Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

THE DELIVERANCE.

Peter was now quietly sleeping between his two guards, when his rest was suddenly broken by a smart blow on the side, too energetically given to be mistaken for an accidental knock from the elbow of one of his heavy bed-fellows. Rousing his senses, and opening his eyes, he was startled by a most remarkable light shining throughout his dungeon, which his last waking glance had left in utter darkness. In this unaccountable illumination, he saw standing before him and bending over him, a form in which he could recognize only the divine messenger of deliverance. The shock of such a surprise must have been overwhelming;——to be waked from a sound sleep by an appearance so utterly unearthly, might have struck horror into the stoutest heart; but Peter seems to have suffered no such emotion to hinder his attendance to the heavenly call. The apparition, before he could exercise thought enough to sit up of himself, had raised him up from his bed, and that without the slightest alarm to his still slumbering keepers,——for “immediately the chains fell from his hands,”——a motion which by the rattling of the falling irons should have aroused the sleepers if any sound could have impressed their senses. The impulse of the now unmanacled captive might have been to spring forth his dungeon without the slightest delay, but his deliverer’s next command forbade any such unnecessary haste. His first words were, “Gird thyself; and tie on thy sandals.” Before laying himself down, he had, as usual, thrown off his outer garments and loosened his girdle, so that his under dress need not so much confine him in sleep as to prevent that perfect relaxation which is necessary for comfortable repose. Just as now-a-days, a man in taking up such a lodging as often falls to a traveler’s lot, will seldom do more than pull off his coat and boots, as Peter did, and perhaps unbutton his waist-band and suspenders, so that on a sudden alarm from his rest, the first direction would very properly be, to “gird himself,” (button his trowsers,) “and tie on his sandals,” (put on his shoes or boots.) The next direction given to Peter, also, “Cast thy garment about thee,” (put on thy coat,) would be equally appropriate. The meaning of all this particularity and deliberation was, no doubt, that there was no need whatever of hurry or slyness about the escape. It was not to be considered a mere smart trick of jail-breaking, by which Peter was to crawl out of his dungeon in such a hurry as to leave his coat and shoes behind him, but a truly miraculous providence insuring his deliverance with a completeness and certainty that allowed him to take every thing that belonged to him. Having now perfectly accoutred himself in his ordinary style, Peter immediately obeyed the next order of his deliverer,——“Follow me.” Leaving his two bed-fellows and room-mates sleeping hard, without the slightest idea of the evacuation of the premises which was so deliberately going on, to their great detriment, Peter now passed out through the open door, following the divine messenger in a state of mind altogether indescribable, but still with just sense enough to obey the directions which thus led him on to blissful freedom. The whole scene bore so perfectly the character of one of those enchanting dreams of liberty with which painful hope often cheats the willing senses of the poor captive in slumber, that he might well and wisely doubt the reality of an appearance so tempting, and which his wishes would so readily suggest to his forgetful spirit. But passing on with his conductor, he moved between the sentinels posted at the doors, who were also equally unaware of the movement going on so boldly under their noses, or rather over them, for they, too, were faster bound in slumber than their prisoner had been in his chains; and he now stepped over their outstretched bodies as they lay before the entrances. These soldiers, too, evidently looked upon their duty as a sort of sinecure, rationally concluding that their two stout comrades on the inside were rather more than a match for the fettered and manacled captive, and that if he should be at all obstreperous, or even uneasy, the noise would soon enough awake them from their nap. And thus excessive precaution is very apt to overshoot itself, each part of the arrangement relying too much on the security of all the rest. The two passengers soon reached the great iron gate of the castle, through which they must pass in order to enter the city. But all the seeming difficulties of this passage vanished as soon as they approached it. The gate swung its enormous mass of metal self-moving through the air, and the half-entranced Peter went on beneath the vacant portal, and now stood without the castle, once more a free man in the fresh, pure air. The difficulties and dangers were not all over yet, however. During all the great feast-days, when large assemblies of people were gathered at Jerusalem from various quarters, to guard against the danger of riots and insurrection in these motley throngs,——the armed Roman force on duty, as Josephus relates, was doubled and tripled, occupying several new posts around the temple, and, as the same historian particularly mentions, on the approaches of castle Antonia, where its foundations descended towards the terraces of the temple, and gave access to the colonnades of the temple. On all these places the guard must have been under arms during this passover, and even at night the sentries would be stationed at all the important posts, as a reasonable security against the numerous strangers of a dubious