2. Paul Accused Before Felix (24:1–9)
1Five days later the high priest Ananias came down with some of the elders and an orator named Tertullus. They laid information against Paul before the governor.
2When Paul had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him as follows: “Your Excellency!1 Since through you we enjoy great peace, and since through your providence improvements continue to be made for this nation,
3we accept this with all gratitude, at all times and in all ways.
4Not to weary2 you further, I beg you, of your clemency, to accord us a brief hearing.
5We have found this man to be a pest, a fomenter of strife among Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the party of the Nazarenes.
6He even tried to profane the temple, but we arrested him [and intended to judge him according to our law,
7when Lysias, the military tribune, came on the scene and took him away out of our hands with great violence,
8ordering his accusers to come to you.]3 By questioning him you can learn for yourself about all the things of which we accuse him.”
9The Jews also joined in the attack, affirming that this was so.
1 Five days after Paul’s arrival, a deputation from the Sanhedrin, led by the high priest, came down to Caesarea to state their case against Paul. They enlisted the services of an advocate named Tertullus to state it in the conventional terms of forensic rhetoric. The advocate was probably a Hellenistic Jew; his name was a common one throughout the Roman world.
2–4 No doubt what is given here is a bare summary of the speech which Tertullus made for the prosecution, but it may be true to life in devoting so large a proportion of what was said to the lavish flattery of the exordium. This was part of the rhetorical fashion of the time. Tertullus might speak of the “great peace” enjoyed by the people of Judaea as a result of Felix’s administration, but there were many Judaeans who, if they had known it in time, would have applied to this “peace” the epigram about the Romans which Tacitus puts into the mouth of the Caledonian hero Calgacus: “they make a desert and call it peace.”4
The reference to the governor’s “providence”5 is reminiscent of what is said of the high priest Onias III in 2 Macc. 4:6, “he saw that without the king’s providence public affairs could not again reach a peaceful settlement.” This kind of language was regarded as appropriate in addressing rulers, especially in the Near East. It was customary also to promise brevity, as Tertullus does here (v. 4); the promise was sometimes kept, sometimes not, but it was calculated to secure goodwill for the speaker at the outset of his speech. So was such flattery as the reference to Felix’s clemency or moderation6—a reference singularly unsuited to a ruler whose ferocity is attested by both Josephus and Tacitus.
5–6 After the excessive courtesy of his proem, Tertullus proceeds to the charges against Paul. After a general characterization of him as a perfect pest—a term with sinister implications, not excluding a hint of treason—he becomes more specific, moving from the less particular to the more particular: Paul is (a) a fomenter of risings among Jews all over the empire, (b) a ringleader of the Nazarene sect, (c) a man who had attempted to violate the sanctity of the temple.7
In calling Paul a pest,8 Tertullus suggested that he habitually stirred up subversion of public law and order. The charge is similar to that brought against Paul and his companions at Thessalonica (17:6–7).9 The charge of treason against the emperor was explicit there, and is probably implicit here: if Paul does not rebut it directly on this occasion before Felix, he rebuts it directly on a later occasion before Festus (25:8).10 One of Luke’s prime motives in writing his twofold history is to demonstrate that there is no substance in this charge of subversion brought not only against Paul but against Christians in general—that competent and impartial judges had repeatedly confirmed the innocence of the Christian movement and the Christian missionaries in respect of Roman law.
As for the charge of fomenting unrest among Jews throughout the empire, it was well known that recent years had seen such unrest in some of the largest Jewish communities—those in Alexandria and Rome, for example11—where Paul had not been involved. But it was also undeniable that Paul’s presence in a city had been accompanied time after time by disturbances within the Jewish communities. It had been so in the cities of South Galatia, in Thessalonica, Corinth, and Ephesus.12 Paul indeed had nothing to do with the political “messianism” which operated like a ferment at that time in many parts of the dispersion as well as in the land of Israel,13 but it called for more discrimination than many Roman magistrates were able to exercise to distinguish his teaching from the propaganda of messianic agitators.
