literally translated
runs thus: "No alien to pass within the balustrade round the
Temple and the inclosure. Whosoever shall be caught (so doing)
must blame himself for the death that will ensue." This stone must
often have been read by our Lord and His apostles, as they
frequented the temple.
[239] It is very curious how perpetually St. Paul escaped the
plots of the Jews at Corinth, Ephesus, and elsewhere. At Corinth
the plot formed was revealed as it would seem just as he was about
to go on board his vessel (ch. xx. 3). Doubtless there were
concealed Christians to whose ears the plots came and by whom they
were revealed.
All these events, from his conference with James to his arrival under
guard at Cæsarea, cannot have covered more than eight days at the
utmost, and yet the story of them extends from the middle of the
twenty-first chapter to the close of the twenty-third, while the
record of twelve months' hard work preaching, writing, organising is
embraced within the first six verses of the twentieth chapter, showing
how very different was St. Luke's narrative of affairs, according as
he was present or absent when they were transacted.[240]
[240] See Lewin's _Fasti Sacri_, pp. 314-16, for an elaborate
account of each day's proceedings, and a discussion of the various
problems, chronological and otherwise, which they raise.
From the beginning of the twenty-fourth chapter to the close of the
twenty-sixth is taken up with the account of St. Paul's trials, at
first before Felix, and then before Festus, his successor in the
procuratorship of Palestine. Just let us summarise the course of
events and distinguish between them. St. Paul was despatched by
Claudius Lysias to Felix accompanied by a letter in which he contrives
to put the best construction on his own actions, representing himself
as specially anxious about St. Paul because he was a Roman citizen, on
which account indeed he describes himself as rescuing him from the
clutches of the mob. After the lapse of five days St. Paul was brought
up before Felix and accused by the Jews of three serious crimes in the
eyes of Roman law as administered in Palestine. First, he was a mover
of seditions among the Jews;[241] second, a ringleader of a new sect,
the Nazarenes, unknown to Jewish law; and third, a profaner of the
Temple, contrary to the law which the Romans themselves had
sanctioned. On all these points Paul challenged investigation and
demanded proof, asking where were the Jews from Asia who had accused
him of profaning the Temple. The Jews doubtless thought that Paul was
a common Jew, who would be yielded up to their clamour by the
procurator, and knew nothing of his Roman citizenship. Their want of
witnesses brought about their failure, but did not lead to St. Paul's
release. He was committed to the custody of a centurion, and freedom
of access was granted to his friends. In this state St. Paul continued
two full years, from midsummer 58 to the same period of A.D. 60, when
Felix was superseded by Festus. During these two years Felix often
conversed with St. Paul. Felix was a thoroughly bad man. He exercised,
as a historian of that time said of him, "the power of a king with the
mind of a slave." He was tyrannical, licentious, and corrupt, and
hoped to be bribed by St. Paul when he would have set him at liberty.
At this period of his life St. Paul twice came in contact with the
Herodian house which thenceforth disappears from sacred history. Felix
about the period of St. Paul's arrest enticed Drusilla, the
great-granddaughter of Herod the Great, from her husband through the
medium as many think, of Simon Magus. Drusilla was very young and very
beautiful, and, like all the Herodian women, very wicked.[242] Felix
was an open adulterer, therefore, and it is no wonder that when Paul
reasoned before the guilty pair concerning righteousness, temperance,
and the judgment to come, conscience should have smitten them and
Felix should have trembled. St. Paul had another opportunity of
bearing witness before this wicked and bloodstained family. Festus
succeeded Felix as procurator of Palestine about June A.D. 60. Within
the following month Agrippa II., the son of the Herod Agrippa who had
died the terrible death at Cæsarea of which the twelfth chapter tells,
came to Cæsarea to pay his respects unto the new governor. Agrippa was
ruler of the kingdom of Chalcis, a district north of Palestine and
about the Lebanon Range. He was accompanied by his sister Bernice, who
afterwards became the mistress of Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem in
the last great siege. Festus had already heard St. Paul's case, and
had allowed his appeal unto Cæsar. He wished, however, to have his
case investigated before two Jewish experts, Agrippa and Bernice, who
could instruct his own ignorance on the charges laid against him by
the Jews, enabling him to write a more satisfactory report for the
Emperor's guidance. He brought St. Paul therefore before them, and
gave the great Christian champion another opportunity of bearing
witness for his Master before a family which now for more than sixty
years had been more or less mixed up, but never for their own
blessing, with Christian history. After a period of two years and
three months' detention, varied by different public appearances, St.
