Ib. v. 24.  “Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads.”

Joseph.  Antiq. 1. xix. c. 6.  “He (Herod Agrippa) coming to Jerusalem, offered up sacrifices of thanksgiving, and omitted nothing that was prescribed by the law.  For which reason he also ordered a good number of Nazarites to be shaved.”  We here find that it was an act of piety amongst the Jews to defray for those who were under the Nazaritic vow the expenses which attended its completion; and that the phrase was, “that they might be saved.”  The custom and the expression are both remarkable, and both in close conformity with the Scripture account.

XXXI. [p. 474.] 2 Cor. xi. 24.  “Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one.”

Joseph.  Antiq. iv. c. 8, sect. 21.  “He that acts contrary hereto let him receive forty stripes, wanting one, from the officer.”

The coincidence here is singular, because the law allowed forty stripes:—­“Forty stripes he may give him and not exceed.”  Deut. xxv. 3.  It proves that the author of the Epistle to the Corinthians was guided not by books, but by facts; because his statement agrees with the actual custom, even when that custom deviated from the written law, and from what he must have learnt by consulting the Jewish code, as set forth in the Old Testament.

XXXII. [p. 490.] Luke iii. 12.  “Then came also publicans to be baptized.”  From this quotation, as well as from the history of Levi or Matthew (Luke v. 29), and of Zaccheus (Luke xix. 2), it appears that the publicans or tax-gatherers were, frequently at least, if not always, Jews:  which, as the country was then under a Roman government, and the taxes were paid to the Romans, was a circumstance not to be expected.  That it was the truth, however, of the case appears from a short passage of Josephus.

De Bell. lib. ii. c. 14, sect. 45.  “But Florus not restraining these practices by his authority, the chief men of the Jews, among whom was John the publican, not knowing well what course to take, wait upon Florus and give him eight talents of silver to stop the building.”

XXXIII. [p. 496.] Acts xxii. 25.  “And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?”

“Facinus est vinciri civem Romanum; scelus verberari.”  Cic. in Verr.

“Caedebatur virgis, in medio foro Messanae, civis Romanus, Judices:  cum interea nullus gemitus, nulla vox alia, istius miseri inter dolorem crepitumque plagarum audiebatur, nisi haec, Civis Romanus sum.”

XXXIV. [p. 513] Acts xxii. 27.  “Then the chief captain came, and said unto him (Paul), Tell me, Art thou a Roman?  He said Yea.”  The circumstance to be here noticed is, that a Jew was a Roman citizen.

Joseph.  Antiq. lib. xiv. c. 10, sect. 13.  “Lucius Lentulna, the consul, declared, I have dismissed from the service the Jewish Roman citizens, who observe the rites of the Jewish religion at Ephesus.”