[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.