XVIII.-PAUL IN ROME.

ACTS XXVIII.; EPHES. III. 1; VI. 20; PHIL. I. 12—14; rv. 22; Coloss. IV. 18; PHILEMON 9-13.

THE island on which the ship had been cast was Malta, and the entire account of the voyage and of the storm confirms the statement. The rain was pouring down in torrents; the weather was intensely cold; and the wet and shivering voyagers were kindly received by the natives, called "barbarians," as not being of Greek descent, but a Punic colony. "They kindled a fire and received us every one." The apostle, having saved his fellow-travellers from death, exerted himself for their comfort, and helped to keep up the fire by gathering fuel; but in arranging a bundle of sticks on the burning heap, a viper, roused from its torpor, glided "out of the heat and fastened on his hand." The native onlookers expected instant death for him. They knew the viper's bite to be mortal; observing Paul to be a prisoner, they concluded that some heavy crime lay upon him; and seeing in the event a retributive providence, "they said among themselves— No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live"rather, suffered; for in their estimation he was already dead. But the apostle shook the beast off his hand into the fire, and "felt no harm." The rude spectators, seeing it "hang on his hand" and in the attitude of biting him, and know

MIRACLES OF HEALING.

437

ing what venom was in its bite, at once "changed their minds;" and since he had not "swollen or fallen down dead suddenly," as they most surely looked for and continued to anticipate, they thought him more than man, and concluded "that he was a god"-so contrary was the result to all their experience. And yet it was in conformity with the Lord's promise before He ascended-"They shall take up serpents" without hurt. Strange were the reverses in the apostle's history. The people of Lystra first took him for a god, and then with sudden freak stoned him as an enemy of the gods. The Maltese first suspect him to be a murderer, and then capriciously exalt him into a divinity.

The apostle was "lodged three days courteously" by Publius the "chief man," who may have been the governor of the island, as lieutenant under the prætor of Sicily; and he repaid this hospitality by effecting a miraculous cure on his father—“ he entered in and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him." The prayer of Paul superseded the prescriptions of Luke the physician. The report of the miracle spread through Malta, and other invalids were healed. The consequence was that the grateful islanders showed the apostle and his friends uncommon attention, and "when they departed, laded them with such things as were necessary" for health and comfort during the rest of the voyage. After a sojourn of three months they embarked in a ship which, like that which had been wrecked, was of Alexandria, and bore on its prow a figure-head of Castor and Pollux-the tutelary twin-gods of sailors. The ship soon came to Syracuse-the capital of Sicily-a distance of eighty miles, and waited there three days. On

leaving Syracuse, the wind being unfavourable, they fetched a compass—were obliged to tack—as they came to Rhegium, on the south-west point of Italy. A day seems to have been spent there in waiting for a favourable breeze; then a "south wind" sprang up, and they ran in a day a hundred and eighty-two miles to Puteoli, in a sheltered part of the bay of Naples, and the great harbour of southern Italy and of the Alexandrian grain-ships. "Brethren" were found in this busy emporium, and after a week's stay with them the landward journey to Rome was commenced. Many Christians in Rome, on hearing of the apostle's progress, set out to meet him along the Via Appia; some proceeding as far as the Appii Forum-about forty miles from the capital -and others only as far as the Tres Tabernæ, about ten miles nearer it. The heart of the apostle was cheered when he saw the men who had come so far to welcome him-Christians from the world's centre and metropolisand he "thanked God and took courage." His sensitive spirit was cheered by this sympathy. On entering Rome, Paul was, as a prisoner, handed over to the captain of the guard-the prefect of the life-guards or prætorian campprobably Burrus; but he was not put in strict confinement, being suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him, and to whom he was chained. The despatch of Festus and the report of Julius may have led to this lenity.

But, in Rome as elsewhere, the apostle could not be idle. He had come to Rome after being before the sanhedrim, and he did not know what reports of the procedure might have reached the capital. He wished to stand well

ADDRESS TO THE JEWS.

439

with his countrymen, and was anxious that no prejudice against himself should impede the reception of the gospel which he preached. He had appealed to them in every city of Asia which he had visited, and they had thwarted his message and sought his life. "When shall he die, and his name perish?" was their daily question, and they often sought to shorten the term of suspense. And now, after a tedious and dangerous voyage to Rome, he allows only three days to elapse before he assembles the representatives of his people. He was not at liberty so as to enter their synagogue, but he invites them to his residence, and thus addressed them-"Men-brethren, though I have done nothing hostile to the people, nor to the customs of the fathers, yet as a prisoner from Jerusalem was I delivered into the hands of the Romans, who, when they had examined me, would have released me, because there was no cause of death in me. But the Jews opposing it, I was forced to appeal to Cæsar, not as having anything to charge my nation with. On this account, therefore, I have called you to me, to see you and to speak with you; for because of the hope of Israel I am surrounded with this chain.”

Thus the apostle states his general purpose of the interview. He protests his innocence, and asserts that none of the charges brought against him were true. He had done nothing against his people, either from want of patriotism or in spiteful revenge of their treatment of him. No part of his conduct was dictated by hostility toward them. He had neither flattered nor betrayed them. His entire career showed how profoundly he loved them, and how devoted he had been to their spiritual welfare. But they misinter

preted his message, and had from error become provoked at him. For nothing he had proposed would abridge their national or spiritual privileges, but would rather expand them. What he had done and suffered was for his people, for their highest interest-that they might realize their destiny, and apprehend their theocratic relation, as it had been confirmed and developed by the Messiah through whom the old oracle would be verified-"Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves."

Nor had he done anything "against the customs of the fathers." The old institutions were yet revered by him, though he did not regard the observance of them as essential to salvation. He did not labour to induce men to forsake the temple, but to worship Him who as its Lord had become incarnate. His object was not to get men to desert the "holy convocations," but to show that those assemblies had a definite typical purpose which they should recognize; for the Paschal Lamb had been slain, and the Spirit had been poured out, and the first-fruits had been presented. He did not preach that men should turn their back upon the altar, but that they should betake them to the blood of the great victim slain in these last times for them. The "customs" in themselves he did not despise, but his object. was to teach men to honour them by receiving the truths which they imaged, and the blessings which they foreshowed. He had acted in unison with the Mosaic institute in accepting and preaching the Christ; for he had only done as David had taught, and the entire dispensation had