Vi . Paul ’ Sc Ustody
The parallels build suspense: Paul aided in Stephen’s death; will he now die the same way (cf. 9:16)? Other writers employed such foreshadowing to build suspense; for example, Agamemnon’s death when he returns home creates suspense by foreshadowing what Odysseus could have suffered had he not avoided it (Hom. Od. 13.383–85). In his story, Achilles Tatius often includes pictorial scenes of myths, which set the stage for events in his own narrative (e.g., 5.3). (One may also compare the Jewish notion of specifically suitable divine retribution,[318] though most Christian readers would not think the converted Paul liable to that.) Perhaps many in Luke’s audience know how Paul was martyred, but they might not know whether the charges in the temple ultimately played a part; and suspense would remain part of the story even for those who had heard it multiple times.[319] Suspense was a common rhetorical and literary technique,[320] and it occurs, deliberately or not, in serious ancient historiography as well.[321]
We should keep one other point in view. If Luke writes for an audience after 70 C.E., reporting this particular charge against Paul (in contrast to the charge of fomenting riots, in Acts 24:5) would not pose a challenge to his apologetic.[322] Not only was the temple currently inconsequential theologically; the charge would not have offended Romans so much if it was framed as others’ misrepresentation of Paul’s obedience to a divine commission to welcome Gentiles. Many would know that the temple was destroyed because of an anti-Roman revolt, in response to the same sort of proto-Zealots who persecuted Paul the Roman citizen for his pro-Gentile stance.
VI. PAUL’S CUSTODY
Paul spends the final quarter of Acts in Roman custody—not this time in a Philippian jail or for a brief hearing before Achaia’s governor but in the official custody of Rome’s highest representatives in Judea. This narrative weaves an apologetic for Paul (and, through him, on behalf of the Diaspora mission he represents); for further details on this point, see comment on Acts 24:5 (especially concerning Paul’s cumulative history with riots).
But just as nothing earlier in Acts has stopped the gospel, neither does Paul’s detention stop it. In fact, while Paul’s detentions restrict his public ministry and place him under censure, they also become opportunities for new audiences, such as the Philippian jailer, Judea’s governors, and the Herodian royal family.[323] His Roman custody in Judea indeed protects him from the objectives of his enemies.[324] As Matthew Skinner insightfully puts it: “Paul’s story in Acts proclaims God’s power over human resistance and impediments. Boundaries, whether they are physical, social, or penal, cannot overcome the gospel mission; what appear to be places of obstacle can be used by God’s agents for other purposes.”[325]
Although custody was a place of shame, Luke’s description of it shapes his audience’s perceptions of it differently;[326] this may be an important step for vindicating the memory of Paul (and the issues for which he stood) in Luke’s day. The previous escape narratives in Acts testify to God’s power to liberate his agents, but in this extended and climactic period of custody, God acts within the detention instead of ending it.[327] By reframing Paul’s custody, Luke probably helped shape the dominant views of Paul.[328]
b. Attack on Paul (21:30)[329]
That the “entire city” was aroused is “natural hyperbole”[330] (cf. 19:29); Luke speaks of all Jerusalem rather than merely the temple crowd, using lack of clarity for literary effect: “the more enemies the greater the glory.”[331] Nevertheless, the temple’s outer court functioned as the equivalent of the city agora in a Greek city and hence hosted the largest gathering the city could muster in any single place.[332] Whether people came from outside the temple before the doors were shut or, more likely, Luke refers to unrest in the temple, the numbers could be considerable (on the city’s population, see comment on Acts 21:20).
Whereas Paul is forced from the inner temple, Luke’s language about the entire city could suggest others entering from outside the temple to slay him, graphically underlining the irony that it was Paul rather than his opponents who engaged in a sacred activity (cf. 24:11–12, 17–18).[333] That “the people” “ran together” may evoke 3:11 (which employs a form of the cognate verb συντρέχω), where “the people” “ran together” to see the miracle performed through Peter. As with Peter’s Pentecost speech, so with his speech in 3:12–26, the differing response to Paul’s speech highlights the contrast, revealing how Jerusalem has changed (not only since the days of Simeon and Anna in Luke 2:25–38 but since the beginning of the church there).
Given the charge, the reaction is plausible, especially for the decade that Luke depicts. Josephus reports that before Felix’s governorship, on the fourth day of one Passover, a soldier guarding the temple exposed his genitals to the Jewish crowds, who took his behavior as an affront against God (Ant. 20.107). The multitude refused to quiet down until the governor, Cumanus, threatened them with soldiers (20.110), and then it panicked so much that large numbers were crushed in the effort to escape (20.111–12).
I. A FESTIVAL CROWD?
The largest gatherings happened at festivals. Modern estimates of Passover pilgrims are lower than Josephus’s but often reach as high as half a million, many sometimes housed in community centers.[334] If Luke wants us to think in terms of a Pentecost crowd (Acts 20:16), the numbers would be less than Passover but nonetheless significant (see comment on Acts 2:1). With large crowds come the dangers of group volatility and mob violence, a phenomenon Josephus thoroughly attests for the festivals.[335]
Should we envision a festival crowd within or behind the narrative? Luke focuses only on the fulfilling of a vow (21:23–26), not on festival preparations. Of course, Luke does not even develop the fertile Pentecost connections of his tradition in Acts 2, apart from mentioning the time (2:1), but he might have at least mentioned the festival again if Paul’s arrest happened then. He earlier mentions Peter’s arrest at Passover (12:3–4), which provides a parallel with Jesus’s in Luke 22; Paul’s “Pentecost” discourse would provide (and probably does provide, implicitly) a contrast to Peter’s in Acts 2:17–40.
Perhaps given the extra days of 21:27, Pentecost was now already past historically, but Luke leaves this timing ambiguous to allow Pentecost associations in his narrative world. In view of 24:11, Paul probably did arrive in time for Pentecost (at least in the narrative world), which Luke expects the reader to assume from 20:16. Granted, it is possible that Luke uses Pentecost as a purely chronological marker in 20:16 that he then abandons; yet given the abundance of close parallels between figures elsewhere in Luke-Acts, it seems likelier that he does imply a comparison with Acts 2. The conviction that Luke implies Paul’s presence at the feast is reinforced especially by the presence of Asian Jews in 21:27, who are absent twelve days later (24:11, 18–19). The strength of the garrison (21:32; 23:23) might also, though need not, suggest the additional detachment sent to Jerusalem during festivals (Jos. Ant. 20.106–7; War 5.244).[336]
On the historical level, that most of these points converge without their connection being explicitly spelled out by Luke may suggest that Paul was historically present for Pentecost.[337] That the governor is absent (Acts 23:24), however, might suggest that Paul is apprehended shortly after the festival, before the Asian Jews have left town but after the governor has done so (if Felix made the journey for this one).[338] Even Vitellius, Roman legate of Syria, at least once came to Jerusalem for Passover and was welcomed by the people (Jos. Ant. 18.90); later Cestius Gallus came from Syria for the Feast of Unleavened Bread (War 2.280).[339] Other provinces often invited governors to their festivals (Men. Rhet. 2.14, 424.3–430.8). Then again, Felix was not a capable administrator, and it is possible that he did not accompany the troops to this festival.
II. DRAGGED FROM THE TEMPLE
When Paul is dragged from “the temple” in Acts 21:30, that he is dragged not from the Temple Mount but from the inner courts into the huge outer court[340] seems clear for us from Luke’s report (assuming its substantial accuracy), even if it was not clear for most Gentiles among his readers. The soldiers rushed “down” to the scene in 21:32 and reached the “stairs” in 21:35; this depicts the geography of the Fortress Antonia, adjoining the temple’s outer court.