character, who now thronged the city throughout. Yet all these peculiar precautions, which, at this time, presented so many additional difficulties to the escaping apostle, hindered him not in the least. Entering the city, he followed the footsteps of his blessed guide, unchecked, till they had passed on through the first street, when all at once, without sign or word of farewell, the mysterious deliverer vanished, leaving Peter alone in the silent city, but free and safe. Then flashed upon his mind the conviction of the true character of the apparition. The departure of his guide leaving him to seek his own way, his senses were, by the necessity of this self-direction, recalled from the state of stupefaction, in which he had mechanically followed on from the prison. With the first burst of reflection, he broke out in the exclamation, “Now I know of a truth, that the Lord has sent forth his messenger, and has rescued me out of the hand of Herod, in spite of all the expectation of the Jewish people.” Refreshed and encouraged by this impression, he now used his thoroughly awakened senses to find his exact situation, and after looking about him, he made his way through the dark streets to a place where he knew he should find those whose despairing hearts would be inexpressibly rejoiced by the news of his deliverance. This was the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where the disciples were accustomed to assemble. Going up to the gate-way, he rapped on the door, and at once aroused those within; for in their sleepless distress for the imprisoned apostle, several of the brethren had given up all thoughts of sleep, and, as Peter had suspected, were now watching in prayer within this house. The noise of a visitant at this unseasonable hour of the night, immediately brought to the door a lively damsel, named Rhoda; who, according to the Jewish custom of employing females in this capacity, acted as portress of the mansion of Mary. Prudently requiring some account of the person who made this late call, before she opened the door of the persecuted Christians to an unknown and perhaps an ill-disposed character, she was struck with almost frantic joy at hearing the well-known voice of the much mourned Peter, craving admittance. In the highth of her thoughtless gladness, she ran off at once to make known the delightful fact to the disciples in the house, without even seeming to think of the desirableness of admitting the apostle, perhaps because she very naturally wanted to tell such pleasant news first herself. Bursting into the room where the disciples were at prayer for their lamented leader, whom they supposed to be then fast bound for death in the dungeon of Antonia, she communicated the joyful fact, that “Peter was before the gate.” A declaration so extravagantly improbable, at once suggested the idea of her having lost her wits through her affectionate sorrow for the sufferings and anticipated death of the great apostle, and they therefore replied, “Thou art crazy.” Rhoda, somewhat excited by such a provoking expression of incredulity, loudly repeated her slighted piece of good news, and so gravely maintained the truth of it, that some of the more superstitious at last began to think there must be something in it, and seriously suggested, that it must be a supernatural messenger come to give them notice of his certain doom,——“It is his guardian angel.” Peter, however, was all this while standing outside during this grave debate about his real entity, and shivering with the cold of a chilly March night, grew quite impatient at the girl’s inconsiderate folly, and knocked away with might and main, making a noise of most unspiritual character, till at last the disciples determined to cut short the debate by an actual observation; so opening the door to the shivering apostle, the light brought his material existence to a certainty beyond all doubt. Their amazement and joy was bursting forth with a vivacity which quite made up for their previous incredulity; when the apostle, making a hushing sign with his hand,——and with a reasonable fear, too, no doubt, that their obstreperous congratulations might be heard in other houses around, so as to alarm the neighbors and bring out some spiteful Jews, who would procure his detection and recapture,——having obtained silence, went on to give them a full account of his being brought out of prison by the Lord, and after finishing his wonderful story, said to them, “Tell these things to James and the brethren.” From this it would seem that the apostles were all somewhere else, probably having found that a temporary concealment was expedient for their safety, but were still not far from the city. His own personal danger was of so imminent a character, however, that Jerusalem could not be a safe place for him during the search that would be immediately instituted after him by his disappointed and enraged persecutors. It was quite worth while, therefore, for him to use the remaining darkness of the night to complete his escape; and without staying to enjoy their outflowing sympathies, he bade them a hasty farewell, and, as the historian briefly says, went to ANOTHER PLACE. Where this “other place” was, he does not pretend to tell or know, and the only certain inference to be drawn from the circumstance is, that it was beyond the reach or knowledge of the mighty and far-ruling king, who had taken such particular pains to secure Peter’s death. The probabilities as to the real place of his retirement will, however, be given, as soon as the sequel of events in Jerusalem has been narrated, as far as concerns the discovery of his escape.