Paul was despatched to Rome to stand his trial and make his defence
before the Emperor Nero, whose name has become a synonym for vice,
brutality, and self-will.
[241] The Romans were always afraid of Jewish seditions. Seven
years before St. Paul's imprisonment there had been a terrible
outburst, in which Ananias the high priest had been himself
involved, and which led to the despatch of Felix himself as
procurator. He had effectually put down all disturbances, which
led to the prolongation of his rule in Palestine for the very
unusual period of eight years, from 52 to 60 A.D. This accounts
for the words of Tertullus (ch. xxiv. 2): "Seeing that by thee we
enjoy much peace, and that by thy providence evils are corrected
for this nation." See Lewin's _Fasti_, pp. 296-98, 315, 320;
Conybeare and Howson, ch. xxii.; and for the latest authority,
Schürer's _Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes_, i. 477-83, ii. 170
(Leipzig, 1886).
[242] Drusilla perished with her child by this union with Felix in
the famous eruption of Vesuvius A.D. 79.
II. We have now given a connected outline of St. Paul's history
extending over a period of more than two years. Let us omit his formal
defences, which have already come under our notice, and take for our
meditation a number of points which are peculiar to the narrative.
We have in the story of the voyage, arrest, and imprisonment of St.
Paul, many circumstances which illustrate God's methods of action in
the world, or else His dealings with the spiritual life. Let us take a
few instances. First, then, we direct attention to the steady though
quiet progress of the Christian faith as revealed in these chapters.
St. Paul landed at Tyre, and from Tyre he proceeded some thirty miles
south to Ptolemais. These are both of them towns which have never
hitherto occurred in our narrative as places of Christian activity.
St. Paul and St. Peter and Barnabas and the other active leaders of
the Church must often have passed through these towns, and wherever
they went they strove to make known the tidings of the gospel. But we
hear nothing in the Acts, and tradition tells us nothing of when or by
whom the Christian Church was founded in these localities.[243]
[243] See my remarks in the next chapter on the case of the church
at Puteoli, which St. Paul found flourishing there on his voyage
to Rome.
We get glimpses, too, of the ancient organisation of the Church, but
only glimpses; we have no complete statement, because St. Luke was
writing for a man who lived amidst it, and could supply the gaps which
his informant left. The presbyters are mentioned at Miletus, and
Agabus the prophet appeared at Antioch years before, and now again he
appears at Cæsarea, where Philip the Evangelist and his daughters the
prophetesses appear. Prophets and prophesying are not confined to
Palestine and Antioch, though the Acts tells us nothing of them as
existing elsewhere. The Epistle to Corinth shows us that the prophets
occupied a very important place in that Christian community.
Prophesying indeed was principally preaching at Corinth; but it did
not exclude prediction, and that after the ancient Jewish method, by
action as well as by word, for Agabus took St. Paul's girdle, and
binding his own hands and feet declared that the Holy Ghost told him,
"So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle,
and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles."[244] But how little
we know of the details of the upgrowth of the Church in all save the
more prominent places! How entirely ignorant we are, for instance, of
the methods by which the gospel spread to Tyre and Ptolemais and
Puteoli! Here we find in the Acts the fulfilment of our Lord's words
as reported in St. Mark iv. 26: "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man
should cast seed upon the earth; ... and the seed should spring up and
grow, he knoweth not how." It was with the last and grander temple of
God as it was with the first. Its foundations were laid, and its walls
were built, not with sound of axe and hammer, but in the penitence of
humbled souls, in the godly testimony of sanctified spirits, in the
earnest lives of holy men hidden from the scoffing world, known only
to the Almighty.
