35 - Shipwreck

It generally took some time to collect a large enough number of prisoners to make a regular shipment. This one contained many Jews, taken by Felix in his raid against an Egyptian “Messiah” on the Mount of Olives. The weaker rebels had been killed off, while the stronger were being sent to Rome to fight wild beasts in the arena. There were also leaders of robber bands who infested the highways of Judea, and others who, like Paul, were to be tried by a Roman court. Those who had already been sentenced to death were heavily chained and guarded by legionaries.

The entire contingent was under the command of an Italian centurion by the name of Julius, of the First Augustan legion, with headquarters at Caesarea. Julius was personally entrusted with the prisoner Paul.

Paul said his goodbyes to the representatives of the congregation of Caesarea, to Phillip and his daughters, and to the other believers who’d served him so devotedly during the two years of his imprisonment. Luke, who’d gone to Jerusalem, returned with a small sum of money the congregations collected for him. Paul had already sent Tychicus and Trophimus to Ephesus. With the special permission of the procurator, who became even more kindly disposed to Paul after the visit of Agrippa and Bernice, Paul was permitted to take Luke, Aristarchus, and Timothy with him on his journey. Timothy would later be sent on to Ephesus. Titus was already in Corinth.

Julius, of course, was told that Paul was a Roman citizen going to the capital to stand trial before Caesar. He also knew that the prisoner was a man of some importance, since he’d appeared at an open hearing before the royal couple. The procurator indicated that he would do well to treat the prisoner with consideration. And of course Paul made it his business to win his new guard’s friendship.

Julius was an honest and faithful soldier, a typical Roman legionary, ready to lay down his life in the execution of his duty, the kind of man whose discipline and devotion Paul respected. Paul talked much about the faith, and though he didn’t succeed in converting him, Julius was softened toward his prisoner and became interested in his fate.

Paul was given privileges not granted to the other prisoners. In the hot July nights he was allowed to sleep, together with his friends, on the upper deck of the wretched, foul-smelling little ship that made the first leg of the journey from Caesarea to a port in Syria. And when the ship touched at Sidon Paul was allowed to go into the city, under guard, to visit his friends. The little congregation there had been told that Paul would pass that way and a delegation was waiting with useful gifts, a mattress, a warm cloak, and a supply of kosher food. Luke was given some medicinal oils and wines.

It wasn’t until they reached Myra, in Lycia, that the centurion found a strong, roomy ship, which was carrying a cargo of Egyptian wheat, linens and pottery to Italy, along with a group of merchants. Julius transferred his prisoners and his detachment of soldiers to the new ship, for the rest of the journey.

As soon as he set foot on the Alexandrian ship Paul began to acquaint himself with the merchant travelers and the sailors. Some were believers, and many had heard of Paul. As an experienced sea traveler, Paul could talk the language. He could speak intelligently with the crew, the chief helmsman and even the overseer of the ship’s slaves.

During the first few days out of Myra the ship traveled slowly through a level, shining blue sea. The air was calm and the ship hugged the coast, to take advantage of the land winds. Paul was free to move about, and he circulated everywhere. He went down to the lowest holds where the condemned prisoners were chained to the side of the ship in noisy, tiny cells close enough that they could hear the roaring of the tigers and lions that they would have to fight in the Roman arena.

Paul spoke to these condemned men about the divine help sent down for all men through Christ. Some of them had heard this before. In fact, some were Jews who were guilty of trying to hasten Messiah’s coming. But others were hearing of Christ for the first time, and they took with them a name to call on when they felt their lives ebbing out between the jaws of the wild beasts.

Paul also spoke with the sailors and with the slaves who sat chained to the oars. He talked to the officers, the passengers, and even the soldiers. He never ceased preaching the salvation of Jesus Christ.

In the evenings, when Paul and his companions sat down to their common meal, a group of soldiers, sailors, passengers, and resting slaves gathered around them to listen in thoughtful silence to the prayers and hymns the strange man and his friends sent up to the heavens toward their invisible God.

So the ship moved forward at a leisurely pace, hungry for the wind, until it reached the island of Crete. There, at a port called Fair Havens, not far from the city of Lasea, they dropped anchor, and stayed awhile.


The High Festivals of the New Year and the Day of Atonement came along. Paul and the other Jewish believers on the boat observed the fast rigorously. They prayed as a congregation, and transferred themselves in thought to the services in the Temple.

Now the Jews generally considered the Day of Atonement to be the end of the sailing season. Sea travel would be dangerous after that, and no Jew would set foot on a boat if he could possibly avoid it. But the captain decided to proceed with the journey and to turn the ship toward the Adriatic. Hearing this, Paul sent word, warning him that sailing on would endanger everyone on board as well as all the valuable cargo.

Julius, who was eager to end the journey and to be rid of his responsibility, let himself be persuaded by the captain, who considered Fair Havens too small and uncomfortable to pass the winter in. He wanted to at least reach the livelier port of Phoenix, on the other side of the island. He had two hundred and seventy-six people on board to be fed and provided with water, as well as the wild beasts in the hold. He argued that he would run short of supplies in Fair Haven.

So the ship turned westward.

At first a moderate south wind filled the brown sails. But before they were within sight of Phoenix the sky suddenly darkened, and the sea began to heave. The darkness became so dense that it was impossible to see a fathom’s length in any direction. A wind of typhoon strength, the Euroclydon, suddenly burst on them, and threw the ship about as if it were an oyster shell. The sails flapped violently and threatened to tear apart. The sailors clambered up the masts and furled the sails, and everyone helped to pass strong ropes around the ship’s frame as the waves threatened to crack it apart. So the ship drove before the wind, without sails, helmsman, or rowers, rising on the dizzy crests of the waves and plunging into the troughs. At any moment it could smash into a thousand fragments, for they were still close to the shore of Crete. Sky and sea were invisible, and the ship felt like it was rolling over in the vast, dark jaws of a wild sea beast.

After two days had passed this way, the sailors and passengers began staggering from the holds to the deck and throwing a good part of the cargo overboard, precious sacks of grain intended for the citizens of Rome. Then they began to throw even the tackle overboard, followed by the costliest part of the cargo, the delicate pottery, the bronze vases and the phials containing Egyptian balsams. But the storm raged on, and the days passed until everyone lost count, for in effect if was one long black night, and one long, furious struggle with the wild sea beast.

Ashen blue mists swirled around the ship, as if to contain it within a circle of death and despair. The ice-cold waters flew with a metallic ringing against the walls, hammered at the deck, lifted the whole ship, and threw it down again into the depths. The sailors held on tooth and nail to the sides of the ship. Passengers and beasts were hurled from side to side. They rolled around among pails, bundles of rope, sacks, and vessels. The roaring of the imprisoned beasts was heard from below, mixed with the screams of the condemned criminals.

Then there came a time when the ship found herself in the middle of a treacherous and suspended calm, as though the waves, defeated in their purpose, were in sinister consultation. The sea was flat, but it seemed to be sinking to a lower level, the ship with it. Then the prow began to rise, higher and higher, and the ship began to spin. Suddenly the thick mist broke apart, and a vast wall, green like jade, frozen, and suspended, appeared on one side. To the unspeakable horror of the passengers, the ship seemed to be driving straight for the green wall. The prow rose one or two degrees higher, it cut into the wall, but near the summit, and a thousand torrents descended on the deck. The ship’s timbers groaned from end to end, but they held. And scarcely had the first wall been pierced than a second appeared behind it.

Thus it went, day after day. The air in the cabins was heavy with a thick, salty odor. The travelers, unceasingly seasick, were choked with their own vomit, and could not touch food. Their own bodies had become repulsive to them, and they were filled with revulsion at the sight of each other, at the smell of each other’s unwashed and befouled flesh, and the contact with each other’s limbs. They no longer called on their gods, for they were exhausted, too exhausted to care about living. Here in the belly of the wild sea beast, all were in the same boat, captives and captors, slaves and freedmen. And they were united in one frantic desire, to escape from this interminable horror, either through rescue or through death.

The captain lost all authority, and the sailors were on the lookout for land. They moment they saw it, they planned to throw themselves into the water. The soldiers discussed whether or not they should kill the prisoners if the ship broke apart, in order to escape responsibility for them. The prisoners knew this, but they didn’t care. Their only thought was that if death were coming anyway, let it come swiftly.

And in the middle of all this spirit of despair, hatred, and murder, one man alone kept his self-control – the apostle.

He had not been saved from the judgment of the High Priest so that the sea could swallow him. No sir! Besides, he’d been shipwrecked three other times in his life; and three times he’d been saved. Not only would he be saved a fourth time, but he had a vision assuring him that all his fellow passengers would be saved as well, for his sake.

So it was natural, considering the condition of everyone else, that the one who remained calm became the leader. He was set apart. Even in their lethargy they could see it in his bearing, self-assurance and faith. And at the right moment, he went through the ship, saying to one group after another, “Fear not, not one of you will be lost.”

And to Julius and the ship’s captain he said, “If you’d listened to me when I warned you about leaving Crete, this wouldn’t have happened. But don’t worry! I’ve been assured that only the ship will be harmed. No man’s life will be lost.”

The centurion Julius and the captain stared at Paul in a daze.

For fourteen days the ship rode the storm. And shortly before dawn on the fifteenth day, they felt the ship begin to ride more evenly. The swell no longer seemed to come from the lowest depths of the sea, but was rather a surface agitation. The helmsman dropped the lead, and read the marks on the rope by the light of the lantern. Twenty fathoms. So they weren’t far from shore. A little later, they dropped it again. Fifteen fathoms. Now they knew that not only were they in the vicinity of land, but that they were moving toward it. In the darkness, they couldn’t tell if it was a beach or a cliff, or even savage rocks scattered under the surface of the waters. The storm was still heavy enough to dash the ship against a submerged needle of rock, and crack it like an eggshell.

So the captain gave the order to drop anchor and wait until daylight. But the sailors secretly made for the rescue boat, and began to launch it. Paul, who was standing nearby, knew of their plot and found Julius to advise him of what was afoot.

“They can’t be allowed to leave the ship!”

The soldiers rushed over and cut the davit ropes, so that the boat couldn’t be lowered into the sea. They also surrounded the sailors.

At the same moment dawn began to break, a gray light stealing through the same mists that had engulfed them for two whole weeks. But Paul was not dismayed.

“We will surely be saved,” he announced, with infectious faith. “Be of good heart, take some food, and strengthen yourselves for the last effort.”

He himself set the example. He took a piece of bread, made the benediction, and praised God loudly, “Because You have saved us from the rage of the sea.”

And as the people grouped around him, amazed, he assured them again that not a hair of their heads would be touched.

“And now,” he said, “let’s throw anything overboard that’s not tied down.”

