Acts 21:37-22:22.  3). Paul defends himself to the crowd
Acts 22;23-29. 4). Paul is protected by Roman law
Acts 23:6-10.  b). Paul, the Pharisees and Sadducees
Acts. 23:12-22.  a) The plot is hatched


Acts 21:37-22:22.  3). Paul defends himself to the crowd

Claudius Lysias, as an honest open-minded Roman soldier, compares favourably with the prejudiced Jewish crowd. They had assumed, without taking the trouble to check it, that Paul had brought Trophimus into the inner court of the temple; Claudius Lysias had assumed that Paul was an Egyptian terrorist, but
immediately changed his mind when he learned the facts. The revolutionary to whom Lysias was referring was described by Josephus as `an Egyptian false prophet' who, about three years previously, had got together 30,000 men (Josephus was prone to exaggeration!), led them to the Mount of Olives, and promised them that, when the walls of Jerusalem fell flat at his command, they would be able to break into the city and overpower the Romans. But  the procurator Felix and his troops intervened, and the *sikarioi* (`dagger men', i.e. fanatical nationalist assassins) were killed, captured and scattered. But the Egyptian disappeared, and the commander at first thought that he had now come to light again.  But Paul enlightened him about his identity. He spoke proudly of his citizenship of Tarsus, which was `the first city of Cilicia, not merely in material wealth but in intellectual distinction, as one of the great university cities of the Roman world'. He then asked leave to address the crowd, which was  granted.     

As Paul boldly made his speech or defence (apologia, 22:1) to the hostile crowd from the stone steps which led up from the temple to the fortress of Antonia, he did so with great sensitivity and  appropriateness. His sensitivity is seen both in his polite address to his audience as *Brothers and fathers* and in his choice of the Aramaic language, which in itself was enough to quieten them. But was what he said appropriate to the occasion?  This is, of course, the second time that Luke has given his
readers an account of Paul's conversion. Previously he gave it in his own words, but this time (and the third time before King Agrippa) he gives it in Paul's words. In each case the outline is the same, but the particular emphasis of each testimony is well fitted to its context. To the crowd in Jerusalem, whose angry
complaint was that he taught everybody everywhere against the people, the law and the temple (21:28), Paul stressed his personal loyalty to his Jewish origins and faith.

First, he spoke of his Jewish birth and upbringing, and of his training in the law of our fathers under Gamaliel (cf. 5:34), the most eminent teacher of that time and the leader of the school of Hillel, whose disciple he had been. So his Jewishness was incontrovertible. He was `a Hebrew of the Hebrews' (Phil. 3:5,
AV.). Secondly, he drew attention to his zeal for God, which was as great as theirs, since he had persecuted  the followers of the Way, both men and women, even to prison and to death. The
Sanhedrin could testify to this, since it was they who had issued him with the extradition order which he took with him to Damascus.

Thirdly, Paul narrated the circumstances of his conversion, which was entirely due to a divine intervention, and not at all to any initiative of his own. A light from heaven had blinded him, and the person who spoke to him had identified himself as Jesus of Nazareth, Fourthly, Paul referred to the ministry of Ananias, whom he deliberately characterized as a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there in Damascus (12).  It was he who restored Paul's sight, who told him that the God of our fathers had chosen him to know his will, see the Righteous One, `hear his very voice' (14, NEB) and be his witness, and who baptized him. Then fifthly, Paul came to his vision, which took place in the very temple he was supposed later to have defiled, and in which *the Lord* (Jesus is not mentioned by name) told him to leave Jerusalem immediately, in spite of his reluctance and objections. `Go', the Lord had said. `I will send you far away to the Gentiles.' That is, exapostelo se, almost `I will make you
an apostle', indeed the apostle to the Gentiles (21:26:17; cf. Gal. 1:16; 2:7-8).

It was at this point that Paul was interrupted by the crowd who found their voices again and loudly demanded his death (22).  It is important to understand why. In their eyes proselytism (making Gentiles into Jews) was fine; but evangelism (making Gentiles into Christians without first making them Jews) was an abomination. It was tantamount to saying that Jews and Gentiles were equal, for they both needed to come to God through Christ, and that on identical terms. Looking back over Paul's defence, we may perhaps say that he made two major points. The first was that he himself was a loyal Jew, not only by birth and education but still. True, he was now a witness where before he had been a persecutor. But the God of his fathers was his God still. He had not broken away from his ancestral faith, still less apostatized; he stood in direct continuity with it. Jesus of Nazareth was `the Righteous One' in whom prophecy had been fulfilled. And Paul's second point was that those features of his faith which had changed, especially his
acknowledgment of Jesus and his Gentile mission, were not his own eccentric ideas. They had been directly revealed to him from heaven, the one truth in Damascus and the other in Jerusalem.  Indeed, nothing but such a heavenly intervention could have so completely transformed him.


