Discovering Paul – Chapter 11: Paul the Prisoner
11. Paul the Prisoner
Any picture of Paul taken during his life would have had to be a moving picture. He was never still long enough for any other kind. If the twentieth century were to follow Paul’s itinerary we would do so by having a team from ‘60 minutes’ follow him on his intrepid journeys, interviewing him in difficult situations and flying news teams to remote places in order to grab a news story from the midst of a riot or a stoning. He would be commissioned by some university to take a sabbatical year’s leave, to write a book and to deliver in print his theology and thoughts.
Although the first century had none of these techniques, the result was almost the same: Luke despatched himself to travel with Paul and wrote first-hand eyewitness accounts of many of the events of his journeys, his account being called The Acts of the Apostles. Paul never took a sabbatical year or wrote a book. Instead, by the force of circumstances while imprisoned, he wrote letters to those churches he could not now personally visit. Those epistles from prison make up the bulk of our New Testament.
In this sense we can be thankful for the times of imprisonment faced by Paul, because it was only enforced imprisonment which caused him to write instead of lecturing and speaking.
Imprisonment was not used as a punishment for people as such in New Testament times: accused persons were being held in custody until judgment. People who were regarded as dangerous, who were arrested for crimes, and who were taken into temporary custody, were imprisoned in what were some of the worst detention centres imaginable. Sometimes these consisted of dungeons, deep wells, unsanitary cells and sometimes ‘the court of the guard’ which was detention within the guards’ quarters.
Punishment for the accused in the first century was by crucifixion (for only the worst offenders), beheading, impaling and stoning as capital punishment; being condemned to the mines for the term of one’s natural life (damnatus in metallum); scourging; hauling a millstone or a grindstone on an endless track; or by branding with a red hot iron on the forehead ‘F’ for fugitivus in the case of a runaway slave. Exile into a lonely place, such as John’s Isle of Patmos, was frequent for political prisoners. People who were imprisoned until their trials were usually held by chains, fetters and stocks.
However, it was illegal to treat a Roman citizen by these means of punishment. Augustus’ decree lex Judia de vi publica had made it a crime to imprison or scourge a Roman citizen. Because of his citizenship Paul had such immunity. Occasionally he called upon that immunity, on one occasion saying to the police officers:
We were not found guilty of any crime, yet [the Roman officials] whipped us in public – and we are Roman citizens! Then they threw us in prison. And now they want to send us away secretly. Not at all! The Roman officials themselves must come here and let us out. The police officers reported these words to the Roman official; and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were afraid. So they went and apologised to them; then they let them out of the prison and asked them to leave the city. 1
However, there were times when this immunity was not respected:
Five times I was given the thirty-nine lashes by the Jews; three times I was whipped by the Romans; and once I was stoned. 2
A Roman citizen could be tried by the local governor in council or by direct appeal to the Emperor himself. Paul was to use both of these rights at times when it was obvious he could not receive a fair trial from those prejudiced against him.
Paul had a favourite saying which he dictated to a number of churches: ‘We have complete victory!’ It is important to note where Paul was declaring complete victory: it was while he was in stocks in a prison somewhere! On most of these occasions he had suffered excruciation pain through physical punishment and was confined awaiting further judgment. Yet in such circumstances he declared complete victory for the faith through what had happened to him. An autobiography of the apostle could have been written simply round the prisons in which he spent time under the heading ‘Prisons I have known’!
However, there is a very little evidence of the circumstances of those prisons even though Paul wrote out of them. He was not full of complaints and rarely alluded to his circumstances except for occasional comments about being in bonds. On one occasion in his final letter from Rome to Timothy, he spoke of his personal needs:
Do your best to come to me soon. Demas…has deserted me … Crescens went to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he can help me in the work. I sent Tychicus to Epesus. When you come, bring my coat that I left in Troas with Carpus; bring the books too, especially the ones made of parchment. 3
Archeologists have been able to recover some sites where Paul many have been imprisoned, but because prisons were usually deep dark recesses within otherwise nondescript buildings, the likelihood of finding the cells in which Paul was held is most remote.
