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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: December 25
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Act_23:12 to Act_24:26
They repaired to the leading members of the Sanhedrin, whose character they knew well enough to be assured of their complicity and aid, and unreservedly informed them of their purpose, and invited them to provide the opportunity for its execution. It was suggested to them that, at the next meeting of the council, they should send to the commandant a request that he would produce the prisoner before them, as they were desirous of resuming the inquiry which had been so tumultuously interrupted; and the applicants, on their part, promised to await him on the way, and to take special care that he should not reach the council chamber alive. It is likely that at least one of the persons to whom the plot became known felt some interest in Paul’s safety, if not abhorrence at the intended crime, and that it was thus for the express purpose of frustration made known to Paul’s nephew—his “sister’s son”—who seems to have been a resident in Jerusalem. This young man, alarmed for the safety of his beloved uncle, to whom free access of friends was allowed, hastened to the fortress, and imparted to him the intelligence. On hearing this, Paul called one of the centurions, and requested him to conduct the young man to the commandant, to whom he had something to impart. Lysias, who seems to have been in the barrack-yard when the nephew was introduced to him with this intimation, took him kindly by the hand, and leading him aside, cautiously asked what it was that he wished to say. On repeating what he had heard, the commandant saw at once the proper course to be taken; but, without disclosing his intention, dismissed the young man with injunctions to secrecy. As one accountable for the safety of a Roman citizen, in whom he by this time felt some interest, and as one responsible for the public peace, which might be seriously endangered by this attempt, he determined to send Paul away that very night, under a strong escort, to Caesarea, and leave the matter in the hands of the procurator Felix, who resided there. He directed the needful preparations to be made, and meanwhile wrote to the governor a dispatch, which is a fine model of Roman official correspondence. It is a fair and clear statement of the case, except in one point, concerning his own conduct; for he says that he rescued Paul from the mob in the first instance, because he had learned that he was a Roman citizen, whereas in fact he did not learn this till afterwards. We may be sure also that he did not say a word about his purpose of scourging this Roman citizen.
It was nine o’clock in the evening, when Paul riding on horseback between the horses of the two Roman soldiers, to whom he was chained, was conducted from the city in the midst of a large force composed of nearly five hundred men—that is two hundred legionary soldiers on foot, seventy of the cavalry, and two hundred lancers. Only the horsemen, however, were to proceed all the way; the foot soldiers being to return as soon as they had conducted Paul beyond the reach of danger from Jerusalem, and there was no more to be apprehended from the bands of outlaws, who in that age rendered all travelling dangerous. This point was attained at Antipatris, which, after travelling hard all night, they seem to have reached early in the forenoon. Here they, doubtless, rested, and then separated, the foot soldiers marching back to Jerusalem, and the horsemen proceeding to Caesarea. Antipatris was a town built by Herod the Great on the plain of the coast, nearly forty-six miles north-north-west from Jerusalem, and twenty-six south by east from Caesarea. The ruins of an ancient Roman road still indicate the route by which Paul was conveyed thither from Jerusalem, and which at this time was, doubtless, the principal line of travel and transport between that city and the Mediterranean coast.
On reaching Caesarea, the escort proceeded at once to the palace to yield up their prisoner, and to deliver the dispatch from Lysias to the procurator. Felix broke the seal, and having read the letter, looked up, and asked the prisoner to what province he belonged—a question very needful to ask in an age when disputes were continually arising between the Roman governors about their inter-provincial rights. When Felix heard that the prisoner was of Cilicia, the governor of which was a near friend of his own, he said: “I will hear thee when thine accusers are also come,”—Lysias having intimated as the close of his dispatch that he should direct them to proceed to Caesarea to make their charge before the governor in person. Meanwhile Paul was conveyed to the custody of a centurion, who was directed to keep him in the guard-room of Herod’s praetorium. Note: The word praetorium properly denoted the residence of the Roman provincial governors, at which they administered justice. Hence it came to be applied to the abode of any king or prince, or even to any magnificent palatial building. If here the word praetorium had been alone used, we should have understood that it was the palace which Felix occupied, even though built by Herod; but as it is thus distinctly indicated, it seems rather to denote some other palace built by Herod, and now appropriated to public uses, but not to the residence of the governors. As in our old castles, there were prison chambers in all such buildings.
Five days after Paul’s arrival at Caesarea, his accusers made their appearance, headed by the high priest Ananias, and fortified by the presence of a noted law-pleader named Tertullus, whose services had been secured for the occasion. There were many persons of this sort versed in the Roman law, and speaking the Latin and Greek tongues, of whose services the natives availed themselves in those cases they had to bring before the Roman tribunals. It was even usual for the young lawyers of Rome to go into the provinces with the consuls and praetors, that, by managing the causes of the provincials, they might qualify themselves for the more important affairs at Rome.
As soon as the governor had taken his seat upon his raised tribunal in the judgment hall of the praetorium, the prisoner was sent for; and, on his arrival, Tertullus at once opened the case, which he managed with great dexterity, as far as we can judge from the brief outline of his speech which Luke has given. He began by complimenting the governor. It was difficult to do this without offending his employers: for Felix was both a bad governor and a bad man, and unpopular even to hatred among the Jews. He, therefore, rested his compliments upon the only meritorious actions the procurator had ever performed—the clearance of the country from freebooters, and the suppression of seditious fanatics, whereby the land enjoyed comparative quiet. This was also very adroit as a preparation for his accusation of Paul, as one of the sort by whom that peace had been disturbed. The accusation itself consisted of three counts—that Paul was a “pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world;” that he was “a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes;” and that he had attempted the profanation of the temple. In the end, he ventured to reflect slightly upon the conduct of Lysias, who had, he said, with great violence interposed and taken the prisoner out of their hands when they had apprehended him, and were about to judge him according to their law.