The order was obeyed. Sailors and passengers spread through the ship and brought up on deck whatever of cargo, tackle, and vessels there was still aboard. The ship was virtually stripped.

But the mist still hung like a heavy curtain on every side, veiling sky and sea. It dissolved very slowly, and only in part. They could see they weren’t very far from the entrance to a natural basin. The captain commanded that the mainsails be unfurled. Perhaps the winds would drive the ship in the harbor. The anchor ropes were cut and the ship was abandoned to the wind, for it was impossible to steer.

And the wind did begin to carry the groaning vessel toward the harbor entrance. Bursts of water washed over the deck, but the ship seemed to hold her course naturally for a while. But then an underswell turned her prow, and suddenly they felt the keel scraping on a sandy bottom. The stern swung right and left, battered by waves, while the forecastle gyrated in the grip of the sands. Then their greatest fear happened. The ship began to break up in the middle with a fierce cracking of timber.

From the upper deck sailors and passengers began to jump into the shallow water. Word spread rapidly among the soldiers that it was time to kill the prisoners, lest any escape. But what about Paul, the one who was behaving more like an officer than a prisoner? To Julius, it was unthinkable that any harm be done to him. He wasn’t a convert, but he did believe that everything Paul predicted would surely happen.

“Open the cabins!” he ordered. “Let the men out! Let them jump, and those who can’t swim can hold on to planks.”

There was a wild scrambling up from the hold, and down the rope ladders hanging over the ship’s sides. Some carried planks, while others, trusting to their strength as swimmers, went down into the sea. In a few moments the waters were filled with bobbing figures. One by one the men were thrown on the sandy beach on the island they would later learn was Malta.

They all lay there, exhausted, wondering about this man Paul. Was he a good spirit or an evil spirit? Was he a prophet of good things, or a sinister magician, to be dreaded?


Later that morning, when the islanders were attracted to the shipwreck, they too would have reason to wonder. Like all primitive people they were suspicious of strangers, equally ready to kill or to rescue. A fire was lit, so that the sailors and passengers could dry themselves, and Paul was gathering fallen twigs and branches of the cypress trees rooted near the shore. Suddenly a cry rang out, for a viper had attached itself to Paul’s hand. To the superstitious natives, this was a sure sign that the man was a murderer, for it was their belief that when a murderer fled from justice, he was pursued by a snake, which never failed to catch up with him.

“A murderer!”
“An evil spirit!”
“Beware of him!”

Paul remained calm. He watched the snake as it wrapped itself on his arm. With his free hand he seized the viper by the head, and held it away from him. The thick coils tightened, then began to unwind, and Paul quickly threw the reptile into the fire.

This caused a different shout to go up. “No! Not an evil spirit! A good spirit! One sent to us from heaven!”

And the islanders crowded around him, open-mouthed with admiration. They begged him to come to their huts, to heal their sick. Before long word spread to the authorities, not just about the snake but about how he’d rescued a shipload of men. The governor of the island, having a sick father, sent for Paul, and Paul healed the old man.

So for the three months that Paul remained on the island, he was treated more like a deity than a human being.

* * * * *

Winter passed, and a mild, early spring breathed over land and sea. Ships sailed past Malta, and one of them dropped anchor in the port. The two twin figures of Castor and Pollux were carved on its prow, and it was on its way from Thessalonica to Rome. The centurion boarded his prisoners, and this time the passage was smooth. They sailed the short distance from Malta to Sicily, rested for three days in Syracuse, then made their way through the narrow straits between Rhegium and Messina, into the southern end of the Tyrrhenean Sea. A steady wind carried them to Puteoli, the port of Rome, by Naples.

There was a large Jewish community in Puteoli, and the offices and warehouses of the Alexandrian grain dealers were there. There was also a little congregation of Christians, the ones who helped Phebe carry the apostle’s letter to the Romans. Word soon spread that the apostle himself was in their midst, in chains, on his way to be tried before Caesar, and a delegation came down to the boat to greet him. By now Julius was so accustomed to the unexpected where Paul was concerned, that he was not at all surprised at this.

It was necessary to stay in Puteoli for seven days so that both soldiers and prisoners might rest and arrive in Rome in good condition. Julius allowed Paul to go into the city, in the company of a legionary and to spend the seven days among his friends. At the end of the week, Paul promised the believers that he would return to them a free man.

Julius assembled his prisoners, and the long convoy set out on foot for Rome, a distance of three days. On the third day they came to the Via Appia, which ran from Brundisium all the way to the capital. The breath of Rome’s greatness could be felt long before they got there. The road broadened and villas sprang up on either side.

A mile out of Rome’s boundaries they paused at a way station. The prisoners were fed and given water to wash their hands and feet. They spent the night there, and resumed the march in the morning. Paul marched at the head of the procession chained to Julius. Luke and Aristarchus walked behind them, carrying Paul’s baggage. As they walked they saw monuments and mausoleums. Carriages passed in both directions. Finally they came to the Appian Forum, and a small delegation was waiting there for Paul. He recognized Priscilla standing in the middle of it, and she had her arms stretched out to him.

At long last he was in the Eternal City! At the Inn of the Three Taverns the elders of the community, under the leadership of Junius and Andronicus, were waiting for him.

* * * * *

In the early spring a damp mist rose from the swampy fields on either side of the Appian Way, and the mists of the marshland mixed with those that rose from the Tiber.

Through the milky whiteness that lay on the city shone the palaces and columns crowning the hills of Rome. Paul, in the company of his friends, went with the procession of prisoners and soldiers as far as the Porta Capena. He was a curious sight in the midst of his loving and enthusiastic followers. Beards and tongues wagged, eyes shone, and hands gestured. As the parade moved on, Paul’s entourage grew larger as men and women came to join it. A Roman patrician, reclining in the litter his slaves carried down the Appian Way, looked out at the spectacle of a Jewish prisoner accorded this strange reception at the gates of the city of the Caesars. He couldn’t help but think, “It seems that the conquered Jews have come hither to conquer the conquerors!”

And they were not wrong.


END OF PART TWO

34 - For the Hope of Israel

Convinced that Paul was a Roman citizen by reason of his birth in Cilicia, the Procurator Felix placed him under guard in the courtyard of the palace of justice that Herod had built in Caesarea, and waited for his accusers to arrive from Jerusalem.

He also learned that Paul had gone to Jerusalem at the head of a delegation, bringing a great donation of funds for Jerusalem’s poor. Obviously, then, this man was of high importance in his sect. Possibly he was a man of wealth, or perhaps he had access to the wealth of others. He was a prisoner to be valued then, according to the means he could command for his ransom.

Ananias personally followed a few days later, along with a Sadducean interpreter of the law to prepare the indictment. It was quite unusual for the High Priest to involve himself in such a matter, but it became his personal ambition to see Paul condemned after the case was taken out of his hands.

Felix, a freed slave whose soul would forever remain slavish, was one of the worst rulers ever sent to Judea by Rome. Josephus called him “a man of unrestrained lusts, and extraordinarily cruel.” A non-Jew of the time said, “He was a freed slave of the Emperor Claudius, and carried out his master’s orders with slavish baseness.”

This was the man, loathed by the Jews for his persecutions, whom Ananias was willing to cower before. “Under your power,” said Ananias to Felix, “we have lived in peace, and have received many benefits. Each of us renders thanks to you, mighty Felix.”

Through his lawyer the High Priest requested that the Procurator release into his custody “the man who has introduced dissension and tumult among the Jews of all the world, the man who sought to desecrate the Temple, so that we may judge him according to our laws after Lysias the Tribune snatched him from among us.”

With the assurance that nothing could happen to him before he went to Rome, Paul stood before the Procurator and answered boldly, “In the way of the Nazarenes that they call heresy, and of which they accuse me of being the leader, I serve the God of my fathers, and my faith is everything that is written in the Torah and the prophets. And I cherish the same hope they cherish, that the dead will rise again in the resurrection, the just as well as the unjust. And when I stood before the Sanhedrin I said likewise. I am being persecuted now for the resurrection.”

Now it certainly wasn’t in Felix’ nature to release a prisoner of means without a handsome return. So he told the High Priest that the trial would be put off for some days, until he could obtain further details from the tribune, for this was a Roman citizen, and it would be proper for him to be judicious.

So Paul was turned over to a centurion, with instructions to afford the prisoner as wide a liberty as possible, and to permit his friends to have access to him at all times.

The centurion was answerable for the security of the prisoner with his head. Therefore, even though Paul was free to come and go, within certain limits, the officer had himself chained by his left hand to the right hand of his prisoner, so that he accompanied him everywhere, to his couch and to his meals. If he thought that his prisoner was a flight risk, the centurion was free to chain him to the wall.

When Paul saw that he would be chained to the guard, he resolved at once to win the man over, and perhaps even convert him to the faith.


Lying in his prison that night, side by side with his keeper, Paul suddenly started, tugged at his chain, and woke up his companion.

“What is it?” asked the centurion.

“I desire to pray to my God.”

“Now, in the middle of the night?” asked the astonished centurion. “Augustus’ temple is closed, and we have no images of gods here in the prison to kneel before.”

“The temple of my God is never closed,” answered Paul. “He doesn’t live in a house made by human hands. He lives in my heart. We don’t see him with the eyes of flesh, but we see and feel Him at all times in our hearts. He alone guides our actions.”

“Ah, yes, the invisible Jewish God.”

“No, sir, he is not only the Jewish God. He is your God, and my God, and the God of all men. For we all come from Him and we are all created in His image.”

“How can that be when I’ve never brought him an offering?”

“Before you knew Him, He had already chosen you. He chose you and won you by His love for you.”

“What love can He have for me, a stranger who doesn’t know him, and has never brought him an offering?”

“No man is a stranger to my God. And God doesn’t give His love in exchange for offerings. God gives His love freely because we are His children.”

And Paul, sitting in the darkness, chained to his keeper, told him of Jesus Christ, of his death, which he took on himself of his own free will so that all men, including this “stranger,” might be redeemed from sin, and brought to eternal life in God’s Kingdom.

The centurion had heard about this Jesus and knew people, Greeks as well as Jews, who believed in “the Son of God.” But Paul explained it in a way that went straight to the Roman’s heart. They talked through the night, and before dawn, Paul’s keeper accepted this faith that promised rest for his soul.


Prison walls didn’t keep Paul from continuing his work. The delegates from the provinces came to Caesarea to comfort him, although in reality, it was he who strengthened them. He asked them to return to their native cities and make the foundations of the faith firmer. He did keep Luke with him, who was now completely absorbed in his writing of the record, and of the account of “things as they happened in truth.” Aristarchus of Thessalonica also insisted on staying to minister to the apostle.