The next count in the indictment against Paul was that he was a ringleader of the Nazarenes.14 Was Felix expected to have some idea of what this meant? If so, what sort of impression was this information intended to make on his mind? Perhaps Felix, with his “rather accurate knowledge of the Way” (v. 22), had a clearer idea of the Nazarenes than most Roman officials would have had. This is the only place in the New Testament where the term “Nazarene”—or “Nazoraean,” as the particular Greek word here used may be more exactly rendered—is used of the followers of Jesus; elsewhere it is used only of Jesus himself. The most probable view is that it was first applied to Jesus because his hometown was Nazareth, and that from him it came to be used of his followers also. It was apparently used of Jewish Christians from very early days, and remained their designation in Semitic speech: to this day Christians in general are known in Hebrew and Arabic as “Nazarenes.”15 But the word, or one very much like it, may have been current among first-century Jews to denote a group or a tendency on which Felix might be expected to look with disfavor;16 the evidence is inadequate for anything like a positive statement.
The final charge was more concrete and more serious: Paul, it was alleged, had attempted to profane the temple in Jerusalem. It was not so concrete as the rumor which had led to the attack on Paul, which was that he had actually taken a Gentile within the forbidden precincts. If a prima facie case had been established in support of this rumor, then Paul could have been handed over to the Sanhedrin’s jurisdiction. But his accusers evidently knew that such a prima facie case could not be established, as eyewitnesses were not forthcoming. A charge of attempted profanation was more difficult to prove or disprove; Tertullus’s case was that, by arresting him, the temple authorities had prevented his attempt from being carried out. To represent the riotous attack by the mob as an orderly arrest carried out by the temple police was to twist the facts even more violently than Lysias had done in his letter to Felix; but by this account Tertullus tried to score a point against Lysias, who would have had no right to interfere with those who were maintaining law and order within the temple courts in accordance with their appointed duty.
7–9 The complaint against Lysias is made explicit in the expanded Western text, which has found its way into the Received Text and so into the KJV (as the last clause of v. 6 plus the whole of v. 7 and the beginning of v. 8). The reader who recollects the narrative of 21:27–36 must be amused by this complaint of the “great violence” with which Lysias snatched Paul from those who were trying to lynch him rather than proposing to take him into custody so that he might have a fair trial according to Jewish law! The tone of the Western addition is so thoroughly in accord with the rest of Tertullus’s speech that one is inclined to accept it as genuine. It makes one minor difference to the sense: if the addition is accepted, then “by questioning him” (v. 8) probably means “by questioning Lysias”; otherwise it means “by questioning Paul.” It might be regarded as a point in favor of the shorter reading that it is in fact Paul whom the governor invites to speak after Tertullus; but of course Lysias was not present to give his version: after Paul’s reply the governor postpones further inquiry until Lysias himself comes down to Caesarea (v. 22).
Tertullus’s speech seems to tail away in a lame and impotent conclusion that forms a striking contrast to the rhetorical flourish with which it starts. But J. H. Moulton is probably too hard on him when he says that he “arrives at the goal by way of anacoluthon—Luke cruelly reports the orator verbatim.”17 This is only a summary of his speech, and even so Tertullus is not the only speaker on this occasion who falls into anacoluthon.18 The deputation from the Sanhedrin appears at any rate to have been satisfied with his presentation of the case, for they affirmed their agreement with his statement of affairs.
3. Paul’s Defense Before Felix (24:10–21)
10The governor then beckoned to Paul to speak,19 and he replied: “Knowing that you have been a judge of this nation for many years, I gladly speak in my own defense.
11You can ascertain that it is not more than twelve days since I came up to Jerusalem to worship.
12Neither in the temple did they find me disputing with anyone or collecting a crowd, nor in the synagogues, nor anywhere in the city;
13neither can they provide proof of any of the charges which they now bring against me.
14But this I confess to you: I worship the God of our fathers according to the Way,20 which they call a ‘party,’ believing all that is laid down by the law or written in the prophets.