Granted, Luke might simply be writing tersely (the soldiers could have gone outside the temple and then returned with Paul), but there was little room for gathering outside the outer court to accommodate Luke’s description of even a hyperbolic “all the city” (21:30).[341] Stephen was first dragged from the city before being killed (7:58a); whether because of the charge against Paul (desecrating the temple rather than speaking against it) or because of the era (nationalist fervor and mistrust of Gentiles had increased), the mob situation here is more violent than against Stephen, and the crowd more impatient to kill Paul.
Paul is dragged out into the outer court (not from the city) before being attacked to safeguard the temple’s purity.[342] He might be dragged out, in any case, if wrongly supposed to be a Gentile. In the confusion (21:31, 34), with Paul as the only member of the supposed party available, members of the crowd might well assume him to be the Gentile accused of profaning the courts. To those who reckoned most strictly, Paul the Jew might also be considered ritually impure from association with a Gentile (21:29), presumably since concluding his purification (21:26).[343]
But the reason that Paul needed to be dragged out before being killed was that blood must not be shed in the inner courts.[344] Throughout the ancient world, bloodshed in a temple desecrated it,[345] and this was no less true of the one God’s temple (Matt 23:35). Because temples usually served as places of refuge, seizing refugees from the altars there also desecrated temples,[346] but not if, as in the charges offered in this case, the person clearly merited death (e.g., Exod 21:14; 1 Kgs 2:29–32). One might be dragged out of a temple and killed at its door, but it was greater piety not to invade the temple to bring a suppliant out.[347] Following standard forensic rhetorical convention, Luke’s portrayal reverses the charge of Paul’s adversaries that he was the one who sought to desecrate the temple (Acts 24:6, 18).[348]
The purity-motivated delay and relocation entailed in dragging Paul out help to save his life (21:31–32). Paul’s being dragged out recalls (as in 14:19) Stephen’s being driven “outside” (ἔξω) the city for martyrdom (7:58a), except that, as already noted, Paul is not dragged so far. Although executions were expected to be outside the city (Luke 4:29; 20:15), the echo of Stephen’s charges in Acts 21:28 may suggest an echo of his martyrdom here. Paul knew that he would suffer, in some ways, like Stephen (cf. 9:14, 16; 20:23; 21:4, 11); this again builds suspense in the narrative.
III. CLOSING THE DOORS
The Levite police would close the doors under orders from the sagan (see comment on Acts 4:1), as most commentators concur.[349] Luke’s biblically informed audience knew very well that Levites guarded the temple gates.[350] People would have to be cleared out of the way while Levites labored to shut the massive doors (the eastern gate of the inner court, e.g., required twenty men to close, Jos. War 6.293). Most of the temple gates had two doors, each thirty cubits high and fifteen wide (5.202–5); the Corinthian bronze gate, the largest, was fifty cubits high, with forty-cubit doors (5.205).
The questions of who shut the temple doors and how they shut them are more easily addressed than why they were shut and the related question of which doors were shut.[351] One might think that the doors would have been shut to prevent interference; given the Roman watch and garrison directly above the outer court, however, this objective would not be feasible. A more plausible suggestion would be that the Levites sought to prevent contamination from Paul’s blood being shed (Acts 21:30–31),[352] but his location, rather than the position of the doors, would determine that matter. Ideally, blood should not be shed anywhere in the sacred enclosure,[353] but in an emergency such as this, the most important point would be to remove him from the inner courts.[354] The outer court was not as sacred, being a place for all people (cf. Ezek 44:19, though this refers to the entire lay section).
Likelier are the possibilities that the doors are shut to prevent intruders from entering or fugitives from escaping, given the widespread confusion (Acts 21:34). Perhaps most plausible historically, if the supposed Gentile (or any other supposed malefactor in the confused situation) has not been apprehended, it would be prudent to close the outer gates to prevent escapes (the lack of a Gentile captured with Paul will later stand against the accusers’ offering “proof” of his guilt, 24:13). Given recent problems with “assassins” in the temple (21:38), the Levites were undoubtedly ready to shut doors on short notice.
When an intruder was reported in a house, the servants might shut the doors to prevent his escape until they located him (Plut. Cic. 28.3). Possibly relevant to Luke’s own narrative, inner gates might be closed to prevent further defilement by other potential intruders. Normally a city’s officials made certain that gates were closed at night to keep out intruders (e.g., Polyb. 4.18.2, 4). It is hardly likely that other intruders would rush in during mob unrest, however.[355] Perhaps Luke’s first audience would envision all gates being closed during the confusion (see comment below).
The question of which doors are shut might relate closely to the question of why they are shut. If the doors are closed to keep Paul or other transgressors from escaping (from the outer court), they might be those of the temple complex as a whole, which do appear in ancient literature. If they are closed to prevent further profanation of the inner courts, they must be the doors to the inner courts, doors such as (probably) “the Beautiful Gate” in Acts 3:2. Given the confusion, it is possible that the Levite police simply closed off all exits and entrances, dangerous as this might be in a mob situation (cf. crowding at gates in Jos. War 2.327). Yet ironically, instead of capturing one of the Sicarii (Acts 21:38), they yield to the very forces ultimately allied with the Sicarii (23:12–13).
Whichever gates were closed and for whatever purpose, Luke’s own narrative merely indicates that Paul was dragged outside the temple and the doors closed (21:30); in Luke’s narrative, then, Paul is cast outside. Thus, on the literary level, Witherington suggests ironic symbolism: “This scene involves the final shutting out of Paul and his message from the temple precincts—the temple doors are closed against him.”[356] Some other narrative symbolism may also be relevant. In Luke 23:45, God broke open the innermost temple whereas, in Acts 21:30, the temple doors are shut to prevent either the transgressor’s escape or the temple’s further defilement. But Paul is not a transgressor, and his gospel will continue beyond the temple (22:17, 21).
3. Paul Enters Roman Custody (21:31–40)
With Paul’s arrest by the Romans in Jerusalem, Acts enters its final phase, turning again from Jerusalem to the Gentile world, this time to the heart of the real world of Luke’s audience—namely, Rome. Apart from the summary of an uneventful period in 24:27, Luke narrates this final phase in exceptional detail, betraying a particular interest in this period of Paul’s custody.[357] Because a number of locations in the text suggest transition in the direction of Rome (e.g., 19:21; 23:23), it is almost arbitrary to designate a single turning point for extended comment; nevertheless, this commentary treats a significant aspect of the transition here (for the defense speeches, see also the excursus at the beginning of Acts 22, “The Defense Speeches of Acts 22–26, Especially 22:2–21”).
a. Luke’s Apologetic Interest
Even in the custody narratives, full of apologetic speeches, Luke frames his legal apologetic with dramatic action appropriate to the situations: unjustly and because of misinformation, Paul is nearly killed in the temple before the defenses of 21:37–23:10; before 24:1–26:32, he faces a perilous journey (23:11–35), and the voyage that follows is fraught with a different sort of peril (27:1–28:14).[358] At each stage, God protects Paul (a point useful for apologetic concerns; see comment on Acts 28:3–5). Paul had earlier imprisonments (2 Cor 11:23, which also reports beatings), most of which Luke does not report (except the overnight stay in Acts 16:23–40); these were local detentions rather than Roman custody. By contrast, in view of typical perspectives on imprisonment, Paul’s years of official Roman detention called for particular apologetic explanation.[359]
Luke, however, could have started and finished this sequence earlier in his story; he did not need to devote to it the final quarter of Acts. Luke’s literary strategy, in light of his entire two-volume work, Luke-Acts, defends Paul against charges on a larger level than the discourses alone (on which discourses, see the excursus at Acts 22, “The Defense Speeches of Acts 22–26, Especially 22:2–21”). By structuring Acts 21–28 as a parallel to his Gospel’s passion narrative,[360] Luke makes clear that Paul was not the first of God’s servants to face a miscarriage of justice. The implications would likely encourage and warn his audience: God’s servants would probably face further miscarriages of justice, but (like Jesus) they ultimately would experience divine vindication one way or the other.
