Claudius Lysias - Acts 22

I was thinking about Paul going to the temple for the purification rituals and why it would have been a big deal for the people to see him there. I remembered that Paul, as Saul, would have been a prominent Pharisee before his conversion and so in addition to the Christian converts that were uncomfortable around him, he also would have kindled the ire of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem at the time because many of them probably knew and worked with him personally.

So the Jewish leadership had it out for Paul, but there were also possibly two reasons why the Christian converts weren’t interested in Paul either. First was because of Paul’s persecution of the Christians before his conversion. Even though it had been many years since he had been that guy, it’s possible that some of his victims were still in the city, although they were probably pretty old at this point. Second, we already discussed why some of the Jewish Christian converts were wary of Paul, because they were still in Jerusalem and close to all the traditional Jewish culture and probably held some remaining sense of loyalty to the law of Moses.
They would have seen Paul’s preaching to the gentiles as sacrilege, and some of them might have even opposed his process of converting gentiles, in that he did not teach them to adhere to the law of Moses in addition to Jesus’ gospel. All in all, Paul probably wouldn’t have had too many friends in the temple while he was there. Maybe that’s why the four men went with him, to act as some sort of protection or buffer between him and the people.
But inevitably, Paul was recognized and attacked. Ironically, he was saved from death by the Roman soldiers, which is interesting considering that at this point, they don’t know that he’s a Roman citizen. After some pleading, Paul is allowed to speak directly to the people. This is where the surprise of the Roman chief captain that Paul could speak Greek is important. As Paul begins to speak, Luke makes a point of noting that Paul was speaking in Hebrew, which the IM clarifies is actually Aramaic. It’s important to keep in mind that the Roman soldiers all speak Greek and Paul is speaking Aramaic to the crowd, meaning that the soldiers didn’t know what Paul was saying and could only gauge the reaction of the crowd to determine significance of the message.
Paul begins with his background, that he is a Jew, “born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.” Paul is reminding them that he is one of them, he grew up in the same place they did, and that he learned Judaism from the well known and well respected Gamaliel. Let’s remember that Gamaliel was the one who saved the life of Peter right after the crucifixion, by reminding his fellow Jewish leaders that if the work of Christianity is of the devil, then it will fail but if it is the work of God, then they can’t stop it. He was a level headed man and seems to be one who genuinely desired to do the will of God without letting his personal ambitions take over.
Paul continues that in his zealousness, he persecuted “this way”, which I think is code for Jesus’ followers. He confesses to having put both men and women in prison for implied apostasy, and was on his way to Damascus with letters authorizing him to do the same thing there. During his trip to the city, he tells of his personal encounter with the resurrected “Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.” He invokes the law of witnesses saying that those who were with him “saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.”
Paul recounts his conversation with the Lord and his obedience to the instruction to go to Damascus without super clear instruction. He tells of his blindness and his healing by Ananias “a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there.” After the healing, Ananias calls Saul in behalf of Jesus “thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.” Saul is baptized, returns to Jerusalem and is commanded to leave the city “for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.” He questions the Lord about leaving for a minute, but then hears God’s command “depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.”
The audience has listened intently up to this point and it seems like Paul was trying to establish a “hey, I’m one of you and believe exactly like you do with just as much passion, but then I had this experience that moved me forward.” It’s a relatable position and a good way to build a rapport with your audience, especially if many of them have known you personally throughout this transition in your life.
The Jews at Jerusalem can accept that Paul was a devout Jew, and they can accept that maybe something happened to expand his mind, but what they can’t accept is that a group of people they are bigoted towards is considered to be worthy of these new teachings by God. At the mention of his preaching to the gentiles at God’s command, the people lose their minds. It’s at this point that we have to recognize that the people’s problem with the gospel isn’t necessarily about Jesus or his teachings, but rooted in the fact that they are unable to self-reflect enough to see that it is time for them to move on socially.
They just can’t let go of being better than any other type of people, because if they are just as important to God as the gentiles, then that means they don’t get a free pass into heaven, which is what they are banking on. If they don’t get a free pass then they would actually have to examine their behaviors and beliefs and change who they are to be in accordance with God’s command. It really just boils down to insecurity and justification, if it wasn’t about the gentiles, then it would be about something else, as was demonstrated by them before the command came to go to the gentiles in the first place.
The crowd is going nuts and so the chief captain “commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him.” So Paul is speaking to the crowd, the crowd erupts, so the chief captain wants Paul whipped and interrogated? That seems like a pretty big stretch to me, it doesn’t really make sense why that would be the next indicated step.