When Tertullus had done, the governor asked the Jews whether they accepted this as a correct statement of their case; and when they had assented, he nodded to the prisoner to proceed with his defence. In commencing, Paul waived all compliments; but he expressed his satisfaction that his cause would be heard by one, whose unusually long tenure of office in that country had given him so much experience in its affairs, as would enable him to understand the merits of the case. He then gave effective answers to all the points which Tertullus had advanced. As to his being “a mover of sedition among the Jews throughout the world,” Felix having no authority in matters beyond his own jurisdiction, Paul confined himself to his conduct at Jerusalem. He had been there but a few days, and during that time he had not opened his mouth in public, and he defied any one to produce evidence that, either by word or deed, he had done aught tending to excite disturbance. As to his being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, he confessed that, after the manner which they called sectarian, he worshipped the same God that they did; but he denied that Christianity deserved the stigma of that term. Its doctrines were no new fangled things, but they were to be found in those sacred books in which he believed as firmly as they did, and entertained the same hope that they did of a resurrection from the dead. As to the profanation of the temple, nothing specific on that point had been alleged; and if it had been alleged, the Ephesian Jews who had made the accusation ought to have been present as witnesses against him. He had been there as a peaceable stranger, who, after many years of absence in foreign lands, had come in charge of alms for the poor of his own nation.
The case against Paul had so visibly broken down under this answer, and in the absence of all such evidence as both the Roman and the Jewish law required, that Felix ought clearly to have pronounced his acquittal, and to have set him at liberty. But Felix was unwilling to offend the most influential men among the Jews, by deciding against them in a matter in which they had evinced so much interest. It strikes us that Paul’s mention of the money, with which he had so lately been charged, and over which it might be supposed he had still some control, may have roused the notorious cupidity of the governor, and excited the hope that he might get some of it into his hands by detaining Paul as a prisoner. He therefore adjourned the cause, ostensibly on the ground that he wished to hear Lysias before he came to a decision. Paul was then remanded into custody: the centurion who had charge of him, however, was enjoined not to put him in close confinement, but to allow him as much liberty as consisted with his safe detention, and not to prevent him from seeing his friends and receiving their attentions.
This was a precious boon to him, and helped much to render his protracted confinement cheerful, for there were those at Caesarea who would count it the highest privilege to minister to his comfort. Philip, the evangelist, resided there with his family; Cornelius, the centurion, if still there, may have been quartered in the barracks of the Praetorium; the beloved Timothy was always by his side, except when away on some errand to a distant church; and as we find Luke and Aristarchus with him at the time of his embarkation for Rome, it is supposable that they had been at Caesarea all the time of his detention.
Soon after Paul’s trial Felix left Caesarea, and on his return was accompanied by his wife, the beautiful Drusilla, daughter of the late King Herod-Agrippa and sister of the younger Agrippa, of whom we shall presently hear. This lady, whose beauty is reported as something wonderful, had been seduced away from her husband, Azizus, king of Emesa, by the Roman procurator, and was now, in the eighteenth year of her age, living with him as his wife, or rather as his paramour. Soon after their arrival, Paul was sent for to the private apartments of the palace, where he found Felix and Drusilla, who wished to have the Christian doctrine explained to them by one of its greatest and most renowned teachers. This was, perhaps, at the instigation of Drusilla, who might naturally wish to see and hear a man whose name must have been familiar to her from the time she was a little girl. It would appear from what passed, that the presence of Drusilla awakened in the mind of the apostle a full recollection of all he had known and heard of the governor’s public and private profligacy, his oppression, his cruelty, and his injustice; and, doubtless, his heart bled to see there that daughter of a royal line, the loveliest of the damsels of Israel, sitting in dishonor beside that unprincipled old man, who had waded through a sea of low vices and high crime from the condition of a slave to an equality with kings. Paul knew that this man had his life in his hands, yet he was not deterred from speaking directly to the conscience of that hardened sinner. He spoke of that “justice” in all the relations of life, which Felix had habitually disregarded; he spoke of that “continence,” which Felix had so flagrantly violated; and he spoke of that “judgment to come,” from which there was no escape, and no appeal. As he spoke of these things, even Felix trembled; and, rising hastily, he put an end to the audience, expressing an intention of sending for him again when he should be able to find convenient time.
In fact, he did send for him from time to time, and conversed with him freely. What was the substance of these conversations we do not know. But Paul was a man of education and high endowments, who had made extensive observations in different countries, so that his conversation might seem useful and interesting even to mere worldlings like Felix; and we may be sure that Paul lost no opportunity that offered of rendering these interviews profitable, and even if no salutary impression was made upon his own heart, something would be gained by supplying a man having so much power in his hands, with correct views respecting the Christians, and their relation to the Jews. But it would seem from a hint given by Luke, that the procurator wished also to ascertain the position, means, and influence of the prisoner, in order to find whether any likelihood existed of a good sum of money being raised for his liberation. He probably intimated to Paul that his deliverance might not in that case be difficult. But the hint was not taken; and when, after two years, Felix was recalled to Rome, he left Paul in prison, as an act of courtesy to the Jewish authorities.