Jesus (Luke 9:51) and Paul (Acts 19:21) both set their faces toward Jerusalem, where they would suffer (cf. Luke 13:33: prophets especially perished there);[361] such a pattern probably implies that other followers of God’s plan might need to face suffering to fulfill God’s call as well. As Charles Puskas puts it:
If the author and his readers came from a Pauline community which stood under criticism because of Paul’s execution and his controversial teaching, a defense of Paul would be relevant. Such an apology might convey to Luke’s readers the following message: although the life and work of Paul were controversial, Paul did not deviate from the life and teachings of Christ, but was in harmony with them.[362]
The detail of this section attests to its literary importance for Luke but also is possible because Luke’s source (in my view, his own travel journal) is more detailed here. Given the appearance of “we” directly before (Acts 21:15–18) and after (27:1) the trial scenes, Luke probably remained in Judea near Paul during this period.[363]
The explicit “we” does not appear during the trial scenes, but it would not be relevant there; Luke was undoubtedly free to visit Paul (24:23), and it is unlikely that he journeyed back to Macedonia and then conveniently returned just in time for Paul’s suddenly arranged voyage to Rome (27:1). (Luke’s silence about his activities in the interim is not significant; he always remains in the background of the action, mentioning his presence only with respect to the travels.)[364] In addition to caring for Paul, Luke could have been researching his first volume (Luke 1:3), although—if geographical details tell us anything—he probably spent much more time in urban Judea than in rural Galilee or other scenes of Jesus’s public ministry.
b. Roman Intervention (21:31–32)
Ironically, polytheistic Romans rescue Paul from his own people and coreligionists; that this is obviously not deliberate on the Romans’ part (despite Acts 23:27) may underline God’s providence in the background.
I. TRYING TO KILL PAUL (21:31)
That all Jerusalem was in confusion is hyperbole; though Luke could be caricaturizing the report that reached the Roman officer, such hyperbole is sufficiently characteristic of Luke himself to attribute it to Luke (cf. all of Ephesus in confusion in 19:29). The translation “confusion” or “uproar” reflects the verb συγχέω here, which Luke used also for the stirring of crowds in 21:27 and for the confusion in the earlier riot in 19:32 (cf. its noun cognate in 19:29).[365] In view of the impending charges in 24:5, the various riot narratives belong together in some sense.
It was natural to desire to kill traitors to one’s people;[366] for the charge of a Gentile’s incursion into the temple, it was officially sanctioned (see comment on Acts 21:28). A Greek play, having set up such a dangerous crisis, might rescue the protagonist by deus ex machina, divine intervention; without using such a sometimes objectionable literary technique, Luke’s sovereign God uses Roman soldiers to achieve the same purpose.[367]
This inadvertent rescue is an irony, connected with Paul’s citizenship, that reverses the passion narrative’s portrayal of Roman instrumentality in Jesus’s execution (2:23; 4:27). It also supports Luke’s apologetic: neither Paul nor his movement threatens their Roman benefactors. Instead, others (e.g., 19:24–27), sometimes nonbelieving Jewish rabble-rousers (discredited for audiences in some regions after 70 C.E. anyway), stir the troubles (17:5; 21:28), contrary to the false accusations of Paul’s enemies (24:5).[368]
The one offense for which Jerusalemites could automatically kill an offender, even (Josephus claims) a Roman citizen, was desecration of the temple. Since this is the rumor circulating about Paul (21:28), he could be killed by the mob without concern for Roman reprisal. (Although much of Luke’s Diaspora audience might not know this specific exception, they could perhaps infer it on the basis of the special treatment given to other sanctuaries, notably the one at Eleusis.) Once Rome had intervened and taken Paul into its custody,[369] however, he could be condemned only after a proper investigation. His citizenship (22:25–28) and the size of the nonmilitant Nazarene movement (21:20; 24:5) provide some political considerations that make his execution appear less expedient than that of Jesus in Luke 23:23–24.
II. WORD COMING “UP” TO THE ANTONIA (21:31)
That the report “came up” (ἀνέβη) to the chiliarch in charge of the garrison (Acts 21:31), that the soldiers “ran down” (κατέδραμεν, 21:32), and the later mention of “stairs” (ἀναβαθμούς, 21:35, 40) all fit the topography of the temple. This has long been recognized by commentators.[370] In contrast to Luke’s apparently sketchy knowledge of Galilean geography, his familiarity with the temple’s topography suggests firsthand acquaintance, as we would expect if he was (as he implies) an eyewitness.[371] (By this I mean an eyewitness of the temple, not that Luke was present at this scene, a presence that third-person narration here makes unlikely. Even the Gentiles in Paul’s entourage would likelier than not have paid a respectful visit to the sacred temple’s outer court.)
The Roman garrison was stationed in the Fortress Antonia on the north side of the Temple Mount. While restoring the temple, Herod made the fortress as lavish as a palace, including baths (Jos. War 1.401; 5.241).[372] Originally this was probably the old Hasmonean fortress called the Baris,[373] but Herod the Great renamed it for his friend Marc Antony (1.118, 401; Ant. 15.409; Tac. Hist. 5.11). The fortress was elevated (Jos. War 5.238)[374] and highly defensible (1.121). Soldiers could run down two pairs of stairs into the outer court from the Antonia if they needed to intervene during festivals (5.243–44).[375] That the soldiers could and did intervene at times during this period of tension reinforces the plausibility of Luke’s account.[376]
The report that came “up” to the tribune probably refers to observations from the Roman sentries posted on the colonnades on three sides of the outer court, keeping watch over the temple so that they could immediately report any disturbances.[377] Though the Antonia itself looked like a tower, it had four towers on its corners; three were fifty cubits high, but the southeast tower was seventy cubits high, affording a view of the entire temple (5.242).[378] The governor increased the garrison especially during the festivals,[379] when excessively dense crowds were most likely to erupt into violence.[380]
III. THE COMMANDER AND COHORT (21:31)
The officer in question here is a χιλίαρχος (“chiliarch”),[381] a Greek term for the Roman tribunus militum, commander of a cohort (on cohorts, see comment below). There were six tribunes in a legion;[382] the senior-ranking of the six corresponding tribunes was normally a young man of senatorial rank, who may have held the position for a year (as a step in his political career).[383] His five colleagues were normally equestrians, typically with longer military experience. Even equestrians did not expect to hold a single position indefinitely; many first-century equestrians held two other military positions in addition to this.[384]
This was a period of increasing local recruits not only among auxiliaries but even in the Eastern legions. Although the tribune whom Paul meets turns out to be neither a young senator nor one born an equestrian (Acts 22:28), he has a career to keep in mind, and avoiding offense to educated Roman citizens, who perhaps had powerful patrons, might appear a higher priority politically than pleasing provincials already reputed to be uncooperative[385] (though he does try to accommodate local officials until this accommodation becomes too problematic, 22:30–23:10). The centurions under him would be drawn from the ranks of commoners, who would not have future careers in Rome to consider (21:32; 22:25–26; 23:17, 23; see comment on Acts 10:1).
