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without touching the interests and arousing the antagonism of one or other of these
representative opponents. When one reads a funeral eulogy which declares that the man
who has died "had not an enemy in the world", one is inclined to think: He did nothing,
therefore, in the cause of truth.
Returning to Acts 16:, we find that Paul and Silas are caught and taken before the
rulers, the charge against them being:
"These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs, which
are not lawful for us to received, neither to observe, being Romans" (Acts 16: 20, 21).
Wordsworth remarks here:
"Christianity was hated as Judaism, by the heathen, and as worse than heathenism by
the Jews. It had to contend against Judaism and Heathenism, and it triumphed over
both."
We feel sometimes, in our small degree, that those responsible for The Berean
Expositor are in much the same condition. The orthodox are against our teaching
because it traverses the "traditions of the elders", and the Modernists are against us
because we are out of date and old-fashioned. It is good at such times to think of the
apostles and take courage from their experience and example.
The Jews were not liked by the Romans, and a Roman Colony particularly would
endeavour to keep them out. About this time the Jews had caused such disturbances at
Rome, that Claudius had expelled them by edict (Acts 18: 2):
"He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at
the instigation of one Chrestus" (Suet. Claud. 25:).
Judaism was a religio licita (a lawful religion) within the Roman Empire, but those in
authority were free to punish any unauthorized introduction of any new object of
worship.
Luke's historical veracity is again evident here. He says that the Apostle was taken to
the "rulers" and brought before the "magistrates". As a colony, Philippi was rather like a
miniature Rome, and justice would therefore be administered in it by two officers called
duumviri. This title was rendered in Greek strategos, the word translated by the A.V.
"magistrate". Inscriptions have been found in Philippi, bearing the names and titles of
duumviri, and one of them, whose name was found at Neapolis, was actually duumvir
when Paul was taken at Philippi.
The men who laid the charge against the Apostle and his companions were too wise to
refer to their private grievances; they were very conscious of the pride that held sway in
a Roman Colony, and it was to this pride that they appealed. Had the Apostle or Silas
uttered the words, Civis Romanus sum ("I am a Roman"), even the pride of Philippi
would have yielded to the pride of Rome, but they evidently refrained and endured the
ignominy of being beaten in the market place. On three occasions the Apostle tells us