Acts 22;23-29. 4). Paul is protected by Roman law.

Twice more in this brief section Roman law and justice come  to Paul's aid. First Claudius Lysias again rescues him from lynching, and secondly, having discovered his Roman citizenship, from flogging.

a). The rescue from lynching. (22:23-24).
The crowd was not content with shouting and screaming (22); they started waving their cloaks about and flinging dust into the air (23). H.J.Cadbury suggested that these gestures may have expressed not so much excitement, anger and hostility as horror in reaction to blasphemy. In any case, the commander forestalled any further attempt by the crowd to get their hands on Paul by giving orders (for a second time) for him to be taken into the barracks. He then `gave instructions to examine him by flogging' (24, NEB).  This ghastly ordeal was the standard way if extracting information from prisoners. `The scourge (Latin flagellum) was a fearful instrument of torture, consisting of leather thongs, weighted with
rough pieces of metal or bone, and attached to a stout wooden handle. If a man did not actually die under the scourge (which frequently happened), he would certainly be crippled for life.'

b). The rescue from flogging (22:25-29).
Paul was actually being prepared for the flogging when he divulged his Roman citizenship. Similarly, in Philippi he had not revealed that he was a Roman citizen until after he had been beaten, imprisoned and put in stocks (16:37). He seems for some reason not to have wanted to take advantage of being a citizen
except in some dire extremity. Dr. Sherwin-White acknowledges that `the precise legal situation of Roman citizens in provincial jurisdiction is not well documented at this period'. Nor is it clear precisely what the citizen's privileges were, although it is agreed that he was exempt from examination by flogging, i.e.
torture without trial. Citizenship tended to be either by right (for those of high status or office) or by reward ( for those who had served the Empire well). It was passed on from father to son (which was the case with Paul); it could also be bought, not with a fee but with a bribe to some corrupt official `in the imperial
secretariat or the provincial administration', which was the case with Claudius Lysias. Indeed, such corruption was rife during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, which may explain why the commander had added the nomen Claudius, in honour of the Emperor, to his cognomen Lysias.  Although the commander was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains (29), he does not seem to have released him from them. At least he was still in chains the following day and subsequently (Acts. 22:30; 23:18; 24:27; 26:29). What is the explanation of this? `Possibly a distinction is to be made between the heavy chains, a torture in themselves (of which Paul may have been relieved) and the lighter chains to prevent the prisoner from escaping.

5). Paul stands before the Sanhedrin (22:30 - 23:11).
The commander was determined to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews (22:30). He had tried questioning the crowd, but had got different answers from them (21:33-34). He was about to use torture, but Paul's Roman citizenship blocked that avenue (22:24ff.). So now he opted for a third method - trial by the Sanhedrin (22:30). The high priest Ananias was a thoroughly unsavoury character. He was described by Josephus as `a great hoarder up of money'; He even `took away the tithes that belonged to the priests by violence'. Although Luke's account of the trial is brief, it raises at least three rather perplexing problems, the first two concerning Paul and Ananias, and the third concerning Paul, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

