1. In Paul's Epistles:
In a well-known passage (2Co 10:3-5), Paul, as he often does, draws upon his knowledge of Roman methods of warfare, and introduces for the enforcement of great spiritual lessons the pulling down of "strong-holds" as the ultimate object of every campaign. The word employed (ochuromata) is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word commonly rendered "fortress" (mibhtsar). "The `strongholds' are the rock forts, such as those which once bristled along the coast of his native Cilicia and of which he must often have heard when his father told him how they were `pulled down' by the Romans in their wars against the pirates. Those `high things that exalt themselves'--those high eminences of the pride of Nature--occupied in force by hostile troops--had been a familiar experience in many wars throughout Asia Minor, while one of the grandest of all was the Acropolis that towered over Corinth" (Dean Howson, The Metaphors of Paul, 34 f).
2. In the Acts of the Apostles:
From the stairs of the Castle of Antonia, Paul, by leave of Claudius Lysias, the commandant of the garrison at Jerusalem, in whose charge he was, addressed the excited crowd and told the story of his conversion. Antonia was the quarters, then, as it was in the time of our Lord, of the Roman garrison, which occupied the Jewish capital (Ac 21:37; Joh 18:28); and the same site is to this day covered with a Turkish barracks.
3. In the Gospel History:
Although it is not mentioned by name, the gloomy fortress of Macherus on the East of the Dead Sea is believed to have been the scene of the imprisonment and murder of John the Baptist. The description of it given by Josephus (BJ, VII, vi, 1) shows it to have been a place of immense strength. "It was quite necessary that that fortress should be demolished lest it might draw away many into rebellion because of its strength; for the nature of the place was very capable of affording sure hope of safety to those who held it, and delay and fear to those who attacked it. For what was defended by a fort was itself a rocky hill, rising to a very great height, which circumstance alone made it very difficult to capture it. It was also so contrived by Nature that it could not easily be approached; for it is entrenched by ravines on all sides, so deep that the eye cannot reach their bottoms, nor are they easy to cross over, and it is quite impossible to fill them up with earth." Macherus, like the Herodium, Jotapata, Masada, figured largely in the tragic scenes of the Jewish War so graphically described by Josephus
LITERATURE.
Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine; Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities; Macalister, Bible Side-Lights from Mound of Gezer; PEFS for 1903-6, referring to Gezer; Driver, Modern Research as Illustrating the Bible; Vincent, Canaan d'apres l'exploration recente; Billerbeck, Der Festungsbau im alten Orient.
T. Nicol.