15I have the same hope in God as they themselves accept—that there is to be a resurrection both of the righteous and of the unrighteous.
16For this reason I train myself to maintain a blameless conscience continuously in the sight of God and humanity.
17After a lapse of several years I came to bring alms to my nation and offerings.
18While I was thus engaged, they found me purified in the temple, gathering no crowd and causing no disturbance.
19But there were some Jews from Asia21—they ought to have been here in your presence to state any charge they might have to bring against me.
20Or let these men themselves say what crime they found in me when I was made to stand before the Sanhedrin,
21apart from this one declaration which I made aloud as I stood among them: ‘It is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today!’ ”
10 When Felix motioned to Paul to reply to Tertullus’s speech for the prosecution, he opened likewise with a complimentary exordium, but one which was briefer and less fulsome than his accuser’s. He professed himself the readier to make his defense before Felix because Felix was no newcomer to the administration of Judaea: he had governed the province for several years, and the experience of Jews and Judaism which he had gained in that time would enable him to assess the charges against Paul more accurately.
11–13 He went on to explain that he had been absent from Jerusalem for several years until his recent arrival in the city as a worshiper at the festival of Pentecost. Five years in fact had elapsed since his last visit to Jerusalem—the very brief visit which receives a bare mention in 18:22. The twelve days which he mentions were the days during which he was present in Jerusalem since his recent arrival in the city: they are reckoned up to his being taken by night to Caesarea.22 During those twelve days he had little opportunity to cause trouble—for the last three of them, indeed, he had been a prisoner in the Antonia fortress. And during the time that he was a free agent he had done nothing to which exception could be taken: he had engaged in no public disputation, nor had he gathered a crowd or provoked a riotous assembly, whether in the temple courts, the synagogues, or anywhere in the city. He would have been within his rights had he engaged in public debate, but on this occasion he did not wish to draw unnecessary attention to himself or do anything to embarrass the leaders of the Jerusalem church (who were no doubt sufficiently embarrassed by the mere presence of Paul in the city). His accusers, he said, might bring a variety of charges against him, but there was not one which they could substantiate.
14–16 While he had done none of the things that his opponents alleged, Paul had no hesitation in declaring what he actually did: he worshiped the ancestral God of Israel (as he had every freedom to do under Roman law) according to the true Way—that Way which his accusers described as a party or sect, although in fact it embraced and fulfilled most faithfully Israel’s national hope. Far from deviating in any particular from the basis of Israel’s ancient faith, he believed wholeheartedly all that the sacred scriptures contained—“all that is laid down by the law or written in the prophets”—and cherished the hope of resurrection, as most Jews did.23 He seems to imply that his accusers themselves shared this hope; the high priest and other members of the Sadducean party, of course, did not share it, claiming in this regard (as in a number of others) to be old-fashioned conservatives.24 There may, however, have been some Pharisees among the “elders” (members of the Sanhedrin) who had come down to Caesarea with the high priest.
It is interesting to note that this is the only place in the New Testament where Paul is unambiguously credited with believing in a resurrection for the unrighteous as well as for the righteous dead.25 There is no need to doubt that, like other Pharisees, he had inherited the belief in such a twofold resurrection, but when he develops the doctrine in his letters, he concentrates on the hope set before “those who belong to Christ,” for whom resurrection (at the advent of Christ) will be participation in his resurrection, the harvest of which his resurrection was the firstfruits (1 Cor. 15:20–23; cf. Phil. 3:20–21). As it is, with this firm belief in a coming resurrection, with its corollary of an appearance before the divine tribunal, he constantly set himself26 (he tells Felix, as he had already told the Sanhedrin) to maintain a clear conscience before God and human beings alike.27
17 The reason for his coming to Jerusalem after a lapse of several years, he averred, was to bring alms and offerings to his fellow-Jews there. This is the clearest reference in Acts—indeed, one might say it is the only reference—to the collection which Paul had organized in the churches of his Gentile mission field for the relief of the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem.28 Since, in response to the Jerusalem church leaders’ request to him and Barnabas to “remember the poor” (Gal. 2:10), this gift was designed more particularly “for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem” (Rom. 15:26), it could properly be described as “alms.” As for the accompanying term “offerings,” Paul makes it very plain (especially in 2 Cor. 8:1–9:15) that the gift was a tribute of thanksgiving to God as well as a donation for the relief of his people. Paul obviously attached great importance to the collection: in his eyes it was a proper acknowledgment on the part of the Gentile Christians of the debt which they owed to Jerusalem, from which the gospel had set out on its progress to them, and he also hoped that it might arouse in the Jerusalem church (many of whose members looked with suspicion on the Gentile mission) a sense of gratitude to the Gentile believers which would help to weld both groups into a spiritual unity. In this last respect the collection achieved at best only partial success, if indeed it was not an outright failure.
