times had established, to avoid persecution, and extricate himself from calamity and suffering, on several occasions pleaded this privilege with success. When Lysias, the Roman Tribune, ordered him to be conducted into the castle, and to be examined by scourging, he said to the centurion, as the soldiers were fastening him with thongs to the pillar for this purpose, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned ?" Acts xxii. 25. The centurion upon hearing this, reported it to the Tribune, who, upon hearing the fact from the Apostle himself, immediately set him at liberty, much alarmed for having thus bound a Roman citizen. In like manner, when Paul and Silas were treated with such indignity at Philippi, by the multitude, countenanced by the magistrates-were beaten with rods-thrown into the public jail, and their feet made fast in the stocks-Paul said to the Lictors whom the magistrates had sent to set them at liberty -"We are Roman citizens; your magistrates have ordered us to be publicly scourged without a legal trial-they have thrown us into a dungeon-and would they now have us steal away in a silent and clandestine manner? No!-Let them come in person and conduct us out themselves." The lictors returned, and reported this answer to the magistrates, who were greatly alarmed when they understood that Paul and his companion were Roman citizens. They therefore went in person to the jail, addressed them with great civility, and begged them in the most respectful terms that they would quietly leave the town, Acts xvi. 37-39. The conduct of the tribune Lysias toward the Apostle was of the most humane and honourable description. On one occasion he rescued him from an infuriated mob, who were about to inflict violence on his person, Acts xxi. 27–36. And afterwards, when about forty Jews associated and bound themselves with an oath that they would neither eat nor drink till they had assassinated him, Lysias, to secure the person of the Apostle from their determined fury, ordered seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to escort the prisoner to Cæsarea, where the Procurator resided-writing a letter in which he informed the governor of the vindictive rage of the Jews, from whose violence he had snatched the prisoner, and whom he afterwards* discovered to be a Roman citizen. In consequence of this epistle, Felix gave the Apostle a candid reception: when he read it, he turned to him and said: "When your accusers come hither before me, I will give your cause an impartial hearing."+ And accordingly when the high priest *« I have since learned that he is a Roman citizen." The participle is in the second aorist. + Hear it through: give the whole of it an attentive examination. Ananias, and the Sanhedrim, went down to Cæsarea, with the orator Tertullus, whose eloquence they had hired to aggravate the Apostle's crimes before the Procurator, Felix, though a man of a mercenary and profligate character, did not depart from the Roman honour in this regard, would not violate the usual processes of judgment to gratify this body of men, though the most illustrious personages of the province he governed, with condemning the Apostle unheard, and yielding him, friendless as he was, to their fury, merely on their impeachment. He allowed the Apostle to offer his vindication. and exculpate himself from the charges they had alleged against him; and was so far satisfied with his apology as to give orders for him to be treated as a prisoner at large, and for all his friends to have free access to him; disappointing those who thirsted for his blood, and drawing down upon himself the relentless indignation of the Jews, who, undoubtedly, from such a disappointment, would be instigated to lay all his crimes and oppressions before the Emperor. The same strict honour in observing the usual forms and processes of the Roman tribunal, appears in Festus, the successor of Felix. Upon his entrance into his province, when the leading men among the Jews waited upon him to congratulate him upon his accession, and took that opportunity to inveigh with great virulence and bitterness against the Apostle (Acts XXV.), soliciting it as a favour that he would send him to Jerusalem-designing, as it afterwards appeared, had he complied with their request, to have hired ruffians to murder him on the road-Festus told them it was his will that Paul should remain in custody at Cæsarea, but that any persons whom they had fixed upon, might go down along with him, and produce at his tribunal what they had to allege against the prisoner, Acts xxv. 1-5. How importunate and urgent the priests and principal magistrates of Jerusalem were with Felix, when in this capital, to pass sentence of death upon the Apostle, merely on their impeachment, appears from what the Procurator himself told king Agrippa and Berenice: "I have here," said he, "a man whom my predecessor left in custody, when he quitted this province. During a short visit I paid to Jerusalem, upon my arrival, I was solicited by the priests and principal magistrates to pass sentence of death upon him. To these urgent entreaties I replied, that it was not customary for the Romans to gratify any man with the death of another-that the laws of Rome enacted that he who is accused should have his accuser face to face; and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crimes laid against him." Acts xxv. 14-16. II. It appears, also, from numberless passages in the classics, that a Roman citizen could not legally be scourged. This was deemed to the last degree dishonourable, the most daring indignity and insult upon the Roman name.* To this privilege of Roman citizens, there are references in the New Testament. Paul pleads this immunity, Acts xxii. 25: "Is it lawful for you to scourge a Roman?" So also at Philippi he told the messengers of the magistrates: "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans," Acts xvi. 37. Neither was it lawful for a Roman citizen to be bound, to be examined by the question, or to be the subject of any ingenious and cruel arts of tormenting to extort a confession from him. These punishments were deemed servile; torture was not exercised but upon slaves. This will illustrate what St. Luke says, concerning Lysias the Tribune. This officer, not knowing the dignity of his prisoner, had, in violation of this privilege of Roman citizens, given orders for the Apostle to be bound and examined with thongs, Acts xxii. 24, 25. When he was afterwards informed by his centurion that Paul was a freeman of Rome, the sacred historian observes, that upon receiving this intelligence, the chief captain was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him, ver. 29. When the apostle discovered that Festus was disposed to gratify the Jews, we find him appealing from a provincial court to the imperial tribunal-from the jurisdiction of the Procurator to the decision of the Emperor, Acts xxv. 9-11. This appears to be another singular advantage enjoyed by a citizen of Rome. Festus, after deliberating with the Roman council, turned and said to him," Have you appealed to the emperor?