There are certain people who have no light of their own, but who can be flooded with light from without. Aristarchus was such a man. From the moment he met Paul, he was filled with a sacred awe for the apostle’s work, and was willing to offer himself up in unreflecting sacrifice to the teacher. Aristarchus was a man of subtle intuitions, sensitive to Paul’s unspoken needs. He would stand at the prison gates all day begging the soldiers to let him in until they relented. He became not only Paul’s servant, but also his messenger to the believers in Caesarea. Paul often found himself deriving new strength from the presence of this simple man whose shining eyes reflected the light of an unquenchable faith. It was as if his work shone more steadily in the eyes of his servant than in his own heart, making a constant light in the cell.

Among the Jews of Caesarea the Christians were especially numerous, and there was a great spirit of love and devotion among them. They did all they could to lighten the burden of Paul’s imprisonment. Phillip’s daughters prepared kosher meals that Aristarchus brought to him. Paul’s friends visited, as much as Felix allowed. They came not only to serve him, but to ask his counsel on the affairs of the congregation. From his place in prison, Paul sent messengers out to various communities, in response to their questions. This way he spread the faith in prison just as he had in freedom.

The centurion he won over even let him leave the prison occasionally, in the company of a guard, to attend the common meals at Phillip’s house. But Paul took advantage of this privilege sparingly, so as not to imperil the centurion’s life.


Felix’s Jewish wife Drusilla had been brought up strictly in the faith, for her mother was under the influence of Rabban Gamaliel, who often visited the palace of her father, King Agrippa the First. Her father had betrothed her to an obscure Asian prince, whose faith she’d also accepted. But Felix had stolen her heart, and now she was living with this Gentile, when she was really the wife of another. Her conscience weighed on her heavily, and the touch of Hasmonean blood in her veins, of which she was inordinately proud, gave her mind no rest.

Felix often had Paul brought to his own palace, the luxurious building of white marble Herod had constructed. Drusilla loved to hear the apostle speak of the hope of her people and of the dream that had become reality.

Yet whenever the apostle confronted her, she felt his glance pierce the secret place of her heart, uncovering her regret and shame. And as if to sting deeper, Paul spoke of the righteousness, purity, and modesty that faith in Christ imposed on all people, all things she had transgressed against. How much righteousness was there in her husband’s conduct of state affairs? How much purity and modesty was there in their common life?

As she listened to the apostle, her face became pale, and her eyes fell. Her heart hammered within her. The apostle sat before her like a prophet revealing her hidden thoughts. She was seized with dread when Paul spoke of the last day, when Christ himself would ascend the throne of judgment, and every soul would be called to account.

And the dread in Drusilla’s heart touched an answering chord in the heart of her husband. But it wasn’t Christ that Felix was thinking about. He dreaded the day when he’d be called to account for his misdeeds before Caesar in Rome.

Sometimes at night, Drusilla would dream about Judgment Day and wake up screaming. Her husband trembled, too, thinking of the complaints that poured into Rome from the Jews, Samaritans, and other people. But the guilt feeling would only cause him to stop in the middle of a conversation with Paul without allowing him to finish.

“I have no more time now,” he would say, a bit hastily. “Perhaps another day.”

In spite of Felix’s conscience, or perhaps because of it, he would have turned Paul over to the High Priest a long time ago were it not for the thought of possibly squeezing a bag of gold from the apostle. He was tired of the man’s presence, but he always heard the ringing of gold dinars behind the reproachful words. So days and months went by until two years had passed.

Then Felix was indeed called to Rome to give an account of his stewardship.

Festus, who was a more typical representative of Roman legalism, replaced him. For Festus only the law existed. No feelings, no opinions of his own, ever intruded on his literal understanding of the law. His body was as inflexible as his spirit, a bronze image, polished and adorned in a silver breastplate and a row of glass medals.

Festus’ first act as procurator was to visit Jerusalem, the capital, and to receive a deputation of representatives from the Jews, headed by the High Priest. Among other things, the High Priest presented a petition demanding that Paul be finally released to him for judgment according to Jewish law. During the two years of Paul’s confinement the High Priest’s servants had accumulated statements from several hundred witnesses about his illegal activities. But Festus, a true Roman official, would not deliver up a man, especially a Roman citizen, without having heard both sides of the story. So he told the High Priest to come to Caesarea, where he would hear both the accusers and the accused.

In Caesarea, Festus called for an open trial. He took his place on the judgment seat, and had Paul brought in. The representatives of the High Priest presented many witnesses to make their charge.

Paul simply answered, “I have transgressed neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the Temple, nor against Caesar.”

Festus’ duty as Rome’s representative was to follow the law of the land. This included assisting the High Priest in carrying out the judgment of the Jewish court, but it was the latter’s business to judge cases of transgression against the Jewish faith. Since it was evident that this was a strictly Jewish affair, Festus really only had one option.

He addressed Paul, “Will you go to Jerusalem and be judged there before me?”

Paul was silent for a while. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind. Christ had assured him that nothing could happen to him in Jerusalem before he went to Rome. The Pharisees saved him at the first trial and would try to save him again at the second. And he worried about the possible riots that could ensue if he went to Jerusalem, was found guilty, and escaped the ultimate punishment.

So Paul decided to avoid the Jewish court and deliver himself into the hands of Rome. True, he’d always been reluctant to use his Roman citizenship, and had even reproved the Corinthians for submitting their disputes to other than Christian courts. But in this case he decided that he would rather put his head into the lion’s mouth with no assurance from Christ as to what would ultimately happen to him in Rome.

So he answered clearly, “I have done no wrong to the Jews. If I have done anything worthy of death I am ready to die. I appeal to Caesar!”

There was silence in the judgment hall. The prisoner had decided his own fate. Festus and his legal expert whispered together. A citizen of Rome had called on Caesar’s name, and no one could try him now except Caesar himself.

Festus answered, “You have appealed to Caesar, to Caesar you will go.”

* * * * *

To a fanfare of trumpets, a parade of legionaries, and a floating sea of banners, King Agrippa, of Galilee, Perea, Caesarea Philippi and other provinces, approaches the audience chamber of the palace. Dressed in the white silver-threaded robe of royalty, his tiara on his head, he is accompanied by his sister Bernice and a great suite of attendants.

Bernice is no less famous than her brother. Formerly Queen of Chalcis, and still Queen of Cilicia, she is famous for both her beauty and her wealth. Her dazzling white skin shines through the thin veils of black that she wears because of her Nazarite vows. Poets in Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome have sung of her flaming, golden hair that cascades over her veils. Her throat is straight and slender like a column of alabaster, and she walks with swaying, rhythmic steps that bring out the suppleness of her young body. She approaches the judgment throne on her brother’s arm between two lines of legionaries and officials, and takes her place by the side of the judge. It’s as if a goddess has come down from an Athenian temple to mingle with men of flesh and blood.

The princess is in the flower of her womanhood, being barely thirty years old. She’s already buried two husbands, one of whom was her uncle, King Herod of Chalcis. It’s also been rumored that there is more than just natural affection between this brother and sister. It’s said that the King gave her in marriage to King Palema of Cilicia to silence these rumors. It seems that in order to win her, the unhappy Gentile had himself circumcised, but he’d barely carried out the operation when Bernice left him and returned to her brother, reckless of the opportunity this would give for the repetition and strengthening of the slanderous rumors concerning her relationship with her brother.

Having been brought up in the highest Roman society and endowed with a deep understanding of beauty in literature and art, Bernice couldn’t trade her cultured brother’s company even for the crown of the rich province of Cilicia. She lived in her brother’s palace and shared his royal functions. So it was now that she came with Agrippa to the palace in Caesarea.

The King was on Paul’s side even before he spoke a word. Just the fact that the High Priest was the accuser made Paul innocent in his eyes. There was a bitter struggle between King and Priest, who were jealous of each other’s powers. It was for this reason that Agrippa expressed the wish to hear Paul in person after learning of the case.

This was an opportunity Paul had long dreamed of, for he had no less desire to speak to the mighty than he had to speak to the poor and enslaved. As an outsider to the hatred that Roman oppression inspired in the Jews of Palestine, he never had a problem preaching the gospel to officials or military men in the cities of the Diaspora. But it wasn’t even a question here of trying to win a Gentile. This was Agrippa the Jew he was about to talk to, and in the language of the Jews, the language of promise and hope, of the resurrection, Christ, the Torah, and the prophets.

“And especially because you are expert in the problems and customs of the Jews, I ask for your patient hearing.”

Then Paul began the story of his life, from its first days in Jerusalem. He told of his persecution of Christians in Jerusalem, how he went to Damascus for the same purpose, and how he was intercepted by the vision. He told of the voice that asked him in Hebrew, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Then followed the story of his conversion, how he who had been a persecutor became an advocate of the hope of Israel.

“And here I stand until this day, and testify before great and small, and I say nothing but what was said by Moses and the prophets, that Christ would suffer and be the first to rise from the dead, and he would be a light to Israel and to the Gentiles.”

A savior of Israel who should be a light to Jew and Gentile? Who ever heard of such a thing? This was too much for Festus and, forgetting his dignity, he burst into a snort of laughter and cried, “Paul! You are mad! Much learning has made you mad.”

“No, most noble Festus, I am not mad. . . . The king knows of what I speak. . . . King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you believe.”

Agrippa was listening attentively. He was much too much the Roman aristocrat to ever entertain any hopes for the independence of his people, and his Herodian heritage placed him on too high a level to sympathize with the nationalist longings of the Jews. The best he could do was to occasionally risk the displeasure of Caesar by pleading their cause against the decree of some high Roman official. Encouragement of the national dream of independence would be outright rebellion. However, he was not indifferent to those Messianic hopes and traditions Paul now touched on. Something awakened in him, and he had to call on his courtly training to sound as if he were on Festus’ side rather than Paul’s so as not to betray his emotions in his answer.

And so with a good natured smile, he spoke half kindly and half ironically, “Paul, you almost persuade me to become a Christian.”

Bernice, the daughter of a pious mother, was even more deeply touched by Paul’s words than Agrippa. She often took some Nazarite vow or other in remorse that followed a sin, to diminish the luxuriousness of her life. She was sometimes seen entering the Temple to bring an offering. She loved her people more than her brother, and she had a deeper insight into its spiritual being and its moral values. She often talked of these things with her learned protégés. Paul’s words made her uncomfortable now. Her lovely blue eyes were flooded with a strange light, and her breath came and went restlessly.

Paul could see immediately the effect he produced on the royal pair. He answered Agrippa’s words in a similar tone, “I would to God that not only you, but all who hear me, might be even as I am. Except for these chains.” And he raised his bound hands.


A little later the royal pair stood with Festus in a corner of the hall, consulting as to what they could do for the prisoner. Agrippa would have gladly taken Paul under his protection and rescued him from the High Priest. What a blow that would’ve been for the House of Annas!

“The man has done nothing whatsoever that calls for death or even chains,” he said with a sigh. “He should even now be set free, if he hadn’t appealed to Caesar.”

