How does the (possible) location of Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea help make sense of the ambivalence among his colleagues?

If we assume the apostle to have been imprisoned in Caesarea, it becomes easier to make sense of the ambivalence surrounding Paul’s colleagues’ motivations than if we were to imagine him imprisoned in Rome. From the book of Acts we know that in the decades preceding the Jewish war, the Jewish Christians in Judea were increasingly experiencing the antagonism of the non-Christian Jews around them. The aggression against Paul was widespread: it is no coincidence that he was almost lynched in a popular uprising (Acts 21:27–39). And a few years later James, the brother of the Lord Jesus, was stoned. For Christian Jews, life in these oppressive and hostile circumstances was difficult, and in a certain sense Paul constituted a threat to them. While they themselves lived in Jerusalem and followed the Law, whenever Paul’s shadow fell over them it appeared as if they sympathised with (Christian) Gentiles who had not been circumcised. We gain a taste of this when Paul arrives in Jerusalem following his third journey. James and the elders welcome him warmly and accept his work among the Gentiles, even as they are worried about what the Jews in Jerusalem will think of Paul and what the repercussions may be for themselves (Acts 21:17–26). Therefore, they invite him to participate in a Nazarite purification rite. However, this does not have the intended effect: right when Paul is busying himself therewith he is attacked by an angry mob. We can imagine how his arrest made the situation easier for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. From that moment on there appear to have been brothers who in their own preaching of the gospel kept some distance between themselves and Paul. Was his imprisonment not his own fault, a consequence of having taken too many risks among the Gentiles? Others, however, remained fully supportive of Paul: it was not his risky behaviour, but rather his service to the gospel that had landed him in jail. The apostle is well known in Jerusalem and Judea: while in prison he is well aware that some of the preachers in Judea stand in solidarity with him as an apostle to the Gentiles, including in his imprisonment, which they realize to be of service to the gospel. Yet he also observes that he does not hear from others due to their jealousy of his great results among the Gentiles, on the one hand, even as they blame him for imperiling the interests of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem via his uninhibited work among the Gentiles, on the other.¹