[244] This prophecy was not literally fulfilled. The Jews did not
bind St. Paul, nor deliver him into Gentile hands. The Romans took
him out of Jewish hands, and bound him for their own purposes. The
Jews, however, brought this binding about, and were the cause of
his captivity in Roman hands. On the question of prophets and
prophesying in the primitive Church, see Dr. Salmon's article on
Hermas, in the _Dictionary of Christian Biography_, vol. ii., pp.
916-19.
Again, we notice the advice given by James and the course actually
adopted by St. Paul when he arrived at Jerusalem. It has the
appearance of compromise of truth, and yet it has the appearance
merely, not the reality of compromise. It was in effect wise and sound
advice, and such as teaches lessons useful for our own guidance in
life. We have already set forth St. Paul's conception of Jewish rites
and ceremonies. They were nothing in the world one way or another, as
viewed from the Divine standpoint. Their presence did not help on the
work of man's salvation; their absence did not detract from it. The
Apostle therefore took part in them freely enough, as when he
celebrated the passover and the days of unleavened bread at Philippi,
viewing them as mere national rites.[245] He had been successful in
the very highest degree in converting to this view even the highest
and strictest members of the Jerusalem Church. St. James, in advising
St. Paul how to act on this occasion, when such prejudices had been
excited against him, clearly shows that he had come round to St.
Paul's view. He tells St. Paul that the multitude or body of the
Judæo-Christian Church at Jerusalem had been excited against him,
because they had been informed that he taught the Jews of the
Dispersion to forsake Moses, the very thing St. Paul did not do. St.
James grasped, however, St. Paul's view that Moses and the Levitical
Law might be good things for the Jews, but had no relation to the
Gentiles, and must not be imposed on them. St. James had taught this
view ten years earlier at the Apostolic Council. His opinions and
teaching had percolated downwards, and the majority of the Jerusalem
Church now held the same view as regards the Gentiles, but were as
strong as ever and as patriotic as ever so far as the Jews were
concerned, and the obligation of the Jewish Law upon them and their
children. St. Paul had carried his point as regards Gentile freedom.
And now there came a time when he had in turn to show consideration
and care for Jewish prejudices, and act out his own principle that
circumcision was nothing and uncircumcision was nothing. Concessions,
in fact, were not to be all on one side, and St. Paul had now to make
a concession. The Judæo-Christian congregations of Jerusalem were much
excited, and St. Paul by a certain course of conduct, perfectly
innocent and harmless, could pacify their excited patriotic feelings,
and demonstrate to them that he was still a true, a genuine, and not a
renegade Jew. It was but a little thing that St. James advised and
public feeling demanded. He had but to join himself to a party of
Nazarites and pay their expenses, and thus Paul would place himself
_en rapport_ with the Mother Church of Christendom. St. Paul acted
wisely, charitably, and in a Christlike spirit when he consented to do
as St. James advised. St. Paul was always eminently prudent. There are
some religious men who seem to think that to advise a wise or prudent
course is all the same as to advise a wicked or unprincipled course.
They seem to consider success in any course as a clear evidence of
sin, and failure as a proof of honesty and true principle. Concession,
however, is not the same as unworthy compromise. It is our duty in
life to see and make our course of conduct as fruitful and as
successful as possible. Concession on little points has a wondrous
power in smoothing the path of action and gaining true success. Many
an honest man ruins a good cause simply because he cannot distinguish,
as St. Paul did, things necessary and essential from things accidental
and trivial. Pig-headed obstinacy, to use a very homely but a very
expressive phrase, which indeed is often only disguised pride, is a
great enemy to the peace and harmony of societies and churches. St.
