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. 27: 30),

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 to-day to judge whether Paul was right or

wrong when he replied, "God shall smite thee, thou withed 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 Priest", and supplements his

acknowledgment by quoting Scripture against himself: "For it is written, Thou shalt not

speak evil of the ruler of thy people" (Acts 23: 5). Did Paul's words "I wist not" mean

that, through defective vision, he had not recognized the High Priest? Or did they mean

that, knowing the character of Ananias, and that he had attained his office through

bribery, and had ruled as a tyrant, he refused to recognize such a man as a true holder of

the office. Calvin and others have suggested that Paul spoke ironically, but none of these

explanations seems to square with the Apostle's retraction, and it would seem that Paul

frankly acknowledged that he had committed an offence, even though the pressure under

which it had been committed had been almost unbearable. Those who criticize the

Apostle's swift resentment should remember and follow his equally swift

Just as earlier Paul had been seen that suffering at the hands of the Roman captain

would accomplish no good end, so now he perceives that further conciliation in his

attitude towards the Sanhedrin would be fruitless. He therefore throws into their midst

the apple of discord, and so divides his judges into the two opposing factions of Pharisees

and Sadducees. He eventually has to be saved from being "pulled in pieces" by the

advent of the Roman guard. The Apostle was evidently not altogether happy about this

expedient as we see from his acknowledgment before Felix:

When we consider the extreme danger in which the Apostle often stood, and the

violence, confusion, and uncertainty in which he lived, the wonder is, not that he

occasionally manifested that he was indeed a man of like passions with ourselves, but

that he endured so nobly, and followed the Lord so closely. We love the earthen vessel,

but, like Paul himself, we look for perfection in One only, our Saviour and Lord.

If Paul's words spoken before Felix seem to point in one direction, the Lord's words,

as recorded in Acts 23: 11, seem to point in the other: "Be of good cheer, Paul; for as

thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." We