Page:Life and voyages of the Apostle Paul.pdf/22

Rh (eontinuedcontinued [sic] he,) not only to be bound, but also to die, at Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus.” And all things being ready, Paul and his companions set forward on their journey.

On his arrival at Jerusalem, he found the malice of his enemies unabated, and many of his friends alienated from him on account of his lax notions of the Mosaic ritual. He therefore, with the adviecadvice [sic] of the Apostle James, joined himself with four persons who were to take the Nazarite vows, that he might perform the rites and ceremonies with them, and prove that he conformed to the law. This, however, did not diminish the hatred of the Jews. On his appearance in the temple, they seized, and would have put him to death, but for Lysias, the commander of the Roman cohort in the citadel, who brought soldiers to his rescue. Thus protected, he addressed the mob, giving an account of his life and conversion, and his appointment to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, all which they heard attentively, till he stated that under the gospel the Gentiles were on a par with the Jews, when all their feelings of national bigotry burst forth in a tempest of exceration and fury.

Lysias now had him brought within the castle to be scourged, that he might be made to confess his crime; but Paul asserted his privileges as a Roman citizen, whom it was unlawful to bind or scourge. Next day before the Sanhedrim he defended his conduct, and avowed his belief in a bodily resurrection, which occasioned such a fierce controversy between the Pharisces who favoured this doctrine, and the Sadducees who opposed it, that Lysias, fearing he night be torn to pieces among them, gave orders to remove him into the fort. Above forty of the Jews formed a conspiracy to assassinate him, but his nephew having heard of it, reported it both to Paul and Lysias, when the latter sent the apostle under escort during the night to Felix, the procurator of the province, at Cesarca. Here Paul and his accusers were heard before Felix, but though his defence was unanswerable, the procurator fearing to give the Jews offence, came to no decision, and Paul was retained in bonds. Some time after he was again brought before Felix and his wife Drusilla, on which occasion he discoursed so strongly on morality, in which his audience were notoriously deficient, that Felix trembled, and hastily sent him from his presence.

Shortly after this, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, before whom the Jews again brought their charges against Paul, and who was so inclined to favour the Jews, that the apostle felt himself constrained to appeal to Cesar. To