Up to this point the multitude listened to the Apostle with the deepest attention, but no sooner had he spoken of his mission to the Gentiles, than they broke out into such furious cries of rage and indignation that the previous clamour appeared as nothing in comparison. The thought of uncircumcised heathen being placed on an equality with the children of Abraham was unbearable. _Away_, they cried, _with such a fellow from the earth, it is not fit that he should live_, and while some flung dust into the air, others cast off their clothes, as if they would stone him on the spot (comp. Acts vii. 58). This fresh outbreak of frantic violence filled the commandant with still greater perplexity. Unable to understand the language in which the Apostle spake, he could only infer from the results it produced that his prisoner had been guilty of some enormous offence. He therefore gave orders that he should be conveyed into the castle, and, since other means had failed, that the secret of his guilt should be ascertained by torture. As in the case of the Saviour’s crucifixion[1083], a centurion was deputed to superintend the scourging, and like a common malefactor the Apostle was on the point of being stretched or fastened to the post to receive the lashes, when he turned to the centurion and enquired whether it was lawful to scourge one who was a Roman citizen and uncondemned (Acts xxii. 25)? Astonished at such a question, the centurion ordered the scourging to be suspended, and hurrying to the commandant, bade him take heed what he was doing, for the prisoner was a Roman citizen. Upon this Lysias himself hastened to the spot and enquired whether the news was true, and on his replying in the affirmative, remarked that he had purchased this privilege for a large sum, on which St Paul informed him that he was free-born (Acts xxii. 28). Thus assured of the true position of his prisoner, the commandant ordered the instruments of torture to be instantly removed, and was in no little alarm at the turn affairs had taken.