Acts 25

Ruins of Cesarea.

also failed; for the men he thus sought to please followed him with accusations to Cesar’s judgment seat. B.—In the following year, the city of Cesarea, where Paul was thus kept a prisoner, was the scene of one of the frequent and frightful tumults between the Jews and the Syrian Greeks, A. D. 59. Felix was denounced to the emperor for either ordering or conniving at a massacre of the Jews, and he was recalled to answer for his conduct at the same time that Domitius Corbulo succeeded Ummidius Quadratus as prefect of Syria. This was two full years after the beginning of Paul’s imprisonment in May, A. D. 58, and Porcius Festus, who accompanied Corbulo as procurator of

Judea, would reach his destination about July, A. D. 60. S.

The apostle’s captivity of five years was mainly spent in Cesarea and Rome. His whole career strikingly illustrates the method of God’s Spirit in planting Christianity chiefly in the great cities. Paul’s first center of Christian labor was in Antioch. For more than three years he toiled in this capital and chief city of Syria. A similar period was spent in Ephesus, the most influential center of Asia Minor. Two years he abode in Corinth, the leading city of Greece. And in the period of his captivity he labored two years in Cesarea, the political capital of Judea, and two years in Rome, the world’s center. B.

1. Now when Festus was come into the province, after three days he ascended from Cæsa- 2 rea to Jerusalem. Then the high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against 3 Paul, and besought him, and desired favour against him, that he would send for him to 4 Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him. But Festus answered, that Paul should be 5 kept at Cæsarea, and that he himself would depart shortly thither. Let them therefore, said he, which among you are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if there be any 6 wickedness in him. And when he had tarried among them more than ten days, he went down unto Cæsarea; and the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded Paul to be 7 brought. And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove. 8 While he answered for himself, Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the 9 temple, nor yet against Cæsar, have I offended anything at all. But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be 10 judged of these things before me? Then said Paul, I stand at Cæsar’s judgment seat, where 11 I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest. For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto 12 them. I appeal unto Cæsar. Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, an- swered, Hast thou appealed unto Cæsar? unto Cæsar shalt thou go.

13. And after certain days king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Cæsarea to salute Festus. 14 And when they had been there many days, Festus declared Paul’s cause unto the king, say- 15 ing, There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix: about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against 16 him. To whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer 17 for himself concerning the crime laid against him. Therefore, when they were come hither, without any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat, and commanded the man to 18 be brought forth. Against whom when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusa- 19 tion of such things as I supposed: but had certain questions against him of their own super- 20 stition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. And because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem, and 21 there be judged of these matters. But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto the 22 hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept till I might send him to Cæsar. Then Agrippa said unto Festus, I would also hear the man myself. To morrow, said he, thou shalt hear him.

23. And on the morrow, when Agrippa was come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered into the place of hearing, with the chief captains, and principal men of the city, at 24 Festus’ commandment Paul was brought forth. And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all men which are here present with us, ye see this man, about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt with me, both at Jerusalem, and also here, crying that he ought not to live 25 any longer. But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and that 26 he himself hath appealed to Augustus, I have determined to send him. Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and especially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have some- 27 what to write. For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him.

1-12. Paul’s Arraignment before Festus, and his Appeal to the Emperor.—About midsummer of A. D. 60 Porcius Festus arrived in Cesarea, the Roman capital of the province of Judea, and as- sumed the procuratorship. At once he goes up to Jerusalem, the Jewish metropolis. Instantly he is besought by the high priest (Ismael, who had suc- ceeded Ananias) and leading Jews to bring Paul to Jerusalem for a new trial. Two years had passed, yet the hatred of the Sadducaic members of the Sanhedrim remained as bitter and their purpose of assassination as determined as ever. Their malevo- lent feeling had originated in the vast Christian work Paul had wrought. It had been fostered and intensified by the effective use he had made of his prison liberty at Cesarea, in still further spreading the Christian truth almost before their very eyes. In all his labor, perhaps most of all in this Cesa- rean ministry, he had been undermining their pres- tige and destroying their power as leaders of the Jewish people. B.—The whole history of Paul’s imprisonment, the conspiracy of the fifty Jews, with the consent of the Sanhedrim, their petition to Fe- tus to send him from Cesarea, with an intent to murder him on the road, are facts which correspond to the character of the times, as described by Jo- sephus, who mentions the principal persons recorded in the Acts, and paints their profligacy in colors even stronger than those of Luke. G. T.

