A1 22:1,2.

OPENING WORDS. HE SPAKE IN HEBREW. Men,

brethren and fathers.

B1 22:2-30. DEFENCE AND

CONSEQUENCES.  b Conciliatory address.

d Paul taken to castle.

e Paul a Roman.

f  Jewish council.

A2

OPENING WORDS. Men and brethren.

B2 23:2-24. DEFENCE AND

a Smite on mouth.

CONSEQUENCES.  b Dividing address.

d Paul taken to castle.

e Paul and Rome.

f  Jewish conspiracy.

A3 23:25-30. OPENING WORDS. He wrote a letter. The most excellent governor Felix.

B3 23:31-35. DEFENCE RESERVED.

Here we see the oneness of the apostle's two-fold defence. The first section is given in an atmosphere

of tense feeling, the second before the highest Jewish authority. Paul had already claimed Roman citizenship; he

now claims equality with his Jewish hearers. On the stairs, before the excited mob, he had cried, `Men, brethren and

fathers'. Now, before the Sanhedrin, `earnestly beholding the council' with a steady glance that betrayed neither

servility nor fear, he begins, `Men and brethren'. The Sanhedrin was a judicial body of seventy-two, made up of

twenty-four chief priests, twenty-four elders, and twenty-four scribes and doctors. The council originally met in an

apartment of the inner Temple, but as it was impossible for a Gentile to enter the sacred enclosure, and as the

Romans had granted the Sanhedrin the power of inflicting the death penalty in connection with any Gentile passing

this sacred enclosure and so were obliged to have a representative there, it now met in a room just outside the

Temple precincts.

Ananias, the high priest, was one of the worst of his kind. The Talmud speaks of him as rapacious, gluttonous

and greedy; defrauding the lower priests of their tithes, while sending his minions with bludgeons to collect his own

tithes from the threshing floors.

`Few pitied him when he was dragged out of his hiding place in a sewer to perish miserably by the daggers of the

Sicarrii, whom, in the days of his prosperity, he had not scrupled to sanction and employ' (Farrar, quoting Gratz

and Josephus).

Several things, no doubt, combined to annoy this unprincipled man - Paul's omission of the title `fathers',

claiming his right as a Sanhedrist and a Rabbi, his unflinching look, and his emphasis upon a `good conscience

before God'. The High Priest's command that the apostle should be smitten on the mouth was a violation of both

decency and privilege, and would have been peculiarly offensive to a Jew. `He that strikes the cheek of an Israelite

strikes, as it were, the cheek of the Shekinah, for it is said, He that strikes a man strikes the Holy One' (Sanhedr).

Once again the apostle stands where his Lord had stood before him (Matt. 26:62,63), but it cannot be said of Paul

that, `as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth'. It is very difficult for anyone today to

judge whether Paul was right or wrong when he replied, `God shall smite thee, thou whited wall'. His words may

have been prophetic, for Ananias died, as we have seen, an ignominious death at the hands of assassins. However,

whether this be so or not, the apostle immediately apologizes, saying, `I wist not, brethren, that he was the High