Imprisoned in Philippi
Paul and Silas were arrested for healing a demented girl. The owners of the slave girl saw that their opportunity to earn money, by using her mentally unbalanced ravings to predict fortunes for people, was gone. In anger they had Paul and Silas charged and imprisoned for loss of income. It is interesting that Timothy and Luke were not gaoled even though they were present with Paul and Silas. This is probably because they were Gentiles and not Jewish-looking. This event occurred during a wave of anti-semitism which spread through the empire after expulsion of Jews from Rome by the Emperor Claudius in AD 49. It was in the following months that Paul was in Philippi. Both Paul and Silas were beaten by the Lictors’ rods, and cast into prison with their feet in stocks and chained to the wall. It was at midnight while they were singing hymns that they were miraculously released through an earthquake which separated their stocks, and they were able to walk out through the fallen doors. The gaoler rushed in with a light and, supposing the prisoner had escaped, was about to kill himself rather than face the disgrace. Paul and Silas spoke of their faith to him with the result that he washed them, bound up their wounds, believed in Jesus Christ and was baptised. The following morning the Roman authorities ordered the police officers to release the men and Paul, as a Roman citizen, demanded an apology from the public officials for being whipped. The speed with which the apology arrived indicates how well they knew the law that placed them under threat of death for imprisoning and whipping Roman citizens.
Imprisoned in Ephesus
We wish we had more details of this imprisonment. Paul indicated that ‘I have, as it were, fought wild beasts here in Ephesus’ 4 and that ‘there is a real opportunity [in Ephesus] for a great and worthwhile work, even though there are many opponents.’ 5 He also wrote:
We want to remind you, brothers, of the trouble we had in the province of Asia [a way of referring to the area around Ephesus]. The burdens laid upon us were so great and so heavy that we gave up all hope of staying alive. We felt that the death sentence had been passed on us. But this happened so that we should rely, not on ourselves, but only on God, who raises the dead. From such terrible dangers of death he saved us. 6
We know that in Ephesus he was strongly opposed by the local silversmiths under the leadership of Demetrius and the Jews from the local synagogue who plotted against him. These Jews may have been ones who ‘saw Paul in the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and grabbed Paul.’ 7 The riot continued and the crowd gathered in the theatre. This beautiful theatre in Ephesus still stands today and seated 24,500 people. As a result Gaius and Aristarchus, two Macedonians who were travelling with Paul, were dragged off for punishment.
It is possible that Paul was imprisoned at this time and, if so, he probably wrote some of his letters from this prison, particularly the letters to the Philippians and to Philemon. It is possible that it was here Paul met Onesimus the run-away slave from Colossae, just one hundred miles to the east. However, Onesimus could just as easily have met Paul in Rome because, especially in those days, ‘all roads lead to Rome’. At tower overlooking the city called St Paul’s prison is quite unlikely to have been the site of Paul’s imprisonment, yet it does keep alive the tradition that Paul was imprisoned during his time in Ephesus.
Imprisoned in Jerusalem
Paul realised that returning to Jerusalem after the third missionary journey would be dangerous. While he was on his way toward Jerusalem, Agabus came from Jerusalem and warned him against continuing. Paul made a significant financial collection from among the Christian Gentiles to help the poor, the widows and the orphans of Jerusalem. He also paid the expenses of four Hebrew Christians who were involved in a Nazarite rite, and he fasted. He believed this would pacify the opponents of the early church. However, the Jews from Turkey, probably from Ephesus, thought he had taken Trophimus from Ephesus, whom they recognised, into the sacred precincts of the temple, an area out-of-bounds to Gentiles, a fact affirmed by two inscriptions discovered by archeologists in 1871 and in 1931. In three languages it stated: ‘No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the Temple and its enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.’ In the riot that followed Paul had to be rescued by soldiers stationed in the Castle of Antonia.
Paul was imprisoned overnight in the Tower of Antonia, one of the four towers erected by Herod the Great. It was while he was in this prison that his sister’s son came and warned Claudius Lysias that there was a threat against Paul’s life. Claudius was not willing for further disturbances to take place in the heart of the city so, in the middle of the night, he ordered 200 soldiers, seventy horsemen and 200 spearmen to take Paul and to march to safety in Caesarea. Paul was provided with a horse for the journey and the soldiers were force-marched during the night to Antipatris, thirty-five miles distant. There the foot soldiers were left behind and the next day Paul, still under guard and accompanied by seventy cavalry, rode on a further twenty-five miles to Caesarea on the coast, taking with him a letter of explanation to Governor Felix. Here Paul was kept once more in prison under guard in the governor’s headquarters.