Bright light.——Some commentators have attempted to make out an explanation of this phenomenon, by referring the whole affair to the effects of a sudden flash and stroke of lightning, falling on the castle, and striking all the keepers senseless,——melting Peter’s chains, and illuminating the place, so that Peter, unhurt amid the general crash, saw this opportunity for escaping, and stepping over their prostrate bodies, made his way out of the prison, and was out of sight before they came to. The most important objection to this ingenious speculation is, that it directly contradicts every verse in Luke’s account of the escape, as well as the general spirit of the narrative. Another weighty reason is, that the whole series of natural causes and effects, proposed as a substitute for the simple meaning, is brought together in such forced and uncommon coincidences, as to require a much greater effort of faith and credulity for its belief, than the miraculous view, which it quite transcends in incredibility. The introduction of explanations of miracles by natural phenomena, is justifiable only so far as these may illustrate the accompaniments of the event, by showing the mode in which those things which are actually mentioned as physical results, operated in producing the impressions described. Thus, when thunder and lightning are mentioned in connection with miraculous events, they are to be considered as real electrical discharges, made to accompany and manifest the presence of God; and where lambent flames are described as appearing in a storm, they, like the corpos santos, are plainly also results of electrical discharges. So too, when mighty winds are mentioned, they are most honestly taken to be real winds, and not deceptive sounds or impressions; and when a cloud is mentioned, it is but fair to consider it a real cloud, made up, like all other clouds, of vapor, and not a mere non-entity, or a delusion existing only in the minds of those who are mentioned as beholding it. But where nothing of this kind is spoken of, and where a distinct personal presence is plainly declared, the attempt to substitute a physical accident for such an apparition, is a direct attack on the honesty of the statement. Such attempts, too, are devoid of the benefits of such illustrations as I have alluded to as desirable; they bring in a new set of difficulties with them, without removing any of those previously obstructing the interpretation of the facts. In this case, the only circumstance which could be reasonably made to agree with the idea of lightning, is the mention of the bright light; while throughout the whole account, the presence of a supernaturally mysterious person, acting and speaking, is perfectly unquestionable. The violation of all probability, shown in this forced explanation, will serve as a fair instance of the mode in which many modern German critics are in the habit of distorting the simple, manifest sense of the sacred writers, for the sake of dispensing with all supernatural occurrences. (See Kuinoel for an enlarged view and discussion of this opinion. Other views of the nature of the phenomenon are also given by him, and by Rosenmueller, on Acts xii. 7.)

