Peter was now quietly sleeping between his two guards, when his rest
was suddenly broken by a smart blow on the side, too energetically
given to be mistaken for an accidental knock from the elbow of one of
his heavy bed-fellows. Rousing his senses, and opening his eyes, he
was startled by a most remarkable light shining throughout his dungeon,
which his last waking glance had left in utter darkness. In this
unaccountable illumination, he saw standing before him and bending over
him, a form in which he could recognize only the divine messenger of
deliverance. The shock of such a surprise must have been overwhelming;
――to be waked from a sound sleep by an appearance so utterly unearthly,
might have struck horror into the stoutest heart; but Peter seems to
have suffered no such emotion to hinder his attendance to the heavenly
call. The apparition, before he could exercise thought enough to sit
up of himself, had raised him up from his bed, and that without the
slightest alarm to his still slumbering keepers,――for “immediately the
chains fell from his hands,”――a motion which by the rattling of the
falling irons should have aroused the sleepers if any sound could have
impressed their senses. The impulse of the now unmanacled captive might
have been to spring forth his dungeon without the slightest delay, but
his deliverer’s next command forbade any such unnecessary haste. His
first words were, “Gird thyself; and tie on thy sandals.” Before laying
himself down, he had, as usual, thrown off his outer garments and
loosened his girdle, so that his under dress need not so much confine
him in sleep as to prevent that perfect relaxation which is necessary
for comfortable repose. Just as now-a-days, a man in taking up such a
lodging as often falls to a traveler’s lot, will seldom do more than
pull off his coat and boots, as Peter did, and perhaps unbutton his
waist-band and suspenders, so that on a sudden alarm from his rest, the
first direction would very properly be, to “gird himself,” (button his
trowsers,) “and tie on his sandals,” (put on his shoes or boots.) The
next direction given to Peter, also, “Cast thy garment about thee,”
(put on thy coat,) would be equally appropriate. The meaning of all
this particularity and deliberation was, no doubt, that there was no
need whatever of hurry or slyness about the escape. It was not to be
considered a mere smart trick of jail-breaking, by which Peter was to
crawl out of his dungeon in such a hurry as to leave his coat and shoes
behind him, but a truly miraculous providence insuring his deliverance
with a completeness and certainty that allowed him to take every
thing that belonged to him. Having now perfectly accoutred himself
in his ordinary style, Peter immediately obeyed the next order of his
deliverer,――“Follow me.” Leaving his two bed-fellows and room-mates
sleeping hard, without the slightest idea of the evacuation of the
premises which was so deliberately going on, to their great detriment,
Peter now passed out through the open door, following the divine
messenger in a state of mind altogether indescribable, but still with
just sense enough to obey the directions which thus led him on to
blissful freedom. The whole scene bore so perfectly the character of
one of those enchanting dreams of liberty with which painful hope often
cheats the willing senses of the poor captive in slumber, that he might
well and wisely doubt the reality of an appearance so tempting, and
which his wishes would so readily suggest to his forgetful spirit. But
passing on with his conductor, he moved between the sentinels posted
at the doors, who were also equally unaware of the movement going on
so boldly under their noses, or rather _over_ them, for they, too, were
faster bound in slumber than their prisoner had been in his chains; and
he now stepped over their outstretched bodies as they lay before the
entrances. These soldiers, too, evidently looked upon their duty as a
sort of sinecure, rationally concluding that their two stout comrades
on the inside were rather more than a match for the fettered and
manacled captive, and that if he should be at all obstreperous, or even
uneasy, the noise would soon enough awake them from their nap. And thus
excessive precaution is very apt to overshoot itself, each part of the
arrangement relying too much on the security of all the rest. The two
passengers soon reached the great iron gate of the castle, through
which they must pass in order to enter the city. But all the seeming
difficulties of this passage vanished as soon as they approached it.
The gate swung its enormous mass of metal self-moving through the air,
and the half-entranced Peter went on beneath the vacant portal, and now
stood without the castle, once more a free man in the fresh, pure air.