Imprisoned in Caesarea
When Paul arrived at Caesarea with the detachment of horsemen keeping him safe, he was taken immediately to the governor’s fort and kept under guard in the praetorium. This prison was going to be Paul’s home for the next two years. The guard room in the old palace was apparently of some size and it was possible for Christians in Caesarea to visit him during that time.
Herod the Great built this magnificent city on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea as a tribute to Caesar and as a place for rest and recreation for himself and for Roman troops stationed in Palestine. The Roman centurion whom Peter converted was stationed here and a church began here following his conversion. It was here that Paul was tried before Festus and Herod Agrippa before he sailed to Rome.
Paul made a very precise defence before the high priest Ananias, some elders and a lawyer named Tertullus who appeared with the charges against Paul before the governor Felix. Paul’s defence before Felix is a masterpiece of presentation. Paul discussed goodness, self-control and the coming day of judgment with the result that Felix was afraid. The governor was living in an adulterous relationship at the time and Paul’s blunt words must have hurt him. Marcus Antonius Felix was a remarkable man, a freedman who rose with administrative ability and skill to be governor of Judea. Tacitus said, ‘he exercised the power of a king with the mind of a slave.’ 8
He hoped that Paul would eventually buy his freedom from him and frequently spoke to Paul with an eye for some personal return. After being in prison for two years, ‘Porcius Festus succeeded Felix as governor. Felix wanted to gain favour with the Jews so he left Paul in prison.’ 9 So once more Paul had to defend himself, this time before the new governor Festus. After hearing Paul’s defence he still left him in prison until the visit to Caesarea of King Agrippa and his sister Bernice. Once more Paul gave testimony to his faith in Christ and, before the king, the governor and the military chiefs, Paul defended himself telling of his conversion and his preaching.
At the end of this presentation the decision was made: ‘This man has not done anything for which he should die or be put in prison’ but because Paul had appealed to the Emperor it was decided that he should be then sent to Rome. 10 Paul insisted on his case being heard before the Emperor because the Jews kept insisting that they should try Paul under their own jurisdiction and Paul knew that there could be only one result of they were in charge. Paul was to face at least four more years of imprisonment before going to Rome.
During his time in Caesarea the local Christians provided him with support, visiting him and giving him encouragement. In Caesarea were Philip and his four daughters, Cornelius and all his household who had been converted by the apostle Peter, and some like Agabus who would have travelled out from Jerusalem.
Imprisoned in Rome
‘And so we came to Rome.’ 11 This was the destination for which Paul had longed. After landing at Puteoli and staying there seven days with local Christians, Paul moved up the Via Appia, so called because the road commenced under the 550-year-old aqueduct built by Appius which brought water into Rome. While they were still forty miles from Rome they were met by Christians who came out of the city to meet him at the place of the Three Taverns in the Appii Forum. When Paul was brought to Rome he was imprisoned under the care of the personal guard of a stratopedarchos or camp commandant. For the next two years Paul stayed under house arrest, living in his own house at his own expense, but nevertheless still chained to a soldier. This soldier was changed every eight hours and so in each twenty-four hour period Paul had at least three persons as a captive congregation. Some of these soldiers eventually became Christians and amongst them ‘those who belong to the Emperor’s household.’ 12 While he was in this house Jews came to visit him and to ask him to explain more about his understanding of the Messiah. A number of Christians constantly visited and stayed with him. Rome was the home of Priscilla and Aquila and others had become Christians dating back even to the first day of Pentecost. By the time Paul wrote the letter to the church at Rome, as is evidenced from the sixteenth chapter, there were scores of people who were believers in the Roman capital under the leadership of people like Phoebe. Some of their names indicate that they belonged to noble families. Some years earlier Peter had visited the church at Rome and the church had grown from his ministry.
It was while Paul was in this Roman prison that he could say:
The things that have happened to me have really helped the progress of the gospel. As a result, the whole palace guard and all the others here know that I am in prison because I am a servant of Christ. And my being in prison has given most of the brothers more confidence in the Lord, so that they grow bolder all the time to preach the message fearlessly. 13
It is probable that after some two years Paul was released following a successful first hearing. There is some evidence that in the year AD 62 the Emperor Nero, in an act of clemency, released numerous prisoners who had not been brought to trial because of lack of prosecution witnesses.
