EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIAN? 151 



in Christ, hy the gospel.'" This, therefore, was the con- 

 fession for which he declares himself to be in bonds. Now 

 Jet us inquire how the occasion of St. Paul's imprisonment 

 is represented in the history. The apostle had not long re- 

 turned to Jerusalem from his second visit into Greece, when 

 an uproar was excited in that city by the clamor of certain 

 Asiatic Jews, who, "having seen Paul in the temple,. stirred 

 up all the people, and laid hands on him." The charge 

 advanced against him was, that " he taught all men every- 

 where against the people, and the law, and this place ; and 

 further, brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath pol- 

 luted this holy place." The former part of the charge seems 

 to point at the doctrine which he maintained, of the admis- 

 sion of the Gentiles, under the new dispensation, to an in- 

 discriminate participation of God's favor with the Jews. 

 But what follows makes the matter clear. When, by the 

 interference of the chief captain, Paul had been rescued out 

 jf the hands of the populace, and was permitted to address 

 the multitude who had followed him to the stairs of the 

 castle, he delivered a brief account of his birth, of the early 

 course of his life, of his miraculous conversion ; and is pro- 

 ceeding in this narrative, until he comes to describe a vision 

 which was presented to him, as he was praying in the tem- 

 ple ; and which bid him depart out of Jerusalem ; " for I will 

 send thee far hence unto the Gentiles^ Acts 22 : 21. " They 

 gavL. him audience," says the liistorian, '' U7ito this ivord, 

 and then lifted up their voices, and said. Away with such a 

 fellow from the earth." Nothing can show more strongly 

 than this account does, what was the offence which drew 

 down upon St. Paul the vengeance of his countrymen. His 

 mission to the Gentiles, and his open avowal of that mis 

 sion, was the intolerable part of the apostle's crime. But 

 al though the real motive of the prosecution appears to have 

 been the apostle's conduct towards the Gentiles, yet when 

 his accusers came before a Roman magistrate, a charge wae 

 U) be framed of a more legal form. The profanation of the 