The difficulties and dangers were not all over yet, however. During all
the great feast-days, when large assemblies of people were gathered at
Jerusalem from various quarters, to guard against the danger of riots
and insurrection in these motley throngs,――the armed Roman force on
duty, as Josephus relates, was doubled and tripled, occupying several
new posts around the temple, and, as the same historian particularly
mentions, on the approaches of castle Antonia, where its foundations
descended towards the terraces of the temple, and gave access to the
colonnades of the temple. On all these places the guard must have been
under arms during this passover, and even at night the sentries would
be stationed at all the important posts, as a reasonable security
against the numerous strangers of a dubious character, who now thronged
the city throughout. Yet all these peculiar precautions, which, at
this time, presented so many additional difficulties to the escaping
apostle, hindered him not in the least. Entering the city, he followed
the footsteps of his blessed guide, unchecked, till they had passed
on through the first street, when all at once, without sign or word
of farewell, the mysterious deliverer vanished, leaving Peter alone
in the silent city, but free and safe. Then flashed upon his mind
the conviction of the true character of the apparition. The departure
of his guide leaving him to seek his own way, his senses were, by
the necessity of this self-direction, recalled from the state of
stupefaction, in which he had mechanically followed on from the prison.
With the first burst of reflection, he broke out in the exclamation,
“Now I know of a truth, that the Lord has sent forth his messenger,
and has rescued me out of the hand of Herod, in spite of all the
expectation of the Jewish people.” Refreshed and encouraged by this
impression, he now used his thoroughly awakened senses to find his
exact situation, and after looking about him, he made his way through
the dark streets to a place where he knew he should find those whose
despairing hearts would be inexpressibly rejoiced by the news of his
deliverance. This was the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where
the disciples were accustomed to assemble. Going up to the gate-way,
he rapped on the door, and at once aroused those within; for in their
sleepless distress for the imprisoned apostle, several of the brethren
had given up all thoughts of sleep, and, as Peter had suspected, were
now watching in prayer within this house. The noise of a visitant at
this unseasonable hour of the night, immediately brought to the door
a lively damsel, named Rhoda; who, according to the Jewish custom of
employing females in this capacity, acted as portress of the mansion
of Mary. Prudently requiring some account of the person who made this
late call, before she opened the door of the persecuted Christians to
an unknown and perhaps an ill-disposed character, she was struck with
almost frantic joy at hearing the well-known voice of the much mourned
Peter, craving admittance. In the highth of her thoughtless gladness,
she ran off at once to make known the delightful fact to the disciples
in the house, without even seeming to think of the desirableness of
admitting the apostle, perhaps because she very naturally wanted to
tell such pleasant news first herself. Bursting into the room where
the disciples were at prayer for their lamented leader, whom they
supposed to be then fast bound for death in the dungeon of Antonia,
she communicated the joyful fact, that “Peter was before the gate.”
A declaration so extravagantly improbable, at once suggested the
idea of her having lost her wits through her affectionate sorrow for
the sufferings and anticipated death of the great apostle, and they
therefore replied, “Thou art crazy.” Rhoda, somewhat excited by such a
provoking expression of incredulity, loudly repeated her slighted piece
of good news, and so gravely maintained the truth of it, that some of
the more superstitious at last began to think there must be something
in it, and seriously suggested, that it must be a supernatural
messenger come to give them notice of his certain doom,――“It is his
guardian angel.” Peter, however, was all this while standing outside
during this grave debate about his real entity, and shivering with
the cold of a chilly March night, grew quite impatient at the girl’s
inconsiderate folly, and knocked away with might and main, making
a noise of most unspiritual character, till at last the disciples
determined to cut short the debate by an actual observation; so opening
the door to the shivering apostle, the light brought his material
existence to a certainty beyond all doubt. Their amazement and joy
was bursting forth with a vivacity which quite made up for their
previous incredulity; when the apostle, making a hushing sign with
his hand,――and with a reasonable fear, too, no doubt, that their
obstreperous congratulations might be heard in other houses around, so
as to alarm the neighbors and bring out some spiteful Jews, who would
procure his detection and recapture,――having obtained silence, went
on to give them a full account of his being brought out of prison by
the Lord, and after finishing his wonderful story, said to them, “Tell
these things to James and the brethren.” From this it would seem that
the apostles were all somewhere else, probably having found that a
temporary concealment was expedient for their safety, but were still
not far from the city. His own personal danger was of so imminent a
character, however, that Jerusalem could not be a safe place for him
during the search that would be immediately instituted after him by
his disappointed and enraged persecutors. It was quite worth while,
therefore, for him to use the remaining darkness of the night to
complete his escape; and without staying to enjoy their outflowing
sympathies, he bade them a hasty farewell, and, as the historian
briefly says, went to ANOTHER PLACE. Where this “other place” was,
he does not pretend to tell or know, and the only certain inference
to be drawn from the circumstance is, that it was beyond the reach
or knowledge of the mighty and far-ruling king, who had taken such
particular pains to secure Peter’s death. The probabilities as to the
real place of his retirement will, however, be given, as soon as the
sequel of events in Jerusalem has been narrated, as far as concerns the
discovery of his escape.
