The Arabs in these days have a custom like this; for when any person, who is speaking in public, says anything they disapprove of, they throw dust into the air, to show that they have no respect for the speaker and do not believe what he is saying. St. Paul was now in great danger of being torn in pieces, if the people, who stood raging and shouting round the stairs on which he stood, could catch hold of him. Claudius Lysias saw that the only hope of stopping the uproar, was to take St. Paul out of sight of the enraged multitude. "And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle." But he was as far as ever from knowing what the Jews accused St. Paul of: he did not understand Hebrew, and therefore he had no idea of what had been said; but he naturally thought, that it must be something very wrong to put the people into such a rage. Seeing therefore, that there was no other chance of learning the truth, he now determined to have St. Paul beaten, according to the custom of the Romans, who treated prisoners in this way, in order to make them confess what crimes they had committed. Claudius Lysias therefore, after having had the Apostle brought into the castle, "bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. And as they bound him with thongs" to a pillar, as was usual in such cases, "Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?" The privileges of a Roman, that is, of a Roman citizen, have been explained. The centurion, who commanded the party of soldiers about to scourge the prisoner, was fully aware of the danger of so treating one, who had in any way obtained the freedom of Rome; and therefore, when he heard such words spoken by his prisoner, he at once "went, and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest; for this man is a Roman." Such a startling piece of intelligence, at once brought Claudius to the spot where the prisoner stood bound with thongs to a pillar, with the soldiers round ready to scourge him. "Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him" by this torture: and not only did the chief captain give up all idea of scourging St. Paul, but he "also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him."