While at Jerusalem,
at the feast of Pentecost, he was almost murdered by a Jewish mob in the
temple..(see
'Temple, Herod's' if you have Easton's Bible Dictionary, available
free
in a Bible computer program for your own computer).Rescued
from their violence by the Roman commandant, he was conveyed as a prisoner
to Caesarea, where, from various causes, he was detained a prisoner for
two years in Herod's praetorium.(judgement
hall):.Acts
23:35.
"Paul was not kept in close
confinement; he had at least the range of the barracks in which he was
detained. There we can imagine him pacing the ramparts on the edge of the
Mediterranean and gazing wistfully across the blue waters in the direction
of Macedonia, Achaia and Ephesus, where his spiritual children were pining
for him, or perhaps encountering dangers in which they sorely needed his
presence. It was a mysterious providence which thus arrested his energies
and condemned the ardent worker to inactivity; yet we can now see the reason
for it. Paul was needing rest. After twenty years of incessant evangelization,
he required leisure to garner the harvest of experience...During these
two years he wrote nothing; it was a time of internal mental activity and
silent progress." ...Stalker's.Life
of St. Paul.
At the end of these two
years Felix was succeeded in the governorship
of Palestine by.Porcius
Festus, before whom the apostle was again
heard: Acts 26:. But judging it right at this crisis to claim the privilege
of a Roman citizen, he appealed to the emperor:.Acts
25:11. Such an appeal could not be disregarded and Paul was at once
sent on to Rome under the charge of one Julius, a centurion of the 'Augustan
cohort'. After a long and perilous voyage, he at length reached the imperial
city in the early spring, probably of 61 A.D.
Here he was permitted to occupy his own rented house, under constant military
custody. This privilege was accorded to him, no doubt, because he was a
Roman citizen and as such could not be put into prison without a trial.
The soldiers who kept guard over Paul were of course changed at frequent
intervals and thus he had the opportunity of preaching the gospel to many
of them during these."two
whole years".and
with the blessed result of spreading among the imperial guards and even
in Caesar's household, an interest in the truth:.Philippians
1:12,13. His rooms were resorted to by many anxious inquirers, both
Jews and Gentiles.(Acts
28:23,30,31).and
thus his imprisonment."turned
rather to the furtherance of the gospel".and
his."hired.(rented).house".became
the centre of a gracious influence which spread over the whole city. According
to a Jewish tradition, his rented house was situated on the borders of
the modern Ghetto, which has been the Jewish quarters in Rome from the
time of Pompey to the present day. During this period the apostle wrote
his epistles to the Colossians,
Ephesians,
Philippians,
to Philemon and probably
also to the Hebrews.
This first imprisonment came
at length to a close, Paul having been acquitted, probably because no witnesses
appeared against him. Once more he set out on his missionary labours.(map),
probably visiting western and eastern Europe and Asia Minor. During this
period of freedom he wrote his First Epistle to Timothy
and his Epistle to Titus.
The year of his release
was signalized by the burning of Rome, which apparently, Nero
saw fit to attribute to the Christians. A fierce persecution now broke
out against the Christians. Paul was seized and
once more conveyed to Rome a prisoner. During this imprisonment he probably
wrote the Second Epistle
to Timothy, the last
he ever wrote.
There can be little doubt
that he appeared again at Nero's bar and this time the charge did not break
down. In all history there is not a more startling illustration of the
irony of human life than this scene of Paul at the bar of Nero. On the
judgment seat, clad in the imperial purple, sat a man who, in a bad world,
had attained the eminence of being the very worst and meanest being in
it, a man stained with every crime, a man whose whole being was so steeped
in every nameable and unnameable vice, that body and soul of him were,
as some one said at the time, nothing but a compound of mud and blood and
in the prisoner's dock stood the best man the world possessed at that time,
his hair whitened with labours for the good of men and the glory of God.
The trial ended. Paul was
condemned and delivered over to the executioner. He was led out of the
city with a crowd of the lowest rabble at his heels. The fatal spot was
reached. He knelt beside the block. The headsman's axe gleamed in the sun
and fell and the head of the apostle of the world rolled down in the dust.(probably
66,67 or 68 A.D.),
four years before the
fall of Jerusalem.
Paul earlier endured other
hardships:.Philippians
3:4-6; 2Timothy 4:17. Paul
recalls his life of
trials in getting the gospel out to others:.2Corinthians
11:23-30. The apostle Paul was not regarded highly by the established
religious community back then, as they wanted him dead:.Acts
16:19-24; 24:5. What kind of
religion was this that they thought this way? However,
Paul's hardships made his dream much more alive:.1Corinthians
9:16,17.
The Creator is always with
us through all of them. For more interesting events in Paul's life see
Life
And Epistles Of Paul, by Conneybeare and Houson, here.