Paul now probably had a period of two years of freedom during which Rome was the base of his ministry. He had with him Mark, Jesus Justus, Aristarchus, Timothy and Luke as well as some others. It may have been here that he had the support of Epaphroditus. Paul not only helped to strengthen the church during these two years of comparative freedom in Rome, but tradition indicates he may have visited Spain, that far western country which had been one of his prime objectives.
There was plenty of opportunity for Paul to preach the gospel. Approximately one million people, half of whom were slaves, lived in the city of Rome in a densely-populated community only twelve miles in circumference. We read that it was expensive to live in the heart of the city, that rentals were extremely high, but that the gift brought by Epaphroditus from Philippi possibly helped Paul to pay his way. Paul probably stayed in one of the Rome’s large tenement buildings, some of which were so large they were called insulae – islands. Shops and offices filled the ground floor and people lived on at least seven storeys above. Roman writers like Juvenal commented about having to climb 200 steps to reach their top-storey flats.
With the burning of Rome in AD 64, Paul’s freedom was quickly brought to an end. The five-day fire which started on 18 July burnt out a large section of the city.
In AD 62 Nero had married Poppaeia who was a Jewish proselyte. He had a love/hate relationship with her and because of her support for the Jews, she probably helped establish his hatred for them. The historians Tacitus and Suetonius both refer to the rumour that Nero himself may have ordered the fire in order to clear out a large part of Rome for rebuilding.
Tacitus says: ‘Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for its abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberitus at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crossed, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty that they were being destroyed.’ 14
It is probable that Paul died at this time. It must have been about then he said: ‘The time is here for me to leave this life. I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith. And now there is waiting for me the prize of victory awarded for a righteous life, the prize which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day – and not only to me, but to all who wait with love for him to appear.’ 15
It is possible that Paul was imprisoned in the Mamertine prison. He was possibly executed by beheading with a sword. This could have been at Aquae Salviae, at the third milestone on the Ostian Way. The Christians erected a small monument on the site and a basilica was built over the traditional tomb of Paul. This church, San Paolo fuori le mura (St Paul’s Outside the Walls), was completed in AD 398 and remained standing for 1400 years until fire destroyed it in 1823. The present church was built over it. In 1835 during the rebuilding archeologists found a fourth-century tablet in the lowest part of the basilica’s crypt with the words ‘To Paul, Apostle and Martyr’. He had been buried in what the Romans regarded as a pagan burial ground. Paul would have regarded this as appropriate.
He was buried in the city that persecuted him, which itself was to fall to the faith that Paul proclaimed. The day would come when people throughout the world would call their dogs ‘Nero’ and their sons ‘Paul’.
Looking back over his years of imprisonment and suffering for his faith, Paul could confidently say that he was victorious in spite of everything.
Endnotes:
1. Acts 16:37-39
2. 2 Corinthians 11:24-25
3. 2 Timothy 4:9-13
4. 1 Corinthians 15:32
5. 1 Corinthians 16:9
6. 2 Corinthians 1:8-10
7. Acts 21:27
8. Tacitus: History, 5:9, Sir Ronald Syme (trans.), OUP, 1958
9. Acts 24:27
10. Acts 26:31
11. Acts 28:14
12. Philippians 4:22
13. Philippians 1:12-13
14. Tacitus, Annals, Book XV, 44
15. 2 Timothy 4:6-8
For personal reading
Theme: Bound in body but free in spirit
Monday : Believe and be saved (Acts 16:16-34)
Tuesday : Jesus in the Christ (Colossians 2:1-15)
Wednesday : Victory in Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:13-20)
Thursday : Assurance to witnesses (Acts 23:1-11)
Friday : A prisoner in command (Acts 27:21-38)
Saturday : Preaching the Kingdom of God (Acts 28:16-30)
Sunday : Imprisonment for Christ (Philippians 1:12-18)
For group reading
Topic: Complete victory for the faith
1. What was Paul’s response to his beatings, imprisonments, stonings and persecutions? Why did he react in this way?
2. How should Christians today face persecutions? Can you share some modern examples?
3. Paul seemed to be gainfully active in spite of being imprisoned. What were some of the results of his work and witness in prisons?
4. Rome was special in Paul’s life. What were some of the highlights of his visit to Rome?
5. How would you describe the life of Paul? What was the most significant thing in his life? What can we learn from him?