The life and work of St. Paul

AND FBLIl. 549
therefore, met the first and third counts of the indictment with a positive
contradiction, and challenged the Jews to produce any witnesses in confirma-
tion of them. As to the second count, he was quite ready to admit that he
belonged to what they called a sect ; but it was no more an illegal sect than
those to which they themselves belonged, since he worshipped the God whom,
as a Jew, he had been always taught to worship frankly accepted their entire
Scriptures and believed, exactly as the majority of themselves did, in a resurrection
of the just and unjust. In this faith it had always been his aim to
have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man. He had
now been five years absent from Jerusalem, and on returning with alms for
the poor of his people, and offerings for the Temple, they found him in the
Temple, a quiet and legally purified worshipper. For the riot which had
ensued he was not responsible. It had been stirred up by certain Asiatic
Jews, who ought to have been present as witnesses, and whose absence was
a proof .of the weakness of the case against him. But if their attendance
could not be secured, ho called upon his accusers themselves to state the
result of their trial of him before the Sanhedrin, and whether they had a
single fact against him, unless it were his exclamation as he stood before
them, that he was being tried about a dead.
question of the resurrection of the
The case had evidently broken down. St. Paul's statement of facts
directly contradicted the only charge brought against him. The differences
of doctrine between the Jews and himself were not in any way to the point,
since they affected questions which had not been touched upon at all, and of
which the Roman law could take no cognisance. It was no part of his duty
to prove the doctrine of the Nazarenes, or justify himself for having embraced
it, since at that time it had not been declared to be a religio illicita. Of this
fact Felix was perfectly aware. He had a more accurate knowledge of " that
way " than the Jews and their advocate supposed. 1 He was not going, therefore,
to hand Paul over to the Sanhedrin, which might be dangerous, and would
certainly be unjust ; but at the same time he did not wish to offend these
important personages. He therefore postponed the trial rem ampliavit
on the ground of the absence of Lysias, who was a material witness, promising,
however, to give a final decision whenever he came down to Csesarea. Paul
was remanded to the guard-room, but Felix gave particular instructions to the
centurion 2 that his custody was not to be a severe one, and that his friends
were to be permitted free access to his prison. St. Luke and Aristarchus
certainly availed themselves of this permission, and doubtless the heavy hours
were lightened by the visits of Philip the Evangelist, and other Christians
of the little Czesarean community to whom Paul was dear.*
1 xxiv. 22, i/cpi0c