inscription just outside the inner court, on the terrace which led up to it, reading as follows: NO GENTILE SHALL WHICH WILL FOLLOW. The fanatical Jews from Asia, having seen Trophimus, one of Paul's friends from Ephesus (see Acts 20:4), with him in the city, supposed that he was one of the four men Paul had brought into the sanctuary. A tumult began at once. Everyone heard it said that this dastardly heretic and apostate, not content with undermining the faith of his fellow Jews outside Palestine, had actually come to the city, and defiled the Sacred Place with his heathen followers! The rumor spread like fire. The whole city was stirred. People were running through the streets. An angry crowd seized Paul and dragged him out of the Temple. The Temple gates were swung shut, for fear he should enter again. Down the Temple hill and into the city they dragged him, probably planning to take him outside the city wall and there stone him to death. Hearing the riot, the Roman officer in command of the Castle of Antonia, the garrison at the northwest corner of the Temple, rushed down with several companies of soldiers. When the Jews saw the soldiers coming they ceased beating Paul. Then the officer commanded his men to bind Paul with two chains, manacling either wrist to the wrist of a soldier, and demanded information as to who he was and what his crime. The crowd answered, some one thing, others another. The officer could not make out the cause of the disturbance and so ordered Paul led into the castle. PAUL IN CUSTODY Even as they ascended the stairs to the castle, the crowd became so violent Paul literally had to be carried along by the soldiers. The mob was howling, "Away with him! Away with him!"-just as it had howled nearly thirty years before when Pilate tried to rescue Jesus from their fury. Paul's address.-Nearing the castle, on the platform at the head of the stairs, Paul spoke to the officer and requested permission to address him. The officer, Claudius Lysias, supposed Paul to be some mad fanatic, perhaps the Egyptian seditionist who had recently started an uprising among the Zealots; and when Paul spoke to him in Greek and asked permission to continue, the officer was greatly astonished. Then Paul continued, "I am a Jew, a citizen of Tarsus in Cilicia (no mean city!), and I request you to let me speak to the people.” The permission granted, Paul turned and standing at the head of the stairs lifted his manacled hand to ask for silence. When the mob quieted down he began as follows, speaking now in Aramaic, "Brethren and fathers, hear the defense I am about to make." At this, hearing him speak in their own Aramaic tongue, they became still more quiet. His defense consisted of a straightforward, manly account of his own past history, his early zeal for the Law, his persecution of the Christians, his conversion, his baptism and the vision which sent him forth as an apostle to the Gentiles. Thus far the audience remained silent. But at the hated word "Gentiles" they broke out again, screaming and shouting and crying out: pains, over which he had felt such enthusiasm, so far as we know not one word of appreciation or gratitude was uttered by the "poor saints" or their leaders in Jerusalem. Jesus had known the ingratitude of his people. Now Paul too was learning it. And yet, like a ray of light streaming into the darkness of his prison, there were the words of the vision, "Be of good cheer, Paul; thou hast testified to me at Jerusalem, and so shalt thou bear witness at Rome!" STUDY TOPICS 1. Look up, on the diagrams of Jerusalem and the Temple (The Life and Times of Jesus, facing pp. 183, 193), the places mentioned in this chapter, the Court of the Gentiles, the Court of the Men of Israel, the Castle of Antonia, the Council Chamber of the Sanhedrin. Draw a diagram and locate these in your notebook. 2. Explain the plan of James and the elders for Paul to conciliate the Law-observing Christians in Jerusalem. Why was the plan a dangerous one? 3. Explain the truth or untruth of the Jewish account of Paul's preaching and work among the Gentiles. 4. Look up the rites of purification (Numbers 6:13-21; these were appointed for "Nazirites," but were modified for those who had fulfilled ordinary vows); and see the article "Purification" in the Bible dictionary. 5. Read Paul's defense, Acts 22:1-21. What were its chief points? How and why was it cut short? 6. Read the account of the conspiracy in Acts 23: 12-22. Paul's nephew is never mentioned again. He may have been a Christian, but probably was not-as Christians he and his mother would not have learned of the plot. But he was a brave lad, and possessed some of the courageous spirit of his heroic uncle. It |