All went well during the first days, but the emissaries and agents of James, seeing that my devotion in the Temple might win over the Jews to me, laid another snare, and I was accused of having held converse with Trophimus, an uncircumcised Greek, in the street the day of my arrival in Jerusalem, and this not being a sufficient offence to justify them in stoning me as they had stoned Stephen before my eyes, it was said that I had brought him into the Temple, and the agents of the priests came on the fifth day to drag me out and kill me in some convenient byway, the sacristans closing the doors of the Temple behind me.  We will make an end of this mischief, the hirelings said, and began to look around for stones wherewith to spatter out my brains; they cast off their garments and threw dust into the air, and I should have met my death if the noise had been any less, but it was even greater than the day Stephen died, and the Roman guard came upon the people and drew me out of their hands, saying:  what is the meaning of this?  The Jews could not tell them so great was their anger.

We’ll take him to the castle, the centurion said, and the crowd followed, pressing upon us and casting stones at me till the soldiers had perforce to draw their swords so as to get me to the castle alive.  We were thrown hither and thither, and the violence of the crowd at the foot of the stairs and the pressure obliged the soldiers to carry me up the steps in their arms.  So I turned to the Chief Captain, who was trying in vain to calm the rioters, and said to him in Greek:  may I speak to them?  So thou canst speak Greek? he answered, surprised, and gave me leave to speak, and I said:  Hebrews, listen to a Hebrew like yourselves, and I told of the vision on the road to Damascus, to which they listened, but as soon as the tale was over they cried:  remove him from this world, he is not fit to live.  At these words the centurion, who was anxious to appease the people, signed to his apparitors to seize me, and before I had time to make myself heard these strapped me to the whipping-post, my hands above me.  But is it lawful to scourge a Roman and he uncondemned?  I said to the centurion next to me.  Whereupon the lictors withdrew and the centurion turned to the Chief Captain, who looked me up and down, for, as you see, my appearance did not command respect.  Is it true that thou’rt a Roman citizen? he asked, and I answered, yes, and he was astonished, for he had paid a great deal of money for the title.  But I was born free, I answered him, confusing and perplexing him and putting a great fear in his heart that belike his office might be taken from him for having tied a Roman citizen to the whipping-post, merely that and nothing more.