Paul displayed great boldness here. He was not afraid of being
misrepresented, that ghost which frightens so many a popularity hunter
from the course which is true and right. How easily his fierce
opponents, the men who had gone to Corinth and Galatia to oppose him,
might misrepresent his action in joining himself to the Nazarites!
They were the extreme men of the Jerusalem Church. They were the men
for whom the decisions of the Apostolic Council had no weight, and who
held still as of old that unless a man be circumcised he could not be
saved. How easily, I say, these men could despatch their emissaries,
who should proclaim that their opponent Paul had conceded all their
demands and was himself observing the law at Jerusalem. St. Paul was
not afraid of this misrepresentation, but boldly took the course which
seemed to him right and true, and charitable, despite the malicious
tongues of his adversaries. The Apostle of the Gentiles left us an
example which many still require. How many a man is kept from
adopting a course that is charitable and tends to peace and
edification, solely because he is afraid of what opponents may say, or
how they may twist and misrepresent his action. St. Paul was possessed
with none of this moral cowardice which specially flourishes among
so-called party-leaders, men who, instead of leading, are always led
and governed by the opinions of their followers.[246] St. Paul simply
determined in his conscience what was right, and then fearlessly acted
out his determination.
[245] St. Paul, writing twelve months earlier than his arrest,
expressly lays down this principle in 1 Corinthians vii. 18-20:
"Was any man called being circumcised? let him not become
uncircumcised. Hath any been called in uncircumcision? let him not
be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is
nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let each man
abide in that calling wherein he was called."
[246] We see enough of this in politics. We see it in the Church
as well. Writing as one with nearly a quarter of a century's
experience of a disestablished, and therefore of a popularly
governed Church, I have seen a great deal of this tendency in
ecclesiastical matters. Prominent and ambitious men are ever apt
to fall into the snare here noted. The tendency of popular
assemblies is ever to develop a class of men who will have but
little backbone, and will be always ready to rectify their
convictions to suit their constituencies. "Show thou me the way I
should walk in," but in a very different sense from the
Psalmist's, is the unuttered prayer of their lives, addressed to
the popular audiences of whose opinions they are the mere
expressions, not the guides. For such men this typical history has
many a reproof in St. Paul's brave conduct upon this and every
other occasion. He was never afraid of a little temporary
misrepresentation, and therefore he proved a real guide to the
Church of his own and of every age.
Some persons perhaps would argue that the result of his action showed
that he was wrong and had unworthily compromised the cause of
Christian freedom. They think that had he not consented to appear as a
Nazarite in the Temple no riot would have occurred, his arrest would
have been avoided, and the course of history might have been very
different. But here we would join issue on the spot. The results of
his action vindicated his Christian wisdom. The great body of the
Jerusalem Church were convinced of his sincerity and realised his
position. He maintained his influence over them, which had been
seriously imperilled previously, and thus helped on the course of
development which had been going on. Ten years before the advocates of
Gentile freedom were but a small body. Now the vast majority of the
local church at Jerusalem held fast to this idea, while still clinging
fast to the obligation laid upon the Jews to observe the law. St. Paul
did his best to maintain his friendship and alliance with the
Jerusalem Church. To put himself right with them he travelled up to
Jerusalem, when fresh fields and splendid prospects were opening up
for him in the West. For this purpose he submitted to several days
restraint and attendance in the Temple, and the results vindicated his
determination. The Jerusalem Church continued the same course of
orderly development, and when, ten years later, Jerusalem was
threatened with destruction, the Christian congregations alone rose
above the narrow bigoted patriotism which bound the Jews to the Holy
City. The Christians alone realised that the day of the Mosaic Law was
at length passed, and, retiring to the neighbouring city of Pella,
escaped the destruction which awaited the fanatical adherents of the
Law and the Temple.[247]
[247] See Eusebius, _H. E._, iii. 5, and the notes of Valesius on
that passage.
