Apprehen Paul. sistance from the Jewish Christians. The Interposition of the Roman commander in Jerusalem was called forth, rather to suppress a sion of dangerous riot, than to rescue an innocent victim from the tumultuous violence of the populace. Lysias at first supposed Paul to be one of the insurgent chieftains who had disturbed the public peace during the whole administration of Felix. His fears identified him with a Jew of Egyptian birth, who, a short time before, had appeared on the Mount of Olives at the head of above 30,000 fanatic followers; and, though his partizans were scattered by the decisive measures of Felix, had contrived to make his escape (1). The impression that his insurrection had made on the minds of the Romans, is shown by the terror of his reappearance, which seems to have haunted the mind of Lysias. The ease and purity with which Paul addressed him in Greek, as these insurgents probably communicated with their followers only in the dialect of the country; the commanding sere nity of his demeanour; and the declaration that he was a citizen of an Asialic town, not a native of Palestine, so far influenced Lysias in his favour, as to permit him to address the multitude. It was probably from the flight of steps which led from the outer court of the Temple up into the Antonia that Paul commenced his harangue. He spoke in the vernacular language of the country, and was heard in silence, as far as his account of his conversion to the new religion; but directly that he touched on the dangerous subject of the admission of the Gentiles to the privileges of Christianity, the popular frenzy broke out again with such violence, as scarcely to be controlled by the Roman military. Paul was led away into the court of the fortress, and the commander, who probably understood nothing of his address, but only saw, that instead of allaying, it increased the turbulence of the people (for with the characteristic violence of an Asiatic mob, they are described as casting off their clothes, and throwing dust into the air), gave orders that he should suffer the usual punishment of scourging with rods, in order that he might be forced to confess the real origin of the disturbance. But this proceeding was arrested by Paul's claiming the privilege of a Roman citizen, whom it was treason against the majesty of the Roman people to expose to such indignity (2). The soldiers, or lictors, engaged in scourging him recoiled in terror. The respect of Lysias himself for his prisoner rose to more than its former height, for having himself purchased this valuable privilege at a high price, one who had inherited the same right appeared an important personage in his estimation. The next morning the Sanhedrin was convened, and Paul was again brought into the Temple, to the Gazith, the chamber where the Sanhedrin held its judicial meetings. Ananias presided in the Sanhe drin. assembly as High Priest, an office which he possessed rather by Paul be- usurpation than legitimate authority. After the tumults between the fore the Samaritans and the Jews, during the administration of Cumanus, Ananias had, as was before briefly stated, been sent as a prisoner to Rome, to answer for the charges against his nation (1). After two years he had been released by the interest of Agrippa, and allowed to return to Jerusalem. In the meantime the High Priesthood had been filled by Jonathan, who was murdered by assassins in the Temple, employed, or at least connived at, by the governor (2). Ananias appears to have resumed the vacant authority, until the appointment of Ismael, son of Fabi, by Agrippa (3). Ananias was of the Sadducaic party, a man harsh, venal, and ambitious. Faction most probably ran very high in the national council; we are inclined to suppose, from the favourable expressions of Josephus, that the murdered Jonathan was of the Pharisaic sect; and his recent death, and the usurpation of the office by Ananias, would incline the Pharisaic faction to resist all measures proposed by their adversaries. Of this state of things Paul seems to have been fully aware. He commenced with a solemn protestation of his innocence, which so excited the indignation of Ananias, that he commanded him to be struck over the mouth, a common punishment in the East for language which may displease those in power (4). The answer of St. Paul to this arbitrary violation of the law, for by the Jewish course of justice no punishment could be inflicted without a formal sentence, was in tone of vehement indignation," God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?" Rebuked for thus disrespectfully answering the High Priest, Paul answered that he did not know that there was any one at that time lawfully exercising the office of High Priest (5), an office which he was bound, by the strict letter of the sacred writings, to treat with profound respect. He proceeded, without scruple, to avail himself of the dissensions of the Court; for by resting his defence on his belief in the resurrection, he irritated more violently the Sadducaic party, but threw that of the Pharisees on his own side. The angry discussion was terminated by the interposition of the Roman commander, who again withdrew Paul into the citadel. Yet his life was not secure even there. The crime of assassination had become fearfully frequent in Jerusalem. Neither the sanctity of the Temple protected the unsuspicious worshipper from the secret dagger, nor, as we have seen, did the majesty of the High Priest's office secure the first religious and civil magistrate of the nation from the same ignoble fate. A conspiracy was formed by some of these fanatie (1) Joseph. Ant. xx. 6. 