Paul a Prisoner
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the people, and the law, and this place.” And as the people responded to
the call for help, another accusation was added—“and further brought
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Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.”
By the Jewish law it was a crime punishable with death for an
uncircumcised person to enter the inner courts of the sacred edifice.
Paul had been seen in the city in company with Trophimus, an Eph-
esian, and it was conjectured that he had brought him into the temple.
This he had not done; and being himself a Jew, his act in entering the
temple was no violation of the law. But though the charge was wholly
false, it served to arouse the popular prejudice. As the cry was taken
up and borne through the temple courts, the throngs gathered there
were thrown into wild excitement. The news quickly spread through
Jerusalem, “and all the city was moved, and the people ran together.”
That an apostate from Israel should presume to profane the temple
at the very time when thousands had come there from all parts of the
world to worship, excited the fiercest passions of the mob. “They took
Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were
shut.”
“As they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain
of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.” Claudius Lysias
well knew the turbulent elements with which he had to deal, and he
“immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them:
and when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating
of Paul.” Ignorant of the cause of the tumult, but seeing that the rage of
the multitude was directed against Paul, the Roman captain concluded
that he must be a certain Egyptian rebel of whom he had heard, who
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had thus far escaped capture. He therefore “took him, and commanded
him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and
what he had done.” At once many voices were raised in loud and
angry accusation; “some cried one thing, some another, among the
multitude: and when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he
commanded him to be carried into the castle. And when he came upon
the stairs, so it was, that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence
of the people. For the multitude of the people followed after, crying,
Away with him.”
In the midst of the tumult the apostle was calm and self-possessed.
His mind was stayed upon God, and he knew that angels of heaven
were about him. He felt unwilling to leave the temple without making