Another answer, too, may be made to this objection. It was not his
action in the matter of the Nazarites that brought about the riot and
the arrest and his consequent imprisonment. It was the hostility of
the Jews of Asia; and they would have assailed him whenever and
wherever they met him. Studying the matter too even in view of
results, we should draw the opposite conclusion. God Himself approved
his course. A Divine vision was vouchsafed to him in the guard-room
of Antonia, after he had twice experienced Jewish violence, and
bestowed upon him the approbation of Heaven: "The night following the
Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer; for as thou hast
testified concerning Me at Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also
at Rome." His courageous and at the same time charitable action was
vindicated by its results on the Jerusalem Church, by the sanction of
Christ Himself, and lastly, by its blessed results upon the
development of the Church at large in leading St. Paul to Rome, in
giving him a wider and more influential sphere for his efforts, and in
affording him leisure to write epistles like those to Ephesus,
Philippi, and Colossæ, which have been so instructive and useful for
the Church of all ages.
Another point which has exercised men's minds is found in St. Paul's
attitude and words when brought before the Sanhedrin on the day after
his arrest. The story is told in the opening verses of the
twenty-third chapter. Let us quote them, as they vividly present the
difficulty: "And Paul, looking stedfastly on the council, said,
Brethren, I have lived before God in all good conscience until this
day. And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to
smite him on the mouth. Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee,
thou whited wall: and sittest thou to judge me according to the law,
and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law? And they that
stood by said, Revilest thou God's high priest? And Paul said, I wist
not, brethren, that he was high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt
not speak evil of a ruler of thy people."
Two difficulties here present themselves. (_a_) There is St. Paul's
language, which certainly seems wanting in Christian meekness, and
not exactly modelled after the example of Christ, who, when He was
reviled, reviled not again, and laid down in His Sermon on the Mount a
law of suffering to which St. Paul does not here conform. But this is
only a difficulty for those who have formed a superhuman estimate of
St. Paul against which we have several times protested, and against
which this very book of the Acts seems to take special care to warn
its readers. If people will make the Apostle as sinless and as perfect
as our Lord, they will of course be surprised at his language on this
occasion. But if they regard him in the light in which St. Luke
portrays him, as a man of like passions and infirmities with
themselves, then they will feel no difficulty in the fact that St.
Paul's natural temper was roused at the brutal and illegal command to
smite a helpless prisoner on the mouth because he had made a statement
which a member of the court did not relish. This passage seems to me
not a difficulty, but a divinely guided passage witnessing to the
inspiring influence of the Holy Ghost, and inserted to chasten our
wandering fancy which would exalt the Apostle to a position equal to
that which rightly belongs to his Divine Master alone.
(_b_) Then there is a second difficulty. Some have thought that St.
Paul told a lie in this passage, and that, when defending himself from
the charge of unscriptural insolence to the high priest, he merely
pretended ignorance of his person, saying, "I wist not, brethren, that
he was high priest." The older commentators devised various
explanations of this passage. Dr. John Lightfoot, in his _Horæ
Hebraicæ_, treating of this verse, sums them all up as follows. Either
St. Paul means that he did not recognise Ananias as high priest
because he did not lawfully occupy the office, or else because that
Christ was now the only high priest; or else because there had been so
many and so frequent changes that as a matter of fact he did not know
who was the actual high priest. None of these is a satisfactory
explanation. Mr. Lewin offers what strikes me as the most natural
explanation, considering all the circumstances. Ananias was appointed
high priest about 47, continued in office till 59, and was killed in
the beginning of the great Jewish war. He was a thoroughly historical
character, and his high priesthood is guaranteed for us by the
testimony of Josephus, who tells us of his varied fortunes and of his
tragic death. But St. Paul never probably once saw him, as he was
absent from Jerusalem, except for one brief visit all the time while
he enjoyed supreme office.