In earlier sources, the σπεῖρα could be a Roman maniple (manipulus), which consisted of either 120 men (forming two centuries) or 60 men. By the second century B.C.E., however, the cohort, a larger tactical unit, replaced the maniple.[386] While officers commanded smaller auxiliary cohorts of (nominally) five hundred men, the tribuni militum, from the period of Nero forward, used larger units called cohortes milliariae, with (nominally) 1,000 men.[387] (A nominal strength of 1,000 might amount to a much smaller fighting force, but at full force represented 760 infantry and 240 cavalry.)[388]
The Roman governor of Judea had not a full legion but five cohorts, probably with 480 to 500 infantry each (assuming they were auxiliary cohorts), most stationed in Caesarea but with one cohort in Jerusalem.[389] The cavalry unit (23:23) suggests that this cohort was at least at that time among the cohortes quingenariae equitatae, which had 480 infantry and 120 cavalry.[390] At festivals the governor and additional troops often came to Jerusalem, approximately doubling the garrison’s strength.[391] As noted above, it is possible (though not certain) that here in Acts the garrison is currently at festival strength, although the governor is not present.
IV. STOPPING THE AGGRESSION (21:32)
Luke reports at least three versions of what happened: Luke’s version (in which the aggressors assaulted Paul and the Romans sought to interrogate him, 21:32–33); the version of Paul’s enemies (in which Paul profaned the temple and they planned to carry out the appropriate sentence; 24:6–7, esp. 24:6a, the rest of 24:6–7 being a less probable variant); and the version of the commanding Roman officer (in which he and his soldiers valiantly rescued this Roman citizen from barbaric lynching, 23:27). Mob scenes invariably generate multiple accounts, even if some accounts are more privileged by those who control public discourse; those who control the final, “official” versions of the story control the legal outcome.[392]
Before charging down to quell the trouble, the tribune (21:31) gathers sufficient soldiers to challenge the unarmed rioters (he would probably expect any temple police to help with crowd control). That he took “centurions” (plural) could suggest at least two centuries of soldiers and hence at least 120 soldiers and possibly many more (see comment on Acts 10:1),[393] although it is not clear that they take time to organize fully. (Apparently they have been on alert [cf. 21:38].)
The intention of the “beating” in 21:32 was to “kill” Paul (21:31); apparently the beating was interrupted quickly. Although the temple police might carry clubs,[394] the crowd would mostly have their fists and feet to use; and though the temple police participated at least in closing the doors (21:30), Luke (as opposed to other reports, 23:27; 24:6) seems to imply that Paul is at this point primarily in the hands of the “crowd”—most of whose members do not know who he is or even that he is Jewish.[395] Although Luke uses a different term to describe the abuse, it is interesting, in light of Luke’s frequent paralleling of corresponding figures, that Jesus was also beaten by Jewish guards (Luke 22:63; Luke omits Jesus’s beating by the Roman guards, perhaps in keeping with his usually positive portrayal of Rome).
Naturally, the mostly unarmed crowd stopped beating Paul and relinquished him to the soldiers, whether it expected the soldiers to execute justice or to rescue him. Under Felix’s predecessor, Cumanus, angry crowds in the temple abandoned their protests and took flight when threatened by soldiers (Jos. Ant. 20.111). Especially in the time of turmoil that Josephus shows characterized Felix’s rule, it was imprudent to provoke the authorities;[396] indeed, a governor not long after Felix was thought to deliberately provoke the less restrained Jews to speak disrespectfully, to obtain a pretext for slaughtering the crowd (War 2.325–28). In a war situation, a large and determined body of Jews in the rest of the temple could defend themselves for a period of time against aggressors in the Antonia (War 6.68, 74, 80; Life 20), but even this Paul-centered narrative does not suggest that the crowd would advance such a costly revolt merely to attack Paul.
c. Uncertain Charges (21:33–34)
That the initial claims against Paul to the Romans are not only false (Acts 21:27–29) but also confused (21:33–34; cf. 19:32) helps refute the plausibility of charges against Paul. It fits the pattern of Paul’s enemies exploiting mob violence to achieve their ends against him (e.g., 14:5, 19; 19:28–29; cf. 16:22).
I. THE TRIBUNE CHAINS PAUL (21:33)
To be put in chains was normally intimidating and frightening (e.g., Polyb. 20.10.7–9) as well as a matter of great shame (38.17.2); Romans tended to apply such chaining to harsher forms of custody.[397] On the basis of Acts 21:11, we might infer that the two chains (cf. 12:6) could include leg irons and manacles, but probably 21:11 uses nonliteral, prophetic license; Paul was apparently still able to walk before he reached the stairs (21:35).[398] More likely, then, Paul’s hands are chained, probably to soldiers on either side of him (as in 12:6);[399] prisoners were often manacled to guards.[400] This is the picture of “a very secure military custody.”[401] Other sources also note Paul’s chains (Eph 6:20; Col 4:18; 2 Tim 1:16), hardly a source of boasting, much less epideictic invention, in antiquity.[402] Any ancient hearer of Acts inclined to question Paul, however, would have to recall that Jesus’s apostle Peter was also chained (Acts 12:6).
The officer probably detains him in response to the cries of some that he is the instigator of the trouble,[403] perhaps the Egyptian revolutionary, but when the officer queries the crowd, they shout conflicting charges (cf. the analogous confusion of a pagan mob in Acts 19:32; for Luke, anti-Christian attacks are irrational, as all “honorable” people should understand mobs normally to be). Apparently someone called out that Paul was the Egyptian Jewish revolutionary or that he was a sicarius (assassin), knowing that these charges would invite the Romans to kill Paul (21:38). Ironically, it is not Paul but some of his opponents who harbor revolutionary sentiments; Paul is so Gentile-friendly that, far from belonging to the assassins, he becomes their target (cf. 23:12–15). Some guardians of order work with assassins rather than Paul (23:14–15)—just as Jesus’s accusers preferred the release of an insurrectionist (Luke 23:18–19, 25).
That the tribune would query the crowd, assuming the man it had “apprehended” to be the guilty party, is reasonable. He could expect some cooperation; under Felix many Jews sought to avoid provoking the Romans,[404] and the Sicarii were not well liked.[405] At a later time, Alexandrian Jews even reportedly apprehended hundreds of them for the Romans (Jos. War 7.412–16). It was a Roman governor’s responsibility to suppress bandits,[406] and Josephus portrays most revolutionaries as such.[407] (Well more than a century before Josephus, the Romans themselves were quite able to distinguish the mere suppression of bandits from a dangerous war with the Jewish people as a whole.)[408]
This portrayal of the situation, besides being reasonable, is also useful to Luke’s apologetic. Paul was bound by “shameful” chains not because of a crime but because of a misunderstanding—namely, the false assumption that Paul stirred the riot (a charge that Luke must combat, Acts 24:5) when in fact it was his Asian Jewish accusers who did so (see comment on Acts 24:19). (Granted, Paul stirred the crowd afresh in 22:21, but only by speaking in favor of Gentiles and only because a false charge had already primed the crowd against him.)
Luke’s apologetic portrayal is not incompatible, however, with his historical information. Romans normally did not arrest people without either catching them in a subversive act or receiving accusations from locals. Yet local accusers probably would not have gently handed Paul over to Romans on the charge of violating the temple (which at least a sufficient number of them would have been prepared to avenge more directly); more clearly, Luke would not have missed the opportunity to parallel Paul and Jesus if the Sanhedrin arrested Paul and handed him over to the governor (cf. 24:6). (Luke has to bring in the Sanhedrin only after the arrest, offering a more limited parallel. The parallel with Jesus offered a different kind of apologetic to remind Christians unsure of Paul’s legacy that God’s servants could be falsely accused and punished.)
