 This irritated the Jewish ethnarch to such a degree that he attempted to arrest Paul; the latter's friends only saved his life by lowering him in a basket out of a window built into the wall of the city.Many Jews were murdered by the pagan inhabitants upon the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War.Later, Damascus, as the coins show, obtained the title of metropolis, and under Alexander Severus, when the city was a Christian colony, it became the seat of a bishop, who enjoyed a rank next to that of the Patriarch of Antioch.