But the appeal to Caesar had been made, and there was nothing that could be done. Paul would be sent to the place he desired to go – to Rome!

33 - Song of Luke

While Paul was confined in the fortress, the Gentiles he’d brought with him from the provinces wandered about the city like lost souls. Except for Luke, that is. Luke had come to Jerusalem with a definite purpose in mind, and he spent his time gathering and writing down everything he could learn from first-hand witnesses about the life, deeds, and sayings of Christ while he was on earth. He went about this business in his quiet, Gentile way, spending much time with the Christian group of James, who was still considered untouchable when it came to persecution of the saints.

Luke met with Matthew and wrote down all the material he’d gathered, either in notes or in memory. Matthew had exercised great care in setting down all the doctrines and parables he had heard from Christ.

Luke was also fortunate enough to come across a “family letter,” or genealogical table, which had been preserved and continued in the family of Christ for many generations. These “family letters” were the most precious possessions among Jews; more important even than economic or social standing when it came to arranging marriages. Christ’s family records went back to King David, and David’s lineage was universally known to go back through Boaz and Ruth to Judah and Jacob, the patriarch. Luke and Matthew both set down Christ’s ancestry, but Luke went further. He wanted to collect as many details as possible about the circumstances of Christ’s birth.

Matthew’s record of Christ’s birth was based on reports already in wide circulation among those who’d been close to him. These reports bore the characteristics common to the beginning of all great prophets, like Moses and Samuel, that the great one had always been dedicated to God “from his mother’s womb,” for example. But Matthew, like John Mark, was less concerned with these details than with Christ’s words and deeds. Following Jewish custom, they emphasized their teacher’s doctrines and acts, writing down his parables with the utmost accuracy.

Luke the Greek brought the longing for beauty he’d learned from his worship of the gods to his faith in Christ. What he longed for was the personal touch. He wanted to know more about the extraordinary woman to whom the Holy Spirit had appeared, announcing that she would bear a son in a supernatural fashion such as no other woman had ever experienced. Luke longed to penetrate the mystery of his creation. The information he got from Matthew was inadequate to meet that need.

Christ’s mother was dead, but fortunately her sister Susannah was still alive and living in the great house of Barnabas’ sister Mary. She was very old, and white as a dove, her body no longer seeming to be of flesh, but more like the delicate fiber of a plant, transparent and spiritual. She was confined to a couch swathed in white linen, waiting for the fulfillment of her heart’s desire, to be called to the lord’s side in heaven, and to join her own who were now with him. The women of the house tended her in awe, and listened closely to her stories, many of which had to do with her sister and the birth of Christ. Matthew had written down some of it, but not all, for he considered many details as having no importance. Not so with Luke.

So the Greek grammarian sat at the foot of Susannah’s couch, his soul filled with the longing for the beauty of the gods he’d abandoned, and put down every word she spoke on a scroll of papyrus. Susannah spoke, or rather whispered, in Aramaic. An interpreter translated into Greek, and Luke wrote diligently.

“I remember it all clearly, as if it were yesterday. We lived together, the whole family, in a single courtyard. My sister Mary was still at home. She helped in the vegetable garden and with the flock. She was already engaged to Joseph, the carpenter. And on that day my husband was working in his vineyard, and my mother was at the brook, washing our clothes. It was noon, and the sun was bright and hot. It was very quiet. I was outside when I saw my sister coming out of the house. Her face was white and she came toward me like a frightened deer, and fell down, trembling. I asked her what was wrong. And she answered that a wondrous thing had happened to her.

“‘I sat in the house at the loom,’ she said, ‘weaving my bridal dress. There was no sound except the loom, and I was thinking that if my first child were a son, I would dedicate him to the Lord, like Hannah. Suddenly I saw an angel standing in front of me. He said to me, “Greetings, you who are full of grace, the Lord is with you. You are blessed among women.” I was so afraid I said nothing. Then he said something to me that I can’t tell any living person.’

“Well later, after the thing happened, we found out what the angel had told her, that she would conceive in her virginity and bear a son, and that the Lord would give him the throne of David.

“Then right around the time the child would be born, Joseph had to report to Bethlehem, his family’s home, for the census decreed by the government. They told me about it later. It was a bright night, and a dusting of snow had fallen. My sister and her husband were in the street, for there was no room for them in the inns, which were filled with strangers from all cities who were all there for the same reason.

“My sister began to feel her first pains that night, so her husband ran out and found a group of shepherds not far from the town, and they had him bring her and put her in a stall where they kept the newborn lambs. That was where she had her first child. She wrapped him snuggly in strips of cloth, and laid him in a trough, and her husband helped her. Everyone had abandoned them, but God helped them. He sent an angel, who stood before them and said, ‘Fear not, for I bring you news of joy to all people.’ And soon it was like the heavens opened above the stable where my sister lay with her little one, and legions of angels came down from heaven. There was great singing for the child, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill to men.”

At the foot of the couch, Luke was caught up in the vision of the opened heavens. He pictured a golden stream of angels pouring earthward. They held harps and stood in a circle around the newborn child. And the words of the old woman rang in his ears, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill to men.”

Luke could write no more. He sat motionless, his writing implement at his feet, and his eyes staring into the distance. Something was happening in his soul. Something was dying and something was being born. He heard the words of Paul ringing in his ears, “Christ has become the inheritor of the gods. The myth of Hellas is dead, and the myth of the lord has begun.”

32 - Pharisee and Son of A Pharisee

Jerusalem soaked up the spirit of revolt like a sponge soaks up water. Tyrants both foreign and domestic drove the people into a state of desperation. One result was the appearance of assassins in the Temple courts who carried daggers under their cloaks. Later they would be called “Sicarii,” and they had no problem slipping up to a victim and assassinating him right in the middle of a crowd. Since the Temple priests considered it an unspeakable horror to find any kind of stain on the marble floors, especially blood, they were outraged whenever a dead victim was found after the crowds had dwindled.

There was plenty of blame to go around for the conditions that produced this form of revolution. Between the foreign tyrants, the Roman Procurators, and the Jewish tyrants, the Herodian dynasty, and the bought-and-sold High Priesthood, the masses were squeezed like olives between the stones of a mill. Taxes, levies, and decrees all combined to starve the body and humiliate the spirit of the Jews. Only the last, desperate, and impossible hope of revolution was left to the people.

Many “seers” and “Messiahs” circulated among the masses, provoking them to futile, disorganized outbursts of violence. And as these increased, so did the brutality of the repressive measures taken against them. In the attempt to break the Jewish spirit, the legionaries were ordered to strike right and left without distinction to age or sex.

But instead of reducing the people to terrified apathy, these retaliatory measures only whipped them into more frantic determination.

To make matters worse, while the masses were sinking to a level of indescribable poverty, individuals of the High Priesthood were accumulating enormous fortunes as tax farmers and speculators. And this was on top of their normal income from the tithes, which they increased beyond any measure contemplated by the Mosaic Law. The people were desperate for political independence, but whenever reasonable people tried to talk about the cruel realities of the situation, they were drowned out by the wild cries of the Zealots. Some of the latter were honest patriots who were incensed and unbalanced, and they were used as cover by assassins whose murderous instincts found expression in the call to rebellion against Rome and the Herodian dynasty, regardless of what the practical consequences might be.

In those days the High Priest was a certain Ananias, of the hated house of Annas. By intrigue, bribery and collusion with the Procurator Felix, a man who didn’t hesitate to use the Sicarii for his own purposes, Ananias remained in office longer than any of his predecessors. But the High Priesthood had fallen into an abyss of corruption long before him. The “Sons of Annas” had changed the office from the pride and glory of its people to its greatest shame, and Ananias made himself one of the richest men in the country. The priesthood had sunk so low that even the High Priests themselves no longer called on the “Holy One of Israel” by that title. Instead of the simple word “God” they used an indirect allusion, “Lord.”

Only the Pharisees understood the condition of the country and the profound danger that confronted it. But they had no power. The masses were under the influence of the Zealots, and beyond the rabbis’ control. Gamaliel was dead, and the only spiritual leader among the Pharisees who enjoyed some measure of respect from the common people was Rabbi John. He saw more clearly than anyone else the catastrophe that was drawing close, and he tried to shift the spiritual center of gravity from the Temple to the prophets, from priestly regulation to moral principles of grace and love. Not bound to physical things that could be destroyed by the enemy, these were principles and values the people could take with them into exile when the worst came. He taught groups of young scholars in the tradition of Hillel, which concentrated the meaning of the Jewish law in the one ancient phrase, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the midst of all of these things was a deep and passionate yearning for God. The humiliated soul of the people turned to the eternal Source, and it was like they had the mood of Job’s faithfulness in disaster. Prophets arose who said that the days of the Temple were numbered. In unearthly language they warned the people that the fiery sword that God held over the head of Jacob was about to descend.

So what was there left to do for the children of Israel but use their last energies to fasten ever more tightly to the God who had so often saved His people of old? A religious fervor took hold of Jerusalem and Judea, and a renewed piety and faithfulness to the traditions and ancient rituals. In those days they were ready to suffer death for even the minutest details of the religion. All the national passions and moral values, the heritage of the fathers passed down across countless generations, mixed in a fierce jealousy of faithfulness.

And this fervor was not confined to Palestine. It spread like a tide across the entire Diaspora, and the number of pilgrims from foreign lands grew to immense proportions. It was as though they feared that if they didn’t go to the Temple now, they would never have the opportunity again. And when they came, they brought the love and promise of the Jews from all over the world to swell the flood of longing, hope, and revolt in the Holy City. They also brought deep bitterness against any attempt to uproot the last of their hopes. And they directed this rage at the one who was preaching that the law and tradition of Moses had been abrogated.

No wonder the Jews of Asia were filled with hatred of him who openly preached this destructive doctrine in the synagogues.


Ananias the silversmith came to Jerusalem with some other Ephesians to redeem his first-born son for five silver shekels. Shortly after arriving they saw Trophimus in the Court of the Gentiles standing with a group of Gentile Christians gazing in awe at the gates of Corinthian bronze. Ananias recognized him as one of the Gentiles Paul had persuaded that even though they were uncircumcised, they were true sons of Israel.

A few moments later the Ephesians saw a group of Nazarites coming out of the ritual chamber. Wait a minute. Who is that one, the third in line, walking with his head bowed? Isn’t that Paul?

“Hey! That’s Paul over there, the one who provokes the Gentiles against the Jews, and tells Jews they don’t have to be faithful to the Law of Moses.”

“I don’t believe this. He’s taken Gentiles into the Temple. I just saw Trophimus. He says he and his like are the true sons of Israel!”

“I’m from Corinth, and the Gentiles there also claim to be the true sons of Israel. They tell us we’re sons of Ishmael.”

