So he took him, and brought him to the chief captain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me unto him, and prayed me to bring this young man unto thee, who hath something to say unto thee.
Ver. 18. Paul the prisoner] But therein happier than any potentate, Psa 89:27 with all his chains of gold. Τιμη αλυσεις, δεσμα μαργαριται, said Ignatius; my chain is my honour, my links pearls. One hour changed Joseph's fetters into gold chains, his stocks into a chariot, his jail into a palace, Potiphar's captive to his master's Lord, the noise of his gyves a into abrech. So and much more than so shall it be with all Christ's prisoners at his coming: besides their prison comforts in the meanwhile; those divine consolations that Philip Landgrave of Hesse, prisoner to Charles V, for defence of the truth, said that he sensibly felt in the time of his sad captivity, Divinas Martyrum consolationes se sensisse dixit. This made Chrysostom say that he had rather be Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ than Paul rapped up into the third heaven. (Homil. in Eph 3:1)
a An instrument of torture (invented in the reign of Hen. VIII by Leonard Skevington or Skeffington, Lieutenant of the Tower), which (bringing the head to the knees) so compressed the body as to force the blood from the nose and ears. Also Skevington's gyves, irons. ŒD