Now the Sanhedrin consisted of seventy-one judges, they sat in a large
hall with a crowd of scribes and pupils in front of them, and the high
priest, as we have already pointed out (vol. i., p. 181), was not
necessarily president or chairman. St. Paul was very short-sighted,
and the ophthalmia under which he continually suffered was probably
much intensified by the violent treatment he had experienced the day
before. Could anything be more natural than that a shortsighted man
should not recognise in such a crowd the particular person who had
uttered this very brief, but very tyrannical command, "Smite him on
the mouth"? Surely an impartial review of St. Paul's life shows him
ever to have been at least a man of striking courage, and therefore
one who would never have descended to cloke his own hasty words with
even the shadow of an untruth![248]
[248] There is no necessity to adopt forced and unnatural
explanations when an easy one lies ready to our hand, and we all
have daily experience how hard it is for even a keen-sighted man
to distinguish among a crowd the person who utters a brief
exclamation; a fact which the debates in the House of Commons
often illustrate. I can myself quite appreciate St. Paul's
difficulty. I am extremely short-sighted, and am never able to
discern--say in a meeting of one of our synods--who it is that
interrupts or contradicts me.
Again, the readiness and quickness of St. Paul in seizing upon every
opportunity of escape have important teaching for us. Upon four
different occasions at this crisis he displayed this characteristic.
Let us note them for our guidance. When he was rescued by the chief
captain and was carried into the castle, the captain ordered him to be
examined by scourging to elicit the true cause of the riot, St. Paul
then availed himself of his privilege as a Roman citizen to escape
that torture. When he stood before the council he perceived the old
division between the Pharisees and the Sadducees to be still in
existence, which he had known long ago when he was himself connected
with it. He skilfully availed himself of that circumstance to raise
dissension among his opponents. He grasped the essential principle
which lay at the basis of his teaching, and that was the doctrine of
the Resurrection and the assertion of the reality of the spiritual
world. Without that doctrine Christianity and Christian teaching was
utterly meaningless, and in that doctrine Pharisees and Christians
were united. Dropping the line of defence he was about to offer, which
probably would have proceeded to show how true to conscience and to
Divine light had been his course of life, he cried out, "I am a
Pharisee, a son of Pharisees: touching the hope and resurrection of
the dead I am called in question." Grotius, an old and learned
commentator, dealing with ch. xxiii. 6, has well summed up the
principles on which St. Paul acted on this occasion in the following
words: "St. Paul was not lacking in human prudence, making use of
which for the service of the gospel, he intermingled the wisdom of the
serpent with the gentleness of the dove, and thus utilised the
dissensions of his enemies." Yet once more we see the same tact in
operation. After the meeting of the Sanhedrin and his rescue from out
of its very midst, a plot was formed to assassinate him, of which he
was informed by his nephew. Then again St. Paul did not let things
slide, trusting in the Divine care alone. He knew right well that God
demanded of men of faith that they should be fellow-workers with God
and lend Him their co-operation. He knew too the horror which the
Roman authorities had of riot and of all illegal measures; he
despatched his nephew therefore to the chief captain, and by his
readiness of resource saved himself from imminent danger. Lastly, we
find the same characteristic trait coming out at Cæsarea. His
experience of Roman rule taught him the anxiety of new governors to
please the people among whom they came. He knew that Festus would be
anxious to gratify the Jewish authorities in any way he possibly
could. They were very desirous to have the Apostle transferred from
Cæsarea to Jerusalem, sure that in some way or another they could
there dispose of him. Knowing therefore the dangerous position in
which he stood, St. Paul's readiness and tact again came to his help.