“That’s the work of Paul, all right.”
“And he dares to show himself in the court of God’s House!”
“With Nazarites, no less?”
“Men of Israel, help! This is the man who preaches against our people everywhere!”

There were many other Jews there from Macedonia, Galatia, and Achaia who had accounts of their own to settle with Paul because of the dissensions he’d introduced into their local synagogues. They heard Ananias shouting and gathered around him.

“He brought uncircumcised men into the Temple! He’s desecrated the Holy Place!”

Other men came running from other parts of the court because of the shouting, not knowing what was going on.

“Gentiles have desecrated the Temple!”
“Who? Where?”
“They brought bones of the dead into the court!”
“Who? Samaritans?”
“No! A Jew! One named Paul!”
“He disguised some Gentiles as Nazarites and took them into the chamber!”
“Death! Kill him!”

And in an instant Paul was lifted up and was being carried out of the court. The bronze gates behind him clashed closed. Heads, beards, glaring eyes, clenched fists poured along with the procession. Wild voices were raised.

“To the stoning field!”

Like a flicker of lightning passing through his mind, Paul thinks of Stephen being carried away in exactly the same manner, and with the same wild cries. He sees the angel sunk half way in the heap of stones. He’s being carried toward the same pit. Is this a sign from heaven? In the same instant he thinks of the saying of Hillel, “Because you drowned another, you too will be drowned.”

But what about his mission to Rome?

Meanwhile, on the balcony of the Antonia fortress, a Roman sentinel sees the riot. He raps his sword on his bronze shield. Outside the court, not far from the gates, a guard of Roman legionaries is stationed under the command of a centurion. The sound of the sword on the shield is relayed from sentinel to sentinel until it reaches the tribune Claudius Lysias, who is in charge of maintaining order on this day.

A command is passed to the centurion outside the court. Instantly the guard is in motion. It passes into the court and confronts the mob carrying Paul to the stoning field. Paul is seized, and the chains he’d seen in the vision are placed on his hands.

The legionaries lift Paul up onto the shields, out of reach of the howling mob, and carry him in the direction of the Antonia fortress.

But Paul’s mind is clear. These people who are ready to tear him limb from limb are still his people, and they need salvation. So on the steps of the Antonia fortress Paul speaks to the tribune – in Greek!

“May I have a word with you?”

The tribune stares at him, amazed. He had taken this wretched, wounded Jew to be a rebellious barbarian, one of the rabble, and here he is speaking to him in Greek!

The tribune asks, “Aren’t you that Egyptian who led a band of rebels in the wilderness recently?”

“No! I am a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of a famous city!”

In his bewilderment, the tribune gives Paul permission to speak to the Jews, and Paul, whose tongue has saved him in many a perilous situation, lifts his hands to the raging mob. Paul is one of those people who can arrest a crowd with a gesture and a look. The crowd quiets down, and Paul addresses them in Hebrew.

“My brothers!”

“Hebrew! He speaks our language! Shh!”
“Let’s hear what he has to say!”

“I’m a Jewish man,” cries Paul, “born in Tarsus. But I was brought up in this city, and I sat at the feet of Gamaliel.”

The words are like magic, for the name of Gamaliel is greatly respected.

“I am learned in the Torah, the law of our ancestors.”

In the utter silence Paul teaches the mob at length as though they are a class at the feet of a rabbi. He tells them of his life and how he had persecuted the Christians. He tells them of his vision on the road to Damascus. But as he reaches this part of the story, the crowd senses trouble and becomes restless.

Then they hear Paul say, “Messiah declared to me, ‘Go, for I will send you to the Gentiles,” and the tumult breaks out again.

“It’s a lie!” they scream. Messiah never told you to go to the Gentiles!”
“Death! Stop his mouth with sand!”

Some in the front row throw off their upper garments, just like the witnesses who’d stoned Stephen.

The tribune thinks, “If the people hate him so, he must be a robber.”

He orders his men to carry Paul into the fortress. Two heavy blocks are fastened to his chains. They are stained with blood, and human hair clings to the clots. They are the blocks to which criminals are bound for execution. Paul’s hands are thrust through the rings of the blocks. Two soldiers stand over him, their heavy whips soaked in vinegar. His clothes are torn off him. And for the first time Paul appeals to his rights as a Roman citizen.

“Do you dare scourge a Roman citizen without a trial?” he cries.

The tribune stares back stupefied, and asks, “A Roman citizen? I paid a great sum for my citizenship.”

“I was born a Roman citizen,” answers Paul.

“Untie him!” says the tribune.

And to Paul, “If this is so, you shall be examined by your own Sanhedrin, that they may discover what the people have against you.”

And he orders that Paul be turned over to the Sanhedrin for examination.

* * * * *

The Sanhedrin no longer sat in the great Chamber of Hewn Stones in the Temple. It was now in a room in one of the “shops” of the Sons of Annas on the Mount of Olives. Indeed, many of the old institutions had disappeared by this time.

The struggle between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, between the rabbis and the High Priesthood, had reached an indescribable degree of bitterness. There was a continuous dispute between the two groups over the minutest details of the Temple ceremonies. But the priests controlled the Temple service itself, and they did everything they could think of to flout and discredit the Pharisaic tradition. Since the Pharisees were entitled to representation on the Sanhedrin, the sessions were transferred to the shops of Annas to try to discourage them from attending.

When Paul appeared before the Sanhedrin, Ananias came to preside in person even though he normally had a lower official represent him.

As Paul looked around the chamber, he saw an assembly predominated by priests and Sadducees. But the Pharisees were still represented, and some of them he knew well. They’d been fellow students of his under Rabban Gamaliel. They sat clustered around their leader, the gray Rabbi John. A flood of memories rose in Paul’s heart and for a moment it seemed as if he was still one of them, a disciple of Gamaliel. Therefore when he was called on to open his defense, he didn’t use the prescribed formula, “My lord the High Priest,” but addressed himself instead to his “companions”, the Pharisees.

“Men and brothers!” he said, “With a pure heart I have walked before God.”

The heavy, sagging face of the High Priest flushed, and his eyes flamed. He glanced at the guards, and one of them came forward and struck Paul across the mouth.

Paul’s half-closed eye glared at the High Priest, and he said, “God will strike you, you painted wall! You sit in judgment over me according to the law, and you have your servants strike me contrary to the law.”

Indeed, this man could accurately be called “a painted wall.” He had no distinguished bearing or earnest appearance like those who’d gone before him. This was a blown-up man of flesh. Ananias was widely known as a heavy eater and drinker, a type far more common among the Romans than the Jews. There were many stories about his appetites, and he looked the part. His belly was bloated, his cheeks hung down, and his eyes were encased in flesh. His servants did their best to cover his repulsive body with clothes that would hide its shapelessness, such as costly silks and fine linens of Sidon. His Syrian hairdresser worked hard to impart some kind of seemliness to his beard and features. But it was in vain. The oil applied to his skin wouldn’t sink in, but glistened on the surface. So he sat there, “a painted wall.”

But Paul’s savage outburst shocked his one-time companions, and they cried out, “You insult the High Priest of God?”

Paul immediately regretted his outburst. He’d gone too far, even under provocation. Here he stood as a stern disciple and observer of the law, and he had allowed himself to be provoked into breaking the law. For no matter who occupied the throne of the Priesthood, he was still “the Elder of Israel,” the representative of the unbroken line of Aaron, called to speak for this people in the Holy of Holies.

Therefore he controlled himself, made obeisance, and gave the only excuse he could, “I did not know, brothers, that this was the High Priest. Indeed it is written, ‘You shall not curse an elder of the people.’”

The assembly quieted down. And having thus appeased the Pharisees, Paul turned to them a third time, “Men and brothers, I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, and I am accused of preaching the hope of the resurrection.”

When the Sadducees heard the word “resurrection” they jumped as if Paul had repeated his insult to the High Priest.

“Now we hear it from his own mouth,” screamed one of them. “The man goes around preaching about resurrection, angels and spirits, and we let our people listen to him.”

But a Pharisee cried in response, “We find no evil in this man. If a spirit or an angel has talked to him, we won’t fight against God.”

Then the High Priest who had brought the supreme office in Israel to the lowest level of contempt said in a loud voice, “If these are your words, then you are all deniers of the faith and blasphemers in Israel. You believe in alien gods.”

Now old John rose to his feet, and the assembly fell into silence.

“My lord High Priest,” he began, calmly. “The doctrine of the resurrection is not alien. For it is written, ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ And it is also written, ‘The dead shall not praise God.’ Thus it follows that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not dead. And therefore we see no evil in what this man has done. With the permission of the High Priest, let this man be set free, without any accusation, and let us not deliver a just man into the hands of the Gentiles.”

Once more tumult broke out in the assembly. The High Priest saw that he was about to be robbed of his prey. He turned to the Sadducee scribes in the room to get Scriptural quotes with which he could answer the arguments of Rabbi John with equal authority, but his hirelings had nothing to say. Voices on both sides grew louder, and the session became chaotic.

The tribune, standing at the head of a detachment of legionaries outside the room, heard the tumult. Being responsible with his own life for that of a Roman citizen, he issued orders for his men to break in. Immediately Paul was seized and led back to the Antonia fortress.

So the incident came to a close.

But the High Priest wouldn’t let it rest there. The Pharisees had stopped him for the moment, but there were other ways of achieving his purpose. He knew there were plenty of people whose hearts were aflame with hatred for Paul. And if necessary, well, he’d used the Sicarii before. He certainly wasn’t above using them again.


One night Paul had a vision while in the Antonia fortress. In the vision Christ declared to him, “Inasmuch as you have witnessed for me in Jerusalem, you shall also witness for me in Rome.”


A few days after his failure at the trial, the High Priest instigated a conspiracy against Paul. But in order to carry it out, it would be necessary to have Paul brought out from the fortress where he was held for safekeeping. Therefore the High Priest asked the authorities for a second trial, stating that he wasn’t satisfied with the first investigation. Once Paul was being led through the streets, it was his hope that a “people’s judgment” would be executed on him, as it had once been executed, with the help of Paul himself, against Stephen. If not, the Sicarii waited in the background.

The conspiracy, having been brought about unskillfully and in haste, was overheard by Paul’s nephew, his sister’s son, and he brought word of it to his uncle in the fortress. Paul sent him to tell it to the tribune, who was weary of the whole affair. Unwilling to bear the responsibility any longer, he decided to send Paul away. He ordered a detachment of two hundred foot soldiers, accompanied by horsemen and other auxiliary troops, to transfer Paul to the Procurator of Judea, Felix, who was in Caesarea, and to deliver his official report on the incident.