a). Paul and the high priest Ananias (23:1-5).
First, why was the high priest so enraged by Paul's opening remark that he ordered him to be struck on the mouth? It can hardly have been a point of order, that Paul spoke before he had been spoken to. Nor does it seem likely that his reason and experience were affronted, inasmuch as anybody who claimed to have lived a consistently conscience-free life was (in his view) a blatant liar. Nor is it easily conceivable that the high priest was exasperated by a plea of `not guilty'. The most likely explanation is that Ananias understood Paul's words as a claim that, although now a Christian, he was still a good Jew, having
served God with a good conscience all his life (since, as well as before, his conversion), even `to this day'. This was certainly the claim Paul made in 2 Timothy 1:3. It seemed to Ananias the height of arrogance, even of blasphemy.  Secondly, why was Paul's riposte so rude? Jerome seems to have been the first commentator to draw attention to the contrast between Jesus and Paul before the judges. Jesus answered much more coolly when he was slapped in the face (Jn. 18:22-23; 1 Pet. 2:23). Besides, Paul had recently written of himself and his associates, `When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it (1 Cor. 4:12). It may be that he did lose his temper, for he more or less apologized, indicating that he would have responded differently if he had known he was addressing the high priest. How is it, then, that he did not recognize the high priest? Many answers have been suggested. Indeed, according to Haenchen, Paul's statement is `so unbelievable that it has driven the theologians to desperate efforts'. Some think that this was an informal meeting of the Sanhedrin and that in consequence Ananias was neither robed, nor presiding, so that he could easily have escaped recognition. Others guess that in the babel of voices in court Paul was not able to identify who it was who had ordered him to be struck. A third interpretation is that Paul was speaking in sarcasm, as if to say, `I did not realize that a man such as you could be the high priest' . But to me the most likely explanation lies in the poor eyesight which Paul is known to have had. (e.g. Gal.4:13-16; 6:11). In this case `you white-washed wall' may have been not so much a reference to hypocrisy (Ezk. 13:8ff.; Matt. 23:27) as an uncouth allusion to a white-robed figure across the
court whom Paul could only dimly perceive.


Acts 23:6-10.  b). Paul, the Pharisees and Sadducees

Several questions also confront us when we read this part of the narrative. Was Paul justified in deliberately setting the Pharisees and the  Sadducees against one another? And was he correct  to call himself a Pharisee? There is certainly no need to attribute to Paul either unworthy motives or an untrue statement.  He was genuinely concerned about doctrine, and he did believe (as we should) that the resurrection is fundamental to Christianity (E.G. Acts 4:2; 17:18, 31; 24:21; 26:6ff. 28:20). The anti-supernaturalist stance of the Sadducees was incompatible with the gospel. As Jesus himself said, the reason they were wrong was that they knew neither God's word nor God's power (Lk. 20:27ff.), Paul was a Pharisee, however, not only in the sense of his parentage and education (6), but also in the sense that he shared with Pharisees the great truth and hope of the resurrection, on account of which he was on trial.
After the uproar with followed, the Pharisees stood up for Paul, and declared that they could find nothing wrong with him.  This seems to have triggered off further argument, which became so violent that for the third time the commander had to rescue him and have him brought into safe custody in the fortress of Antonia.

c). Paul and the Lord Jesus. (23:11).
After the confrontation between Paul and Ananias, and the heated argument between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, it is a relief to read that during the following night the Lord Jesus came and stood near Paul and spoke to him. The violence of the last two days, and especially the enmity of the Jews, must have made him wonder anxiously about the future. There seemed little prospect of his leaving Jerusalem alive, let alone of his travelling on to Rome. So in this moment of discouragement Jesus comforted  him
with the straightforward promise that, as he has borne witness to him in Jerusalem, so he must also bear witness to him in Rome. It would be hard to exaggerate the calm courage which this assurance must have brought Paul during his three further trials, his two years' imprisonment and his hazardous journey to Rome.


Acts. 23:12-22.  a) The plot is hatched

The Asian Jews had been frustrated in their attempts to lynch Paul, and the Sanhedrin had been unable to convict him of any offence. So now a group of more than forty Jewish men hatched a plot to murder him, binding themselves by oath to eat and drink nothing until they had succeeded. They then prevailed on the chief priests to persuade the Sanhedrin to petition the commander to co-operate with them. Their scheme was to have Paul brought back to court along narrow streets where he could easily be intercepted and killed. It seemed that everybody was now involved in the conspiracy and that Paul was in extreme danger.  But even the most careful and cunning of human plans cannot succeed if God opposes them. No weapon forged against him will prevail (Is. 54:17). On this occasion God's providential intervention involved Paul's nephew. It is tantalizing to read these references to Paul's sister and her son, and have no further information about them. Were they believers? Did they have some association with Jewish leaders which made it natural for Paul's nephew to learn of the plot without rousing anybody's suspicions?  And how is it that he got access into the barracks so easily, especially if (as it seems from verse 19) he was only a youth?  Luke does not satisfy our curiosity about any of these matters.  What we do know is that the news spread from Paul's nephew to Paul, from Paul to the centurion, and from the centurion to the
commander, who then learned about it from the youth's own lips.  Doubtless remembering Paul's Roman citizenship, the commander decided on immediate and resolute action.