II. THE CROWD’S CONFUSION (21:34)
The confusion of members of the crowd shouting different opinions in 21:34 resembles the riot in 19:32. Later, in 23:9–10, the meeting of the dignified Sanhedrin itself devolves into a mob scene, with shouting from different sides, but at least everyone there thinks that they know what they are shouting about. Portraying Paul’s enemies as exploiting mobs (part of their complaint against Paul), rather than as articulating coherent and defensible charges against him, serves Luke’s apologetic program. As an element in his larger story, Luke uses this confusion to good purpose: mob reasoning opposed Paul’s mission not only in pagan Ephesus but in the Jerusalem temple and even the Sanhedrin. From Luke’s perspective, he and his reliable character Paul, by contrast, offer the voice of sound reason (26:25).
Yet the usefulness of Luke’s picture does not make it for that reason less historically plausible; historians regularly employed genuine source material in the interests of their literary agendas. Even conventional public court scenes in antiquity could become quite raucous (see comment on Acts 16:22; 18:17),[409] and so there is no reason to doubt Luke’s claim of confusion here. Indeed, even when citizen bodies voted on a person’s banishment, sometimes many of the voters were unaware of the specific charge.[410] When Roman tribunes and consuls began shouting, each trying to be heard rather than speaking by turn, the people could not understand what was being said (Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.15.4). Mobs often functioned this way, but Luke has good reason to emphasize it.
d. Romans Rescue Paul (21:35–36)
Roman soldiers, ironically, rescue Paul from his own people and coreligionists. Even if Paul ultimately died through the agency of a hostile Roman emperor several years later, his life was prolonged to that point through divinely providential Roman intervention.[411]
I. CARRIED UP THE STAIRS (21:35)
The “stairs” connected the Fortress Antonia, which housed the Roman garrison above the temple courts, with the outer court below (see further comment on Acts 21:31–32). Luke may envision the physically capable soldiers carrying Paul above their heads (the way posterior lines of infantry could carry their shields in the traditional tortoise formation)[412] to protect him from the violence of the crowds. The action could be less dramatic, but Paul would need to be shielded by the soldiers one way or another. Unless the soldiers marched single file (as some critics seem to imagine) instead of retreating up the stairs several deep during this emergency, no one in the crowd could have offered him further injury at this point; moreover, to try pelting him with stones would risk striking the soldiers, potentially provoking a massacre.
Some commentators suggest that Paul is carried upstairs because he is battered and wounded but that Luke cannot report these injuries, “since Paul must immediately deliver his speech.”[413] Although such proposals can never be ruled out as impossible, at least three factors count against the probability that this is the case here. First, this proposal assumes that Luke conceals the extent of Paul’s injuries so that Paul can offer a speech soon afterward. But would not Luke, who does not hesitate to report some severe beatings, have been all the more eager to portray Paul giving his speech after being so wounded (cf. Acts 5:40–41; 14:19–20; 16:23–34)?[414]
Second, although Luke certainly does not conceal the fact that Paul was being beaten (21:32), this probably occurred mostly with the fists and sandaled feet of an unarmed crowd rather than with clubs carried by the temple police.[415] If the Roman sentries spotted Paul being dragged by a mob (21:30) before the beating began in the outer court (21:31, 34), the soldiers may have had sufficient time to reach Paul before his injuries became too serious. If the beating was genuinely too severe for Paul to offer a speech afterward, Luke could have simply toned the injuries down rather than eliminated them (injuries, again, being useful to his drama and apologetic), but a beating so severe would also raise questions about sending him to Caesarea on a long journey on horseback soon afterward (23:24). Moreover, his genuine defense speech soon after (24:11) that, in contrast to the current speech in Aramaic, could be a matter of official public record (24:10–21).[416]
Finally, this proposal is a substitute for a plausible explanation that Luke offers, when Luke or his source was much closer to the event and offers our only report of it.
II. “AWAY WITH HIM” (21:36)
The crowd’s outcry here parallels the crowd’s crying out, “Crucify him!” in Luke 23:21 and, even more explicitly, “Away with this one!” (αἶρε τοῦτον) in 23:18.[417] Here, as elsewhere, Luke portrays Paul’s detention as a parallel to Christ’s passion, a sharing of his sufferings (cf. Phil 3:10). It is also possible that Luke intends an ironic wordplay (though he is far less given to these than is the writer of the Fourth Gospel): although αἴρω means “take up,” it is similar to a term for “take away” or “destroy” (αἱρέω).[418] “Take up” might also recall (though this is far from certain) the popular ancient image of crucifixion as being “lifted up” (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 34),[419] given the parallel between Luke 23:18 and 23:21. But the verb also often enough means “remove” or “seize control” without implying “take up” (BDAG), so a wordplay is by no means necessary.
The crowd’s outcry here is its last recorded words until the same outcry is repeated in expanded form in Acts 22:22, where it is clear that “away” means “away from the earth” in death. The crowd’s outcry brackets the intervening attempt of Paul to bridge barriers between Jew and Gentile, at greatest length in his speech in 22:1, 3–21.
e. Paul’s Surprising Use of Greek (21:37)
Despite Luke’s preference for longer speeches, the exchange in 21:37–39 is concise and sufficient.[420] Paul’s request is polite and respects the tribune’s authority, revealing a citizen of the empire quite different from what the tribune expects for an Egyptian or Judean peasant anarchist.[421] Although the tribune has asked the crowd what Paul has done, he apparently has not asked Paul, who now offers to volunteer the correct information. His offer itself provokes the tribune’s surprise because of the character of Paul’s Greek. (In addition to his childhood in Tarsus, which Paul points out in 21:39, his years of ministry in Achaia and urban Asia cannot have hurt his facility with the language.)
I. THE QUALITY OF PAUL’S GREEK
The tribune is probably surprised not by the fact that Paul speaks some Greek but by its quality. Even though some Romans had long objected to Romans preferring Greek to Latin,[422] tribunes in the East would expect to converse with provincials in Greek.[423] Greek not only was the lingua franca of the East but (apart from highly romanized colonies) constituted the official language of public administration in Syria and Palestine. Latin was normally confined to the internal organization of the army and to documents affecting Roman citizens.[424] The auxiliaries in Judea were mostly Syrian (see comment on Acts 10:1), though presumably most of their tribunes should have been Roman. Would the average tribune from Rome be qualified to judge the quality of someone’s Greek? Perhaps not,[425] but the present tribune turns out to be a native Greek-speaker, as his name testifies (“Lysias,” 23:26; 24:22).
If the tribune has spent any time in Jerusalem (even if mostly cloistered with his garrison), he would not be surprised by a Judean speaking some Greek. Those who are bilingual are often stronger in one language or the other,[426] but tomb inscriptions in Greek from Jerusalem reveal that he could easily encounter Jews who would speak Greek as native speakers. Roughly one-third of Jerusalem’s inscriptions are in Greek, but these represent mainly the middle and upper classes (who had disproportionate access to inscriptions anyway).[427] One might therefore infer that Greek was not widely available to the more socially marginalized types perhaps more likely to be bandits, as the tribune assumes Paul to be. Yet inscriptions tell us the preferred official language of their authors (e.g., an ancestral language on tombs), not whether they might use other languages in addition, and the papyri, which often reflect common life, show us that many people were bilingual. Of four hundred Palestinian papyri, about two-thirds are in Greek, including even some in the Bar Kokhba archive. Palestinian Jews used Greek in commerce, the courts, and dealings with the government.[428] Jerusalem was, in addition to being thoroughly Jewish, also quite hellenized.[429] We should not forget that two centuries before Paul’s time, Judeans opposing hellenization were writing Maccabean literature in high-quality Greek.