The IM explains, “The Roman chief captain could not understand Paul’s speech, which was delivered in Aramaic, nor could he discover why the crowd was angry at Paul. Therefore the captain ordered that Paul be scourged, or whipped, and questioned.” Ok now that makes more sense. Looking back, when Paul was first attacked in the temple and rescued by the Roman soldiers, the chief captain assumed that he was the Egyptian rebel that had caused so many problems a few years earlier, but in refuting that accusation, Paul simply says that he’s a Jew from out of town. He never specifies that this is a religious matter or that he has a history with these people, he never really gives any kind of substantial information as to why he is there and why these people are angry with him.
Sometimes I think that we forget that Roman occupation wasn’t just a free for all by the soldiers onto the people. Roman governance was ruthless, but orderly and just as much pressure for peace in the provinces on the Roman overseers as there was on the subjects, maybe even a little bit more so. Every little skirmish had to be reported to higher authorities and jeopardized the stability of the borders, especially in the province of Judaea and Syria because they were the far borders of the Roman Empire. Too many reported quarrels and magistrates could be dismissed, discharged, exiled, or even executed, the stakes were pretty high.
All the chief captain knows is that this guy shows up in his area and suddenly the people are all riled up when they have had peace for the last three years, he rightfully is a little nervous about Paul’s intentions. And because Paul didn’t seem to be very forthcoming with information about himself, the chief captain decided to put some pressure on him. It also might have had the effect that if the Romans hurt Paul badly enough, it would render him so wounded that he wouldn’t be able to stir up the people for quite some time, or maybe even just scare him out of the city. So there were probably a couple of different benefits that scourging Paul would have for the chief captain.
As they tied Paul up, he plays the ultimate trump card saying, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?” I wonder just how worried Paul was that he was about to be tortured knowing that he had that get out of jail free card squirreled away. It’s also interesting to point out that Paul had been whipped and tortured several times before, but never by the Romans, only by other Jews. So while the Romans were detested as savages by the Jews, the Romans at least lived by law of order and it was the Jews who cast aside the law when convenient for their personal positions.  
The Roman soldiers know that Paul just said the magic word, but it’s pretty unusual for an ethnic Jew to be a Roman citizen and they probably have heard people claim that before trying to avoid punishment. The IM comments, “In response to the order, Paul protested that he was a Roman citizen and was therefore protected from examination by torture. Roman citizenship carried with it important privileges and was not easily obtained.”
The chief captain, who we find out later is named Claudius Lysias, questions Paul, “Tell me, art thou a Roman?” when Paul answered yes, Claudius answers, “with a great sum obtained I this freedom.” I took that to mean that Claudius was not born a Roman citizen, but had obtained it in some was as an adult, and that it was an incredibly difficult and painful experience. Maybe he’s saying something to the effect, “I paid dearly for my citizenship, how did you get yours?”
It’s hard for us to understand because in the US birth inside of our borders gives you citizenship, but in other countries, modern and anciently, birth in a place didn’t mean that you had any of the rights enjoyed in that place. For instance, I have a friend who was born in Kuwait, but he was not a Kuwaiti citizen because Kuwaiti citizenship came with an $80k annual stipend and other incredible perks. So naturally, not all people who lived there were entitled to these benefits, because I’d imagine that Kuwait doesn’t have an unlimited amount of money, but it still really sucks for the non-citizens nonetheless.
While listening to “The History of Rome” podcast, this concept became more understandable when considering that Rome had taken by force most of it’s empire. Rome came in, and were Romans, but then the people who were conquered would not have been considered Roman citizens because they were subjects to the empire, conqueree, not conqueror. This dynamic helped enforce the chain of power, authority, and importance. But there was also the matter of holding public or civil office that would be influenced by citizenship, because of you conquer a territory, then have all of it’s people, who you just defeated in battle, take over all the administration of that portion of your empire, that will get really messy really fast.
An article from obscurecharacters.comexplains Claudius Lysias’ citizenship question saying, “although Roman citizenship was sometimes awarded to successful military commanders at discharge, Lysias was still on active duty. He bought his citizenship at a high price. Given his name, conceivably Emperor Claudius conferred citizenship on Claudius Lysias. Often citizens assumed the name of their patron and Claudius was known to have given many citizenships.” It would make sense that a conquered people would be required to prove their loyalty to their occupiers before being allowed the benefit that comes with citizenship, otherwise it would not be very important, if everyone is special then no one is.
With all the Roman chain of command sufficiently terrified that they were going to be in huge trouble for binding and almost torturing a Roman citizen, they untied Paul and the next day, “commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him before them.” It seems as though Paul was again given an audience with his accusers because of his Roman citizenship or maybe just to try and keep Paul happy so he wouldn’t make a complaint against them. With Paul facing the Jewish leadership again the next day, this time at the behest of the Romans, tomorrow we will get into what was said.