He knew Roman law thoroughly well. He knew that as a Roman citizen he
had one resource left by which in one brief sentence he could transfer
himself out of the jurisdiction of Sanhedrin and Procurator alike, and
of this he availed himself at the critical moment, pronouncing the
magic words _Cæsarem Appello_ ("I appeal unto Cæsar"). St. Paul left
in all these cases a healthy example which the Church urgently
required in subsequent years. He had no morbid craving after suffering
or death. No man ever lived in a closer communion with his God, or in
a more steadfast readiness to depart and be with Christ. But he knew
that it was his duty to remain at his post till the Captain of his
salvation gave a clear note of withdrawal, and that clear note was
only given when every avenue of escape was cut off. St. Paul therefore
used his knowledge and his tact in order to ascertain the Master's
will and discover whether it was His wish that His faithful servant
should depart or tarry yet awhile for the discharge of his earthly
duties. I have said that this was an example necessary for the Church
in subsequent ages. The question of flight in persecution became a
very practical one as soon as the Roman Empire assumed an attitude
definitely hostile to the Church. The more extreme and fanatical party
not only refused to take any measures to secure their safety or escape
death, but rather rushed headlong upon it, and upbraided those as
traitors and renegades who tried in any way to avoid suffering.[249]
From the earliest times, from the days of Ignatius of Antioch himself,
we see this morbid tendency displaying itself; while the Church in the
person of several of its greatest leaders--men like Polycarp and
Cyprian, who themselves retired from impending danger till the Roman
authorities discovered them--showed that St. Paul's wiser teaching and
example were not thrown away.[250] Quietism was a view which two
centuries ago made a great stir both in England and France, and seems
embodied to some extent in certain modern forms of thought. It taught
that believers should lie quite passive in God's hands and make no
effort for themselves. Quietism would never have found a follower in
the vigorous mind of St. Paul, who proved himself through all those
trials and vicissitudes of more than two years ever ready with some
new device wherewith to meet the hatred of his foes.[251]
[249] Any reader who wishes to see how this question was discussed
about the year 200 A. D. should turn to Tertullian's treatise _De
Fuga in Persecutione_, c. 6., in his works translated in Clark's
Ante-Nicene Library, vol. i., p. 364, where Tertullian admits that
the apostles fled in time of persecution, but argues that the
permission to do so was merely temporary and personal to the
apostles. The study of Church history is specially useful in
showing us how exactly the same tendencies emerge in ancient and
modern schisms and sects. Tertullian would have been a Quietist
had he lived in the seventeenth century; see note 2, p. 446.
[250] St. Ignatius of Antioch was very desirous of martyrdom. St.
Polycarp fifty years avoided it till he was arrested. St. Clement
of Alexandria, in his _Stromata_, iv. 16, 17, condemns the
suicidal passion for martyrdom. St. Cyprian, enthusiastic as he
was, retired like Polycarp till escape was impossible. These holy
men all acted like St. Paul. They waited till God had intimated
His will by shutting up all way of escape. The story of Polycarp
has an interesting warning against presumptuous rushing upon
trials. Quintus, one of St. Polycarp's flock, gave himself up to
death. His courage failed him at the last, and he became an
apostate: see on this subject Lightfoot's _Ignatius and Polycarp_,
vol. i., pp. 38, 393, 603.
[251] Quietism, Jansenism, and Quakerism were all manifestations
of the same spirit, and arose about the same time. Molinos was the
founder of Quietism in Spain. A concise account of the movement
will be found in Schaffs _Theological Encyclopædia_ in connexion
with the names of Molinos and Guyon.
III. We notice lastly in the narrative of St. Paul's imprisonment his
interviews with and his testimony before the members of the house of
Herod. St. Peter had experience of the father of Herod Agrippa, and
now St. Paul comes into contact with the children, Agrippa, Drusilla
and Bernice. And thus it came about. Felix the procurator, as we have
already explained, was a very bad man, and had enticed Drusilla from
her husband. He doubtless told her of the Jewish prisoner who lay a
captive in the city where she was living. The Herods were a clever
race, and they knew all about Jewish hopes and Messianic expectations,
and they ever seem to have been haunted by a certain curiosity
concerning the new sect of the Nazarenes. One Herod desired for a long
time to see Jesus Christ, and was delighted when Pilate gratified his
longing. Drusilla, doubtless, was equally curious, and easily
persuaded her husband to gratify her desire. We therefore read in ch.
xxiv. 24, "But after certain days, Felix came with Drusilla, his wife,
which was a Jewess, and sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the
faith in Christ Jesus."