Morning dawned at last upon the towers and temple-columns of the Holy City. On the gold-sheeted roofs and snowy-pillared colonnades of the house of God, the sunlight poured with a splendor hardly more glorious than the insupportable brilliancy that was sent back from their dazzling surfaces, streaming like a new morning upon the objects around, whose nearer sides would otherwise have been left in shade by the eastern rays. Castle Antonia shared in this general illumination, and at the first blaze of sunrise, the order of Roman service announced the moment for relieving guard. The bustle of the movement of the new sentries towards their stands, must at last have reached the ears of Peter’s forsaken companions. Their first waking thoughts would of course be on their responsible charge, and they now became for the first time aware of the important deficiency. In vain did their heavy eyes, at first winking with sleepiness, but now wide open with amazement, search the dim vacancy for their eloped bed-fellow. The most inquisitive glance fell only on the blank space between them, scarcely blanker than the forlorn visages of the poor keepers, who saw in this disappearance the seal of their certain death, for having let the prisoner escape. But they had not much time to consider their misfortune, or condole upon it; for the change of sentries now brought to the door the quaternion whose turn on duty came next. With a miserable grace did the unhappy occupants of the cell show themselves at the open door, with the empty chains and fetters dangling at their sides, from which their late companion had so curiously slipped. Most uncomfortable must have been the aspect of things to the two sentinels who had been keeping their steady watch outside of the door, and who shared equally with the inside keepers, in the undesirable responsibilities of this accident. There stood their comrades with the useless chains displayed in their original attachments; but, amazing! what in the world had they done with the prisoner? The ludicrous distress and commotion resulting from this unpleasant revelation, was evidently well appreciated even by the sacred historian, whose brief but pithy expression is not without a latent comic force. “There was no small stir among the soldiers to know what was become of Peter.” A general search into all the holes and corners of the dungeon, of course, ensued; and the castle was no doubt ransacked from top to bottom for the runaway, whose escape from its massive gates seemed still impossible. But not even his cloak and sandals, which he had laid beside him at the last change of guards,——not a shred, not a thread had been left to hint at the mode of his abstraction. Yet this was so bad a story for the ears of the royal Agrippa, that it would not do to give up the search while any chance whatever remained. But all rummaging was perfectly fruitless; and with sorrowful hearts, they now went with their report to the vindictive king, to acknowledge that most unpardonable crime in Roman soldiers,——to have slept on their posts, so that a prisoner of state had escaped on the eve of execution.

Baronius, (Church Annuals, 44, § 8,) speaking of Peter’s escape from his chains, favors us with a solemn statement of the important and interesting circumstance, deriving the proofs from Metaphrastes, (that prince of papistical liars, and grand source of Romish apostolical fables,) that these very chains of Peter are still preserved at Rome, among other venerable relics of equal authenticity; having been faithfully preserved, and at last found after the lapse of four hundred years. The veritable history of this miraculous preservation, as given by the inventive Metaphrastes, is, that the said chains happened to fall into the hands of one of Agrippa’s servants who was a believer in Christ, and so were handed down for four centuries, and at last brought to light. It is lamentable that the list of the various persons through whose hands they passed, is not given, though second in importance only to the authentic record of the papal succession. This impudent and paltry falsehood will serve as a fair specimen of a vast quantity of such stuff, which litters up the pages of even the sober ecclesiastical histories of many papistical writers. The only wonderful thing to me about this story is, that Cave has not given it a place in his Lives of the Apostles, which are made up with so great a portion of similar trash.

Baronius, in connection with this passage, suggests the castle of Antonia as the most probable place of Peter’s confinement. “Juxta templum fortasse in ea munitissima turri quae dicebatur Antonia.” (Baronius, Church Annuals, C. 44, § 5.) A conjecture which certainly adds some weight to my own supposition to that effect; although I did not discover the coincidence in time to mention it in my note on page [194.]

Meanwhile, with the early day, up rose the royal Agrippa from his purple couch, to seize the first moment after the close of the passover for the consummation of the doom of the wretched Galilean, who, by the royal decree, must now yield the life already too many days spared, out of delicate scruple about the inviolate purity of that holy week. Up rose also the saintly princes of the Judaic law, coming forth in their solemn trains and broad phylacteries, to grace this most religious occasion with their reverend presence, out of respectful gratitude to their great sovran for his considerate disposition to accord the sanction of his absolute secular power to their religious sentence. Expectation stood on tiptoe for the comfortable spectacle of the streaming life-blood of this stubborn leader of the Nazarene heresy, and nothing was wanting to the completion of the ceremony, but the criminal himself. That “desideratum, so much to be desired,” was, however, not so easily supplied; for the entrance of the delinquent sentinels now presented the non-est-inventus return to the solemn summons for the body of their prisoner. Confusion thrice confounded now fell on the faces that were just shining with anticipated triumph over their hated foe, while secret, scornful joy illuminated the countenances of the oppressed friends of Jesus. But on the devoted minions of the baffled king, did his disappointed vengeance fall most cruelly; in his paroxysm of vexation, and for an event wholly beyond their control they now suffered an undeserved death; making so tragical a catastrophe to a story otherwise decidedly comical, that the reader can only comfort himself with the belief that they were a set of insolent reprobates who had insulted the distresses of their frequent victims, and would have rejoiced in the bloody execution of the apostle.