II. EXPECTING EGYPTIAN GREEK?
The tribune also should not have assumed the Greek language to be foreign to all Egyptians, at least urban ones who lived in Alexandria or the agricultural districts’ nomes.[430] Although Greek speech might be unexpected in everyday encounters in Egypt (at least for the novelist Heliodorus, Eth. 1.8; 2.21), it was used even for native expression in the Ptolemaic period (e.g., the anti-Greek “Potter’s Oracle”). Although the primary cultural distinction in Roman Egypt was that between Egyptian-speaking village peasants and Greek-speaking metropolites, many peasants “acquired some literacy in Greek.”[431]
Because Greek was the administrative language of Greco-Roman Egypt, all who did not know Greek were classified as “illiterates” (whether they were illiterate in other senses or not).[432] By the second century C.E., “even the most insular, conservative priesthoods commonly used and conversed in Greek.”[433] Greek is the dominant language of the papyri, with even a few Latinisms, gradually increasing from the first century B.C.E. to the fourth century C.E.[434] Further, the Egyptian false prophet to whom the tribune alludes was (as is evident from both Josephus and common sense, on the basis of his Judean followers) an Egyptian Jew and hence would presumably use the language most common among Egyptian Jews—namely, Greek (see CPJ passim; the largest single Jewish population in Egypt, and that with greatest mobility and contact with Judea, was in Alexandria).
It is possible that the tribune simply underestimates the pervasiveness of Greek used by Egyptian Jews, especially if he has recently been posted to Judea (and never posted to Egypt; see comment on tribunes at Acts 21:31).[435] Certainly most Jewish nationalists of whom he knew spoke Aramaic as a language of choice, but he would have been mistaken if he supposed that they knew no Greek. In this case, Luke may be implying the officer’s ignorance; Luke himself is certainly aware that many Egyptian Jews spoke Greek (Acts 18:24).
More likely, the tribune is insulting the supposed revolutionary by questioning whether he can speak Greek and then (even more insultingly, for Romans) associating him with Egypt.[436] Alternatively, he does not expect this quality of Aegean Greek from someone who grew up in Egypt. Greeks (Lysias likely was Greek ethnically; see comment on Acts 23:26) were often proud of their own language and culture.[437] When a Greek with bad Greek grammar boasted that he had received Roman citizenship, one sage asked him why he had not become Greek (Lucian Dem. 40). When a youth was teaching birds to speak, a sage criticized him for teaching them such poor Greek, which was equivalent to stuttering (in the novelistic Philost. Vit. Apoll. 6.36). Romans, too, valued the ability to speak Latin as a native-born Roman.[438] Stereotypes of other cultures were common in antiquity, as today.[439]
Most bilinguals are not fluent in the second language, and people’s manner of speech could betray their origins (cf. Luke 22:59; Matt 26:73).[440] The tribune, and Luke, might expect a North African dialect[441] different from Paul’s Greek, which was shaped by growing up in an Asian Greek-speaking home and sharpened by experience in Greek-speaking Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia.[442] The stereotype, at least, was that Egyptians who spoke Greek did so with a clear Egyptian accent;[443] the tribune might not expect an Egyptian bandit to be educated or fluent in Greek.[444]
One could tell from another’s speech whether the speaker was educated (Philost. Vit. soph. 2.1.553).[445] One might highly compliment the Greek of one not expected to be as eloquent as a Greek-speaker (Pliny Ep. 4.3.5).[446] In a later religious novel, a Phoenician visitor notices the character of a gardener’s Greek and expresses surprise: “How were you trained in speaking? You do not seem to me to be among the uneducated” (Philost. Hrk. 4.5).[447] For Greeks, ability to speak Greek was a central part of their shared identity;[448] this tribune, Lysias, is probably Greek (cf. 23:26), as Paul could perhaps recognize.
III. NATURE OF PAUL’S ELOQUENCE
Although most Greek-speakers used Koine in this period, some of the elite had begun reusing Attic Greek as a literary language.[449] But Paul’s few words here betray no atticizing, nor did the circumstances warrant it. (Others argue that Koine still remained the language even of the educated in this period, and Paul employs educated Koine.)[450] Impressive phrases could convince a hearer of one’s education (Pliny Ep. 7.25.3–4), but it does not appear to be Paul’s vocabulary that invites the tribune’s attention here. (Luke was capable of using such language here had he so desired.)
Paul’s inquiry as to whether his speech may be “lawful” or “permitted” (ἔξεστιν), like his inquiry as to whether it is lawful to scourge an uncondemned Roman (Acts 22:25), might suggest a higher level of Greek than another way of putting the question; the epistolary Paul twice employs this form of the verb in the manner of philosophic ethics (1 Cor 6:12; 10:23).[451] Yet Luke elsewhere uses the term for Jewish law (Luke 6:2, 4, 9; 14:3; 20:22) and Roman law (Acts 16:21), and even Mark employs the term six times (Mark 2:24, 26; 3:4; 6:18; 10:2; 12:14).[452] The term is less particularly associated with philosophy than is καθῆκεν in Acts 22:22,[453] yet that cry is attributed to the crowds!
It thus might be the quality of Paul’s accent, more than that of his vocabulary or grammar, that indicates a fluent Greek-speaker in so few words.[454] Hearers, especially those accustomed to evaluating public speeches, appreciated pure accents.[455] No less educated a writer than Josephus apologizes for his spoken Greek, probably partly reflecting a regional accent (though he blames it on its being his second language).[456] Because Luke provides a summary, it is possible (though hard to know at this historical remove) that he invites us to presuppose from the tribune’s question that Paul has offered more words in Greek than his terse, polite request for permission to speak reveals.
Just as a single sentence might distinguish a North American from, for example, a British, Indian, Nigerian, or Australian speaker of English,[457] Paul’s accent may be closer to speech in Athens (the “purist” standard) or other “good” Greek models than to what the tribune expected in Egypt (or Judea). (Paul’s lengthy foray in Achaia and Ionian Asia in 18:11 and 19:8–10 cannot have hurt; spending his earliest years in Tarsus rather than in Jerusalem undoubtedly helped.)[458]
Thus Lucian recounts conversation about a preadolescent Egyptian boy on a ship who spoke Greek with an Egyptian accent: “He spoke in a slovenly manner, one long, continuous prattle,” Lycinus complains; “he spoke Greek, but his accent and intonation pointed to his native land.”[459]
f. Not the Egyptian or an Assassin (21:38)
As already suggested, the misinformation that Paul was the Egyptian Jewish “prophet” was likely called out by one of Paul’s enemies (or by someone as ignorant of the situation as the tribune was) in response to the tribune’s request for information (21:33).[460] The crowd could have assumed Paul’s association with the Sicarii on the basis of recent experiences with these assassins in the temple; surely the Roman sentries would have been scanning for signs of sudden unrest below, and the tribune might be expecting such a capture eventually.
Recording and refuting such associations would be important for Luke. Demonstrating that Paul was not subversive to Roman political order is one of the primary themes of the defense speeches of Acts 24–26 (cf. 24:5)[461] and reflects a larger apologetic interest of Luke’s for his circle of the Christian movement (cf. the comparison with revolutionaries in 5:36–37). (Luke elsewhere uses the verb ἀναστατόω only in 17:6, where Jewish accusers are denouncing Paul and his colleagues for sedition.)
