2 Corinthians 11:25

Thrice was I beaten with rods See Acts 16:22-23, and note on 2 Corinthians 11:23. Thispunishment is also said frequently to have caused the death of the victim. It was inflicted by the Romans on those who did not possess the privilege of Roman citizenship, Acts 22:25. A precisely similar scene to that in the Acts is recorded in Cicero in Verremv. 62, where the victim is said to have uttered the well-known words, Civis Romanus sum. Cicero here invokes the -lex Porcia," by which the beating a Roman citizen with rods, which had been formerly lawful, was forbidden. See Livy, 2 Corinthians 10:9, "gravi poena si quis verberasset necassetve civem Romanum," and cf. Sallust, Catilina, c. 51.

once was I stoned See Acts 14:19. Clement of Rome, St Paul's companion and friend (Philippians 4:3), says in a somewhat obscure passage (Ephesians 1:5) that St Paul was "seventimes imprisoned, put to flight and stoned."

thrice I suffered shipwrack The shipwreck related in Acts 27 is not one of these, but occurred some time afterwards. We have no other account of those referred to here.

a night and a day The Apostle here speaks of some terrible peril, compared to which even the shipwreck related in Acts 27 was a trifling one. Probably for twenty-four hours he was exposed to the dangers of the ocean, with but a plank between him and death. The Acts of the Apostles, we are once more constrained to remark, gives us but a scanty account of the labours and perils undergone by this undaunted soul. The word translated -a night and a day" is but a single word in the original, and signifies a period of twenty-four hours, commencing with sunset. Some have thought that the expression here, -in the deep," is the same as the LXX. of Exodus 15:5, and that St Paul went downwith the ship, and was delivered by a Divine interposition. So Wiclif, Tyndale and the Geneva and Rheims versions, following the Vulgate, seem to have interpreted this passage (in the depnesse of the see, Wiclif; in the depe of the see, Tyndale). But the expressions here and in Exodus 15:5 (LXX.) are notidentical. Cranmer renders, in the deepe see. So Chrysostom, who explains it, - swimming on the sea," and the Syriac version, which translates, -without a ship in the sea."