Luke evidently knew about the collection but, equally evidently, he is very reticent about it. This may have been because the enterprise ended in disaster; another possible reason is that at Paul’s trial it was misrepresented as an improper diversion of money that ought to have swelled the Jerusalem temple tax, and Luke judged it wise to refer to it only in the most general terms.29
18–19 Shortly after his coming to Jerusalem, Paul continued, he was set upon in the temple precincts, when he had just completed a purificatory ceremony in an orderly manner. He had done nothing to occasion the public tumult that broke out: those responsible for it were some Jews from the province of Asia. Those Asian Jews ought to have appeared before Felix as Paul’s accusers, or as witnesses for the prosecution, if they had any serious charge to bring against him. This was a strong point in his defense: the people who had raised the hue and cry in the first instance, claiming to be eyewitnesses of his alleged sacrilege, had not troubled to be present. It may be that the Sanhedrin thought it best that the Asian Jews should not come before the court, as cross-examination would soon have revealed the hollowness of their charges, and a Roman judge would not look lightly on people who wasted his time with unfounded accusations.
20–21 But, since the Asian Jews had not seen fit to put in an appearance, said Paul, let the members of the Sanhedrin who were present state more explicitly than Tertullus had done what crime he was discovered to have committed when the tribune brought him before their court for examination in Jerusalem. The only crime with which they could charge him as a result of that examination was the crime of having declared that the real point at issue in his case was the question of the resurrection of the dead—in other words, no crime at all.30
4. Felix Adjourns Proceedings (24:22–23)
22Felix then deferred further hearing: he had a rather accurate knowledge of the Way. “When the tribune Lysias comes down,” he said, “I will give my decision in your case.”
23He gave orders to the centurion that Paul should be kept in charge under open arrest, and that none of his friends should be prevented from looking after him.
22 Felix appears to have summed up the situation fairly accurately. How he came by his special knowledge of the Christian movement is not said; it has been thought that it was through his wife Drusilla, a member of the Herod family—but what opportunities had she of knowing about it? At any rate he probably saw where the truth of the matter lay, but for the present he adjourned proceedings, perhaps with the formula Amplius (“judgment reserved”).31 The evidence of Lysias would plainly be of first-rate value; he had given a brief summary of events in his letter (23:25–30), but in view of the conflicting statements made by Tertullus and Paul, it would be necessary to ascertain further details from Lysias.32
23 Meanwhile he gave orders that Paul was to be kept in custody but to be allowed a reasonable degree of consideration, as befitted a Roman citizen against whom no crime was proved. In particular, he was free to receive visits and any other kind of attention from his friends—possibly members of the church of Caesarea or some Gentile Christians who had accompanied him to Jerusalem and had now come to Caesarea to see if they could do anything for him.
Luke does not say if Lysias did come down to Caesarea or if Felix resumed the hearing. Probably Lysias came and supplied further information, but no decision was reached. Felix saw, no doubt, that the case against Paul could not stand, but he did not wish to offend the Sanhedrin by discharging him. He had given enough offense during his administration of Judaea, and he did not care to give more, especially as he could no longer count on the unchallenged influence of his brother Pallas at the imperial court as he had been able to do under the principate of Claudius.33
5. Paul’s Interviews with Felix (24:24–26)
24After some days Felix came with Drusilla his wife, who was a Jewess.34 He listened to him speaking about faith in Christ Jesus.
