29. Ibid., xxii. 25.
POLITICAL WRITINGS 223 seen to be alive, he showed, by the number, the severity, and the freshness of his wounds, how fully rumour had been justified in bringing tidings of his death.
He sought assistance, therefore, from the Christian emperor, not so much with any desire of revenging himself, as with the view of defending the Church entrusted to his charge. And if he had omitted to do this, he would have deserved not to be praised for his forbearance, but to be blamed for negligence. For neither was the Apostle Paul taking precautions on behalf of his own transitory life, but for the Church of God, when he caused the plot of those who had conspired to slay him to be made known to the Roman captain, the effect of which was, that he was conducted by an escort of armed soldiers to the place where they proposed to send him, that he might escape the ambush of his foes.^* Nor did he for a moment hesitate to invoke the protection of the Roman laws, proclaiming that he was a Roman citizen, who at that time could not be scourged ;2® and again, that he might not be delivered to the Jews who sought to kill him, he appealed to CaBsar,^^ a Roman emperor, indeed, but not a Christian. And by this he showed sufficiently plainly what was afterwards to be the duty of the ministers of
Christ, when in the midst of the dangers of the Church they found the emperors Christians. And hence, therefore, it came about that a religious and pious emperor, when such matters were brought to his knowledge, thought it well, by the enactment of most pious laws, entirely to correct
28. Acts xxiii. 17-32. 29. Ibid., xxii. 25. 30. Ibid.^xxy. 11.