31 - Granite Between Millstones

Once again Israel assembled in the House of God from cities all over the Diaspora, from Galatia, Macedonia, Asia, and Achaia, as well as Babylon, Damascus, and all the cities of Palestine. The streets of Jerusalem were crowded with men and women, old and young. The Palestinian Jews carried their baskets of vegetables, fruit, and grain, for this was the eve of Pentecost, when Israel brought their first fruits of garden, field, and vineyard to the Temple of the Lord.

On this particular Pentecost, another offering was brought to the Jews, delivered to the upper chamber in the wall of David, where Christ had eaten his last meal. It was an offering from the Gentiles, to testify to their faith in Christ.

Paul introduced the Gentile messengers to the saints of Jerusalem.

James came forward to greet them with outstretched arms. His mantle, though of poor material, was white. His face was pale, his beard silvery, and his hair long and snow white. For all the poverty of his clothing, his bearing was as though he were robed in the clothing of the High Priest.

He greeted the Gentiles, “Blessed be you who come in the name of the Lord.”

Peter was not in Jerusalem at the time, so John, one of the lord’s closest disciples, occupied the seat next to James. He looked old, his skin furrowed by the plow of time, his body frail, almost transparent. His face was wrinkled from brow to chin, and a sad longing radiated from him, for he longed to be where his brother was, with Messiah.

Matthew, the old tax collector, was there along with others, whose names rang mystically in the ears of these believers from afar, like Jude the lord’s brother, and Simon the zealot. And there were those younger and unknown, but near to the disciples, and already leaders in the congregation.

Paul introduced Sosipater and the other seven delegates, who each bowed low before the elders and placed bags of coins at their feet, coins that the Gentile believers, as well as Jewish ones, had donated for the poor saints of Jerusalem. Some of these copper coins and silver drachmas represented the sacrifice of some slave, the bread he had taken from his own mouth, an offering to a strange people who had once been hated and despised, but had now become part of Christ.

James lifted his hands to heaven and praised God for the miracle worked among the Gentiles. Matthew translated the prayer from Aramaic to Greek, but it was hardly necessary, for the words passed from heart to heart across the language barrier.

Afterwards James led the delegation down into the courtyard, to meet the simple brethren in the faith. The entire area in front of the David wall was covered with tents and booths, ramshackle structures of branches, rags, and leaves. The poor and the sick were in these improvised shelters, skeleton-like men and women, half-naked, and surrounded by skeleton like children. The dregs of Jerusalem’s misery were gathered in the courtyard, for it was known that the Jerusalem believers were distributing bread and figs for the starving. Perhaps even clothing for the naked would be available.

There were professional beggars and idlers mixed in with the truly needy, for James had no requirement that anyone who wouldn’t work shouldn’t eat like Paul did. If someone asked for food, he asked no questions. The men of the congregation brought the provisions and the women cooked. The poor sat at table and partook of the common meals.

No one picked and chose who they sat next to, so as often as not they might be sitting next to someone who had an infectious disease. No one was so low, unhappy, or broken that James would think of discriminating against him. All dipped their hands in the common dish, and no one shrank from contact with another.

The Gentile visitors were quite uneasy about this. Everything they’d ever learned screamed against it. But sit with them they did.

Their food that evening was a little piece of bread, a handful of olives, and a sip of wine from a clay pitcher. The assembly was very quiet and earnest, as if the lord had just left them and the impress of his shadow were still on the wall. It wasn’t a meal so much as a religious service. After eating, the disciples again recalled the actions and sayings of Messiah. Matthew was the popular speaker on this evening, since he spoke Greek, and he told about the things Messiah taught them on the Mount of Olives.

“Before he came down to eat his last meal with us, he said to us, ‘In the day when the son of man comes back in glory, he will sit on his throne. And all the nations of the world will be brought to him, and he will make fences around them, like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left. The king will say to those on his right hand, “Come and inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you since before the beginning of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was thrown into prison, and you came to me there.”’”

And Matthew continued, “In that day the ones on his right hand will reply, ‘Lord, when were you hungry, and we fed you? When were you thirsty, and we gave you a drink? When were you a stranger to us, and we took you in? Or naked, and we clothed you? And when did we see you sick or imprisoned?’ Then the lord will answer them, saying, ‘Of a truth, when you did it to the least of my brothers, you did it to me.’

“Then he will turn to those on his left hand and say, ‘Begone from me into everlasting fire, and let Satan and his angels have dominion over you, for I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink.’”

Then James, feeding off of Matthew’s words, nodded piously and added, “Every gift is from above and comes from the Lord of light, in whom there is no change and no shadow of turning.”

Then he taught them, “When you fulfill the law of the king according to the words, ‘And you shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do right. But if you play favorites, you do evil, and will be punished even as the evil are punished. For he who keeps the whole law, and yet fails in one matter, will be as one that failed in all.”

Paul, seated among the companions, knew whom James meant with those last words.

* * * * *

The next morning, when Paul came to visit James, he found him seated in a corner, his form rigid, his face bloodless, his eyes stony. The hollows in his cheeks had deepened overnight.

When James saw Paul he became even more rigid, and began to speak in a thin, lamenting voice. “Saul, Saul, the cry of the Jews goes up against you. God have mercy on you. How dare you lift up the ax against the roots of Israel? Don’t you know as well as I that Israel has been chosen to be His eternal witness, until the end of the world? But it is your desire to destroy Israel in the name of the Lord!”

“Destroy Israel?” echoed Paul, astounded. “I assure you that wherever I went, I brought the gospel first to the Jews. But they’ve stopped up their hearts, and have become more stiff-necked than ever, just like the prophets said. I’m hunted as a beast of the field because of my love for Christ in carrying the gospel to the Gentiles.”

“I thank God for Jewish obstinacy over our faith!” cried James, ecstatically. “Your zeal for the lord makes you blind, Saul, if you don’t see the holiness of Israel’s obstinacy. For instead of the promise, instead of the hope of Israel, instead of the highest consolation, Messiah of Israel, you bring a sword. For you’ve broken with Israel, abrogated the commandments, and uprooted the tree of Israel. You seek to plant it in Gentile soil. You’ve chosen the path of temptation and failure, Saul.

“You see, there are thousands of Jews who believe in Jerusalem, but they are also zealous in the law. They’ve heard that you teach those Jews who live among the Gentiles that they can abandon the Law of Moses, and that they should give up the circumcision of their children.

“So what can we do? The people will surely assemble against you, for they know you’re here.”

“So you want to take the Lord of all the worlds and close him into the four narrow walls of Jewish law?” asked Paul. “Would you make God an appendage of Israel? He’s the Lord of the whole world. He sent Christ to deliverer all mankind. Faith has created a new brotherhood among men. The lord binds them into a single family. They become children of God in the faith, not in the laws and commandments!”

“Woe to the ears who must listen to such words,” wailed James, shuddering from head to foot. “Who dares to say that we want to confine the Lord of the world in the four narrow walls of the law? The Lord of the world is ‘He That Is.’ You can add nothing to the word, nor take anything away from it. All else is idolatry.

“And what are we? We are nothing but wretched things, filled with temptations and failings. Our hearts are filled with lusts, and chaos surrounds us. In the middle of this chaos God was gracious to Israel and set guides and markers for him. That alone made us the elect people. That alone sustained in us the longing for Messiah, which is the hope of Israel for the sake of the whole world. And only Israel has paid the full price. Only Israel, no one else. And you would take the rights God has given to Israel away from him, and give them away to others?”

No one knew better than Paul that the heart of man is filled with evil desires, and that in the chaos God had set guides and markers, which he, Paul, had been trying to take to the Gentiles. Was it just to say that he was trying to take away the rights of Israel?

In pain and anger Paul retorted, “If it’s true that I’m trying to take away the rights of Israel, then what am I doing here in Jerusalem? I know full well of the danger to me here. Is that what you call uprooting the hope of Israel? And when it comes to the law, am I not an observant Jew, just like you? I observe all the laws and commandments.”

James paused. He was moved by Paul’s cry. He rose stiffly from his place, came over to the apostle, and took his hand.

“If what you say is true, brother, heed my advice, and do as I tell you. There are four men among us who have taken a vow. Take these four men and purify yourself with them. Pay the fee for the cutting of their hair, so that everyone may know that what has been said of you is false, and that you keep the laws and commandments of the Torah.

“As far as the Gentiles are concerned, we ourselves have written that they need not observe all our commandments, but that they must only refrain from bringing sacrifices to idols, from practicing whoredom, from shedding blood, and from eating the meat of strangled beasts.”

(Now whenever a Nazarite reached the end of his vow, he had to pass through a purification of seven days. During that time he withdrew from other Nazarites into a special chamber reserved for this purpose in the Temple. He avoided all impurities. When the time of purification was over, he was free to bring the sacrifice of expiation to the Temple. This was called “the cutting of the hair.” And it was a custom in Israel that a man of standing would come to the Temple to pay the “fee” for the cutting of the hair of a poor Nazarite, that is to say, the cost of their purification and their sacrifice.)

Paul did as James asked. He locked himself with the four Nazarites in the special chamber of the Temple to prepare for the offering of the sacrifice. He did this to show that he was not separated from the body and community in Israel, even though the forces he’d set in motion threatened to do it for him. He was striving to fuse two Pauls into one person, Paul the Jew and Paul the Greek. He’d brought one externalization of himself, the Greek converts of the far-off cities, to confront the other externalization, the saints of Jerusalem. But what was taking place within him was not a fusing. It was rather as if he were being ground between an upper and a nether millstone. And it wasn’t a handful of seeds that was being ground. It was a rock, as hard as the millstones themselves. Only an equal love of Greek and Jew could have produced this phenomenon, Paul.

And though he was a Greek with the Greeks, inside Paul remained the complete Jew, with the Jew’s feverish restlessness. He was burning to cleanse himself of the sin he’d committed in bringing division into the fold. He wanted to win pardon for the bitter words he’d spoken in sorrow and torment, words often torn from him by sheer contrariness and born of the impulse to provoke. In isolating himself for seven days in the chamber of the Temple, he was hoping to make a final accounting with his soul.


The delegations Paul had brought with him were lodged with a certain believer, Mnason, a native of Cyprus who had settled in Jerusalem and had a spacious house.

During the day the Gentile visitors wandered around the area, went up to the Temple, and visited the Court of the Gentiles. They weren’t allowed to go beyond that, and they couldn’t help but feel the barrier that lay between them and the Jews. In fact, just outside the gates of Corinthian bronze that led to the Court of the Women there was a sign warning that any Gentiles who went through that gate would bear responsibility for the death they brought on themselves.

They knew that accepting Christ didn’t make them Jews as long as they were uncircumcised. But they could see the joy on the faces of the Jews as they took their first fruit offerings though the gates. They also felt the astonished looks they received from Jews they ran into from their native towns who recognized them.