25As Paul conversed about righteousness, self-control, and the future judgment, Felix became afraid. “You may go for the present,” he said; “when I have a spare moment I will summon you.”
26At the same time he was hopeful that Paul would give him money, so he sent for him quite often and talked with him.
24 Having this eminent Christian in custody in Caesarea, Felix availed himself of the opportunity to improve his already “rather accurate” knowledge of the Way. According to the Western text, it was Drusilla who was specially anxious to meet Paul. Drusilla was the youngest daughter of Herod Agrippa I, and at this time was not yet twenty years old. As a small girl she had been betrothed to the crown prince of Commagene, in eastern Asia Minor, but the marriage did not take place because the prospective bridegroom refused to become a proselyte to Judaism. Then her brother Agrippa II35 gave her in marriage to the king of Emesa (modern Homs), a petty state in Syria. But when she was still only sixteen, Felix, with the help (it is said) of a Cypriot magician called Atomos,36 persuaded her to leave her husband and come to be his wife, promising her (with a play on his name) every “felicity” if she did so. Accordingly, she joined Felix as his third wife, and bore him a son named Agrippa, who met his death in the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79.37
25 Felix and Drusilla, then, sent for Paul and listened as he expounded the Christian faith. But he made it clear that the gospel had ethical implications and, as he talked about these, Felix and Drusilla felt that the interview had taken an uncomfortably personal turn. It was certainly not such an “abstract discussion” as Joseph Klausner supposed;38 on the contrary, Paul’s distinguished hearers had probably never listened to such pointed and practical teaching in their lives as when he talked to them about “righteousness and self-control and the future judgment”—three subjects about which that couple specially needed to be informed. No wonder that Felix trembled and decided that he had heard enough for the time being.
26 But he was sufficiently interested to call Paul to his presence fairly frequently and engage him in conversation, although (as Luke suggests) there was a further motive for these repeated interviews. In spite of stern and reiterated edicts against bribery, the wheels of Roman justice, especially in some of the provinces, ran more smoothly and rapidly if they were judiciously oiled; and a number of provincial governors were deplorably venal. Felix had the impression that Paul was in a position to pay a handsome bribe for his release. How he got that impression is uncertain; the fact that Paul had lately come to Jerusalem with substantial “alms and offerings” perhaps gave him the idea that Paul had access to further funds.39 But Felix’s expectations in this matter were disappointed.
6. Felix Replaced by Festus; Paul Left in Custody (24:27)
27But after two years Felix was replaced by Porcius Festus, and, wishing to ingratiate himself with the Jews, he left Paul a prisoner.
27 The two years are most naturally taken to indicate the time that elapsed between Felix’s judicial hearing of Paul and his recall from office.40 It is much less likely that they indicate the duration of Felix’s procuratorship of Judaea. The occasion of Felix’s recall from his office was an outbreak of civil strife between the Jewish and Gentile inhabitants of Caesarea, in which Felix intervened with troops in such a way as to cause much bloodshed among the leaders of the Jewish faction.41 On his return to Rome he would have faced a severe penalty, Josephus informs us, had it not been for the advocacy of his brother Pallas.42 Pallas had been removed from his post as head of the imperial civil service in A.D. 55, but (largely on account of his colossal wealth) he retained great influence for several years after that.43
Felix was succeeded as procurator of Judaea by Porcius Festus, whose brief administration, though troubled by outbreaks of insurgency, was not marked by such excesses as those of his predecessor and successors.44 But the change of administration brought no advantage to Paul. Felix left him in custody, hoping that this at least would be accepted by the Jewish authorities as a gesture of goodwill; and the arrival of a new and inexperienced governor meant the reopening of the case in circumstances less favorable to Paul.