John Calvin Commentary Acts 16:22

"And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent their garments off them, and commanded to beat them with rods." — Acts 16:22 (ASV)

The multitude came together. When Luke declares that great crowds of people gathered, after a few men of no reputation—namely, those who used trickery and fraud for gain, and whose wickedness was well known—had caused some disturbance, he shows with what fury the world rages against Christ.

Foolishness and inconstancy are indeed common vices among all people, and almost continual. But the wonderful force of Satan reveals itself in this: those who are in other matters modest and quiet become heated over a matter of no importance and become companions of the most vile persons when the truth must be resisted.

There was no more modesty to be found in the judges themselves, if we consider what their duty was. For they ought, by their gravity, to have appeased the fury of the people and to have stood firmly against their violence. They ought to have helped and defended the innocent. Instead, they violently lay hands on them, tearing their garments, and command them to be stripped naked and whipped before they investigate the matter.

Surely the malice of men is to be lamented, through which it came to pass that almost all the seats of judgment in the world, which ought to have been sanctuaries of justice, have been polluted with the wicked and sacrilegious opposition to the gospel.

Nevertheless, the question is: Why were they cast into prison, since they were already punished? For was not prison established for detaining people? They used this kind of correction until they could learn more. And so we see the servants of Christ treated more harshly than adulterers, robbers, and other most vile persons.

This more plainly shows the force of Satan in stirring up people's minds, so that they observe no semblance of judgment in persecuting the gospel. But though the godly are treated more harshly for defending the truth of Christ than are the wicked for their wickedness, yet it goes well with the godly, because they triumph gloriously before God and His angels in all injuries they suffer.

They suffer reproach and slander. But because they know that the marks of Christ are of greater value and more esteemed in heaven than the vain displays of the world, the more wickedly and reproachfully the world vexes them, the greater cause they have to rejoice. For if secular writers so honored Themistocles that they preferred his prison to the seat and court of judges, how much more honorably must we think of the Son of God, whose cause is at stake whenever the faithful suffer persecution for the gospel?

Therefore, though the Lord allowed Paul and Silas to be scourged and imprisoned by the wicked judges, yet He did not allow them to be put to any shame except that which turned to their greater renown. For since those persecutions, which we must suffer for the testimony of the gospel, are remnants of the sufferings of Christ, just as our Prince turned the cross, which was accursed, into a triumphal chariot, so He shall, in the same way, adorn the prisons and gibbets of His own, so that they may triumph there over Satan and all the wicked.

Renting their garments. Because the older interpreter had truly translated this, it was wrong of Erasmus to change it to mean that the magistrates rent their own garments. For Luke’s meaning was only that the holy men were outrageously beaten, with the lawful order of judgment being neglected, and that their assailants laid hands on them with such violence that their garments were torn. And this would have been too inconsistent with Roman custom—for the judges to rend their own garments publicly in the marketplace—especially since the issue concerned an unknown religion, about which they did not greatly care. But I will not dwell long on a clear matter.