I. THE TRIBUNE’S ASSUMPTIONS
That the tribune both confuses the Egyptian false prophet with the Sicarii (who might be captured in the temple) and supposes that he has caught the great archfugitive might provide comic relief at the tribune’s expense; at the very least, it portrays him as unrealistically optimistic. His “big catch” allows him to do away with all Rome’s enemies around Jerusalem at once! (Grandiose notions of battles may also inform the protective numbers that he supplies for just a single prisoner in 23:23.) Nevertheless, his thinking does reflect an era in ferment.
A few successive paragraphs from Josephus illustrate most tellingly the period of nationalist sentiment and clashes with brutal Roman governance during Felix’s tenure, a period that Luke presupposes in 21:20–24:27. Josephus reports that Sicarii (assassins) slew victims in broad daylight in Jerusalem (War 2.254), especially in the midst of festival crowds (2.255; Ant. 20.186–87); they struck a high priest (War 2.256) and were killing others regularly (2.256–57). They also plundered their enemies’ villages (Ant. 20.187). Revolutionaries gathered followings in the wilderness (War 2.259; Ant. 20.188), whom both Felix (War 2.260) and Festus (Ant. 20.188) attacked.[462] An Egyptian Jewish revolutionary led thousands of Jews (War 2.261) to attack the Roman garrison in Jerusalem (2.262), but Felix destroyed most of his following (2.263). Many robbers, perhaps best understood as “social bandits,”[463] were stirring tensions (2.264–65); eventually, ethnic riots in Caesarea, the seat of Roman authority in Judea, portended disaster (2.266–70). (Although bandits and pirates had long been common, especially in rural areas of the East, they had been, by and large, suppressed under the empire.[464] Some scholars have argued that many brigands should be understood as social bandits;[465] some evidence from Roman antiquity suggests that this was sometimes the case in that era.)[466]
The tribune apparently confuses the Egyptian with the Sicarii;[467] it is the latter who would likely be apprehended in the temple whereas the Egyptian would not likely act alone or be captured alone (even with thousands of followers, he acted mainly in the wilderness and from a safe distance; cf. Ant. 20.170). Still, careerist optimism could be at work: “It would be a considerable coup for his career if he had managed to capture the Egyptian,” who (according to War 2.263) had eluded the governor himself.[468] It is also possible that a more general usage for “sicarii” circulated in Judea, applying generally to terrorists and not only to urban assassins, in which case the tribune’s perspective is not confused.[469] If the narrower sense is in view, however, as many scholars have traditionally thought (albeit without showing awareness of some of the conflicting evidence), it is questionable whether the members of Luke’s audience would catch the nuances of the tribune’s errors enough for them to suspect deliberate comic effect (as with clueless philosophers in Acts 17:18). Yet we should remember that the tribune has been offered a variety of claims as to Paul’s identity (21:33–34). If he was confused, this is what one might expect, given his explicitly confused sources (21:34). Luke’s own source may have also confused information; for that matter, the circumstances were hardly conducive to Paul recalling the officer’s wording verbatim.
II. THE EGYPTIAN “PROPHET”
Josephus complains (War 2.261–62) of an Egyptian false prophet[470] who led some thirty thousand followers from the desert to the Mount of Olives,[471] preparing to attack Jerusalem’s Roman garrison and make himself king (probably in some messianic sense).[472] (Other anti-Roman leaders also claimed divine inspiration,[473] making those with such public claims appear potentially dangerous.)
Josephus is happy to report that Jerusalem supported Felix’s attack on the impostor (2.263); such a stance would encourage the tribune’s expectation that the temple crowd would have worked to subdue the Egyptian if he was in their midst (Acts 21:32–34, 38). Josephus claims that most of the Egyptian’s followers were killed or taken captive but the Egyptian himself remained at large (War 2.263; Ant. 20.172). Some scholars have proposed 56 C.E. as the date of this revolt; although the evidence for this is unclear, it could render relatively recent the events here depicted (especially for those who date Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem to 57[474] or even as early as 56). In any case, the revolt does not seem to have preceded 55 C.E. (given what precedes it in Josephus), and it occurred under Felix, the governor whom Luke also reports (Acts 23:24).[475]
Luke’s tribune reports four thousand followers whereas Josephus claims thirty thousand; how do we address the discrepancy?[476] One could argue that the tribune addresses only the “assassins” (sicarii) as a component in the larger number reported by Josephus. Yet if Josephus’s report is fairly complete, on this point the tribune appears mistaken, in any case, regardless of his numbers: the Sicarii were not specifically the Egyptian’s followers.[477] The chief remaining suggestions are that either Luke[478] (or his tribune, whose misinformation he reports)[479] or Josephus has the wrong count (though, for that matter, both counts are probably based on guesses).[480]
One suggestion is that it is a natural transcriptional error; whereas Josephus claims thirty thousand followers in War 2.261–63 (most of them captured or killed, 2.263), he claims only four hundred killed and two hundred captured in Ant. 20.169–72. Some suggest plausibly a confusion between Δ (i.e., four) and Λ (i.e., thirty);[481] this adjustment works better to coordinate the figures between Josephus’s War and Luke than to explain the discrepancy between the War and Antiquities. But whether the transcription error is in our text of Acts or in Josephus (see below), it seems necessary for it to have crept in either early in the textual transmission of our extant sources or, given the likely independence of our sources, in early written sources used by Luke and/or Josephus (or oral sources based on them).
Another possibility is that the numbers of followers swelled from an initial four thousand to thirty thousand; or Josephus may have originally had three thousand, which by the standards of ancient estimates would not be far off from four thousand.[482] Indeed, given the wide ranges of estimates in antiquity, Josephus and Luke could both accurately report sources that simply gave widely varied estimates. If we reject all these approaches, we would need to choose between Luke and Josephus here. In favor of Josephus’s accuracy is the point that he lived in Judea during most of this period whereas, for Luke, the matter warrants only a passing allusion (for this reason, I have often preferred Josephus’s details elsewhere). Yet Josephus’s lower casualty report in his later Antiquities (six hundred captured or killed) contradicts the high estimate in the War (most of thirty thousand, i.e., as much as fifty times higher), with Luke’s estimate falling between them (and closer to the lower, less inflated estimate).[483] Further, as already argued above, the “we” narrative’s author spent the next two years in Judea[484] and hence would have access to this information, which he probably published earlier than Josephus.
More important, all scholars agree that Josephus often inflates statistics. Josephus also had more reason to inflate tragic casualty reports than the tribune (for whom they reflected Roman valor) or Luke had to diminish them. Finally, Josephus’s lower casualty figures in Ant. 20.171 suggest that the numbers in War 2.263 are inflated (albeit possibly, as noted above, through a transcriptional error).[485] Many scholars are thus prepared to prefer the lower figure in this case.[486] In the end, probably all figures (including those of any eyewitnesses on the scene) were estimates, which could vary widely, but they were likelier to be inflated in transmission than diminished.
III. THE SICARII
Whereas the tribune might conflate two different enemies, there would be good reason for him to link them. (Indeed, given the broader sense of sicarius in Latin, he may borrow the assassins’ title for others who shared their tactics.)[487] Josephus treats the Sicarii (usually translated “assassins”; War 2.254–57) immediately before his account of the Egyptian (2.261–63); both appear in Felix’s time,[488] and both were undoubtedly on Romans’ minds.[489] (Some Sicarii also later fled to Egypt [7.409–16], but this occurred long after the conversation depicted here, though probably before Luke published Acts.)
