To apply the flagellum horribile at the very outset was in itself

illegal: and much more so in the case of a Roman citizen.  And so we read:

`When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain,

saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman' (Acts

Lysias had first of all mistaken Paul for an Egyptian, and now,

learning that he claimed to be a Roman citizen, he hurries back to make sure,

`Tell me, art thou a Roman?  He said, Yea.  And the chief captain

answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom.  And Paul said, But

I was free born.  Then straightway they departed from him which should

have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew

that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him' (Acts 22:27 -29).

Lysias could not retain the prisoner in custody without some charge

being laid against him, and so we read:

`He loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priests and all

their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him before

them' (Acts 22:30).

At this meeting, the difference of opinion between the Sadducees and

the Pharisees was so strong, that Paul once again has to be rescued from

their violence by the Roman soldiers.  When Lysias hears of the conspiracy

against the apostle's life, he determines to send him `safe to Felix'.

Accordingly he calls out two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two

hundred spearmen, and bids them be ready by nine o'clock at night for the

start to Caesarea.  The number of soldiers decided upon to escort one man

a distance of sixty miles, is eloquent testimony to the turbulent character

of the people.  The letter which Lysias sent to Felix follows the usual form,

but skilfully covers up his error.  It implies that Paul was rescued from the

Jews after Lysias had learned that he was a Roman.

Closely allied with the subject just considered is that of Roman

citizenship.  To this subject, therefore, we now devote our attention.

The Jew regarded the world as made up of `the circumcision' and `the

uncircumcision' -- his own were the `favoured nation', and the rest of the

world `Gentile dogs'.  The Greek, on the other hand, divided the world up

into `Greeks' and `barbarians' (Rom. 1:14), while the Roman viewed it as

being composed of freemen and slaves.  A `freeman' in the Roman sense might

either be civis (a Roman citizen), or peregrinus (a foreigner, though free).

A `freeman' could either be born free or could become free.

In contrast with the position of the `freeman' the slave was devoid of

all rights of liberty, citizenship and position in a family.  Nullum habet

caput.  Up to a.d. 61, a slave could be ordered to fight in the arena with

gladiators or wild beasts, and until the time of Claudius, his master could

punish him with death at will.  There was one well -known case of Vedius

Pollio, in the reign of Augustus, who cast his slave into the ponds to feed