_Bright light._――Some commentators have attempted to make
out an explanation of this phenomenon, by referring the whole
affair to the effects of a sudden flash and stroke of lightning,
falling on the castle, and striking all the keepers senseless,
――_melting_ Peter’s chains, and illuminating the place, so that
Peter, unhurt amid the general crash, saw this opportunity for
escaping, and stepping over their prostrate bodies, made his way
out of the prison, and was out of sight before they _came to_.
The most important objection to this ingenious speculation is,
that it directly contradicts every verse in Luke’s account of
the escape, as well as the general spirit of the narrative.
Another weighty reason is, that the whole series of natural
causes and effects, proposed as a substitute for the simple
meaning, is brought together in such forced and uncommon
coincidences, as to require a much greater effort of faith
and credulity for its belief, than the miraculous view, which
it quite transcends in incredibility. The introduction of
explanations of miracles by natural phenomena, is justifiable
only so far as these may illustrate the _accompaniments_ of
the event, by showing the mode in which those things which are
actually mentioned as physical results, operated in producing
the impressions described. Thus, when thunder and lightning are
mentioned in connection with miraculous events, they are to be
considered as _real_ electrical discharges, made to accompany
and manifest the presence of God; and where lambent flames
are described as appearing in a storm, they, like the _corpos
santos_, are plainly also results of electrical discharges.
So too, when mighty winds are mentioned, they are most
honestly taken to be _real_ winds, and not deceptive sounds or
impressions; and when a cloud is mentioned, it is but fair to
consider it a real cloud, made up, like all other clouds, of
vapor, and not a mere non-entity, or a delusion existing only
in the minds of those who are mentioned as beholding it. But
where nothing of this kind is spoken of, and where a distinct
personal presence is plainly declared, the attempt to substitute
a physical accident for such an apparition, is a direct attack
on the _honesty_ of the statement. Such attempts, too, are
devoid of the benefits of such illustrations as I have alluded
to as desirable; they bring in a new set of difficulties with
them, without removing any of those previously obstructing the
interpretation of the facts. In this case, the only circumstance
which could be reasonably made to agree with the idea of
lightning, is the mention of the bright light; while throughout
the whole account, the presence of a supernaturally mysterious
_person_, acting and speaking, is perfectly unquestionable. The
violation of all probability, shown in this forced explanation,
will serve as a fair instance of the mode in which many modern
German critics are in the habit of distorting the simple,
manifest sense of the sacred writers, for the sake of dispensing
with all supernatural occurrences. (See Kuinoel for an enlarged
view and discussion of this opinion. Other views of the nature
of the phenomenon are also given by him, and by Rosenmueller, on
Acts xii. 7.)
Morning dawned at last upon the towers and temple-columns of the Holy
City. On the gold-sheeted roofs and snowy-pillared colonnades of the
house of God, the sunlight poured with a splendor hardly more glorious
than the insupportable brilliancy that was sent back from their
dazzling surfaces, streaming like a new morning upon the objects around,
whose nearer sides would otherwise have been left in shade by the
eastern rays. Castle Antonia shared in this general illumination, and
at the first blaze of sunrise, the order of Roman service announced
the moment for relieving guard. The bustle of the movement of the
new sentries towards their stands, must at last have reached the ears
of Peter’s forsaken companions. Their first waking thoughts would
of course be on their responsible charge, and they now became for
the first time aware of the important deficiency. In vain did their
heavy eyes, at first winking with sleepiness, but now wide open with
amazement, search the dim vacancy for their eloped bed-fellow. The most
inquisitive glance fell only on the blank space between them, scarcely
blanker than the forlorn visages of the poor keepers, who saw in
this disappearance the seal of their certain death, for having let
the prisoner escape. But they had not much time to consider their
misfortune, or condole upon it; for the change of sentries now brought
to the door the quaternion whose turn on duty came next. With a
miserable grace did the unhappy occupants of the cell show themselves
at the open door, with the empty chains and fetters dangling at their
sides, from which their late companion had so curiously slipped.
