AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH UPON THE NEW TESTAMENT. 163 



which the great mob cried so enthusiastically and madly, 

 " Great is Diana of the Ephesians," and where the town clerk 

 at last calmed the tumult, calling Ephesus the v€(OK6po<; of the 

 Goddess Diana. Inscriptions found in Wood's explorations at 

 Ephesus contain this very title as applied to the city. 



Thus again archaeology confirms the accuracy of the narrative 

 of the Acts, and history does the same. 



(14) The Egyptian Assassins. — When Paul was falsely 

 accused of desecrating the temple at J erusalem, and was rescued 

 by the commander in the castle of Antonia, Lysias asked 

 him, "Art not thou that Egyptian who, before these days, 

 stirred up to sedition and led out into the wilderness the four 

 thousand men of the assassins ?" (Acts xxi, 38.) We turn to 

 Antiquities, XX, viii, 6, and find that an Egyptian proclaimed 

 himself a prophet and headed a sedition about five years before 

 this time. 



(15) Felix. — Lysias sent Paul to the procurator Eelix at 

 Caesarea, and we find that Eelix was the procurator at that 

 time. The low and covetous character of Eelix is shown by his 

 keeping Paul in prison for two years, hoping to gain a bribe for 

 his liberation. Eelix was the freedman of the Emperor 

 Claudius, and we are by this act reminded of the epigrammatic 

 characterization of him by Tacitus.* 



(16) Eestus. — We find in the Acts that Eestus succeeded 

 Eelix as Procurator. Josephus (Antiquities, XX, viii, 9) tells us 

 the same. Josephus represents him as a much better man than 

 Eelix, and the account in the Acts indicates this, though no 

 explicit statement to that effect is made. 



(17) Agrippa II. — At the very beginning of his administra- 

 tion, he receives a visit from King Agrippa II., and Paul's case 

 is referred to him for his advice. In his Wcu^s and Antiquities 

 J osephus tells much about this Herod Agrippa, the great grand- 

 son of Herod the Great — and in this presentation of the case to 

 him we have a glimpse of the complicated system of government 

 in Judea at the time. But Luke never makes a mistake in 

 his narrative where it touches upon it. The presence of the 

 notorious Bernice and the pomp and show of the occasion 

 are in keeping with what we know from other sources. Paul's 

 appeal, too, is in strict accord with Ptoman usage in the case of 

 those having Roman citizenship.! 



* Antonius Felix, per omnem saevitiam ao libidinem, jus regiam 

 servili ingenio exercuit. Tacitus, Histories, Y, 9. 



t " There were others brought before me possessed with the same 



M 2 