Neither of them calculated on the kind of man they had to do with. St.
Paul knew all the circumstances of the case. He adapted his speech
thereto. He made a powerful appeal to the conscience of the guilty
pair. He reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to
come, and beneath his weighty words Felix trembled. His convictions
were roused. He experienced a transient season of penitence, such as
touched another guilty member of the Herodian house who feared John
and did many things gladly to win his approval. But habits of sin had
grasped Felix too firmly. He temporised with his conscience. He put
off the day of salvation when it was dawning on him, and his words,
"Go thy way for this time, and when I have a convenient season I will
call thee unto me," became the typical language of all those souls for
whom procrastination, want of decision, trifling with spiritual
feelings, have been the omens and the causes of eternal ruin.
But Felix and Drusilla were not the only members of the Herodian
house with whom Paul came in contact. Felix and Drusilla left
Palestine when two years of St. Paul's imprisonment had elapsed.
Festus, another procurator, followed, and began his course, as all the
Roman rulers of Palestine began theirs. The Jews, when Felix visited
Jerusalem, besought him to deliver the prisoner lying bound at Cæsarea
to the judgment of their Sanhedrin. Festus, all powerful as a Roman
governor usually was, dared not treat a Roman citizen thus without his
own consent, and when that consent was asked Paul at once refused,
knowing right well the intentions of the Jews, and appealed unto
Cæsar. A Roman governor, however, would not send a prisoner to the
judgment of the Emperor without stating the crime imputed to him. Just
at that moment Herod Agrippa, king of Chalcis and of the district of
Ituræa, together with his sister Bernice, appeared on the scene. He
was a Jew, and was well acquainted therefore with the accusations
brought against the Apostle, and could inform the procurator what
report he should send to the Emperor. Festus therefore brought Paul
before them, and gave him another opportunity of expounding the faith
of Jesus Christ and the law of love and purity which that faith
involved to a family who ever treated that law with profound contempt.
St. Paul availed himself of that opportunity. He addressed his whole
discourse to the king, and that discourse was typical of those he
addressed to Jewish audiences. It was like the sermon delivered to the
Jews in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia in one important aspect.
Both discourses gathered round the resurrection of Jesus Christ as
their central idea. St. Paul began his address before Agrippa with
that doctrine, and he ended with the same. The hope of Israel,
towards which their continuous worship tended, was the resurrection
of the dead. That was St. Paul's opening idea. The same note lay
beneath the narrative of his own conversion, and then he returned back
to his original statement that the Risen Christ was the hope of Israel
and of the world taught by Moses and proclaimed by prophets. But it
was all in vain as regards Agrippa and Bernice. The Herods were
magnificent, clever, beautiful. But they were of the earth, earthy.
Agrippa said indeed to Paul, "With but little persuasion thou wouldest
fain make me a Christian." But it was not souls like his for whom the
gospel message was intended. The Herods knew nothing of the burden of
sin or the keen longing of souls desirous of holiness and of God. They
were satisfied with the present transient scene, and enjoyed it
thoroughly. Agrippa's father when he lay a-dying at Cæsarea consoled
himself with the reflection that though his career was prematurely cut
short, yet at any rate he had lived a splendid life. And such as the
parent had been, such were the children. King Agrippa and his sister
Bernice were true types of the stony-ground hearers, with whom "the
care of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word." And
they choked the word so effectually in his case, even when taught by
St. Paul, that the only result upon Agrippa, as St. Luke reports it,
was this: "Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at
liberty, if he had not appealed unto Cæsar."