Most uncomfortable must have been the aspect of things to the two
sentinels who had been keeping their steady watch outside of the door,
and who shared equally with the inside keepers, in the undesirable
responsibilities of this accident. There stood their comrades with the
useless chains displayed in their original attachments; but, _amazing!_
what in the world had they done with the prisoner? The ludicrous
distress and commotion resulting from this unpleasant revelation, was
evidently well appreciated even by the sacred historian, whose brief
but pithy expression is not without a latent comic force. “There was
no small stir among the soldiers to know what was become of Peter.”
A general search into all the holes and corners of the dungeon, of
course, ensued; and the castle was no doubt ransacked from top to
bottom for the runaway, whose escape from its massive gates seemed
still impossible. But not even his cloak and sandals, which he had laid
beside him at the last change of guards,――not a shred, not a thread had
been left to hint at the mode of his abstraction. Yet this was so bad
a story for the ears of the royal Agrippa, that it would not do to give
up the search while any chance whatever remained. But all rummaging
was perfectly fruitless; and with sorrowful hearts, they now went
with their report to the vindictive king, to acknowledge that most
unpardonable crime in Roman soldiers,――to have slept on their posts,
so that a prisoner of state had escaped on the eve of execution.
Baronius, (Church Annuals, 44, § 8,) speaking of Peter’s escape
from his chains, favors us with a solemn statement of the
important and interesting circumstance, deriving the proofs
from Metaphrastes, (that prince of papistical liars, and grand
source of Romish apostolical fables,) that these very chains
of Peter are still preserved at Rome, among other venerable
relics of equal authenticity; having been faithfully preserved,
and at last found after the lapse of four hundred years. The
veritable history of this miraculous preservation, as given by
the inventive Metaphrastes, is, that the said chains happened
to fall into the hands of one of Agrippa’s servants who was a
believer in Christ, and so were handed down for four centuries,
and at last brought to light. It is lamentable that the list
of the various persons through whose hands they passed, is not
given, though second in importance only to the authentic record
of the papal succession. This impudent and paltry falsehood will
serve as a fair specimen of a vast quantity of such stuff, which
litters up the pages of even the sober ecclesiastical histories
of many papistical writers. The only wonderful thing to me about
this story is, that Cave has not given it a place in his Lives
of the Apostles, which are made up with so great a portion of
similar trash.
Baronius, in connection with this passage, suggests the castle
of Antonia as the most probable place of Peter’s confinement.
“Juxta templum fortasse in ea munitissima turri quae dicebatur
Antonia.” (Baronius, Church Annuals, C. 44, § 5.) A conjecture
which certainly adds some weight to my own supposition to that
effect; although I did not discover the coincidence in time to
mention it in my note on page 194.
Meanwhile, with the early day, up rose the royal Agrippa from his
purple couch, to seize the first moment after the close of the passover
for the consummation of the doom of the wretched Galilean, who, by the
royal decree, must now yield the life already too many days spared, out
of delicate scruple about the inviolate purity of that holy week. Up
rose also the saintly princes of the Judaic law, coming forth in their
solemn trains and broad phylacteries, to grace this most religious
occasion with their reverend presence, out of respectful gratitude
to their great sovran for his considerate disposition to accord the
sanction of his absolute secular power to their religious sentence.
Expectation stood on tiptoe for the comfortable spectacle of the
streaming life-blood of this stubborn leader of the Nazarene heresy,
and nothing was wanting to the completion of the ceremony, but the
criminal himself. That “desideratum, so much to be desired,” was,
however, not so easily supplied; for the entrance of the delinquent
sentinels now presented the _non-est-inventus_ return to the solemn
summons for the body of their prisoner. Confusion thrice confounded
now fell on the faces that were just shining with anticipated triumph
over their hated foe, while secret, scornful joy illuminated the
countenances of the oppressed friends of Jesus. But on the devoted
minions of the baffled king, did his disappointed vengeance fall most
cruelly; in his paroxysm of vexation, and for an event wholly beyond
their control they now suffered an undeserved death; making so tragical
a catastrophe to a story otherwise decidedly comical, that the reader
can only comfort himself with the belief that they were a set of
insolent reprobates who had insulted the distresses of their frequent
victims, and would have rejoiced in the bloody execution of the apostle.
