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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 667. A Judge in Chains
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A Judge in Chains
1. While in the political world Agrippa was only a petty potentate, socially he represented a great influence. The Herodian family stand out conspicuous for their intimate connexion with the family of the Cæsars, and this gave them a leading position in Roman society. Agrippa ii., as we have already seen, had been brought up at the court of Claudius. Now we see Paul brought before him. As Christ stood before Herod Antipas, so Paul stands before Herod Agrippa ii. St. Peter also had the honour of being arrested by a Herod: and the pomp of this scene is an evident counterpicture to the ostentatious display made at Cæsarea by the first Agrippa. Of all these Herods, Agrippa ii. comes out best. The Lord would not open His lips before Antipas; nor would Paul give an exposition of his faith before Drusilla. But before Agrippa ii. the Apostle made his most elaborate apologia; he bore witness to the Jewish faith; he had even hopes of winning him to Christianity.
He would have Agrippa a fellow-citizen with him in the city of God, a brother heir in his glorious hopes, but without the chain, and the sorrow, and the persecution which in his, Paul's, case had accompanied his profession of Christianity. “Such as he,” beautifully writes Plumptre, “pardoned, at peace with God and man, with a hope stretching beyond the grave, and an actual present participation in the power of the eternal world-this is what he was desiring for them. If that could be effected, he would be content to remain in his bonds, and to leave them upon their thrones.”
Brothers and sisters, careworn, pale,
Before your time,
O wanderers, weary, footsore, frail,
From every clime,
Come, take my hands: could you but know
My longing heart,
Opprest with tears that wait to flow,
Pride would not part
Our souls, nor subtle doubt which bars
The love that seeks,
And here, beneath the patient stars,
Feels, yearns, and speaks:-
I do not judge, I claim no height
Of wise or good
To pity, only the human right
Of brotherhood,
The right to claim my kindred, know
The worst and best,
And fold the shapes that come and go
Against my breast.1 [Note: 1 J. W. Taylor, The Doorkeeper, 58.]
2. Paul's arm was chained; he himself was free. But Agrippa, as he sat on the judgment-seat, was bound by chains which nothing short of Almighty power could break. He had certainly a legitimate indebtedness to Rome. Rather than offend the Emperor of Rome, whose creature he was, he suffered himself to take up arms against his compatriots; and he feared that if he became a Christian he would entirely lose the favour of the man whom in reality he hated. Agrippa loved the world, and the vanities of the world: the Jews reported of him that he wept bitterly when he believed himself excluded from the crown, and St. Luke's account reveals the attraction that outward pomp and magnificence had for him. In short, he was a slave to his passions. It was widely reported that he had entered into an illicit connexion with Bernice his sister, and to embrace the Christian faith, he knew that it would be necessary for him to crucify the flesh with its lusts.
Of the poor bird that cannot fly
Kindly you think and mournfully;
For prisoners and for exiles all
You let the tears of pity fall;
And very true the grief should be
That mourns the bondage of the free.
The soul-she has a fatherland;
Binds her not many a tyrant's hand?
And the winged spirit has a home,
But can she always homeward come?
Poor souls, with all their wounds and foes,
Will you not also pity those?1 [Note: G. MacDonald, Poetical Works, ii. 255.]
On another occasion, when I had shown over-much relish for some dish, my father reminded me that it was a poor thing to be a slave to any appetite or practice. Blushing to the roots of my hair, I ventured to retaliate, saying, “Well, father, how is it that the snuff-box is brought to you every day at the end of dinner?-you always take out a big pinch.” For a moment he was silent, and then made me fetch the box, and while in the act of tossing it into the fire he said, “There goes the box, and that is the end of that bit of slavery.”2 [Note: The Life of Cardinal Vaughan, i. 26.]
3. Agrippa listens to Paul; Bernice listens; Festus listens. And what comes of it? Only this, “And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds.” We might translate into a modern equivalent: And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, “This man preached a very impressive sermon,” or, “This man preached a very wearisome sermon,” and there an end. Agrippa and Bernice went their wicked way, and Festus went his, and none of them knew what a fateful moment they had passed through.
The Herods were magnificent, clever, beautiful. But they were of the earth, earthy. Agrippa said indeed to Paul, “With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian.” But it was not for souls like his that the gospel message was intended. The Herods knew nothing of the burden of sin or the keen longing of souls desirous of holiness and of God. They were satisfied with the present transient scene, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Agrippa's father, when he lay dying at Cæsarea, consoled himself with the reflection that though his career was prematurely cut short, yet at any rate he had lived a splendid life. And as the parent had been, such were the children. King Agrippa and his sister Bernice were true types of the stony-ground hearers, with whom “the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word.” And they choked the word so effectually in his case, even when taught by St. Paul, that the only result upon Agrippa, as St. Luke reports it, was this: “Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Cæsar.”
I chose for the students of Kensington, two characteristic examples of early art, of equal skill; but in the one case, skill which was progressive-in the other, skill which was at pause. In the one case, it was work receptive of correction-hungry for correction; and in the other, work which inherently rejected correction. I chose for them a corrigible Eve, and an incorrigible Angel.
And the fatal difference lay wholly in this. In both pieces of art there was an equal falling short of the needs of fact; but the Lombardic Eve knew she was in the wrong, and the Irish Angel thought himself all right. The eager Lombardic sculptor, though firmly insisting on his childish idea, yet showed in the irregular broken touches of the features, and the imperfect struggle for softer lines in the form, a perception of beauty and law that he could not render; there was the strain of effort, under conscious imperfection, in every line. But the Irish missal-painter had drawn his angel with no sense of failure, in happy complacency, and put red dots into the palm of each hand, and rounded the eyes into perfect circles, and, I regret to say, left the mouth out altogether, with perfect satisfaction to himself.1 [Note: Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies, § 124 (Works, xviii. 172).]
When Josephus published his Wars of the Jews he sent a copy to Agrippa. The king had given him much information, and wrote him a friendly and approving letter in return for his book, congratulating him on his accurate knowledge of the events. Altogether, Josephus boasts, he had received no less than sixty-two letters from the king. Agrippa seems to have attained a peaceful old age, living inglorious and unnoticed at Rome.2 [Note: F. W. Farrar, The Herods, 215.]