King Herod Agrippa, after this miserable failure in his attempt to “please the Jews,” does not seem to have made a very long stay in Jerusalem. Before his departure, however, to secure his own solid glory and his kingdom’s safety, as well as the favor of his subjects, he not only continued the repairs of the temple, but instituted such improvements in the fortifications of the city, as, if ever completed, would have made it utterly impregnable even to a Roman force; so that the emperor’s jealousy soon compelled him to abandon this work; and soon after he left Jerusalem, and went down to Caesarea Augusta, on the sea-coast, long the seat of government of Palestine, and a more agreeable place for the operations of a Gentile court and administration, (for such Agrippa’s must have been from his Roman residence,) than the punctilious religious capital of Judea. But he was not allowed to remain much longer on the earth, to hinder the progress of the truth, by acts of tyranny in subservience to the base purposes of winning the favor of his more powerful subjects. The hand of God was laid destroyingly on him, in the midst of what seemed the full fruition of that popular adulation for which he had lived,——in which he now died. Arrayed in a splendid and massy robe of polished silver, he seated himself on the throne erected by his grandfather Herod, in the great Herodian theater at Caesarea, early in the morning of the day which was appointed for the celebration of the great festal games, in honor of his royal patron, Claudius Caesar. On this occasion, to crown his kingly triumph, the embassadors of the great commercial Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, appeared before him to receive his condescending answer to their submissive requests for the re-establishment of a friendly intercourse between his dominions and theirs,——the agricultural products of the former being quite essential to the thriving trade of the latter. Agrippa’s reply was now publicly given to them, in which he graciously granted all their requests, in such a tone of eloquent benignity, that the admiring assembly expressed their approbation in shouts of praise, and at last some bold adulators catching the idea from the rays of dazzling light which flashed from the polished surfaces of his metallic robe, and threw a sort of glory over and around him, cried out, in impious exclamation, “It is the voice of a God, and not of a man.” So little taste had the foolish king, that he did not check this pitiful outbreak of silly blasphemy; but sat swallowing it all, in the most unmoved self-satisfaction. But in the midst of this profane glory, he was called to an account for which it ill prepared him. In the expressive though figurative language of Luke,——“immediately the messenger of the Lord struck him, because he gave not the glory to God.” The Jewish historian, too, in a similar manner assigns the reason. “The king did not rebuke the flatterers, nor refuse their impious adulation. Shortly after he was seized with a pain in the belly, dreadfully violent from the beginning. Turning to his friends he said, ‘Behold! I, your god, am now appointed to end my life,——the decree of fate having at once falsified the voices that but just now were uttering lies about me; and I, who have been called immortal by you, am now carried off dying.’ While he uttered these words he was tortured by the increasing violence of his pain, and was accordingly carried back to his palace. After five days of intense anguish, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh of his reign; having reigned four years under Caius Caesar, and three under Claudius.” Thus ended the days of the conscience-stricken tyrant, while the glorious gospel cause which he had so vainly thought to check and overthrow, now, in the words of Luke, “grew and was multiplied;” the spiteful Jews having lost the right arm of their persecuting authority, in the death of their king, and all Palestine now passing again under the direct Roman rule, whose tolerant principles became once more the great protection of the followers of Jesus.

Agrippa’s death.——My combination of the two different accounts given by Luke and Josephus of this event, I believe accords with the best authorities; nor am I disposed, as Michaelis is, to reject Josephus’s statement as irreconcilable with that in the Acts, though deficient in some particulars, which are given in the latter, and though not rightly apprehending fully the motives and immediate occasions of many things which he mentions. In the same way, too, several minor circumstances are omitted in Luke, which can be brought in from Josephus so as to give a much more vivid idea of the whole event, than can be learned from the Acts alone. (See Michaelis’s introduction to the New Testament,——on Luke. Also Wolf and Kuinoel.)

PETER’S PLACE OF REFUGE.