The life and work of St. Paul

578 THE LIFE AND WORE OF ST. PAUL.
word of Julius, and the kindly integrity of Burrus, were invaluable to him,
and he was merely subjected to that Mad of cusiod-ia militaris which was
known as observatio. For the first three days he was hospitably received by
some member of the Christian community, 1 and was afterwards allowed to
Lire a lodging of his own, with free leave to communicate with his friends both
by letter and by personal intercourse. The trial of having a soldier chained
to him indeed continued, but that was inevitable under the Roman system. It
was in mitigation of this intolerable concomitant of his imprisonment that tho
goodwill of his Roman friends might bs most beneficially exercised. At the
best, it was an infliction which it required no little fortitude to endure, and for
a Jew it would be far more painful than for a Gentile. Two Goatiles might
have much in common j they would be interested in common topics, actuated
by common principles j but a Jew and Gentile would bo separated by mutual
antipathies, and liable to the incessant, friction of irritating peculiarities. That
St. Paul deeply felt this annoyance may be seen from his allusions to his
"bonds" or hia "coupling-chain" in every Epistle of the Captivity. When
the first Agrippa had been flung into prison by Tiberius, Antonia, out of
friendship for his family, had bribed the Praetorian Prefect Macro to place
him under the charge of a kind centurion, and to secure as far as possible thai,
the soldiers coupled to him should be good-tempered men. Some small measure
but tho service was
of similar consideration may have been extended to Paul ;
irksome, and there must have been some soldiers whose morose and sullen
natures caused to their prisoner a terrible torture. Yet even over these coarse,
uneducated Gentiles, the courtesy, the gentleness, the " sweet reasonableness "
of the ; Apostle, assorted its humanising control. If he was chained to the
soldier, the soldier was also chained to him, and during the dull hours until he
was relieved, many a guardsman might be glad to hear from such lips, in all
their immortal novelty, the high truths of the Christian faith. Out of hia
worst trials the Apostle's cheerful faith created the opportunities of his highest
usefulness, and from the necessities of his long-continued imprisonment arose
a diffusion of Gospel truths throughout tho finest regiment of that army which
less than a century later was to number among its contingents a " thundering
legion," and in less than three centuries was to supplant the silver eagles of
the empire by tho then detested badge of a slave's torture and a murderer's
punishment.
It was one of the earliest cares of the Apostle to summon together the
leading members of the Roman Ghetto, and explain to them his position.
Addressing them as " brethren," he assured them he had neither opposed his
people nor contravened their hereditary institutions. In spite of tliis he had
been seized at Jerusalem, and handed over to the Roman power. Yet tho
Romans, after examining him, had declared him entirely innocent, and would
have been glad to liberate him had not the opposition of the Jews compelled
him to appeal to Ccesar. But ho was anxious to inform them that by this
Kvlii. 23, .Is rijr fw'w. Of. FMleni. 22; Ada sxl 18,