Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/616



"The prediction of St. Paul, v. 3, 'God shall smite thee, thou whited wall,' was, according to Josephus, fulfilled in a short time. For when, in the government of Florus, his son Eleazar set himself at the head of a party of mutineers, who, having made themselves masters of the temple, would permit no sacrifices to be offered for the emperor; and being joined by a company of assassins, compelled persons of the best quality to fly for their safety and hide themselves in sinks and vaults;—Ananias and his brother Hezekias, were both drawn out of one of these places, and murdered, (Jos. de Bell. lib. ii. c. 17, 18,) though Dr. Lightfoot will have it that he perished at the siege of Jerusalem!" (Whitby's Annot.) [Williams on Pearson.]

During that night, the soul of Paul was comforted by a heavenly vision, in which the Lord exhorted him to maintain the same high spirit,—assuring him that as he had testified of him in Jerusalem, even so he should bear witness in Rome. His dangers in Jerusalem, however, were not yet over. The furious Jews, now cut off from all possibility of doing any violence to Paul, under the sanction of legal forms, determined to set all moderation aside, and forty of the most desperate bound themselves by a solemn oath, neither to eat nor drink, till they had slain Paul. In the arrangement of the mode in which their abominable vow should be performed, it was settled between them and the high-priest, that a request should be sent to the tribune to bring down Paul before the council once more, as if for the sake of putting some additional inquiries to him for their final and perfect satisfaction; and then, that these desperadoes should station themselves, where they could make a rush upon Paul, just as he was entering the council-hall, and kill him before the guard could bestir themselves in his defense, or seize the murderers; and even if some of them should be caught and punished, it never need be known, that the high priest was accessory to the assassination. But while they were arranging this hopeful piece of wickedness, they did not manage it so snugly as was necessary for the success of the plot; for it somehow or other got to the ears of Paul's nephew,—a young man no where else mentioned in the New Testament, and of whose character and situation, nothing whatever is known. He, hearing of the plot, came instantly to his uncle, who sent him to communicate the tidings to the tribune. Lysias, on receiving this account of the utterly desperate character of the opposition to Paul, determined not to risk his prisoner's life any longer in Jerusalem, even when guarded by the powerful defenses of castle Antonia. He dismissed the young man with the strongest injunctions, to observe the most profound secrecy, as to the fact of his having made this communication to him; and immediately made preparations to send off Paul, that