King Herod Agrippa, after this miserable failure in his attempt to
“please the Jews,” does not seem to have made a very long stay in
Jerusalem. Before his departure, however, to secure his own solid
glory and his kingdom’s safety, as well as the favor of his subjects,
he not only continued the repairs of the temple, but instituted such
improvements in the fortifications of the city, as, if ever completed,
would have made it utterly impregnable even to a Roman force; so
that the emperor’s jealousy soon compelled him to abandon this work;
and soon after he left Jerusalem, and went down to Caesarea Augusta,
on the sea-coast, long the seat of government of Palestine, and
a more agreeable place for the operations of a Gentile court and
administration, (for such Agrippa’s must have been from his Roman
residence,) than the punctilious religious capital of Judea. But he was
not allowed to remain much longer on the earth, to hinder the progress
of the truth, by acts of tyranny in subservience to the base purposes
of winning the favor of his more powerful subjects. The hand of God
was laid destroyingly on him, in the midst of what seemed the full
fruition of that popular adulation for which he had lived,――in which
he now died. Arrayed in a splendid and massy robe of polished silver,
he seated himself on the throne erected by his grandfather Herod,
in the great Herodian theater at Caesarea, early in the morning of
the day which was appointed for the celebration of the great festal
games, in honor of his royal patron, Claudius Caesar. On this occasion,
to crown his kingly triumph, the embassadors of the great commercial
Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, appeared before him to receive
his condescending answer to their submissive requests for the
re-establishment of a friendly intercourse between his dominions and
theirs,――the agricultural products of the former being quite essential
to the thriving trade of the latter. Agrippa’s reply was now publicly
given to them, in which he graciously granted all their requests, in
such a tone of eloquent benignity, that the admiring assembly expressed
their approbation in shouts of praise, and at last some bold adulators
catching the idea from the rays of dazzling light which flashed from
the polished surfaces of his metallic robe, and threw a sort of glory
over and around him, cried out, in impious exclamation, “It is the
voice of a God, and not of a man.” So little taste had the foolish king,
that he did not check this pitiful outbreak of silly blasphemy; but
sat swallowing it all, in the most unmoved self-satisfaction. But in
the midst of this profane glory, he was called to an account for which
it ill prepared him. In the expressive though figurative language of
Luke,――“immediately the messenger of the Lord struck him, because he
gave not the glory to God.” The Jewish historian, too, in a similar
manner assigns the reason. “The king did not rebuke the flatterers,
nor refuse their impious adulation. Shortly after he was seized with
a pain in the belly, dreadfully violent from the beginning. Turning
to his friends he said, ‘Behold! I, your god, am now appointed to end
my life,――the decree of fate having at once falsified the voices that
but just now were uttering lies about me; and I, who have been called
immortal by you, am now carried off dying.’ While he uttered these
words he was tortured by the increasing violence of his pain, and was
accordingly carried back to his palace. After five days of intense
anguish, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the
seventh of his reign; having reigned four years under Caius Caesar, and
three under Claudius.” Thus ended the days of the conscience-stricken
tyrant, while the glorious gospel cause which he had so vainly thought
to check and overthrow, now, in the words of Luke, “grew and was
multiplied;” the spiteful Jews having lost the right arm of their
persecuting authority, in the death of their king, and all Palestine
now passing again under the direct Roman rule, whose tolerant
principles became once more the great protection of the followers of
Jesus.
_Agrippa’s death._――My combination of the two different accounts
given by Luke and Josephus of this event, I believe accords
with the best authorities; nor am I disposed, as Michaelis is,
to reject Josephus’s statement as irreconcilable with that in
the Acts, though deficient in some particulars, which are given
in the latter, and though not rightly apprehending fully the
motives and immediate occasions of many things which he mentions.
In the same way, too, several minor circumstances are omitted in
Luke, which can be brought in from Josephus so as to give a much
more vivid idea of the whole event, than can be learned from the
Acts alone. (See Michaelis’s introduction to the New Testament,
――on Luke. Also Wolf and Kuinoel.)