2. (2) Joseph. xx. 8. 5. (3) A. D. 56. Joseph. Ant. xx. 8. 8. (4) Acts, xxiii. 2, 3. (5) "I wist not that there was a High Priest;" such appears to be the translation of this passage, suggested by Mr. Greswell, most agreeable to the sense. zealots against the life of Paul; but the plot being discovered by one of his relatives, a sister's son, he was sent under a strong guard to Cæsarea, the residence of the Roman provincial governor, the dissolute and tyrannical Felix. to Carsa. rea. fore Felix. The Sanhedrin pursued their hated adversary to the tribunal Paul sent of the Governor, but with Felix they possessed no commanding influence. A hired orator, whom from his name we may conjecture Paul be to have been a Roman, employed perhaps according to the usage, which provided that all legal proceedings should be conducted in the Latin language, appeared as their advocate before the tribunal (1). But the defence of Paul against the charge of sedition, of innovation, and the profanation of the Temple, was equally successful with Felix, who was well acquainted with the Jewish character, and by no means disposed to lend himself to their passions and animosities. The charge therefore was dismissed. Paul, though not set at liberty, was allowed free intercourse with his Christian brethren; Felix himself even condescended to hear, and heard not without emotion, the high moral doctrines of St. Paul, which were so much at variance with his unjust and adulterous life. But it was not so much the virtue as the rapacity of Felix which thus inclined him to look with favour upon the Apostle knowing probably the profuse liberality of the Christians, and their zealous attachment to their teacher, he expected that the liberty of Paul would be purchased at any price he might demand. For the two last years therefore of the administration of Felix, Paul remained a prisoner; and Paul in Felix, at his departure, well aware that accusations were lodged prison at against him by the representatives of the Jewish nation, endeavoured to propitiate their favour by leaving him still in custody (2). Nor had the Jews lost sight of this great object of animosity. Before the new governor, Porcius Festus, a man of rigid justice, and less acquainted with the Jewish character, their charges were renewed with the utmost acrimony. On his first visit to Jerusalem, the High Priest demanded that Paul should be sent back for trial before the Sanhedrin; and though Festus refused the petition till he should himself have investigated the case at Cæsarea, on his return he proposed that Paul should undergo a public examination at Jerusalem in his own presence. The design of the Jews was to (1) Acts, xxiv. 1-28. (2) There is great chronological difficulty in arranging this part of the administration of Felix. But the difficulty arises, not so much in harmonising the narrative of the Acts with the historians of the period, as in reconciling Josephus with Tacitus. Taking the account of Jose. phus, it is impossible to compress all the events of that part of the administration of Felix, which he places after the accession of Nero, into a single year. Yet he states that, on the recall of Felix, he only escaped punishment for his crimes through the interest of his brother, Pallas. Yet, according to Tacitus, the influence of Pallas with Nero ceased in the second year of his Cæsarea. A. D. 58. fore surprise and assassinate the prisoner, and Paul, probably informed of their secret intentions, persisted in his appeal to Cæsar. To this appeal from a Roman citizen, the governor could not refuse his assent. The younger Agrippa had now returned from Rome, where he had resided during his minority. He had succeeded to part only of his father's dominions; he was in possession of the Asmonean palace at Jerusalem, and had the right of appointing the High Priest, which he exercised apparently with all the capricious despotism of a Roman governor. He appeared in great pomp at Cæsarea, with his sister Bernice, on a visit to Festus. The Roman governor appears to have consulted him, as a man of moderation and knowPaul be- ledge of the Jewish law, upon the case of Paul. The Apostle was summoned before him. The defence of Paul made a strong impresAgrippa. sion upon Agrippa, who, though not a convert, was probably from that time favourably disposed to Christianity. The appeal of Paul to the Emperor was irrevocable by an inferior authority; whether he would have preferred remaining in Judæa, after an acquittal from Festus, and perhaps under the protection of Agrippa, or whether to his own mind Rome offered a more noble and promising Paul sent field for his Christian zeal, Paul, setting forth on his voyage, left probably for ever the land of his forefathers-that land beyond all others inhospitable to the religion of Christ-that land which Paul, perhaps almost alone of Jewish descent, had ceased to consider the one narrow portion of the habitable world, which the love of the Universal Father had sanctified as the chosen dwelling of his people, as the future seat of dominion, glory, and bliss. to Rome. The great object of Jewish animosity had escaped the hostility of the Sanhedrin; but an opportunity soon occurred of wreaking their baffled vengeance on another victim, far less obnoxious to the general feelings even of the more bigoted among the Jews. The head of the Christian community in Jerusalem was James, whom Josephus himself, if the expression in that remarkable passage be genuine (which is difficult to believe), dignifies with