The term sicarius applied, in Roman law, to anyone intending to commit murder with a dagger (sica);[490] a rhetorician advised generalizing the term in deriding a murderer using any weapon (Quint. Inst. 10.1.12). The specifically Jewish Sicarii were terrorists or freedom fighters, depending on who defined them.[491] According to Josephus, while Felix was occupied eliminating other brigands, the Sicarii sprang up (War 2.254).[492]
Unlike others, they struck in daylight (2.254), especially in festivals, where they could pass unnoticed in the crowd, short daggers beneath their garments.[493] After stabbing their victims, they, like those around them, cried out angrily, thereby leaving unclear who had committed the crime (2.255; Ant. 20.187). If the crowd in this case had actually caught one of the assassins, it would apparently be one of the first times! Far from being suppressed by Felix, the group had grown even stronger by the time Festus replaced him as Judea’s governor (Acts 24:27). Nor was even Festus able to eradicate them.[494] Given Josephus’s wider usage at some points, the term may have applied more broadly than to urban assassins, allowing for a more intelligible connection to the Egyptian mentioned above.[495] Acting not only as urban assassins (Ant. 20.187; War 2.254, 425), they plundered villages (Ant. 20.187) and disturbed the countryside (20.204; cf. War 4.400, 516), and Festus attacked them as they followed a “deceiver” promising them deliverance (Ant. 20.188).
IV. THE WILDERNESS
Why did the Egyptian Jew lead his followers in the “wilderness” (Acts 21:38; Jos. War 2.262; Ant. 20.189)? He was not the only revolutionary or prophetic figure to prefer the wilderness (Luke 1:80; 3:2, 4; 7:24; Jos. War 2.259; Ant. 20.97–98, 167–68, 188).[496] Texts identified the “wilderness” not so much by its barrenness of water as by its lack of much human habitation.[497] Nonmilitary groups awaiting divine deliverance, such as the Qumran sect, also settled in the wilderness;[498] many people also went there to escape centers of corruption and pagan influence and to find solitude (1 Macc 2:29–30; cf. Luke 4:1, 42; 5:16).[499]
One of the reasons for gathering in the wilderness was pragmatic. One could more safely draw crowds there without expecting interference (Luke 9:12).[500] Later revolutionaries might prefer to flee there rather than fall prey to Roman attacks (Jos. War 6.351). Yet there were also theological reasons, based on the exodus as the foundational paradigm for God’s deliverance of his people. Israel’s prophets had predicted a new exodus in the wilderness (Hos 2:14–15; Isa 40:3);[501] some renewal movements clearly drew from such texts.[502] For the messianic prophets, it was associated with messianic deliverance, like a new exodus of a new Moses.[503] (See the excursus on Zealots at Acts 1:13.)[504]
g. Citizen of Tarsus (21:39)
Luke has not previously mentioned that Tarsus (Paul’s hometown, Acts 9:11, 30) is in Cilicia, but this does not mean that his ideal audience would have missed the connection with Saul’s homeland in 6:9 or 15:23; most urban people with some education would recognize that Tarsus was in Cilicia.
Fitzmyer suggests that, following appropriate Hellenistic conventions, Paul first indicates his natio (Jewish), “then his origo (Tarsus), and then his civitas (Cilician citizenship).”[505] More precisely, he cites citizenship in the Cilician city of Tarsus. (Paul reserves his more significant Roman citizenship, perhaps as a trump card if necessary, for later [22:26–28]; Tarsian citizenship is more important for explaining his good Greek, however [21:38].) Paul’s claim to be a Jew as well as a citizen of Tarsus may simply emphasize that he was no Gentile profaning the temple, though from Tarsus. But it might also imply that Paul did not know that the Egyptian leader whom his interlocutor had mentioned was Jewish. That is, Paul not only was not a revolutionary but also did not know much about the revolutionaries. Or perhaps Paul is guarding against the assumptions of some in the crowd that he was a Gentile who had profaned the temple.
I. DENIAL OF LOW STATUS?
Many scholars see Paul’s response to the tribune’s suggestion as “an offended rebuttal” of inferior status, since Greeks, Romans, and Jews typically regarded Egyptians as uneducated and backward.[506] (Egypt had once been a great empire but was now among the most oppressed provinces in Rome’s empire, if not the most oppressed; oppressors often generate stereotypes about those they conquer.)[507] A Greek protests to other Greeks, “You are . . . perhaps considering me a barbarian or an inhuman Egyptian.”[508] Josephus ridicules Apion’s low birth as an Egyptian (Ag. Ap. 2.41).[509] Alexandrian Jews tried to identify with Greeks and avoid being classed with local Egyptians (see comment on Acts 18:24).[510]
Outsiders viewed Egyptian religion, with its veneration of animal figures, as primitive and superstitious[511] (evidently they felt differently about their own usual veneration of humanlike figures). Egyptians were thought to be cruel when angry (Polyb. 15.33.9–10). Romans even “denied all citizenship privileges everywhere to Egyptians.”[512] Greeks (especially those from high-reputation cities such as Athens) similarly traditionally distanced themselves from peoples of lower status (such as Libyans and Lydians).[513]
Paul’s denial might be geographically, rather than ethnically or culturally, based, since the revolutionary in question was an Egyptian Jew. As noted, it is possible that Paul (and, less likely, the tribune) would not know this; but Luke might (from whatever sources he derived his figures here), and he presents Paul as a reliable character. After all, Jewish nationalists would hardly follow a Gentile into the wilderness. Whether geographic or ethnic, association with Egypt in this period was unfortunately associated with low status, and so a denial of low status is possible (cf. the negotiation of relative status again in Acts 22:27–28).
Given Paul’s custody, however, he had every reason, even if status considerations were not relevant, to distance himself as far as possible (as far from Egypt as Tarsus) from a revolutionary of any sort.[514] Simply being from a city contrasts at least verbally with being from the wilderness (as in 2 Cor 11:26),[515] and he is certainly not from Egypt, which was then mostly rural (except for Alexandria, whose citizens affirmed its Greek rather than Egyptian character).[516] Where a person was from helped determine his or her status; cities were of higher status in the empire than mere communities.[517] Within a city, citizens held higher status than resident aliens and, certainly, transients (as Paul normally was during his travels).[518] Only a minority of Tarsus’s residents were in fact citizens.[519]
It is also possible to relate Paul’s answer to the first part of Lysias’s question in Acts 21:37: “Of course I speak good Greek! I am from Tarsus.”[520] Tarsus was known for its educational attainments.[521] (It was customary to praise cities for accomplishments, including academic ones.)[522] Greeks had lived in Cilicia for six centuries before Alexander; Alexander further intensified the Greek presence and made Tarsus the capital.[523]
Many scholars suggest that Paul may further reinforce the appearance of his status by a literary allusion to Eurip. Ion 8.[524] Many, however, used the phrase “of no insignificant city” to attribute status to their own cities;[525] Josephus uses such a phrase to describe his illustrious descent from priests.[526] Litotes is common in Luke-Acts, and rhetoricians would particularly cast a description of themselves or their clients in such “diminished” terms to avoid the impression of arrogance.[527] Defenders of the Euripides allusion suggest that other instances of the language also allude to Euripides, the other authors thereby comparing their cities to famous Athens.[528] Although this is possible, a phrase too often used becomes detached quickly from its original allusion.
If Paul (or Luke) alludes to Euripides or his closest imitators, it is not surprising that he must omit the ethnic designation from Euripides’s “not ignoble Greek city” even while affirming the good training in Greek that Paul received in Tarsus.[529] If no direct allusion to Euripides is in view, Paul might nevertheless underline his good Greek by using emphatic litotes, “no insignificant.”[530] Still, Luke uses litotes widely, not just for Paul; in the NT, this device is characteristically Lukan (e.g., Acts 12:18; 15:2; 19:23–24; 27:20).