The life and work of St. Paul

280 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
colony, and who, aping the manners and the titles of Imperial Rome, had the
1
impertinence to call themselves "Praetors." Leading their prisoners into
the presence of these " Praetors," they exclaimed, " These fellows are utterly
troubling our city, being mere Jews and ; they are preaching customs which
it is not lawful for us, who are Romans, to accept or to practise." 2 The mob
knew the real state of the case, and sympathised with the owners of the slave
girl, feeling much as the Gadarenos felt towards One whose healing of a
demoniac had interfered with their gains. In tho minds of the Greeks and
Romans there was always, as we have seen, a latent spark of abhorrence
against the Jews. These sweepings of tho Agora vehemently sided with the
accusers, and the provincial duumvirs, all the more dangerous from being
pranked out in tho usurped peacock-plumes of " praetorian " dignity, assumed
that tho mob must be right, or at any rate that people who were Jews must be
so far wrong as to deserve whatever they might got. They were not sorry at
so cheap a cost to gratify tho Roman conceit of a city which could boast that
its citizens belonged to tho Yoltiuian tribe. 3
It was another proof that
" Man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep, who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal."
Paul and Silas had not here to do with the haughty impartiality and supercilious
knowledge which guided the decisions of a Gallic, but with the
" justice's justice " of the Vibiuses and Floruses who at this time fretted
their little hour on the narrow stage of Philippi. Conscious of their Roman
citizenship, they could not have expected so astounding a result of their act of
mercy, as that their political franchise should bo ignored, and they themselves,
after condemnation without trial, ignominiously hurried off into the punishments
reserved for the very meanest malefactors. 4
Such, however, was the
issue of the hearing. Their Prretorships would imitate the divine Claudius,
and wreak on these wandering Israelites a s^iare of the punishment which the
1 Acts xvi. 20.
orpaTTjyb? is the Greek version of the ' '
originally military title Prsetor ;"
and it was also a Greek title in vogue for the chief magistrates in little cities (Ar. Polit.
vii. 8). The fashion seems to have been set in Italy, where Cicero, a hundred years
before this time, notices with amusement the " cupiditas " which had led the Capuan
Duumviri to arrogate to themselves the title of "Pne tors," and he supposes that they
will soon have the impudence to call themselves " Consuls." He notices also that their
"lictors" carried not mere staves (bacilli), but actual bundles of rods with axes inside
them (fasces) as at Rome (De Leg, Agrar. 34). The name stradigo lingered on in some
cities till modern days ("Wetst. in loc.).
2 Acts xvi. 20, 'lovSaioi ujrapxovrs ', 21, Pwfiaioi* o5