Claudius Lysias

Claudius Lysias was the Roman military tribune (chiliarch, commander of a cohort of one thousand men) who commanded the Roman troops garrisoned in the Antonia Fortress adjacent to the Jerusalem temple in the late 50s A.D. He appears in the narrative of Paul's arrest in Acts 21:31–23:30, playing a central role in the events that led to Paul's transfer to Caesarea. When the Jerusalem crowd was about to beat Paul to death, Lysias rushed down with soldiers and centurions and rescued him, having him bound with chains and intending to examine him by flogging until Paul revealed his Roman citizenship—at which point the flogging was immediately halted.

Lysias wrote a letter to the governor Felix explaining his reasons for sending Paul to Caesarea (Acts 23:26–30), a document Luke summarizes; it reveals that Lysias somewhat embellished his role, claiming to have rescued Paul when he learned he was a Roman citizen, whereas in fact he had already ordered the flogging before learning this. The letter illustrates how Roman bureaucratic communication worked in the provincial system and provides one of the New Testament's most concrete examples of Roman legal procedure protecting a citizen's rights.