the appellation of the brother of Jesus. On the death of Festus, and before the arrival of his successor Albinus, the High Priesthood was in the hands of Annas, or Ananus, the last of five sons of the former Annas, who had held that rank. Annas was the head of the Sadducaic party, and seized the opportunity of this suspension of the Roman authority, to reassert the power of the Sanhedrin over life and death. Many persons, whom it is impossible not to suppose ChrisA. D. 62 lians, where executed by the legal punishment of stoning. Among these, the head of the community was the most exposed to the animosity of the government, and therefore least likely to escape in Martyr. their day of temporary power. The fact of the murder of St. James, dom of at least of certain supposed offenders against the law, whom it is James. difficult not to identify with the Christians (1), rests on the authority of the Jewish historian (2) : in the details which are related on the still more questionable testimony of Hegesippus (3), we feel that we are passing from the clear and pellucid air of the apostolic history, into the misty atmosphere of legend. We would willingly attempt to disentangle the more probable circumstances of this impressive story from the embellishments of later invention; but it happens that its more striking and picturesque incidents, are precisely the least credible. After withdrawing every particular inconsistent either with the character or usages of the time, little remains but the simple facts that James was so highly esteemed in Jerusalem, as to have received the appellation of the Just (a title, it should seem, clearly of Jewish origin); that he perished during this short period of the sanguinary administration of Ananus, possibly was thrown down in a tumult from the precipitous walls of the Temple, where a more merciful persecutor put an end to his sufferings with a fuller's club; finally, that these cruel proceedings of Ananus were contemplated with abhorrence by the more moderate, probably by the whole Pharisaic party; his degradation from the supreme office was demanded, and hailed with satisfaction by the predominant sentiment of the people. war. But the days of Jewish persecution were drawing to a close. Jewish Even religious animosity was subdued in the collision of still fiercer passions. A darker and more absorbing interest, the fate of the nation in the imminent, the inevitable conflict with the arms of (1) Connecting this narrative of Josephus, even without admitting the authenticity of the passage about St. James, with the proceedings against St. Paul as related in the Acts, it appears to me highly improbable that, if Ananus put any persons to death for crimes against religion, they should have been any other than Christians. Who but Christians would be obnoxious to capital punishinent? and against whom, but them, would a legal conviction be obtained? Certainly not against the Pharisees, who went beyond the law, or the zealots and followers of Judas the Galilean, whose fate would have excited little commiseration or regret among the moderate and peaceful part of the community. Lardner therefore appears to me in error, in admitting the prosecutions of Ananus, but disconnecting them from the Christian history. (2) Joseph. Ant. xx. 8. 1. Lardner's Jewish Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 342. 4to. edit. (3) This narrative of Hegesippus has undergone the searching criticism of Scaliger in Chron. Euseb. and Le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. and Ars Critica; it has been feebly defended by Petavius, and zealously by Tillemont. Heinichen, the recent editor of Eusebius, seems desirous to trace some vestiges of truth. In these early forgeries it is not only interesting and important to ascertain the truth or falsehood of the traditions themselves, but the design and the authors of such pious frauds. This legend seems imagined in a spirit of Christian asceticism, endeavouring to conform itself to Jewish usage, of which, nevertheless it betrays remarkable ignorance. It attributes to the Christian bishop the Nazaritish abstinence from the time of his birth, not only from wine, but, in the spirit of Budhism, from every thing which had life; the self-denial of the luxury of anointing with oil, with a monkish abhorrence of ablutions-a practice positively cominanded in the law, and from which no Jew abstained. It gives him the power of entering the Holy Place at all times, a practice utterly in opposition to the vital principles of Judaism, as he could not have been of the race of Aaron. It describes his kneeling till his knees were as hard as those of a camel-another indication of the growing spirit of monkery. We may add the injudicious introduction of the "Scribes and Pharisees," in the language of the gospel, as the authors of his fate; which, according to the more probable account of Josephus, and the change in the state of feeling in Jerusalem, was solely to be attributed to the Sadducees. The final improbability is the leading to the pinnacle of the Temple (a circumstance obviously borrowed from our Lord's temptation), a man who had been for years the acknowledged head of the Christian community in Jerusalem, that he might publicly dissuade the people from believing in Christ; still further his burial after such a death within the walls of the city, and close to the Temple: all these incongruities indicate a period at which Christianity had begun to degenerate into asceticism, and had been so long estranged from Judaism as to be ignorant of its real character and usages. |