Acts 22:28

Acts 22:28. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. More literally, and at the same time more forcibly, ‘obtained I this citizenship;' the word, as Plumptre well remarks, expressing not the transition from bondage to freedom, but from the position of an alien to that of a citizen. The chief captain was no doubt an alien by birth, and by the payment of a heavy bribe had obtained the rights of a citizen of Rome. The power of granting this privilege now rested solely with the reigning emperor as holding the office of Censor.

It was by no means uncommon for persons of wealth and position to purchase this ‘citizenship.' It appears that many of the Asian Jews had thus acquired the right to style themselves citizens of Rome.

Under the first Cæsars the freedom of Rome was obtained with great difficulty, and cost a large sum of money; but in the latter days of Claudius these prized rights were freely sold by his wicked favourite Messalina.

But I was free-born. It has been asked how Paul obtained this ‘freedom;' for Tarsus, the city of his birth, although possessing many great and important privileges, was a metropolis and a free city, and did not confer the rights of the Roman citizenship upon its citizens. It was neither a ‘Colonia' nor a ‘Municipium.' It must have been from his father or from some ancestor that he inherited it, either as a reward for service done to Rome or else by purchase.