Trophimus in particular had an inner need for service in a Temple, as he had been raised that way. He believed that through his faith in Christ he had become, in essence, a son of Israel. In his eyes the Temple that Christ himself had worshiped in became his own temple. He felt that he should have the right to go through the bronze gates with the stern inscription. Hadn’t Paul told him that he was circumcised in heart and spirit?

Fortunately some of the others could see what he was thinking by the look on his face, and they were able to persuade him away from doing such a thing, warning him that he would be risking his life.

Unfortunately some other Jews nearby overheard their conversation and saw an opportunity. A story immediately began to spread that Paul, the man who was dissuading the Jews from loyalty to the Law of Moses, had brought Gentiles to the Temple and had encouraged them to go into the forbidden area. The fact that Paul and Trophimus had indeed been seen together a few days earlier lent credence to the rumor.

Meanwhile Paul remained in the Nazarite chamber of the Temple. He and the other Nazarites lay on the marble, each man in his own corner, and they confessed all the sins they’d committed before the time of their vows. In the early hours of the morning they plunged their bodies into the water of the ritual bath. Afterward they went into the Court, speaking to no one, but kneeling down and concentrating their thoughts on prayer. Their food consisted of green vegetables and water. They drank no wine, nor was any oil permitted on their skins.

Thus it went for seven days. Four of those days had passed. On the fifth day Paul came out of the chamber with the other Nazarites, his heart filled with contrite thoughts, and his spirit bowed before God.

30b - I Also Am an Israelite

So now Paul was finally ready to go to Jerusalem to talk to the saints and perhaps stand trial before the High Priest. He sent the delegations that had been collecting funds for the saints of Jerusalem on ahead to Troas. There was Sopater from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, and Timothy. There were also Tychicus and Trophimus from Ephesus.

When he arrived in Troas he sent them on to Assos, but he himself made the brief journey on foot, because he wanted to revisit the journey he’d made so long ago when he first brought the gospel to these parts. It was the post-Passover season, and spring was pouring out its benediction on the countryside.

When he got to Assos, Luke and the deputation were already on board waiting for him. They sailed to Mitylene, and then to Kios, not far from Ephesus. Paul didn’t want to visit Ephesus, or to spend any time in Asia, for he was anxious to arrive in Jerusalem in time for Pentecost. When they got to Miletus, Paul sent messengers to Ephesus asking the elders of the congregation to come to him, that he might say farewell to them, as he had said farewell to the communities of Troas and Philippi.

Paul’s last words to the elders of Ephesus, carefully recorded by Luke the physician, were very moving, as he opened his heart. “I’m going to Jerusalem, bound in the spirit, without knowing what waits for me there, except that the Holy Spirit has been with me in every city, foretelling suffering and chains. But I don’t care, and my life wouldn’t be dear to me were it not that I still hope to end the work I’ve taken on myself in joy. I have no regard to myself, but I have regard to the sheep whose shepherd the Holy Spirit has made me. . . . I fear that wolves will steal the flock after I leave. . . . I commend you to the grace of God. . . . You know what these hands of mine have done for my needs and for the needs of those who go with me. I’ve taught you that we must so work as to support the weak among us with the labor of our hands, and you must ever bear in mind the saying of Jesus Christ that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

They fell on his neck and cried because of the indication that they would never see his face again. And on the day of his departure they accompanied him to the ship.

There were many ships sailing from Upper Asia Minor to the coasts of Phoenicia in those days. A great stream of supplies flowed south into Tyre and Sidon, and colored stuffs from the two cities came north. Paul and his company boarded a ship heavily loaded with freight. They sailed directly for the Phoenician coast, passing Cyprus. At Syria, where the ship unloaded, Paul and his companions went on shore. A company of Christians of Tyre came out to meet them, and Paul stayed with them seven days.

The faithful of Tyre, with their constant communication with the not too distant city of Jerusalem, knew even better than Paul the danger he was heading into, and they did everything they could to talk him out of going. But Paul would not be persuaded.

On the eighth day, they sailed again while the congregation of Christians knelt on the shore and prayed for him as his ship moved southward to Ptolemais. They stayed just one day there, and then made the short journey to Caesarea to visit the home of Philip, the one who had been the first to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. Philip lived with his four virgin daughters who were gifted with prophecy, the oldest of them being Zipporah.

Paul and Zipporah hadn’t seen each other since that memorable day many years before when he’d gone to her house in Jerusalem to take her father prisoner. She had thrown a reproach at him that day, telling Paul that he was a respecter of persons, and had favorites. But it wasn’t true, and he had spent years proving it. But she also had disproved the words he once spoke to her when he bitterly told her that she would throw away her gift of prophecy in order to take a husband. She had dedicated her life to prophecy. In those days they had both been young. Now they were both old.

The years had taken a lot out of Zipporah. She was little more than skin and bones, with gray hair, and a body covered with sackcloth. But then she smiled, and there was no doubt that it was she.

* * * * *

Paul was not as close to Luke the physician as he was to his other two co-workers, Titus and Timothy. When Paul met him, Luke was already a grown man, one trained in the wisdom of the Gentiles, knowledgeable of land and sea, as well as deeply versed in Holy Scripture, albeit only in translation. As powerful and harmonious as he was in body, broad shouldered and a tranquil face as of poured bronze, he was no less harmonious in bearing. There was no visible break in him, no scar of the passage from his Greek gods to the one living God. Paul had accepted him as a sign from heaven, the fulfillment of the vision of the “man of Macedonia.” He also saw Luke’s excellent qualities immediately. He had calmness, consistency, and endurance to go with his tactful management of people. Plus there was his training, his mastery of medicine, and his knowledge of languages. All these gifts proclaimed him a valuable helper in the work. Thus, even at the beginning, Paul had left Luke to direct the affairs of the congregation in Philippi. But he didn’t know the man well at that time.

He got to know him a little better in Corinth, when, after his second letter to the Corinthians, he visited them to restore order among the faithful. But it wasn’t until the journey to Jerusalem that Paul found the opportunity to gain intimate insight into his companion.

Luke well knew Paul’s opinion of the Gentiles, an opinion frequently expressed and in unmistakable language. There was the passage Paul had dictated in his letter to the Romans, for instance, that the Gentiles thought they were wise, but were really fools. They exchanged truth for lies and worshipped the creature rather than the Creator. So God abandoned them to their lusts. Luke had great love and devotion for Christ, but saw no need to reject his great heritage of Greek culture. He sought to rescue those glories that could be rescued from that old world and transplanted to the new faith. And he was deeply wounded by Paul’s bitter mockery of the Gentiles. Nor was Luke’s feeling for the Jews proportionate with his love for Christ. He had accepted their heritage, because it was permanently bound up with the faith. But he could not warm up to this people, and in his heart there was an uncontrollable longing for the harmony of the pagan world. Therefore he was always seeking a mixture of the old world with the new.

These things came up for discussion with Paul one day.

“The Gentiles,” he said to Paul, “don’t worship stone and wood, not really. The gods are only symbols of perfection and harmony. So it’s really the Creator they bow down to. In adoring beauty they pay tribute to the eternal truths found in that beauty. The gods are only demons who’ve taken possession of the images and who’ve marred the beauty and perfection the great masters have portrayed in the imagery.”

As Paul listened, he thought of the vision he’d had at the book burning in Ephesus as well as his conviction that Luke was the fulfillment of the vision of “the man of Macedonia.” Therefore he answered Luke as he had answered the visionary figure at the book burning.

“Christ has inherited the gods of the Gentiles. The highest perfection, love, is realized in him. Christ is the fulfillment of all harmony, for in love there is everything.”


That evening in Caesarea, when Paul and his companions broke bread with the believers in Philip’s house, Luke brought up the subject of why Paul insisted on going to Jerusalem. None of the others could understand his stubbornness either. The deputation Paul was leading consisted of men who were well-established citizens. Some even held positions of responsibility in their respective provinces. They’d sacrificed everything to their faith in Christ. And now Paul was leading them to Jerusalem, where they didn’t know what might be waiting for them, while the apostle himself was forever filled with dark forebodings.

Suddenly Zipporah appeared in the doorway, and all eyes turned to her. Her eyes glittered, and her gray hair fell wildly over her shoulders. She was carrying a little phial of Syrian glass with a long thin neck in her frail little hand. Silently she approached the apostle, and slowly she turned the delicate phial, mouth downward, over his hands. The drops of clear oil came out one by one, like tears glistening in the quiet lamplight.

And Zipporah said, “I anoint your hands for the chains that await them.”

Paul grew pale, but then a smile passed unevenly across his lips. He did not answer.

Then an even stranger thing happened. The door was thrown upon and a wild looking man with stormy hair and fiery eyes came in. This was the prophet Agabus, who wandered from community to community, one day in Jerusalem, another in Antioch. His appearances had come to be interpreted as a promise of evil things to come. He would predict disaster, and then vanish, and sickness, famine, evil decrees, and death would inevitably follow. He came in like a demon in a storm, rushed up to Paul, took off his sash, and bound his own hands with it.

Agabus then said, “So shall the Jews in Jerusalem bind the owner of this sash.”

The others at the table were terrified. Everyone started begging him not to go to Jerusalem. Luke spoke up, “Wasn’t it you who said that though you knew Christ in the flesh, now you know him no more in the flesh, but in the spirit? Isn’t the spirit everywhere, wherever the name of Christ is mentioned? So why go to Jerusalem? Why can’t you make Antioch, or Corinth, or Ephesus, or even Rome itself the new Jerusalem?”

“What is Christ?” asked Paul hotly. “Is he a husk of grain to be carried away by the wind? Is he a seed carried into the wilderness? God forbid! He is the fruit from the tree of Israel, rooted in the earth of Zion. Christ is the fulfillment of the promises given to our fathers. He is the vindication of the prophets. He is the son of David, who came to judge the world from Mount Zion. Help came to the Jews first, then to the Greeks.”

“But, Paul, don’t you see that chains wait for you in Jerusalem?” they cried, literally. “Don’t you see you’re going to your death?”

“What do you mean with all this crying and breaking my heart?” said Paul, summoning anger to his aid. “Surely I’m prepared to be thrown in chains, and yes, to die there in the name of the lord Jesus Christ.”

He said this abruptly and with such firmness of conviction, that the others stopped trying to persuade him. They only said, “Let the will of God be done.”

And the next day they packed their belongings and set out, in the company of other believers, for Jerusalem.

30a - I Also Am an Israelite

As soon as Paul appeared in Corinth, all was forgiven, and everything that had been held against him was forgotten. The community was uplifted by a great wave of love. Whatever harshness he had spoken was accepted as the sign of his devotion.

There were some who feared Paul, for it seemed to them that he could annihilate with the power of his look. Others remembered only the sweeter, tenderer words he spoke. As to those who denied Paul’s authority, they too were carried away by the congregation’s enthusiasm. They trembled at the new strength Paul showed, and their opposition melted.

