The Prisoner Speaks of Judgment, and the Judge Postpones

The high priest himself makes the sixty-five mile journey, a sign of how much the case mattered to him. Tertullus is a Latin name, and an “orator” here is a hired advocate who knew Roman procedure. “Informed” is emphanizo, the verb for laying formal charges.

“Providence” is pronoia, foresight, a word stamped on imperial coins and inscriptions to praise rulers. Felix had indeed crushed bandits and the Egyptian’s rising, which gave the compliment a grain of fact; his brutality in doing it also fed the unrest it claims he quieted.

“Most noble” is the same title, kratiste, that Lysias used in 23:26. Josephus records that after Felix was recalled the leading Jews of Caesarea went to Rome to accuse him, so the gratitude “always, and in all places” was not quite universal.

“Tedious” is a verb meaning to hinder or detain; “clemency” is epieikeia, fair-minded gentleness. Promising brevity and appealing to the judge’s kindness were standard opening moves taught in the schools of rhetoric.

“Pestilent fellow” is loimos, a plague. In AD 41 the emperor Claudius warned the Jews of Alexandria against stirring up “a common plague for the whole world”, strikingly close language. This is the only place in the New Testament where believers are called “Nazarenes”, still the Hebrew word for Christians today.

“Gone about” means attempted. Tertullus quietly softens the charge of 21:28, where Paul was said to have brought Greeks into the temple, to an attempt, which needs less proof. The words from “and would have judged” to the start of verse 8 are missing from the oldest manuscripts.

This whole verse is absent from the oldest Greek manuscripts; the King James follows later copies. Where it stands, it turns Tertullus’s complaint against Lysias, making the Roman officer the villain for interfering with a lawful Jewish judgment.

Without verse 7, “by examining of whom” refers to Paul: Tertullus invites Felix to question the prisoner himself. With it, the words point to Lysias. Either way, the accuser offers no witness of his own.

“Assented” is a verb meaning to join in an attack, stronger than agreeing. The delegation piles on. Not one of them is among the Asian Jews who actually saw Paul in the temple.

The governor gives a nod, and Paul begins. Felix had been in the region since about AD 52, and Tacitus has him serving in Samaria even earlier, so “many years” is accurate rather than fawning. “Cheerfully” is euthymos, in good heart.

The twelve days can roughly be counted from the Book of Acts itself: arrival, the meeting with James, the purification week, arrest, the council, the plot, and the ride to Caesarea, with five days of waiting. Twelve days is too short a time to raise a revolt.

“Disputing” is dialegomai, the very verb for Paul’s usual reasoning in synagogues (17:2; 18:4; 19:8). The denial is pointed: this time he had not even done that. He lists three places, temple, synagogues and city, covering every setting in which a disturbance could be claimed.

“Prove” is paristemi, to set evidence before the court. Under Roman procedure the burden lay on the accuser, and a charge that could not be backed with proof failed.

“Heresy” is hairesis, the same word Tertullus used for “sect” in verse 5; the King James renders it two ways. “The God of my fathers” matters legally, because Rome tolerated ancestral religions and distrusted new ones. Paul insists the Way is no novelty.

“Which they themselves also allow” means they too look for it. The resurrection “both of the just and unjust” is Paul’s only explicit mention in the Book of Acts of the unrighteous rising too, as in Daniel 12:2 and John 5:29.

“Exercise myself” is asko, to train or practise, the root of “ascetic”. “Void of offence” is aproskopos, without stumbling, a word Paul uses in his letters (1 Corinthians 10:32; Philippians 1:10). It returns to the good conscience he claimed before the council in 23:1.

“My nation” uses ethnos, a word Paul applies to the Jewish people in the Book of Acts only here and in 26:4 and 28:19. He presents himself as a loyal son coming home with gifts, the reverse of a man at war with his people.

Tertullus said “we have found this man a pestilent fellow” (verse 5). Paul answers with what the Asian Jews really found: a man purified in the temple, with no crowd and no noise. Both speeches turn on the same verb.

Roman law frowned on accusers who dropped a charge, and cases were weakened when the original witnesses failed to appear. In Greek Paul’s sentence breaks off, the grammar left unfinished as he turns to their absence.

“These same here” are the Jerusalem delegation, men who had sat in the council hearing and could speak to it. “Evil doing” is adikema, a legal wrong, the word Gallio used at Corinth (18:14).

Paul’s shout in 23:6 is quoted almost word for word. Some hear regret in “this one voice”, as if he half wished it unsaid; others hear irony, since the only crime left is a belief the Pharisees share. The Book of Acts leaves the tone to be read.

“Deferred” is anaballo, the technical word for adjourning a case. Felix’s better knowledge of the Way may have come through Drusilla, or from the believers of Caesarea, including Philip and Cornelius’s household. Lysias is never heard of again.

“Liberty” is anesis, relief or relaxation of the conditions of custody. “His acquaintance” is literally “his own people”. The two years that follow put Luke in Judaea, and many think he used the time to gather material for his Gospel, which is an inference but a reasonable one.

Drusilla was the youngest daughter of Herod Agrippa I, who executed James in chapter 12. Josephus says she left her husband, the king of Emesa, to marry Felix, persuaded by a magician from Cyprus. She was about twenty, and her son died in the eruption of Vesuvius.

“Temperance” is enkrateia, self-mastery, especially over desire, a pointed subject before a couple whose marriage began in adultery. “Convenient season” is kairos, a fitting moment; the phrase has entered English as the byword for putting off a decision.

Taking money to release a prisoner was forbidden by Roman law and common all the same. Paul had just told Felix he came bringing alms (verse 17), so the governor knew there was money about. “Communed” is homileo, to converse, the root of “homily”.

The two years are probably about AD 57 to 59. Porcius Festus governed briefly and died in office. Josephus says Felix was recalled after violence between Jews and Syrians in Caesarea, so leaving Paul bound was a parting favour to people who could testify against him.