-By the emperor, then, you shall be judged," ver. 12. Suetonius informs us that Augustus delegated a number of consular persons at Rome to receive the appeals of people in the provinces, and that he appointed one person to superintend the affairs of each province. This right which the Roman freemen enjoyed is confirmed by a passage in the famous epistle of Pliny to Trajan, in which he says, that the contumacious and inflexibly obstinate Christians (that is, those who would not apostatise) he ordered to be immediately punished; but others, being citizens of Rome, he directed to be carried thither. III. The Roman tribunal, if we may judge of it from what * Cicero in Verrem, lib. v. 162. 163; Appian. Bell. Civil. lib. ii. p. 731. Tollü, &c. + Cicero in Verrem, lib. v. 170; Dion. Cassius, lib. lx. p. 953. Reimar, &c. Vit. August. cap. 33. p. 208. Edit. Var. Lugd. Bat. 1662. is related of Pilate's, was erected on a raised stage, the floor of which was embellished with a tesselated pavement, John xix. 13. Such an embellishment was only a proud ostentatious display of Italian greatness and magnificence, calculated less for real use than to strike the beholders with an idea of the boundless prodigality and extravagance of the Romans.* SECTION V. MODES OF PUNISHMENT, AND TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. I. MODES OF PUNISHMENT.-1. Inferior Punishments, various.2. Capital Punishments-Stoning-Strangling-Slaying with the sword-Drowning-Sawing asunder-Braying in a mortarCrucifixion-Posthumous insults. II. TREATMENT OF PRISONERS-Fettering-Chaining to soldiers. I. The purpose of inflicting punishment is expressed by Moses to be, the determent of others from the commission of crime. His language is, "That others may hear and fear, and commit no more any such evil.” Deut. xvii. 13; xix. 20.† The punishments among the Jews were either capital or inferior. Some of them were expressly ordained by Moses; others were introduced from the surrounding nations, by which they were successively subdued, at various periods of their history. Of these the only distinction we shall make is between the capital and the inferior. 1. The inferior punishments were -Restitution for theft, in certain proportions, Ex. xxii. 1—4. Deprivation of the beard, 2 Sam. x. 4. Destroying their houses, Ex. vi. 11; Dan. ii. 5. ; iii. 29. Imprisonment in a dungeon (Jer. xxxviii. 6)-aggravated by fetters (Judg. xvi. 21)-by a wooden yoke round the neck (Jer. xxvii. 2; xxviii. 13)-by the stocks, (Prov. vii. 22; Jer. xx. 2)-by hard labour, &c. Judg. xvi. 21; 1 Ki. xxii. 27. Confinement in the cities of refuge till the death of the high priest, Numb. xxxv. 25-28. Whipping with a scourge of three cords, so as to give the culprit forty save one, Deut. xxv. 2, 3; 2 Cor. xi. 24. 25. Cutting off the hands and feet, Judg. i. 6, 7; 2 Sa. iv. 12. Putting out the * Harwood's Introduction to the New Test. vol. ii. pp. 190--213. eyes, Judg. xvi. 21.* Sealing up the eyes. This is alluded to in Isa. xliv. 18, where it is said, that God hath shut up the eyes of idolaters, that they cannot see; whence we infer that it was a judicial punishment.+ Fighting with wild beasts, which was sometimes not mortal (1 Cor. xv. 32.), though it generally was so. Slavery till the sabbatical year, or till compensation was made for theft, Ex. xxi. 2. Sale of children for their father's debts, 2 Ki. iv. 1; Matt. xviii. 25. Talio, or like for like, either literally (Ex. xxi. 23–25), or by compensation with money.‡ To these punishments we must add three others, which are generally, and not improperly classed among ecclesiastical punishments. But the form of government being theocratic, they necessarily partook of a civil as well as of an ecclesiastical nature, The Nedui, or separation, was inflicted on him who had despised the admonition given in private by the minister or leading men in the synagogue, or had been guilty of refusing to pay any debt to which he had been found liable, or had been guilty of any of the twenty-four offences which are collected out of the Talmud by Dr. Lightfoot § and Dr. Owen.|| The time of its continuance was commonly thirty days; but if the person neglected to apply for a remission at the end of that time, he became virtually liable to the next higher degree of censure, although it was not always inflicted. During the continuance of this sentence, he was not prevented from hearing the law, or even from teaching it, if a master in Israel, provided he kept four paces distant from other persons. Nay, he might even go into the temple to attend divine service, under the same restrictions. Ifhe died while under this sentence, they threw a stone upon his bier, to signify that he deserved stoning. This degree of excommunication is what is meant in the New Testament by casting out of the synagogue. The second degree of excommunication was called Cherem, or cutting off, to which St. Paul alludes, when he speaks of giving one over to Satan, 1 Cor. v. 5. It was an authoritative and public censure, pronounced by the synagogue, and lasted for thirty days. With persons under this malediction it was not lawful so much as to eat. But the highest degree of separation was the Shemetha; so called from a word which signifies to exclude, expel, or cast out: meaning that the persons on whom it was *This mode of punishment is still practised in the East. See Malcolm's Persia, vol. ii. ch. xix. p. 198. note. + See Harmer's Observations, vol. ii. p. 277, &c. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. Matt. v. 38. § Hor. Heb. 1 Cor. v. 5. || Exposition of the Heb. Excerc. 21. ¶ Godwyn's Moses and Aaron, b. v. ch. 2. |