Paul knew what arguments were needed for various groups. To the Jews he pointed out that he lived under the discipline of the Law of Moses, perhaps more so than they did. But to the Gentiles who’d been won by the messengers from James and were trying to live under the same law, he said flatly that taking on the burden of Jewish discipline was all in vain. So he was a Jew among Jews, and a Greek among Greeks. But in everything he strove mightily to maintain the unity of the congregation.

Aquila and Priscilla were no longer in Corinth, but Paul made his home with Gaius, and it was from there that he dispatched his letter to the congregation in Rome.


The letter to the Romans was more difficult to write than even the letters to the Corinthians. Weeks and months passed while he dictated and re-dictated to a certain Tertius. It was his desire to re-state and expand his doctrine of Christ as he had received it, revealed it in many cities, and expounded it to Apollos. In a hard exact style, with fine, hairsplitting distinctions of definitions, he set down his thesis, or rather, his interpretation of his mission. First he repudiates sharply the pretended wisdom of the Greeks.

“Claiming to be wise,” he says, bluntly, “they were fools. They changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped the creature rather than the Creator. So God gave them up to vile perversions of lust. . . . they became filled with unrighteousness, whoredom, greed, malice, with unnatural lusts and unmercifulness.”

He goes on to make it clear that the Jews who had the law, but didn’t live according to the law, were no better than those degenerate pagans.

“There will be tribulation and anguish on everyone who does evil, the Jew first, and then the Greek. But glory, honor, and peace is given to everyone who does good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile, for God does not play favorites. He will punish the Gentiles who sin even though they don’t have the law and he will punish the Jews who sin by the law.”

Then Paul says something that almost sounds like it could have come from James.

“For it’s not those who listen to the law who are justified before God, but those who do according to the law.”

But, “You call yourself a Jew, and feel secure in the law, and boast of God. . . . For it is not outwardly that one is a true Jew, but inwardly, circumcised in the heart and spirit, not in the flesh.”

Paul doesn’t stop there. He goes further and abrogates the law in precise terms, even for the Jews.

“By the deeds of the law no one will be justified in God’s sight, for the law only gives knowledge of sin. But now God’s righteousness is manifest without the law, the righteousness that is by the faith of Christ.”

Christ personifies righteousness. It follows then that faith in Christ is the essence of the law, that is, of justification, which is the opposite of sin. And Christ is the only one who can bring salvation from sin, for it is through the law that we become sinful.

“The law awakens in man all manner of lust, for without the law sin is dead. . . . For though we know that the law is of the spirit, I, the man, am sold in my body to sin. . . . For I know that in me, that is, in my body, there is nothing good. . . . I have the will, but have not found my way to goodness. . . . I see another law in me, warring against the law of my mind, and making me captive to the sin that is in me.”

In these sentences Paul unfolds the tragedy of man’s inner struggle over his own destiny, for he sees man as the arbiter of his own destiny. Therefore he looks into the depths of his own heart, and cries out over man’s fate.

“Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?”

He looks around him, like a swimmer in a dark sea, who sees a single ray of light to guide him. That ray of light is Christ.

“Therefore as by one man’s disobedience condemnation came on everyone, so by one man’s obedience justification came for all. . . . And all who were baptized in Christ, were baptized into his death. For he that is dead sins no more. . . . We are no more in the flesh, but in the spirit.”

Only by the power of faith can man break the chains of his own destiny, hammered and laid on him by his own lusts. What is impossible for the law to accomplish becomes possible through the spirit.

“When Jesus Christ is in you, your body is dead to sin and alive to righteousness. . . . And they that are led by the spirit of God are the children of God. You have received the spirit of children, by which we cry Abba, Father!”

Then, with the logic of a true Pharisee, Paul proceeds to demonstrate that the law had lost its validity not only for the Gentiles, but for the Jews too.

“The law has dominion over a man as long as he lives, even as a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. Therefore, my brothers, you have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, and you should be wed to another (to the living Christ in the spirit) who arose from the dead.”

Throughout this long letter Paul again lives through all the torments of his own life. He clearly sees how he isolated himself from the traditional Jewish way and condemned himself to loneliness. He struggles bitterly between his longing for Christ and salvation on the one hand, and his natural affection for his people on the other. He fully understands that the knife he lays at the root of Jewish law is also laid at the root of his relationship to his people. But his love for Christ is stronger.

“Who can separate us from Christ’s love?” he cries. “Neither height nor depth, nor any creature, can separate us from God’s love, which is in our lord, Jesus Christ.”

So has Christ come for the Gentiles alone? In the streams of blood that flowed from Christ’s body to free man from the law and bring him into the grace of faith, is there not one drop shed for his own people, who suffered the torment of Christ and had conjured him down from heaven by their longing?

In agony, Paul asks himself who can fathom the depths of Christ’s heart? Is there not a corner for his people in it? This thought gives him no rest. In the sea of love Christ poured out on mankind, there must be enough water for Israel too. So he labors, in pain and frustration, longing to bring the whole world into the grace of Christ, and finding himself confronted by the obstinate will of the Jews.

In this labor he develops a fiery impatience that blinds him to the sense of justice, moves him to a sharp intolerance, and poisons his understanding of those who oppose him. In his letter to the Romans he expresses all his love, but also all his scorn, toward his own people. He alternates between benediction and malediction. One moment he rejects Israel like a broken pot. The next moment he exalts Israel as a precious vessel that alone is worthy of containing the oil of anointment for Christ. For Israel’s sake Paul is prepared to make the highest sacrifice of himself. He would destroy not only his body, but his very portion in Christ if only Israel will accept it for herself.

“I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers in the flesh, who are Israelites. Theirs is the adoption and the glory and the giving of the law, and the service of God and the promises. Theirs are the fathers from whom Christ came according to the flesh.”

He couldn’t have said anything higher of his people. And though he has just deprived them of the inheritance, saying, “Not all that are of Israel are Israelites, not the children of the flesh are the children of God, but only the children of the promise,” he now cries, “Brothers, it is the wish of my heart, it is my prayer to the God of Israel, that they be helped.”

But there is something in the way.

“Israel, who followed after righteousness, did not attain righteousness, because he sought it not by faith but by the works of the law. . . . For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe.”

But, “Do I say, then, that God has cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people who He knew from of old.”

And, “If their fall has meant the raising up and enrichment of the Gentiles, how much more should the world profit by their fulfillment? . . . Perhaps I will move those who are of my flesh to imitate me, and some of them may be saved. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what will the receiving of them be but life from the dead? For it the root is holy, so will the branches be holy.”

And to the Gentiles he says, “Don’t gloat over the branches (the Jews). Remember, you don’t bear the root, the root bears you. If you say, ‘The branches are broken off, so that I might be grafted in.’ True, they have been broken off by unbelief. . . . but if they do not remain in unbelief they will be grafted in again. . . . For if you were cut off from a wild olive tree (heathendom), and were grafted into a good olive tree, contrary to your (pagan) nature, how much more will the natural branches be again grafted into the good olive tree (Christ)? This is no mystery, my brothers. Blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.”

God purposely withheld Israel from acceptance of Christ until the Gentiles caught up with the Jews in God’s election!

“But Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘There will come out of Zion the deliverer, and will take away the ungodliness from Jacob.’”

The apostle’s inner struggle is deep and bitter. It’s like he’s tearing at his own flesh, and the blood streams from him, not from his people. Faithfulness to the Gentiles, passion for Christ, and love of his own people are all at war in him, and the strongest of the three is his passion for Christ. In the last torment of his separation from Israel he cries out to the Gentiles, “According to the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes, but concerning the election, they are beloved for the father’s sake, for the gifts and appointments of God are without recall.”

“And though you are free from the law, you are under the law of righteousness.”

Paul is proclaiming a new law for the congregation of Christ, a law rooted and blossoming in the fields of Jacob. The law of the prophets grows where he has uprooted the Law of Moses. The law is boundless, for its source is love, which is in Christ. Its deeds are boundless, for the law is not judgment, but grace. It’s like the sun in heaven and the dew at night. Salvation has been given freely, through the grace of God.

In the spirit of Christ, and in harmony with what he had taught in the byways of Galilee and the narrow streets of Jerusalem, Paul the Jew addresses himself to the Romans, “Therefore, brothers, I beg you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living, holy, acceptable sacrifice to God. . . . For as we have many members in one body, and all members do not have the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and are all members of one another. . . . Be kind to one another, with brotherly love, each honoring the other before himself. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. . . . meet the needs of the saints, and practice the virtue of hospitality. Bless those who persecute you and do not curse them. Do not repay evil with evil.”

And in the spirit of Christ, he said, “As far as it is within you, live at peace with all men. Take no revenge on anyone, and leave no room in yourself for anger. . . . If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. In doing so you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not let evil overcome you, but overcome evil with good.”

And he continues with words that he’d undoubtedly heard from his teacher Rabban Gamaliel, for they were of the essence of the tradition and school of Hillel, “It is briefly comprehended in this saying, Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Toward the end of the letter he advises them of his plans to go to Jerusalem and begs them to pray for him that he might be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea and be able to come visit them.

Then he adds certain commendations and greetings. “I commend to you our sister Phebe, a servant of the church at Cenchrea. . . . receive her in the lord and assist her in whatever business she asks of you. Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in the work of Jesus Christ, who have laid down their necks for my life.”

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Slaves were forbidden to send communications to each other, so generally, when a family of slaves was broken up on the slave market, its members lost track of each other. But the slaves who had entered the congregations of Christ were able to re-establish contact through the congregations. Members of the Christian community maintained a close relationship with each other, so whenever a believer moved or traveled from town to town, he would carry news and messages with him. Through this constant flow of information brothers and sisters, parents and children, long separated, were able to communicate with each other.

It was also a habit of Christian congregations to send letters of introduction when a believer was moving from one town to another. Phebe had a great desire to go to Rome, for she had children there. One was a slave, and the other had been set free by his master for his performances as a gladiator. So when Phebe asked Paul for a letter of introduction, he thought it would be a good idea to send the letter to the Romans with her. Phebe was an elderly woman, of heavy build, and thick stumpy feet. Paul took the roll of papyrus, wrapped it in a linen cover, and using his own girdle, he bound the cover to the woman’s body, and told her to not allow herself to be separated from the scroll either by day or by night.

The journey itself took many days. Phebe lay on many decks, and slept in dangerous places, but she never undid the girdle. She went from ship to ship, from port to port, until she reached Puteoli. From there she went on foot to Rome, and arriving in the great city, found the Synagogue of the Hebrews on the right bank of the Tiber. She met a Christian there who led her to Aquila and Priscilla’s house. Only then did she unroll the girdle from her body, and deliver the letter into the hands of the congregation.