b). The plot is foiled (23:23-35).
The detachment of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen certainly sounds like an extraordinary over-provision, representing about half the garrison. Were four hundred soldiers and seventy horsemen really necessary for the security of a single prisoner? It is a question which has made scholars wonder whether `spearmen' is the correct translation of dexiolaboi, which occurs nowhere else in biblical or contemporary Greek literature. Kirsopp and Lake guessed that it means `led horses', which would include both substitute mounts for a long overnight journey of nearly forty miles and pack horses too. Some more recent commentators have adopted this suggestion.  Their destination was Caesarea, which, being the provincial capital of Judea, was where Felix the governor had his residence.  Felix ruled as Judea's procurator for seven or eight years from AD 52. He owed his appointment to his brother Pallas, who was a favourite at court, first of the Emperor Claudius, and then of Nero. Felix was utterly ruthless in quelling Jewish uprisings.  Though he was a freedman, he seems never to have grown out of a servile mentality, so that Tacitus wrote that `he exercised the power of a king with the mind of a slave'.

People naturally ask how Luke could have managed to get hold of the tribune's official letter to the procurator, so as to be able to publish its text.  It is not impossible that it was read out in court, or that Felix divulged its contents to Paul during one of the occasions on which he questioned him privately (23: 34; 24: 24).  On the other hand, Luke says that Claudius Lysias wrote to Felix as follows (25) or 'to this effect' (RSV, NE), so that he may be claiming to give no more than the gist of its contents.  In any case, as we read the letter, we cannot help smiling.  The tribune was substantially accurate in describing how he had rescued Paul, given him special treatment as a Roman citizen, brought him before the Sanhedrin, learned that the charges against him were only religious (about 'Moses and a certain Jesus', according to the Western text of verse 29), not civil or criminal, foiled a Jewish plot against him, sent him to the governor, and ordered his accusers to come and present their case in court.  At the same time, Lysias somewhat manipulated the facts in order to portray himself in the most favourable light, putting his discovery that Paul was a Roman citizen before his rescue instead of after it, and drawing a discreet veil of silence over his serious offence in binding, and preparing to torture a Roman citizen.  Nine of the principal verbs in his letter are in the first person singular.  The letter was fairly honourable, but decidedly self-centred.

After giving the text of the letter, Luke describes the military transfer of Paul from Jerusalem, via Antipatris, where the troops stopped for the night, to Caesarea, where both letter and prisoner were handed over to Felix.  The governor read the letter, enquired about Paul's province in order to be sure that he came within his jurisdiction, determined to hear the case himself when Paul's accusers arrived, and ordered Paul to be kept under guard meanwhile in the rather magnificent palace which Herod the Great had built for himself and which was now the praetorium, the governor's official residence.  Luke does not explain what kept under guard will have meant, but we may be sure that, as a Roman citizen, and with no criminal charges to face, Paul was not ill-treated.

Luke's great skill as a historian-theologian, not to mention the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is clearly seen in these chapters.  The future of the gospel was at stake, as powerful forces ranged themselves for and against it.  On the one hand, the Jewish persecutors were prejudiced and violent.  On the other, the Romans were open-minded and went out of their way to maintain the standards of law, justice and order of which their best leaders were understandably proud.  Four times they rescued Paul from death either by lynching or by murder, taking him into custody until the charges against him could be clarified and, if cogent, presented in court.  Then three times in Luke's narrative, as we have seen, Paul either has been or will be declared innocent.

Between these two powers, religious and civil, hostile and friendly, Jerusalem and Rome, paul found himself trapped, unarmed and totally vulnerable.  One cannot help admiring his courage, especially when he stood on the steps of Fortress Antonia, facing an angry crowd which had just severely manhandled him, with no power but the Word and the Spirit of God.  Luke seems to offer him to us as a model of Christian valour so that, as Chrysostom put it at the end of his fifty-fifth and last homily on the Acts, we may 'emulate Paul, and imitate that noble, that adamantine soul'.  The source of his courage was his serene confidence in the truth.  He was well aware that the Romans had no case against him.  He was convinced that the Jews had no case either, because his faith was the faith of his fathers, and the gospel was the fulfilment of the law.  And above all he knew that his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was with him and would keep his promise that he would bear witness, some day, somehow, in Rome.