Festus declines to send Paul up to Jerusalem, and so the murderous project is foiled and the apos- tle’s life is saved. But he invites the Jews, by those in authority as responsible accusers, to renew their charges against the apostle before him at Cesarea. The day after his return, the parties met again be- fore the same tribunal. The character of the “many and grievous complaints against Paul” is intimated in his answer. He had not violated Jewish law, nor profaned the Temple, nor incited sedition against the emperor. It was the trial before Felix re- peated; vague and false assertion on the accusers’ side, and explicit, truthful denial on Paul’s part.

And the issue was the same, in that Festus was satisfied of the apostle’s innocence as respected Roman law, and refused to condemn him.

But Festus, too, like Felix, “wished to do the Jews a pleasure.” He therefore makes to Paul the very proposal which he himself had rejected when made to him by the Jews at Jerusalem. He asks if the apostle is willing to be tried in the Sanhedrim’s presence at Jerusalem. But Paul declines, in words that sharply imply the injustice and wrong of the governor’s request. He understood the situation perfectly. He knew the peril of assassination on the journey. He knew that to the cause of righteousness nothing would be gained and much would be lost by a trial in Jerusalem. He stood now at the chief seat of the Imperial power, in the capital of the Province, before the tribunal of Cesar. Here he had a right to be judged; and only the governor (as he fearlessly tells him) had a right to sit in judgment upon him. He further boldly declares that Festus well knew that he had done no wrong to the Jews. Therefore he will not even submit to trial in their presence.

Influenced by these just and self-respecting considerations, when Paul found that Festus was hindered from releasing him by the clamorous opposition of the Jews, he was constrained (as he tells the Jews of Rome, 27:18, 19) to appeal unto Cesar. By those few potent words he transferred the issue and its decision from the Provincial to the Imperial tribunal, from the Procurator to the Emperor. Thus also he relieved Festus, protected his own life, and insured his long-desired visit to Rome. We can not but note, in passing, the simple dignity and steadfast courage of the apostle, his conscious rectitude and dependence upon God so finely expressed in his whole spirit and answer. He is willing to die if he has done aught worthy of death. But he will not be wrongfully adjudged to death, through the hate and malice of his unchristian foes. To avert this, he promptly uses his power of peremptory appeal as a Roman citizen.

13-27. Festus, constrained to accept Paul’s appeal to the emperor, was yet embarrassed by the case. He was about to send a prisoner against whom he could specify no charge. At this juncture, the king, Herod Agrippa, came with his sister Bernice to greet and congratulate the new governor. B.

Herod Agrippa II., the son of Herod Agrippa I., was at Rome when his father died. He was only seventeen years old, and Claudius made his youth a reason for not giving him his father’s kingdom, as he had intended. The emperor afterward gave him the kingdom of Chalcis (A. D. 50), which was vacant by the death of his uncle Herod (A. D. 48); and this was soon exchanged for the tetracchies of Iturea and Abilene, to which Nero added certain cities of the Becapolis about the Lake of Galilee (A. D. 52). But beyond the limits of his own dominions Agrippa was permitted to exercise throughout Judea that influence which even Paul recognized as welcome to a Jew who saw in him the last scion of the Asmonean house. He gratified his hereditary taste for magnificence by adorning Jerusalem and Berytus with costly buildings, but in such a manner as mortally to offend the Jews; and his relations to his sister Berenice (or Bernice), the widow of his uncle Herod, were of a very doubtful character. But his one leading principle was to preserve fidelity to Rome. S.

Naturally Festus spoke with his princely Jewish guests concerning the perplexing case of Paul; and as naturally Agrippa expressed a desire to hear the apostle. Such a hearing was gladly ordered by Festus, in hope of finding relief from his perplexity. Into the midst of a great assembly of the noblest Jews and Romans, with Agrippa and Bernice and Festus, Paul was led. After a brief statement of the facts by the governor, Agrippa gave Paul permission to speak for himself.

Paul, we remember, had volunteered his defense or story before the Jewish mob in the Temple area. He had asserted his pure and truthful life, and affirmed his hope of resurrection, before the whole Sanhedrim. He had made a formal defense against formal charges before Felix; and he had summarily repeated this defense against summary charges before Festus. Still another, the fifth and last, statement he makes now before the Jewish king and high Roman officials. All these addresses, and the history out of which they grew, have come to successive generations of Christian believers in every age and nation. They have helped to enlarge our estimate of the man, and to expound more fully the recorded truths of his grand Epistles. B.